#// either way brb bracing myself for the final blow

[prcmethevs]

icarusfclling​:

Everything about this exchange feels strange, feels distant and foreign and wrong. Icarus thinks of traveling to Thebes, how he’d wandered through an informal market on the outskirts of the city and listened to the vendors shouting and customers haggling in their native dialect — close enough to Arcadia’s to seem familiar, but full of words and phrases and sounds he couldn’t understand. All his old friends speak other languages now and each interaction is defined by the limits of their shared vocabulary, trapped in a maze of formalities because the informal, the personal, has changed too much.

Necessary evil. Does he know? Surely Prometheus must know how apt the phrase really is. For a brief moment Icarus allows himself to believe, to hope, that perhaps their paths have not diverged so far after all. Perhaps…

But hope is a dangerous thing, trust even more so. And here, in the open, where for all either of them know there is a microphone hidden in every room, there is nothing to do but continue the charade. “Evil’s a strong word, but I understand what you mean.” Does he? Will he ever? There’s a weighted pause, a moment of silence as Prometheus contemplates the offer, and it presses on the tender place in his heart where memories of this old friend lie safely tucked away. Always careful, always thoughtful, never one to speak without first weighing his words; they had been formidable in the university debate hall, Prometheus building the framework on which Icarus could weave a thousand threads into a single irresistible argument.

The answer he gets is more gentle than expected, followed instantly by another reminder of the distance that still lies between them. “Oh, I… I won’t be going back to Arcadia until the spring.” Every time he has to tell someone, his heart breaks a little more. “I live here now — on the estate, actually.” Zeus likes to keep his cards close to his chest. Icarus chuckles, deflects the discomfort with a joke he hopes Prometheus won’t see through.

“It makes the commute to my day job significantly shorter.”

Prometheus studied him closely, searching for a little twitch on his lips, a creasing of his brows, a shift in his gaze — any reaction that they could pinpoint as a telltale. There was a time when they had little to no trouble in figuring out what was on his mind, like skimming through your well-loved book and having your gaze land one your favorite parts. Yet standing there, Prometheus couldn’t catch a glimpse of what lies underneath the formal pleasantries. 

They wondered then if it was was simply the passing time that had eroded their memories of Caro’s little quirks, or if Icarus had simply learned to secure their own mask well enough over the years they were apart. Or perhaps he had grown into this new skin of his, like any career politicians would. All those factors shouldn’t come as a surprise, yet Prometheus couldn’t stop themself from feeling deflated.

The smile that found its way to their lips was small and thin, and yet it felt so heavy to carry.  “It was only a figure of speech, really. But I’m glad you understand my intention.” A lie, because somewhere deep within them was a desire they could hardly contain — one that urged them to grab their old friend by the shoulder and shake him violently, as if that could wake them both up from this strange dream they found themselves in.

But the bridge to who they were in the past had burned long ago, and Prometheus knew better than to delude themself into thinking they could simply rebuild the same one again now. No, they needed to accept this new reality they were in, the two different people they had both become. And so Prometheus shoved down any longing they had left in them as best as they could. “I understand the sentiment.” It’s a shorter distance to the hand that feeds you. “I suppose that makes it easier for us to arrange time to meet in the future, since we both live up here now.”

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