Cheyenne Point take off your raincoat
#1

Sept 17
@sOKOL



Iago had blocked off a good bit of the week to work on the house. He really, really wanted to get some small outside repairs done before it went and snowed AGAIN in September or some crazy shit like that. He had also, quite enthusiastically, gotten it into his head that the yard was his to mind, which meant that needed winterized as well. And that was... not something that came nearly as naturally to him as the behavior of replacing wood and shingles and sealing windows. But hey! Google was a good friend, and when it came to practical things like this, he felt quite capable. There were a few things that would need to wait until spring out here, and inside projects he could do during winter. All the same, it was hard not to tackle it all at once.

And it was... fun? Sokol had been right, there was something very different about having a place that he actually cared about. His. Theirs. Whatever. Something he didn't just see as a box to sleep in. The idea of home had evolved a lot over the last year or so.

A lot had changed in general during that phase of time? How long ago was a year, what had been happening a year ago? Somewhere in all his musing in the last few days he'd gotten Sokol's birthday back into his head. But that was a couple of months out, plus a few days. He remembered last year's celebration perfectly well, which meant, with the turn of season... A little thought nipped at him on and off. Poised in uncertainty, he hadn't really dug into it all that much.

But Sokol was home today, too, at least for the most part. They were both kind of doing their own thing, not required to be right on top of each other nearly as much as they had needed to be while being in the 'same place' in the apartment. Thing was, Sokol seemed to be in something of a mood. And at first Iago had chalked it up to the normal sort of dips: something had gone mildly wrong that Iago wasn't privy to, or... just the reality of their together existence had dislodged something that put Sokol into his own head. But it was persistent as Iago left it alone, and that thought kept coming back to him. Had it been a year by now? It felt like it had to have been, but he almost expect Sokol might have... said something? As the person far more on top of these sorts of things.

As such, out back behind the garage when he'd been putting away a few tools he didn't need at the moment now that he'd gotten a gutter back in place, Iago had thumbed way, way, way back into his text history on a very broken screen. Just... suddenly... needing to know just how oblivious he was.

Not too much longer he was heading in through the back door of the house, toeing his work shoes off on the stairs coming in and angling into the kitchen, in seek mode. He'd been in and out all morning, but as the afternoon took hold of the day, he came back in with a bit of curious purpose.


house ref

#2
Look, he, okay. He didn't want to talk about it.

There had been no red flags when the idea came up. They were already living together, and at no point since washing up at Iago's door had Sokol pretended that he might ever move back out again. He would simply take Iago with him, they must have supposed, wherever he ended up next.

And then, looking at houses in their new city, and finding this small, strange, beautiful old thing...moving their very few belongings into all this open space and beautiful woodwork...it was so magical and (god forbid) romantic that it had taken weeks, WEEKS for him to realize he had bought a quaint little house in a quaint little neighborhood in Colorado, America, with ANOTHER MAN. Out where everyone could see it! And then also he had woken up today and they had been jacking each other off for a whole year! That was so embarrassing, but also if Iago left the house for more than eight hours he would shrivel away and die!

So, that put him into a heavy pout. Shirking his usual responsibilities, he lurked in the empty dining room and checked his social media once every ten minutes. A whole year. A year and a day ago he had been a normal person, and now he wanted to hold hands with some old Mexican man all the time and maybe carry him around everywhere like a favorite possession. What was he supposed to do??

Hearing the other man clobber in and take off his shoes, he slouched further away from the table and scrolled. Ooh, a department store he liked was having a sale.
#3
Iago went trotting through the kitchen, passively taking in the increasingly familiar room, running his fingertips along the counter as he passed. It was just a nice space, one he hadn't quite gotten over yet, even as the stale smell of the previous owners was fading away in favor of much more important lions.

Sokol wasn't far, wasn't hard to find, wasn't hiding. Sitting at the table. Which, a table! Iago had never personally owned one in his life, but here they were, being that sort of civilized. Just yet another piece of everything that was rotating around to become some pleasant new normal. He already didn't give the old apartment even half a thought outside of it being a staging ground for a few good memories.

He sort of just wanted to just. Ask! Right then. But it felt like maybe a bit of preamble was in order, given Sokol seemed absorbed in distracting himself. Iago put his hands on the back of the nearest chair and leaned in a bit. A very good boy who had just come in from outside and wanted attention now but wasn't going to jump around for it. Looking expectant was enough, probably.

"Garage is looking better. What you up to?"
#4
He looked up from his important browsing with a look of moderate disgruntlement, as if surprised, maybe unpleasantly, that Iago would ever talk to him. As if a full third of his brain had not been tracking the man all day, in and out of the house, eating sliced turkey out of the package, whistling on and off as he bashed gutters into place. His shoulders hunched upward and fell back down. "Nothing useful." What if he just pretended they weren't even dating. This was just a lion roommate situation.
#5
Mmm yes, this was a mood. Inexplicable moods were something he'd learned over the course of a year, though, and Iago was not about to be chased off by a look. He'd given him space all morning, done with that!

"Could always come outside if you're bored..."

Sitting in here on his phone was an absolute waste of a day off, truly.
#6
The small silence that followed was strained, uncomfortable. He looked down at his thumbs, his phone screen smeared with fingerprints. ...No, actually. "I think you have it handled."

Wow, he needed an exit strategy. Maybe he had a last-minute appointment in Ridgefield he needed to get to!
#7
Well, he did but that was hardly the point, okay. And he knew that Sokol knew that.

Iago had come in here for a reason, and he had his suspicions as to what the trigger was here. But... why, exactly? Was it worth it to find out? He figured it was, so like, whatever. Wasn't his first gallop around this sparse field of communication! There was always something hidden in the grass if you sniffed around enough.

He leaned a little more into the chair he was behind, putting his hands on the table instead. Frowned, but it was only concern, gaze soft. "Sokol, is today...?"

Wasn't sure quite how to ask it. Maybe if the answer was yes the implication would be all too obvious.
#8
Oh he didn't hear that actually because! He was putting his phone in his pocket! Because he was getting up, oozing out away from the table as Iago leaned into it. "I have to go pick up a table actually." No, shit, he'd already gotten the table. Maybe it was a different table! He frowned and slid into the hallway, picking up his keys. Sorry, Iago, but no! Not today! Sorry! Please be here when he got back! It might be an hour or a couple weeks, we'll see!
#9
This, of course, was not an answer. In a way it seemed Sokol hadn't even heard him! So Iago just got to live in his uncertainty for a while, apparently, because no way in hell was he repeating himself on the chance he had been heard and was just being. Ignored. But it wasn't enough to feel like any sort of confirmation unless we're confirming that Sokol was already two miles deep in his own headspace.

Didn't get it! But he did straighten up away from the table--his only reason for being there summarily removing himself--and trailed after Sokol like there simply was no other choice. Maybe even just follow him straight out to the garage, if they went that way.

"Okay?" Said like a question because how many tables did anyone need--which was the least of his dubious feelings. Still, Sokol tended to get... worse... if you pinned him down. And he wasn't looking to grief the man, he just had wanted to know! Maybe he was in trouble for forgetting?

"I'll just be here, so..."
#10
Yes, here, hovering on the edges of his vision, trailing after him like a kicked dog. He was aware but did not have the capacity to engage with it. Without a glance backward he was out the door, shutting it emphatically behind him and sprinting, practically, to the detached garage as if he could outrun the immediate shame of his behavior. No no no! No no no all of this!
#11
Well that was--

Something about the door shutting like that rankled him a fair bit. Maybe a little like he was being told to stay there, only not in so many words. Which like, yeah, he wasn't going anywhere, but he could have shut the door himself which would have just felt. Less.

Whatever this was. "What the fuck," he muttered to himself now that Sokol was well out of earshot. Quickly out of earshot, he noted as he moved from the exit hall into the kitchen, which didn't have the greatest view of the back yard without going right up to the window--which he wasn't. But enough of a view. To see him just. Bye, I guess. But in spite of the initial offense he took to what he knew was bad behavior, the feeling didn't really last.

Just kinda wanted him to... come back? Wouldn't that be great? His concern wasn't overwhelming but it was enough to hold him up in the kitchen, standing with his hands splayed on the counter and mulling hard, as if he could construct a thought that hadn't occurred to him yet. Or maybe also just listening to hear what was going on out there, if Sokol really did just. Go.
#12
He really was going. Garage door opening, car started, buckled in for safety. He was acutely aware of fucking up and it made him sort of want to throw up, but that had no impact on his dire need to get out of here, before Iago crawled into the car with him.

So. Off he drove, heart rattling in his chest like an unbalanced washing machine.

He was so completely without a plan that he made it only as far as the nearest gas station, where he parked and crumpled over the wheel, sobbing.

There was something wrong with him. But he didn’t know if it was the part that loved Iago or the part that loved his father that had to go.

He wasn’t very good at crying, actually, and the tears dried up after a few minutes, leaving him hot and damp and raw and digging around between the seats, looking for something to wipe his face with. Stupid fucking Sokol. Coward. He knew, he knew that this was going to end in calamity, and he hadn’t stopped himself. And now—. Now he was trapped. It had taken a whole year to run himself into a corner.

He blew his nose into a paper napkin and heaved a shuddering breath.
#13
Listening to him leave was actually pretty hard. Inconclusive as his thoughts were, he had a feeling this wasn't... good. Just. The haste alone, and how without obvious root it was. How deep did he have to dig here?

Iago stood there a while, at the counter. He pulled out his mostly busted phone and opened back up the texts. Determined to settle this for himself. A year ago. Right? Had to be. Literally a year ago, tonight. Old Mateo texts set the tone, a little recollection of how he'd been a year ago. Alone, miserable, completely desperate for guidance but lacking the one person he felt had any sense of who he was. So...

Meet up at the park, arrive bone-weary and leave strangely elated.

It was too much to be coincidence. If this really was the day in question, this had to be why Sokol was acting like... like a year ago, really. But the bad side of a year ago, before they'd realized they were on the same side. Before they'd thrown their all into finding what they wanted. But why. Things had been going so well lately, and Iago didn't even understand. He just wished, not for the first time this year, that Sokol would just talk to him. Anything. Say anything. But that seemed the hardest part of all for him sometimes.

Many minutes passed, there was no hasty return. Iago hadn't expected one, but now he felt at a loss standing here. The house felt too quiet. With an educated guess as to what had gone wrong, a sense of desperation had started to stick to him. Weirdly abandoned and with no one to tell him what to do.

What he wanted to do, really, was text the man. But it had been such a short time, it seemed silly. And he didn't even really have anything to say that wasn't just... whining, really.

Still.

He'd give it a bit. Maybe he'd figure out what to say if he let it rest. His head kind of hurt and he should get water and either sit down for a bit or find something to keep working on and just... trust that Sokol just needed space for a bit. It happened sometimes. Yeah.

So that was what he did, more or less. Found he couldn't sit down, felt a lot more like pacing. Ended up outside again, which felt hollow too. Decided he didn't have the heart in him to keep working, wasn't in any rush anyway. So he worked instead on putting things away that he'd left out, piling scraps of material in the garage and getting tools sorted.

It occupied him, but not for long enough, and the longer this suspension of understanding went on, the worse he felt. He'd rather have a completely sullen Sokol here than off... doing who knew what. Getting a table. Yeah, right.

Though Iago believed in leaving well enough alone, this wasn't well enough, and he couldn't stop himself. Back inside, his initial intention had to been to sit maybe in the front room or go down into the basement, but instead he paced from the front to the back of the house, through the dining room and kitchen over and over in socked feet. Until his phone was back in hand. Couldn't have even been an hour since Sokol had run out the door, and maybe it was awfully needy but...

you can come home now please
Iago

There was a lot more that could be said here, but it was what felt best to him right now even if 'best' wasn't great.
#14
Emotional displays were so embarrassing. God forbid someone had seen him, weeping into his hands in the parking lot. He took a minute to clean himself up, feeling all the while like his heart was going to crack open.

He just...didn't know what to do. It was like someone had thrown a bucket of ice water over him and shocked him back into reality, and reality was terrible. He couldn't...tell his father, his uncle. He couldn't let them know any of this. And he couldn't, leave, leave Iago, because if he removed the man from his life then all of it stopped making sense. The house, the Pride, the tenuous accord between himself and Ingrid. The uncanny, gentle familiarity he felt with Hei Ryung, as if the both of them might somehow be in the same strange place in life. All of it was a nautilus shell slowly growing around his desire to be with this person, always.

It was a very strong force that would ever have bent him so far away from his intended path. Even when they were together, sometimes, the intensity of this betrayal boiled up and ruined him.

He sat for a long time, thinking over and over again of telling his family, of returning to Czechia, of driving away into the woods and staying shifted forever. When his phone buzzed, he knew what it would say. Didn't have the strength of character to respond, though.
#15
Iago, of course, knew only silence in return.

Which again, maybe it was coincidental, maybe he was busy for real with something totally... not a problem. But it didn't feel like coincidence and Iago began to worry. He'd never really been a worrier. Not until... well, you know. Almost like worrying meant you had to have reason to care first.

He kept pacing, but he could only wait so long. Three minutes. He could afford to overreact, if that was what he was doing. There really was just such an echo of this time last year, feeling so unsure of Sokol's mind while completely sure of himself and how he felt about the runaway man. God if something was wrong just tell him.

Sokol hadn't ever run off quite like this. And with a house with so many rooms, it would have been very easy for him to cloister without leaving if that was all he needed... so what was this.

Incoming
Iago

I hadn't been very few minutes at all but he was not in the business of letting himself be tortured.
#16
He let it ring.

It felt deplorable to ignore it, but at the same time...inaction became a choice he could make. The act of missing the call itself gave him a small sense of conviction, of relief in doing something, and that made it possible to commit to the idea for just a moment. Abandon everything, forget it happened. Return home and return to being the person he was intended to be. It would be a black mark on his character, this years-long folly, but then, he would have earned it.

The only way possible way to pull it off would be to avoid Iago at all costs. He needed more space than Cheyenne Point provided. So. Started the car again, still ignoring his phone, and drove north.
#17
Then again, being tortured wasn't a choice most of the time.

He left no voicemail, not about to beg to an empty space. Hung up, stared at a spot on the floor as he stood there, trying not to let this get away from him, not wanting to make it worse but also. Just.

you have me worried
Iago

In case that wasn't obvious. But he had to say it because it was all he could feel right now. Especially as the silence crawled on. And there was temptation to keep calling over and over and over until he drove himself batty about it. But he didn't. He put on the brakes as gently as he could, told himself that he'd done what he could. For now. Wished he knew where he'd gone at least. Wished he knew for sure that he wasn't... dead or something.

God, what a thought. It made him want to just Stop for a while. And so he did. Had half a terrible mind to just lay down on the doormat that lead out into the backyard. He had no notion of leaving the house. He'd said he'd be here, and he would continue to do that, even if... what did he do here? He didn't have anyone to call about this. This wasn't the sort of distress Ingrid could save him from. This wasn't an emergency.

This was just him. Feeling completely out of sorts and auto-piloting up to the bedroom where he could, somehow, manage to put himself to bed. You know, just the space where last night he had gone to sleep just fine without any hint of Impending Doom from his bedpartner. It did not help his sense of brainless misery in the least, as he continued to think about nothing else. Distraction didn't exist as he stared up through the skylight just up and off to his left.

Pretty day out. Fucking sucked.

Nothing continued to happen. At one point, when his patience ran too thin to battle his distress:

:(
Iago

And he started expecting some sort of police call or something, maybe, that the car had been found in a ditch somewhere or. Ugh just ugh. He didn't know what would be the worst. Definitely wasn't getting a table. Definitely was about today being September 17th. And Iago wasn't sure if he could have done anything to prevent this or not. Eventually he shut out the haunting daylight by pulling the blankets over his head. Always, always listening for a familiar car engine.

The entire afternoon seemed to pass like this.

miss you
Iago

Ruffled, edging into starving in spite of having no appetite, he found just enough willpower to go downstairs and sit in front of an open fridge and eat cheese primarily with a need to not turn into a lion. Lions couldn't check their phones obsessively so well.
#18
It continued like this, and Iago found it impossible to satisfy any part of himself with cold food from the fridge, but he had no drive to do anything else. At least eventually he got sick enough of the fridge beeping at him to reach up and close it, then laid down in front of it as the sun set and the house became dark. The hum of the freezer at his back lulled something in his brain and he looked blankly at the underside of the counter.

Thought. Maybe he'd redo the counters at some point. Or. Maybe not.

Darkness settled. A vehicle that sounded familiar rumbled past the lightless house, turning the corner and running headlights through the kitchen. For a wild moment he was certain this was it. Sokol had come back and he hauled himself up and to the window again, this time leaning eagerly to see, hoping--and then immediately dashed as the unfamiliar sedan rolled down the street, away, without stopping.

And for a moment he felt a well of frustration that bordered on anger. But it wasn't him, it was a lion who demanded, demanded that his lion be brought back. To him. Immediately. How dare this happen. The separation was cruel and unjust, and this time Iago couldn't sate the beast with anything so petty as food or pacing. Lion lion lion, and if he couldn't have that he would at least claim physical form so that he could show his upset himself.

Kicked his paws out of denim and left his phone laying on the floor as the dark maned lion reached to swipe everything sitting on the counter off of it. Shredded the yellow pages that had been useless anyway, leaving it scattered between the hall, the kitchen, and the dining space, where he knocked over every single dining room chair and shoved the table up against the window.

Mad but... mourning. Making crooning noises as he paced the house, looking for someone who was not there. Someone who he tragically could not feel. It was heartbreak, and he was a dying lion who climbed onto the dining table and looked out from a dark house into a dark street through sheer curtains. Laid there like the most overgrown house cat, wilting. Everything was wrong.

Fell asleep there, and woke with a startle only two hours later as if he were on a perfect timer. A man again, confused for a moment why his heart raced immediately with dread, on autopilot as something other than his brain put his bare feet to the hardwood floors and through the kitchen to find his phone. Maybe he'd woken up like that because he'd missed a call or, or, or--

No. Nothing. Not a text or even... just...

It was that point he cried, unable to stop it, just so stricken by the idea that he might have lost him. The lion's anger spent, just scared, like he'd threatened to be weeks ago when Sokol had needed to talk to Ingrid. Sitting in a drafty sea of cheap shredded paper, exhausted in every way. Nearly midnight as this day passed them by this time without resolution.

i'm still here
Iago

Are you?

He cleaned up the mess he'd made just to have something do. Then, everything heavy, went back up to the bedroom.

But he'd never been a good sleeper before Sokol. This time it was a thing smattering of stars he stared at through the skylight, he realized that his ability to sleep alone had utterly vanished. Months and months with that man to put his arms around, to push his face into at the very least...

There would be no sleep tonight. He took a pillow down to the basement, to the couch they had very specifically sought out for this space. Their hideaway, in many ways. Iago collapsed there, feeling no better for it, and turned on a movie to watch on the lowest volume, as if the steady tones of Captain America might soothe him. They did not. He didn't even feel distracted or entertained, burrowed into a throw blanket with his phone directly next to his head.

The sun came up. It was, somehow, an entirely different day now, and he'd lost all sense of a world that existed outside of here and the invisible line between himself and a man who he could not find.
#19
Altogether, it wasn't that many texts. Some of them might not even have been Iago, also. It felt like a confirmation, that ripping them apart had been the right thing to do, a sudden unanticipated jolt back into reality.

He drove four hours or so, west, into ski country. The hills this far up were still holding onto the early snow, some of the foliage already going yellow. When he finally felt transplanted enough, he stopped and booked a room. It was nondescript and clean and boring and all of this felt comforting. Just slightly.

He purchased a lot of alcohol, because that was the extent of the plan. Keep being not with Iago, keep not thinking about him, keep doing things like his own person. So Independent Sokol poured shot after shot into his hotel tumbler, a joyless self-medication taken sitting on the edge of the bed. Cable television kept the room from feeling like the mausoleum it was. He was quickly drunk, then very drunk, and it was difficult to stay coordinated enough to keep from passing into hungover.

By 8pm he didn't remember specifically why he was doing this, or where he was; only that he was miserable and afraid and helpless. He felt very naked and small. Tears of self-pity threatened to squeeze out, so he tightened into a protective, very drunk ball where he laid on the hotel floor. Very bad. Everything so bad. Where was Iago.

He had a hard time navigating his phone's password, and he stared at Iago texts in a complete failure of cognition. Confusing. Bad, sad. He'd done something bad.

He was a bad person. He did bad things and felt bad all the time. This was just what it meant to be Sokol. He thought that, and then his brain turned out the lights.

The next morning, they turned on again, while the sky was still mostly dark. He woke up cold and aching, the inside of his mouth mummified, and spent several long, slow minutes on the floor, not moving his head and retrieving the disordered scraps of his memory.

Hotel. Mountains. He had...oh, god. He had run away and left Iago without a word, and had then gotten joylessly, mercilessly drunk while watching NBC sitcoms. Oh my god why, why had he done this.

The anniversary and the horror and sense of doom were inaccessible so far. Pocketed for later while he dealt with the fallout of his own response to them. Groaning, he shifted a little onto his side and began to pat around the low-pile carpet for his phone. Eventually, from a mess of disorientation and guilt, a text shot back to Ridgefield.

I'm okay
Sokol
#20
The facts had held true: he couldn't really sleep. Iago had, however, fallen into a protective mental haze. No thoughts, no nothing. He'd ended up on some movie he'd never heard of before and still didn't know the title of. He wasn't really watching it. It was just background to fill... something.

Ruffled and hot and still in some inescapable agony, it felt like no escape.

Until.

The notification tone so close to his ear startled him badly, a jolt of buzzing lightning through his entire being. If he hadn't been so exhausted it might have startled the lion straight out of him. But he clung to his human existence, his pair of clawed semi-human hands and fumbled for it. If it weren't Sokol he'd just have to... something. He didn't have time to consider what he would do because it was him.

Relief lashed through him next. Not dead. That was a big deal, he realized, just how much he'd convinced him that Sokol was probably dead. A dreadful future in every way.

But he wasn't. Wasn't. He was just... something. Who knew. Where was he? Why?

Trying very hard not to just cry again--this time for slightly different reasons--he was shaking enough he could barely articulate this in written word.

can i call you
Iago
#21
He wasn't ready for a call. But he was less ready to argue his way out of one, so.

Ok
Sokol

He would answer on the first ring, miserable, but instinctually contrite.
#22
Everything just felt a little confusing. It was morning? Had everything happened? Sokol was alive and speaking to him, however pithily. But after how Iago had just spent the night, it felt a miracle.

Okay, don't cry. Just call him.

And so he did, and this time there wasn't a ring through. Just. Answered. UGH, DON'T CRY.

Hi.

All but breathless as he fought back at the mire.

I'm. Sorry, just a little. Uh. I was worried. Hi.

How to communicate.
#23
Worried.

Iago's voice sounded kind of garbled. Sokol tried to swallow but only glued his tongue to the back of his throat.

Yeah.

His skull was splitting. He needed to drink about 300 ounces of water.
#24
Yeah.

Still, it was awful how good it was to hear him at all.

Can you tell me where you are?

He just sort of folded over on the couch, phone pressed to his head as he put the fumes of his energy in trying to make sense.
#25
The question pulled a lurking feeling further out into the open. Remorse, and behind it dread, jumped out from the cover of a monster hangover and pinned him down.

Oh.

A pause.

I'm still in Colorado.
#26
GOD, what an answer. The implication being that he might not have been.

Oh...

It took him a moment.

You're. Okay though, right? Maybe... maybe can get home?

Trying very hard to not paint this as the beg it probably actually was.
#27
His head was so thick. His brain was so slow; the only answer he had was silence.

He didn't think he was okay. He didn't know if he could, or should go back. In the place where thinking should be he just felt sick.
#28
Continue to try not to cry. A lot of it was just sheer fatigue, he swore.

Took the lack of answer for what it was--uncertainty.

Can you even just. Try. I just... even if I could come to you I... just need you.
#29
How exactly had...how had he ended up here. How had he stepped out of the world where it required no thought to drive back home, because Iago needed him. The instinct was so developed now that he could see himself jump to do it, while he laid on the floor and watched the window above him steadily lighten to gray. Nothing made sense.

He wanted to say, You don't. You don't need me. Because it was insane, the way they acted was not normal, how could that be real? Something stopped him, though.

I can't, Iago.

The depth to which that statement might go made him want to vomit.
#30
Too tired, his defenses all the way down, it was a crushing reply.

Yes, you can, you have to, he wanted to say, to fight back against whatever it was that had driven him away in the first place. But he'd burst into the sort of tears that completely denied the articulation necessary to bare his thoughts so clearly. He knew it was the single most pathetic moment of anything in his life, but what did he care, what did it even matter. He had to gasp through a tight throat to even get a single word out.

Please.
#31
He felt so awful. His body, his personality. He could feel Iago crying on the other end of the line, and it was enough to make the connection happen again. His own throat went tight and his eyelids stung. Connected again, but in all the awfulness, he was sure that they were ending it. The certainty threatened to cave his chest in.

It was the sort of absolute shared misery that made it possible to talk while actively weeping.

I’m so sorry, Yago.

BAWWWWWWW
#32
No no no no no.

If this was it, this was it. He couldn't live this life, not without him.

You can't--I won't--you just.

It was so impossible to say, but he forced it, everything an ugly stammer but determined to be said.

You can't go. I can't let you go. I--I won't. At least tell me where you are.

ANYTHING.
#33
Tears slid down his cheekbones and into his ears. Iago was so far away. He didn't know what to do.

It's too far. I'm sorry.

It was the kind of miserable apology he made sometimes, when he was at his lowest and needed to grovel at someone's feet. Doing that was the only thing that made sense at this point, and it was perhaps the only means he had of explaining himself. Sorry, terrible, sorry, coward, can't.
#34
Crying literally hurt. Especially with. Realizing Sokol was doing the same. This hurt them both so badly. Why would he do this to Iago? To himself? To both of them all at one.

His gut aching acutely, Iago heard the defeated tones of the man he loved, and a sense of conviction roiled up in him with such certainty that even through gasps it was the clearest thing he said.

Nowhere is too far. Sokol.

It was a growl with no anger. Demanding that the truth be understood. In his mind he had the other man by the face.
#35
That felt true, in the overwhelming, illogical way that many things felt true with Iago. Iago would drive up into the mountains to come get him. He would make everything better with nothing but the ferocity of his love. He wanted that version of reality, and not the one where they would hang up the phone and Sokol would have hours and hours alone with himself, knowing again that nothing was solved. He held the phone to his ear and spent another minute in silent agony.
#36
Iago used the silence to try and pull himself together. It was a half successful effort of breathing. Still in tears, couldn't shake them that easily, but he rolled back to his knees and rubbed at his face with the back of his wrist, the throw blanket puddling off of him.

Not letting the words linger long, when it was clear Sokol was at something of a loss, he continued, trying to steady himself enough to stand on the couch and go over the back of it, determined to see this through.

You need to tell me. Just. You have to let me try. I'm up, I'm coming, I just need to know where.

Bold words from a man basically staggering onto the carpet.
#37
God, his head hurt. It felt sort of like Iago was trying to break his way in there, only Iago had no idea what was going on. Just another Sokol meltdown, one of those.

He closed his eyes and tried to drag one thought at a time into place.

It’s not like that.

What was it like, though.

It’s not...I didn’t mean to, to do this. And now I don’t know where...I don’t have anywhere it can go.

He was, truthfully, talking mostly to himself. Poor Iago would have to make the best he could out of whatever that was.
#38
Iago was still on the move. He'd managed to make it to the stairs. Motor function returning by degrees even if he still felt removed from his own physical self in some ways.

Of course he didn't like this answer, it wasn't what he wanted, it didn't make him feel like he had any better grip on the situation, but at least it was talking. Some effort to explain, maybe, even if it was... god, what a mess. What an absolute mess.

Why are you trying to do this alone? You're not. You're so... you're so not.

He was all trembles.

I need you to see that.
#39
He was alone, though. He had panicked yesterday and sped off into the middle of nowhere because he needed to be alone. Otherwise, he ended up clinging to Iago so hard that his brain stopped working.

And talking like this wasn’t making anything clearer. He rolled himself very slowly to a seat, feeling a wave of nausea roll over him, feeling all the blood in his head throb. He swallowed against the feeling and slogged onward.

I can’t think when you’re here.
#40
He was at the top of the stairs into the hall. That was as far as he'd made it before sitting down again. Fresh tears and just... no idea what to do. Knowing what he wanted to do and what he'd be allowed to do were two totally different things and he was just being crushed by it.

Focus, focus. Be heard, but also... hear him.

If... if I let you think. If I let you have time. Can you talk to me after.

That was his fear, he realized. More than anything. Just being left to wonder for the rest of his life. With no chance, no say. Just gone and done and the best part of his life behind him with no chance of redemption.
#41
He could tell. It was impossible to miss, the sound of Iago breaking down around the words he said. Something foundational in him began to slide, and he realized (on a gut level only) that he was doing something deeply, deeply awful to Iago.

He hunched over, shaken and losing ground. Sort of whispering into the phone in fresh horror of all his actions.

Iago, I don’t know what to do.
#42
It was awful, so awful, to be hurting like this. But to also know Sokol was hurting, too, which just... rendered any anger he might have had at his own treatment so moot. This wasn't okay none of this was okay, but it was like Sokol was wounded, reactionary. So Iago just sat in agony for them both, second stair from the top, arm and head on the landing as he, too, bowed into the phone call.

Please, please let me help. Figure it out. I don't, I don't know why you... you can't--Sorry, I just need so bad... to help you. You're the only thing--only person that matters, it just. What's the point in anything else if you go? I don't... I was so scared you had died or... Sokol, please, just let me be here for you, it's all I want.

Stammered, false-started, half thoughts, just a mess, but if he didn't feel this, he felt nothing.
#43
He wasn't thinking again.

Instead he listened, and felt that strange chemistry take hold of him, let himself be snake-charmed by Iago's stumbling words. They sounded like, there is a solution. They sounded like I will fight to keep you. They sounded like he had done something very wrong to Iago, but Iago wasn't mad.

His thinking brain quieted, and the diffuse, organism intelligence of the rest of him responded, as it always had, to Iago. Sharp, sweet, alive feeling. Naked but safe feeling. A trust that if one of them did not have the answer, then the other would find it. His mouth dropped open, but he was so drugged with emotion that words didn't come to him.
#44
Iago sniffled in the silence, little pops and gasps for air as he still tried to reach across this unknown distance, to feel a man who had, maybe, run all night. Unable to linger in the lull, he kept that hand out, begging, begging for him to just take it. That was all he had to do.

Please. Just tell me where you are. Where to find you. Or come home as soon as you can. I can't... I can't be like this.

Alone. He'd told himself for so long that he didn't need anyone, that alone suited him just fine. Meant no one to answer to. But he'd been so wrong.
#45
I’ll come home.

The answer tumbled out, an unvetted response to try to take the pain away from Iago. He pressed his face into his knees.

Will you stay in the phone with me.
#46
Even while begging, literally begging for it, Iago hadn't entirely expected this was possible. But there it was, the reassurance, however brief. He'd come home.

And suddenly it felt like his heart was a separate thing from his own body. Something that had crawled in there and now beat so hard with relief that he could feel it, conscious of it. Felt his own pulse in his neck and the thrum of it in his head. He couldn't stop crying, but something in even that shifted. His world, trying to right itself.

Of course.

The response was natural commitment, nothing in the way of hesitation. With no way of knowing how long it would actually take Sokol to get back, he was undaunted by the request. Truthfully, he could not currently fathom saying goodbye and hanging up, even if it was with a 'see you later.'

I love you.

It was kind of like saying thank you. Thank you for taking my hand again.
#47
He knew that Iago did. Really knew it. If only Sokol was someone wonderful and not a boyfriend who regularly imploded instead of saying I love you.

He was quiet, too occupied with his failures to find something to say. He still felt like he had been run over by a truck. Four hours, he had four hours of drive time ahead of him, and he wasn't confident he could stand himself up.

I'm going to put you on speaker, okay. I have to take a shower.

He placed his fingertips on the carpet and readied himself for a silent effort of will.
#48
Iago wasn't bothered by the lack of response because he knew, too.

Calming down by shallow levels, he rubbed his face into the crook of his arm and nodded, then realized the gesture didn't do anything here.

Yeah, that's good.

Frankly, he should probably shower, too, but he sort of refused to complicate their efforts at contact that were already too far, too strained. Wasn't even sure he had it in him to get up from right here now that the drive to go had no direction, no reason. Back to waiting. But waiting was so much easier when he had reassurances and something to anticipate that wasn't all just aimless hope.

Did you sleep?

Concern based on his own night, and wanting to hear him a little more. He'd just melt here on the stairs, the bare light coming in through the rest of the house slowly filtering to yellows.
#49
Up...oh god. He made it to standing and was punished for it with a violent wave of nausea. Dropping the phone on the bed, he staggered toward the wastebasket and retched as silently as possible, vomiting up bile in a series of dry, gagging coughs. His entire skull was exploding.

He heard the question and answered reflexively, after spitting into the trash.

No.
#50
Iago could only pick up on so much through the phone and his own awful haze, but he knew when things weren't going well. His own sense of exhausted unwellness stirred in sympathy and he hated... hated hated hated how far away he was, how little he could do here. Even calming down, he wasn't going to feel right again until there was physical contact. His eyes hurt, or maybe that was just the space in his head right behind them.

Whining softly to himself, the answer made sense to him.

Yeah, me either.

Sigh.

Don't... I'm not going anywhere.

He almost told him not to rush it, to not push himself, but Iago didn't have it in him to wait longer than was strictly necessary right now.
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