To the ones precious to us

     Barit’s hand grabbed hold of a blanket – another one of Oten’s works no doubt – letting his fingers play with the blue stitches. Elon had sat him down on the sofa after they’ve settled, saying that he was just going to check on the flower beds out back, leaving Barit alone with his thoughts.

     It wasn’t that long ago that this place was more akin to a biohazard than a home. He and Lamelle had spent hours just cleaning out all the rubbish that had accumulated due to Elon being too ill to deal with it himself. It had been awful, the mere memory being enough to make him gag, but now it looked a lot better.

     The once run down kitchen was neat, the yellow cabinets that he, Dorina and Elon had spent ages assembling and putting up now looked like they’d always been there. Lamelle and Tonie had put themselves in charge of the living room, Lamelle all too eager to throw out old and borderline rotting furniture for the floral patterned ones that currently occupied the space. Dorina had laughed and called them “grandma furniture” to which Lamelle had pointed out that Elon had “a grandmother’s spirit” whatever that meant.

     Barit looked over his shoulder, his eyes landing on the bookshelf that Tonie had acquired. At first it had almost looked bare, with only the few books that Elon had to his name to fill its shelves, but that changed quickly. Altador cup history books from Dasher Soley, picture books of Meridell form The Wizard, history books of Meridell, Brightvale and Darigan Citadel form Sir Pollonaire, books on surface dweller flowers from Gregorio, a large book on desert flowers that was obviously from Leera Heggle.

     Yet all of that was nothing compared to the vast amounts books that Tonie had snuck in himself. Count on Lord Plessix – keeper of Maraquan culture – to ensure that Elon had access to all that one would need of history, arts and the like. Though oddly enough he’d also slipped in a joke book amongst the lot and when asked where that had come from Tonie had only smirked and said “who knows.”

     Which meant that it was probably from Roo Island.

     “You can read one if you’d like.”

     Barit almost jumped out of his skin the moment Elon spoke. When Barit turned to face him his head was titled innocently as if he hadn’t just given Barit the fright of the week. Hanging from his arm was a basket filled to the brim with black, yellow and light blue blossoms from the garden out back that Elon, Oten and Filo had spent forever digging up and arranging. The basket hit the coffee table carefully as Barit took the time to slowly exhale.

     “You’re gonna do some flower weaving, Elon?”

     Elon sat down next to him on the sofa. A little group a Baby Blus gathering around him to settle down. Elon called them his stalkers. Everyone else called them his fan club.

     Elon’s eyes flickered upwards towards Barit. “Do you mind?”

     At that Barit shook his head, getting up with a groan. “Not at all,” he said, watching Elon’s shoulders relax at his words, “I’ll just take you up on your offer.”

     Elon didn’t need more encouragement than that, carefully picking up some flowers to start weaving. An old Maraquan custom, the only people who really knew how to do it these days were older women (and Elon). Taking flowers and weaving them together to make a charm, the weaver’s prayer for the recipient mixing with the stems and petals in well wishes. The purer the heart’s prayer the longer the charm lasted. Barit didn’t take much stock in the divine – had no reason to – but for Elon it was comfort and Barit certainly wasn’t going to deny him that.

     So Barit went over to the bookshelf, picking out a book on the different charms of flower weaving and sat himself back down to flip through it.

     The silence was a comfortable one, Barit flipping through the book as Elon did his handiwork. Occasionally one of the Baby Blu’s would swat at the charm–in–progress and Elon would scold it in the old tongue, but there was little bite in the words.

     Keeping his chuckle to himself Barit turned the page, his eyes resting on the instructions on this new charm. Black, yellow and light blue greeted him as he read the words.

     Then read them again.

     Then read them once more.

     [i]For the ones grieving the loss of a relationship.[/i]

     All too suddenly Barit’s mouth was dry. His eyes flickered towards Elon, still weaving as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Yet his eyes returned the look, calm and knowing and not at all what he was used to from his captain.

     Barit turned his attention back to the pages. The method for weaving told him nothing, but if he kept looking at Elon he might start talking. He didn’t want to start talking.

     “Do you want to talk about it?”

     Elon’s voice was gentle, soft in a way that would have struck him as impossible back when they first met. Barit squirmed.

     “Not really, no”

     Now it was Elon who mixed chuckle and sigh. Wanting to help, but knowing the errors of pushing too hard. A Filo thing Barit realised.

     “Do you want to talk about it anyway?”

     The answer was still “No” with capital N. Barit pressed his lips together, willing the words to stay still in his mouth. Elon kept weaving, still the very picture of calm.

     [i]“I know they’re like family to you, but-”

     “They’re not family,” the words snapped out of Barit quickly – harshly. His love stood as frozen before turning his eyes downcast.

     “I love you too, you know.”

     His love’s voice was shaken, sounding like it was on the verge of tears. Barit looked the other way.

     “I know.” He said, trying to push the anger back down.

     Of course he knew.[/i]

     Barit’s finger traced the page of the book, circling the petals drawn repeatedly.

     “Do you miss them?” Barit asked quietly. Elon stopped weaving.

     “Who?”

     “Your family.”

     Elon didn’t respond at first. Had every right not to. Barit could feel him tense then deflate, breathing slightly more laboured that before.

     “I do,” was the eventual soft–spoken reply, “every day.”

     Barit remained quiet. It was a cruel question. One Barit already knew the answer to. Yet that very answer was so different from his own. Elon’s family, none related to one another by blood, but a unit all the same. Elon didn’t speak of them often, but the few times he did it was fondly and with longing.

     It was so different from Barit’s it almost made him laugh.

     Barit tragically had his biological parents still. Them and his horde of siblings. Like Elon his family was not a subject that came up often, however, when it did he spat their titles out like it was poison on his tongue. Family was not warmth, love, security and all that other rubbish. It was a prison. An excuse to treat the people around you like dirt because you happened to share blood ties.

     [i]“We’re not gonna be like them, love”

     The hand that stroked his arm was loving, care seeping into every movement.

     “We’ll be better them.”

     The stroking stopped, replaced by a hug from behind.

     “I promise you we can be better than them.”

     Barit shook the hug off his shoulders.[/i]

     The sigh that left Barit was heavy.

     “I’m sorry,” he said, finally looking over at Elon, “I know that’s a raw nerve for you.”

     Luckily Elon smiled, though it was laced with sadness as it always was around the family subject. “I’ll forgive you,” he said, starting his weaving back up again, “if you’ll tell me why you asked.”

     That was fair enough, he supposed. Barit held out his hands to one of the Baby Blus, a docile looking white one that in turn sniffed at his fingers.

     “Have you…” Barit’s voice faltered.

     The Baby Blu swam away.

     The room was quiet.

          Barit swallowed hard.

     “Have you…” Barit tried again only to have his voice give out once more. Elon for his part kept his eyes on his work, twisting and turning the flowers into shape. When Barit didn’t try for a third time he looked up at him. Silently telling him to continue.

     So continue he did.

     “...thought about having kids…?”

     The charm fell out of Elon’s hands and landed straight onto his lap. For a moment all they did was stare at one another as Elon tried to process the words that swirled in the water surrounding them.

     “I–“ Elon began after a pause, “I can’t say I have that desire, no.” He picked the charm–to–be back up, his eyes scanning Barit over. “Have you–”

     “Absolutely not!” The words where loud as Barit shook his head – the remaining Baby Blus flying out of the room in record time, “Nope! No way! No how! Never in a thousand years!”

     Barit closed the book, taking the moment to try to calm himself. He didn’t want to make it a big deal. It was his hard line in the sand. His decision.

     His loss.

     He could feel Elon’s eyes at him, trying to read him in the way that only Tonie could. “Right.” Elon said after a beat, “so where did that come from?”

     Where indeed. As far as Barit was aware everything had been fine. They were in love, but not attached at the hip. He had his friends, Barit had his own and some they shared. His partner – his boyfriend – the love of his life. They had each other and didn’t need marriage nor children in order to be happy. Just coming home to him each and every day had been pure joy to Barit.

     His love didn’t seem to agree.

     “I just want us to be a proper family” had been his love’s request. The normal life that so many others had. Each time his love asked Barit shot it down. Why did they [i]need[/i] to be family? He knew how Barit felt about it and Barit had told him as much over and over.

     It felt like an insult and Barit took it as an insult. Every day they argued about it. Argued more than Barit thought possible and in the end there was nothing, but scorched earth between them.

     One day Barit had come home to an empty flat, a single letter left behind on the coffee table. The place had felt so unbelievably large and lonely as he read it. Pages of how hurt he’d been and how Barit clearly didn’t love him – couldn’t love him – if he wasn’t willing to marry him.

     After that people Barit thought were his friends slowly, but surely turned their back on him. Through the grapevine he heard of how heartbroken his love was, that people were waiting for Barit to “pull himself together” so they could have the wedding everyone apparently thought that they should have.

     “I loved him.”

     Barit’s voice was thick and he could feel his eyes starting to sting. He leaned over, hiding his face in his hands as if it could stop the unwanted flow.

     “But I couldn’t give him that.” he continued, his voice muffled by his hands, “I just couldn’t.”

     He could feel Elon’s hand land gingerly on his shoulder.

     “I’m sorry.” he said quietly.

     That was the final straw. The last push that was necessary to break the dam and break it did. Barit’s shoulders shook as he sobbed, the noise luckily quieted by his hands. The hand on his shoulder was hesitant, wanting to do more, but not wanting to disturb. Let the tears flow as they needed to.

     Who knows how long they sat like that, Barit ugly crying while Elon offered what little comfort he could. With time sobs turned into tired sniffles, Barit clutching onto the handkerchief that one of the Baby Blus had shoved into his hand at some point during his cry.

     Barit took a deep, shuddery breath as he straightened himself up again.

     “Well, that was pathetic.” he said, giving a weak and watery laugh, “sorry about that, Elon.”

     Elon’s eyes lingered on him for a moment, letting the words hang just long enough for it to turn awkward. Though Elon was not really the kind to notice such things. He opened his mouth then closed it again before frowning, turned back to the charm and did a few more knots as if that would help him speak.

     “I don’t mind you crying.” he said eventually, hands slowing down as he focused his energy on trying to get the words coming out of his mouth to match the ones in his head.

     “I just,” Elon paused, looking almost guilty as he turned towards Barit again.

     “I just don’t understand love, I guess.”

     Ah, that made sense. While Tonie was a widower, Lamelle had a steady girlfriend and Oten and Barit have had several partners during their time in team Maraqua Elon himself had never even been in a relationship. First Elon had waved it off, saying that he was busy being an athlete, but with time he’d eventually concluded that he wasn’t the kind to fall in love and that had been the end of that.

     Barit smiled, but before he could apologise for bringing it up Elon continued.

     “When you love someone that means you like them a lot, right?” It was a question only half asked, as if he wanted confirmation that he’d gotten things right.

     “I guess so, yeah.”

     Another knot was made in the charm.

     “Then why…” Elon stopped himself and for a moment he was frozen. Barit could practically [i]see[/i] the words swirling around in there as Elon tried to piece it all together in his head. He didn’t even notice one of the Baby Blus swat at the charm again.

     “He knows you, right?”

     Elon’s question was soft spoken, almost timid as it left him. Barit hooked the rogue Baby Blu out of the charm, watching as it accepted its fate and simply hung there like a wet rag on a surface wire.

     “I thought he did.” was all Barit could say in return.

     Elon did the charm’s final knot before placing it onto his lap. There was a single clap, followed by what Barit knew to be a short prayer despite not understanding the old tongue all that well. Carefully Elon picked the charm back up again, placing it on the fin on the side Barit’s head. The one closest to him.

     “If he cared, which is what he’s supposed to do,” Elon began, letting his hand linger, “then why would he push something he knew you didn’t want? Have never wanted?”

     Elon breathed a laugh.

     “I suppose that’s just me not knowing these kinda things, huh.”

     Using the hand currently not occupied by a mischievous Baby Blu Barit took hold of the hand hovering by his fin into his own. It was warm, warmer then anyone on the surface could believe it to be.

     “He once said that we were like a family,” Barit said after a pause, “team Maraqua, I mean.”

     “He thought that that would be the only reason we would be so close.”

     Next to him Elon was silent, partly suspended by Barit holding onto him. He blinked once, then twice, before knitting his eyebrows together.

     “But we’re friends, though?”

     Barit lowered his hand, allowing the wayward Baby Blu to leave if it wanted. It tumbled out of his hand before swimming off. Probably to cause more mischief. With a grim chuckle he let go of Elon, letting Barit stretch his fingers as he needed.

     “We couldn’t be according to him,” Barit said as Elon shifted in place, “I would never care so much about someone unless they were more than just a friend or so he said.”

     It shouldn’t have been a surprise when a huff left Elon. For a moment he almost looked offended before taking a moment to breathe.

     “That’s really, really, dumb” Elon said, “No offence to that guy, but I don’t like his…” Elon did some vague gestures with his hands as if they could magic the word he was looking for into existence.

     “Logic…?” Barit tried.

     Elon was the one to shrug this time.

     “Something like that.”

     Elon leaned back, tilting his head upwards to look at the ceiling. His eyes traced the markings above him, finding patterns in the maractite that was embedded in it.

     “I just don’t get it,” he said as his eyes settled in the Lost Desert script Lamelle had scribbled into the maractite, “why love, when love seems so…” There was another hand gesture before he fell silent. Whatever thought he had being discarded to the waves.

     Barit leaned back as well, looking over at Lamelle’s handiwork. Neither of them could read it, but knowing him it probably said something incredibly silly. Barit’s money was on a really bad pun.

     “What would you say?”

     Elon’s eyes turned toward Barit.

     “Hm?”

     “When you care about someone,” Barit clarified, “what would you say about that person?”

     For a moment they both sat in silence, Baby Blus using them as personal beds. Barit could feel Elon shift next to him, retreating into his own head in an attempt to put words into order. Not that Barit minded. Rather that than blurting out a partial thought that could hurt another person. Elon used to be pretty bad at that.

     Barit was still pretty bad at that.

     Could he had said something differently? Could he had done something differently? Should he have compromised? What even was the compromise between “I don’t want to be married and have children” and “I want us to marry and have children”? Was their love, as strongly as Barit had felt it, doomed? Destined to wither despite how much they’ve loved one another?

     He had tried. Truly tried to envision the life his love wanted so badly. Their wedding. Their children. Yet it gave him no joy, only dread as he saw himself grow bitter with time. Barit despised his father, but the man was not of the bitter sort. If anything he’d been too jovial, never taking anything seriously enough. If Barit couldn’t feel any warmth from such a father then he’d shudder to think what his own children would have felt towards him.

     It most certainly wouldn’t have been love.

     “Precious.”

     Barit turned his head toward Elon again.

     “What was that?”

     “You’re precious.” Elon said, gesturing him.

     “You and Tonie and Oten and Lamelle and Dorina and Filo and The Wizard and Sir Pollonaire and Fiorina and Ilsa and Gregorio and Yoris and Ethel and…” Elon stopped himself, taking a moment to breathe.

     “You’re all precious to me and I…” Elon’s face flushed red.

     “I can’t…” Elon moved his hands again, making the motion of stacking something.

     “Trying to rank all of that is…” messy hands stopped to rest on a tried Baby Blu. Elon taking another moment to just breathe.

     “It’s just not possible.”

     Barit didn’t reply at first. Couldn’t really. It was an answer that was so typical of Elon that it was almost predictable. One that looked at the established rules, said “absolutely not” and then proceeded to do its own thing. A distance from the world that was both a blessing and a curse. Barit had seen the curse part, how the isolation had almost destroyed Elon.

     Now he got to see the blessing. How Elon could live so removed from everyone’s expectations that he couldn’t even imagine any other way to be. An odd kind of freedom.

     Barit would be lying if he said he didn’t somewhat envy it.

     “There are times I wish I could be like you, Elon.”

     Elon stared at him blankly for a moment that most likely felt longer than it actually was.

     “Why?”

     “Because people don’t expect you to do anything,” Barit said, “you can care about a person and no one will ask you when you’re moving in together, when you’re getting married, when you’re having kids…”

     Barit gave a heavy sigh.

     “And now I’ll be given, what? A year at most before people will be expecting another boyfriend and I–”

     Barit clamped his mouth shut, mostly because it felt more and more like he was being whiny. The fact that his eyes were starting to sting again didn’t help.

     He didn’t want another boyfriend. He wanted his home to feel like his own again, to be able to be in his own space without having the doubt and the hurt threaten to crush him until nothing remained.

     “We could throw Dorina at them.”

     Now it was Barit’s turn to stare blankly.

     “What?”

     “If someone nags at you to get a new one.” Elon said, “We could send Dorina to them and she’d tell them what’s what.”

     There was a brief silence. Barit only able to blink as he registered what Elon actually was suggesting. First he snickered, then he chuckled before eventually having it turn into full on laughter. A loud and genuine kind of laughter as he struggled to find which was funnier. The mental image of Dorina, at least a solid head shorter than he was, chasing off the nosy people in his life or Elon looking at him with such sincerity after such a silly suggestion.

     “Problem with that, Elon, is that she actually would.” Barit said as his laughter began to die down – the sudden outburst of joy being replaced with heavy fatigue as he mumbled “None of them would know peace.”

     Barit could hear Elon snicker as he closed his eyes, his overtime finally catching up to him. He tried to speak, but it just turned into a slur of mumbled noises. Next to him the weight of the sofa shifted.

     “It’s far past the wrong side of midnight,” Elon said with a wince, answering a question Barit didn’t even realised he had asked, “coach is gonna be upset with us for sure.”

     There was movement and the next thing he knew was that his head was resting on something soft. Cracking one eye open he saw Elon, blanket in hand, freeze as they made eye contact.

     “You can go back to sleep,” Elon said, hesitating slightly before covering Barit with said blanket, “you look like you really need it.”

     Barit could only keep eye contact for so long before sleep began tugging at his eyelids again. He wanted to say something, but he wasn’t quite sure what. Elon had wasted his evening listening to Barit go on and on about things he couldn’t relate to in the slightest and now they’d both be in no state for practise tomorrow.

     Part of him wanted to apologise. Another part wanted to say thank you.

     He could feel his own mouth move, but again couldn’t truly hear what he himself was saying. Assuming he was saying anything coherent at all. All he could notice was the look of surprise on Elon’s face. Eyes wide before turning to something softer.

     Barit’s eyes slid shut with a sigh. A soft hum sounded through the water, Barit vaguely registering Elon adjusting the blanket to cover him properly. His hand lingered by the charm once more.

     “and you’re precious to me as well, Barit.”

     The End.