"It's understandable," Steven says sympathetically. "I mean, I hate the man--yes, even now after we've signed our treaty--but if I were in your position, I'd definitely want to be with the person that the memories making up me told me was my best friend and lover."
He comes back and starts unwrapping the paper from the butter, the better to transfer it to the mixing bowl for creaming.
"And yeah," he adds. "I am. I-- really love Jack, you know? He's the first man to-- really understand about me to any significant degree. And sometimes we still don't get each other, even now--but there's so much he does get. With him I feel seen, you know? Seen as me. And-- I mean, sex and love aren't the same thing, but I do love him and he is a pretty jealous guy, so." He shrugs, shaking the butter stick loose from the paper above his bowl. "My parents would probably be pleased I'm in a monogamous long term relationship if they knew, if it weren't for the fact that Jack's closer to their age than mine."
“I can’t imagine a larger difference in age than Hades and his little boyfriend, but I suppose it is possible,” he says, trying not to be too bitter. “But I don’t deserve him. It is laughable enough for me to claim companionship from true living beings, but to garner such from my own Creator?”
He watches approvingly before he goes to set the oven.
“It can be nice to want someone who wants you to want him,” he says with a wistful little sigh.
“Beat it until it is smooth, then add the sugars,” he says as he finds himself a chair to perch carefully upon.
Steven snickers. "His 'little boyfriend,' huh? I mean, it's accurate, but you probably shouldn't let Dirk hear you say that. Guys that short are usually sensitive." He wonders if the ogre who'd followed his future self was sensitive about that, if Future Steven occasionally tweaked him about it. He hadn't been any taller than Dirk, although rather more broad.
"But no, no, it's seventeen years. So-- much less than Hades and Dirk. And-- look, Hythlo. If anything, Hades doesn't deserve you. He spent how many weeks jerking you around emotionally while enforcing a strict no touching principle?" Steven snorts. "I mean, I'm glad for Dirk's sake his boyfriend didn't cheat on him, but it's not far to you. Especially since you're saying he did make you, right? No wonder you're a little fixated on him."
He's creaming the sugar and butter as instructed. "I mean, if you were original Hythlodaeus, you might be fixated anyway, simply because he was your boyfriend and best friend and the only one from home. But because you're his memory construct Hythlodaeus, since you were literally made for him to assuage his loneliness-- well, of course you'll be this fucked up about him."
He turns around. "Look," he says, in a very low voice. "If I wasn't in a happy monogamous relationship with a very jealous boyfriend... but I am, is the thing. But the point is... the point is that you deserve people to be happy with, the same as anyone else, Hythlo. And I'm sorry I can't help you with that, but it's just-- not something I should ask of Jack."
"He needs not hear me say it, I only need to stand near him," he says with a grin.
"To be a bit more precise, I'm what would be considered an imperfect Creation. Creation, as a magic, requires clarity of thought and focus unhindered by strong emotions or distractions. As you can imagine, I'm naturally very good at this. Hades is extremely competent, but he is emotional and prone to overthinking."
Hythlodaeus begins writing out the recipe for the other cookie as he considers his words.
"I wasn't meant to have a mind of my own; I doubt he even knew about me or he would have released me from the mundane cruelty of being the only sapient being in his diorama of Amaurot. We only were meant to just add a little light and color to his stage, you see. Even if he thought "Hythlodaeus will see through this"... that would have been enough."
He shrugs, putting his pencil aside as he watches Steven.
"He hadn't even come to find me after he made me. I doubt it would have eased his loneliness one bit to have a hollow version of myself teasing him," he said, casting his gaze softly to the middle distance.
To Hythlodaeus, it sounded a bit like a burgeoning crush, but he would deal with that as a separate thing and away from prying eyes and ears.
Steven knows he should be adding the next ingredients on his list now that he's more or less finished creaming the butter and sugar. He doesn't. Instead he sets the mixer down on the counter, and comes over to where Hythlo's sitting and puts his hand on his shoulder.
"I'm sorry," he says softly. "I-- can't really feel your loneliness with you, but I can imagine what it must be like to be the only--" Real. "--thinking person among moving shadows, knowing the one who made you doesn't realize what he did. That's awful, Hythlo. I wish..." But he trails off. Unsure what he actually wants of Hythlo, besides that understanding he doesn't really have to ask for.
"I wish I knew how to make you happier," he says finally. "You're one of my people now too, you know. Which means you actually matter. And I care if you're happy or not."
Hythlodaeus looks up at him, his smile dropping. He brings his uninjured arm around Steven's midsection and presses his head to his chest.
The experience was terrible, tempered only by his steady emotional state and sense of understanding.
"I'm..." he was about to say 'not unhappy', but he realizes with a strange, creeping feeling that might not be true. He reconsiders his words. "I will manage. Especially with friends."
With a confidant, he realizes dimly. Huh. When did that happen?
"I'll tell you one last thing about me that only Hades knows. I don't emote, not naturally," he says with his blank, droopy expression.
Steven's other hand comes up to stroke Hythlodaeus' hair. "I'm not surprised," he says gently. "You do a decent job of faking it, but sometimes you go a bit blank. But hell, I use polite blankness enough that I wasn't going to be a dick and call you on it. You don't have to force it around me if you don't want to. If it's easier not to, then don't. If our time together is for me to learn from you, it's also to give you somewhere you don't have to pretend."
"...I'd appreciate that, I think," he says, squeezing him as he sighs into the touch. It wasn't as if he was entirely starved of affection, but he had been before his injury.
And this was... Nice, actually. For all that had happened, and his intent to simply use Steven from the start... Well, he was beginning to take on real value to him aside from his use, in spite of his shortcomings.
"Oh, Steven, I'm exquisite at faking it when my entire world isn't trying to come down around me. I was so well-liked in Amaurot... unlike here."
Steven chuckles. "I believe you," he says. "As one awful fake to another. I'd have liked to see it—to see you in your element." His hand is still stroking Hythlo's hair. "If I promise to do nothing bad to it, if you can sleep in your true body... can I come and see it? If you dream of it the way Hades did, I mean. I'd swear a pledge to keep the dream sweet. There are pledges for that too, you know."
"Such a pledge is unnecessary. I trust you... And I don't feel fear too keenly as it is. I doubt there is much you could do to me. So... yes. I can sleep and I can dream. I would like nothing more, I think, than for you to see my home in its proper glory," he says quietly against his chest.
He pulls back finally, figuring that it would be terrible for the jealous partner to come downstairs and see such a thing.
"We had better get those cookies in the oven and free up the mixer," he says, looking up at him with a blank expression.
It would be. But hell, Steven's a bit impulsive. Always has been. It's why his parents tried so hard to find ways to put the breaks on him.
Still. Steven gives Hythlo a little nod and goes back to his cookie preparations. After a bit, he starts singing under his breath, "Well you sure didn't look like you were having any fun, with that heavy-metal gaze they'll have to measure in tons. And when you look up at the sky, all you see are zeros, all you see are zeros and ones..."
It's odd, he thinks, that as much as Hythlodaeus had scared him once, he finds himself... honestly caring for the man. Wanting to comfort him how he can. He matters now.
He can only hear the lower notes over the sounds of the mixing, but he likes it well enough. He lays his chin on his arms and his arms upon the table. When he hears the mixing end, he stands to inspect his work.
"Easy, see? Once the recipe is in your mind, you should be able to make it in minutes flat."
He stands nearly shoulder to shoulder with Steven as he explains the proper technique for making the cookies all perfectly sized and spaced. After a moment, his thoughts float back to the music.
"Masterfade," Steven says. "By Andrew Bird. Actually, this world has a near equivalent by the name of Andrew Bird-type. I can put on the album for you later in the living room. It's called 'The Mysterious Production of Eggs.'"
He smiles. "I like his lyrics. They're complicated, but catchy. Did they have anything like him in Amaurot?"
"There was more music than even an immortal could listen to," he says with a grin. "During my time, symphonies were more in fashion, however."
Perhaps if Amaurot had not caught on fire (and everything else), there may have been an equivalent one day. Emet-Selch's quotes seem to stop dead at anything post 1950 circa earth as it was.
"Yet I cannot claim to have any familiarity..." He smiles a little before he lets himself drop it. While these things were not natural for him, they were also reflexive. "Only if you believe that it won't bother your sleeping husband."
Steven's face is definitely heating up. "I can keep the volume low," he says. "And I'll get some coffee ready in the percolator for if he does wander down."
He finishes with scooping his cookies and takes them to the oven. Sets his timer.
"He's not really my husband yet," Steven reminds Hythlodaeus. "But. Someday. When it happens, I'll invite you to the reception."
"Then I would much enjoy a new cultural experience," he says softly, sparing a glance towards the direction of the stairs. He stands, rigging the beaters and the bowl in such a way that they would be able to leave it unattended. Clever solution, if he thinks so himself.
"...Hades wasn't my husband yet either, and never will be now. That is likely my fault. I enjoyed being difficult with each new draft of our contract," but he says this with the sort of distant air of someone who isn't really all that broken up about it.
"I'm not much of a coffee addict as Jack," Steven explains. "Five years without it in Arcadia broke me of it--and honestly, even before Arcadia I was always more of a cappuccino or latte guy than I was into your regular drip coffee. I'll get something on the way to work."
Then his mind fully processes what Hythlodaeus just said about himself and Hades and he swears under his breath.
"Are you--" He's got a pensive worried expression, looking at Hythlo. "I mean, I get it, it's a thousand fucking years for him by now, god, thousands of years, of course he's had the time to get over losing you, but-- Jesus Christ. You're basically saying you were engaged, right? Holy fucking shit. If we didn't have a treaty I'd throw him down another flight of stairs for fucking with your emotions like this. Not that it wasn't bad when you were just exes, but--"
He glances away.
"Sorry. I just. He's being such an asshole about all of this. This whole-- bullshit with you and Dirk."
“Do not become confused, this is as I have chosen it to be. It was I who told Hades to pursue Dirk singly and it was I who revealed the nature of our reality to Dirk to encourage him without reservation,” he says as he lays a hand on Steven’s shoulder.
“I am thankful that you wish to protect me, that you consider my position an injustice. Yet you need only to do what you do now: To distract me from my sorrows and to allow me to release the pressurized steam that builds in my heart.”
He gives his shoulder a squeeze and the corner of his mouth twitches.
“It is because he is my betrothed that I wish this. I know it is hard to imagine.”
"That you're secretly a self-sacrificing type when it comes to the man you love?" Steven says. "Not exactly the first thing I'd have expected from you, no. But I can see it in a way." He sighs. "And-- knowing what you are, I can see how you'd think it would be better that Hades be with a 'real person' than a memory with a mind of his own.
"But Hythlo--even if this is all to your design doesn't mean that it can't pain you or you can't have regrets. And even if Hades is just doing what you want him to do, he's still the one going through with it, you know? He's still making choices that pain you."
But there's a soft, almost embarrassed smile on his face for Hythlodaeus. "And-- I'll do my best. As a distraction and a friend."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
“Oh, this I know keenly. You are a very committed man and so have no interest in interfering with another’s happiness.”
Not in any meaningful sense, at least.
“Including Hades’ I suppose,” he says with a sigh. “It is terribly inappropriate of me.”
no subject
He comes back and starts unwrapping the paper from the butter, the better to transfer it to the mixing bowl for creaming.
"And yeah," he adds. "I am. I-- really love Jack, you know? He's the first man to-- really understand about me to any significant degree. And sometimes we still don't get each other, even now--but there's so much he does get. With him I feel seen, you know? Seen as me. And-- I mean, sex and love aren't the same thing, but I do love him and he is a pretty jealous guy, so." He shrugs, shaking the butter stick loose from the paper above his bowl. "My parents would probably be pleased I'm in a monogamous long term relationship if they knew, if it weren't for the fact that Jack's closer to their age than mine."
no subject
He watches approvingly before he goes to set the oven.
“It can be nice to want someone who wants you to want him,” he says with a wistful little sigh.
“Beat it until it is smooth, then add the sugars,” he says as he finds himself a chair to perch carefully upon.
no subject
"But no, no, it's seventeen years. So-- much less than Hades and Dirk. And-- look, Hythlo. If anything, Hades doesn't deserve you. He spent how many weeks jerking you around emotionally while enforcing a strict no touching principle?" Steven snorts. "I mean, I'm glad for Dirk's sake his boyfriend didn't cheat on him, but it's not far to you. Especially since you're saying he did make you, right? No wonder you're a little fixated on him."
He's creaming the sugar and butter as instructed. "I mean, if you were original Hythlodaeus, you might be fixated anyway, simply because he was your boyfriend and best friend and the only one from home. But because you're his memory construct Hythlodaeus, since you were literally made for him to assuage his loneliness-- well, of course you'll be this fucked up about him."
He turns around. "Look," he says, in a very low voice. "If I wasn't in a happy monogamous relationship with a very jealous boyfriend... but I am, is the thing. But the point is... the point is that you deserve people to be happy with, the same as anyone else, Hythlo. And I'm sorry I can't help you with that, but it's just-- not something I should ask of Jack."
no subject
"To be a bit more precise, I'm what would be considered an imperfect Creation. Creation, as a magic, requires clarity of thought and focus unhindered by strong emotions or distractions. As you can imagine, I'm naturally very good at this. Hades is extremely competent, but he is emotional and prone to overthinking."
Hythlodaeus begins writing out the recipe for the other cookie as he considers his words.
"I wasn't meant to have a mind of my own; I doubt he even knew about me or he would have released me from the mundane cruelty of being the only sapient being in his diorama of Amaurot. We only were meant to just add a little light and color to his stage, you see. Even if he thought "Hythlodaeus will see through this"... that would have been enough."
He shrugs, putting his pencil aside as he watches Steven.
"He hadn't even come to find me after he made me. I doubt it would have eased his loneliness one bit to have a hollow version of myself teasing him," he said, casting his gaze softly to the middle distance.
To Hythlodaeus, it sounded a bit like a burgeoning crush, but he would deal with that as a separate thing and away from prying eyes and ears.
'not fair' not 'not far'
"I'm sorry," he says softly. "I-- can't really feel your loneliness with you, but I can imagine what it must be like to be the only--" Real. "--thinking person among moving shadows, knowing the one who made you doesn't realize what he did. That's awful, Hythlo. I wish..." But he trails off. Unsure what he actually wants of Hythlo, besides that understanding he doesn't really have to ask for.
"I wish I knew how to make you happier," he says finally. "You're one of my people now too, you know. Which means you actually matter. And I care if you're happy or not."
no subject
The experience was terrible, tempered only by his steady emotional state and sense of understanding.
"I'm..." he was about to say 'not unhappy', but he realizes with a strange, creeping feeling that might not be true. He reconsiders his words. "I will manage. Especially with friends."
With a confidant, he realizes dimly. Huh. When did that happen?
"I'll tell you one last thing about me that only Hades knows. I don't emote, not naturally," he says with his blank, droopy expression.
no subject
no subject
And this was... Nice, actually. For all that had happened, and his intent to simply use Steven from the start... Well, he was beginning to take on real value to him aside from his use, in spite of his shortcomings.
"Oh, Steven, I'm exquisite at faking it when my entire world isn't trying to come down around me. I was so well-liked in Amaurot... unlike here."
no subject
no subject
He pulls back finally, figuring that it would be terrible for the jealous partner to come downstairs and see such a thing.
"We had better get those cookies in the oven and free up the mixer," he says, looking up at him with a blank expression.
no subject
Still. Steven gives Hythlo a little nod and goes back to his cookie preparations. After a bit, he starts singing under his breath, "Well you sure didn't look like you were having any fun, with that heavy-metal gaze they'll have to measure in tons. And when you look up at the sky, all you see are zeros, all you see are zeros and ones..."
It's odd, he thinks, that as much as Hythlodaeus had scared him once, he finds himself... honestly caring for the man. Wanting to comfort him how he can. He matters now.
no subject
"Easy, see? Once the recipe is in your mind, you should be able to make it in minutes flat."
He stands nearly shoulder to shoulder with Steven as he explains the proper technique for making the cookies all perfectly sized and spaced. After a moment, his thoughts float back to the music.
"...What was that song you were singing?"
no subject
He smiles. "I like his lyrics. They're complicated, but catchy. Did they have anything like him in Amaurot?"
no subject
Perhaps if Amaurot had not caught on fire (and everything else), there may have been an equivalent one day. Emet-Selch's quotes seem to stop dead at anything post 1950 circa earth as it was.
"Yet I cannot claim to have any familiarity..." He smiles a little before he lets himself drop it. While these things were not natural for him, they were also reflexive. "Only if you believe that it won't bother your sleeping husband."
no subject
He finishes with scooping his cookies and takes them to the oven. Sets his timer.
"He's not really my husband yet," Steven reminds Hythlodaeus. "But. Someday. When it happens, I'll invite you to the reception."
no subject
"...Hades wasn't my husband yet either, and never will be now. That is likely my fault. I enjoyed being difficult with each new draft of our contract," but he says this with the sort of distant air of someone who isn't really all that broken up about it.
"You have had your coffee already, then?"
no subject
Then his mind fully processes what Hythlodaeus just said about himself and Hades and he swears under his breath.
"Are you--" He's got a pensive worried expression, looking at Hythlo. "I mean, I get it, it's a thousand fucking years for him by now, god, thousands of years, of course he's had the time to get over losing you, but-- Jesus Christ. You're basically saying you were engaged, right? Holy fucking shit. If we didn't have a treaty I'd throw him down another flight of stairs for fucking with your emotions like this. Not that it wasn't bad when you were just exes, but--"
He glances away.
"Sorry. I just. He's being such an asshole about all of this. This whole-- bullshit with you and Dirk."
no subject
“I am thankful that you wish to protect me, that you consider my position an injustice. Yet you need only to do what you do now: To distract me from my sorrows and to allow me to release the pressurized steam that builds in my heart.”
He gives his shoulder a squeeze and the corner of his mouth twitches.
“It is because he is my betrothed that I wish this. I know it is hard to imagine.”
no subject
"But Hythlo--even if this is all to your design doesn't mean that it can't pain you or you can't have regrets. And even if Hades is just doing what you want him to do, he's still the one going through with it, you know? He's still making choices that pain you."
But there's a soft, almost embarrassed smile on his face for Hythlodaeus. "And-- I'll do my best. As a distraction and a friend."
no subject
“My duty is to Emet-Selch, this... Surpasses merely the play of our interpersonal affairs.”
And then the timer goes off and he turns towards the oven.
“Ah, just so. Those should be ready. You can smell them properly, do you notice this? That is a keen indicator.”
...And he is grateful to change the subject besides. He can’t possibly tell Steven Emet-Selch’s plans.
“Then we are of an accord. To while away the years and to bear witness to what may come next.”
no subject
"Yeah. I can smell them. Let me go take them out, okay?"
And he does that, moving to the oven and pulling the sheet out.
"How many minutes do I wait before transferring them to the rack?" he calls over.