Old Soul

Malos never told Jin about his musings on the idea of there only ever having been "one Driver for him." Not directly, anyway. For all Malos's manifest directness, he could be surprisingly, self-sabotagingly coy when he wanted to be.

(There were a lot of surprising things he could do, could be, when he wanted them. If only he ever wanted them.)

In this lifetime, whole centuries passed by without any real, human honesty between the two. And that was as it should be. As it had to be.

Others were allowed, if Jin happened to so fancy, and deposit his emotional efforts therein. In other lifetimes, they had known each other. Certainly. Beyond doubt. And they had served each other, beyond doubt.

Had danced, in ways both more and less physical. Had guarded, and gaited, and stabbed each other in the places where they didn't have hearts. And smiled, thereafter, and only in the most distant glimmer of an event horizon did anything so warm as kissing it better.

They didn't talk about it, because they didn't have to.

That automatic ease, despite the endless questions and the harmless pain, made Malos the closest he ever got to being happy.