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timeskip · 3 years ago

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For Want of Something Real

1k words of OC writing! After Storm (aka Palinouros) gets brought back to life, Caelestis tries to find where they stand on love after so much has changed.

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Caelestis doesn’t move closer—they’re already too close, already almost touching. Storm’s eyes are static still, frozen watching Caelestis move.

Maybe if Caelestis were still in love with them like before, he would soak up the way they look at him with a giddy happiness. The Caelestis from before was a coward, if nothing else, and he wouldn’t have been able to do anything but pine under their affections, something agonizing in it’s sincerity.

Caelestis has never been loved. Not like this. It would have scared him once.

But both of them have changed—Storm would have moved closer all at once before, taken the lead instead of pausing like this. Caelestis’s anxieties would have been soothed at the same time as he would have reasoned with himself that their feelings for him aren’t real at all.

It’s too vivid right now; Caelestis’s hand clenching in his lap, knee close enough to knock into theirs. Storm’s hand between them. Something unspoken between them.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Storm says, finally unfreezing—smile soft and teeth barely bared.

They know, then.

Caelestis was in love with them. He loved them so much it hurt, because he craved every bit of affection they gave him. When their hand wrapped around his wrist to pull him away—to where, he didn’t care—and when they gave him the smile that told him to shut up, we know what we’re doing.

He loved all of it. He knew they were a good person in the end, after all. He witnessed the way they treated Araceli when she was in pain.

There’s romance in that, maybe. Romance in watching someone you love care about someone more than you. Romance in watching Storm split apart, in holding onto them the way they held onto him before. Caelestis was saved from so many emotions by Storm’s carefree attitude, and that’s all that mattered—not whether Storm cared about him, but only if he’d done enough to pay back all they did for him.

“It’s fine,” he says, fingers pulling at each other, forming patterns he knows by heart. ��If you love me.”

Storm seems dissatisfied by that, their smile weakening. “Is it? Are you not horrified by what we’ve become?” They lean their cheek on their hand, wistfully looking away from Caelestis, like this is some kind of game they want to win. “Why? Do you want me to love you?”

Caelestis has been knocked off-center, but this is Storm as normal. This is something Caelestis understands, even if only a little; Storm’s smiles are their efforts to form themself how they want to be.

He loves Storm, even like this.

He’s gotten better at understanding, in some ways, that Storm is just another person like him—a god fueled by arrogance, crushed by death. Caelestis loves them in their complexities, but also the simple truth; they love him. They still love him. They’ve started loving him.

“Maybe I do,” he confesses. “I’m not horrified by you, Palinouros. I wasn’t before, and I’m not now.” Stop deflecting. We both know I used to love you, but you don’t want that right now.

Storm stands suddenly, their jacket fluttering behind them, their sleeves like wings.

They look back at him, eyes not quite pitying. That’s what Caelestis deserves, maybe—pity, for still caring about Storm after everything that happened between them. They won’t say that Caelestis should be afraid, should not want to be near them—but Caelestis knows that’s what they think anyway.

But he also knows that Storm is genuine. Why else would they care? The two of them have barely changed, and yet everything has changed.

Everything, like the world of the gods shifting. Like Storm being able to be alive again. Like Caelestis wanting to reach for Storm, instead of waiting for them to reach for him. If they’re going to be shock-still and quiet, then Caelestis will find it in him to tell them to stop being afraid.

It’s funny—he knows they can’t be anything, but Caelestis still wants to be.

“Caelestis,” Storm says, sharp like lies they always tried to tell—to protect themself, to pretend like they could change anything. “We’re going to change your Fate.”

They used to say that a lot. They used to say that so sweetly, like Caelestis’s worries could melt away because Storm would handle it. Now it’s a knife’s edge of a phrase—things will stay the same as ever, because Storm will change Caelestis’s Fate of loving them.

“It’s not Fate,” Caelestis says. He stays put, only watching them.

Storm winces, like the words physically pain them. “We know Fate better than you do,” they say, and it’s true—it’s always been true. Caelestis is oblivious when it comes to what Fate wants for him. They look away from them, braid swinging slightly in the breeze. “Thank you, though. For accepting our affections.”

Caelestis tries to clamp down on the feelings swirling in him, climbing up his throat—he doesn’t love them because of Fate, he doesn’t know if he loves them at all except for the remnants of before, but—

He wants to love them in a different way. That’s all.

But he swallows that sincerity. Too much has changed for him to say it. Everything has changed, because Caelestis isn’t the same man who believed love was meant to be like him and Storm.

“Of course,” he says. “I don’t… love you, by the way. Not like…”

Storm shakes their head, and their smile is soft again. “There you go again,” they say. “Always trailing off. You haven’t changed, have you?”

“I have, though,” Caelestis says.

Storm’s smile widens, and they stretch their arms out happily. “Of course you have! Fate has no chain on you, Caelestis! Remember that. Never forget that we will always change your Fate for you.” They look so sweet like that, like the burden of their own Fate is lightened.

And that, Caelestis thinks, is what love is for. For changing. For deviating. For becoming someone else, and not loving in the same way.

That’s all love is, for him and them.

#my writing #oc tag #caelestis #storm #caelestorm

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