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"What would your dream home be?”
“Hm?”
“I mean, what do you think it’d look like?”
A small but very present weight shifted on his chest with an inquisitive sound. “You could at least give me two weeks in advance before kicking me out."
“Scriabin…” He frowned. Even though the room was too dark to see any bigger details, he swore that a very familiar grin was placed on his face. The picture forming in his head almost becoming reality, the black hair sweeping across his brow and a confidence that could kill. He knew that Scriabin was still learning the rules of being human, and that time was the only thing that would truly help.
“You ask a lot of questions. What makes you think I would answer honestly?”
Edgar kept frowning, he thought in this darkness they would at least try to practice being genuine. “It wouldn’t make sense for you to lie about something like this. It’s not like you can use it against anyone.” The statement held strong, but Edgar didn’t like the lingering feeling it left in his head. Reminders of their past, so intertwined it was hard to distinguish where Edgar started and Scriabin ended. Or were they more like a mix? A smoothie almost. Or, putting fuel to the thought, more like oil and water. No matter how hard they swirl around each other, they could never be one. They were one being at some point. He scratched and scrapped the thought bare from his mind as best he could, that aching in his chest never faltering.
“I can see you’re thinking very deeply about this.” He could feel Scriabin’s fingers tapping lightly on his chest, not sharp enough to hurt but enough to make him shiver.
“I just…” Fearing for an attack, anything that would suddenly turn something sweet into a bitter argument. But it never came. His body was tense, but for no reason it seemed. Old habits never died with some people.
“What?” He could see a head shift and tilt to the side with no hostility in the question.
“Is it so hard to want to know things about you?” He paused, thinking it was a bad choice of words and tensed again. He felt the tapping stop, a light phantom touch where it was. Edgar heard a soft hum from the man semi on top of him, could feel the vibrations from the sound, and jolted at the sudden contact of a single pointed finger on his sternum. It held its place and didn’t move. He didn’t notice that his breathing had changed. He was looking for signs of danger and his mind started racing with things he knew he shouldn’t say or think, but this darkness was addictive in a way for his honesty. He wish it were mutual, but his mouth ran along with his thoughts before he could really process them. “I just, I want to think I know a good amount about you but how much of it is true? There are things you’ve told me that weren’t true, important things, but I don’t know for certain what I can believe anymore. I just think being honest could benefit both of us, now more than ever, but…” He hesitated. “Is that even possible for us?”
Scriabin was silent but his finger remained, almost as a reminder that he was still present. No reaction only made Edgar more nervous and his rambling became more intense. “What if we can’t ever be honest because of how we treated each other? Our past is so complicated, I still question if I can trust you sometimes.” His chest was heaving more and noticed only from his vague body silhouette coming into view. “You’ve said it yourself; you can’t trust me and wasn’t stupid enough to try.” His voice mocked Scriabin’s tone the way he'd heard it in the past, and an uneasy feeling settled in his stomach. But the less he talked the more that feeling grew. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we can’t… truly trust each other.”
At that, Scriabin sat up a bit but nothing more, finger still weighing down with light force. The sudden movement caused Edgar to back track a bit and realize again who he was talking to, why he was talking to him in the first place.
“Can we really make this work? Or will we be nothing than what we were..?” Does any of this matter?
“Edgar.” A hand in the dark slowly moved towards his furrowed brow, a strange combination of comfort and fear swirled inside him. It flicked him hard on the forehead and that certainly got him out of his rant. A small painful buzz stayed from the contact. “You are impossible.”
Silence again except for his breathing slowing down. He was irritated at the buzzing sensation, taking his mind off his sudden crisis. If that was Scriabin’s intention, he supposed he knew him quite well.
“Trust needs to be earned.” The finger returned to his upper chest and pressed down a little heavier. “Making empty promises only goes so far. And if I know anything, which I know a lot of things, I know what you can and can’t adhere to in a promise.”
Edgar furrowed his brows again. Wanted to question what that had to do with anything but thought against it. It was something about this dark atmosphere that made Scriabin more familiar, more like how he knew him.
“When you say that I can trust you, that you promise you won’t betray me again, I know your capabilities to keep that promise.” He pressed his pointer finger a bit deeper and it started to make an indent in his skin. “Even if you believe in yourself to hold it, I know the truth.”
“So that’s it?” The pressure subsided for a second and then continued to press. “No matter how hard I try, it just won’t amount to anything, is that what you’re saying?” A surface level anger popped up. “For someone who advocated to never give up, it sounds like you can’t even hold your own promises.”
“This sounds familiar.” Another shift in movement and Scriabin sat up in bed, making a ruffling sound as he furthered himself from Edgar. “Back to our old ways. You do love familiarity even if it hurts.” If Edgar didn’t know any better, he would guess there was a sadness pouring over in that statement. An old pain that never truly left but could never be fully there.
His pop of anger subsided. This was far from what he wanted, arguments on trust were so deeply rooted in their routines that it was hard to let it go. To fight and prove the pain that someone else caused and make them repent. The proof and evidence always scattered that at times, both their arguments were right and they both couldn’t accept that as fact. That all they ever did was hurt each other.
A slow sadness surged through him at the thought. He knew he had hurt Scriabin in a way that would last, but he was trying so hard to prove to him that he wouldn’t dream about doing it again. He even expressed wanting to live the rest of his life with him, a statement so important and ripe for Scriabin’s twisted wordplay that he could deal some major damage to Edgar, if he wished to. “That’s not… I didn’t-“
“No, Edgar, you never mean to.” He could faintly see through squinted eyes that Scriabin was looking away from him. This quieter side of him was so unfamiliar, he would rather an argument than whatever this was. A slight pang in his head from the thought, Scriabin could really read him even without their connection, and it made him sick how comforted he felt from it. He wanted to reach out and fix this issue but hesitated before his hand could brush the odd shadow that slumped far away from him. A different approach would be needed.
He took a breath in and lowered his voice. “I… you’re right, that’s exactly what I was thinking.”
A small jolt from the shadow blob and he continued. “You can still read me quite well even after all this time.” He could feel eyes peering into the side of his face as Edgar now looked away. He thought Scriabin would mock him for using pointless flattery, but it wouldn’t be pointless if it worked. He sat up and let his body relax, just a little.
“I know it will be difficult to gain the trust we lost but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.” He closed his eyes and imagined his little brother. How he cried and cradled him in his arms, how Edgar had supported such a small and fragile thing. He could feel water welling up near the corners of his eyes but dismissed it from the previous anger, wiping it away without concern. “I’ll still try anyways.”
He kept his eyes fixated on a squiggly line, afraid to break the focus for any bad juju that would come from it. Tiny ruffling sounds from his right coming closer to him and he turned his head to face Scriabin who was alarmingly close. He leaned in a little bit more, closing the distance and brushing his breath near Edgar’s ear. “You should know weightless flattery will get you nowhere.”
Edgar gave a whole body shudder but didn’t move, tilting his head down to hide his body’s reaction. He could imagine Scriabin’s smug face as he pulled away, still only inches apart. He wouldn’t let this opportunity get past him.
“Can I start over?” He could feel a smile creeping onto his face.
A moment before Edgar laid back down and an almost familiar weight returned to his chest. The vibration from Scriabin’s voice felt stronger. “I'd be stupid to pass up an opportunity to listen to you try and fail. Who knows what goes on in that brain. Oh wait, I do!"
“Scriabin.” The smile remained where a frown should’ve been.
“Please go ahead, I’m waiting for my endless praise.” A finger tap tapped on his sternum before changing its routine, drawing a circle round and round. It felt funny to know Edgar was okay with this sort of contact, proof that he had truly changed from who he was.
“I wouldn’t want to bloat that ego of yours, lord knows it’s big enough for the both of us.” A quick but strong laugh and he took that as a green light to proceed with his idea. “My original question, what our dream house would look like, well…”
He started painting ideas that he saw in his head with closed eyes, that circling motion keeping him grounded. Some ideas were cliché, a white picket fence with a small and easy manageable garden of thyme, rosemary, mint, and many herbs he couldn’t think of but would like to know he could learn them and their purpose. A screened in porch with a swinging bench, a coffee table beside it for books and tea. Maybe even a wizard tower, but that seemed too grand for his liking, so he scratched that idea. He could imagine a well-kept lawn without weeds and a door that felt welcoming instead of turning guests away. His mind latched onto one particular idea, and he started to fixate on it.
“And there would be a reading nook. It would be a little place with shelves, probably with cushions, and in front of a big window. It would be big enough to lay down in but not too big, maybe enough to fit two people…” He could see the image clearly, a cold winter day with a big blanket keeping the warmth trapped on his body, holding a book with an earl grey somewhere nearby. The image shifted, and Scriabin now found his place right next to him, even though there was space for him on the other side. He was cuddled up dozing off or reading the book Edgar was, just to annoy him. The image shifted once more, and he found that extra space was shortened so only one person could fit, but somehow that hardly mattered for them.