IC INBOX for The Last Voyages

[magician_king]

You know what to do.

Comments

[ninefox]

"Maybe when you think you've fucked up," Jedao muses, "Take my reaction and scale it down by a factor of ten and see if you still think it's a sign that you're going to lose everything."

Because Quentin certainly isn't wrong about Jedao's default volume. Sure, most of the kneejerk fear is Quentin's history talking, but maybe some of what Jedao's saying gets magnified in translation, too.

"I honestly can't remember anyone who made me feel....peaceful, the way you do. I sort of thought it was a thing poets made up to pretend they were happy being bored," he admits.

"You're always kinder than I expect. I love the softness of your voice and the way your face scrunches up when you're exasperated with me. I love how....clear you are, about some things, and how confusing about others. It reminds me of living groundside and getting up early enough to see the sunrise, when everything was quiet and the light is pulling the sky open along its spine, but the cool opaque mist is still clinging to the grass. It's a new day, and I'm thirteen or sixteen and not a monster and anything could happen, but I don't have to do it all quite now."

He squeezes his arm around Fives' waist; he loves Fives in a completely different way, with all his wild, needy traitor's heart. Fives is safe and sturdy and the impossible miracle that he can be known, trusted, not left alone. Fives is every bit of joy he managed to scrape out of his wars. The burning brightness of his loyalty and honor and determination and bravery reminded Jedao that fighting could be bright instead of only writhing and trudging in the dark, that all his bloody skill could be worthwhile. Fives is everything Jedao has ever known he admired; Quentin is so much he didn't know, is still learning.

Jedao ducks his head, not actually blushing, but still slightly abashed; he didn't mean to say all that when he started, but he does mean it.

[callmefives]

Fives curls around them both and listens and finds, surprisingly, that he doesn't feel left out or forgotten. He just feels good, listening to them and knowing they've found their equilibrium again. That they're safe and in love and he hasn't ruined anything.

[magician_king]

"J-" complains Quentin, because how is he supposed to hold himself together when he says things like that. He clears his throat croakily, and casts the spell a bit belatedly to bring the breakfast tray in, to come hover and settle onto the coffee table in front of him, while he works on dialing back the deep, helpless blush.

"I hope you're still a quarter so enchanted when we're old and wrinkly."

[ninefox]

"Well, you've already got the hair," Jedao muses, his smile sliding slowing from stupid and smitten to a vivid shit-eating grin as he reaches for a strawberry. "It's very distinguished."

[magician_king]

He draws in a breath, and shakes his head to clear it, trying to recover from the sheer charm of him and looking to Fives for help.

"You go gray at the temples, right?"

[callmefives]

Fives shrugs, grinning at him. "Some of us have. The sergeant at my first duty station was already going grey and he couldn't have even have been eleven yet. So probably eventually, even if most of us haven't yet."

[ninefox]

"We're all going to be such sexy grandpas," Jedao predicts, wiggling with uncontained happiness, kissing the corner of Fives' mouth and then leaning back, draping himself across both laps now that Quentin has joined them on the couch.

[magician_king]

Quentin snorts, and shifts back, so he can lean next to Fives and they can accommodate Jedao in his sprawl.

"Jedao, what's your natural lifespan?"

[ninefox]

He settles and gazes up adoringly at both of them.

"Uhhh...one-fifty, one-sixty? Some people live a few decades longer obviously but I'm only forty-five and I haven't been exactly gentle on my body. But you're fixing all the clones up, right? That's going to work? Is it different for magicians?"

[magician_king]

"Definitely going to work, definitely different for magicians. Men in my time usually make it to about eighty. I could live a lot longer than that, but probably not until more that one sixty or so. But possibly way shorter; my mortality risk from magic is going to stay pretty static even if I don't follow you into a war."

Grim reality, unfortunately. He looks up to Fives;

"I'll set you all somewhere close to where a normal healthy adult Mandalorian is, and we'll do some fudging to approximate your physical age to a new lifespan- you look like you're in your mid twenties. So if they live to be a hundred you'll probably live seventy five more. Probably I'll do you all up with a range of about twenty years, give or take, so there isn't the looming certainty of death. Maybe a little longer- just to match Jedao neatly and compensate for previous bullshit."

[callmefives]

Those sound like such impossible stretches of time to him, especially when he'd never expected to live even as long as he has, let alone to ever actually be the age Quentin says he looks.

"There's, uh, not really any such thing as a normal adult Mandalorian?" Fives answers, wrinkling his face up a little. "It's not a species, or even a race, it's just a culture. A Hutt could be Mando if they were willing to follow the resol'nare. But, uh, a hundred... actually it sounds kind of impossible to even imagine." So good, probably. And scary.

[ukan]

It's surprising how much that phrase, no matter who says it to him, makes his tail wag. He wriggles and nuzzles and pushes his muzzle up against Quentin's neck. Given his habit of tearing people into bite-sized chunks that might unnerve someone who knows him less, someone who isn't currently being given every nonverbal sign a wolf has that they're glad to be there.

His tail keeps wagging but, really, he'll try to be still while Quentin naps.

A day or so after the fact:

[credere]

Shiro disappeared.

I guess her inmate or someone will say so on the network soon. I just want to let you know that I'm alright. I'm not going to do anything stupid.

[magician_king]

Oh my God. I can come over-

[Not easily, but will.]

-or can you come here?

[credere]

I'll come to you. Do you need anything?

[magician_king]

No, I'm okay. Whatever you need.

[credere]

It only takes him a moment to come to the room next door to his own, of course, and he taps on the door and calls through.

"Quentin...?"

[magician_king]

"Credence."

He says, struggling into the hallway. He's doing better- but not good enough. The bad eye remains hidden- although now under a patch rather than white bandages.

"Jesus mother of fucking fuck-"

Holding out his arms to him.

[credere]

Credence comes close, hugs him gently, carefully. He doesn't even notice which name Quentin is using, doesn't really care any more.

"I'm alright," he promises, even if the truth is that he can't bring himself to be anything. "I'm alright."

[magician_king]

"Yeah?"

He asks, chin tucking on top of his head, moving just as gingerly, mouth pressing in a tight, unhappy line.

"Did she just vanish?"

[credere]

"Yes. I didn't see her at all during port. I went to check up afterwards and she was just...gone."

He swallows dryly.

"Maybe the port was so bad for her she just decided to leave. I don't know."

[magician_king]

"No."

Says Quentin, and kisses the crown of his head.

"No- she'd never leave you if she could help it."

[credere]

Credence wants very badly for that to be true.

"I'm alright," he says again, like he's convincing himself. "I got a little bit drunk and-"

Hahaha nope.

"I got a little bit drunk afterwards. But I'm alright."

[magician_king]

"I'm amazed."

He confesses, quietly, not sure how to point out;

"You're going to get through it- even if it hits you in fits and starts."

[credere]

"Yes," he murmurs. "I am."

And it's bursting out of him, he can't not say it, he isn't sure why:

"I...I went home with somebody. After I found out."