The sleep is bad. Awful, even. It’s not even technically a nightmare, just a terrible restlessness. He’s worried, but he can’t quite pin down why. He wants to move, but there’s nothing to move. A little apt, considering what he just went through.

Apollo jolts awake at the sound of a door opening and closing, more than a little disoriented. He’s still at Valoren’s place, and has somehow made it onto his bed. “Valoren?” he calls out, trying to to figure out if he’s actually woken up or if his awful sleep has escalated into a vivid nightmare.

"Hey, love, it's me," Valoren says softly. He sets the tray of food down at the footboard bench and sits on the bed next to Apollo. Taking Apollo's hand, he finds that the poor Viera is still cold. Valoren kisses his knuckles.

"I brought you breakfast. I'm sorry to sneak out, but I thought perhaps you might sleep better without my tossing and turning." He gestures at the curtained window. "Mind if I let a little light in? Or we could eat in the kitchen."

Apollo props himself into a sitting position, intending to get up, but that’s clearly not going to happen. “You brought breakfast?” he repeats, his voice sounding like an absolute wreck. He offers Valoren a weary little smile. “I don’t think I’m capable of getting out of this bed right now.” He scoots a little to give Valoren more room. “Light would be nice.”

Valoren reaches over him to tie the curtain back, letting gentle golden sunlight spill across the bed. The way it shines through Apollo’s hair leaves him with a halo. Valoren smiles. “My angel,” he murmurs. He stays there, leaned over Apollo, for a moment longer, before giving him a kiss on the cheek and fetching the tray. It has two bowls of oatmeal, a small plate of sausages, and a dish of fruit.

“I know you like to eat right when you get up, so I thought you might enjoy having something hot. With breakfast being ‘important fuel for a good day’ and all that,” he quotes, a twinkle in his eyes. “I’m finally giving oatmeal another shot, just for you. However, you may find it significantly less like tasteless gruel than you’re used to!”

The sunlight noticeably perks him up, basking in the newfound warmth. “I didn’t do anything,” he says drowsily at the angel comment. “You’re the one who faced off against a malevolent ghost. And managed to keep me from getting shanked in the process.”

Apollo makes a face at the tasteless gruel comment. “Oatmeal can never disappoint me, but it can also never impress me,” he says. His nose twitches in the most rabbitlike way possible as he sniffs the air. “Although that might change today.” He tries a spoonful, his eyes instantly lighting up. “What did you put in this?”

"Love," Valoren says smugly. He takes a bite himself, nodding along as he appraises his work. "And cardamom, and my own custom blend of spices that I typically like to add to pies, the ingredients to which I will take to my grave. Plus a little brown sugar." He bonks his head affectionately against Apollo's shoulder. "Mostly love though."

He keeps sneaking glances at Apollo, smiling adoringly every time he does. Maybe if he just ignores the ghost comment, they wouldn't have to talk about it....

“Corny,” Apollo says with a smirk, but it’s clear he’s touched by Valoren’s thoughtfulness. He pats the spot next to him in the bed. “Come take a break with me.”

He’s quiet for a while, preoccupied with his breakfast, but it’s clear his mind has begun to drift somewhere else. “Love...” He swallows past the lump in his throat, which isn’t oatmeal this time. “I know you must not want to talk about it. But I need to know.” —

Valoren’s head drops, and the hair that’s escaped his lazy bun sways dangerously close to his bowl. Luckily, the bowl nearly empty.

“Shit, this was gonna come up sooner or later, huh?” he sighs. With a clink, he sets his spoon down and slumps against Apollo. “Whatever you need to know, I will tell you, and I will do so honestly.” He pauses for a moment, searching for courage, and finding it in the presence of his beloved. “Or… if you would prefer, I can simply start from the beginning.”

—

“Well, she said she was your sister...and she accused you of killing her.” Apollo says it matter-of-factly, without any indication that he’s disturbed by the latter. “Maybe you should start from the beginning, then...” He reaches forward to tuck Valoren’s stray hair back behind his ear. “If it’s too much, we can stop, alright?”

—

Valoren’s glance follows Apollo’s hand, finally meeting his eyes. He nods, smiling bravely. “Alright. Thank you.” He takes a quiet breath before continuing. “You know, I usually try to put a humorous spin on my stories, or at the very least make them entertaining. This one, though… it’s not a story I tell lightly.” He chews on his lower lip anxiously.

“You’ve heard me mention my elder sister before, Trixia. It’s no secret that she was the favorite. She had it all: strength, intelligence, beauty, and our parents’ unequivocal favor. Next to her, I was nothing. Valoren Nothing, she would call me, because to her, I was not a Stormcrow, not her family. I wasn’t anything at all.”

He toys with the ends of Apollo’s long hair absentmindedly, needing something to do with his trembling hands. Valoren wonders whether he’ll ever stop seeing her blood on them.

“She tormented me throughout my childhood and adulthood alike. My father did nothing to stop her and my mother encouraged it. She always claimed that it would toughen me up. That hiding, bruised and all but broken, on the roof above my bedroom, was good for me. That it would help me, one day, to find my spine. But it wasn’t for lack of backbone that I stopped fighting back. It was the simple, immutable fact that she had power, and I did not. My mother was convinced that I did, somewhere dormant deep inside me, and that if only I would apply myself, then I would find it. Because surely no child of hers could be as pathetic as I was, right?” Valoren laughs joylessly.

“And I suppose she was right, in the end. When the Final Days broke the skies over Ishgard, I was at the theater. It was before a show, and the audience started to transform into blasphemies — and as panic transformed them, it begot more panic and despair, which in turn transformed more people. Something had to be done. And while I had no martial prowess to speak of, I desperately wanted to save as many people as I could. So I used the only weapon at my disposal: my voice. With it, I took command of the situation, and managed to evacuate quite a few people. I did this by distracting the monsters, luring them backstage and setting fire to the curtains. I eventually stumbled out of the burning building, greeted by cheers of my troupe, but I did not escape unscathed. Driven by the powerful emotions of wanting to save people, I myself had temporarily turned into a version of a blasphemy. While this was the first such incident, it was not to be the last.”

Valoren takes a slow breath before continuing, steeling himself for the story to come.

“I retained this ability, and with it, I gained access to a new source of power: Dynamis. I did not know what it was called then, but I knew the Dark Knights of Ishgard fought using it. I sought them out, and fell under the tutelage of a woman named Arma, who trained me to fight with blade and heart alike. This training could not have at a more crucial time, because I stumbled upon what my sister had been plotting for years: she had formed a cult. My sister aimed to restore the Knights Twelve and head them as a new god-queen in Thordan’s absence. I knew that it was my duty — my fate — to stop her, but I could not hope to contend with her alone.”

Valoren goes quiet. This next part is not something he ever wanted to admit. Even to Apollo. Especially to Apollo. Especially now.

Apollo has many secrets. Things he still hasn’t even told Valoren, even now. Hell, the man only recently even discovered how old he is. And yet, he has no doubt that Valoren knows him, understands his soul, in a way that nobody ever has. He’s struggled with it, the idea that Valoren is the closest person to his heart, and yet barely knows his past better than a stranger.

Is it twisted, then, that it makes him feel some bit of relief to know that Valoren has also been holding parts of himself back? Apollo had never wanted to pry about the origins of his blasphemy form: he knew how to deal with it, and it kept Valoren safe. That was all that mattered. He’s never been the kind of person to dig into someone else’s past. It means no small thing to him now that Valoren is trusting him with his past. His terrible secrets. Rather than be shocked or pitying, it only makes Apollo love him more.

Quietly, he wraps an arm around Valoren, turning his head and burying his face in his lover’s shoulder. I’m sorry you had to suffer. I wish you hadn’t been alone. You’ll never have to go through that again as long as I’m here, he conveys without words.

—

The love that Valoren can feel from Apollo sets his stomach churning with guilt. Gods, how could he have been so selfish? So terribly, horribly, nauseatingly selfish, to keep this from him? Apollo trusted him, loved him, and Valoren had repaid that by endangering him daily.

Valoren's face slackens. This secret dies now.

"And so I gathered a team. Only two close friends, at first. Misfits just like me. People who knew what it was to be downtrodden. To be hopeless." No sugarcoating it, was there? No turning back, either. "I took that despair and twisted it. I never told you this about my power - my curse, the monster that lives inside me. But I am not the final victim of that dreadful apocalypse, and as long as I live, the Final Days will continue on in me. Because I have the ability to plant the seeds of a blasphemous transformation in others. And unlike myself, they will not transform back."

—

Well that was not what he thought Valoren was going to say.

Apollo already knew Valoren had killed his sister, that much was obvious from last night’s tribulation. But this…is different. It’s such a surprise that he’s unable to control his reaction, which is pulling away from Valoren entirely.

It doesn’t surprise him that Valoren using and pretty much betraying two close friends like that isn’t what alarms him. Valoren’s darkness is apparent: it’s what drew them to each other. Where there is sunlight, there is shadow, and Apollo’s never turned away from his own. He’s never been proud of his own fucked up morality, but personal pride has long since stopped mattering to him. And he believes Valoren when he says he couldn’t have done it alone.

“You’ve kept this to yourself the whole time?” he asks quietly. There’s no disappointment or anger in his tone: his voice is unnervingly neutral. "I believe you when you say you couldn't have done it alone, but this..." He furrows his eyebrows, as if thinking. "You can control it though, right? This...power?"

—

Valoren feels Apollo pull away, and he crumples a little. Then Apollo says that, and he briefly wishes that Apollo was right. That what happened next had to happen. That their deaths were worth it. That any of it meant something.

Valoren shakes his head, his own face unnervingly blank. Not the smooth blankness of a mask, but the uneven lumps of a once-vibrant canvas painted over in layers of white. Regardless of whether one knew there was a painting underneath, there was no way of recovering it, even should one attempt to chip away the empty facade.

“I don’t know,” he says flatly. “I don’t know whether they accepted their transformations of their own free will. Or whether this all-consuming ennui was not of their hearts, but mine. I don’t know whether I merely shut the cover on their already complete tragedies, or whether I penned the final chapters in my own hand, in their own blood. And fear I never will know.”

His emotionless visage is only belied by the way he clenches his left fist. He squeezes with such force that his nails pierce his palm, giving rise to crimson droplets. What’s a little more blood on his hands?

“However it came to be, their fates were sealed. There were seven of us that night. In retrospect, I should have known it was an ambush. And even then, a couple of them did. But they trusted me, their beloved leader, their fearless friend. Now I realize Trixia wasn’t the only one with a cult.”

Valoren’s knuckles are stark white against the sanguine puddle in his fist.

“We walked into that cathedral careful as cats and were immediately caught like mice. Trixia knocked me unconscious before I even realized it was a trap. When I awoke, it was because she woke me. The ceremony had begun, and I was to be both the first witness and final lamb. She had captured my friends — my fodder, my weapons, my puppets. Or whatever may have remained of them at that point. I can hardly call those monsters people. Yet I hesitate, for if they were not, then who’s to say what’s become of me?”

Valoren tilts his hand, spilling rose-red rivulets onto his porcelain plate. Splatter.

“She executed them one by one, as I watched from the altar I was bound to. Of course she knew what I was. Of course she wanted me to lose myself. Of course I was the final faithful offering, the catalyst for her ascension. Of course I was the lightning that would spark her holy inferno.” The canvas of his face is blank no longer. A crimson streak of hatred mars it now. “But in all her cunning foresight, it was her power that was her downfall. Her perfect hubris that sent her tumbling from that perfect pedestal that she had used to look down on me all my life. For of course, she knew, Valoren Nothing could never reach her.”

He sneers, cruel and vindictive, and flexes his fingers. It had felt so right to see them wrapped around her neck.

“And of course, she was wrong. I transformed before her, and slipped her immolating chains with ease. I slaughtered her entire cult. And then I came for her. Through my power, I made sure she finally knew that fear that had shadowed me my entire life. She felt all of it. And Trixia Stormcrow died screaming.”

—

Apollo's face is also curiously blank as Valoren tells the sordid tale. Despite himself, a smile briefly tugs at his lips as Valoren's language becomes more flowery as he goes on. Ever the poet. He could have listened to this man talk forever. Any number of terrible subjects, made palatable by that perfect prose.

"When I was younger...well. It seems like a lifetime ago to me now, but I was already two centuries old when I settled in Gridania." Memory is a curious thing. He couldn't tell you what he had eaten for breakfast two days ago, but those golden, halcyon days spent in the lush Black Shroud stand out to him, vivid and clear.

"I had never done well with being alone. That's part of the reason why I left Golmore. But even as I surrounded myself with people, I had never tried to put down roots and stay somewhere. Living in Gridania truly made me part of a community. I wanted to protect it, and see the difference I made in the lives of the people I was protecting." Apollo's hands move to Valoren's, prying them open to free them from the bite of his fingernails.

"For the first time in a long time, I had a cause. People I cared about, a life I wanted to preserve. I would have done anything in service of that goal, taken any number of lives. In hindsight, I supposed it was like a return to being a Wood Warder all over again." Apollo purses his lips. "Then war came to Gridania, and I no longer had a choice. We fought for our home, we fought for each other, we fought for our very lives. If we hadn't done it, if I hadn't done what I did, then someone else would have had to. Or worse, others would have paid the ultimate price for my indecision."

Apollo glances at Valoren. "It hurts me to think that you carry this with you. The burden of keeping secrets. The burden of not knowing if the weapon was you all along. But...I hope you know that no matter what happened, you saved peoples' lives. And your allies must have recognized the possibility of their deaths. >>

“I’ve spent a lot of time dwelling on the past. What I could have done differently, who I could have saved, what grudges the people I lost would have held. Guilt, honor, pride...none of these things matter when it comes to the tangible difference one can make in the world, and the lives you can save or make better. I leave it all behind, with each new life I live. I’m not perfect at it—I’m only human, after all. Some things are harder to let go of than others. But although others may scoff at my morals, my conscience is clear if I know that I did what had to be done.”

—

Valoren clings to Apollo's hand like a life preserver against the storm that is himself. It's noble, what Apollo is saying, and he supposes it should be comforting. And in a way, it is, because the very fact that Apollo cares to try is enough to bring warm golden light into his heart.

He only wishes he could relate to the peace Apollo has found.

Now that his story has been told, he finds his words have trickled dry. The emotion starts to wash over him now, each wave a different color tinting the canvas. Relief, that he's gotten this off his chest. Regret, that it all ended like it did. Satisfaction, that he is here to tell this story and Trixia is not. Gratitude, that Apollo is still there beside him. Melancholy, that the difference he made in this world was not a good one.

Valoren is still lost for words, but he does have his actions. And so he leans lightly against Apollo. Gently, so that his lover could pull away should he wish to, but enough to simply be closer to him.

—

Apollo doesn't hesitate to pull Valoren in closer to him. "I'm sorry to make you listen to an old man ramble," he says with a slight chuckle. "But I guess what I'm saying is...you're going to have troubles and worries all your life. You may as well do yourself a favor by at least trying to let go of a few of them." He kisses Valoren's temple. "I'm glad you told me. And for what it's worth...maybe it's naive and foolish, and maybe I'll live to eat my words. But you could never hurt me."

—

Valoren’s words aren’t even a whisper as they escape his lips. ”I hope you’re right.” As Apollo gently squeezes Valoren’s shaking hand, Valoren realizes that his lover’s hand is now just as slick with blood as his own. He glances up at Apollo and offers him a small smile; uncertain though it is, it’s the only token he can provide as tribute. “Thank you, Apollo,” he says softly. “For allowing me to be yours.”

Apollo laughs. “That’s not how it works. I’m as much yours as you are mine.” Now that the tension has dissolved, he’s all cheer again. He offers Valoren a bite of sausage. “Have you eaten yet?”

—

Valoren gestures to his empty bowl of oatmeal. “That I have!” he says. “And I must admit, you’ve made an oatmeal enjoyer of me yet. That wasn’t even half bad!”

Valoren looks down at the sausage, then up to Apollo, with a mischievous smirk. He accepts the bite entirely too sensually, eating the entire thing in one slow, deliberate bite, and licking the hand that feeds him. He chews and swallows it with a grin.

“Oatmeal is good for you too, you know.” Apollo’s eyebrows creep higher and higher at Valoren’s antics. “Don’t you think it’s a little early to be this fuckable?” he asks conversationally.

—

“A little early? Oh, darling, it’s never too early to be fuckable.” He picks up a strawberry, and eats the thing like he’s convinced that’s how strawberries and cream came to be. His attempt to lick the juice off his lips is only partially successful; there’s a bright drop right by his scar. Which he surely has no idea is there. Obviously not, from the way he looks so pleased with himself.

—