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frivery · 3 years

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The last part of this segment of the Ethereal and Tomas trilogy is completed! This isn't over between them.

Ethereal and Tomas argue. A lot. That's it, that's the thing, it's a banter piece that is quite long. POV of Ethereal. The last part is here!

The chair was on the smaller side, atleast for him, the tiefling barely fitting into it with his legs splayed out further ahead of him so he didn't have to further aggravate his hip joint on the angle. The bear-skin cloak he had been wearing had been hung over the back of the chair, a large oil-stain dripping down one side of the fur from where he had held it against the slash-mark in his wires to prevent from leaving a trail for creatures to follow him with. Ethereal was pulling off his extra layers, the furry wraps around his hands, when Lion entered the healer's tent after him.

"Get in a fight with Guide Tomas?" Ethereal commented wryly, though he didn't raise his eyes from the blackened twine he was undoing at his wrist.

"Huh? Oh, no. Mostly speaking with the elf, really." he looked up as the merc crossed the tent to sit down on the bare floor in front of him.

"The elf?" he repeated back, raising an eyebrow down at Lion.

"Yoti? I ain't remember his name." Ethereal huffed, shaking his head, though he offered no assistance. He didn't remember the healer's name either, even though this was not his first meeting with the man.

"Did ya' bring yer toolkit with ya'?"

"Of course, I don't allow a mistake to happen again after the first time."

"Where is it?" Ethereal moved to grab the bear cloak off the back of the chair, but Lion returned to his feet with the obvious intention of doing it himself. A clatter of metal sounded as the leather roll was removed from the inner pocket, the human untying it as he sat back down in front of him. Crisscross, the bag unfurled across one leg allowing access to the several different wrenches, wirecutters, screwdrivers, and more delicate instruments he had. Lion pulled the twine away from the rest of the set, placing it between his teeth before pulling his short, messy, hair back and out of his face. Tying it. Hm, he had never considered Lion could pull his 'mane' back with how short it was, but it helped to further show off his strong features. Especially the warmth of his eyes, Ethereal was almost a little jealous of the color that the Lightweaver had decided to give him.

He was pulled from his admirations of the sellsword by the sound of footsteps, lifting his eyes to the tent door just in time to see Tomas enter. Once again, he was reminded of the fact that Tomas had not seen him since he had lost a leg, lost an arm, and he no longer had a fur coat to hide in. The gold of his prosthetics was the same as his armor, but the wires crisscrossing underneath the plating was unmistakable, really. He couldn't hold his gaze on the familiar man any longer, shifting them quickly to the floor.

He didn't have to be looking to feel Tomas' eyes burning into his prosthetic arm, though.

"When did that happen?" his voice was much less harsh and combative than it had been before, as soft as he could expect all things considered.

"You'll have to be more specific." Ethereal responded, turning his gaze calculating as Lion shifted to his side and held a wrench to one of the bolts connecting his metal leg to his hip. Lion had helped him remove the bolts before, it was why he no longer was so hateful with the man, but that didn't mean he trusted him to not break something. His prosthetics were sturdy but intricate pieces of machine, unique. The only ones like them in all the world since he had created them himself with the knowledge he had stolen from the Gods. From the Stormcatcher, more specifically. It hadn't originally been for him but it had proven useful in the end. Karma, almost.

"Take off the gloves, you'll scratch the plating wearing those." he was only slightly joking, the mercenary rolling his eyes but moving to accommodate him.

"When did you lose a leg?" Tomas reiterated, suddenly, causing Ethereal to wince at him before frowning deeply.

"Seven or eight years ago, probably. Why does it matter? I'm still the best Deepscorcher in the guild, fake limbs or not." why was he being defensive about it? He had put so much time, so much work and devotion, into making these prosthetics. He wasn't shy about it, he hadn't even tried to make them look non-robotic cause he hadn't been trying to hide it. But right then it somehow felt like something he should be ashamed of. Maybe, it was because Tomas had been faced with the same choice and had decided against it.

"And your arm?"

"Six."

"Years? Months?"

"I don't make the same mistake twice, Tomas."

"Then how did you lose an arm and a leg, both?" there was an almost accusatory tone to his voice, if the words had been intended to anger him then it had worked. Ethereal had completely forgotten the situation he was in, his attempts at standing up only halted by Lion quickly pulling away with a hiss, his anger flashing away as he looked down at the human. Back into the chair he settled, at some point the wrench Lion had been using dropping to the floor, and carefully took the human's hand. His fingertips had gotten caught, it happened with fabric sometimes but rarely did other people touch his mechanics in order to get hurt like that. He wasn't sure if he blamed himself or Tomas more for it, but there was no bleeding. Would probably bruise deep.

"I'm sorry." he hated apologizing. It felt like weakness.

"Geez, Ethereal, no need to bite me just because yer a little tiffed at yer friend there." that was not the response he was expecting, he was expecting a certain amount of anger or frustration, not the same good-natured voice he usually used.

"Tiffed?" he repeated back at the human, allowing him to take his pinched hand back now, the man flexing his fingers experimentally before picking back up the wrench he had dropped.

"Try not to do it again, yeah? I rather like my fingers."

"No promises." Ethereal sagged into the chair, closing his eyes before returning his gaze to Tomas, a stray spark of irritation causing him to roll his eyes. "Can we just get to whatever it is your digging at already?"

If he had to guess based on the expression that the other tiefling had thrown at Lion it would be jealousy. Not that there was anything to be jealous of, he might flirt with the sellsword but he was fairly sure the human was straight.

"How did you lose your leg?"

"That's it? I'm a deepscorcher, how do you think it happened?" he must have been tensing for a verbal fight, the merc at his hip putting a hand on his stomach to forcibly make him lean further back into the chair again.

"I don't want to guess, Eth, I want you to tell me." Eth, a nickname... a pet name he had not heard in a decade that made him squirm lower in his seat. Having Tomas call him that while Lion was in the room, unaware of their history, felt in some ways wrong and exposing. Thankfully he seemed to be minding his own business as much as he could, focusing on loosening the bolts that kept his prosthetic leg attached to the hip socket. Fingers darkening purple from where the metal had bit him.

"I don't see that it matters how it happened, it did, I fixed it, it's over." Tomas didn't use to be so exhausting to speak with but he was fresh out of conversational energy, tone taking a dismissive edge. He could hear the other make an aggrivated sound, curse quietly under his breath, and leave the tent. At one point he would have wanted Tomas to stay but now it felt like the air had lightened without him there.

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Youta, the healer, had returned to the tent and had been watching Ethereal with a certain amount of interest for the past several hours while he worked on his leg. He hadn't seen the full extent of the damage done until the leg had been pulled away from the socket, finally showing the outer side of the golden-plated steel to him and bearing the extent of the blow. A deep tear, shredding straight through the thick, protective, armor exterior and tearing open several pistons, levers, switches, and a frankly sickening amount of wires. It was a lot of damage, the majority of the oil that kept the systems within going having leaked out onto the floor at some point, and a small amount of snow had managed to wet the insides. It was surprising that it had actually continued to work well enough to get him back to the camp at all.

Wire cutters in hand, prosthetic now broken into two parts at the knee to be less awkward to handle, Ethereal began to cut away at the fraying and contaminated wires. His full focus had to be on this, the insides were too clustered and delicate for him to risk shaking hands or wandering eyes. Lion had passed out on the tent floor some time ago, curling up in the bear cloak he was not using and settling into the corner behind him, and the rest of the camp outside had went silent in a similar fashion. It was just him and Youta that were still awake at this point, as far as he could tell.

"Did you make that yourself?" Youta asked, voice quiet, Ethereal could hardly keep himself from groaning as he pulled the cutters away from the damage.

"What, you mean my leg?" joking or condescending? Why choose, he could multitask and do both.

"Yes, it looks really complicated."

"Surely no more so than being a doctor." he didn't care to continue talking to the elf, giving the other a few moments to speak with before returning to his repairs. Pulling out the broken pieces to mend them in what ways they could be. Tightening down pieces and scraping the less necessary system's wiring in order to patch the vital ones. Progress was slow but functionality was slowly seeming like a more plausible thing.

It slowly became harder to ignore the elf when he got to his feet and started to pace. His mismatched eyes casting towards the outer camp every time he would pause before starting again.

"Paranoid?" he asked, trying not to sound as aggravated as he was, winding a bolt down tight as he set the jury-rigged piston back into place. He'd have to be gentle on it.

"I'm an elf." was all he responded with, standing stock still for a long moment before approaching the tent's flap and drawing it aside. A cold gust followed, but it didn't remain open like that long as Tomas re-entered the tent looking like he had just woken up in pain. The healer quickly moved to help him walk, assisting the hurting tiefling in sitting down on the overly plush bed before skittering off to the side of the tent like a rat to retrieve something.

Tomas' eyes were closed, fingers gripping the plush grey fabric tight, as he breathed like he was counting. Obviously in a lot of pain, something Ethereal understood better than he had once thought he would. Once he had sworn, insisted, that prosthetics were better than living with the pains of shorn flesh but now he was less certain of it. His prosthetics could still break, could still leave him unfunctional, and the phantom pains he got when he tried to sleep was, at times, blinding. Sometimes, as he struggled to breathe through the ghost pain, he could taste the steel on his tongue.

Pale ice eyes cracked open as the wave seemed to lessen, lingering over the pulled apart pieces of machine that Ethereal was working on. For a brief moment he wondered if Tomas ever regretted not taking his advice, just like how he sometimes regretted doing it.

Youta stood back up, a glass vial with a deep green liquid in hand, quickly returning to his boss' side with it.

"Youta." a commanding tone to take for someone struggling to breathe, but Tomas managed it, not breaking the strained eye contact that had started.

"Yes?"

"The vial."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Give me the vial, please." the elf looked confused, glancing at him as if asking for help but Ethereal wasn't really sure what was happening here.

"Don't you need help?"

"Ethereal will help me." Oh, would he now? Tomas said this in an even, powerful, tone that made it difficult to argue with and Youta blanked for a long moment trying to figure out how to respond.

"But he's-?"

"Thank you, Youta." wow, and he thought he was dismissive. The healer frowned but handed the vial over to the other tiefling, leaving the tent like a subject fleeing his king. Now it was just the two of them and a very unconscious Lion, that man could sleep through the end of the world.

"You know, I don't even have my prosthetic put together right now." he commented wryly, trying to ignore the thick pressure on the air between them.

"I know, I can wait." the ice dragon dropped back onto the bed, as if to patiently wait despite the pain he was no doubt suffering with. A moment of silence passed between them, Ethereal staring at the prone form, before he sighed. Tomas had always known how to play him, it was no different even now.

"Give me a moment, Tomas." he relented, the weak sound of submission on his voice even as he hated it.

"I'm not rushing you." if he didn't know any better he would have missed the slightly smug tone to the other's voice, but he chose to pretend to have missed it as he carefully began to reconnect the different, mauled, pieces in his leg. Putting the pieces together was easy after that, the last part being to reattach to the hip joint but... doing that without help was not exactly the easiest thing in the world. Retightening down the bolts he could get to would have to do, his hesitation at risking trying to use the prosthetic again when it was still so broken only washed away by a soft, somewhat stiffled, pained sound from the other side of the tent.

It had been a fucking decade, he had moved on, but hearing it still hurt him in a way that was indescribable. So, into the battery he fed the remnants of his magic, he could feel the circuit start and though he could also feel some leakage... it would work. Ethereal, carefully, got to his feet and crossed the tent. He quietly pulled aside the healer's... stool he supposed, a padded foot-rest that was kept next to the bed, sitting down in front of the plush bed.

"I need the vial, Tomas." the voice sounded weird in how own mouth, like dust and dirt and broken things, the ice tiefling shuddering similarly but he wasn't sure if it was from pain or the way he sounded just then. Soft, weak. He had loved Tomas but looking back he hated how weak it had made him. It had taken losing his leg, losing his arm, to remember what he was. Who he had to be.

The familiar figure, his ex, shifted on the bed and slowly dragged himself back up into a sitting posture, handing him the vial in an almost lethargic way. He could feel the piercing intensity of Tomas' eyes as he pulled off one of his boots, and away the sock beneath. Tattered, poorly healed, and warped flesh was underneath, slightly red with irritation that came from the nerves misfiring. The scarring was deep and completely random in intensity. He could still remember when this happened, could see it in his mind, anger and fear and distress pouring out of him in a destructive rush that burned the predator to ashes. He had barely even registered as a mage ever since, every ounce of his fractured magic now used to power his own prosthetics that had come after. He remembered dropping to the ground next to his injured love, covering his eyes, muttering a repeating phrase that he couldn't recall as he wrapped the torn flesh in every bandage and cloth he had at his disposal.

His hands were shaking, at some point he had brushed his real hand across the wounded skin, but the reason was not for medicinal ones. The vial still unopened in his metal grip.

"Looks awful doesn't it?" Tomas' voice was filled with.. disgust? Distaste? Dissatisfaction? But he didn't know if it was with his reaction or with himself. Ethereal pulled the dropped from its glass container, swallowing down the old sickness in his throat, silently dripping the strange-scented liquid onto Tomas' bare leg.

"It's... awful that you have to live with the pain of it." he responded, not looking up at the other tiefling. He knew exactly what he had started when it came out of his mouth.

"That again?" Tomas almost snarled, giving Ethereal pause as he moved to begin rubbing the green potion into oldwounds.

"I.... do not begrudge your decision, it was yours to make, I just hate seeing you hurt so much." this softness was killing him, Tomas had a way of making him a very particular man without even lifting a finger. It was sickening, twisted, though it was not his fault. It was just his sheer presence that had this kind of effect on him... or so it often felt that way. "That was what I had been trying to say then too, but we both know how bad I am with wording."

Silence followed his words, leaving him to the task that Tomas had given him, too much of a coward to risk even a glance at the face of the man who he had once thought was his forever. It was silly to think that, of course, Deepscorchers don't get happy endings. It was the agreement he made when he joined, not to get too attached to those outside. He had broken that rule and tragedy struck to remind him of his place... it was too bad that it had been Tomas paying the price for it.

"Do you ever regret it?"

"Regret what?" he regretted a lot of things, but there was nothing to be done for it.

"Regret the choice that you made, replacing your limbs with fake ones."

"How do you know it was a choice at all?" a few more drops of the slick liquid on scarred skin, he could feel the calming, numbing, sensation in his hand as he pulled away.

"Was it?" he let the silence stand for a few moments as he took off Tomas' other boot to repeat the process again. The tall shoes now put off to the side in a set, the socks stuffed inside so they wouldn't get dirtied by the bare ground floor of the tent. At least there was no snow.

"Yes, it was... and yes, I do regret it sometimes. When I wake up at night and it feels like I'm cutting my arm off again, or when my prosthetics get damaged. It's hard not to regret it, but it serves its purpose. I can still be a Deepscorcher like this... I do not think Judgement would have let me stay if I had made any other choice."

"Eth, you cut your own-" a concern lilt to his voice, Ethereal didn't back away this time raising his eyes to meet the other tiefling's pale blue ones in a challenge.

"My own arm off? Yes, I did, and my leg before it. I doubt any healing done on my part would have went as well as yours did. Injured solitude does not lend well to that kind of thing and I was not interested in the alternative."

"Of being like me?" now Tomas' sounded hurt, less hostile and more upset. Ethereal pulled back now, shaking his head as he glanced around the tent. Lion was still curled up on the floor like a dog, out like a light, and Youta had not chanced a reappearance. Still just them, too intimate and alone.

"I would not have been like you, Tomas, I'm like you now. If I hadn't cut away what was broken I would have never walked again, would have lost full use of one of my arms, what would you expect me to do?"

"Was it that bad?" the tiefling almost sounded desperate for another answer, there wasn't one. He could see the sickening splinters in his eyes as he stared through the other man now.

"Yes, a thousand times yes, there was no healing from the splintering of bone. No fixing the complete decimation."

"Would it have been so bad to not be able to walk then? To not write?" why was he asking this? Why was this conversation continuing?

"What are you getting at, I love being a guide I need to walk."

"Must you? There are other means to move with." continuing to desperately press, it felt like ten years ago but reversed onto him... after the choice had already been made. More owed karma.

"What is this about, Tomas, do you see me as less whole now that I'm missing my arm? Less complete?" it took everything in him to keep his tone down, he didn't know why the thought prickled with hurt so much. Even if Tomas did see him as less with his prosthetics why would it matter? They had been bitter exs for years.

"Do you?" was Tomas tearing up? The shot back question prompting the ice tiefling to pull away from Ethereal's hands, hands balling up the thick quilted blanket as if he was in pain once more.

"Wha-? No, Light's blessing, Tomas, why would you ever think I felt any differently about you for that?"

"How could I think any differently when you-"

"Don't start with that, you know how things ended. You left me, I didn't leave you, we may have argued but I just wanted what I thought was best for you then."

"You tried to talk me into having my legs cut off so I could better use prosthetics, were the scars too much for you? Did you think I would become too needy?"

"I thought it would hurt you less in the long run, and I was wrong. There isn't anything more to it." like trying to calm a storm, useless but he would continue to try.

"Isn't there?"

"I know you want there to be something else, some alternative motive that will justify how things ended, but there isn't. We disagreed, we broke up, there doesn't have to be more to it. Please stop trying to make this what it wasn't." Ethereal waited a long moment, expecting a rebuttal or biting word, but Tomas said nothing. He was tired of arguing and fighting, of spiting hate between the two of them because it had ended, so he let the silence stay. What else was he meant to say, that he was sorry? He had already apologized, there was nothing else. He carefully took the other man's untreated leg, something that Tomas allowed, and returned to applying the medicine to the pained scars.

Ethereal closed the bottle, setting it down on the floor next to the stool he was sitting on, and began to carefully put the woolen socks back onto Tomas' feet. An intimate gesture that felt strange and vintage now, though he had no doubt Youta did this as well.

"I just..." the voice had him pausing to glance at the ice tiefling as he seemed to be trying to figure out how to speak. "I loved you so much, I thought you felt the same, how can something like that just go away?"

He didn't respond immediately, he wasn't sure if Tomas had actually been expecting one to begin with, standing from the stool to put the numbed tiefling's shoes back on before returning his eyes to his ex's face. Pale blues staring through him, rather than at him, lips pulled into a firm line to keep any further thoughts to himself. His own hand was numb with the same concoction that was used to help, leading to his touch barely ghosting over the other's face. The softest caress, just enough to cause Tomas to refocus on him.

"It doesn't, things just change." Ethereal lightly placed a peck onto his once-lover's cheek, as much as he was willing to give, before pulling away in a move that seemed to confuse Tomas. He was done, this part of his life was over, the Deepscorcher beginning to put his gloves back on.

"Lion!" the sharp command, mixed with his name, was really the only thing that could wake such a man. He slept so well he could make the dead jealous. The human sat bolt up in his make-shift bed of bear fur, ginger-blond hair a mess and eyes blurry with sleep.

"We're leaving, it's a long trip back to headquarters and I'm not giving Leesil an excuse to substitute for me."

Lion yawned, rubbing a hand over his face and getting to his un-even feet.

"Leesil's... pretty smart, ya'know. I think they can handle it."

"That's not the point, the Tempest Spire is my domain and I'll be damned if Leesil, of all people, will be taking that from me." A goofy, tired, smile was Lion's response. "Get ready, we're leaving once I say goodbye to Amor."

"Yes, Sir. Couldn't let the less experienced Deepscorchers see the empty throne of the Stormcatcher, it might demoralize them." Ethereal ignored the mocking tone, instead turning his eyes to Tomas one more time.

"Goodbye, Tomas. Try not to get into more trouble than you can get yourself out of."

"That's... that's it?"

"Yes, that's it." a professional bow before he left the tent, ripping the emotional bandage off full-force. Was it kind the way he handled things with Tomas? No. But, he felt like that chapter of his life was fully closed now, like he wouldn't be thinking about the 'what ifs' between them so much anymore.

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