always and forever is forever young
your shadow on the pavement, the dark side of the sun
When Tristan said he looked awful, Mallos was inexplicably reminded of something he himself had once said to Arthur: You look like you were hit by a bus and had to get a face transplant from a pensioner. That rather more eloquent insult had been served when Tristan had been kidnapped by pirates for four days and Arthur had looked… well, like he’d been hit by a pus and had to get a face transplant from a pensioner. It had never occurred to Mallos, then or since, that he might one day look the same.

Except, you know, darker and less ghostly.

It would also never have occurred to him that if he ever did look that bad, he might not even care. It was amazing how exhaustion could dampen even vanity.

“Gracias,” was his only, mildly sarcastic response to that. To the comment on his ‘little circus’, Mallos simply rolled his eyes as if to say, like I give a shit.

Divinity and energy were connected, but not entirely one and the same thing. The magic built up inside him, burning to be used, increasingly unruly. The more tired he got the less he was able to control it, and the little… upsets, had been happening more frequently. At least this time it was only shirts and stationary. Mallos wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t responsible for the horse stampede in the courtyard three days ago.

The room was sliding in and out of focus. Mallos pushed his free hand – the one not occupied with a newborn – through his hair. Tristan’s admission that he’d missed him felt grounding, solid; something real in a world teetering on the edge of sleep. Too tired to mask his expressions as he usually would, Mallos smiled a little.

“I miss me too.”

Ángela stirred in his arm. Mallos held his breath for a second, half-expecting her to awaken, but she simply exhaled softly against his side. Since he didn’t know how long he’d been asleep for it was hard to say when she’d wake up, but it would most likely be within the hour. She never seemed to sleep for more than sixty minutes at a time and always awakened with one complaint or another.

Exhaustion rendered most of Mallos’ thinking capacity inept; Ángela occupied most of the rest of his conscious mind. He missed Tristan’s small signs of nerves and doubt, his brain not able to process the non-verbal cues until the words themselves were out. Even then, there was a delay while the dialogue and its implications registered. Mallos had known, somewhere, that he had received no visitors since his return from Amarna and also why. It was difficult to find the time or energy to care much with a newborn baby occupying his every waking minute. Hearing it spoken out loud, his first actual confrontation with his family’s deep disapproval, made it all feel suddenly very real. It was quite difficult to actually look Tristan in the eye.

“When she’s awake,” he agreed. Not that they’d have long to wait, probably. He considered asking after Tristan’s aunt and father but thought better of it.

He shifted so that he was a little more upright, careful not to move the arm which his daughter was presently holding hostage. “Well then, excellent timing,” he muttered, rubbing at the corner of his eye, “pretty sure I’m not capable of anger right now. What is it?”


i can feel you in the silence saying, “let forever be,
love, and only love, will set you free.”