childrenofbahamutlogs | Oh, the world is dark

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Oh, the world is dark

WHO: The XVs mostly
WHAT: figuring out timeline bullshit and living arrangements
WHERE: A set of cottages by the river
WHEN:end of 2024
WARNINGS: blanket CW for depression (Noctis), suicidal ideation (Ardyn, Cor, Ravus), and general PTSD from a bunch of men that've been through hell. See subject lines for specifics

SUMMARY: The gang's all here and then some! Now what? What do you mean you don't remember..... anything I expect you to? Bahamut did what now?

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"It would have certainly put you in her most esteemed graces," he says it with certainty, because he knows. Thinks he knows... hopes he does. After a moment, there's a dawning hesitance that chases his words. One that he tries to hide the sting of. He'll blame it on the exhaustion, and not the doubt that holds sway on his thoughts. "I believe, anyway. Unfounded accusations, as you say."

There'd never been a chance for anyone to earn that approval from his sister. Ravus had made sure of it. From pushing Lunafreya herself away to protect her, to entangling himself so deep in the thorns of the Empire that he could never pick the barbs free long enough to know someone half as decent as Gladio. More than that though, there's something about this persistence, about tracking him down like a hunter. It's the ability to do something about it. And even if it couldn't be done, the attempt would be there. Inaction doesn't much speak to either of them, Ravus thinks.

He pulls himself together long enough to swallow the lump in his throat.

"But I knew her, and I knew the measure of her heart. I think she would have loved the depth of yours."

"Unfounded my ass," Gladio says, having pivoted to look at Ravus with a frown. "I don't think you knew the measure of her heart as well as you think you did if you doubt she'd be happy that people were looking after you. Everyone who knew her said she was the kindest person they ever met. You really think a woman like that would hold some stupid decisions - made for her benefit - against her own brother? You never stopped loving her or wanting what's best for her just because you guys fundamentally disagreed. I can't see Lady Lunafreya being any different."

Sorry, Ravus, he's too disturbed by the implications of what you're saying, as an older brother himself, to really focus on just how homosexual you're being towards him.

Ravus barely holds back the startled sound when Gladio launches into it like that. There's a hurt sort of surprise to the way his eyes widen, and he can't even think to bite back. And maybe, somewhere in his heart where all the doubt and feelings of failure make their mire, there's a little slope to climb out of the muck. One Gladio demands he drag himself up on.

He's quiet a long moment while he struggles with it, while he tries not to keep sinking. Weighed down by his own resolve so long, this sort of thing he treads with all the grace of a newborn fawn. But eventually, he finds hit footing. Or tries, anyway.

"We... by the end, all we did was fight. She'd get so angry with me, she'd cry, and I'd relent because I couldn't bear knowing I'd been the cause of those tears." Ravus shakes his head, and draws his legs up closer to his chest, shoulders tucked where he folds his arms overtop his knees. For someone not far from Gladio's size, he manages to make himself miniscule like that. "Up until Altissia. When I knew the end was not far, and I knew I could not save her. Those few days... those were the quietest we ever were. She was so sickly, torn apart by the covenants."

His voice shakes at the edges, the faintest hitch in his breath that he tries to hide by breathing deep, and measuring each one.

"I never got the chance to apologize. For everything. I couldn't even think to ask if she still loved me after what I'd done. I wasn't ready to hear what I worried might be the answer. I just... I wasn't ready to lose her. In body or heart." A shuddering exhale; he'd forgotten to count that one out. "You're not wrong, though. She loved the world so much, she wanted to die for it. I can't ignore that I was part of that world too, that she must have loved me still, despite it all. But I'm afraid this hole in my heart, when I cannot beg her forgiveness, leaves room for all the worst parts of me to fill. The ones that waver. The ones that aren't enough."

"Yeah, well...you're not the only one who's ever made his little sister cry," Gladio says a touch gruffly, looking away. "But that doesn't mean she ever stopped loving you. Or that she needed an apology to know you loved her, too. I don't know if you ever told her straight up that you were doing everything you were doing for her, but she would've known. You're not good at subtle, and even if you were, I know Lady Lunafreya was smart as well as kind. I bet she saw right through you. And how could she hate you for wanting to save her from something as unfair as that bullshit prophecy? Even if she'd decided to go along with it, even if she felt it was the best thing to do...I'm sure a big part of her wished it didn't have to be that way. That was grateful to you for trying to find a way around it."

A pause, as a thought suddenly occurs to Gladio. Whether or not it's a good idea to say it, he doesn't know; he just starts speaking the thoughts aloud as they slowly crystalize in his head. "Maybe it was because you were doing that for her that she was able to do what she needed to do so bravely. She didn't have to distract herself or look selfish trying to find a way to escape her fate, because she knew that if there was a way, someone was already trying to find it for her. She could commit herself to her duty without any regrets or fears that maybe there was another way, because she had you doing the searching for her. And even if you didn't succeed, she knew someone had tried everything that was possible to try, so she could die knowing that everything that could be done, by both of you, had been done. No holding back. No doubts or half-measures - both of you put everything you had into the courses you chose. And without you...maybe she wouldn't have been able to say that."

He reaches out a hand to rest it on Ravus' shoulder. "I think, even if your paths made you guys butt heads...you might've been exactly what she needed. Somebody to advocate for her when she couldn't let herself do it for her own sake. Someone to try to save her when she couldn't ask to be saved. I think you might've been the comfort she wouldn't let herself have, but that she deserved to have. The feeling that at least to one person, she was what was most important, and to hell with the rest of the world. The person calling out how unfair it was when she wouldn't let herself think it. Even if she argued against every bit of it...I can't believe there wasn't some part of her that needed to hear it."

He's not subtle, is he? No, he supposes he can't argue that. He can't argue any of it. Because he's startled into silence, the corners of his eyes wetting with tears that don't quite fall, but blur his vision all the same.

Gladio keeps speaking, let's his thoughts roll forward until Ravus is inevitably caught in their path. Until it hits him like a sucker punch to the gut, and suddenly it's like he can't breathe. Not because his lungs won't fill- he can hear his own breath rattling in his chest- but because the relief makes it almost unbearable after all these years of suffering. That maybe it was worth it. That maybe he did spare Lunafreya even a moment of uncertainty or fear. Maybe he made a difference in her life enough to justify never knowing if she forgave him. Because even with that doubt that will always linger, if it let her live without the same agonizing, acrid guilt that eats him up inside, it was worth it all.

Ravus has to swallow down the whimper that threatens to bubble up in his throat when he tears his gaze away from Gladio.

"Damn it-" he swears under his breath, roughly scrubbing the heels of his palms against his eyelids to erase the proof of his overwhelming emotions. Don't mind that his hands come away wet, and that mismatched eyes are rimmed red. Why is he even crying? Shouldn't he be happy? Someone thinks he made a difference. Even someone that lost so much to the same drive that Ravus is now relieved to have felt. It's strange. Overwhelming. The only thing he's ever wanted in his life, and there's a chance he had it.

Before he knows it, the tears are back, as persistent and stubborn as Ravus himself, and he bares his teeth down at the dirt. He shouldn't be weak enough that relief does this to him. Or maybe it's because he's been strong too long that the debt is finally coming to collect. Either way, he swears low and in Tenebraen before finally giving in, and letting his shoulders slump. It has the benefit of leaning into Gladio's hand somewhat. Almost onto him, actually, but Ravus is too tired to worry about it now. If the other hates it, he'll move.

"I hope you're right. Truly. It is all I have ever wanted my whole life. To give her any and every measure of love. For her to know she was my whole world, and that my life was to orbit hers. If I could not save her, then to spare her."

No, the unsteady slope of his exhaustion isn't enough. His body leans into Gladio's shoulder fully, takes comfort in something solid and sure when all of him has been adrift.

Gladio wasn't trying to make Ravus cry, but between the grief he knows Ravus will be feeling for probably the entire rest of his life and just how deeply personal the things he said were, however reassuring he might have intended them to be...well, Gladio's not surprised where they've ended up. He's not sure he should regret it, either. He's pretty sure Ravus needed this release, on a bone-deep level.

He wouldn't be bothered about the leaning under any circumstances. But frankly, considering he triggered all this, he wouldn't have any business complaining about it anyway.

"I can't speak for how she thought or felt for sure, obviously, but...it makes perfect sense to me. Even if you know for sure that you're going to die...wouldn't dying be a lot easier in a world where you know someone loves you enough to try to save you, versus a world where no one bothers? I'm sure you helped her."

Ravus doesn't want him to regret it. Not for all the embarrassment it might cause Ravus himself here. Because he's going to cling to that small, impossible to know hope the way he has always clung to small, impossible to know hopes. With unyielding, iron-willed desperation that keeps him going.

It takes him a long moment to force his breathing steady. Counted as he holds them, then releases in a soft shudder. Until it's quieted again. Until the grief finds a measure of peace within itself. There is so much mourning to do, and Ravus isn't sure it will ever be done, but with a new bit of context, the overwhelming nature of it feels... Not smaller, but as if one day, it could be managed. Today isn't that day, obviously, but he's grateful in the now all the same.

Ravus doesn't lift his head from Gladio's shoulder. He's too tired.

"Thank you," he says, voice roughened a bit. "You don't owe me such comfort, but it means more than I can express."

"Comfort isn't something you make people who are suffering earn," is all Gladio says in return. But he shifts his shoulder, moving his arm out from underneath Ravus' lean to loosely drape it over the man's shoulders.

"Iggy's gonna yell at me for getting you all worked up before we've even gotten you back home."

The loose equivalent of a sympathic hug nearly does Ravus in again. He does manage to keep his breath from hitching, but only just. So instead of falling apart one more time, he simply nods, and glances over to where Ignis stood off too. If that let's him lean a little more into Gladio, he doesn't make mention of imposing.

"It's only fair you get chastised too." Some semblance of humor? Maybe. Even on a good day it can be hard to tell with Ravus, but now of all times especially. At least the next thing he huffs out, almost lightly, might make it easier to discern: "No good deed goes unpunished, isn't that right? Err, or so I've heard, anyways."

"So you've heard, huh?" Gladio smirks at him, moving the shoulder underneath Ravus to jostle him ever so slightly. "Guess you might have to start doing some good deeds and find out firsthand."

He looks back to Iggy. "Anyway...think you're ready to head back now?"

"Hush you," Ravus fires back, having to look away from that smirk. He knows he's being teased, and... he thinks he appreciates it. Anything to dull the heartache. At the question, though, Ravus nods. They shouldn't linger, he shouldn't wallow.

"I am. Good deeds to do and all that."

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Oh, the world is dark

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