23. FRAY

twenty-three

FRAY

T au waited, impatiently. He sat on the bed's edge, digging his toes into the floor, leaving grooves along its pale brown wood. He didn't like Oliver being alone, especially not with Benjamin. He didn't like the others casting him wary glances, either. They were trying to be discreet, and failing.

Maji had invited him to join a game of cards, far less enthusiastically than Tau was accustomed to.

If only Oliver would return.

Instead, the Fae entered the room, leaving their guardians outside the door. ó hAonghusa drifted to the window. Too close for Tau's liking. He feared they might have gotten wind of his restlessness.

"Something on your mind, my dearest Sentinel?"

Tau refrained from groaning. Even if he could be bothered to respond, he wouldn't know what to say. There were a great many things on his mind, none he could share. In doing so, it would only make into reality what he needed to face. The onus of what needed to be done promised to pulverise him, and until it was right there staring at him, Tau would continue to look elsewhere.

ó hAonghusa turned away from the window, the slide of their odd, shiny feet— shoes— a mere whisper, the weight of their eyes heavy on his back. "Has it occurred to you that you don't have to do this?"

The Fae seemed to think there was a choice. There was none. Tau knew he was responsible for the atrocities within the bloodied wastelands. More so than any of his other kin. His mountain bore the infernal in disproportionate amounts, and he had obediently captured them all, brought them to the Proxies. He had recognised so many of the creatures, once sent through the portal inside his chambered dimension, now roaming free.

Many. Many. Too many.

"What if you die?" ó hAonghusa asked.

Tau certainly hoped he wouldn't, but even with the help of his kin, there was a chance he might perish.

The door swung open, revealing his beloved and sparing Tau from needing to think about things further. Pale-faced and on the edge of panic, Oliver stumbled past his friends occupying the floor and spilt into Tau's embrace. He eased the lithe body into his lap and held firm, running his fingers through ashen locks to soothe.

No good.

Anytime they were apart, Oliver returned to him in a state much like this. Tau cast solace lights with a wave of his hand, letting them float along the white ceiling, and gave his love a great many squeezes. Until the rush of fright dwindled, and Oliver's desire for sustenance returned with vigour.

It pleased Tau to watch him indulge, that throat bobbing against harsh swallows and lips blossoming with a happy smile. Oliver had joined his friends on the floor, clumsy in his attempts to hold the cards while lying on his stomach, feet kicking behind him.

Entirely unaware of the trepidations thrust Tau's way, the glances of ambivalence.

Tau slid off the bed and to the floor. Kneeling, he caught one of Oliver's swaying feet and peeled a patterned covering off, casting it aside. He held that foot in both hands to toy with toes, until Oliver gasped with a laugh and violently twisted around to face him.

The things that vivid smile did to him.

It let him forget his worries. It made him want to bury himself deep inside that body. Cards scattered to the floor as Tau dragged Oliver closer by the foot until he had that backside perched atop his thighs. Pink collected across Oliver's face as he blinked up at him, teeth worrying the bottom lip, that smile melting into one more inviting.

"Not in front of others," Lucetta sternly reminded, and Tau's hand stopped mid-crawl toward Oliver's prick.

His touch fell away, but he raised a glare at her. Only briefly did she meet it, before turning her focus back to the cards.

"We'll go outside," Oliver breathed. He reached out, and Tau readily took his hand.

"You can't," said Samuel.

Tau rose to his full height and brought his love with him. While Oliver appeared ready to ignore Samuel, his brows furrowed at Lucetta's, "You should stay here."

Tau wanted to argue. By the looks of it, so did Oliver. He worked his jaw, his fingers tight around Tau's front. In the end, Oliver said nothing and, much to Tau's dismay, moved to gather his cards and rejoin the game.

Lying in bed that same night, Tau relaxed into his love's touch. Fingers stroked the side of his face, slowly. Soothingly. In the darkness, where moonlight reflecting against water was the only source of light, Tau saw concern in Oliver's face.

"Are you okay?" Whispered, so as not to disturb his sleeping friends.

"No."

He could admit it because Oliver couldn't hear him.

Because Tau wasn't okay. Inevitably, the walls surrounding the bloodied wasteland would collapse to spill its monstrosities into the rest of the human realm. It had already begun, and there would be no end to the bloodshed. All because he had never stopped to question.

He curled a hand around the back of Oliver's head to bring him in for a kiss, needing the comfort. Tau rolled on top, stroking down the sides of that lissom frame beneath him, and cupped his backside as legs entwined his hips. There was very little keeping them apart now, only a white garment covering Oliver's lower half. Tau rolled his hips downward, letting his love know just how much he loved him, always.

Lips parted around a heated gasp, and fingers twisted into the back of his attire, pulling too hard. Tau arched, grateful for the way the ache grounded him.

"I like it too," Oliver whispered, a certain glint in those splendid green eyes.

Tau understood what he meant. Physical aches to distract from internal ones. He pressed their foreheads together, willing Oliver to hear.

"Love."

He longed to make love again. Needed it. They weren't alone, but the others were asleep and the Fae was thankfully elsewhere. So he grabbed Oliver's prick through pallid clothing and gently kneaded, relishing in the breathless keen against his face.

"Will you two cut it out?" snapped Benjamin, off to their side.

Oliver sighed, stilling the needy buck of his hips. Tired and defeated, Tau slumped down beside him. A kiss to his forehead was better than nothing. He watched Oliver again as he settled down and closed his eyes. Watched his breathing deepen, his face twitch from things he saw in his mind.

For the entire night, Tau watched. Stroking his face every time terrible visions returned to haunt him, and eased them with a healing touch.

Tau stood doubled over inside lodgings for miners, its ceiling too low to accommodate him, leaving him to stare at a dark stone floor while he waited for Oliver. He had just completed the task of recruiting their youngest, Exudation, who came out of it in better shape than the others. Exudation had listened first, and didn't even instigate a confrontation after.

Most of his kin he'd managed to convince, Tau was certain of it. He sensed them near Malimoure before disappearing, presumably inside. And if still alive, they would have realised there was no escape other than through the truth. He didn't feel great about deceiving them, but Emergence had done similar with him and, in the end, they were correct. His kin would learn to understand, or perish in their refusal.

He glanced sideways at the other humans. No longer his, but no one else's, either. Looking lost among all the workers, coming and going, covered in soot and sweat, tools still aglow from mining into hot earth.

Samuel and Benjamin stood with Maji and Lucetta at the edifice's entrance, still vehement in their dislike of him. It was unpleasant. Like some disgusting human disease, it had fully spread into the other two. Thankfully, Oliver remained untouched by it. Something Tau feared might change, if he allowed Oliver to spend too much time away from him.

So, he refused to leave Oliver's side, even for the times he'd been told were private. It didn't matter to Tau what his love did, but was forced to wait outside certain areas, regardless.

The door opened behind him, heavy on its hinges. Oliver bumped into his back with a startled yelp. When Tau turned, he looked embarrassed.

"Uhm, you okay, baby?"

Tau attempted a nod despite the awkward angle, watching intently while Oliver rubbed a damp hand across a thigh to dry it.

His love hesitated. "I think…we need to have a chat, Sunshine."

Oh no.

Reluctantly, Tau nodded again. He expected Oliver to just talk at him, the way he usually did, but he darted to Lucetta and returned with the stelliform heart. Unfortunately, they were within range of a dwimmer-rich ambit, and since he hadn't spent precious vitality on convincing Exudation, Tau had no excuse but to oblige the request.

He transported Oliver into a chambered dimension. Instantly pulled him in and hoisted him up, fingers flexing into that backside. Oliver delivered a great many kisses to his face, but there was something on his mind. Clear in the way he patted Tau's arm, a signal to lower him.

More reluctantly still, Tau did.

"Well?" he asked, sitting to cross his legs. He clutched his knees to keep his hands from straying, even though he burned with the need to be inside Oliver.

"I'm fine, yeah." Oliver settled down before him, fidgeting with the clasps of the mantle. "It's just… Are you okay?"

Tau decided right then that he was better than ever. "Yes."

It didn't matter that the others loathed him, that even Maji and Lucetta had become so wary of him, they could barely muster conversation. As long as he had Oliver, he would be fine.

Unable to help himself, he slid his fingers into soft smokey locks of hair.

"You sure?" Oliver's eyes fluttered, the way they always did when Tau ran his fingertips across the scalp. "You've been… I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to come out with it, okay?"

Tau said nothing, only nodded and kept stroking.

"You've been up my arse, and I don't mean in the–the actual way."

He didn't know what that meant. "Explain?"

Stroke , stroke , stroke .

So soft.

"I love you with me, more than anything. But lately, it's like you don't want to leave my side for even a second. I honestly don't mind, I just want to make sure you're okay. It feels…like you're scared."

Tension burgeoned, fixing across his shoulders, turning his touch fretful.

"Yes," he admitted when Oliver remained expectant of an answer.

"You're scared to leave me alone? Why?" Oliver reached up and eased his hands away with a grimace.

Kisses to his knuckles lifted only some of the crushing tension. His fingers twitched against Oliver's. He didn't want to admit Lucetta and Maji now had an aversion to him, or that going back to Malimoure doused him with such fear, Tau wanted to crawl between the wide, magma-filled cracks outside and perish within them.

Neither did he want to hide anything from Oliver.

At length, Tau quietly uttered, "Shunned."

Oliver frowned. "What? Who did?"

He shuffled forward on his knees and wrapped his arm around Tau's neck. Tau brought his face down against that slender chest, taking comfort in the steady rhythm of heartbeats. He longed to touch. He didn't want to think about his sorrows, or the confrontation awaiting him at Malimoure. Or how he wouldn't survive being without Oliver, and contrariwise.

Forever kind, Oliver didn't push him for answers. Instead kissed him. Trailed his attention across his abdomen and downward. Although they didn't make love, Oliver ensured he felt loved. Sucked and licked and nuzzled. Told him how beautiful he was, and how adored.

They returned from the chambered dimension only when good and ready. Releasing Oliver from his hold, Tau delighted in how dishevelled his love looked, ambling to his friends still waiting for him.

The intensity of their glares and blatant dislike now bordered on loathing, nearly undoing all of Oliver's efforts. Frustration gave way to impulsivity, and as Tau made for the egress, he shoved both Samuel and Benjamin out of the way by their shoulders, taking satisfaction in their surprised grunts as they thumped to the ground.

"Whoa, what was that about?" he heard Oliver ask.

Outside, orange-hued smoke crept across basalt. Cracks within revealed magma, setting an otherwise gloomy sky ablaze. The Okto Mine was not a mine in the way Tau had come to know. Workers here scraped the surface, shielded from burning to cinders through Exudation's dwimmer. A shimmering barrier of silver rippled like water beneath the worker's feet with each step taken.

Exudation regarded Tau once he reached them, although several of their eyes remained fixated on the miners.

"Are you well?" they asked.

"No, shunned." He knew he was whining.

"By all but one."

"Oliver."

His, and his alone. He would shred anything in his path to ensure that remained true.

"I don't understand," Exudation said, "but worse things to love."

Tau glanced out across the vast expanse of black stone, the uncomfortable heat it exuded. He raised a hand, conjured dark green spheres to cool, and sent them scattering midair to the miners. Exudation looked at him with the right half of their eyes. In appreciation, he thought.

"So powerful. And much more diverse than us. Why?"

Tau shrugged, surprised to find they knew what it meant.

"Also very broken." Said with some amusement.

"Yes."

His concept of time hadn't improved, but as Tau stood staring out across dark waters, he would have sworn he'd only just been looking at magma. He turned to his love, standing at the docks by his side, and lowered to his knees. He pulled Oliver close, held him tight, burying his face into the crook of his neck. Sorrow speared his core, and it spread into Oliver. He knew, but couldn't stop it.

He loved Oliver so much. Wished he could have shown how much, more than just once.

It took all his willpower to pull back. Gently, he stroked his knuckles down Oliver's face. Looked into those deep green eyes, at the supple lips. Pressed his face against them for a kiss.

"Why do I get the feeling you're saying goodbye?" Oliver croaked against him. "Anywhere you go, I go. You have to take me with you."

No. No. Never again.

Tau wouldn't ask him or his friends to endure Malimoure a second time. Couldn't. Aware of the damage it had caused their minds. Too much. Should he fail to convince his kin to help him transport Emergence, he would need to do it on his own, and he would not risk trapping anyone else there.

With a firm hand against a slender chest, Tau rose and condensed.

"You come back here!" Oliver shouted, flailing forward to catch him. " Tau !"

His voice broke with dolour, shattering Tau's core as he flitted through the sky, the seaside town gone behind him.

High in the air, he stopped near the barrier invisible to the eye, but its pulsating mix of dwimmer and human craftsmanship was as blatant as the light hidden inside it. Tau returned to his humanoid form, a better shield against what awaited on the other side.

He hesitated, terrified. Unwilling to go.

No choice.

He tore through the barrier into the hellscape. The absolute devastation, the monstrosities thriving in it, appalled him as much now as it had the first time. Most of what he'd killed had reanimated, merged with other entities, creating yet more powerful abominations. Only a few carcasses lay about, likely killed by the Guardians who had come. Already, the perished were reclaiming their agency as Tau moved through the skies to meet the others.

Exudation, Conflagration, Emanation, Concretion, and Disgusting Wetness stood together atop the enormous corpse of a behemoth that had, mercifully, remained dead. That Infuscation wasn't there didn't surprise Tau, but the absence of the remaining three was a stinging disappointment.

"What atrocities are these?" Conflagration demanded the moment Tau's feet connected with rotting flesh. "Explain this!"

To the best of his ability, Tau did.

He told them of Emergence, the originator of the Elders. Elders who had tricked all Guardians into thinking their efforts were for humanity, when in reality, they harnessed the dwimmer for themselves, discarding remnants to decimate the human realm.

"Abominations will spill," Tau said, as certain of that as he was of his love for Oliver.

"What do we do?" asked Exudation, rightfully enraged.

"Transport Emergence to Elders."

"Emergence will kill them?" asked Concretion.

Tau paused. He had deceived them into coming here, but had no desire to follow Emergence's path so directly as to continue lying. "Yes."

"What will become of us?" asked the Wet Thing.

How was he supposed to know?

"Survive. Help humans," Tau ventured.

He hadn't expected any of it to work, but as they moved to form a circle, Tau realised he had underestimated just how detestable the very notion of lying was to him and his kin.

Beneath a vivid sky, amid blood and decay, they raised their hands. As a collective, they opened a chambered dimension. Darkness did not greet them this time. A vast greyness enveloped, instead. Tau recalled seeing it once before, after his skirmish with Ondine.

Peculiar.

His kin were equally surprised, but Tau had no answers to give them. Focused instead on Emergence, knowing where to look for them, and where to open a portal to. Their miserable existence pulsed out in echoing cries across realms, and he pulled it toward himself. He dug his feet into depthless ground, clenching his fists on luminous green ropes whipping forward and casting around a part of Emergence.

His kin caught on, reaching out with their own, a modest multicolour of cords joining his. Tau pulled, and startled. Drawing the mountain of carrion through a narrow portal required far more vitality than he had anticipated. He trembled under the strain, heard the shock of his kin nearby. Yet together, they pulled harder. Tau wrapped lengths of dwimmer around his forearms, appalled as Emergence spilt through, decayed bodies weakly flailing, moaning.

And horrified, to hear Concretion crumble down to aggregates.

A deluge of putrefaction slopped into the grey void, the sheer size of Emergence pushing Tau and the others further apart. Beyond the spreading mass, he caught sight of Conflagration, their gold carapace melting around the forearms. They hadn't even completed the task of pulling Emergence into the void yet. Not a chance he could have done this on his own.

What a liar Emergence was.

Refusing to let the others meet a similar fate, Tau put all he had into it. Rooted his feet until his toes hurt, cast more lines, wrapping them around his shoulders and arms for added support. More corpses piled in, writhing and weeping. Tau's arms cracked to the elbow. He kept his silence around the pain.

It didn't matter.

Nearly there.

A startled screech echoed. Exudation's orange lines vanished, as did their signal.

Tau cried out, hauling until vitality left him in wafts of green and his attire burned into his skin. Kept going, until Emergence filled the void with the entirety of their feculent misery.

He reached for his kin, gone from his view. Conflagration remained, barely. Wetness too, and Emanation.

Ready or not.

With a practised thought, Tau opened the portal into the antechamber, its empyreal radiance hidden once he began pushing Emergence into the shallow opening. He held out his hands, shoved his dwimmer forward. Placed every grain of might into its flow. He could take it, he was the strongest.

His face cracked. It hurt, but didn't stop him. He pushed again, harder. More of Emergence disappeared. There was so much more to go.

Emanation's signal shivered. Faded to nothing.

Conflagration diminished after.

Only now did Tau understand he had made a mistake.

He would perish like this too. He would perish and never again get to be with Oliver. See that beautiful smile, hear that sweet voice. Look into those enchanting green eyes.

But it was too late to turn back, no matter how much he longed to. All Tau needed was…

One.

Last.

Push.

A scream wrenched free, vibrating and shrill in his chest. Tau clenched his fists, his nails snapping, carapace breaking. Emerald light flowed away from him in a torrent as he summoned every bit of dwimmer left in him and more, hoping to spare the Wet Thing, at least. Until at long last, the last foetid trickles of Emergence were gone.

Tau collapsed to his hands and knees into bloodied water. He caught sight of his reflection, broken. He struggled to move, did so only when he realised he could no longer feel Inundation. Nothing but bedraggled marshlands and encroaching abominations.

He craned his neck, glancing up into vivid light. Wishing for a sign that his hopes had not been misplaced entirely.

Nothing.

Wearily, Tau pushed to his feet. He cast a baleful look at the creatures so hungry for what little was left of him.

Still no signs of Emergence wreaking promised havoc above. He wasn't so sure what he had expected. Being left to the mercy of these lands wasn't it, but it was what he deserved.

Tau did not fight the first monstrosity opening its maw around his shoulder. Didn't fight as teeth sunk into him, or as he was slung up into the air.

Descending to his demise, he glared up at the bright light.

It flickered.

Then went out.

"Applesauce."