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It’s no secret that Partitio might be playing favourites.
Not literally, of course, because he loves all of his friends just as much as the next (and he’ll argue quite vehemently against any implication as to otherwise, thank you kindly!). Why, he even makes sure to bring fitting people along when he goes out on his merchant missions – Ochette, for example, was happy as a clam to bounce along after him as he skipped along the waves to Tropu’hopu. You could even consider it testing a theory when he asks Hikari to come with him to settle things in Oresrush, a fireside conversation still niggling in his mind; it’s only once they’ve wrapped up their business deal, a little trade agreement for a certain boomin’ business venture set well in stone, that Hikari pulls him aside for the first time since they set foot into town. “Thank you,” he says, earnest as always as he looks back out over packed earth, eyes seeming further away still. “This helped.”
Partitio makes it a personal mission after that. He knows he’s just assigning inevitable excuses to simply bring along their resident warrior, but who can blame him? Sure, there’s something nice about seeing someone he cares about framed in the city he cares about, the rising familiarity leaving something warm and fuzzy yawning itself awake in Partitio’s chest like a well-napped cat at the smell of good food, but the bigger reason is simply this: every time Partitio offers, Hikari says yes without a second thought; every time they set out together, Hikari seems to get this new pep in his step; and every time they turn out onto the trails, the orange dirt is a far cry from golden sands but Hikari still breathes in deep like the dusty air and scent of rain-parched sun-burned earth is something to be savoured.
This time it’s truly a brief stop – barely enough time to say hello to some old faces, grab a bite to eat, and check up on the balance between supply and demand.
The sun’s still high in the sky when Partitio steps out of the saloon, time plenty to get back to the rest of them in good order. Hikari’s off to one side, engaged in what seems to be a very intense discussion with a stable-hand as he idly pets at the mane of a gorgeous black stallion. He’s clearly enjoying himself, nodding along and offering his own equestrian insight. Partitio senses he shouldn’t interrupt, lack of horse knowledge notwithstanding. Instead, he cups a hand around his mouth, a call of his name enough to prompt Hikari to turn around, head cocked to one side. “I’m gonna wait for you out at the start of the trail, alright? Take your time!” Hikari nods, waving, and it’s only the memory of this mutual agreement to meet that keeps Partitio loitering where he has been for the past handful of minutes.
He tips his hat back, squinting up at the cloudless sky from under the shade of a scraggly, mostly leafless tree, and flaps his coat where it hangs behind him. “Yeesh. Talk about hot. Woulda stayed inside if I’d known it. Hikari better not take too long or I’ll roast out here.”
He’s still idling, a hand to his hip as the other rolls a coin across his knuckles, when movement catches the corner of his eye – one, two, three moving things, to be precise, emerging from further up the path. They’re wobbling in the heat-haze, floating as oily smudges above the ground, and Partitio keeps a general eye on their approach as they draw nearer and nearer.
“Fellas.” Only polite to greet a passerby – that’s the Oresrush way. “If you’re lookin’ for town, it’s just a little further down the road past that big boulder. You can’t miss it.”
The men exchange looks, bandanas tugged high up their nose, and it’s only once they’ve stepped even closer that Partitio notes that those are daggers in their pockets and they aren’t just happy to see him. Aw, hells.
“Now now, gentlemen,” he starts, both palms slowly coming up in the universal gesture of surrender. He’s seen their like before, more than once, even. “I’m sure we can work this out amicably. We’re all adults here, usin’ words shouldn’t be beyond us. How’s about you and I strike a deal?”
The one in front scoffs, stepping a little closer as his other two friends circle around to either side, fencing Partitio in with his back to tree-bark. “We don’t want no deal, boy. We want your coin.”
“That all? Money sure does make the world go ‘round.” Partitio, merchant extraordinaire he is, knows, among other things, when it’s time to push and when it’s time to pull back and cut his losses. There’re certain purse strings worth loosening, and if it means that he’s going to get out of this without three mean-looking knives buried in his side then he’s gonna do it. It’s not like he wants to fight them, anyway – he’ll choose to see it as another strange round of business, even if this one’s mostly one-sided and a little uneven in its transaction. Better they get what they’re looking for here than latch onto the next unfortunate person to step out of town, especially since he’s got a little less to lose (and, as he surreptitiously glances to the left, hopefully some help on the way soon enough).
“Here.” He hefts out his coin purse, tossing it a couple of times in the air as it jangles noisily. Three sets of eyes follow the motion, but only one set of hands comes out to catch it. “There’s at least a couple hundred leaves left in there. Should tide you over nicely ‘til you get your next big payday.”
The man on the right chuffs. “That it?” He opens the drawstring, squinting into the depths. “You got more?”
Partitio shakes his head. “I promise you I don’t. Your luck’s run dry, fella – I just spent most of it trading some things in that there town.”
Henchman B on the left, as Partitio’s mentally compartmentalising, snorts, hacks, and spits on the dirt. “Liar. Give us the rest.”
The sigh that leaves Partitio can only be described as resigned. Maybe he shouldn’t have thrown these dogs a bone, circling vultures darkening his eyes. “I told you, I don’t got anymore. Bein’ accosted like this is bad enough – I don’t appreciate you lot implyin’ that I’m a liar to boot.”
Their ringleader leers closer, adjusting his grip on the dagger in his hand as he breathes all over Partitio’s face. “And I don’t like the tone you’re taking with us. I don’t think you quite understand your situation here, fella.”
Partitio doesn’t cringe at the smell. It’s a near thing. “I think I mighty well do. Now if you’ll kindly excuse me,” he makes to straighten up from where he’s still leaning against the tree, “I got places to be and no more leaves to spare.”
He’s summarily slammed back against the wood, a rough hand to each of his shoulders. “Oh no you don’t. We’re not done with you yet.”
Partitio’s glower darkens into storm. “Look. Either you play nice and let me leave, or I’ll find a way around you myself.” His hands itch for the axe digging into his shoulder blades but he can’t reach it without shoving them away, and if he does that then there’ll be no way out but scufflin’. “A man who’s not pleased with what he’s given’ll never be pleased at all – and you’re bein’ mighty ungrateful right now.”
A new voice joins the fray – one wholly familiar, wholly welcome, and entirely foreign to the three unfortunate folk Partitio’s found himself in unwilling company of.
“Step away.”
It’s Hikari, pulling out of the middle distance and into sharp relief with both hands already on his sword. The hard curve of it glints, luminescent under the sun, held before him with centre of balance dropped lower in preparation for combat. Maybe a little overkill, but Partitio appreciates the thought.
Their leader grins. “Oh? What’s this? Little doggie brought his pack?”
Henchman… A? (B? Frankly speaking, Partitio’s lost track) scooches closer. “He got money too? Maybe we should try him. They both look like they’ll cough up a pretty penny.”
They’re eyeing Hikari’s fine hair like it’ll make for a particularly fetching rope, and it makes Partitio’s skin crawl. His hand drifts backwards, the weight of his axe-handle comforting in its presence as his fingers find it over his coat.
Hikari doesn’t step closer, but his eyes dart to Partitio, then to his elbow, then to his face, and Partitio shoots him a little wink of confirmation.
Hikari’s mouth ticks up. “I assure you, my friend had the funds for the both of us. Now let us leave.”
“Let you? Maybe you forgot, pretty boy, but there’re three of us and one of you.”
Partitio slides his axe free with one fluid motion, hefting it in one hand as it cuts through the air with a metallic schwing. “Seems you’re not countin’ straight, cause you better make that two! Hi-yah!”
He darts forward, going right for the nearest thief. To his credit, the man actually turns around to meet him halfway while his other two companions go for Hikari – probably seeing his foreign robes, slight frame, and far more delicate sword as the easier target.
Heh. Fools.
Whatever anyone says next gets lost to a cacophony of sword swings and biting blades. Partitio ducks a dagger swipe, side-steps a follow-up slash, and returns the favour with a broad sweep of his own. “Not bad – but I know how you folk operate. Hold still!” His axe slices through the air, shifting the cleave at the last second so it smacks the thief around the back of the head with the flat instead of the edge, a shaking gong of contact that rattles all the way down the metal and through Partitio’s fingers. The poor man goes out like a light, eyes rolling back into his head as he crumples to the ground.
Hikari, unsurprisingly, has cleaned up shop perfectly fine on his own. It must only take a minute, half one more, for them to come out victorious over the three prone figures lying by their collective feet.
Partitio grimaces at both the tingling numbness in his hands and the smear of dirt left behind on his coat from being unceremoniously shoved into a tree. And he just got that cleaned, too. Ah, well. You win some, you lose some.
He crouches by the nearest would-be-thief. One look and it’s clear that he’s out cold, eyes flicking beneath the lids. He’s got a mighty fine welt taking shape on his temple, just about the size of the hilt of Hikari’s blade. Partitio’s victim isn’t doing much better – a healthy bruise is taking up residence on the back of his head. Doesn’t even look to be paying rent. Partitio nudges him with a boot to make sure he’s not planning on getting back up again, just for good measure, and straightens with a low whistle.
“Nice goin’. Somethin’ tells me they won’t be tryin’ that one again so soon.”
Hikari stands there, a dormant statue in the swirling sands. His robes billow around him, the ribbon that he’s started keeping in his hair even in his usual warrior outfit fluttering against the back of his neck. He’s facing down, eyes shadowed by the pieces of hair that frame his face; he looks like something out of a painting, nothing alive. Partitio frowns.
“Hey, uh, Earth to Hikari? You still with me?”
Hikari says nothing in favour of simply reaching for his sword again, eerily quiet as his gaze stays trained on the ground, on the bodies lying on it.
Partitio startles into motion, catching Hikari’s wrist. “Woah now, hold your horses there. They’re already out. We don’t need to do any more than leave ‘em to the powers that be.”
Hikari’s hand tightens into a fist, flexing around emptiness. “Let go of me.” He sounds strained, a new quality to his timbre that leaves gooseflesh in its wake.
The silence between them is bitter. Partitio shakes his head. “I don’t think I can rightly do that, not if you’re about to do what I think you are. They’re not good people but they’re harmless now – we’ve dealt with them enough.”
His words bounce off deaf ears, dissipating into the air as if they were never there to begin with. “I said,” Hikari mutters, the tone as perfectly balanced as the weight of a fine-crafted sword, “let go.” He twists his arm, fabric shifting as he attempts to wrench it free, but this isn’t Partitio’s first rodeo and so he only closes his grip tighter and swivels with the motion.
“No can do, partner. How about you put that sword down first and then we’ll talk.”
They lock eyes, and Partitio almost doesn’t catch it at first but Hikari – his are red, the searing swell of burnt poppies instead of the usual warm brown-black. They flicker between chilled fury and burning hatred, two sentiments that are never on the cards for him (let alone at the same time), and Partitio isn’t even given a chance to double-check before Hikari’s face twists with something new altogether. “Fine. Have it your way.” The sheath is unbuckled with deft fingers, cast to one side, and then it all turns to a blurring flurry of motion as Hikari lunges right for him to send them both to the ground.
Partitio lands on his side, cognizant enough to soften the blow with his own momentum. They go rolling, bouncing across packed earth; good thing they’re most of the way out of town right now or he would have some serious explaining to do. Really – brawling? In broad daylight? Were they raised in a barn?
“What the– Hikari?!” They grapple in the dirt, tussling like two mad dogs. Spit and vinegar, foul plays with every cheating card on the table. Partitio swears as hat gets knocked flying to who knows where, coat left behind on the ground as he’s forcibly shoved away from it, and he’s reminded, not for the first time, just how much Hikari has trained to be as strong as he is.
Something here, though, something about it seems other-worldly, like a preternatural kind of power stirring in the clutch of Hikari’s fingers. They rake through the ground, gathering a handful of loose gravel to fling it right at Partitio’s face. His nails come away jagged, black around the edges, but he doesn’t even seem to care.
Partitio shields his face, forcing himself back up and over for a literal high ground as he settles his full weight onto Hikari’s stomach. “Hikari!” Dust billows up between them. It pricks at his eyes and clings to his neck, enough that the bead of sweat rolling down his temple tracks clear after it. Fighting Hikari is like trying to trap a fox, all sneak and targeted jabs that dig right into the soft gaps between Partitio’s ribs to gouge the air right out of him. In the end, it’s only by principle of his bulkier form, a few more years of heavy lifting under his belt, that Partitio’s able to yank both of Hikari’s smooth wrists in his own palms and force them to the ground on either side of his head.
“Hikari Ku!”
They both still. Partitio gulps in an exhale, the first proper one he hasn’t had to bite down behind teeth since he hit the ground. Hikari’s eyes glint red-blood-sun up at him when he searches them for something to explain what in the seven hells is happening right now. “Snap out of it! What… What’s gotten into you?”
The Hikari on the ground below him, the person wearing Hikari’s face, peels back their lips in what he guesses is their best attempt at a smile. It’s bitter, tarnished, a sneer smeared across his cheeks. It doesn’t suit him, not really – not the Hikari that Partitio knows, the one who always looks better determined and best when smiling.
“Oh? He hasn’t told you, then, has he.” The body pinned beneath him sighs, aggrieved, and shrugs its shoulders with an easy roll of the neck. It’s the same bones, same skin, same clothes, but everything about it screams wrong as klaxons start firing in place of neurons inside Partitio’s skull. “Figures. Of course he wouldn’t. He’s a coward, you know.”
Partitio feels his own expression harden until it’s as firm as freshly minted leaf. “Idunno who you’re talking about, but it can’t be the same person I am because Hikari’s one of the bravest people I know.”
A snort from below. “Ugh, spare me the sentiment. Disgusting, the lot of you, always so busy caring about each other. I ought to just stab you all and be done with it.”
Distant thunder rolls through Partitio’s ears. “Stab us? If that’s a joke, mister, I ain’t laughin’. Why would you do that? You’re our friend, aren’t you?”
All he gets in response is a smirk, a knife-slice of white teeth.
That gives him pause. “Aren’t… You?”
There’s no real answer. Instead, Hikari’s chin gets tipped back in a kind of critical defiance, finding a way to look down his nose at Partitio despite their current position. Red eyes search his face, branding everywhere they touch like the heat of a too-close flame. A pink tongue darts out, wetting dry lips. “He likes you, you know.” It’s a simple statement, like words read straight from the autobiography of a stranger’s life, as if they’re not being uttered by someone being held to the ground with the full weight of another body. “So much it makes him soft.” It’s said like it’s a crime, like it’s a bad thing to have a heart, like it’s a sin to not want to bleed. “So much it makes me sick.”
“You… You don’t know what you’re sayin’.” Partitio’s voice is small, rocky, feeling condensed and compressed into a bullet of honesty aimed right at his own heart.
The knife-smile widens into a shark’s grin. There’s blood in the water, and the delicate fingers curled tight around the trigger are far too slim to be Partitio’s own. “Please. I am him, as much as he is me.”
“No, you’re not,” Partitio grumbles. It’s got more bite to it than he means, chest stinging with a whole new kind of hurt. “This isn’t… You’re messing with me.” His fingers only loosen a fraction, barely anything at all, but it’s felt by his prisoner and their face breaks out into triumph.
It’s enough.
A moment of distraction is all it takes for Partitio to get his world turned upside down. He’s flipped over, dumped unceremoniously to land on his back, and scrambles to prop himself up on his elbows – only to feel the distinct cool sting of the sharp end of a blade against the column of his throat. It’s not Hikari’s sword, still cast somewhere by the wayside. It’s too short for that anyway. Rather, it’s a dagger, as ornamental as it is deadly and pried from somewhere within Hikari’s clothes, procured out of nowhere like the world’s worst magic trick.
Partitio swallows. His Adam’s apple bobs, and the cold press of steel beads something warm instead.
“What’s wrong?” The face that belongs to Hikari ducks closer still, the curtains of his hair shading them both from view. The sun rings him from behind, a terrible backlit halo that blocks out everything except his ruby eyes. “Cat got your tongue?”
Partitio sinks teeth into the inside of his cheek. “Look, stranger,” he starts, voice low, “I dunno who you are, or what you’ve done with Hikari, but I need you give him back to me. I ain’t askin’ twice.”
The person who’s not Hikari laughs, hollow of all the warmth that normally fills out the all too familiar sound of happiness, and they almost seem indulgent when they lever the dagger into the softness of Partitio’s jaw to tip his chin backwards. “Really. Asking. You? You’re stupid and a fool. I don’t know what he sees in you.”
“I might be no assassin, but I’m still Oresrush ilk, born and raised. You learn some things, livin’ this far out in the boonies. I don’t wanna have to hurt you,” because he doesn’t, not Hikari, not someone with eyes that always looked better mirthful than harrowed, “but I will if I gotta.”
The foreign smile on a familiar mouth doesn’t falter. “You’re welcome to try,” they say, dagger spinning in their grip before it sinks, infinitesimally, deeper into skin. Partitio lowers himself, bit by careful bit, until he’s well and truly flat on his back with nowhere further to go. His hands tighten at his sides. He should do something, anything, but the fact that his brain still sees Hikari over him and Hikari bearing down makes his hands clam up at the thought of inflicting any kind of hurt.
His mind whirs, desperate, for the best course of action, but it’s like spinning gears against glass and nothing catches. The dagger presses on, closer and closer to flutter of his pulse in his neck —
“Par… Partitio?” The pinprick pain vanishes. Partitio opens his eyes (and, for that matter, when had he closed them?), squinting against the sudden brightness taking up where Hikari had been. He’s pulled away, voice is fractured into tiny, pitiful splinters, eyes blown wide and swimming black as his hands loosen their vicelike grip. He blinks down at them, at his palms like they’re not his own, and unspoken horror shapes his features into something ugly. His eyes dart up, frantic. “Partitio, I—agh!” A hand shoots to his forehead, fingers clutching and digging into his hairline as black strands spill between white knuckles. He sways back, scrambling off through the dirt. The dagger is abandoned, forgotten as it drops and skitters across the floor like something alive.
Partitio coughs, rolling upright. “Hika– Ough, just.” He presses a hand to his throat. It comes away crimson against white leather. No wonder he’s sounding all sorts of messed up. “Give me a minute, I gotta — I gotta catch my breath.”
Hikari shakes his head, eyes clenched shut as his jaw creaks with how hard he’s gritting his teeth. “Don’t come near me, I– this–” Hikari snarls, hunching over, a bowstring pulled to snap as his elbows and knees find purchase on the ground. His shadow, rimming just below him, lengthens in the midday sun, radiating outwards like a living, breathing thing as it feeds and grows off of the man trapped in the centre until it’s a ringing puddle of ink at his feet. A moat between Hikari and the world, one without a drawbridge and one that Partitio’s not sure he’ll be able to cross. “I’ll hurt you. I’ll hurt you, Partitio, I already did, you– you need to get away from me.”
Partitio coughs, again, and tries for speech once more. It works a little better this time. “Tough luck. You should know by now that I ain’t the type to up and leave you here.” He sits up proper and tries to keep his breathing even, tries to look around the panic seizing his lungs. “What’s going on, Hikari? I can’t help you if I don’t know!”
The shadow seems to roil at the sound of his voice, bubbling earth, black mud and tar. Tendrils of violet smoke around the fringes of Hikari's being and when he looks up again, rising to his knees, his eyes are twin fire. “You couldn’t help me even if you did.”
Hikari’s hands fly to his head again, palms hitting against his temples. He tears himself away, and it’s only once their eye-contact is forcibly shattered that Partitio feels like his chest remembers how to move. “No, you… I don’t want– this isn’t what I want. Shut up. Shut up.” Hikari swears to himself, spitting mother tongue, and the hand not busy trying to hold his head together scrabbles in the dirt to one side. In his haste to put some distance between them he’s ended up by where his sword lay on the ground, the scabbard waiting with the patience of an old friend for its magnetic home in Hikari’s hands. Quivering fingers finally find purchase, closing first around the hilt of his blade like a lifeline until they can skirt lower, further, index and middle pressing down to ease out his sword from its sheath. He gropes for it with his other hand too, blindly reaching to close both hands around it; he misses, overshoots, and Partitio gets a front row seat to the harrowing sight of red blood flowing straight from where Hikari’s cut his hand clean open, the meat of his palm soaked through as it drips down to be swallowed by the void-dark. It’s the worst he’s ever seen him get hurt – and it’s self-inflicted, no less. The shock of the pain seems to give Hikari something to focus on, though, to draw on and keep himself tethered to, because he gets his fingers around the hilt properly the second time and draws his blade out in full to heft it high above his head as he forces himself back to his feet with heaving breaths.
“I said shut up!”
His sword carves through the air with an inhuman roar, sparking off nothing as the tip buries itself in the black sand — and, immediately, like breaking the surface of blackwater, the air clears. It sweetens, cooling, as the scent of acrid burning fades, and Partitio finds his breath coming back to him the same time the oppressive fear of primal dark gets chased away by a reminder of warmth.
The sun beats down on them.
A distant crow groans a single cry.
Hikari pants, full-body tremors wracking his frame. He shivers, stumbling, as weariness sweeps into and out of every part of him, and Partitio’s darting to his feet and by his side in an instant to catch him lest he fall.
“Woah Nelly – careful. Here, sit down, you… Look like you need it.”
Hikari flinches at the contact like it burns him, skin clammy with sweat. His eyes dart from Partitio’s hands to his face and back, but he’s too weak to protest and too tired to do much else but sink to the ground.
“I’m… I’m sorry, I. Partitio.” Hikari’s face crumples open as his voice catches around syllables, too many things for Partitio to parse out – but the one above them all, sunken into the corners of his mouth and the curve of his brow, is overwhelming guilt.
Partitio’s heart lurches, seasick, in his chest. Good grief – so many new feelings he’s seen on that face today. He’s not sure he ever wants to see any of them again. “I got you, you’re fine. Breathe, Hikari, cmon – with me. In,” a deep inhale, “out. One more, you can do it.”
Hikari follows him, shaky even now, but he looks marginally more like himself again when they’re through.
Partitio feels a little more real too.
“I… I’m sorry, I. They… I was late. If I didn’t get there in time, if they hurt you, I would never have forgiven them.” Hikari closes his good hand around his own arm, clutching himself like it’ll stop him falling apart.
Partitio doesn’t need to ask to know that he’s seeing something else, a different body at his feet.
You don’t leave a kingdom behind without gaining some ghosts.
He tries for gentle, for tender. It’s embarrassing how easily it comes. “But they didn’t. You were right on time, Hikari, so there’s no need to apologise. If anything, I should be thankin’ you.”
Hikari’s face goes slack, lost for words, but when he finds them again it’s not in the way Partitio wants. “No, Partitio. No, you shouldn’t. You should be blaming me.” His lip quivers, eyes hard – in their gaze, in their sentiment, on himself. He might’ve won, but it’s clear he doesn’t like anything that’s come after, forever worried about consequences that he can and can’t fix, things that aren’t for him to control.
Partitio sits back on his haunches, close enough that he’s there but not too close so as to make landfall in a way that may be unwelcome. “Look me in the eye, Hikari. Have I ever, in all the time you’ve known me, lied to you?”
Hikari’s eyes skitter up, then down, then back, then away, like looking Partitio in the face is more than he can manage. He swallows. Blood drips. “… No.”
“So you can take me for my word. I don’t blame you, and I don’t need you doin’ that for me either.”
Hikari’s hair lashes about him when he shakes his head, whipping against his cheekbones where it’s been pulled loose by their scuffle. “No, you shouldn’t… I don’t understand. Why are you being so nice to me? I’m — How can you still stand to be around me?”
Partitio blinks at him like he’s grown two heads. “What? Why wouldn’t I?”
Hikari’s eyes are on him again in an instant. “I could’ve killed you, Partitio.” He’s searching his face, like he’s pleading with him to understand.
“And yet here I am, still kickin’.” Rattled a little, maybe, knee jittering with residual adrenaline, but still largely whole. “You’re my friend, Hikari, n’ right now I’m more worried about you than I am scared for myself. Would’ve been a whole lot worse if you hadn’t showed up, too.”
Hikari chokes on gasping air, incredulous. “What is wrong with you? Friends don’t hurt friends.”
True enough. “I mean, normally yeah, but – look, you guys’re goin’ through some stuff. Throné once almost threw me clean over her shoulder when I clapped her on the back without announcin’ myself first. Compared to that, this is nothing. Just a flesh wound!” The bleeding’s even already stopped, scabbing up and healing over. If he’s really lucky, it won’t even scar. “You and her – it’s instinct, right? You didn’t want to do that.” He’s not gonna blame people for things they can’t control – so long as they’re doing good with what they can, then that’s a balanced ledger in his book.
Hikari looks like he’s going to argue the point, to beat himself up some more about it, but then Partitio offers him a smile and suddenly Hikari can’t even look him in the eye anymore, all the fight leaving his sails in favour of a sombreness that drags down on his bones. “Right.” His good hand flexes in his lap. “Instinct.” The single word weighs heavy, a sardonic peace following in its wake.
Partitio fiddles with the button on his glove. “Hikari. I… Know you might not wanna talk about it, but I need you to be honest with me for a second. What… Was that? Kinda spooked me halfway to Sunday for a sec if I’m being honest.”
Hikari shrinks even further still, like he doesn’t want to be here, like the last person he wants to know is himself in this moment.
“I… I'm not sure.” He speaks like he's forcing the words, like every sentence pains him. “All I know is that it's a shadow, the darkest version of myself that couldn't be further from who I am. In moments of weakness, of desperation, it's always there, tempting me, especially when emotions run high and I’m faced with a choice – to choose life or death. I hate it, hate fighting for a cause that isn’t mine, but my blood…” They both eye his damaged hand, at the wetness pooling in his palm. “It feels like it sings for it. My veins may beat with that of my own, but they’re always questing for the pulse of another. It’s the burden of Ku. Maybe it's karmic payment for our bloodlust. Maybe it's the cause. My father spent years working over it, learning to live above it and leave it behind. Mugen… Mugen was born without.” Another bead rolls down, spreading into the cracks of Hikari’s skin; a red river making its own personal delta. “He never let it go.”
“Emotions, huh.” Partitio shifts a little; his leg's going numb. “Must’ve been some feeling!”
Hikari swallows. “I was… Afraid.”
Partitio chuckles, shaking his head. “Cmon, Hikari. I’ve seen you fight – you don’t gotta be scared about a couple of bottom-of-the-barrel thieves.”
Hikari stares at him, silent, and the weight of it is like a funeral shroud, smothering from head to toe.
If I didn’t get there in time, if they hurt you —
Hikari is looking at him like he’s already ranked him, somewhere, among the friends he’ll have to bury.
Oh.
Partitio freezes, throat tight as a rattlesnake as the smile slides funny on his face.
Well now.
Hikari looks away.
Partitio exhales, steeling himself. “Hikari, I’ll be honest – I dunno what that Shadow-sona of yours has been putting in your head, but I’m fine. Really. Right as rain! I’m a tough nut to crack. I been lookin’ after myself all these years – just ‘cause you know me now doesn’t mean it’s suddenly shifted to you.”
Hikari doesn’t say anything. A royal soul, leading people may as well be written into his DNA. Only makes sense that he’s never going to be able to let it go.
Partitio turns this over and over in his head, a rock skipping waves. “… Fine.” He holds out a palm. “Here. Gimme your hand.”
Hikari’s mouth shifts, parting around words he’s never going to say or more of the same he already has, and Partitio sighs as he offers his own out more insistently. “Hand it over, Hikari. You’re bleedin’. I’m no Castti, but that doesn’t mean I can’t patch you up in a pinch. It’ll tide you over ‘til we can get you some proper help.”
Besides – one look at the blood still offering itself up in Hikari’s palm makes it obvious that it’s not going to clear up without some kind of intervention. Apparently it’s obvious to Hikari, too, because he only hesitates for a couple of moments before he reaches out with the confidence of a falling maple leaf. Partitio pats himself down, thoughtful. What he wouldn’t give for some silk handkerchiefs… He’ll have to make do. A quick flick of the wrist and a resolute tug is all it takes to undo his tie, the red fabric sliding free of his collar to land in his lap. A noise of acknowledgement. Yeah, this’ll do nicely. “Hold still.” Carefully, delicately, he starts to wind it around and around, one end pressed firm against the back of Hikari’s palm about a third of the way along as he works the other over, around, under, and back again.
Hikari doesn’t react, solemnity only broken only by a minor wince as his rent flesh gets forced back together. He’s far away, miles and miles; even the best boat in the seas wouldn’t reach him in time. It’s only once the cut’s disappeared from view that he finds it in himself to talk again. “You didn’t have to do that. Not for me. Not after I…”
Partitio tuts. “Nonsense. I don’t have bandages, and I’m not about to start slicin’ bits off either of our clothes if I can help it. Besides – it’s close enough to red. Won’t even stain too bad.” He pauses, inspecting his handiwork, and carefully turns Hikari’s hand around in his grip. … Passable. ‘Course, ties are made of tougher stuff than bandages - any more and it’ll bunch up too much, diminish his dexterity more than it already has. He slowly gathers both ends to tuck them under each other, knotting them firmly against the back of a calloused palm. “There. Right as rain. For now, at least.”
Hikari flexes his fingers experimentally. “… It’ll hold, but. I won’t be able to fight.” I won’t be able to protect you.
His eyes land on his sword again, on the crimson still swiping across the blade where it rests in the dirt, and Partitio can tell that he’s one mistaken thought from spiralling all the way back down again.
He nudges him in the side. “I ain’t gonna ask you to. You can count on me, alright? At least ‘til we get back to the others.”
Hikari still doesn’t look at him, not properly, but at least it no longer like he’s a second away from shattering apart. “… I’ll get you a replacement. Next time we’re in Wellgrove.”
Dastardly, his innate need to help. “Pshaw, don’t worry about it. It‘s the least I could do after you saved my life and all.”
Hikari grimaces, eyes flicking from Partitio’s face to his neck to his own wounded hand and then to the floor, like even being reminded of anything from the past half hour is too much to handle. A reel on repeat in the cinema of his mind; one that Partitio’s not privy to and probably never will be.
Partitio sighs, elbows propped on his knees. Well. They’ve probably gotten as far as they’re gonna get like this, and there’s no use pressing where it’s not welcome – especially on a bruise that’s still tender. What Hikari needs right now is a reminder that he’s cared about, a fresh memory of love whether he thinks he’s allowed to have it or not. Luckily for him, Partitio knows just the person for that.
“Right.” He stands, flicking what dust he can off himself to only minor success, and putters about to pick up his stained coat and collect his hat from where it’s tumble-weeded away into the distance. “Cmon, Hikari. Let’s get you back to Castti. She’ll fix you right up.” He holds out a hand, out for Hikari’s good one, to pull him to his feet.
Hikari’s throat works, tormented, and Partitio waits until he’s ready himself to accept the help before pulling him to his feet. “Partitio. How… Aren’t you afraid of me?” He asks it like it’s a wonder, a miracle, something he can’t quite believe.
“Me? Afraid of you?” Partitio guffaws. “Naw, ‘course not! Why would I be? I’ve seen you sneak scraps under the table to feed the strays. Ain’t gonna take one rocky bit of ground to upend all my good will.” He folds his coat over one arm, far too dusty to be worth putting on right now. “Besides – I still trust you.”
When he looks back up, Hikari’s staring at him with shattered eyes, stained glass vulnerability. He asks but one word: “Why?”
“Because – you’re still Hikari, whether you like it or not, and that means you’re still my partner.” Partitio stoops, picking his axe back up from where it’s been squandered in the dirt; the final piece to his little make-shift ensemble. He’s gonna need it, too, if his one other companion will be fighting with a handicap.
Hikari hasn’t moved when he turns back around. “I… I’m not as strong as you think, Partitio. What if I can’t hold it back? What if I’m not strong enough to press it aside when it truly matters?”
“Won’t know until you try, right?” Partitio hefts his axe up onto one shoulder, the one that didn’t eat the impact earlier. “You fought it off once. I’m sure you can do it again. I’ll even help you next time – or my name’s not Partitio Yellowil!”
The crow, further away now, croaks again.
Hikari turns his eyes to the trail. “You never give up, do you.” He’s tired, a weary resignation making itself known in the line of his spine.
Partitio clicks his tongue. “Course not! Pops always said that my best and worst quality is that I just don’t know when to quit.”
The sound Hikari makes – it’s not quite a laugh, not yet, but it’s getting there. It’s coloured by exhaustion and another feeling, something self-flagellating; a greyscale imitation of what it normally ought to be. “Neither do I.”
“Guess that makes two of us.”
It’s unspoken between them, what the shadow had pulled up and out of Hikari’s heart with the sheer strength of honesty – but Partitio lets it stay, hovering, a cloud of ambiguity between them grey with water and rain. They’ll talk about it later, when Hikari doesn’t look so much like a live wire with his nerves rubbed raw, when they’re not risking a flash flood of feeling, when Hikari doesn’t have to see his own dagger pressed to Partitio’s throat every time his eyes land on the red sliver that lies just shy of an artery and tickles every time he swallows. Once it’s all said and done, once they’re back among the others, once Hikari remembers what it’s like to be known and does enough else with his hands that he might consider them washed a little cleaner of whatever it is that runs underneath.
Yeah, Partitio muses, smiling to himself as Hikari falls into step – they’ve got time.