Depart From Me: 2/3
Title: Depart From Me
Author: lalalive23
Pairing: None
Rating: R
Warning: Blood, body modification, references to mental illness, references to dissociative identiy disorder, possession, religous references
Disclaimer: I don't own Muse. This never happened. Could happen, tho. Bless the future.
Feedback: I LIVE FOR THE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE
Summary: MS Horror Fest fic.
Prompt: Wingfic. Matt needs - more than anything - for his wings to be gone. More curse than blessing, they started developing after a surreal, only semi-remembered week of his post-college research trip into ancient tribal tradition and ritual. Maybe it was something he drank. Maybe it was a good old fashioned curse. Maybe it was blood magic - he doesn’t know, and right now he doesn’t care, because he’s back in England and they’re getting too big to strap down beneath his clothing. They’re awkward and, anyway, it’s unlikely they’ll ever be strong enough to fly - partly because he can’t exercise them, and partly because the bones are growing bowed from their constantly-strapped position against his back. Panicking, and looking to be rid of them before he can’t keep them secret any longer, he turns to the one friend he can trust - Dominic, a student of surgery. Yes, this is going where you think it’s going.
Note: I figure now is as good a time as any to finish a horror fest fic, right? Hahahaha, I am terrible at life. Anyway, so with my resolution to release all the drafts from my WIPs, so too comes this fic, which has somehow grown to much larger proportions that I initially planned. Who cares though, I fuckin love this universe, and these characters and this story, and tbh wings in general. I love the goddamn hell out of this thing. Uh, so as a reminder, this prompt belonged to chess_boxing and I STILL love it and STILL am obsessed with it. I remember saying I'd turn this prompt into a person and marry it which is still, yes, true. Now we actually get to the MEAT of the story. Enjoy friends!!
Matthew is twenty-two when he looks Dominic in the eyes. It’s August, he’s twenty-two, and he’s fearless. For the first time in his life, he has a plan and a future that feeds him hope like cream from a spoon. For the first time in his life, he counts all the choices he’s made in his life and doesn’t regret a single one. Questions don’t scare him, not anymore. Uncertainty doesn’t bother him. Why should it? He’s eaten loneliness and swallowed its cavernous waste whole. The boy with hurricane eyes has decided to love him into a demi-god and now he finally trusts himself.
He’s twenty-two and looking at Dominic.
He’s twenty-two, it’s September, and he’s looking at Dominic.
He’s twenty-two, it’s September, and Dominic is kissing another woman with the full length of his tongue. He’s kissing her the way he’s reserved for Matthew.
He’s twenty-five, he’s standing across from Dominic in a luxurious London flat, and the wings growing out of his back are rotting.
The rain beats at the floor length windows, and Matthew thinks there’s a poetry within the drops, within the rhythm - something about redemption, something about holiness, something about religion, though he’s never practiced. Dominic drinks in the sight of him by means of assessment; Matthew drinks in Dominic by means of comparison. He’s leaner, his shoes are new, his hair is three inches longer than it has ever been before, and his eyes are wide. Not paralyzed. Not empty. No, this is the most alive his eyes have been while looking at the totality of Matthew, at the fullness of him, since they were happy.
As if recalling every jovial declaration of I love you, I want you, I need you, his putrid wings have sprung forward and around, aching with the reach, as if attempting to lure Dominic into their embrace. The branches of his back are wicker and oak, and seeking to entrap the only love they can ever recall, a love that was never even theirs - not even his - from the start. This new shape, this new freedom, has caused him an exquisite sort of agony and he grounds himself in reality by focusing on the blood dripping down his spine.
It takes several minutes for Dominic to speak, his hands resting his pockets to hide his tells. He was never good at keeping secrets, twitching fingers and cracking wrists always his method of silently saying I’m lying, I’m scared, I am appalled. When he finally speaks, he’s firm and clinical, swallowing his personal thoughts down as if they were a tonic.
‘How long has this been happening?’ He doesn’t name the “this,” doesn’t call it beautiful, doesn’t even call it ugly. But he gives it an affirmation of existence, and it’s in the spaces between these words, where hope seems to die and fear seems to live, stitching themselves together with threads of flesh, that Matthew finds an honesty to bathe him in relief.
‘A few months.’
‘And you didn’t think to seek help?’
He tries to scowl, thinks that fixing his face into some kind of emotional afront will make everything feel natural. Instead he remains stone faced and imagines pulling his fingernails off to keep from blacking out. ‘I’ve tried to get help...believe me.’
‘I don’t know...what you think I can do for you,’ Dominic sighs.
‘Cut them off.’ It’s the first time Matthew has been explicit, the first time he’s truly envisioned liberation, and suddenly he celebrates the notion of reclaiming his life with bones at his feet.
Dominic chokes on his own saliva and stares, open mouthed and juvenile, at every bent proportion that Matthew is forced to call his. Matthew is waiting for him to laugh, waiting for him to scoff, waiting for him to act.
‘And how do you expect me to...’ Dominic’s sentence drifts off into nothingness and Matthew follows the words through the air, ready to breathe them in just to eat them whole.
‘You’re a surgeon. I trust you.’ He hates saying it. “Trust.” For them the word is buried under the ash and rust of regret. The word is broken into a half-life, only a piece of its parts now, and speaking it back into totality makes him feel ill. He says it anyway because it’s true, because even after the distance and the betrayal and the shallow forgiveness, Dominic is still the only one whose palms could hold him.
‘I’m cardiothoracics not orthopedics.’
‘But you’ve done it.’
‘Yeah, when I had just started my internship for residency.’
Matthew remembers that day, remembers the acceptance letter and the pride. It wasn’t his win, it was Dominic’s, but that made it feel like his. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recalls understanding that this was the difference between loving someone and being in love with them. That loving Dominic meant he was proud, and being in love with Dominic meant he felt a voracious desire to be his equal - to make Dominic just as proud. Now, loving means letting himself be reborn beneath Dominic’s scissors and being in love means believing his hands could somehow put him back together.
‘But you’ve done it.’ He’s firm this time when he says it, enunciates every word like he’s spitting them between his teeth.
Dominic runs a hand through his hair, the length of it folding through his fingers and pulled back. It’s never been this long and Matthew is jealous of Laura and her hands and her mouth and her breasts and -
‘Even if I could do this, how would I? I don’t have any equipment here. It’s my flat, not an extra surgery room.’ Perhaps, if Dominic had been anyone else, there would be a panic in his voice, a naive sort of anxiety that comes from pressure and fear of the unknown, from the knowledge that blood will stain his hands and knees and shirtsleeves. But, because Dominic was never a poor student, because emotion always came second before logic, he is impassive and professional.
‘You have a way to get supplies. You have the access.’ He’s sure Dominic thinks he’s making demands he doesn’t fully understand, but he’s had weeks to think about this. Weeks of doctors pushing lithium and therapy sessions, weeks of crowded tube rides where one move would shatter his vision, weeks of it’s three in the morning and I wish I would die, weeks of it’s too short a drop - I would survive and never walk again, weeks of when will I feel whole again, and the truth is that he’s thought this through. All the way to the end, even if it’s bitter.
Dominic shakes his head without a moment’s hesitation. ‘I’m not stealing equipment.’
‘Then buy it.’
‘And that would take how long, Matt? These bones are already in a state of decay, it’s amazing the rest of your marrow hasn’t started to deteriorate.’
‘You don’t need everything, Dom. You have a bed and towels, all you need is a bone saw.’ His breathing is ragged, he can hear it all around him. Perhaps it’s the weight of the wings, forcing his ribcage to bend into his lungs. Perhaps it is another change, another loss to etch away at his humanity - the end of his lungs will allow him to grow gills, breathe through his skin. Perhaps it is Dominic, standing so near and so close, that makes his throat close - allergic to living, allergic to loving, allergic to himself.
‘I’d need a hell of a lot more than that, and you know it. You’re smarter than this. I’d need extra blood, clamps, sutures, an anesthesiologist to start.’
He blinks slowly and imagines chewing on his tongue. ‘Eventually I’ll pass out from the pain. Save us the trouble.’
He means every word of it. Life for him has become a white knuckled joyride, an endless wasteland of grief and longing, and never once being asked permission. Through fissured reflections of expectations never fully matching reality, he has watched himself wear his body like a loaded gun, watched the mirage of it burn into existence as it turned into rotting meat. His bones have grown without his permission, his heart has been broken without his permission, his fingers have bled without his permission. Only his blood remains the same, only his blood remains red and refuses to change unless he says yes, I will allow it.
‘I can’t put you through that. I refuse.” Dominic looks appalled, as if inflicting him any sort of pain is a concept that exists beyond possibility. This look is not unfamiliar. This look comes with accusations, and pleads for him to move on, and it makes him want to wrap his hands around Dominic’s throat. He wants to hold him in place with his hands in control of his breaths and say you should have learned - you should have learned this lesson because I learned to survive. I will learn to survive this just as I learned to survive you.
‘I am asking you to do this for me.’ Is all he can manage. I’m asking you to hurt me, is almost what he means because at least this time it will happen with his consent.
‘I have neighbors.’
‘I have a belt.’ It’s blood soaked, but he will bite it anyway.
They stare at one another, regarding and remembering - regarding who they have become, what they have become, and remembering that nothing has changed. They were always so good at this, Matthew thinks, so good at arguing, at disagreeing, at passionately refusing to let the other win while always letting them have absolutely everything. Dominic is married, but he will always come when Matthew calls. Dominic’s hair is longer, but he will never refuse any of Matthew’s requests. Matthew is growing wings, but the small of his back still aches from Dominic has once been. Matthew’s wings are rotting, but Dominic is the only one he would ever allow to gut him.
~~~
[...] It was only when Bernal Diaz del Castillo wrote his thoughts on the conquest of what was then considered New Spain, that the very idea of developed city planning within primitive Mexico became likened to the city of Atlantis. As such, the description of such a place seems almost unfathomable: towers that rise from the water’s edge, cues and buildings of great masonry. How then could such a place be weathered into the state of destruction we see today? It remains impossible to imagine that the sea level of Lake Texcoco could have swallowed such a place whole - this is not the Atlantic ocean, neither as deep nor as wide - and yet we are forced to accept such a thing as fact. The pieces of Tenochtitlan that were brought to the center of Mexico City tell a slightly different story. Scores along the edges of wall give direction and clues for the context of wind erosion, however, since the mid-1600’s there remains no record of such a windstorm that could wipe a city off the map. It is key to remember - [...]
Matthew’s flow of thought was broken by the honking of a bus horn as it passed through the city, signaling the start of rush hour. Sighing, he slid his glasses down his nose and palmed them, pressing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and middle finger. Notes. Drivel. Absolute nonsense. What the fuck did any of this have to do with his dissertation? Nothing. That was the truth. The historical events that led to the downfall of Tenochtitlan had nothing to do with the historical wipeout of the Aztec religion.
Or maybe it did.
He felt like it did.
Being in Mexico made his skin crawl. Packed within the sensation was the idea of finality, an overwhelming sensation of foreshadowing though he could not tell of what. It felt wholly unfamiliar and wholly his, as though he’d been stomaching it for so long he couldn’t possibly contain it any longer. He was giving birth to a beast and he was barely able to give his own monstrosity a name, a face, or a language.
There was no reason for him to be in Mexico, really, no reason for him to leave the comfort of the university library or his somewhat barren flat. Absolutely nothing on this trip would provide him better knowledge of a dying religion than any yellowed page of an unread book. The small pocket of humanity still practicing the religion either lived in the dark corners of the internet, pushed so far to the edge of faith that any information garnered from their emails or websites became practically unintelligible, or they simply did not want to be found. He knew this the moment he booked his flight, knew this as he packed, as he locked his door, as he boarded, as he landed. He knew this the moment the idea entered his mind and yet, for some reason, it still felt like coming home.
Perhaps that was the source of his anxiety - that the only way he would ever feel truly home again would come from forcing himself into a permanent state of discomfort.
Opening his eyes he glanced around the cafe to mentally reassert his surroundings and noticed a young woman starting at him. She did not appear curious, her gaze was focused, beckoning him with her will. And he smiled at her. He smiled wide and proud. She was beautiful, she was dangerous, and she was exactly the sort of woman who had the strength to break him.
Shutting his laptop, he carried his things over to her table and felt a surge of excitement. This was unlike him, but it did not matter. She had made the first move and he willingly let himself into her trap.
‘You’ve suffered a great loss.’ Her words startled him, but he maintained his smile. She remained completely serious, almost worried, but her eyes were dancing over his face with a speed that made him feel something - what, he could not name - and that was all he needed to know of her.
‘I’m sorry, my Spanish is a little poor,’ he laughed, ‘did you tell me I’ve -’
She cut him off sharply. ‘There’s an emptiness in you. A war. You’re curious for something, hungry for a life that isn’t yours but should have been.’
Immediately he thought of Dominic and his smile fell. He allowed his back to rest fully into the chair and crossed his arms. ‘I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.’
‘You write about the past as if you’ve lived it, you’ve felt it.’ She spoke quickly, Spanish falling from her lips like water and he struggled to keep up with her.
‘Have you been spying on me?’ Now he could name her, she didn’t have to say anything further. She was a shark after his research. He guessed she was working on the same topic, assumed she had read his articles online. It didn’t matter, this work was his. He leaned forward, planting his hands firmly on the table. This would make him possessive, this would make him protective, this would eat him alive until the published work had his name on it.
‘We feel you, burning within us. We all have felt you.’ Wild eyes ate away at his resolve and he fell into them, into her. Her small frame and strong, tattooed arms were a thing he did not know he had been seeking, and this, somehow, made her feel like kin.
‘I’m -’
‘You start fire where this ice, you are the flame when there is none. This religion is yours for the taking and we can give it to you. You are the vessel.’ She reached across the table and took his hands, kissed the top of his palms as though her were her saviour, and muttered in a language he could not understand but recognized as Nahauti.
His panic and alarm dissolved beneath her display of religious fielty and suddenly she became the most important woman in his world.
He leaned forward and slipped his hands over hers to hold them steady. ‘Are you a descendant of the Aztecs? The Mexicas?’ His Spanish was failing, and he wanted to apologize, to tell her he wasn’t sure which name her ancestors prefered, which one she prefered, but he needed her to understand that he knew - he knew the terms and respected them.
‘Our language drowned in the blood of the Spaniards, but metal and iron cannot kill faith.’ Everything about her seemed nervous and fragile, she had slipped away from strength and fallen into fear the instant his hands took hers. And he could almost smell it, as if she wore it as a perfume, that her fear was not of him but of herself, the words she was saying. ‘Meet me tonight. The archway to the city center. Midnight. We will take you and you will see.’
With that she was gone, and his heart was racing. His trip had been built on poor decisions, and this one, the one where he immediately felt himself agree to meeting an unnumbered we, was the only one that mattered to him.
~~~
‘If I do this,’ Dominic says, tonguing the words like he hates himself for giving in, ‘you have to promise you won’t die.’
Matthew wants to smirk, wants to cock his head back and laugh like he used to, because it’s exactly the sort of thing his Dominic would say. It’s tempered with the right amount of love to be a joke and just enough sincerity to absolve him of guilt if anything should go wrong. But instead, Matthew inhales, feels the needles in his ribs and sighs.
‘If you do this, you have to promise you won’t kill me again.’
Author: lalalive23
Pairing: None
Rating: R
Warning: Blood, body modification, references to mental illness, references to dissociative identiy disorder, possession, religous references
Disclaimer: I don't own Muse. This never happened. Could happen, tho. Bless the future.
Feedback: I LIVE FOR THE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE APPLAUSE
Summary: MS Horror Fest fic.
Prompt: Wingfic. Matt needs - more than anything - for his wings to be gone. More curse than blessing, they started developing after a surreal, only semi-remembered week of his post-college research trip into ancient tribal tradition and ritual. Maybe it was something he drank. Maybe it was a good old fashioned curse. Maybe it was blood magic - he doesn’t know, and right now he doesn’t care, because he’s back in England and they’re getting too big to strap down beneath his clothing. They’re awkward and, anyway, it’s unlikely they’ll ever be strong enough to fly - partly because he can’t exercise them, and partly because the bones are growing bowed from their constantly-strapped position against his back. Panicking, and looking to be rid of them before he can’t keep them secret any longer, he turns to the one friend he can trust - Dominic, a student of surgery. Yes, this is going where you think it’s going.
Note: I figure now is as good a time as any to finish a horror fest fic, right? Hahahaha, I am terrible at life. Anyway, so with my resolution to release all the drafts from my WIPs, so too comes this fic, which has somehow grown to much larger proportions that I initially planned. Who cares though, I fuckin love this universe, and these characters and this story, and tbh wings in general. I love the goddamn hell out of this thing. Uh, so as a reminder, this prompt belonged to chess_boxing and I STILL love it and STILL am obsessed with it. I remember saying I'd turn this prompt into a person and marry it which is still, yes, true. Now we actually get to the MEAT of the story. Enjoy friends!!
Matthew is twenty-two when he looks Dominic in the eyes. It’s August, he’s twenty-two, and he’s fearless. For the first time in his life, he has a plan and a future that feeds him hope like cream from a spoon. For the first time in his life, he counts all the choices he’s made in his life and doesn’t regret a single one. Questions don’t scare him, not anymore. Uncertainty doesn’t bother him. Why should it? He’s eaten loneliness and swallowed its cavernous waste whole. The boy with hurricane eyes has decided to love him into a demi-god and now he finally trusts himself.
He’s twenty-two and looking at Dominic.
He’s twenty-two, it’s September, and he’s looking at Dominic.
He’s twenty-two, it’s September, and Dominic is kissing another woman with the full length of his tongue. He’s kissing her the way he’s reserved for Matthew.
He’s twenty-five, he’s standing across from Dominic in a luxurious London flat, and the wings growing out of his back are rotting.
The rain beats at the floor length windows, and Matthew thinks there’s a poetry within the drops, within the rhythm - something about redemption, something about holiness, something about religion, though he’s never practiced. Dominic drinks in the sight of him by means of assessment; Matthew drinks in Dominic by means of comparison. He’s leaner, his shoes are new, his hair is three inches longer than it has ever been before, and his eyes are wide. Not paralyzed. Not empty. No, this is the most alive his eyes have been while looking at the totality of Matthew, at the fullness of him, since they were happy.
As if recalling every jovial declaration of I love you, I want you, I need you, his putrid wings have sprung forward and around, aching with the reach, as if attempting to lure Dominic into their embrace. The branches of his back are wicker and oak, and seeking to entrap the only love they can ever recall, a love that was never even theirs - not even his - from the start. This new shape, this new freedom, has caused him an exquisite sort of agony and he grounds himself in reality by focusing on the blood dripping down his spine.
It takes several minutes for Dominic to speak, his hands resting his pockets to hide his tells. He was never good at keeping secrets, twitching fingers and cracking wrists always his method of silently saying I’m lying, I’m scared, I am appalled. When he finally speaks, he’s firm and clinical, swallowing his personal thoughts down as if they were a tonic.
‘How long has this been happening?’ He doesn’t name the “this,” doesn’t call it beautiful, doesn’t even call it ugly. But he gives it an affirmation of existence, and it’s in the spaces between these words, where hope seems to die and fear seems to live, stitching themselves together with threads of flesh, that Matthew finds an honesty to bathe him in relief.
‘A few months.’
‘And you didn’t think to seek help?’
He tries to scowl, thinks that fixing his face into some kind of emotional afront will make everything feel natural. Instead he remains stone faced and imagines pulling his fingernails off to keep from blacking out. ‘I’ve tried to get help...believe me.’
‘I don’t know...what you think I can do for you,’ Dominic sighs.
‘Cut them off.’ It’s the first time Matthew has been explicit, the first time he’s truly envisioned liberation, and suddenly he celebrates the notion of reclaiming his life with bones at his feet.
Dominic chokes on his own saliva and stares, open mouthed and juvenile, at every bent proportion that Matthew is forced to call his. Matthew is waiting for him to laugh, waiting for him to scoff, waiting for him to act.
‘And how do you expect me to...’ Dominic’s sentence drifts off into nothingness and Matthew follows the words through the air, ready to breathe them in just to eat them whole.
‘You’re a surgeon. I trust you.’ He hates saying it. “Trust.” For them the word is buried under the ash and rust of regret. The word is broken into a half-life, only a piece of its parts now, and speaking it back into totality makes him feel ill. He says it anyway because it’s true, because even after the distance and the betrayal and the shallow forgiveness, Dominic is still the only one whose palms could hold him.
‘I’m cardiothoracics not orthopedics.’
‘But you’ve done it.’
‘Yeah, when I had just started my internship for residency.’
Matthew remembers that day, remembers the acceptance letter and the pride. It wasn’t his win, it was Dominic’s, but that made it feel like his. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recalls understanding that this was the difference between loving someone and being in love with them. That loving Dominic meant he was proud, and being in love with Dominic meant he felt a voracious desire to be his equal - to make Dominic just as proud. Now, loving means letting himself be reborn beneath Dominic’s scissors and being in love means believing his hands could somehow put him back together.
‘But you’ve done it.’ He’s firm this time when he says it, enunciates every word like he’s spitting them between his teeth.
Dominic runs a hand through his hair, the length of it folding through his fingers and pulled back. It’s never been this long and Matthew is jealous of Laura and her hands and her mouth and her breasts and -
‘Even if I could do this, how would I? I don’t have any equipment here. It’s my flat, not an extra surgery room.’ Perhaps, if Dominic had been anyone else, there would be a panic in his voice, a naive sort of anxiety that comes from pressure and fear of the unknown, from the knowledge that blood will stain his hands and knees and shirtsleeves. But, because Dominic was never a poor student, because emotion always came second before logic, he is impassive and professional.
‘You have a way to get supplies. You have the access.’ He’s sure Dominic thinks he’s making demands he doesn’t fully understand, but he’s had weeks to think about this. Weeks of doctors pushing lithium and therapy sessions, weeks of crowded tube rides where one move would shatter his vision, weeks of it’s three in the morning and I wish I would die, weeks of it’s too short a drop - I would survive and never walk again, weeks of when will I feel whole again, and the truth is that he’s thought this through. All the way to the end, even if it’s bitter.
Dominic shakes his head without a moment’s hesitation. ‘I’m not stealing equipment.’
‘Then buy it.’
‘And that would take how long, Matt? These bones are already in a state of decay, it’s amazing the rest of your marrow hasn’t started to deteriorate.’
‘You don’t need everything, Dom. You have a bed and towels, all you need is a bone saw.’ His breathing is ragged, he can hear it all around him. Perhaps it’s the weight of the wings, forcing his ribcage to bend into his lungs. Perhaps it is another change, another loss to etch away at his humanity - the end of his lungs will allow him to grow gills, breathe through his skin. Perhaps it is Dominic, standing so near and so close, that makes his throat close - allergic to living, allergic to loving, allergic to himself.
‘I’d need a hell of a lot more than that, and you know it. You’re smarter than this. I’d need extra blood, clamps, sutures, an anesthesiologist to start.’
He blinks slowly and imagines chewing on his tongue. ‘Eventually I’ll pass out from the pain. Save us the trouble.’
He means every word of it. Life for him has become a white knuckled joyride, an endless wasteland of grief and longing, and never once being asked permission. Through fissured reflections of expectations never fully matching reality, he has watched himself wear his body like a loaded gun, watched the mirage of it burn into existence as it turned into rotting meat. His bones have grown without his permission, his heart has been broken without his permission, his fingers have bled without his permission. Only his blood remains the same, only his blood remains red and refuses to change unless he says yes, I will allow it.
‘I can’t put you through that. I refuse.” Dominic looks appalled, as if inflicting him any sort of pain is a concept that exists beyond possibility. This look is not unfamiliar. This look comes with accusations, and pleads for him to move on, and it makes him want to wrap his hands around Dominic’s throat. He wants to hold him in place with his hands in control of his breaths and say you should have learned - you should have learned this lesson because I learned to survive. I will learn to survive this just as I learned to survive you.
‘I am asking you to do this for me.’ Is all he can manage. I’m asking you to hurt me, is almost what he means because at least this time it will happen with his consent.
‘I have neighbors.’
‘I have a belt.’ It’s blood soaked, but he will bite it anyway.
They stare at one another, regarding and remembering - regarding who they have become, what they have become, and remembering that nothing has changed. They were always so good at this, Matthew thinks, so good at arguing, at disagreeing, at passionately refusing to let the other win while always letting them have absolutely everything. Dominic is married, but he will always come when Matthew calls. Dominic’s hair is longer, but he will never refuse any of Matthew’s requests. Matthew is growing wings, but the small of his back still aches from Dominic has once been. Matthew’s wings are rotting, but Dominic is the only one he would ever allow to gut him.
~~~
[...] It was only when Bernal Diaz del Castillo wrote his thoughts on the conquest of what was then considered New Spain, that the very idea of developed city planning within primitive Mexico became likened to the city of Atlantis. As such, the description of such a place seems almost unfathomable: towers that rise from the water’s edge, cues and buildings of great masonry. How then could such a place be weathered into the state of destruction we see today? It remains impossible to imagine that the sea level of Lake Texcoco could have swallowed such a place whole - this is not the Atlantic ocean, neither as deep nor as wide - and yet we are forced to accept such a thing as fact. The pieces of Tenochtitlan that were brought to the center of Mexico City tell a slightly different story. Scores along the edges of wall give direction and clues for the context of wind erosion, however, since the mid-1600’s there remains no record of such a windstorm that could wipe a city off the map. It is key to remember - [...]
Matthew’s flow of thought was broken by the honking of a bus horn as it passed through the city, signaling the start of rush hour. Sighing, he slid his glasses down his nose and palmed them, pressing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and middle finger. Notes. Drivel. Absolute nonsense. What the fuck did any of this have to do with his dissertation? Nothing. That was the truth. The historical events that led to the downfall of Tenochtitlan had nothing to do with the historical wipeout of the Aztec religion.
Or maybe it did.
He felt like it did.
Being in Mexico made his skin crawl. Packed within the sensation was the idea of finality, an overwhelming sensation of foreshadowing though he could not tell of what. It felt wholly unfamiliar and wholly his, as though he’d been stomaching it for so long he couldn’t possibly contain it any longer. He was giving birth to a beast and he was barely able to give his own monstrosity a name, a face, or a language.
There was no reason for him to be in Mexico, really, no reason for him to leave the comfort of the university library or his somewhat barren flat. Absolutely nothing on this trip would provide him better knowledge of a dying religion than any yellowed page of an unread book. The small pocket of humanity still practicing the religion either lived in the dark corners of the internet, pushed so far to the edge of faith that any information garnered from their emails or websites became practically unintelligible, or they simply did not want to be found. He knew this the moment he booked his flight, knew this as he packed, as he locked his door, as he boarded, as he landed. He knew this the moment the idea entered his mind and yet, for some reason, it still felt like coming home.
Perhaps that was the source of his anxiety - that the only way he would ever feel truly home again would come from forcing himself into a permanent state of discomfort.
Opening his eyes he glanced around the cafe to mentally reassert his surroundings and noticed a young woman starting at him. She did not appear curious, her gaze was focused, beckoning him with her will. And he smiled at her. He smiled wide and proud. She was beautiful, she was dangerous, and she was exactly the sort of woman who had the strength to break him.
Shutting his laptop, he carried his things over to her table and felt a surge of excitement. This was unlike him, but it did not matter. She had made the first move and he willingly let himself into her trap.
‘You’ve suffered a great loss.’ Her words startled him, but he maintained his smile. She remained completely serious, almost worried, but her eyes were dancing over his face with a speed that made him feel something - what, he could not name - and that was all he needed to know of her.
‘I’m sorry, my Spanish is a little poor,’ he laughed, ‘did you tell me I’ve -’
She cut him off sharply. ‘There’s an emptiness in you. A war. You’re curious for something, hungry for a life that isn’t yours but should have been.’
Immediately he thought of Dominic and his smile fell. He allowed his back to rest fully into the chair and crossed his arms. ‘I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.’
‘You write about the past as if you’ve lived it, you’ve felt it.’ She spoke quickly, Spanish falling from her lips like water and he struggled to keep up with her.
‘Have you been spying on me?’ Now he could name her, she didn’t have to say anything further. She was a shark after his research. He guessed she was working on the same topic, assumed she had read his articles online. It didn’t matter, this work was his. He leaned forward, planting his hands firmly on the table. This would make him possessive, this would make him protective, this would eat him alive until the published work had his name on it.
‘We feel you, burning within us. We all have felt you.’ Wild eyes ate away at his resolve and he fell into them, into her. Her small frame and strong, tattooed arms were a thing he did not know he had been seeking, and this, somehow, made her feel like kin.
‘I’m -’
‘You start fire where this ice, you are the flame when there is none. This religion is yours for the taking and we can give it to you. You are the vessel.’ She reached across the table and took his hands, kissed the top of his palms as though her were her saviour, and muttered in a language he could not understand but recognized as Nahauti.
His panic and alarm dissolved beneath her display of religious fielty and suddenly she became the most important woman in his world.
He leaned forward and slipped his hands over hers to hold them steady. ‘Are you a descendant of the Aztecs? The Mexicas?’ His Spanish was failing, and he wanted to apologize, to tell her he wasn’t sure which name her ancestors prefered, which one she prefered, but he needed her to understand that he knew - he knew the terms and respected them.
‘Our language drowned in the blood of the Spaniards, but metal and iron cannot kill faith.’ Everything about her seemed nervous and fragile, she had slipped away from strength and fallen into fear the instant his hands took hers. And he could almost smell it, as if she wore it as a perfume, that her fear was not of him but of herself, the words she was saying. ‘Meet me tonight. The archway to the city center. Midnight. We will take you and you will see.’
With that she was gone, and his heart was racing. His trip had been built on poor decisions, and this one, the one where he immediately felt himself agree to meeting an unnumbered we, was the only one that mattered to him.
~~~
‘If I do this,’ Dominic says, tonguing the words like he hates himself for giving in, ‘you have to promise you won’t die.’
Matthew wants to smirk, wants to cock his head back and laugh like he used to, because it’s exactly the sort of thing his Dominic would say. It’s tempered with the right amount of love to be a joke and just enough sincerity to absolve him of guilt if anything should go wrong. But instead, Matthew inhales, feels the needles in his ribs and sighs.
‘If you do this, you have to promise you won’t kill me again.’