estdeus_innobis | The years flow by like water, and one day men come home again.

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iblis,
tez

The years flow by like water, and one day men come home again.

The Carnival
June 3

Three years. Nearly, anyway. I've been angry the whole time.

I wanted to know why we left. I wanted to know why he didn't come and find me. I wanted things to be alright with Syl again. I wanted - want - to find a way to punish Management for what they did. I wanted things to be right. I wanted to go home.

The Carnival used to be home. It's not any more. I realised that soon after we left town. Leaving hurt, like something tearing in me. And even if I wasn't missing - people - things weren't how they used to be. I can't do the sort of show I used to, and if I could I don't like people looking at me, now. Working as a roustie's been different from being a turn.

I couldn't leave, so I wrote. Letters to Valmont and Alice, long and rambling, talking about what I saw and some of what I felt. And I sent - things, to Iblis. I started writing to him, one night in some nameless place when I missed him so much it hurt, and when I touched the paper after I could feel that pain throbbing out of it. I burned it and buried the ashes, but a while later I put that same longing into a carefully-pressed flower, a reminder of another time, and sent that.

I never got a reply, but I sent other things, from time to time. My anger like a spring-coil in a page torn from a book. Fear, as a kind of dry joke, in a handful of dust. I never sent any letters, just - moments. Pieces of myself. I don't know if he got them.

And now I'm back here and he's still caught in me like a fish-hook. And I want to see Valmont and Alice, and Glass as well (I stole a book for her once and sent it, delicate drawings of herbs). Other people, maybe. His child. I'm twenty now, in this body at least, and I look more like a man.

And I think I know why we've come back. I have my own plans now.

[OPEN]

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"Now you are weak."

"For now." I'm thoughtful: I remember how being around him makes me more.

"Come with me, and I will cut away what binds you to them."

"They said that," I say. "That they would cut you out of my heart. They knew I would say no. It - wasn't a fair bargain." That not fair has been sitting in me all this time. My fingers tighten on his hand and then drop away. "Yes," I say. "Alright." I wouldn't have said yes three years ago. A lot has changed.

"For now," he says, and I smile at him sharply. Then he agrees, and I nod.

"Come, then," and I take his hand, link my fingers through it. We walk through the carnival, a strange sort of sight: a tangle-haired tanned boy and a youth of white and gold.

I take him to a quiet place on the riverbank. I hear the distant drone of a wasp's nest, the steady presence of the water. The air is warm and soft as new milk.

"Do you trust me?" I say. There is no reason that he should. But he will let me do this, anyway.

Even with everything else, I feel very happy as we walk. The carnival lot could almost have been anywhere we've been in the world, but now we're back by Excolo's river, where so much happened that I can sometimes-remember, and his hand's in mine.

"Do you trust me?"

I look at him for a while. What does he mean by trust? I don't have a belief that he wouldn't hurt me, deliberately or not. I don't think I can predict what he'll do, or that I'm safe with him at all. I trust him to be what he is, and I'm willing to put myself in his hands. So: "Yes," I say, quite simply.

I nod, and open his shirt, put my hand back on his chest. His skin is warm and fragile and human. I hate it and want it, as I have always done with him. And then I push my way into his thoughts, a hard penetration. I know it hurts him. I can taste his pain. I have missed this, I think.

I breathe in loudly, almost a whimper. I remember - sometime (http://estdeus-innobis.livejournal.com/39325.html?thread=1103773#t1103773), my hands against the brick of a wall, his penis pushing into me as hard as this. That was easier, that was just my body. My thoughts are less willing to give way, especially that deep black god-place in me. But I shudder and shake around him and let him have the pain of it: offering it, like the gifts I sent him. There's a comfort in having him in the lonely places inside me.

I can feel everything he has felt, these past three years. I let it move through me, taste his sorrow and anger and fear. I hold his little joys in my mouth, let them pass through my fingers. It is time that was lost to me, and now I have it.

Passing beyond that, I go into his darker places, where I can still smell jungle. Threaded through them, the greasepaint and sawdust of the carnival. Here, yes. Here he made a promise. The knot is very tight and elegant, and as I start to unpick it, it reknots, tighter and more elegant than before. It is fine and beautiful work.

I have a gift for destroying beautiful things.

It hurts him, of course. But soon he will be free.

It hurts. Oh, it hurts. It feels like he's unpicking the fibres of my muscles, the membrane of my veins. Whatever it is he's undoing has been part of me for longer than this body, much longer. But it doesn't hurt as much as dying did, which still has me waking up from nightmares.

I'm sick at some point, from the pain. I can't see well, with it hurting and with him so deep inside me, but I can taste the acid of it in my throat, smell it in the air. I think of Management fiercely. They shouldn't have asked for what they did. They shouldn't have made me leave. I won't be their tool, whatever it takes.

إبليس‎, I say, inside my head. إبليس‎, إبليس‎. Yes.

He vomits, body twisting under my hands, but I am relentless. I will have him free, and at last it is done. He is limp underneath me, and I carry him to the water and wash the vomit from his skin and clothes. My hands are quite tender.

"You are free, now," I say, smiling. "Of everything but me."

Cool water, and somewhere the glare of the sun. I blink away tears.

"You are free, now. Of everything but me."

I wipe my nose on my sleeve. "I could have been free of you," I agree. "Would you have destroyed me?" I smile up at him, though it's shaky. Have I ever seen him find something so difficult? It makes me thoughtful.

"Yes," I say, without hesitation, even though it gives too much away. My hand holds his head above the water, and I lean down and kiss him very lightly.

My smile gets brighter when he says that. Then he kisses me, lips very soft, and I sigh. This is - nice, and it would be nice if we could stay like this. Even if we're not what we look like, though, it's still real in its way. "I do love you," I say, though I don't need to, not when he's been inside me like that, not when I refused to give him up for Management. "I'm glad I'm back." I think a bit more: "Thank you." I reach up out of the water and tug a lock of his hair.

I laugh when he tugs my hair, strange childish gesture.

"I know," I say, to all of it, and I carry him out onto the bank, lie him down. "You cannot go back to the carnival now," I say. "Where do you want to go?" I sit on the grass beside him, wet clothes clinging to my skin.

"I don't know." I roll over on my back and look up at the sky. "I don't know if where I used to live is even there any more." I want to go and see Valmont, but I don't know if Hermia will have changed her mind about me in the last three years. "I'm sure there's somewhere. I can sleep in someone's barn or something if I have to, or just outside."

I wonder if Syl will be furious. I think she's given up the right to be, though. "I do feel free," I say, wondering. I suppose I don't even have to stay in Excolo now - he could find me if I went somewhere else. I'm not ready to think about that yet.

"How's your daughter?" I ask, turning on my side to look at him. "I thought about her. When I couldn't be with you, I wished I'd had your child, that time you talked about it. I'd have had part of you with me, then."

I laugh a little, quite gently, and touch his face.

"You would be a terrible parent," I say, quite fondly. "Rose is well. Her mother has a copy of the Kent body that lives with them, do you know? She claims they are blissfully happy." I shake my head. Wanda. "My daughter grows strong, and fast. She will be very beautiful, one day. And terrible, perhaps." I smile and stroke his hair back. "I feel the end of things rushing in, now," I say, more quietly. "I am... glad you are here, for the time that is left."

"Just a body?" I stare at him a bit. "Does it talk?" And then I grin: "Our child would have been beautiful. Think of the things I could have taught it." It's an enjoyable and ridiculous thought. "I'm glad she's well. I thought I should have sent her something, too, but I didn't think Wanda would let her have it." What would I have sent her, anyway? Baby clothes? I shake my head against the grass.

"I feel the end of things rushing in, now. I am... glad you are here, for the time that is left."

I prop myself up on my elbows and look at him. "Yes," I tell him seriously. "I am, too. I think I - have to be." I don't understand all the things deep in me. "And I...wouldn't want you to be alone." I shrug, because I know I'm ridiculous.

"Rose gave it a soul, after a fashion. She is a very gifted child." I smile, thinking of her.

"I am, too. I think I - have to be. And I...wouldn't want you to be alone."

"I am always alone," I say gently, leaning over him. "I will be alone at the end." But when I kiss him, pushing him slowly back into the grass, it is something like thanks.

After a fashion? Interesting. I see how he smiles when he thinks of her. If it wasn't his child I might be jealous. I feel strangely proud instead, though I don't have any reason to.

"I am always alone. I will be alone at the end."

When he kisses me it's like warm sun. It hasn't been like that between us since a long time before I died. There's a memory somewhere of vines in a room, him crowned with leaves. I shrug a little: "I will be there, then, when you are alone." I put my arms up round his neck. "Whatever else," I promise, because he's always been wise enough not to trust my nature, "I'll be there." I tug him down further and kiss him again. I'm very hard. I smile against his mouth, remembering when I was with him last, when this body was new to me.

I think of all the ways he could betray me. Has betrayed me. He will do again, I am quite sure of it.

"I'll be there."

"I know," I say again, and return his kiss. He is hard underneath me. "Do you remember the things you did with this body, before you died?" I ask. "You liked this one particularly. I burned it for you, when you died."

"Some of them. It's easier to remember here. I ate its heart once." We must have looked even stranger together then. I touch his face thoughtfully, imagining it burning. "Did it hurt when you burned it?"

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The years flow by like water, and one day men come home again.

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