Act Two, Take Two
I heard you liked self-indulgence, so I put a little self-indulgence on top of your self-indulgence.
Thirteen of them, there were now, and Azurda still outside. Minoth never knew why he counted so much - to think of filling up a stage, to number dialogue by how many have to say it? Doesn't all need to be a grand overarching metaphor, but...every group has subgroups. Every dynamic has subparts, every cast has supporting players. And not all of them get happy endings.
So thirteen there were indeed in the room, and nine of them trotted amiably out at Addam's ushering, but one remained with the other three. He didn't say anything, just...stood. Arms not crossed, legs not splayed, posture awkward and disbelonging.
"Yes, Minoth? Did you want something?" Flora was bright and obliging, if a little wary, because hey, the cowboy wasn't exactly a walking piece of home. Couldn't blame her. Couldn't...blame her.
Minoth sighed a rueful grin. "How poetic do you want me to be with that? Or literal, maybe the question is."
"I don't know." She looked to Addam for a brief second, and he looked with an appraising, shrugging face back. "Is there a reason I should want to curb your whims?"
May as well come out with it, then. "I love him."
"Th-- The baby?" Were it only so. "No, Flora, not the baby, though I'm sure I'll- I'd adore him too. Addam..."
Addam had been about to rise from his re-assumed kneeling position, but then as the words continued to tumble forth, he remained low.
"I love you. I should have said it before, when you told me. It wouldn't have been anything but true."
Flora's brightness began to dim, slightly, to shape into something darker and sharper. "Told you? Told you what? Addam, what is this?" But Addam didn't answer.
"I just had to...I just had to say that. I'll get going now, I'll be out of your hair before the little guy there wakes up. I'm sorry for...myself."
Minoth more stumbled than walked out of the room, making sure to turn away to his right so as to avoid as much looking at Addam as possible. His steps were messy, uneven, he couldn't believe how uncomposed he'd gotten, where is your stage presence, where is your mind for an exit, where is your fucking mind--
He near about fell over then, shoved by the unintended force of Addam's arms trapping his torso and one of his own arms. "Please, you can't leave." He was crying already - twenty-four wasn't much older than a boy, now was it. Suddenly Minoth felt very digusting and guilty, to such a magnitude that he might as well never have felt that way before.
"Addam, I have to leave. I'm sorry."
"Why, Minoth? Please, why?" He still hadn't let go, and the one caught arm lolled out straight ahead as if about to give narration. The answer didn't come, wouldn't come.
"This is what I wanted, the whole time. As soon as I realized, I mean. I love you - you know that, don't you? You said you did."
Wayward arm waved, now here towards gripping Addam's forearm, now there towards the escape of the threshold.
"Did you lie to me?" Cruel thing if he had, but so what? "Was it true then, but not true now?" The words didn't make sense, but if he'd reordered them they wouldn't have sounded right either. Again, cruel thing if he had, but what even is the truth when it comes to things like that?
"You're married." The only cruel truth that mattered, that matters. "I was married then." But not always, you weren't. So why was this a fucking farce?
"You think I don't know that? Damn it, Addam, stop trying to make this any harder than it has to be."
Minoth ripped the arms away, and without his gloves on he would have scratched the bare skin if his fists hadn't been balled. Undercurrent force made him want to rotate back towards Flora, to offer one more apology and one more shamefaced look, but then he'd have to look at Addam, wouldn't he, and he couldn't stomach that.
She watched his retreating figure with pursed lips. "Well, if he's gone then it's down to you to explain this to me."
Addam's own back was still turned, even he forced, maybe more compelled, to look sheepishly away.
"What can I even explain? I care for him more than I could say in words."
Pursed lips became pinched. You've only got words, to explain it to your wife here - and she's human, too, so there's none of that ether business to be had about it, if that's what you're thinking.
"And you've said this to him?" You know, with your words.
Sagging somehow more, Addam finally turned back to face her, his expression truly recalling that of a lost animal, and Flora let her own be inviting enough that he'd come and rest his forehead on the pillow next to her once again.
"As luck would have it, yes. And then as...luck wouldn't have it, he didn't quite seem to want to hear it. Not at the time, anyway."
The playwright, so she'd heard, the master of stage and scene, and the one who should know his cues and timing, then. Not so here, apparently. "So you're just going to let him go?"
"I don't have a choice, Flora. He's made up his own mind." Never mind the fact that she was suggesting he try to keep after the very object of his infidelity, when she was lying there with their newborn child in her arms...?!
"Oh, you absolute goose, as if that changes anything. He's only two strokes shy of a hopeless romantic, the way he said all that."
With that, Flora thrust the billow of covers aside and slipped past Addam out of the bed and onto her feet, Alex still in her arms.
"Where are you going?" "If you won't stop him, I will." "But you can't, the baby-" "I'm not an invalid, Addam."
It was easy (poetically so, even) to find him - not cosmopolitan lurk in the harbor, not ridiculous clambor onto the roof, but morbid perch out on the cliff where the Tirkins usually sat watching their vegetable patch. Hopeless romantic, indeed. He'd said he'd leave, but then he hadn't left yet. Hadn't jumped, hadn't run, just sat.
"You're an interesting fellow," Flora started, using her free hand to smooth her skirt forward underneath her as she took a seat next to him.
Minoth flinched, but continued his morose gaze down into the clouds. "I'd say the same about you," he allowed quietly, "but I'm not exactly sure that was a compliment."
"It's neutral, how's that?"
"Better," he conceded with a bare nod.
"If I call you a coward for not looking at me, though, that'll be negative."
His neck gave a jerk, but he acquiesced to the implicit request and met her studying eye contact. "Fair enough."
Softly, she brushed the few wayward strands of curly dark brown hair out of the baby's eyes, a device of motion for considering something. She liked putting things in order, of course, and doing so helped her corral her thoughts even as it made her seem overall all of calm, cool, and collected.
"I think I could be convinced."
Minoth's lips shaped into a rough grimace. "I don't see how that helps anything."
"Well, if I could be convinced, then maybe you could - he's already down hook, line, and sinker, you know."
Grimace growled, then escorted itself away. "Oh, I know."
Slow seconds passed. Flora studied him more. "Do you want to hold Alex?" she offered eventually.
"Huh? Oh, yeah...yes, I would like that. Very much." So Alex was passed from arms to arms, soft and delicate and small and everything in one tiny package. Everything. Life and breath and all of that.
"You know, Alex doesn't really strike me, for him."
His mother, suddenly appearing much smaller without the extra element to her silhouette, clicked her heels gently against the rocks beneath them. "No?"
"I'm thinking more Xander." And then who was he to think? He'd not sired let alone birthed the boy. After all, the thought of ever playing a part in that process was...too weird. He wasn't that human, thank the Architect.
"Xander..." Flora tried the name. "Oh, you're right, that is better. I've found that the kids with the strongest names tend to be the most empathetic."
"With the two of you as parents? I doubt he could turn out any other way, even if his name was Sid, or something."
"Sid's only short for Sidney," she countered knowingly.
"But it is short, and it is what it is."
Useless turn of phase, and they both knew it. "I hate that you're right."
"Do you? I don't think you do." It was a daunting conjecture.
Then she, as ever, quite undaunted back. "Is that so?"
More silence. Almost smiles, almost comfort, but not quite yet. Something hung in the air.
Minoth worked his jaw, scratched at the corner, furrowed his eyebrows. He seemed to be very literally figuring something out, almost calculating. If it was Addam, she'd have been able to catch the telltale wiggles in his fingers as the motions signified the physical equivalent of thoughts being picked up, set down, rearranged.
He didn't want to rearrange their lives, of course. But, of course, he wasn't even. Claim laid? No, space taken. Already taken, and not quite stolen. Role filled and fulfilled. He belonged at Addam's side. Yes, he did. Stop your whining, stupid brain, I do. I do.
And she could be convinced. "Can I kiss you?"
Flora blinked astonishment, but neither amusement nor affront. "I-- Why yes, I suppose so." I suppose so.
Mindful of the space that Alex (perhaps Xander?) needed to take up between them, Minoth leaned over and brushed his lips oh so softly across Flora's cheek.
More astonishment, this time pure and completely unconcocted. "Wha- that's it?"
He couldn't help but smile, lips and brows quirking as he huffed a laugh. "What, did that not tickle your fancy?"
"No, actually," she said, looking like she wanted to beguilingly rest chin in palm if there had been an appropriate place upon which to prop, "it was lovely. But I thought you were really going to kiss me."
"I'm not some midnight charlatan, Flora. I was honest with you here for a reason."
"Oh, I like you," Flora pronounced with a scrunch of her nose and a perk of her freckles.
"Good." Minoth leaned slightly back and crossed his arms. "That's pretty important, I'd say."
"Pretty important, indeed. What else do you even have to worry about, anyway? You're his Blade, aren't you?"
Something flushed, and violently, in Minoth's chest as the denotation left Flora's lips. I do. I am. "Yes, I'm...yes I am. I don't want to have to stop being that. Being his."
"No one said you did." No one but you yourself. Assume, and an ass, and you and me. You and I. You and I and he. Oh, and a fourth, even. Brutally quick expansion of the circle, and Minoth found himself glad of it.
"I've never had any grand gesture about it, and most likely I never will, but I swear to you, Flora, I'll protect you and Addam and this child with everything I have, for as long as I have it."
And that was supposed to be a long, long time. They were humans, Tornans, so he'd be able to bring it off right enough either way. Any way. Any way at all.
Maybe she thought so, too, but he couldn't tell. "Grand gesture, my foot. That's everything you do."
Back of hand held to forehead, if not entire arm wrapped carefully around her shoulders. "Flora, please!"
"Please, thank you, and you're welcome. You're not going anywhere."
And he was about to sigh and mark his own enthusiastic affirmation of that glorious fact when she continued: "You had better. If you didn't, I think I'd have to kick you straight in the balls."
If he even had those. "I'm holding, what, a day-old baby - are you really sure about that?"
"In consequence, and so on. I rather think I am."
That phrase dropped so casually down triggered something in the back of his mind that meant Flora knew much more about him, by way of Addam's tall and likely overly effusive tales, than just "You're his Blade, aren't you." Call it the trigger on the starting pistol, even, for the sheer snappiness of their banter that ensued. So easy, it was, too. So natural.
"Okay, now I am really going to kiss you."
"Over the baby and all?"
"I suppose he'll just have to get used to it."
"You're horrible."
"I know I am, but what are you?"
"Lovely and adorable and the perfect wife."
"You market yourself well."
"I'm a self-starter."
"And yet we haven't started kissing yet."
"Maybe I'm waiting for Addam to come and see."
Oh, that? "Flora, you are absolutely fucking horrible."
"You're lucky he's asleep, Minoth."
"Don't look at me, I didn't say anything." And he didn't say anything more, either, because Flora's eyes were meeting his with intense, fierce, searching interest.
When Addam finally emerged from the house, dragging his sorry ass behind him in mopey shame, he did indeed see them kissing, and got out a half-inflected-indignant "Getting on well without me?", only his voice cracked, and the tears threatened again, and Flora noticed.
"Oh, don't cry again, love, we're alright," she said, about to reach a hand back for her husband's but then, surprisingly enough, laying it over the back of Minoth's collar. We're alright.
"More than alright," Minoth continued, leaning into the touch even as he craned his neck back around to observe his prince. "Look how good you must have been for me, Addam. I'm sitting here on the edge of a cliff holding a baby, and neither I nor the child have gone punting off the side. Ain't that a sight?"
And Addam looked. Oh, how he looked. "Minoth...oh, you're a sight."
"For sore eyes only, or for the rest of the time, too?" Haughty accusation, dear cowboy, because it's really you making it that way and having made it that way, isn't it? But you're both complicit in the mess. In the...in the whole mess. But whatever. It's done with.
"For always." His voice cracked, again just a boy, in between the latter two syllables. "Won't you?"
"I will," Minoth answered with a nod of his ponytail. "Now come on, aren't you going to join us?"
Of a sudden, Addam hedged. "Well, now that you've put it that way, I'm a little afraid you might fall."
Minoth shrugged. "Suit yourself." And so he and Flora resumed their tender moment.
"Hey, that's not fair! Come on, it's me you should be fighting over, by rights!" They ignored him. "Neither of you two would be here in the first place if I hadn't brought you!"
"Oh, sure, in all your infinite charm," Minoth drawled after they had reluctantly broken apart once more.
"Stop making fun of me!"
"I'm not making fun, I'm agreeing. Being straight up with you...not really something I'm used to."
Not an admission to constant or even simply consistent lying, no - not outwardly, at least. The things you do to yourself when you take your self-impression down the twist. And no one can fix that, not really. Not even the closest external forces can get down inside. Not truly.
"I hold your honesty closer to my heart than a great many things, Minoth."
And there it was. "Addam...I'm sorry to have ever disappointed."
"No." Addam shook his head. "You never have. Not ever."
Not ever? Don't idealize, my prince, I'm not perfect. And I'm not simple enough to cookie-cut either, nowhere near, but then you know that, through and through you must. And yet you embrace me, the idea of me, anyway.
"Well then, keep going with your little diatribe. I thought it was pretty cute - didn't you, Flora?"
Her chin was dug into his shoulder as she continued to look back at Addam. Rather inconvenient placement, our beloved prince, don't you think? But, she didn't say as much, merely marking it, "Mhm, absolutely endearing."
"Diatribe? I spoke nothing but the truth. My own Blade making out with my wife and holding my child without me - on the outskirts of my land, no less! It's enough to make anyone jealous."
Jealousy - oh, please, not that. Anything but that. "Just like I said. Cute. Now stop seesawing, you've got us both wrapped around your little finger and you know it."
"I think that goes all three ways, Minoth," Flora reminded him, a touch of victoriousness creeping into her voice.
"Hmm...you may be right, Flora." Minoth rolled his eyes up to think about something for a moment, then brought them back down with the conclusion. "The little one can be our central axis, then."
Addam near about vibrated in the continuation of his huffing. "Yes, whatever, that suits me just fine. Now if I could please hold him?"
"And a kiss into the bargain?" Minoth asked slyly as he handed the bundle over.
The poor petulant prince got two for the price of one, in fact, as his companions looped arms around his neck, laced fingers together, and planted twin smooches on his cheeks. Then, their embrace became more reposed. They all just took the time to breathe. Breathe together.
Flora spoke first. "He suggested the name Xander, love. What do you think of that?"
"It makes him sound terribly mature. Can we keep calling him Alex, at least for a little while?"
"Hey, he's not my kid," came Minoth's not-quite-brash interjection. "Do what you like."
"You almost sound offended, Minoth," Addam prodded.
"Not me. I've never been in a better mood."
Leaning his head down, over and against Flora's, Addam considered that. "I don't know whether to be disappointed or glad if that's true."
"What, you take some personal issue with my happiness, all of a sudden? Come on, Prince, pick a side!"
"Not between you and my wife, I won't. No no, that won't stand."
The looping arms now sagged in their grip, and eventually the limbs fell away, leaving the two outsiders leaning halfway in with hands dangling limply in laps. Huh. Maybe he shouldn't have said that.
"Ah, well," Addam started nervously. "It's not very comfortable, sitting out here on a cliff, now is it."
Minoth, staring out over the clouds that their position did indeed afford a beautiful view of, shook his head a minute gesture. "Around you, Addam, I couldn't be anything but."
"Oh, you two are silly." And by silly, of course, she meant, now I understand your whole charade from the bedroom all too well. "I think he meant we should go inside? Perhaps sit together with the rest of the troupe?"
Minoth smiled a shade of the same initial ruefulness and shook his head again. "Forgive me if I'm being a little bit selfish, now. I like being alone out here with you." Pick a side, don't pick a side. "With both of you." Again he corrected himself. "With the three of you."
"Indeed," Addam mused. "You certainly seem very comfortable around Flora."
"Oh, well that's..." Somehow unable to compute a reason, a motive, a driving force or perhaps anything more than simply one, Minoth just reached across and grasped her hand. She accepted gladly, even gave a reassuring squeeze in return.
Addam, not quite so motley a fool as they all had ever pinned him up to be, noticed, in fact. "And you him, and all, Flora. What a happy thing this is, hmm?"
She scoffed, but didn't let go. "You act like you had the whole situation perfectly under control. Not a one of us knew or even really knows what's going on here, least of all you."
That's trouble, then, isn't it. "And you'd rather go inside with everyone else to figure it out?"
"Well we don't need it all sorted immediately. I'm sure everyone's hungry, and we could stand to let the situation simmer a little bit."
"Very well then. Minoth, do you mind helping her up? My, ah...my hands are full," Addam finished, face beaming at the very occupant.
"Hey, don't preempt me, my prince, you know I've got a mind for chivalry."
And with that mind in mind, Minoth gladly offered Flora the continued purchase on his palm necessary to stand safely up and away from the edge of the precipice, but then...then she kept on holding. Just idly, nothing too special, just because. And then, while he was preoccupied casting a glance to the sky, thinking oh, Architect, what have I gotten myself into, and what have I saved myself from, she tiptoed up to kiss the underside of his so conveniently available jaw. As soon as she did that, why, he couldn't help but wrap her up in his arms and hold her tight, nose pressed to the crown of her head.
"Careful, Minoth, you'll break her," Addam chided as he stood and turned himself, but they all knew she was made of sterner stuff - much, much sterner. Nevertheless, Minoth reluctantly let her go. She tilted her head up at him, scrunched up her nose, tapped a finger to her chin; a silly pantomime of calculation and perhaps getting it all sorted and sorted out immediately after all. Simmering, indeed.
Simmering is bubbling, then, and a warm feeling in your chest and all that, and so Minoth swept her up once again, but this time with all the right spaces kept and all the right niches nestled, and he called over her shoulder, "I think I love you, Flora."
"So soon?" he could hear her jab mischievously back, arms tangled up in his ether banners as they spun in a joyous circle (and he found that he didn't even mind).
"Well, you know. Since you're so lovely and adorable and the perfect wife, and all that." And all that.
This time, Addam didn't quite seem to mind. And he should agree, should he not? Indeed he should - in fact he did!
Back and in they went, Minoth and Flora with tentative hand in tenacious hand and Addam on his Blade's other side, bolstering him in. Azurda, blithely piqued at the outset of their cliffside mission, was now sunning himself and making gentle snoring noises that only a practiced ear (read: Addam's) could tell were any different from his usual rumbles. Vez made an inquiring face as they passed in, but Addam just clapped him on the shoulder and explained not a thing. Poor guy might never get it figured out...ah, but then they had time.
When Addam wasn't looking, Minoth was all too eager to engage a young Alexander in spotting as he practiced high jumps with a wooden sword off a miniature rock ledge on the moor. He wanted to leap from the Titan's ribs, and had watched Minoth do the same many a gleeful time (the jolts to his knees and back were well worth it for even the smallest glimpses of that childish, adoring fascination), but even reckless cowboys know their limits, and Minoth made sure the boy kept to no more than a single full rotation when he tried to do flips. He'd catch him, always, that much was for damned sure, but it wasn't as if he particularly relished the thought of a tiny boot flinging its way into his face as he did so.
"Look at you - is that why they call you Alexander the Great, now?"
Little Xander giggled. "Uncle Minoth, you're the only one who calls me that."
"Maybe so, but it's my job as your ever-devoted uncle to make sure that everyone knows of your fantastic deeds and prowess, my prince."
"Minoth? You rang?" Technically, the both of them were at this very moment slacking off on their chores, but Addam had been standing by for the most part unbothered as they frittered away the minutes.
"Hmm? Nah, I was talking to Xander. I've got two princes now, you know - lucky me, huh?"
"Minoth," Addam started distractedly.
"Yours." Oh... "I love you."
"I know you do, Addam." Not "Prince", but Addam. A little thing, but there it was, anyway.
"Well yes, but I-" Addam interrupted himself with the singularly-focused motion towards his Blade that was a crushing, desperate hug. And Minoth, bless his bifurcated soul, hugged back, and Xander near about tackled his waist, and Flora, feeling sentimental herself from where she had perched watching them through the bedroom window, scurried out to join them and was folded in as naturally as anything.
Close the curtain. We're happy now.
See, if we just have Minoth push through his repression like the bullheaded dumbass he is, everything will go much more smoothly and happily. And then nothing bad happened ever, and Amalthus...don't worry about it. Don't worry about it!