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The hinges always drip with oil, and the bolts carry no hint of rust, lest the unpleasant grating sound displease the residents. There’s time for music here, time for wardrums, and time for silence – the most terrifying of noises. As Jean steps into the Hall, the swish of his clothes barely rises above the tranquil stillness of the air. His fingers shake only a little when he adjusts his grip around the basket he’s carrying, his throat bobs ever so slightly when he swallows up the restlessness taking hold of his nerves.
He is Jean Moreau, and this visit, too, he will endure.
The door closes behind Jean noiselessly. An invisible bar locks all of his tender pieces away in the corners of his heart.
The Temple lies open in front of him, only, of course, it’s not that simple. He learned the maps of the halls and corridors before he learned how to speak; he recognized the signs carved into the walls before he learned how to read. Not many people know the Temple as well as Moreaus do, but there’s a cruel twist to that sacred knowledge, a mystery to this blessing – the Temple lives and breathes along with its residents; turn around and the way back is hidden from your sight under the deep shade of the night, under the brilliance of the morning sun. Ancient bones creak and shift the stone beneath your feet; the heartbeat of faith muffles your senses; the whisper of divinity blurs the vision. The Temple leaves the door open only where it wants to be seen, take one wrong step and be gone forever, lost in the myriad mazes stretching in every direction.
For Jean, this particular threat has long worn off. He knows – there are worse things out here than getting lost in the house of gods.
After a low-pitched prayer, murmurs his name into the wilderness blooming in front of his eyes. The space is sacred, he is all alone at the mercy of the Divine; a noiseless invocation hardly seems to be a sufficient means of defense. He chooses the god’s name carefully, syllables soft against his tongue, mellow against the sharpness his Divines promise.
“Deliver me from darkness.” His breath hisses behind his teeth, a crooked plea for the grace of daylight at the threshold of the night. “And I’ll hear your demand,” he finishes off.
The soles of his shoes barely make a sound as he allows the Temple to engulf him. The scent of incense is distant but it pulls him nonetheless, tugging him forward as the chilling weight of greenery wraps around him. The cut of light from one of the high windows lulls his mind into a faux sense of safety – but he knows, the shadows are harmless until they aren’t. Until there’s a hundred teeth and a thousand eyes following him when the night cloaks the world.
The Temple is as much stone as it is a forest. It is a fortress and a wilderness. Erected by the foothill of a mountain range, it is half human-made and half a divine projection. The lines are uneven here, ragged, trapped between the mortal realm and places where spirits dwell. It’s unachievable unless, like Jean, you were born to tip-toe its pavements; fate sealed right from the first breath – with a lungful of blessing and curse, you will die at this altar.
A long time ago, Jean decided that he would prolong his time on earth as much as he could. For Elodie’s sake, if not his own. An ancient whisper to his ear advised him so and he believed it to be the will of gods. His resolve dwindles every time he crosses the impenetrable hallways of the Temple.
His footsteps are quick, measured and silent. Do not draw attention, do not disturb… There’s a strict set of rules he’s meant to follow, but even without them, Jean wouldn’t risk bringing the wrath of the Divine upon himself. He has too much to lose – his life for once. He was designated to stand tall, serve as a bridge between the Divine and the rest of the world. He will not fail.
Jean passes the tall columns, eyes skimming over the engraved scripture, the outlines of beautiful forms and faces hiding beneath the vines. The effigies of gods and memorials of their conquest accompany his journey, reminding his own insignificance. Even in their portraits, the Divines appear larger than life; limbs stretching out, ready to snatch his hair, pull him into the cold embrace of the stone. Gods drink fear and eat hearts after all, who’s to say that their likeliness are of a different appetite.
The weight of his responsibility lifts from his shoulders for a brief second, when he catches the sight of a particular artwork. He slows down his steps, allows the mysticism of the place to wrap around him like a cocoon. Many devotees long for the beauties of impenetrable hallways of the Temple, but shake at the thought of crossing these passageways. Not Jean. Usually, he’s efficient and quick, makes no sound of protest at whatever sacrifice he makes at the steep steps of the altars.
He knows how to separate his mind from his body when horror drips down his spine and when the high ceiling of the Temple closes above his head like a sky that’s about to collapse. It’s a chore, it’s a duty, it’s a responsibility.
Now, it’s a rare moment of leniency.
Jean lifts his head, reads the inscriptions, closes his eyes briefly, before taking a step forward. His fingers spasm with anticipation, his head swims with the promise of shameful indulgence. In the distance, a windbell chimes quietly stricken by a flutter of sunrays. He takes a deep breath, a metallic tang curling behind his teeth, and then – he opens his eyes to gaze at a particular portrait of the Divinities. Here, the sketch of godly faces are unobscured, no stray vine cuts through the smooth lines edging their cheekbones, no flowers bloom in the place of their eyes. Shadows dance between the carved hollows of their profiles, emphasizing the sternness of their looks, the sanctity of their spirit.
One can easily tell that all three of them are Divine, even if they bear no real similarities beyond the awe they encourage. No matter how many times Jeans looks at them – he cannot convince himself that they are real. Not with the respect they command, certainly not with their wild beauty.
That’s the biggest trick, one he fell for unwillingly. Between the locked doors of the Temple and the offerings pressed into his shaking hands, he allowed this faith to grow, fooled himself into a real devotion delivered by dread and astonishment alike. His eyes slide from one likeness to another. The Triad. He was destined to die for them, and hates himself for knowing he’d do it readily.
By such, he should revere with the same measure. He does not. Gods play favourites, but so do the devotees.
Jean licks his lips, and suddenly he feels shy; overcomed with misplaced bashfulness. Here he is alone, here he can see and watch; he’s in the Temple – should he not worship?
The shape of a prayer leaves a sheen of moisture along the seam of his lips. The rims of Jean’s eyes grow hazy with marvel.
Art always depicts Kevin at Riko’s right side. Riko’s hand usually rests on Kevin’s left hand as if to cease the motion – there are legends, tales, myths, talking about the destruction Kevin’s left hand could bring upon this world. The glory of contained power, the risk of losing the world to the godling’s whim.
Jean believes in cruelty and magnificence but in Kevin’s mindless slaughter he does not believe; a singular credo he denies in the quiet of his mind. Kevin cares about humanity too little to destroy it, he’s always removed from the stories, pursuing his own goals until he is summoned to answer Riko’s call. Jean thinks that, in a way, Kevin and him are similar. A blasphemy he wouldn’t utter even with a blade by his throat. Still, it is this misplaced kinship that makes him pray – once, twice, thrice – with Kevin’s name on his tongue.
A quiet sigh makes it past Jean’s lips. His father would sneer at him disapprovingly if he was still alive. But there’s no one but Jean in the Temple now; only him and the illusive Gods nested deep in their shrines of hiding. Still, a chill settles upon Jean’s skin and he picks up his journey; the basket cradled against his chest, his breath stuttering just a hitch when he turns his back to the likeness of his Divines.
He skitters between the shadows, jumps over the cracks in the ground. The stone gives way to grass easily this far into the Temple. The avenues lead to nowhere, the columned corridors grow taller as if aiming to breach the ceiling and split the sky. Stars painted above his head crumble with the pieces of chipped stone. The windows are scarce here, placed high, allowing just enough light to create a spectacle of dusk no matter the time of the day.
The shadows grow.
In the Temple, despite his height and build, Jean is a small nuance. Insignificant. He could be struck by a single falling stone, swallowed and sucked dry by a single shadow, snapped in half and left to rot by a single animal. Everything is tinged by magic here, and Jean is but a mortal, locked in the tomb of greatness. For the Divine he means less than foxes snickering in their earthy den. It is the treasure he carries that counts; this flesh, his flesh; not him, never him.
His hands grip the basket tighter; its bottom already soaking red, the linen covering the contents growing heavy with moisture it soaked in. Soon, his fingers too will be gleaming wine, his skin cool with the slick coat of thick blood.
Slowly, the colonnade he’s walking grows more narrow, and the leafage above his head thickens enough to almost entirely block the view of the ceiling. The lush paint decorating the stone walls disappears beneath the moss crawling up the stones, the lines of adornments darken under the dim light. There’s a chilly feeling in the air, despite the unmistakable scent of smoke and burning incense. A few minutes later, the outline of the alcove comes to the view. Jean wills himself to move forward, his footsteps not faltering even for a moment, even though his muscles ache with tension.
He can already see the altar. He can already smell the hurt seizing his body.
The offering he carries is seldom enough to sate the hunger of the Divine. Not once has he left the Temple unharmed – he who is tasked with pleading for mercy from Riko.
Jean presses the basket closer to his chest, takes another breath, and stills himself for inevitable.
“I wouldn’t go there if I were you,” a masculine voice says behind his back, and Jean almost trips, walking the alley he’s walked dozens of times.
The gifts in his basket squelch wetly, threatening to spill. The ground seems to tilt beneath Jean’s feet. His senses sharpen instantly, the world coming to a full clarity despite the heady scent of opiate hanging in the air.
The shock is first but in a matter of seconds it is replaced with something much more burning and wild. He inhales sharply, anxiety and fury trashing beneath his skin, shredding the edges of his nerves. His shoulders set into a straight line, his jaw tenses under the pressure of a string of curses.
It happens sometimes, some idiot thinks they can sneak into the Temple, trail after Jean, and catch droplets of blessing dripping down the altar. Fools. All of them. Blissfully unaware of the risks they are taking. Usually, though, they are quick to reveal themselves, overwhelmed by the unkempt wonder. This is the first time someone has gotten this far; this close to the shrines and altars. The snarl is already pressed against his lips when Jean turns around.
“Idiot,” he spits out so sharply that his bottom lip almost splits in half. “This is no place for you, you imbecile!”
The final insult makes it past his lips when he locks his eyes with the intruder and realizes just how vastly he misjudged the situation. The realization is immediately followed with glacial clarity that he’s come to an end of his earthly journey and he only has his own stupidity to blame.
“No?” The man – no, not the man; the Divine – lifts his eyebrow at him, unimpressed with just a hint of indignation. “I was under the assumption that this,” he lifts his hands, motioning at their surroundings, “is precisely for me.”
Even if it wasn’t for the inhuman beauty, even if it wasn’t for the emerald green of his eyes, the number on his cheek is telling enough. The two strikes etched into the honeyed skin, marking the spot in the pantheon. All of this – the world, the Temple, Jean – is for him if Kevin as much as desires.
Jean’s knees shake just a little and he thinks of all the prayers uttered in Kevin’s name, hoping that at least some of them reached the Divine’s ears in the past and will buy Jean a quick and swift death now.
Although, knowing his luck, and his experience with Riko, Jean’s fumbling piety will be for nothing. He realizes – he’s not much scared of cruelty, too used to it by now, but rather of indifference towards his own fate. Here, stands the god Jean worships, a god known for his apathy towards the human race. A day to Riko’s night in the Temple always basked in eternal dusk.
Jean realizes that he’s staring a breath too long when Kevin’s eyebrow lifts higher. The absurdity of the situation suddenly hits him in the stomach, punches the blood out of his veins to spill across his cheeks, breaks his fingers under the chill of growing panic. Jean half-gasps, half-chokes on his breath as he ducks his head down, self-conscious, and so drunk on horror that it makes his head spin. He peels off his tongue from the roof of his mouth, muttering an apology, carried by the stale air squeezed out of his lungs. His body sways dangerously but he has half the mind to keep himself upright, because he knows – painfully so – that Riko hates it when he falls to his knees right away, and really there’s no real reason as to why Kevin would be any different.
Even if Jean hopes, desperately so, that he will be proven wrong.
Eyes fixed on the linen covering the basket, his mind gently coaxed to plummet into insanity, Jean’s muscles lock his body in a frozen posture, inviting the trial to begin.
His breath is shallow, uneven, and his pulse pitter-patters beneath his skin. Jean wonders if Kevin can hear it – the effect he has on Jean – wonders if the sound of his dread pleases this god.
The soft sigh he gets in lieu of a proper response, shocks Jean so hard that he almost lifts his gaze. Kevin’s closer now, Jean can feel him; every inch of his skin buzzing under the charm of the Divine. The way the universe shifts around him, the way soil and air respond to the touch of the unearthly. Quickly, Jean closes his eyes before he catches a glimpse of things he wasn’t supposed to see.
He holds his breath, waiting for the strike to come, expecting it, anticipating the snap of a hand against his cheek to resonate through the Hall before his mind registers the blunt pain, but all that echoes is a click of a tongue. Bored, displeased almost.
“Look at me.” The order snaps in the air like a whip, and Jean’s head lifts so quickly that he can feel his vertebra pop. His eyelids blink rapidly as he chases away the dimness of his own mind.
It must be shock, or the distance between them that melted significantly, but this close Kevin – one of the Divine, one of the Triad, Jean’s private patron – appears to be the glowing point of the universe, confined here in the deep grottoes of the Temple.
“Even in your prayers, you rely on inveracity, hoping I wouldn’t see the rot,” Kevin’s voice drags unpleasantly as if these words were drenched in filth.
“What?” It slips out involuntarily, but the question rings in the quiet space like a bell, along with its confusion, with the fear.
The corner of Kevin’s mouth twists in a sneer, but it is different from the one Jean has seen on Riko’s face; less malicious, more apathetic.
“Your prayer,” Kevin says as if it explained it all. “You called my name and prayed to be delivered from darkness.” His arms come to cross over his chest. “And yet here you are heading straight into the obscurity.” He jerks his head towards the steep steps leading to the altar. The one set for Riko and Riko alone. “And yet here you are closing your eyes to eclipse your sight,” he drawls, lips curling around the vowels. “I answered in vain then, you wasted my time.”
And then he’s turning around, turning away, and reality finally draws onto Jean, the understanding crashing into his senses until he feels like he’s drowning; until he chokes on his breath.
“Wait!” He exclaims, so much despair clinging to his voice that it turns the syllables salty.
His body, too, seems to move on its own; a trajectory of events out of his control. The basket falls to his feet with a sickening plash. Jean’s hand is reaching out before he can catch himself, fingers twitching, palms slick with sweat and blood alike. His fingertips graze over the exposed skin of Kevin’s wrist, leaving a smear of crimson, and then – just as quickly – Jean snatches his hand back, brain dizzy, senses set ablaze by his own audacity.
“Wait,” Jean breathes out again, hand pressed to his chest, his fingers tingling.
Kevin turns, and his right profile alone is so much more beautiful than any effigy, any portrait that Jean has seen of him, that it almost feels like a blasphemy to admire. The moment stretches long and slow, seconds trickle unhurriedly in a place where time bends and breaks against the shape of immortality.
“I did not–” Jean fumbles, throat burning, “I didn’t think you’d listen. So I wasn’t–” he cringes, realizing his own failings before he even voices them out. “Prepared.”
And then, a small miracle happens. Kevin snorts. A sound so very human, so endearing, that Jean’s entire world momentarily tilts on its axis. The shadow in the corner of Kevin’s mouth feels like a punch to a stomach; a hint of a smile, a glimmering suggestion of amusement.
“That much is obvious,” Kevin replies, and – oh – how different his voice sounds when it lacks disappointment and anger. How velvety the vowels fall into Jean’s ears. “So?” his eyebrow lifts again, and if Jean didn’t know better, he’d say that now the motion is almost teasing.
Still, Kevin is a Divine. Full of himself and expectations, and this time Jean doesn’t hesitate before dropping to his knees, an old song humming at the back of his mind, a prayer composed by his Elders – hundreds of ways to praise that he has learnt to speak like a second language.
“Not this,” Kevin stops him before Jean’s tongue kisses words into sonnets.
Jean looks up, reflexively this time, and sees Kevin peering at him from above, nose scrunched.
“Get up,” he comments, soundly mostly impatient. “I do not need you on your knees to know the difference between us.”
He says it, oh so easily, with so much conviction and graceful arrogance, voice so devoid of judgement and, by lord, unnecessary exaltation, that Jean as he scrambles to his feet has to bite at his tongue before a snicker slips past his lips.
He is, as it turns out, not fast enough.
“What’s so funny?” Kevin asks, a tiny crease forming between his eyebrows.
The corner of Jean’s mouth tips even higher. The adrenaline is drumming in his veins.
“Nothing,” he says. “You,” he adds, and yes, maybe the heavy smell of opiates is affecting him a little. He swallows up his amusement, but keeps the quirk of his lips, defenseless in the face of his god, gazing at him – for the lack of a better word – perplexed.
Kevin’s eyebrow twitches.
“Is that so?” He asks slowly.
Jean presses the back of his hand to his mouth, a futile attempt to hide his smile.
“Ungrateful,” Kevin rolls his eyes, sounding more like a fussy child than an insulted Divine. “I answer a prayer, and get laughed at in return.” He mumbles, and that anchors Jean back.
His prayer was answered.
His eyes fall back to the basket, full of gore, and then dart to the altar within the line of his sight. Jean is, at once, reminded of his role. At once, all of his scars – many of them barely healed – light up in phantom pain. Lay the offering, await Riko, pay the price he demands to soothe his anger, convince him to lift the long nights, and beg for seasons to change.
Jean isn’t sure how much of this reflects on his face but when he leans down to collect his offerings, Kevin’s hand shoots out. His left hand. For a second, a cobweb of silver scars unfolds in front of Jean’s eyes, but the image is gone within a blink of an eye, replaced with smooth skin – a perfect mirage.
“Don’t,” Kevin says warningly. “You asked for protection from darkness and I intend to see my end of the bargain. You go there,” he motions at Riko’s shrine. “And I won’t be able to help you.”
A tide of annoyance surges up to Jean’s throat. When he straightens up, his shoulders are stiff with coiled tension.
“I am Jean Moreau,” he drawls through clenched teeth. “And I am here to serve. I belong to the Temple.”
“Jean Moreau.” His name is spoken the way one would say a name of an exotic species, or unknown poet from distant lands. An unfamiliar tune on Kevin’s ancient tongue. It’s not necessarily a pleasant sound, but Jean knows that it is going to ring in his ears for years to come.
Suddenly, Kevin is leaning forward, and he might be a bit shorter than Jean, but Jean feels indefinitely smaller.
“You may belong to the Temple, but only one god came to call, right?” There’s a sharp scrutiny to his green eyes, an assessment held of the tip of the knife. “I wouldn’t be so picky if I were you.”
Words catch at the back of Jean’s throat. Shameful truth, he quickly swallows up, because gods are not omnipotent, and some things he’d prefer to keep for himself, lest these walls had ears. Even if all the gods were listening – Jean would hope it’d be Kevin who shows up; Kevin in his indifferent, exquisite and immeasurable glory.
He swallows thickly, and the corner of Kevin’s mouth twitches as if he won some game Jean wasn’t aware they were playing.
“A prayer,” Kevin says after a moment,. “Is a deal like any other, or so I’ve been told.”
A pang of wariness immediately shoots through Jean’s mind. He licks his lips, nervous. The words of his request ring beneath his scalp – he asked to be delivered from darkness, and in return he’d hear his god’s demand. A dangerous offer, a carte blanche.
“What do you want?” Jean asks throatily, a question dragged bloody across his senses – he can still smell it in the air. The gore at his feet, the price Riko demands more often than not.
The irises in Kevin’s eyes gleam like gemstones.
“There’s a game in your world,” he leans closer still as if they were confined in a mutual conspiracy. From that close Jean can smell the faint scent of myrrh and scented oils. “Played with a ball and a stick. I want you to bring me that stick next time you come here.”
Jean blinks owlishly, then blinks again. There’s no way he has heard that right.
“You want me… to bring you an exy stick as an offering?” He repeats slowly, disbelief coating his tongue.
Kevin nods seriously and backs away. Jean really doesn’t know if he should start laughing or not, the absurdity of the demand bringing more confusion than anything else.
“And in return…?” Jean trails off.
It is only because he is watching, he notices a flash of hesitancy in Kevin’s eyes. A moment of doubt that is clearly wiped clean by the smooth bravado. Kevin’s lips press into a thin line and his eyes narrow slightly as if he has made the decision.
“I’ll play the role of the messenger,” he announces, crunching down to inspect the abandoned basket. “I’ll take your offerings to the altar and recommend your wishes to Riko myself.” The corner of his lips tenses minutely under the pressure of the name.
Jean chews at the inner side of his cheek until he can taste the bitter blood on his tongue.
“Will it work?” he asks.
He waits, watching Kevin carefully lift the linen and peer at what the Elders pressed into Jean’s awaiting hands. Perhaps, with his Divine vision, Kevin can view the spectacle of violence carved into the bodies before bits of pieces of flesh were extracted from them. Perhaps, he too finds pleasure in the theatre of it all. Jean quickly shakes his head. No, that cannot be right. For all things Kevin is – he does not seem cruel. Only cynical.
The stained linen falls down to cover the content of the basket. Kevin lifts his head and his eyes meet Jean’s. The roles temporarily reversed – it’s Jean who’s looking at Kevin from above.
“I know that you people tend to forget about this,” Kevin starts wistfully, “But Riko’s my brother. I know how to handle him,” he adds, standing up.
Jean pretends that he doesn’t notice how Kevin’s left hand flexes at the mention. Aborts all the curiosity this information encourages. Instead, he takes one more look at the steps leading to Riko’s house, his shrine and the altar standing in front of it. Fear squeezes his heart, pierces his lungs, and for once he allows a bit of that terror to leak onto his face.
“In exchange for one exy racquet?” he repeats again just to make sure.
A sheen of wonder settles over Kevin’s features, brightens the rims of his eyes, and, oh, he is a god after all, because no human could ever look this brilliant in the expression of their surprise.
“Racquet.” Kevin mouths quietly, tasting the word against his tongue.
The emotion doesn’t linger too long. Jean shakes his head. Bearing witness to so much in the first place was trespassing.
Kevin extends his hand, the dripping basket propped against his hipbone, staining the ivory fabric draped across his torso. His hand is now blotched with blood, just like Jean’s.
“Make sure it’s durable,” he adds when Jean’s hand slips into his, and all Jean can think is what a strange god.
The sun scratches against the edges of the leaves when Jean walks down the Hall. Sleep still shadows his every step; he was pulled out of the bed early, a heavy bundle pressed into his hands, a hot plea whispered into his ear. To beg Riko for a fortunate outcome of some conflict brewing at the borders. To beseech him for a prosperous victory. By the weight of the offerings in his hands, Jean can tell the size of hopelessness and desperation. It does not bode well for him.
In the quiet corner of his mind, he spins the prayer he has uttered at the entrance to the Temple. It was braver this time, if not a little arrogant. Watch after me, now and at the hour of my death, he prayed with the shape of a name tucked in the corners of his mouth.
Today, there’s no exchange with Kevin to be made – he has to stand at the altar alone, and expects to die. He left a kiss on Elodie’s forehead, hoping that she’ll live a better life than her brother. Jean’s life has always been a string of lonely misfortune, he only hopes that he won’t be alone in his final moments.
When he was entering the Temple, the night was pitch black. Now patches of pale, near-transfluent daylight follow him like a shadow. A warm feeling blossoms in his chest. Its presence is addictive now that it has settled. That’s how Jean knows it’s poison.
The Temple hunches over him, pressing tons of cold stone and centuries of the past and the future upon his shoulders. The flowers peek at him as he walks by, shyly brushing their petals over his exposed skin as he weaves between the ancient pillars and destroyed monuments half-eaten by vermin. Way beyond his reach, with the corner of his eye Jean sees the rims of shadows minutely catching fire. The flicker disappears before flames take shape – an eternal flame breathing over the quilt of nature. Out of order, out of the world. The Temple follows no mundane rules. Jean’s walking over the splinter of time – now, he knows it. A clandestine knowledge not even the Elders possess, a mystery revealed in a legend about the Beginning of Days.
Kevin, as it turns out, had no qualms about disclosing Divine secrets as he weighed the exy racquet in his hands. As Kevin was showing Jean how neatly he could snatch the ball from the ground, he talked about the laws of nature set by some greater parameters. As he was taking a breath between the whistles of air around them, he whispered of foreign dimensions his ball could reach if he launched it crisply.
He’s a little bit ridiculous – that god. But it makes it easier for Jean to see him beyond the beautiful facade he puts up for humanity. There are cracks lurking beneath the surface. There are stigmas over his body. Little flecks of darkness peppering his image, reflected by the off-handed comments he throws Jean’s way.
Secrets the Elder would die to learn; secrets Jean keeps for himself.
He feels almost giddy with the occult wisdom he carries.
It almost takes his mind off the task at hand. Almost makes him forget the desperation that nearly tore him apart when the Elders handed him a bag of precious stone and gold.
“That should please him enough,” they told Jean, even though they knew that it wouldn’t.
Riko thrives on pain and suffering. The dazzling brightness of rubies will always pale when compared to freshly spilled blood. Jean would know; it will be his vitals that splash over the Divine’s image.
He promised himself that he wouldn’t be expecting Kevin to await him this time. His wishes too grand, his gifts too small. It does nothing to dull the blunt disappointment knotting his stomach when at the feet of the altar, he finds himself alone. Fury and fear tears the fabric of his mind into ribbons; a punishment for his own naivety. Kevin never promises to see him again. When he finishes spooling his tales, when their games come to an end, he simply leaves. There are no goodbyes in the land of the immortals, where life always starts with a sacrifice, a death, and a kiss.
Jean steps onto the stairs, and clears up his mind, sets wards to save the last scraps of sweet memories from turning ruddy. Quickly, he places the offerings across the altar, and parts his lips – gods cannot grace the mortal world without the proper invocation, cannot enter the realm unless summoned by their name from the high and above it all.
Still, the moment Riko’s name makes it past Jean’s lips, his Divine form drips out of the shadows hanging above the ceiling – eyes first, mouth second, the rest of his violence third.
“Jean.” It’s smooth like silk. It irritates all of the senses.
Jean already recognizes the string of pain spreading across his chest in haphazard swirls, in diagonal cuts, and misshapen bruises growing like fungi. Blood bubbles in his throat before he even registers the insult against his flesh, lungs suddenly empty of air.
When he chokes out the first cough, Riko’s hand is already gripping his hair, pulling hard until Jean’s knees buckle, his form shuddering at the pain.
“You have the nerve to come here begging again.” Riko’s voice pierces through his senses – Jean sees the shape of fury, smells its stench, as much as he hears it. “We’ll see what you’ll negotiate tonight.”
It’s the last thing Jean fully registers before a blinding pain explodes at the back of his head.
Here, in the Temple, sometimes time inverts itself inside out. For the Divine it makes no difference, they are removed from its linear structure, capable of sinking smoothly into the soft tissue of outworldly at any given moment. The gods count no hours, no days. Jean is almost used to it by now – knowing that his primitive mind and body clash with the complex alkali of their world. A single note falling out of the pleasant tune.
Rather than stepping away from the altar, he is viciously spat out by the spirit coiling around it. The crimson drips down the steps and when Jean’s feet drag over the slabs of stone, he can hear the crushed gems crunching beneath the soles of his boots. His vision sways and every part of his body feels oddly soft after being broken to pieces and curled back into its rightful shape over and over again. Butter-like bones, honey-heavy blood. Riko’s domain is night and death so he stretches his hands until he can pull Jean close enough to play his body like a fiddle – lay him on the threshold of death, peel the layers off him, and thrust him back into life destroyed but untouched.
The echo of his million deaths sighs upon every step Jean takes.
He sets his feet on the ground, allowing the soil beneath him to take his shivering. His lungs expand to the point of discomfort when Jean greedily inhales after what feels like years underwater. Slowly, his fingers start to twitch, and the ache curling beneath his skin seeps into his senses.
There’s no telling how much time has passed since he called Riko’s name. Perhaps hours, perhaps days – perhaps it only lasted a moment, but when Jean returns, he’ll learn that none of this has transpired yet. It happened only once so far, a dreadful day when Riko pushed his frail mind a bit too far, when he shoved his body backwards, and Jean spent two miserable days waiting to live through the same torture again.
Carefully, Jean stumbles to sit down by one of the columns as he methodically examines the damage. It’s a routine, it’s a dance he’s been dancing for years – thumbing at his joints to see whether they melted, skimming over his skin to see where it’s still open, admiring the massacre sitting over his heart from an awkward angle.
“Wasteful,” declares a voice above him, and Jean’s breath hitches.
He lifts his gaze, fingers digging into the damp soil, twisting at the grassy roots of reality. Kevin is not looking at him at all. His eyes are fixed at the ruby rainfall that still decorates the steps leading to Riko’s shrine. All of this will be swallowed by the Temple, eventually. A sunken treasure sitting at the bottom of the sea – once precious but quickly forgotten, destroyed by salt and unruly tides. Jean, too, will surrender himself to the same treatment when the time comes.
Maybe it will come faster than he anticipated.
Temporarily forgotten, curled against the column, the back of his head pillowed against the hardstone, he can watch Kevin uninterrupted, get his fill of happiness – as fleeting and pathetic as it might be – and entertain a thought that this, a blissful second of ecstasy, will be the cause of his death rather than the blood loss.
The moment stretches for what feels like eternity before Kevin’s attention shifts from the altar – high above – to Jean – way below.
The muscle beneath Kevin’s eye twitches, his nose scrunches, and suddenly it occurs to Jean just what a disgusting picture he must serve right now. Battered and bruised, with markings of another Divine all over his body. The shadow fanning Jean’s eyelashes shifts under the weight of fatigue and embarrassment alike. He cannot look Kevin in the eye now, knowing that he prayed to one god, and offered himself to another.
Traitor.
He begged to be watched and did nothing to make the view pleasant.
Does it disgust Kevin? Does he consider it a betrayal? A blush rises to Jean’s cheeks, an unexpected flush of self-consciousness, and suddenly he wants nothing more but to scrape his skin raw until all the damage written across his body is done by his own hand. He lifts his hand, almost absently, and digs his nails right above his heart – because if he’s to start anywhere, this seems like the best place to begin his unrevealing – but before he can strip himself into an open wound, Kevin stops him.
A warm, steady hand catching Jean’s. There’s no delicacy involved, nothing to blunt the sharp sting of pain when Kevin’s thumb presses against the veiny tendrils running beneath Jean’s skin.
“Sit still,” Kevin orders before dropping Jean’s hand and sitting right next to him.
Kevin’s knee brushes against Jean’s thigh, and there’s nothing divine in it. It’s just a press of body against body; uncaring, casual proximity which this situation demands. Jean refuses to make a big deal out of it. The shiver sneaks up on him anyway. If Kevin notices, he doesn’t point it out.
Jean sighs and rests the back of his head against the stone, his eyes falling closed; eyelids heavy, eyelashes dragged down with the temptation of easy and uncomplicated rest. He is vaguely aware that Kevin shifts by his side, hears the murmur of words that are indecipherable for him – a language out of humanity’s register. Whatever Kevin says, carries a particular melody, a stable staccato of words, even when the pitch of his voice remains stable, almost stern. It sounds nearly sterile, though Jean believes it could be beautiful too.
It is beautiful; just not by the language but rather by the voice that speaks it.
The first touch of Kevin’s fingers over his open flesh has Jean’s sucking in a sharp breath. His eyes fly open, panic seizing his muscles before his mind catches up on reality. Kevin doesn’t even tear his eyes away from the long stripe of ripped skin running down Jean’s forearm. He prods at the gash, his little finger runs along the festering edges. By now half the pain is gone, courtesy of the numbness that creeps over Jean’s body. He watches as Kevin’s fingertips skim over the injury, dipping in crimson, testing the scale of the damage.
It looks ugly. Bile gathers at the back of Jean’s throat. The sour scent of his own sweat and terror makes him squirm. He refuses to acknowledge the sting of salt gathering in the corners of his eyes. His fever would dry the tears up before they could fall anyway.
He watches Kevin – bewitching, eternal Kevin, always so far out of everyone’s reach – sully his hands with what is Jean’s burden to carry, and almost gags at the disgust rising in his throat. Something within him cracks too; the mixture of deep and unwavering sense of ungratefulness, boorish and crude. With a sinking feeling in his gut, he observes as his skin stitches back together under the scratch of Kevin’s magic, under the stitchery of his fingers.
Jean’s too filthy, too human to be touched like this by a god, to be mended back together with such care, to be turned soft when his body is designed to be broken. Jean lifts his left hand, ready to stop this foolishness all at once, when he hears a vicious hiss coming from his other side.
A fox, all ginger save for the ivory tips of his ears, sits on its haunches just a several feet away from him. His mouth is full of teeth and murder, every line of his body is taut with tension, but his golden eyes, oddly enough, are unphased in their clarity.
Kevin clicks his tongue without lifting his head.
“Ignore him,” he says. “I know this one, he’s not going to do anything.”
It’s really fucking hard to find comfort in such reassurance when the fox continues to snarl at him.
“How can you tell?” Jean asks, and that, of all things, is what makes Kevin look up with surprise.
“What?” he frowns, “Ah, no, I wasn’t talking to you.” There’s a tingle of amusement to this declaration, topped with the tiny quirk of his mouth.
Kevin holds Jean’s gaze just long enough to tease at the humor warming up his eyes, to allow Jean to get acquainted with the hint of mirth blooming across his face. Last time they saw each other, Kevin roped Jean into continuously throwing a ball in the air so that Kevin could shoot at the ornaments decorating the tops of the columns at the Grand Hall. His face was animated back then, so painfully full of life, that every once in a while Jean forced himself to look away; committed to the technicalities of his role rather than the self-indulgent admiration.
Now, they are face to face, and Jean’s throat runs a little dry.
The fox hisses again as if it could easily see into the future. See all the nights when Jean is lying in darkness and tracing his fingers over his lips, wondering if he could ever fit such a beautiful smile against his mouth. Grimace twists Jean’s features and the fox scoffs quietly. It sends chills down Jean’s spine.
He knows about the foxes of the Temple. They used to have a human form but that is no more. Unruly spirits who crossed the line one too many times and were condemned to spend the rest of their immortal lives trapped in these moral forms, under this crumbling roof. They are malicious and hateful, punishing people for what happened to them – even if Jean doubts it is a whole story.
He takes a deep breath and tries to relax again but it’s hard when these golden, knowing, eyes keep staring at him so intently. Perhaps, that’s why at first he barely registers the sound of tearing fabric. It’s the cool touch of air skimming over his chest that shocks him back into the present.
This time he moves quickly, his fingers wrapping around Kevin’s wrist before he sets his palm over his sternum.
Kevin only lifts an eyebrow at him. He does nothing to tug his hand away from Jean’s shaky grip.
“Don’t,” Jean draws through his clenched teeth, his broken nails twitching against Kevin’s cool skin.
“All my work here,” Kevin jerks at Jean’s right arm, “Will be pointless if you collapse before you reach your domain.” A spark of anger cracks the final syllables of the sentence. “You will die if I don’t get it fixed. Haven’t you prayed for me to watch over you? Why ask if you don’t want anything?” he spits out and pulls his hand away.
Frustration burns at the back of Jean’s throat and twists the features of his face. He wants everything, and that is the problem. But, of course, he can’t just confess that.
“I have nothing to give back,” he says instead, a little choked-up. “Not for this.” For his life, as insignificant as it may be for Kevin. Jean knows the cost of a soul; it is a high one.
“Then you shouldn’t pray to me,” Kevin scoffs. “Don’t ask for what you’re not ready to receive.” He makes a motion as if he wanted to back away, stand up, abandon Jean here and now.
A tiny noise of pain shakes the column of Jean’s throat and he barely catches it behind his teeth, preventing his misery from spilling. Kevin stills anyway, his eyes widening a friction as if he had heard Jean’s cry in the silence of its absence. They stare at each other for a moment and Jean realizes that he’s leaning forward, closer to the Divine – a flower turning towards the sun. Jean’s breathing turns quicker, more shallow, as he fruitlessly tries to swallow up the plea building at the back of his throat. It tastes like a disease.
“What now?” Kevin’s question is harsh but his eyes bear a touch of softness.
Jean’s hands ball into fists by his sides. He digs his nails into the cushions of his palms hard enough to bite hurt into his skin. Tremors of effort shake his wrists, his arms and shoulders as he swallows up his pride.
“Don’t go,” he whispers with a hushed tone. His teeth sink into the inner side of his cheeks as he chews on them. “I don’t want to die alone,” he adds, words carried by the murmur of his exhale.
To this, Kevin scoffs.
“You won’t die at all if you let me do my work here,” he declares with full certainty. His hand, more gentle than before, lands softly on Jean’s shoulder. Jean goes willingly when Kevin pushes him back until he’s resting against the cold marble again. “Really Jean…” he sighs, slipping his hand lower and lower, fingers hovering above the bloody mess across Jean’s chest. “You’ve paid enough of a price today. Let me service you now.”
Every word is punctuated with a slow tap over Jean’s rapidly beating heart. Kevin must hear it, must feel it – the racing of Jean’s blood in his veins, the anxious trashing inside his ribcage.
Maybe it is the pressure of his own feeling, or maybe it’s the weariness overcoming his body, but something in Jean melts. Some of his resolve, some of his anger. All these sharp-edged emotions replaced with the liquid mass of surrender. His heart is beating so fast against Kevin’s fingertips that Jean almost chokes on it.
“Alright then,” his voice is hoarse; his eyes refuse to look at anything other than the darkness flickering in the deep corners of the Temple above Kevin’s shoulder. “Do as you please.”
He suspects that Kevin would do just that either way.
… Pray for me that I may be made worthy of the promises you fulfilled.
Jean’s lips move silently around the prayer, a simple song of devotion with names carefully removed from the speech. Not now, not yet. This path Jean has to traverse alone until he reaches his destination. He intends to pay his debts.
Tonight, his hands are empty, his intentions not supported by the needs of the nation. Tonight, he is poor in gifts and selfish in his wants – but hasn’t this always been the case? Ever since Kevin first crossed his way, weren’t Jean’s duties a mere excuse? His worship has lost the contours of religion a long time ago. These days, it reminds of something much more human and prosaic. Even his prayer sounds like a heresy in his ears. An erotica rather than holy writ.
Mortification cloaks Jean’s form as he quietly moves down the hallways, feeling like these familiar walls can all but see the greed within him. He feels like a thief, here in the house of the gods, but instead of stealing one of the Divine possessions, he is smuggling one inside.
In the Books of Old, he once found a legend about a man who loved a god – Neil – so deeply that the thought of being buried away from the Temple terrified him. As he grew old, he started extracting bones out of his body to build an offering pyre out of them. Legends are full of magic, so once his hands were gone, the man asked his brother to continue cutting him into pieces until all that was left was fire and his beating heart. Then, the flames consuming him cackled out his name, and a god appeared in an instance, and dug his burning bones out of the inferno. Neil put the man back together and took him beyond the gates of death. Legend said a bit of that flame got trapped in this man’s soul. That’s how the first unruly spirit was born. That’s how Neil’s hair gained a shade of orange.
Jean has developed some fondness over this legend, even though he knows – miracles never follow the same pattern twice. Still, desperate as he is, he clings to a single truth that is repeated throughout all of the tales of the Divine. The highest act of devotion, the gift most pleasing to an immortal, is proving just how easily you can cast away your own mortality in their name.
Pearls of sweat drip down Jean’s neck and his fingers skim over the ceremonial knife strapped to his belt. One would think that he was brought to the edge enough times to stop fearing death. One wouldn’t be further from the truth in assuming that.
Somewhere deep in the leafage of the Temple, a fox barks sharply. Jean sucks in a breath but he refuses to stop, to look around, to search for the intruder. He wonders if it’s the same fox that guarded Kevin’s side that one time, or is it a different one – an even more hostile creature of the dark. In the ink velvet of the night, a flicker of warmth winks at Jean, gleaming over the lines of silence that follows. His heart rattles in his chest and Jean mindlessly tugs at the front of his shirt, hoping that air would soothe his anxiety. It does little to help.
A quiet tune finds a way to his lips. Wordless song, pretty melody. Elodie was humming it just last evening when Jean was patching himself up – some of his old wounds reopened under the pressure of exhaustion. It was then, when he was watching her braids dip in smoke coming from cleansing incense, that Jean realized that he was running out of his borrowed time. His body, ever so human, was quietly falling apart over all these years. Who could tell how many times it will endure being pushed through the threshold of death and back into the real world?
One thing is certain, he does not want to die by Riko’s hand. A fate he used to accept so easily for years, now leaves him mortified. He thinks of the legend of the man burning to the glory of Divine, and can only hope that his god will be as pleased with Jean’s offering.
The idea tastes sour in Jean’s mouth. Leaves a foul aftertaste of rot as he swallows. There’s a sense of wrongness to all of it. A silent conviction that Kevin won’t like it at all.
“He doesn’t have to like it,” Jean argues with himself quietly as he walks the path of shadows. “He merely has to answer the prayer one more time.”
It’s a trick. It’s a deceit. Jean believes that nothing will be left of him when Kevin realizes it.
“Who must answer your prayer, hm?” A voice startles Jean. There’s an unfamiliar lilt of amusement to it. A chill of danger.
Jean stops in his tracks all at once, his head snapping left to right as he tries to see through the thick darkness. But the Temple is all folds of shadows, waves of smoke rippling through the scenery like it’s no place but an eternal sea. Jean’s hand lands on the knife by his side. A ceremonial weapon but sharp enough – sharp enough to pierce through a stomach, drag through bowels, cut through a bone.
“Ah-ah-ah, I wouldn’t try that if I were you.”
Jean can hear the grin teasing the threat, making his pulse speed up even further. Still, his hand freezes before his fingers can touch the gilded handle.
“Reveal yourself,” Jean calls, and he has years of screaming in the void to thank for the stability of his own voice.
His demand is met with a gutsy snort.
“But I am right here.” The voice replies, idly. “You just refuse to see me, don’t you, Jean? Scared, are you? You shouldn’t be unless you have something to fear.”
The muscle beneath Jean’s eye twitches, and he allows his eyelids to fall down for a moment as he takes a deep breath. The reality catches up on him moments later, the humane logic adjusting to the world of Divine wonders. When Jean opens his eyes again, Neil is leaning against one of the half-collapsed porticos of some long forgotten shrines. The Temple is no longer swallowed in darkness too – silver moonlight slips inside through the high windows, and Jean realizes that he was the one drowning it in murky mist. Magic in the air shaped reality according to his mind’s inclinations.
Neil grins at him and when he tilts his hair, the strands on the top catch fire at the tips.
“You’ve been watching me,” Jean doesn’t ask, already knowing the truth.
“For a while now,” Neil admits easily, his arms crossed over his chest.
“I never called your name, though,” Jean points out, feeling almost betrayed.
“Ah,” Neil’s grin grows wider, wilder, toothier, “You didn’t. But others did,” he says as if it explained anything. A question hangs on the tip of Jean’s tongue, and then he remembers – all the noises of the Temple; foxes laughing in their dens, the echo of their barking.
“Ah.” Jean breathes out.
“Indeed.” Neil nods.
A fox, ivory ears, golden eyes sits by the Divine’s side. Neil’s hand twitches but it isn’t until the fox nudges his knee that he leans down to rest the tips of his fingers over the fox’s head. A barely touch. It looks much more intimate than it has any right to be. Momentarily, Jean recalls the legend about the pyre built of bones, and the soul retrieved from the flames. His heart, inexplicably, aches. He looks away quickly before his sick brain conjures any silly ideas.
He can feel the weight of Neil’s icy eyes on him like a physical thing. A branding burn across his skin. It’s a “I cannot hear your thoughts, but I’ll know when you act on them” type of warning.
“One can tell that you spend a lot of time with my brother,” Neil comments after a moment or two. “You’re not falling to your knees, you’re not singing praises in my name, you don’t even cower.”
Jean grimaces. His scars pulsate with awareness. He swallows thickly.
“Well, Riko doesn’t like it when–”
“I said ‘my brother’,” Neil’s voice suddenly turns sharp, and when Jean turns around, his Divine eyes are narrow and cold. “I have only one and it is not him.” It’s a declaration; it sounds like a threat.
As if his displeasure was a physical thing, instantly the air fills up with the stench of wild fire and raw metal. It’s painfully similar to the stench of blood that Riko usually carries. Jean’s stomach twists violently. The reflex kicks in before he realizes. Involuntarily, he takes a step back, his shoulders rising higher as his spine curls a little. This time, reaching for the knife doesn’t even cross his mind as his eyes widen with terror, his breath quickening. Instantly, Neil freezes, though his eyes don’t soften. The dark nightly mist around them thickens once more and, with brain fried with panic, Jean’s lips curve into a prayer as familiar as the back of his hand.
deliver me from darkness, followed by a single name Kevin, Kevin, Kevin; name said thrice for each god in Jean’s Triad.
And, of course, because by now both of them are attuned to the melody of each others’ names – Kevin is suddenly there, in the space between Neil and Jean, a beacon of hope, a splash of daylight in Jean’s vision. Kevin takes a moment to assess the scene, and evidently that’s enough for him to draw conclusions because almost immediately he is turning to Neil, frowning.
“Neil.” Is the first thing Kevin says, exasperation building up in the corner of his lip.
Not even half as fast as Jean expected him to, Neil lifts his hands in the gesture of surrender.
“Don’t blame me; that wasn’t on purpose. Not my fault you never explained to him the specifics of Three Divines.” He points out, sounding absolutely bored to death. Mostly likely on purpose.
Kevin, however, catches the bait.
“Don’t turn it against me!” He jabs his finger in Neil’s direction and takes a step forward but before he can take another – the ivory-eared fox lets out a low warning hiss.
Kevin stops, sizes Neil and the fox up and down, and scoffs. Jean is under the impression that if he could, if it wasn’t utterly childish, Kevin would stamp his feet. Ridiculous, as always. It’s… comforting. Jean covers his mouth with the back of his hand to hide a smile. In a flash of recognition in Neil’s eyes, he knows that his ruse has been seen through. The corner of Neil’s lips tips upwards, and a little bit of tension bleeds out of Jean’s muscles.
As if he could smell it, Kevin turns around to face him. He is visibly still riled up, agitation obvious in his gesture, in the flush sitting across his face.
“And anyway, Jean, what are you–” Kevin’s eyes drop to the knife secured by Jean’s hipbone. The gilded handle, the expensive silver of the blade, the scripture swirling around the length of it. It would read as a holy relic even to an illiterate man.
Slowly, Jean’s hand moves to cover the blade. From afar he can hear a muffled snort and a rustle of leaves. Seconds later, he finds himself alone with Kevin, whose eyes never once leave the knife.
“Jean…” Kevin says slowly. “Tell me that’s not a sacrificial dagger hanging by your belt.”
Jean can absolutely do that.
“That’s not a sacrificial dagger hanging by my belt,” he repeats dutifully.
It earns him a glare from Kevin.
“Tell me that’s not a sacrificial dagger without lying to me.”
That Jean can’t do. His mouth flattens and he stubbornly looks away.
“Jean,” Kevin hisses out angrily, and takes a step forward. Then another. And then another and suddenly he is within Jean’s reach, and that’s too much so Jean takes a step back. “Jean.” Kevin repeats, softer, almost pleading this time.
“What?” Jean summons all the bitterness he has, forging it into a blade hard enough to cut through his question.
It makes Kevin recoil, not out of fear but rather out of surprise. He blinks, caught off-guard, and then his face darkens again.
“You don’t have to do everything they say,” he snaps, clearly jumping to all the wrong conclusions. For some reason, it makes Jean more irritated than anything else. “Just because they demand the highest sacrifice from you, doesn’t–”
“It’s my own decision.” A truth so harsh that it makes his mouth bleed.
The silence that follows does nothing to soften the blow. Even with that, it takes a moment for the words to sink in. Jean sees the realization unfold across Kevin’s features – first rounding the edges of his anger with confusion, then twisting them into something even more vicious, hateful even, until it stirs the green of his eyes into liquid poison.
“What are you saying to me right now?” His voice molten lava, burning everything in its wake.
“What do you think?” The corner of Jean’s mouth twitches under the weight of crammed anger.
“You can’t just–”
“I’m not asking you for permission here,” Jean hisses.
“I’m not going to stand here and watch you gut yourself open in Riko’s name! You must be mad if you think I’d ever approve of that.”
Kevin moves quickly, stepping nearer, his presence overwhelming Jean’s senses. He is so close that Jean can feel the coolness of his breath against his skin. Can smell the peculiar clogging smell of myrrh and scented oils that always follows Kevin. Worst of all – he can see the hurt, the betrayal swimming in Kevin’s eyes. So very out of reach despite his human-like facade.
By now Jean’s tongue is slick with coppery taste of blood, the inner side of his cheeks bitten raw.
“You must be mad, if you think I was planning to do it for Riko,” he spits out and it comes out half-crimson and sticky. The confession drips down his chin like saliva.
From the looks of it, Jean might have as well slapped Kevin. He stumbles back as if pushed away. The Divine’s face, usually visibly warmed by the sun, pales significantly. The rigid line of his shoulders hitches – a body readying to defend itself.
“Jean…” Is what he says at last.
The smooth surface of the knife already cools the heat of Jean’s hand when he replies. A deep breath in, a long breath out.
“Kevin.”
The name sounds different now, tastes different too. Jean has uttered it in countless prayers hundreds of times, but not once did he use it when Kevin was in front of him. Not until now. Without the lace-intricate invocations, without the melodic rhythm of religious poetry, Kevin’s name on Jean’s tongue is dressed with affection alone. Sweet against lips, silky to the touch. The feeling stands naked between them, starkly colored in the dark mystery of the Temple. A silver resignation decorates its neck, and it’s like a chain enclosing Jean’s throat.
Jean’s fingers wrap around the hilt of the knife and he unhurriedly unbuckles it from his belt. It doesn’t feel as heavy as he remembers it to be. It will be easy, he realizes suddenly. It will hurt like a heartbreak, not a wound. And for that, it will be much sweeter, much different from anything Riko has ever inflicted on Jean.
“That changes things, does it not?” Jean asks, his voice trembling only slightly. Not afraid of death but rather rejection. He huffs out a hollow breath of laughter.
“No,” Kevin replies, the line of his throat working over some unspeakable spells. “No, Jean, no. I don’t know what stupid ideas you have but this–” he gestures at Jean. “Is not what I want.”
“No, but it’s what I want.”
Moonlight skitters over the polished surface of the knife, ripples of the night dancing over its edge. It takes Jean a moment to realise that his hand is shaking – the blade as unstable as his spirit.
“You don’t,” Kevin states softly.
An itch of salt that has been sitting beneath Jean’s eyelid starts to grow unbearable but he refuses to chase it away, refuses to let anything else slip. He is no child, he doesn’t believe in miracles. His fingers flex around the hilt of the dagger, nails lightly scratching the scripture engraved over the gold.
“Just let me have this,” Jean says, no – begs. And instantly hates himself for it.
“Give me one good reason.”
Oh, Jean could give Kevin hundreds of good reasons. Every day of Jean’s life could be a reason on its own. It’s the pain, the humiliation, the sense of helplessness, and the neverending circle of crushing disappointment. All of the misery he endured; all the lives he gave up on only to be gifted with them again. A cursed blessing designed specifically for his demise. What is body is broken, what is mind is defiled – neither can go back to the long lost innocence that happiness grants.
Jean could say all of that, any of that. Instead, he makes a pitiful noise at the back of his throat. A choked-out cry for mercy.
“You.”
Shame crawls over his spine, spreading its wings over Jean’s shoulders, nudging him until the weight makes him hunch his shoulders and lower his gaze. The shadows sliding across the ground and the sway of the grass makes him sick and so Jean closes his eyes.
“The one good reason,” he sucks on the open wound across his inner cheek. “Is you. There are legends… stories really,” he swallows up thickly, “that if you sacrifice yourself, and your god accepts you, you will belong to him forever.”
Rather than accept, the legends use a different word; one that can reflect the depth of one’s faith and the Divines’ favour. The mere thought of it fills Jean with dread. Accept is far from accurate but it’s safer than anything else.
There’s a beat of silence. Jean’s heart pounds loudly in his chest.
“And this is what you want, truly?” Kevin speaks quietly, and he is so very close that Jean can feel his breath ruffling through his own hair.
“Yes,” Jean nods sharply, wants to do it again too but before he can there are fingers on his chin, holding it firmly, forcing Jean’s face up. Stubbornly, it only makes him press his eyelids tighter, sealing the world away.
The tip of the knife slides against the front of Kevin’s tunic and Jean gasps – terrified suddenly of this blood, Divine blood, on his hands. He doesn’t think as he tosses the dagger to the side. All of its gold and silver and holiness disappearing in the hungry maw of the night.
Quietly, Kevin clicks his tongue.
“Even in your prayers, you rely on inveracity, hoping I wouldn’t see the rot,” he says, and the echo of their first conversation makes Jean’s head spin. Kevin must know this, must feel the shiver that wrecks through Jean’s body but continues nonetheless. “Jean… you called my name and prayed to be delivered from darkness. There’s only that many times I can lead you away from it, you imbecile.”
Pray for me that I may be made worthy of the promises you fulfilled, is what Jean asked for when he entered the Temple tonight, intending to cut himself open, and bleed, and wait in agony till his last breath to utter out a single name with hope of eternal salvation.
The night is way too bright when he opens his eyes again. Or perhaps it is not the night itself but rather the Divine shining through it. Perhaps, it is just Kevin with his half-almost-there smile.
“Do you want to know what I think?” is what he asks.
“You’ll tell me anyway,” Jean complains, faking annoyance.
“My words do tend to be described as epiphanic,” Kevin comments with some degree of smugness. “I think that you don’t want to die at all. Rather, you are afraid of wanting to live differently.”
“I belong to the Temple and–”
“If your god doesn’t want you in his temple, then why should you belong to it?”
It’s like a slap across Jean’s cheek. A knife to his stomach. A water to his lungs. If your god doesn’t want you in his temple is what Kevin said but his eyes tell something opposite. Or maybe they are simply reflecting Jean’s desires. The thumb resting on Jean’s chin takes a short but slow route, tracing a line running over Jean’s skin. There’s a scar there; a tiny old thing. A mark left not by Riko but rather by Jean himself – when he was just a boy, still safely exploring the Temple like it was an adventure, he tripped and the skin on his chin bursted open like a fruit, scarlet dripping onto the ancient tiles. Jean, just a child with enough knowledge to recognize magic but not enough self-preservation to fear it, watched the ground suck in his blood like it was water. Days later, he found flowers blooming in the very same spot.
The Temple has always wanted Jean. But now, Jean wants it back. He should say it out loud, lay out his terms, but Kevin’s eyes are so green – green like every leaf and every blade of grass growing inside the Temple. Cherries of blood hanging upon it merely as a decoration.
When Kevin lifts his little finger and delicately drags it beneath Jean’s eye, Jean doesn’t dare to move, trying to read the shapes that are being written into his skin. A word… no, a number. Jean’s skin burns with phantom fire.
“If I pray to you…” Kevin starts quietly. “Will you answer?”
Jean should say no. He says yes instead.
Nothing prepares him for Kevin dropping to his knees. Hands folded over his lap, head tilted upwards, a shine to his eye suggesting devotion. For a moment, his left hand is an inlay of white scars. For a moment, the number on his cheek disappears. Not a god but a man is kneeling in front of Jean.
“You are attentive to the voice of my pleading, you are kind to my earthly requests,” he starts and Jean instantly recognizes the words; there’s a sense of grief to them, a shadow of mourning. “Here, I ask you, Jean… leave the Temple, leave this country; live your life away and when you find yourself ready to die, if you still want… me, call my name thrice, and your prayer will be answered, and I will take all the time you have.”
“And in return?” Jean asks, a quiver to his voice. A suspicion so profane it begs for a purification of body and spirit alike.
A rosepetal shade brushes against the arch of Kevin’s cheeks, and he looks so beautiful that Jean leans down. His hand is inches away from Kevin’s face until Kevin himself tilts it to fit his bones into the warmth of Jean’s skin.
“There’s a saying in my land,” Kevin says hoarsely. “Life always starts with a sacrifice, a death, and a kiss. I’ve had my fair share of sacrifice…” he flexes his hand, “of death too… So in return…” he doesn’t say it, doesn’t have to finish.
Jean’s hands are clammy when he drags Kevin upwards until they stand face to face. Even then Jean doesn’t move his hand, cradling Kevin’s angular cheek with the marred softness of his palm. Wordlessly, he rubs the number below Kevin’s eye, covers it with the tip of his finger, and thinks that never before has Kevin looked this saintly.
Jean taller in height, Kevin larger than life, now they look each other eye to eye. Jean licks his lips. From this close, it’s easy to observe how Kevin’s eyes are trained on the flick of Jean’s bloodied tongue. And Jean has never been anything more than human but he prayed enough times to know what to do to ensure that the prayer has been answered.
He leans in tentatively, breath and heart stuttering in a matching rhythm. Everything in him thrums with anticipation and nervousness alike because he wants, needs, to do it right. If his death was supposed to be violent and full of pain, this has to be soft and tender.
Ultimately, it is Kevin – ever so impatient and demanding – who closes the gap between them. A simple press of lips against lips. So achingly inept and awkward that it makes Jean’s heart clench. He never thought his god to be a shy kisser with all the confidence and splendour he carries daily. Clumsily, Jean slides his hand into the silk of Kevin’s hair, tugging the stray lock behind his ear, only to be rewarded with a pleased hum. Kevin’s hands find their way to Jean’s waist, one holding him just above the hip, the other resting over the small of Jean’s back. They are closer now, so close that Jean feels as if he was being touched everywhere at once. He shudders and can feel Kevin’s mouth twitch, painting a self-satisfied smile into the pink swell of Jean’s mouth.
It’s infectious, really. Or maybe Jean is under the work of Divine magic. But by a work of a miracle, this happiness fits perfectly against his lips. His breathing hitches and Kevin catches his bottom lip between his teeth, sucks at the coat of diluted blood that still sits there.
The corner of Jean’s lips curls, something warm and sticky expands inside his chest, when his fingers tangle into Kevin’s hair, slowly slipping into the dream of it all. He thinks – one way or another, he laid himself open, and his god accepted him whole.
Jean wonders when the crowns of wildflowers in Elodie’s hair were replaced by the silver threads of time. He wonders when the lines of her smile were immortalised with a web of wrinkles. When the hopeful naivety grew to become an easy optimism.
Sometimes, he touches his own face – years and years of laughter and tears, leisure and hardships – and wonders if he, too, has exchanged one experience for another, gathering proofs of long life like orders of honours. He wonders if he’ll ever get to show them off.
The sea behind his window murmurs its evening song. At this hour, it gains a peculiar color – not blue, not turquoise, but emerald green. When Jean saw the view for the first time, he told Elodie that their journey was over, that this was home now. Neither of them have ever regretted this choice, building a new life here, on the coast of an island, learning another way of living. There were ups and downs, of course, but decades have passed and Jean can’t help but think – they lived a good life, even if every evening Jean’s heart ached as he gazed at the sea.
Elodie leans down, pressing a quick kiss against Jean’s greying forehead.
“I’ll drop by tomorrow.” The melodic tune of her voice hasn’t changed much since she was a child.
Jean nods at her, mirrors her smile even if it never quite reaches the same intensity, and watches her go back to her life, her house, the family she built on her own.
There’s a small pang of guilt in his chest; suddenly he wants to stand up and call after her – with the withering strength of his voice – tell her that tomorrow he will no longer be here. Not in spirit at least. If his youthful dreams weren’t all a lie of a broken mind – he suspects that his body will be gone too. Gods leave no traces of their Divine interventions.
That is, of course, if gods are real.
Time, you see, is a treacherous thing. It muddies the memories with feelings which accompanied them in the first place. Rather than remembering the wound, you will remember the blinding pain. Rather than a promise, you will remember the hope. Rather than the kiss, you will remember the lust. Love above all changes the outlines of memories – highlighting some pictures above others; giving color to what was painted in greys and blacks; molding dreams into what feels real.
With breath slow and stable, Jean sits down on his bed, his gaze once again fixed on the line of horizon. There, he can see where the emerald of the sea meets with the brightness of the disappearing sun. A moment between day and night; for a moment the whole world is the Temple.
He closes his eyes. He prepared a prayer, knowing this moment would come, but now the words, the melody, the poetry – all of them feel silly. He is not praying to the god. He merely wants for Kevin to come.
The name leaves Jean’s mouth with what he thinks will be his final breath but before his soul can slip past his lips, a hand is placed over his mouth. Gentle, cold touch, accompanied by the smell of myrrh and scented oils.
When Jean opens his eyes again, all he can see is emerald green and happiness waiting to be kissed.
“How much time do you have?” Kevin asks, playfully, as if he wasn’t already breathing timelessness into Jean’s skin.
For you? Eternity, if Jean could afford it.
Instead what he says is, “Lifetime.”
Because what else can he offer a god?
The smile Kevin sends him is blinding.
“Good,” he nods and pushes stray hair away from his face. The number on his cheek gone, replaced with a different, unfamiliar shape. “There have been some changes to the Pantheon as of recently, so I think we might as well make this an eternity.”