||event|| Deus ex Machina, but without the box

[rowan_narrators]

Over the next few days, you may notice slightly odd things happening in Jhelbor. Sometimes you think you see wild colors in the corner of your eye, only to turn and see nothing. Sometimes rooms will be clearly illuminated at night without candles or sorcery. And if you're observant, there are a lot of small spiders scuttling around in the corners

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[not_even_dreams]

Sam spends a lot of time these days sitting facing the window of the place that used to be David's, staring out with his shaman's eyes open. Watching the auras walk by. Taking notes.

It's just another method of withdrawal. Find a cause and throw yourself into it with everything you have. Guy had been his cause. Then Guy had become David, and David couldn't stay, and both of them are now far away from Sam, who is expected not to do a thing about it. Fuck that, he'd wanted to say, except he couldn't. It was his new charge in the Cause of Guy: Sit. Stay. Good boy.

For the first day or two, he'd just stayed in bed. Then he'd tried getting drunk. Cliché, sure, but he'd thought it might work -- and maybe it would have, if he hadn't hated it. Then he'd come up with this, and was a bit ashamed he hadn't thought it before. It doesn't make him feel any happier, but he knows how to do it.

The difference between now and four months ago, of course, is that Sam is now fully cognizant of how much he's trying to fool himself. It's when the reality of that hits him that Sam puts down his pen down and rests his head in his hands.

"God." A side-effect of chronic solitude: talking to oneself. "This is it, isn't it? This is all I'm ever meant for." Staying alone. Keeping records.

"Would be nice if there were something else." But six weeks of being a shaman, and the gods haven't so much as poked their heads up to say 'hello.' He used to dread the concept, but he's been sleeping without silk deliberately for a long time now, and still nothing. Sam picks up his pen again with a sigh.

"Oh, well."

[mutestronaut]

flicker of blue

It's just a shifting flare of color in the corner of his eye, probably just a trick of the light, but if Sam turns to look at it -

And there's Guy, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, smirking like the devil and softly glowing a color Sam had never seen before coming to Rowan.

[not_even_dreams]

Sam turns his head and lets out a noise somewhere between a yelp and a squeak, nearly starting right out of his chair. He hadn't heard the door open. Would have seen it open, from where he was sitting.

Then there's that aura. Not him. Guy's aura is green, the colour of a witch. If he hadn't been able to see the difference, Sam would have sworn it was him.

Still, the first word out of his mouth after he swallows back his surprise is: "...David?"

[mutestronaut]

Guy stalks toward Sam until he's right in front of him. He reaches out and places one hand firmly on Sam's chest, his thumb aligned with Sam's sternum and his fingers and palm splayed to the left, covering Sam's heart. It is an inescapably possessive gesture.

Guy stares at him, sill grinning wickedly, his eyes filled with that same glimmering hue.

[not_even_dreams]

Sam stands up as he approaches, and backs away -- just a little. Not very far. Not far at all.

He feels the hand over his heart. Doesn't, can't, shrink away from that. It feels solid. Real.

Guy? It's a crazy little thought that flickers across Sam's mind. Guy, as opposed to David. But they're the same person, and anyway Guy never glowed like that, and that smile? Is kind of creepy, at least in context.

What the hell is going on?

"What are you doing here?"

[mutestronaut]

Guy's smirk changes, somehow becoming sweeter and more condescending at once.

{You asked for me, darling, she thinks. He's adorable, really.}

Without moving the hand on Sam's chest, Guy taps Sam's lips lightly with one fingertip of his other hand, his eyebrows climbing.

[not_even_dreams]

He can't get past that colour. He doesn't know it as the colour of the gods, but he knows it as the colour of a shaman's aura, and he's seen little flickers of it passing by over the last couple of days. Some people were carrying items that glowed that way. Sometimes there'd be specks of it dancing in the corners of the room.

Cassandra's told him that when the gods contact him, he'll know. But now, even though Sam has his suspicions, he's uncertain. Probably because a part of him wants to be, wants to believe in the illusion.

He lets go of his shaman's sight, lets the aura fade away, and there's Guy, just Guy, standing in front of him. One of Sam's hands reaches up to cover the one over his heart, the other reaches out to curl around the side of Guy's neck.

Sam steps closer, his chin tilting down.

[mutestronaut]

{yesssssss}

{this is why you are mine}

Guy moves his own free hand to the small of Sam's back, his expression turning soft and sincere just before he leans in to kiss him.

It feels exactly the same.

[not_even_dreams]

It does, and it doesn't. Because it feels exactly the same, it hurts. Because it's such a perfect replica, it serves as a perfect reminder of what's been lost. The way things should have been.

Still, if he tries hard enough, perhaps he can burn past all of that and just believe. Even if it's just for a moment.

Sam deepens the kiss, and attempts to gently pull Guy along with him as turns to rest his weight on the table.

[mutestronaut]

Guy follows easily, kissing Sam back just as desperately, matching him need for need, pressing their bodies together.

{simply marvelous}

[not_even_dreams]

He has the nagging suspicion, way at the back of his head, that he could be putting this encounter to better use. After all, if a god is trying to send him a message, maybe he should try and figure out what it actually is.

Or maybe this is the message, somehow. Or maybe he should just not give a shit.

For now he just continues with the kissing, and piece by piece everything else is falling away; soon there'll be nothing but the smell and feel and taste of Guy. Sam hopes.

[mutestronaut]

{the more you believe the easier it is to believe}

Guy sighs softly, a small, contented noise, and settles into the kissing. There is nothing about it that is unfamiliar; every sense matches his memories exactly. (Perhaps too exactly - more exactly than a real person would or could.)

{and you do so want to believe}

Guy strokes Sam's back with his fingertips, trailing gently up and down his spine, nibbling his lip for a moment before pulling back. He half turns and looks over his shoulder, back towards the door, a wistful glance at everything beyond Jhelbor, everywhere else he had planned to be instead of here.

Then he turns back to Sam, shaking his head and laughing quietly, ruefully. All that had been a silly mistake.

{go on}

[not_even_dreams]

Now that is a little too perfect. Sam's expression flickers back toward skepticism.

Still, in a lot of ways it's exactly what he'd wanted. The reason he's been waiting day in and day out in Guy's place instead of his own. He feels pathetic and helpless and needy for wanting this to be true, or at least feel true. So alright, maybe he is. The least he can do, if he wants to get anything out of this, is keep throwing himself into the fantasy.

He strokes Guy's hair.

"Listen." He steels himself. It's easy, he tells himself. Just like jumping off a cliff. "I love you."

He never got a chance to say it to the real Guy, and might not have been able to, anyway. He leans in for another kiss.

[mutestronaut]

{oh you absolute sweetheart}

Guy kisses him back briefly, then wraps Sam in a hug so tight it hurts, the kind of hug you give someone because you can't bare to let go. His lips all but brush against Sam's ear.

"Sam," he whispers, because it's all he manage, but it's indisputably reciprocation.

[not_even_dreams]

Sam claps his arms around Guy and lets out a choked sound. Tears which had been brimming on the rims of his eyes suddenly spill over. When Guy speaks his name, he shudders. Something about that. Anything that Guy said had been like a gift, but the one word Sam had always wanted to hear from him was his name.

He'd gotten that. From the real Guy, or David, or whoever the hell he was at the time. This feels just as good. Hold onto that.

"Please come back," he murmurs into Guy's ear, voice wracked with emotion. He still half-knows that this isn't really happening, but that's mattering less and less.

[mutestronaut]

One of Guy's hands cups the back of Sam's head, before suddenly grabbing a handful of Sam's short hair, clutching it painfully.

I am back. You can feel me here. It's a warning.