|But I love you, isn't that enough? No, he said, it's not.|
-x-
When Mira is five, her favorite things are flowers and cross-stitches in leather and the color green.
When she is fifteen, her favorite things are memories of a world that wasn't covered in earthquakes' goodbye-kisses, and clothes without zippers, and a face behind that mask.
When Spectra is born, Keith does not remember anything.
-x-
So he tries to be patient and tell her in measured eight-count beats that no, he is not her brother, instead of flippantly disregarding her like he does everyone else. This is not Spectra's sympathy (for he has none) nor Keith's brotherly affection (Keith is dead), merely a repaid debt for all the late nights she waited up over a hopeless cause.
Sodium insignias imprint themselves behind her eyelids so that she can cry no more tears, and, at last, she is silent, relenting. Now he can leave her and the whole world and that damned laboratory behind, because he's tied up all his loose strings (and they're encircled around the throats of everyone who ever scorned him, ridiculed him, ignored him).
At last, Spectra thinks, he can have his perfect existence.
-x-
He regards them all with a smirk away from apathy, looking at them but not really seeing them:
The sugar-lacquered demon and his starched sweetness, the electric blue queen and her painted-on frown, the ghostly jester and his shrill laughter, the stoic knight and his florescent speeches.
The one standing off to the side, contrasting inadvertent delicacy and sure uncertainty all at once. The one with the needy look in his eyes.
Easy target, Spectra thinks. The neediest ones are the weakest ones of all.
So he disregards the rest, the pompous court in their bright array, and asks for a name.
"G-Gus Grav," The boy stammers, then looks away abruptly, as if ashamed of his faltering voice.
Somewhere within the faint stirrings of his conscience, Keith is bewildered, and doesn't know what to make of this. So Spectra takes over smoothly, a smirk curving his lips once more because this is the only expression he knows. "I see," he says, empty words spoken only to breathe slippery reassurances into the static air.
The boy - Gus Grav, yes - glances at him, tense posture relaxing ever-so-slightly.
And with that Spectra's trap has sprung, and Gus is caught.
-x-
He has his own shadow now.
Not the jumpy, shape-shifting silhouette, that is not his, that is shadow of his old, foolish self trying to escape and slip through the floorboards.
Nothing can escape from Spectra. Once you're caught, you're caught; either in body, mind, spirit, or all three.
He feels more alive, now that he has his own shadow. And it should bother him, because he donned his carnival-esque star-studded mask to detach that part of him. But when he's walking and hears two pairs of footsteps, and when he becomes so accustomed to seeing the color green (that vibrant, rejuvenating shade that Keith's little sister had loved so much), and when he breathes in the scent of the earth (living and warm and steady), and when he lays a gloved hand casually on a shoulder clothed in cross-stitched leather, he doesn't feel weak. He is merely aware.
Aware that there is a person in this crumbling universe that has managed to anchor himself. It doesn't change things that Gus has chosen to anchor on to him; it makes no difference at all.
Vestals are quite curious creatures, he decides. They fall in love much too easily.
When Gus glances at him and hesitates for a moment, suspended in the cris-crossed airways of what is expected and what is not, Spectra decides that he is glad that he's cut out his metaphorical heart, and sold his soul.
He cannot be in love anymore, now that he doesn't have the capacity to reciprocate unfortunate twists of fate (and flawed nature). Noticing how Gus' face falls when he ignores a sidelong glance and a less meaningful inquiry, he is glad that he doesn't have the capacity to feel sorry either.
But that doesn't stop him from briefly wondering when and why Gus started loving him in the first place.
-x-
This perfect existence is not as perfect as he had imagined it.
Keith's little sister's lover (not in title, but rather in unspoken words and exchanged blushes) has defeated him more than once, and one itself is one too many.
He feels a flutter of resentment towards Keith for neglecting her so. If he'd paid her any heed than she probably would have been content with that, rather than growing up into a soldier-recruiting spitfire. Smart girl that she is, she's surrounded herself with lesser-minded males to fight her battles for her, and what they lack in intelligence they make up for in strength.
"Let me, Master Spectra," Gus says confidently.
Spectra nods, unmoving, thinking. Is he any different from Keith's little sister? They're both standing back, now (she's stealing glances at him, he knows this because he doesn't take his eyes off her), as they send their underlings into the fight. Her brash, loud Kuso Danma, and his Gus.
For a split-second he is caught by surprise.
His Gus?
His mind spins quickly to rationalize. Yes, he keeps lock and key on Gus' actions and words and physical state of existence, but when had that overshadowing control extended to the most intricate parts of Gus' spiritual self - the heart and the soul?
He'd never asked for Gus' love. He'd never demanded it. He had wanted nothing more than loyalty.
But now, he realizes, he has come to depend on this love.
And the word 'depend' is enough to stir up inklings of feelings reminiscent of fear.
-x-
If he had to liken his days to something intangible, he would liken them to that fleeting glimmer in Gus' eyes whenever he walks into a room; too short and indescribable.
And it's a simple answer, compared to all the others -
Cosmic fragrances and lightning glitter-sticks, sharp teeth and kohl liner, gossip queens and bearers of bad news, salt pillars and undercurrents, roman numerals and peach-pit radians, and to-be-or-not-to-be's that drive him wild. His train of thought crashes somewhere along these pandora-born practicalities and only one person is there to salvage him from the wreckage.
He feels anger bubbling underneath the surface of his carefully-constructed acid armor as a pale hand is extended to him, threatening to crack through the matte gloze of apathy.
Spectra Phantom does not need saving, not even from himself. So he turns away from Gus' worried gaze, gritting his teeth at the sharp-shooting sensation in his head.
Mentally, he snaps out harsh orders at Keith to stop. This is Keith's fault, this pain reception. This pathetic weakness is exactly what he'd shed when he'd donned bloody garments and bleached away all the memories of his previous past life. It's all Keith's fault.
When he wakes up hundreds of uncounted minutes later, he squints at darkness and tries to ascertain where he is. There's no sound or sight in this room, nothing but the scent of his singed clothing. He wonders if he is dead, and has to smirk, because this is still the only expression he knows, and how ironic.
The very thing he'd thought he'd killed had stabbed him in the back.
-x-
There is almost something endearing about the undiluted adoration expressed by Keith's little sister.
So saturated is her syrupy-thick brand of devotion that she jumps off of her gargantuan guardian's shoulder without a second thought, eyes smiling as she kisses the sky just before she's swooped up by the Perfect Core's winged host. He can practically hear her delighted murmurs (murmurs, that's how fast the wind is whipping around the battlefield) as she curls up into her lover's embrace and confesses that yes, it's you, it's always been you.
Spectra does not really care. Let her be in love; making her unhappy had never been his goal. And her being in love has nothing to do with the grand scheme of things.
But then there's a flash of blue in corner of his eye, and his derivative thoughts come to a standstill when he sees Gus staring at the pair longingly.
Gus knows better than to express such weak emotions around him. But, evidenced in the way his hands are nearly clasped, the boy can't help himself.
He looks back up towards the sky, at the couple with their head (and hearts) in the clouds, and ponders.
-x-
The little prince is unwise and unfit for the throne he's perched on so smugly.
At least this is what Spectra thought, dismissing the decorated child as a uppity brat with a swelled ego on a power trip, and Spectra is usually a very good judge of character.
But then the darling heir looses whatever sort of inhibition he once possessed, and wild eyes and maniacal laughter replace placating lavender and mocking smiles. For the first time in a long time, Spectra is completely wrong.
He is also completely fascinated.
The not-quite-child is almost reptilian in his mannerisms, now, cold-blooded and yellow-bellied. The soft curves of that royal face have been replaced with gaunt angles, the once glowing complexion is now washed-out and pallid. Sanity is overrated, and the creature with the spindly fingers and no reflection has learned this very well.
Spectra thinks that the little prince has meta-morphed into something else entirely (a grave-robber and a heart-eater, a prince of darkness now), and this new hatchling is very beautiful.
Verde eyes make Gus' jealousy all too apparent, but Spectra does not owe Gus his faithfulness, and Gus should know better.
Because they've been together for blended days and weeks and months, they've left behind the greedy king and his schizophrenia-afflicted court, they're running from the little prince and his hissing threats.
It is just Spectra and just Gus now; they don't need or want anyone else.
He thinks this statement is dangerously close to sentimental, so he does not say it out loud. Gus should understand that his master will not cater to his fleshly weaknesses. But the boy tilts his head mawkishly all the same.
He thinks this feeling is dangerously close to affection.
-x-
So how now; Keith is in love.
Spectra hates Keith. Despises him. Loathes him. He wants to rip out Keith's heart and crush it beneath his heel.
But he cannot. Because without Keith's heart, his body will shut down, his lungs will close themselves off from air. Keith, weak, emotional Keith, is keeping him alive. Keith is also poisoning him slowly, infiltrating the most carefully guarded corners of his mind, injecting saccharine champagne into his bloodstream.
The irony isn't funny anymore.
-x-
"M-Master Spectra?" For a moment he thinks they're back to square one, because Gus' voice is shaky and his eyes are wide and fearful.
A cherry-pink blush follows the trail of his gloved fingertips as they whisper against Gus' collarbone, and the two words, his title, linked by lifelong promises and something more, are exhaled in blissful confusion.
Spectra doesn't know what he's doing. But for now, for streetlights and hellhounds, for snakes and their shedded multicolor scales, for kings and their courts, for Gus -
he doesn't have to know. He doesn't have to plan this out with obsessive methodics. He just has to let Keith guide his motions because he's tired of listening to Keith's insistences.
Cloudy eyes, half-lidded and dazed, are watching him, waiting ever so patiently. So he takes Gus' hand in his own experimentally, brushes his lips over the knuckles, and feels vainly triumphent when the smaller boy sighs breathily and arches his spine against the wall behind him.
He doesn't know what he's doing, and he doesn't care.
-x-
Things are different between them. They're still a solitary pair - just Spectra and just Gus - but they've lost that edge of (tension) formality. Gus smiles at him openly now; Spectra knows this is the closest to happy the boy has ever been.
It's sickening how wrong that is.
He's a phantom, he walks through walls and weaves sparkled lies. He doesn't fall in love -
and he never wanted anyone to fall in love with him, either.
Crystal shines deceptively on his eyelashes, but he is no crocodile and these are not his tears.
He won't be tied down by gossamer red anymore, he won't become a seventeen-year-old drama queen with damaged cells and free radical battle wounds. And this relevation is enough to shatter whatever illusion of happiness that he pretended to have.
Gus is desperate when he walks towards the door, voice breaking pitifully. "Master!"
He should have kept walking. But something about that tone eclipses his indifference, makes him stop mid-step and turn halfway.
"I…" Gus falters like he's done so many times before. "Master Spectra, is this really what you want?"
He doesn't want anything less than the world, and Gus should know that, too. "What I want," he says, smirking by default, "has nothing to do with you."
Silence. Sudden, crushing, and stunning. He can hear the only heart in the room break.
"…I could follow you," Gus begins again, trying to pick himself up, trying to collect his toyed-with wits, "I would do anything for you!"
"I know." He's known this for all the blended days, weeks, months. This is no confession, merely a vocalized truth that's existed for so long now. So he takes another step.
"But I love you!"
And again, Spectra stops. What have you done to me, he thinks. He hears a tentative step behind him, and a softer tone of voice permeates his hazy thoughts.
"But I love you," Gus repeats, broken at last. "Isn't that enough?"
How foolish. Such a naïve assumption. Nothing less than perfect is enough for the great Phantom.
So he picks up his pace again, leather-clad profile ghosting past the doorframe, green eyes closed finitely, earthly ties severed.
"No," he says, before escaping earshot. "It's not."
-x-
When Mira is five, her favorite things are flowers and cross-stitches in leather and the color green.
When she is fifteen, her favorite things are memories of a world that wasn't covered in earthquakes' goodbye-kisses, and clothes without zippers, and a face behind that mask.
When Spectra is born, Keith does not remember anything.
-x-
So he tries to be patient and tell her in measured eight-count beats that no, he is not her brother, instead of flippantly disregarding her like he does everyone else. This is not Spectra's sympathy (for he has none) nor Keith's brotherly affection (Keith is dead), merely a repaid debt for all the late nights she waited up over a hopeless cause.
Sodium insignias imprint themselves behind her eyelids so that she can cry no more tears, and, at last, she is silent, relenting. Now he can leave her and the whole world and that damned laboratory behind, because he's tied up all his loose strings (and they're encircled around the throats of everyone who ever scorned him, ridiculed him, ignored him).
At last, Spectra thinks, he can have his perfect existence.
-x-
He regards them all with a smirk away from apathy, looking at them but not really seeing them:
The sugar-lacquered demon and his starched sweetness, the electric blue queen and her painted-on frown, the ghostly jester and his shrill laughter, the stoic knight and his florescent speeches.
The one standing off to the side, contrasting inadvertent delicacy and sure uncertainty all at once. The one with the needy look in his eyes.
Easy target, Spectra thinks. The neediest ones are the weakest ones of all.
So he disregards the rest, the pompous court in their bright array, and asks for a name.
"G-Gus Grav," The boy stammers, then looks away abruptly, as if ashamed of his faltering voice.
Somewhere within the faint stirrings of his conscience, Keith is bewildered, and doesn't know what to make of this. So Spectra takes over smoothly, a smirk curving his lips once more because this is the only expression he knows. "I see," he says, empty words spoken only to breathe slippery reassurances into the static air.
The boy - Gus Grav, yes - glances at him, tense posture relaxing ever-so-slightly.
And with that Spectra's trap has sprung, and Gus is caught.
-x-
He has his own shadow now.
Not the jumpy, shape-shifting silhouette, that is not his, that is shadow of his old, foolish self trying to escape and slip through the floorboards.
Nothing can escape from Spectra. Once you're caught, you're caught; either in body, mind, spirit, or all three.
He feels more alive, now that he has his own shadow. And it should bother him, because he donned his carnival-esque star-studded mask to detach that part of him. But when he's walking and hears two pairs of footsteps, and when he becomes so accustomed to seeing the color green (that vibrant, rejuvenating shade that Keith's little sister had loved so much), and when he breathes in the scent of the earth (living and warm and steady), and when he lays a gloved hand casually on a shoulder clothed in cross-stitched leather, he doesn't feel weak. He is merely aware.
Aware that there is a person in this crumbling universe that has managed to anchor himself. It doesn't change things that Gus has chosen to anchor on to him; it makes no difference at all.
Vestals are quite curious creatures, he decides. They fall in love much too easily.
When Gus glances at him and hesitates for a moment, suspended in the cris-crossed airways of what is expected and what is not, Spectra decides that he is glad that he's cut out his metaphorical heart, and sold his soul.
He cannot be in love anymore, now that he doesn't have the capacity to reciprocate unfortunate twists of fate (and flawed nature). Noticing how Gus' face falls when he ignores a sidelong glance and a less meaningful inquiry, he is glad that he doesn't have the capacity to feel sorry either.
But that doesn't stop him from briefly wondering when and why Gus started loving him in the first place.
-x-
This perfect existence is not as perfect as he had imagined it.
Keith's little sister's lover (not in title, but rather in unspoken words and exchanged blushes) has defeated him more than once, and one itself is one too many.
He feels a flutter of resentment towards Keith for neglecting her so. If he'd paid her any heed than she probably would have been content with that, rather than growing up into a soldier-recruiting spitfire. Smart girl that she is, she's surrounded herself with lesser-minded males to fight her battles for her, and what they lack in intelligence they make up for in strength.
"Let me, Master Spectra," Gus says confidently.
Spectra nods, unmoving, thinking. Is he any different from Keith's little sister? They're both standing back, now (she's stealing glances at him, he knows this because he doesn't take his eyes off her), as they send their underlings into the fight. Her brash, loud Kuso Danma, and his Gus.
For a split-second he is caught by surprise.
His Gus?
His mind spins quickly to rationalize. Yes, he keeps lock and key on Gus' actions and words and physical state of existence, but when had that overshadowing control extended to the most intricate parts of Gus' spiritual self - the heart and the soul?
He'd never asked for Gus' love. He'd never demanded it. He had wanted nothing more than loyalty.
But now, he realizes, he has come to depend on this love.
And the word 'depend' is enough to stir up inklings of feelings reminiscent of fear.
-x-
If he had to liken his days to something intangible, he would liken them to that fleeting glimmer in Gus' eyes whenever he walks into a room; too short and indescribable.
And it's a simple answer, compared to all the others -
Cosmic fragrances and lightning glitter-sticks, sharp teeth and kohl liner, gossip queens and bearers of bad news, salt pillars and undercurrents, roman numerals and peach-pit radians, and to-be-or-not-to-be's that drive him wild. His train of thought crashes somewhere along these pandora-born practicalities and only one person is there to salvage him from the wreckage.
He feels anger bubbling underneath the surface of his carefully-constructed acid armor as a pale hand is extended to him, threatening to crack through the matte gloze of apathy.
Spectra Phantom does not need saving, not even from himself. So he turns away from Gus' worried gaze, gritting his teeth at the sharp-shooting sensation in his head.
Mentally, he snaps out harsh orders at Keith to stop. This is Keith's fault, this pain reception. This pathetic weakness is exactly what he'd shed when he'd donned bloody garments and bleached away all the memories of his previous past life. It's all Keith's fault.
When he wakes up hundreds of uncounted minutes later, he squints at darkness and tries to ascertain where he is. There's no sound or sight in this room, nothing but the scent of his singed clothing. He wonders if he is dead, and has to smirk, because this is still the only expression he knows, and how ironic.
The very thing he'd thought he'd killed had stabbed him in the back.
-x-
There is almost something endearing about the undiluted adoration expressed by Keith's little sister.
So saturated is her syrupy-thick brand of devotion that she jumps off of her gargantuan guardian's shoulder without a second thought, eyes smiling as she kisses the sky just before she's swooped up by the Perfect Core's winged host. He can practically hear her delighted murmurs (murmurs, that's how fast the wind is whipping around the battlefield) as she curls up into her lover's embrace and confesses that yes, it's you, it's always been you.
Spectra does not really care. Let her be in love; making her unhappy had never been his goal. And her being in love has nothing to do with the grand scheme of things.
But then there's a flash of blue in corner of his eye, and his derivative thoughts come to a standstill when he sees Gus staring at the pair longingly.
Gus knows better than to express such weak emotions around him. But, evidenced in the way his hands are nearly clasped, the boy can't help himself.
He looks back up towards the sky, at the couple with their head (and hearts) in the clouds, and ponders.
-x-
The little prince is unwise and unfit for the throne he's perched on so smugly.
At least this is what Spectra thought, dismissing the decorated child as a uppity brat with a swelled ego on a power trip, and Spectra is usually a very good judge of character.
But then the darling heir looses whatever sort of inhibition he once possessed, and wild eyes and maniacal laughter replace placating lavender and mocking smiles. For the first time in a long time, Spectra is completely wrong.
He is also completely fascinated.
The not-quite-child is almost reptilian in his mannerisms, now, cold-blooded and yellow-bellied. The soft curves of that royal face have been replaced with gaunt angles, the once glowing complexion is now washed-out and pallid. Sanity is overrated, and the creature with the spindly fingers and no reflection has learned this very well.
Spectra thinks that the little prince has meta-morphed into something else entirely (a grave-robber and a heart-eater, a prince of darkness now), and this new hatchling is very beautiful.
Verde eyes make Gus' jealousy all too apparent, but Spectra does not owe Gus his faithfulness, and Gus should know better.
Because they've been together for blended days and weeks and months, they've left behind the greedy king and his schizophrenia-afflicted court, they're running from the little prince and his hissing threats.
It is just Spectra and just Gus now; they don't need or want anyone else.
He thinks this statement is dangerously close to sentimental, so he does not say it out loud. Gus should understand that his master will not cater to his fleshly weaknesses. But the boy tilts his head mawkishly all the same.
He thinks this feeling is dangerously close to affection.
-x-
So how now; Keith is in love.
Spectra hates Keith. Despises him. Loathes him. He wants to rip out Keith's heart and crush it beneath his heel.
But he cannot. Because without Keith's heart, his body will shut down, his lungs will close themselves off from air. Keith, weak, emotional Keith, is keeping him alive. Keith is also poisoning him slowly, infiltrating the most carefully guarded corners of his mind, injecting saccharine champagne into his bloodstream.
The irony isn't funny anymore.
-x-
"M-Master Spectra?" For a moment he thinks they're back to square one, because Gus' voice is shaky and his eyes are wide and fearful.
A cherry-pink blush follows the trail of his gloved fingertips as they whisper against Gus' collarbone, and the two words, his title, linked by lifelong promises and something more, are exhaled in blissful confusion.
Spectra doesn't know what he's doing. But for now, for streetlights and hellhounds, for snakes and their shedded multicolor scales, for kings and their courts, for Gus -
he doesn't have to know. He doesn't have to plan this out with obsessive methodics. He just has to let Keith guide his motions because he's tired of listening to Keith's insistences.
Cloudy eyes, half-lidded and dazed, are watching him, waiting ever so patiently. So he takes Gus' hand in his own experimentally, brushes his lips over the knuckles, and feels vainly triumphent when the smaller boy sighs breathily and arches his spine against the wall behind him.
He doesn't know what he's doing, and he doesn't care.
-x-
Things are different between them. They're still a solitary pair - just Spectra and just Gus - but they've lost that edge of (tension) formality. Gus smiles at him openly now; Spectra knows this is the closest to happy the boy has ever been.
It's sickening how wrong that is.
He's a phantom, he walks through walls and weaves sparkled lies. He doesn't fall in love -
and he never wanted anyone to fall in love with him, either.
Crystal shines deceptively on his eyelashes, but he is no crocodile and these are not his tears.
He won't be tied down by gossamer red anymore, he won't become a seventeen-year-old drama queen with damaged cells and free radical battle wounds. And this relevation is enough to shatter whatever illusion of happiness that he pretended to have.
Gus is desperate when he walks towards the door, voice breaking pitifully. "Master!"
He should have kept walking. But something about that tone eclipses his indifference, makes him stop mid-step and turn halfway.
"I…" Gus falters like he's done so many times before. "Master Spectra, is this really what you want?"
He doesn't want anything less than the world, and Gus should know that, too. "What I want," he says, smirking by default, "has nothing to do with you."
Silence. Sudden, crushing, and stunning. He can hear the only heart in the room break.
"…I could follow you," Gus begins again, trying to pick himself up, trying to collect his toyed-with wits, "I would do anything for you!"
"I know." He's known this for all the blended days, weeks, months. This is no confession, merely a vocalized truth that's existed for so long now. So he takes another step.
"But I love you!"
And again, Spectra stops. What have you done to me, he thinks. He hears a tentative step behind him, and a softer tone of voice permeates his hazy thoughts.
"But I love you," Gus repeats, broken at last. "Isn't that enough?"
How foolish. Such a naïve assumption. Nothing less than perfect is enough for the great Phantom.
So he picks up his pace again, leather-clad profile ghosting past the doorframe, green eyes closed finitely, earthly ties severed.
"No," he says, before escaping earshot. "It's not."
