Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Travis paused. “Hello,” he said warily. ‘You looked different last time I saw you.” 

“You didn’t,” said- John? Jack? Travis was pretty sure it was a J name. 

“Well, what can I say? You can’t improve on perfection.”

The man- Travis was pretty sure it was John now- squinted at him. “Travis, right?” 

“Correct,” said Travis. “John?”

“Anderson.” 

“Right.” Travis snapped his fingers. “I knew that.” There was a long, and dare Travis say it, awkward pause.

“Well,” said Travis, “If that’s it, I must be going.”

“Wait,” said Anderson, and Travis flinched as the other man grabbed his coat. “Drinks?”

And if it was a normal day, Travis would have no qualms about day-drinking with a man he barely knew. But as it was, he had just returned from the forest, and that never boded well for him. “I would love to,” said Travis. “Unfortunately, I have a prior engagement.” He looked desperately around for an excuse, and- Lumin’s eye aligned. There was Gable, of all people, sitting outside a restaurant, talking with a very happy looking girl with frizzy hair. “Them,” he said, pointing to Gable. They were easy to spot, anyway, as he left Ande- And- Andy, and strode towards Gable and who he could only assume was Gables current fling. 

“Gable!” he shouted, and they looked up at him with confusion, then surprise, then rested on annoyance. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said, sliding down next to Gable on the bench. 

“This is Travis,” said Gable quickly to the other girl. “He follows me around sometimes. Travis-” They nodded at Travis “- this is Leah. She’s a… friend.” 

“Hello,” said Travis, sticking out a hand to Leah. “Travis Matagot, avoiding an unfortunate acquaintance, pleased to meet you.” Leah, slightly bewildered, took Travis’s hand. 

“He’s always like this,” said Gable. “Who are you running from, Travis?”

“Just… someone that used to know me.”

Gable looked suspicious. “Is this somebody you wronged?”

“No,” said Travis. “At least not that I can remember.” 

“But nobody’s going to come after me right? I’m not going to end up running away from this town again, with a mob after me, another place I can’t go back to?” 

“No,” said Travis, nodding at… Andrew? “He’s an annoyance, but I don’t think he’ll try to kill me. Probably.”

“Oh, well that’s a relief,” said Gable.

“Is he… normally like this?” asked Leah.

Gable rolled their eyes “ Yes. It’s always person after person he’s trying to run from, and somehow, I’m always involved.”

“That’s unfair,” said Travis, craning his neck to look around Gable. “Half the time it’s the church coming after you.”

Gable clapped a hand over Travis’s mouth. “ Hush,” they said. “The church is all over this place.” 

“I’m sure, I’m sure,” said Travis. “Where are you rooming? I don’t have a place to stay.” 

Gable nodded to an inn at the top of the town’s hill. “Over there,” they said. “Just… try not to make any more enemies, okay?”

Travis did a lazy salute, and began to walk away.

“That wasn’t an answer, Travis!”

Chapter Text

“Travis!”

“Gable?”

Gable swallowed. “Does this have anything to do with- with The Forest Queen?”

“What?” Travis looked down, seeming slightly surprised to find himself covered in thick red blood splatters. “Oh, this is-” And he collapsed. 

Gable liked to think that they would have tried  to catch Travis, if they’d had the warning. As it was, they didn’t need to think through that, because there he was, crumpled on the ground at their feet. 

    Gable picked him up and started running.

    ---

“What happened to him?”

Gable shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. “I don’t… know.” At least it was the truth. 

“Well,” said the doctor, adjusting their gaze, “He’ll be staying here overnight, if not longer. I’ve stopped the bleeding, but I’m not sure how much nerve damage he’ll have.”

“It’ll be- you said that he’s not bleeding anymore?”

“Yes, but-” 

“And he’ll live until tomorrow?”

“Yes, but-”

“Great,” said Gable, slinging Travis over their shoulder again. He made an incoherent sound of pain and tried to curl in on himself. Almost instinctively, Gable adjusted their grip to carry him bridal style, and cradled his head in their arms. Sometimes, Gable forgot how fragile human beings were, even the immortal ones. It made their gut turn, to think how careful they had to be with him. 

“Wait- but-”

“Nope,” said Gable. “I’m taking him now. Um-” They rifled in their pockets, and set a gold bar on the table. “Thank you. He’ll be fine.”

“I really don’t think-” But Gable had already shut the door. 

---

Gable held Travis as he transformed, pressed tight to their chest as he screamed. Though they had held his unconscious form all through the day, this was different. Perhaps it was the knowledge that he would remember the moment.

At last, the rabbit on Gable’s lap flopped to the side,the glossy black eyes making Travis look nearly as pitiful as he did when he was bleeding out. “Ugh,” he said. “Where are we? What happened?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” said Gable. “Not the first one- we’re on the outskirts of town, but the second question. Yes. What happened?”

Travis blinked a few times. “The butcher.”

“ What?”

Travis sighed, his ears drooping lower. “He seems to have a liking for my blood.”

“What- Why?”

“It seems as if he can take as much from me as he wants, and I’ll still be around for him to take more.” Serious words, but Travis’s nose twitched as he talked, and Gable had to stifle their laughter.

Travis noticed. “Lumins, I hate this form,” he said, hopping off Gable’s lap. “The butcher demands a sacrifice, and he demands that sacrifice be gorey, to boot. I was simply fulfilling the wishes of the newest luminary I owe a debt to.”

“How many luminaries do you owe a debt to?” 

Travis sniffed. “The butcher demands immediate payment, so thankfully I don’t owe him anything anymore.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Fine.” Travis sighed theatrically. “I’ve lost count. When you spend so much time running and so much time making deals with various devils, you lose track of which one holds you in place at each time.”

For some reason, this made Gable look incredibly sad, and Travis huffed. “My life was already going to be bound to the luminaries. I’m simply helping them along.” 

“You don’t- oh- Travis,” said Gable, quickly scooping up the squirming rabbit into their arms. 

“Put me down!” said Travis, but he had already relaxed into Gable's arms and showed no inclination of moving.

“No,” said Gable. “You don’t have to bind yourself to gods to get what you want. Trust me.”

Travis spoke slowly. “But it’s so much easier when the direction you have to go is predestined, to make those decisions. Because it’s not really going to be a choice. It’s easier when it’s not a choice.”

Gable frowned. “Well, I’m making a choice without the luminaries to take care of you.”

“The soldiers,” Travis muttered, but Gable either didn’t hear, or opted to ignore him.

Chapter Text

“What,” said Travis, “Makes me the one that was taking the truth away from the crew?” He made a magnanimous gesture. “Yes, I did what I wanted to with that vote. But that was to help the village.”

“Was it really, Travis?” asked Gable. “Or was it because you needed your own catharsis? We lost two men.”

“And the village would have lost more,”  snapped Travis. “Believe it or not, I do think about other people.”

“Oh, I know you do,” said Gable bitterly. “That’s why you endanger everyone you know on a whim, on some misplaced moral.”

“Don’t imply I have morals,” said Travis sharply. “You’ll be wrong.”

“No,” said Gable. “I don’t know if you have morals, and I don’t care what you tell yourself. The truth is that you’re  a coward, through and through, running away from Margaret and the Forest Queen, and a decision you don’t like. You hid when the captain died-”

“Don’t pretend you weren’t part of that decision.” 

“You’re right,” said Gable. “I was part of that, and I’ll admit it. I’ll admit that I’m fucked up, and I’ll admit that I have problems. That’s more than you were ever willing to do. I don’t wait until someone tries to fix me while I refuse to get fixed.” 

And that was what stung. “Better calculate the loss of a few over the loss of many,” said Travis, “Or I’d end up destroying the world out of vengeance.”

Gable flinched as if they’d been hit, hurt evident on their face.  “I,” Gable hissed, “don’t remember any of that. 

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.” 

They could have started fighting, then. So often it was the first instinct, either Gable would hit Travis or Travis would whip out his guns fast as lighting and the two of them would go at each other like there was no tomorrow. But after Nordia, it was different. They were so very tired of fighting with each other.

So Gable sighed, wilted, and released their hand from the fist they had formed. Travis’s hand slackened on his gun. They were already both so tired.

It didn’t have to be perfect, what they had, it didn’t even have to be good. But it was better. It was getting better and it would be better, eventually. And that was enough.

Chapter Text

“Gable.”

“Yes?”

“You can’t die, right?”

“You know this,” said Gable. 

“No,” said Travis, waving a hand. “I can die, just not of old age or cancer or something like that. But I can still die, if somebody stabbed me hard enough.”

“Believe me, I have been tempted to. Every day.”

“Well-”

“Every time you speak, I am tempted again.”

“So what comes next?” asked Travis, his usual blaise manner departing. “One day- and you know I’m right about this- I’ll piss someone off enough that they’ll kill me right there. Or the sun will explode. What happens to you?”

“I guess... I keep going.”

Travis turned to Gable. “That’s what you said last time, and it was a lie.” 

“No, it wasn’t,” said Gable. “I’ll keep going because I can’t die.”

“But you'll miss me.” Travis kicked his legs up and lounged exaggeratedly, using Gable as a backrest. 

Gable sighed dramatically. “Oh, I’ll definitely miss having an asshole that wont leave me alone, I’ll miss having to pretend I have a pet bird named Caramel-”

“You will,” interrupted Travis. 

“Yeah,” said Gable.

“So,” he said, “What comes after eternity?”

Gable was silent. Finally, they spoke. “After the world ends again?”

“Yeah,” said Travis, though in truth, he hadn’t even thought of that. 

Gable kicked their feet. “I saw that angel in Il Sangue Dio. I- I didn’t tell you about it because I wanted you to take mortality like you wanted. But it was-” Gable took a shuddering breath “-it was horrible. They skinned an Angel, and it was still alive. Travis… I’m never going to die.”

“Good,” said Travis. “Because I won’t, either.”

“That’s-” Gable closed their eyes. “When the world explodes and there’s nothing left but ruins, when humankind is all gone and I’m all that’s left- I’ll be there. Floating in the void of space, bearing witness to the collapse of an already broken world. I’ll be there.”

Travis was silent. Finally, he spoke. “That’s a problem for future you,” he said. When Gable tried to open their mouth, Travis interrupted them again. “Nope. That’s a future Gable problem.”

Gable glanced at Travis, and realized with a start that he was scared of them leaving, and scared that they would be left behind without him. So Gable was quiet, and enjoyed the silence between them.

Chapter Text

Some sick part of Gable was excited when The Forest Queen picked up Travis’s okus. His mortality. Though they wanted to push it away, there was some awful part of them that was excited there might finally be another person in the world like them. 

    Even if that person was Travis Matagot. 

They hadn’t met many fallen, and to be completely honest, they weren’t sure they wanted to. Gable wasn’t ready to face their own judgment, but Travis? Travis couldn’t judge them, and he wouldn’t want to. That was reassuring. 

So some part of them was excited that he’d be with them forever, even though they knew with all certainty that he’d end up hating it as much as Gable hated their own immortality. 

Despite losing his own okus, Travis won Gable and the huntsman different boons, and Gable left the table of the Queen unsure of what had been won and what had been lost.

They met Travis twenty years later, and though he looked more tired, more weathered than he had before, no sign of aging was present.

“So,” they said, “It worked.”

Travis looked at Gable with an air of do you have to state the obvious? “Of course it did,” he said. “The Forest Queen doesn’t cheat.” And neither do I , he thought. 

“Was it worth it?”

“Yes,” Travis said firmly, as if he was trying to convince himself rather than Gable. 

The word liar rested on Gable's lips, but they didn’t speak it, far too grateful already for a familiar face in the rubble of their world.

“I hope it doesn’t hurt as much as it should,” said Gable, and left Travis there, lost for words, holding an illimat deck. 

Chapter Text

“Travis?”

 Gable saw Travis’s head raise, his eyes unfocus, and his shoulders slump. Finally, a bottle smashed on the wall, and though Gable could tell they were the target, it was nowhere close to where they had been standing. “Go away,” said Travis.

“What are you doing here?” asked Gable. 

“What does it-” Travis braced himself on the table, standing up and swaying “- look like I’m doing here?”

“It looks like you’re getting absolutely pissed,” said Gable. “Care to enlighten me, oh great one, what your true intentions are? What there’s no possible way I could know? How this is all part of some great plan, some wonderful scheme, some game you’re sure that you can win?”

Crash. Another bottle broke, this time closer to where Gable was standing. “Leave me alone,” said Travis, and there was something dangerous in his eyes this time. Something that made Gable want to do the opposite of leaving him alone. So they pulled up a chair . 

“Hey. What happened?”

Without even looking, Travis picked up his luminary deck and smacked three cards roughly onto the table. The river, the changeling, and the forest queen. “ She happened. I happened. The river happened.”

Gable tried to mask their confusion, but evidently didn’t do it well, since Travis picked up on it. “Margaret,” he said, as if that would explain everything. As if that would explain anything.

“Margaret?” asked Gable, because it was clearly a very raw topic.

“My wife,” said Travis, and Gable looked at him in shock. 

“Yeah, that’s right,” he said bitterly, doing a mock bow that was offset by how drunk he was. “Travis Matagot, widower, at your service.  How can I fucking help you?”

“You were married?”

“As I said.”

And because Gable couldn’t think of anything else to say, because they were so used to sticking their foot in their mouth, they said the first thing that came to mind. “Who would want to marry you? ”

Which was the wrong thing to say, because tears began to prick at the corner of Travis’s eyes, and when Travis Matagot showed weakness, that was when things had truly gone wrong. “Margaret did,” he said, taking another drink. “God, Gable, don’t let me get sober during this conversation. I truly don’t think either of us could handle it. She found me-” he gulped, trying to keep his voice steady- “On the side of the river. She held me while I transformed that morning, and she came back for me, and for some godforsaken reason she cared for me, and I cared for her, so we got married.”

Gable was silent, staring at Travis. 

“The Forest Queen let us get married at first,” Travis continued. “She gave us three months as newlyweds. Enough for us to realize that Margaret was pregnant. But when I sold my life over to The Forest Queen, I should have known that she was going to milk that for all it was worth.”

“And she killed Margaret?” asked Gable. 

“No,” said Travis. “No, that would have been too easy. The river took Margaret, the Rusalka or something else foul in the water, and I promised not to let go of her hand.”

“Did you?” asked Gable quietly, reverently.  

“What do you think, Gable?” Travis snapped. “Of course I did. That’s why I’m alive.” He caught the expression of shock on Gable’s face. “No, I didn’t want to. I didn’t have hands to hold her with, in the end. It’s spring. ”

      “It’s spring,” Gabe echoed. “Wait a minute- Travis? How recent was this?”

“Caught on, did you?”

“When, Travis?”

“Two weeks ago,” he replied. 

“ Travis …”

Gable pulled Travis into a hug, rocking him back and forth and slowly running their fingers through his hair. Neither of them acknowledged the damp patch of tears that he left on Gable’s coat, and neither of them acknowledged that day after the two of them parted ways. 

Chapter Text

“Gable?” 

Gable paused, and looked around for the source of the oh-so-familiar voice before remembering that of course, Travis wouldn’t be visible with the moon shining bright in the sky. “Travis,” they said. 

Gable barely suppressed the urge to flinch as an albino raven landed on their shoulder. “Well, I was expecting a much warmer welcome.” Travis ruffled his feathers in a clear gesture of annoyance. 

“Why would you expect that?” asked Gable. “It’s fall.”

Travis ruffled his feathers in annoyance. “I hate it when you say things and they’re funny. Don’t do that.”

“Noted.”

There were a few moments of tense silence, and Gable wondered when exactly they had become so adept and reading Travis’s body language when he was in animal form. “Why are you here?” Gable asked.

“Same reason as you, I’m assuming,” said Travis.

Gable paused. “Why am I here, then?”

“I haven’t the faintest fucking idea,” said Travis. With another look from Gable, he continued to speak. “Here and there, you know, there’s been some rumors of ravens or crows, evil spirits wandering in the night with the voice of a human, and during fall, I’ve somewhat borne the brunt of that.”

Gable began to walk towards the town they had just left. “And you haven’t… encouraged that fear at all?”

“Who’s to say?”

Gable rolled their eyes. “So you have been encouraging the rumors.”

“Well, you know, a little bit of fear is healthy.”

Gable caught Travis’s wing with their hand as he squawked in indignation. “Is a little bit of bleeding healthy?” Gable asked.

“Actually, yes,” said Travis. “Men have too much iron in their bloodstream and need to purge it somehow, meaning that-”

Gable slapped Travis, and he fluttered off their shoulder before landing back. “Rude.”

“Where were you?”

Travis nodded to the west. “Over there. About three miles the other direction.”

“And you haven’t been to the other town?” Gable pointed behind them. 

“Not yet.”

“Right, then.” Gable pivoted on their heel and began to walk back the direction they had come.

“Wait- what are you-”

“We’re going to find a place for you to stay tonight,” said Gable.

“I can’t inspire fear if you’re with me!”

“You can’t inspire fear on a good day. Come on.”

Travis grumbled, but followed Gable towards the town they had just left from. 

It was daybreak when the two arrived in what could barely be called a town. Village would have been more accurate, and Gable stood awkwardly to the side as Travis endured the bone-crunching pain of transformation, eyes closed and teeth gritted against the Forest Queen’s will.

Gable didn’t tell Travis why they had left the town ahead of them.

Travis didn’t say a word as he stood up as a man.

Chapter Text

“Travis. Everyone knows what I am! Everyone knows what I’ve done, and everyone-” Gables voice broke into a strangled sob mid-sentence. 

“Big deal,” said Travis, flicking his tail dismissively. “You killed god. The crew knows, so what? At least they don’t blame you for the captain, even though it was at least twenty percent your fault.”

“Only twenty?”

“Twenty for me, twenty for you, ten for Jonnit, and fifty for Dref.” 

“Yeah, but-” Gable flopped onto their back. “People like you.”

“Thank you. I like me, too.” 

 Gable shot a glare at Travis and continued. “Give it a year or two,” they said, “and the crew will have forgotten all about the captain, but me? All anyone will remember about me is that I was the one to turn this world to dust. And the worst part is, it’s justified.”

“Well,” said Travis, “I find it extremely unfair that people are blaming you for ending the world, when you can’t even remember that. They should be blaming you for controlling the captain, something you did do, and deserve to take some of the blame for.”

“Did you take a course in making people feel worse about themselves?”

“I suppose that I’m just naturally good at it.” Travis flicked a strip of his hair out of his face. It fell immediately back where it was. “Damn bangs.”

“How’s Jonnit?”

Travis looked at Gable. “ I’m here and you’re worried about Jonnit?”

“He’s a kid. He doesn’t deserve to-”

“Oh, nothing’s fair,” said Travis. “Maybe he can learn that early.” 

“I’m sure he already knows that,” said Gable. “He watched a boy only four years older than him die. He’s been singlehandedly holding this group together since… well, since Burza Nyth.” Gable took a deep breath. “He’s still a child. I just want him to be okay.” 

“He’ll be fine,” said Travis. “Children bounce back easily. A little bit of trauma is healthy.”

Gable glanced at Travis with the “I think you’re full of shit, but then again, I never had a childhood, so I can’t exactly refute what you’re saying” look. “Dref wasn’t fine,” said Gable. 

Travis flinched, though he pretended he wasn’t disturbed by the mention of his lost friend. “He was an adult,” said Travis. 

“He was nineteen! Only four years older than  Jonnit.” 

“Well,” said Travis. Then, out of the blue: “You know, Jonnit’s going to die someday.” 

“I know,” said Gable. 

“We’ll be there to watch it.”

“I know.”

“What’s the point?”

“Well,” said Gable, echoing Travis. “I guess it’s better than nothing.”

Chapter Text

“Hey, Travis?”

Travis looked up from where he was fiddling with the stump of his arm. “Hmm?”

“Am I alive?”

Travis gave them a look that could vaguely translate into What are you talking about, you big, dumb angel? “Well, you’re not dead.”

“Yeah,” said Gable. “But I’m not really alive, either.” Gable liked it when Travis looked confused. “Look,” they said. “I’m a force of nature. I was created to enforce judgment, and when I didn’t do that right, I fell. Maybe- and stop looking at me like that- I can’t die because I was never alive in the first place.

“That’s stupid,” said Travis.

“I’m not explaining it well,” said Gable. “It’s like-” They grunted in frustration. “It’s like, what was I before I was a fallen Angel cursed to roam the earth forever? Was there something I did that stopped me from becoming so bone achingly tired?”

“You’ve been something for thousands of millions of years,” clarified Travis, “but you’ve only been Gable for two hundred of those years. And you have no idea how you can continue to be Gable for the rest of eternity.”

“Exactly.”

“Well,” said Travis, “It’s simple. I’ve only been Travis for, oh, about fifty years. Before that I was Trevor McRib, and before that Jolly Jack, before that, William. You don’t have to be Gable.”

“I am Gable,” said Gable. “I don’t just slip out of skins and faces and names as easily as you do, Travis. I can’t imagine being Gable forever, but I can’t imagine being anyone else, either.”

“You could be fence,” said Travis. “Maybe rope, or board, those would be more accurate for your life right now.”

“Change isn’t my deal, Travis,” said Gable. “I’m an Angel. I’m going to stay Gable.” Gable paused, and spoke more quietly. “I don’t care if it hurts.”

“That seems awfully self destructive.” 

Gable glared at Travis. “Coming from you.” 

“I resent that remark.” 

“You know it’s true.”

Travis threw a card at Gable. It landed face up, the Children. “Look at that,” he said. 

Gable flipped him the bird. “At least I acknowledge my problems. You just, I don’t know, move away from them time after time, pretending they don’t exist.”

Travis didn’t respond. 

“Fine,”  said Gable. “Pull one for yourself. “

“I already know what it’ll be.” 

“Prove it.”

Travis shuffled, flipped his deck, and held a card out, face down. “The changeling,” he said. Sure enough. “Fate’s not interesting when you know what’s going to happen,” he said. 

Chapter Text

How was Gable supposed to explain that what they had done, the lie they had told, it was all meant to be selfless? How were they supposed to explain that they’d tried desperately to corner Travis into the decision he wanted, and then how were they supposed to explain the relief and bone-deep annoyance when he still made the wrong choice?

Well, they knew how they could explain it, but there was no way they would tell Travis all that. So instead, they went to Margaret. 

“Margaret?”

“Yes, Gable?” said Margaret, and as usual, her very voice made a person want to spill all their secrets to her. Gable certainly wanted to. “I know you’re here for Travis, but- well-”

“Travis is my client,” said Margaret. “I didn’t plan on working, but he doesn't have to be my only client.”

“Okay,” said Gable, relieved. 

There was silence. “What is it, dear?” asked Margaret.

“I lied to Travis,” Gable blurted.

Margaret nodded. “He was quite upset about that, as I recall. It seems as if lying to your oldest friend about your mortality feels like a betrayal.”

Gable wilted. “I know. I just- why does he have to be so selfish?” Gable felt their face growing warm as Margaret stared incredulously at them.

“He stayed,” said Margaret, “for you.”

“And I didn’t want him to! Why couldn’t he have just… moved on? Finished? Stopped being so damn stubborn all the time!”

Margaret put a hand on Gable's arm. “Travis is perhaps the first person I have met that can match you in boneheaded stubbornness. It is one reason your bond can be as strong as it is.”

Gable frowned, unsure of whether to take that as a compliment or an insult. They decided on compliment.

“I just want him to do what he wants.”

“He did.”

“He- we- should have died,” Gable finished lamely. “This was his chance.”

Margaret put an arm on Gable's wrist. “Dear. Tell me what happened during the mariner attack.”

So Gable did, telling Margaret the entire event with every secret and every promise and every bit of emotion. They felt hollow afterward, like everything that they had carried around for two hundred years had suddenly been laid on the table, and Gable was free to examine it without the extra weight on their back.

“Well,” said Margaret, after Gable finished. 

“We’re such messes.” said Gable, looking at Margaret through their fingers. 

Margaret didn’t refute it, moving her hand to card slowly through Gable's hair. “Think about why you’re upset,” said Margaret. “Think about why Travis is upset. You can’t change what has happened, but you can build the future better than the past.”

“Why did he make me part of his decision?” 

“You are one of his three loves.”

Gable looked up. “Really?” 

Margaret scoffed, hiding sadness behind her amusement. “Do you think you two would continue to find each other all through Speír if you did not care about each other?”

“I assumed Travis was more of a curse. You know, doomed to wander the earth with the one person you can’t stand for all of eternity?” 

Margaret rolled her eyes. “Your relationship would progress much faster if you were willing to admit you have one, you know.”

“That’s humiliating.”

“Yes, but it works.”

“That’s alright.” Gable smiled, sadness hidden behind their eyes. “We have all the time in the world, after all.”

Chapter Text

“I have a favor to ask of you, Gable.”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“I know that if you’re asking me for something instead of just taking it, it’s going to be very dangerous.”

Travis’s shoulders slumped. “Fine. But it won’t put you in any danger.”

“It’ll only put you in danger, right?”

Travis smiled. “Exactly. Would you care to help me summon the forest queen?”

Gable gaped at Travis. “You’re shitting me.”

“It’s not like she’ll kill me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Think of it this way,” said Travis. “It’s a chance that you might actually get rid of me.” Gable was still. “Gable?” asked Travis. 

Gable groaned theatrically. “Fine. Fine. I’ll help you summon her leafy mistress.”

Travis grinned, and began to set up a game of illimat. 

“Why do you even want to talk to her?” asked Gable. “Nothing good ever comes of it.”
“I want to ask her about Margaret,” said Travis.

“Your wife,” said Gable.

Travis nodded. “I have a few questions, and she’s the one that can answer them.”

“Like what?”

“A man has to have his secrets, doesn’t he?”

Gable scoffed, and picked up their cards.

Travis played the worst game of Illimat he had ever played in his two hundred years of life, deliberately losing cards and nearly getting to a point where he would be forced to give up the entire game. Still, Travis Matagot didn’t lose.

—-

It was strange to see Gable controlled by The Forest Queen. Serene, almost. The Forest Queen gave off an aura of knowledge, power, invincibility. Even trapped in a body that was not her own, she was overwhelming. In her true form, her legs were made of tree bark and her hair of leaves. Her dress was a forest canopy and her eyes… her eyes were the eyes of a doe, innocent yet perfectly aware of the sounds of the forest. Her fingers were by far the most terrifying part of her, branchlike and thin, bones and marrow as she reached for cards. And in the low light of the game where Gable was the beacon, Travis could almost see those same hands reaching for his okus nearly a hundred years ago. 

“Why did you take Margaret?” Travis asked, fighting to keep his voice steady.

The laughter of the forest is a cruel thing, made of thousands of leaves rustling and crunching, being born and dying and the ambient noise of lost mercy. “I wanted her,” said the Forest Queen.

“But why,” Travis pressed. 

“For the same reasons you did, I presume,” said the Forest Queen. 

“ You weren’t in love with her.’

The Forest Queen smiled, sharp and predatory. Travis realized for the first time in centuries that it wasn’t a smile. She was baring her teeth. “I find it laughably adorable that you still believe in love, my changeling child.”

“I’m not your anything,” Travis spit back. 

“Of course you are,” said the Forest Queen, and she held out a familiar locket to Travis. He caught his breath uneasily. 

“Your soul,” she said, “Hasn’t belonged to you in over two hundred years.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” said Travis. 

The Forest Queen popped the locket open with her thumb. On one side, Margaret. On the other…. Travis squinted, but for the life of him, he couldn’t recognize the picture. “Who’s next to Margaret?” he asked. 

“Oh,” said the Forest Queen, “I wouldn’t concern yourself with that. After all, only your time runs linearly. I’m not bound that way. And,” she said, before Travis could even get in a word edgewise, “You took my watch. You can have it, of course. I have no use for mortal trinkets, but all the same, I’d like you to know that I saw.” 

Travis threw the watch to the table, rattling the drinks, if only barely. “It’s no fun if you noticed,” he muttered. 

“I’m sorry to ruin your fun, my dear child,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

If Gable had looked close when they came back to themself, they would have noted the tears in the corner of Travis’s eyes. 

But they didn’t. 

Chapter Text

“Gable!” 

Gable raised their hands as Travis nearly collided with them. “William?”

“I go by Travis now, actually,” said Travis. “Travis Matagot.”

“Clever.”

A ghost of a smile spread across Travis’s face. “I didn’t actually think you’d get it. Being an idiot angel, and all.”

“Why are you here… Travis?” asked Gable, feeling his new name on their tongue. 

“You remember when I became immortal, right?”

“How could I forget?”

“That’s exactly what I thought you’d say. Anyway. Forever is a very long time.”

Gable frowned. “Yes, and?”

“I… Nevermind. Get a drink with me?” 

Gable nodded, and something strange on Travis’s face relaxed. “Now?” asked Gable.

“Unless you’d like to walk into a bar with a coyote. That sounds like the opening to a bad joke. A coyote, an Angel, and a sense of impending doom walk into a bar-”

“Travis,” Gable interrupted.

“So, now?” he asked. 

“How close is it until sunset?”

Travis checked his watch, frowned, rolled up his sleeve and checked a different one. “Either three more hours until it sets, or the sun set two hours ago.” 

Gable rolled their eyes. “I’m going to go with the first one.”

“That’s mighty bold of you.”

“A coyote isn’t exactly pocket sized, Travis. There’s going to be a commotion if I take your animal form into a bar.” 

“You’ve taken me into a bar when I was a coyote before.”

“This is a nice city. Those were ratty towns.”

“Fine, fine,” said Travis, rolling his eyes. “So, now?”

“Fine.”

Three drinks in, Travis finally revealed what was bothering him. “I’m never going to die,” he said. 

Gable slowly put down their own drink. “Yes?” they asked. 

“So what am I supposed to do for the rest of eternity?” Travis asked.

“I don’t know. What do humans do with their lives?” 

“What, I’m just supposed to live like a normal human, except forever?” 

Gable stared at Travis curiously. “Why would you work so hard to become immortal if you didn’t want to live forever? That’s kind of what immortality is, Travis.” 

“No, it’s not,” said Travis. “Immortality is supposed to be interesting. This is just boring, but forever.” 

“So do something interesting.”

“What is there to do in this world, Gable?” 

“I don’t know. You like illimat. Go play more illimat.” 

“With the forest queen?” 

“No, Travis. Lumins, just with normal people. You’ve got yourself into enough trouble with her already.” 

“But forever?” 

“Yes.” 

Travis took a deep breath. “That’s a lot of time.” 

“What did you expect?” 

“I don’t know!” Travis threw his hands in the air, scattering luminary cards over the both of them. “I thought it would be like, a couple hundred years of being here. We both know that without the forest queen, I would be dead a thousand times over. I took this because the stars fell and so I figured that the best way to stay alive was to make sure that I would never die. But now the world is more stable, and hey! I’m still here! Great! When does it end?” 

“Did something happen?” asked Gable tentatively. 

“No! Nothing happened, Gable, it’s all the same. That’s what’s the worst about all of this. I thought immortality would be interesting. I’m halfway to joining an airiners crew just to get something interesting to happen. I’m so bored, Gable.” 

“Okay,” said Gable.

“Travis looked up. “Okay… what?” 

“Okay, let's join an airiners crew. I’ve been on a couple. It’s interesting.” 

“Oh, '' said Travis, all the wind taken out of his sails. “Okay, then.” 

“Okay,” echoed Gable. “Let’s go.” 

“Yeah.” 

Chapter Text

“Next round’s on me.” 

Gable raised their head to stare at Travis. “ All the rounds are on you, Travis. I don’t have money.”

Travis clicked his tongue. “Well, If I’d known that, I might not have bought you so much booze.”

“You have the money to spare. And even if you didn’t, you’d scam it in a game of illimat.”

“I wouldn’t scam it. Illimat wouldn’t be half as fun if I was cheating at it.”

“Wait a minute.” Gable took another sip from their drink. “You don’t cheat?”

Travis scoffed. “Of course not. What do you take me for?”

“A perpetual grifter.”

“Gable, Gable, Gable. Only with some things. Well, most things. But not Illimat!”

Gable squinted at Travis. “Really? No luminaries up your sleeve? No marked cards? No goddess on your side that tells you what cards will get pulled?”

“Ye of so little faith,” said Travis, shedding his coat. “No, I don’t keep luminaries up my sleeve. And you can count my cards, they’re not marked.”

“And the queen?”

“I can’t help it if I’m pretty enough that the luminaries all want to see me win.” 

Gable scoffed. “Get me another bottle. I want to check these cards.”

Travis paused, and put his pack of cards on the table. “Don’t mess them up,” he said, wandering over to the bar. 

“How would I even mess them up?” Gable shouted at his retreating form. 

---

“So?”

“So they’re not marked. How do you win so much?”

“I’m good at it. Oh, Gable. I should have assumed you wouldn’t understand that concept, being-” 

Gable smacked Travis with the illimat deck.

“Rude,” said Travis. “Hey, how much do you have to drink to get fully drunk?”

Gable shrugged. “I’ve never checked.”

“Would you care to?” asked Travis. 

Gable shrugged. “I’m already tipsy. I only drink enough to keep up with you. Which, by the way, you spend an alarming amount of nights drunk, and it’s getting close to sundown.”

Travis sighed, taking out his purse and illimat deck and setting them on the table. “Hold these,” he said. “I don’t want them getting all squished with my bones tonight, we wouldn’t be able to buy any more drinks that way.”

Gable sighed. “You know, I’m going to look sad, drinking alone with a snake necklace.”

Travis shook his head. “Gable. You always look sad.”

---

So that was how Gable ended up at an illimat table, with Travis the snake whispering what moves to make in their ear.

“No, no, pretend you have a bad hand!”

Gable frowned. 

“Better. Now, play that one.” Travis flicked his tail at a card.

“This one?” 

“No, that one.”

“This one?”

“ That one.”

“I can’t tell what you’re pointing at.”

“Oh for Sovereign’s sake-” Travis leaned forward to poke a card with his head. 

Gable played it, and looked at Travis. “Was that a good move? People look very confused right now.”

“It’s either because there’s a snake whispering in your ear, or because the move was unexpected. Regardless, it was a good move. I chose it.”

“And what are we playing for again?”

Travis shrugged. “Whatever’s in that locket the girl put on the table.” 

“So it’s not like… high stakes?”

“Every game is high stakes. And she wouldn’t show me what was in the locket earlier, which means I’m very curious.” Travis flicked his tail at a card. “Play that one and look smug.” 

Gable assented. “Maybe it’s just, you know, her dead lover or something. It looks personal.”

“She was the one that played it as her okus. I’m not tricking anyone, she knew the terms. Play that card, if she does what I think she’s going to, this will be the last round.”

“You care about the locket enough to play an entire illimat game for it?”

Travis  shrugged, which was hard in the body of a snake, but he managed. “Money, too. Pay attention. We won.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Gable. 

Travis rested his head on the crown of Gables. “Get us some more drinks.”

“Stop being so bossy. I’ll get us some drinks once we see what’s in the locket.”

Travis slithered down to grab it in his mouth and dangle it right in front of Gable's face. “Let whoever has hands open the first locket.” 

Gable did so, and it was exactly what they had expected: A trinket, nothing more. 

“That was anticlimactic,” said Travis. 

“It was probably important to her,” said Gable. “You used a watch.”

“Not one of my good ones. Not even one that had the right time set on it.”

“Still,” said Gable. “She probably thought it was important to you, so she used something important to her as her Okus.”

“Well,” that’s on her.”

“ Travis.” 

“Hm?”

Gable sighed. “Nothing. Just… let’s go.”

Travis flicked his tongue out in annoyance. “Already?”

“I’m… tired.” 

“You’re also a liar.” 

“I will squish your little snake guts like jelly.” 

“Try it,” said Travis, wriggling so that he was looped around Gable’s right arm. “I dare you. I want to know what would happen.”

“You probably just think that your tree mom will come to save you.”

“Am I wrong?”

Gable rolled their eyes. “I’m not leaving you, you know.”

“Awful,” said Travis, settling his head on the back of Gable’s neck. “You mean I’m stuck with this forever?”

”Yup. Nothing you can do about it.”

“Gross.”

Chapter Text

Travis had left the adrenaline of the wildly bad idea far behind, and was now into the pain part.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” asked Gable, verbalizing every single one of Travis’s current thoughts. 

“I was thinking that-” He grunted in pain as Gable dabbed more alcohol on the scrapes over his legs “- Look, it’ll be fine tomorrow. Why do we have to go through the trouble of disinfecting the cuts if they’ll just heal by tomorrow?”

“Because,” said Gable, pointedly scrubbing the blood off of Travis just slightly too hard, “Dref will throw a fit if you come down to dinner and look like you’ve been bleeding.”

“I have been bleeding, though,” Travis pointed out. “It’s not his blood, it won’t matter.”

“ It’s not his blood, it won’t matter,” said Gable, doing an offensive yet accurate mimicry of Travis. “He’s the doctor, Travis. All blood is his blood.”

“He can’t have my blood,” said Travis automatically. “I didn’t sign on to that.” 

Gable actually cracks a grin, and Travis likes that they’re smiling rather than, say, yelling at him. “Seriously though,” Gable said. “What were you thinking?”

“I wanted to know what would happen. I mean-” 

“You wanted to and I repeat, know what would happen? ” 

“It worked pretty well, all things considering,” said Travis. “Flee is very well fed, and-”

“And you were up to your neck in the mouth of a giant axolotl.” 

“Well, yes, but-”

“Please, Matagot. See if you can talk your way out of this one. You are about to pass out. Also, you smell like the Rusalka met… hm. Well, you smell like the Rusalka.”

“Have we ever checked that she isn’t just a giant amphibian? Besides, I hurt it more than it hurt me. I’m pretty sure I kicked its liver.”

“That’s not a good thing, Travis!” hissed Gable. “Those things are endangered!”

“And for good reason!” 

“ Try to care about the world a little bit, alright?”

“Care about the world?” exclaimed Travis, lifting his bleeding leg. “I’m dying here! Care about me, Gable!”

“I have no sympathy for you and your stupid mistakes.”

“Well, maybe you should! What would you do without me around to make the most interesting mistakes?”

“Probably sail a lot smoother.”

“It would be more boring.”

“Stars, what I wouldn’t give for some good old fashioned boring days,” said Gable, then paused. “Travis, why are you bleeding?”

“What do you mean why am I bleeding?” Travis exclaimed. “The thing ate me!”

“They don’t have teeth.”

Travis blinked. “They don’t have… what?” 

“ Teeth, Travis. They don’t have them.”

“Well, how does it live?” 

Gable began to answer, then gave up and sighed in frustration. “Not important right now, Travis. Where did the blood come from?”

Travis looked away and mumbled something. 

“ Travis.” 

“I may have... “

“What?”

“Asked the Butcher for help.” 

“Travis!” 

“What? He’s the one that answers most when I’m in need! It’s not my fault he likes me!” 

“But you let him help you!” 

“What other choice do I have?” 

Gable was silent, continuing to dab blood off of Travis, though they still had no idea where it came from. “You could be more careful.” 

“I could not.” 

Gable slammed a hand down on Travis’s shoulder, pinning him to the operating table. “You can be more careful.” 

“Okay, okay,” complained Travis. “Let me up, this hurts.”

“That’s the point,” said Gable. “You promise to be more careful?”

“Yes, yes.”

“And you promise not to call on the butcher for every single one of your problems?” 

“Fine, okay. Why is it always more violence when you’re trying to convince me to be more careful?”

Gable finally released Travis. “You only listen to me if I make you.”

“Fine, fine, I get it.” 

“Where’s the wound?” asked Gable. 

Travis stripped off his bloodstained and water soaked shirt, exposing a long gash that went from his collarbone to his navel.

“Lumins,” said Gable. “That looks like an autopsy scar.”

“It’s not.”

“Well, I know that,” said Gable, grabbing a long roll of bandages, then pausing. “I don’t know how we’d wrap this on a vertical wound.”

“Just don’t,” suggested Travis. “It’ll be fine in a couple hours anyway.”

“You can’t just- Travis.” 

“Oh, just leave it. It’ll be fine.” 

Gable sighed, but relented, leaving Travis still bleeding out on Dref’s table. 

Chapter Text

Travis doesn’t scar, that’s one of the many things he hates about himself. Sometime’s he’s glad that he can blend from one time to another with such grace, glad that he doesn’t have to bear the burden of remembrance the same way Gable does, when his body dies and reforms itself every morning. 

Most of the time, though, he just hates that he’s so liable to forget the things that are really important. It feels like some sort of mockery, that he has no reminder of Margaret. No reminder of that day, though he remembers the blood from a cut just above his brow bleeding into the water and dying his love red. Any mortal- any real immortal- would have a living reminder of the love they lost writ on their skin, but Travis simply can’t.

Tattoos, scarification, whatever else was in style simply wouldn’t work. He had to hold the woman he’d loved in his heart rather than on his skin, and that was a much more daunting task than putting himself to physical pain would be. 

Of course, it also meant that the hundreds of cuts he left on his wrists and legs and chest were all gone in the space of a day. 

There was none of that disgusting thing called pity for Travis Matagot. None of that would ever have to taint him, just like the cuts would never become scars. 

Travis wanted reminders of the way he had been hurt- but he didn’t want any part of him on display to another. 

So Travis Matagot walked around with fourteen-karat golden skin that was so smooth you would marvel at its beauty, and diamond-polished cuts that would heal by sunrise.

---

Gable hated their scars. They were an immortal angel, with skin as tough as leather and strength to match it. 

But somehow, their skin couldn’t reflect the way they tried to shed their pain at every port.  They envied Travis, in some way, how he shed his skin every new day, never holding on to old pain, never forced to remember mistakes by phantom pains ten years after an incident. 

Gable felt their back twinge, and gritted their teeth. How unfair was it, that two hundred years after they had fallen, the scars on their back were still a daily reminder of who they had killed. Gable still couldn’t sleep unless it was on their stomach, still couldn’t sit in a straight backed chair, still couldn’t fly.

Gable was beautiful. Gable knew they were beautiful. But they hated the marring on their legs, arms, neck. Gable knew that when their paramours looked at them, those people would first look appraisingly, then finally, rake their eyes sympathetically over scar after scrape after faded tattoo. That was the worst part.

Sympathy. 

They wished they could be like Travis, the man that bounced back from everything, even death. He died every morning, and sure, he was cursed, but at least there wasn’t a physical representation of that curse. 

They wanted to stop having to dress the scars on their back every day, they wanted the pain to go away, they wanted it to heal, they wanted to stop looking in the mirror and seeing blood oozing out of their back, they wanted to stop healing from everything except for the two symmetrical wounds that had rid them of two hundred years of peace. 

They wanted to stop being reminded. 

Chapter Text

“So you’re a broken thing too, huh?” asked Travis, idly shuffling his illimat deck. 

“Albeit a more functional one.”

“A more functional one?” asked Travis. “That certainly puts us in a bad place.”

“That insults you more than it does me.”

“Ah, but it does insult you.”

Gable rolled their eyes. “She made me promise to keep an eye on you.” 

Travis’s expression soured. “Because she’s not around anymore.”

“Exactly. You seem… down.” 

“Of course I’m down, Gable. Margaret is gone.” 

“I thought you just got over this.” 

Travis punched Gable in the arm, and though it wasn’t nearly hard enough to hurt, Gable let out a flat “ow,” just to make Travis feel better. They waited a few seconds to let Travis stew in his thoughts for a bit longer, then spoke again. “Do you think this is gonna make it better, huh buddy? Do you think that this is what Margaret would have wanted?” 

“Shut up,” said Travis, though there was no real malice behind his words. “The forest queen wanted me to be hopeless, so I am.” 

“You think this is all the luminaries behind your own emotional state? ”

“What else would it be?” 

“Literally anything. Bad luck.” Gable waved a hand. “Bad decisions.” 

“Can’t make bad decisions if you don’t have decisions at all.” 

“Are you serious? ” 

“Of course I am.” 

“You’re an idiot.” 

“No, that’s your job. ” 

Gable let out an over-exaggerated sigh. “Aren’t people supposed to get more mature as they age?”

“Pot, Kettle.” 

Gable grimaced. “Jonnit is the only one here that knows anything.”

Chapter Text

“She said it would get better,” said Travis, staring morosely at the bog wine that no longer carried a magical touch to it. 

“We fought the Mariner. We saved your hand. We saved Nordia. That seems better.”

“Better than what?” 

Gable shrugged, and Travis wanted to hit them in their stupid smug angel face. “Then when the stars fell?”

“ Anything’s better than when the stars fell.”

Gable was silent. 

“You killed my parents,” said Travis. 

Gable honest-to-god flinched, but Travis either didn’t notice, or he pretended not to. “I can’t decide whether to hit you or thank you,” he said. 

“Were they bad.” said Gable in monotone. 

“You judged them that way. So, probably.”

“Judgment can’t be trusted.”

“They hurt me,” said Travis, spinning the bottle around and around in his hands like it was his only lifeline. 

“Who hasn’t.” 

“Yeah.” Travis glanced up at Gable, who had their jaw set firmly. “I don’t blame them for hurting me. I would- I do the same thing. But I was a child. I don’t think that they should have hurt a child, even if that child was me.”

“I don’t think they should have hurt you regardless of whether or not you were a child,” said Gable.

“Maybe not,” said Travis. “I don’t think they really had a choice, though. If they didn’t hurt me, I wouldn't have been so desperate, and if I wasn’t so desperate, I wouldn’t have played that game with the forest queen. If I hadn’t played the game, I wouldn’t have won immortality and met you, and-” Travis raised the bottle so the torches caught the gleam of the liquor, and examined it “-I never would have met Margaret, or gotten woven together with you, meaning that the story would be unfulfilled, and the river wouldn’t have claimed the victim that it needed. So in the end, they were just doing what they had to.”

“They- they had to hurt you?”

“The river demanded so.”

“Somebody else couldn’t have taken your place in the story?” asked Gable.

“Perhaps,” said Travis. “Maybe somebody else could have taken my place, at the very beginning. But they didn’t, so here I am, bound by the Lumins.” 

“Bound,” mused Gable. “If the river absolves you of responsibility, perhaps I was bound to mete out terrible judgment.” Gable turned to look at Travis. “I don’t think so, though.”

“Here’s a question,” said Travis, laying the bottle down at his feet. “Should you feel guilty for what is predestined?” Abruptly, Travis snorted. “Look at me, being philosophical while drunk.”

“The bottle is unopened,” Gable pointed out. “You’re not drunk.”

“Even worse,” said Travis. “I’m being philosophical while sober.” Travis opened the bottle and handed it to Gable, showing no inclination to actually drink himself. Gable took the bottle, but didn’t drink from it either.

“Is it going to get better?” asked Gable.

Travis stared at Gable. “Probably not. But you’re stuck with me anyway.” 

There was a moment of perfect stillness, until Travis pulled out his illimat deck. “Humor me,” he said,  catching Gables incredulous look. “I have a suspicion of what luminary it’ll be.”

Gable only hesitated a second before pulling a card from the middle of Travis’s deck. “The union,” they said, holding it out to Travis.

A ghost of a smile passed Travis’s lips, until he schooled his expression. “Of course.”

“Of course,” Gable agreed.

“So,” said Travis after a long pause.

“So,” said Gable. 

“I’m kind of a god, Gable.”

Gable looked incredulously at Travis. “Why?”

“I’m not a changeling, I’m the changeling. I’m the cog in the story.”

“You’re a luminary, the same way that the Forest Queen is.”

“Exactly.” Travis wrinkled his nose. "That’s the worst fate ever.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Travis hesitated. “I’m on a path… no, nevermind. It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, now I’m curious.”

“I have to be the changeling, right? I have no escape from this. I’m always going to be the changeling.” 

“I mean yes, but… why can’t the changeling just make up a different story?” 

“Every time I’ve tried that, Gable,” said Travis, “Every single time, it ends up worse than it was when it began. So no, I can’t make up a different story. Because the reed that she’s holding onto is going to break.”

Gable thought for a moment. “If it’s not going to get better, at least it won’t get… worse?” 

“And what makes you think that?”

“Well, it hasn't yet, right?” 

“Dref died.” 

“Okay, but was that the result of action or of inaction?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“It was inaction, because we weren’t there. So it stands to reason that since inaction causes bad things to happen, action is what will cause good things to happen.” 

Travis raised an eyebrow. “You’re shit at logic.” 

“I thought that was good!” 

“Sure, maybe for somebody like you, but for me, it just doesn’t make sense.” 

“That just shows that you’re the obtuse one.’ 

“No, you’re the dumb angel. That’s how it goes.” 

Gable rolled their eyes. “Just do something. Stop sitting on your ass. It’s not gonna get better if you don’t do something.” 

“Your life hasn’t exactly been all good things.” 

“Better than yours.” 

Travis stuck out his tongue.

Chapter Text

It was different, seeing Travis Matagot at night. People don’t gamble at high noon, not unless they're desperate for the adrenaline, or they were Travis Matagot. Now that Gable thought about it, Travis fit squarely into the first category. Still. It was odd to see him like this, in low candlelight, and it made Gable realize what The Forest Queen had truly taken from him.

Travis shone brighter under the contrast of night. Gable had plenty of practice presiding underneath the sun, but Travis presiding under the moon was a sight to behold. 

This night in N’goni, Gable found him playing round after round of illimat in a dingy bar, not looking happy, but not looking sad, either. They sidled up to him, and observed his cards, a bad hand, but Travis would make sure to win anyway.

Gable wondered if this was the only way he could control his life. Gable wondered if pretend stakes were easier to deal in. Gable wondered if this was his fantasy, making everything come out right, no matter the hand Travis had been dealt. 

Gable put it out of their mind. 

“Who’s winning?” they asked instead, addressing the entire table of players. There was a grumble and a couple of heads inclined towards Travis, who smiled as wide as he could. 

“Care to watch, Gable?” he asked. 

Gable cursed internally. They were hoping that Travis wouldn’t so obviously identify that the two of them were travelling together. They wondered what people would think of them if Travis wasn’t attached to them in this city. 

“Sure,” said Gable, pulling up a chair opposite Travis. “What are you playing for?” 

“Money.” 

Gable rolled their eyes, quietly sizing up the other players at the table. They all looked to be members of the Glas, which, Gable reasoned, probably made themself easily identifiable as the helmsperson of the Uhuru. So there was no point in distancing themself from Travis. 

Gable was brought out of their thoughts by Travis snapping in front of their face. “Gable, Gable, look. I’m going to win.” 

There were sounds of outrage from around the table, even more so when Travis played his last hand, winning the pot. “Care to play again?” 

Only one other man at the table volunteered, the rest grumbling and walking away, their purses a little lighter. “He’s been playing me the entire night,” said Travis. “Hasn't won once.” 

“I will.” 

Travis just smiled. 

“Want to play, Gable?” 

“No,” said Gable, staring daggers at Travis. 

“Suit yourself,” said Travis. 

He one again, of course, Gable marveling at the artfully played game, and still with no inclination to play Travis themself. They’d learned well enough that that was a downright stupid idea, even if this man hadn’t quite realized that. 

Gable wondered if this is what life could be like, in easier times. Gable wondered if they would even want that.

Chapter Text

“I’m glad that the dance is over,” said Gable, sliding down to sit next to Travis and closing their eyes. 

“If Margaret were here,” said Travis. “She’d insist we talk to each other.”

Gable groaned, burying their hands. “Oh, Lumin’s eye. Didn’t we already do that?”

Travis pulled a face. “She’d probably make us do it again.”

“Very well. You’re an annoying little bitch and I’m surprised every day that one of your animal forms isn’t a cat.”

“You remind me of Cú.” 

Travis started laughing as Gable jabbed a finger at them. “You take that back. You take that back right now.”

“Never,” said Travis. Though he had started laughing, it didn’t last long, and he went silent. 

Gable knew Travis well enough to know that there was something wrong, and they knew the two of them well enough to know that they wouldn’t really talk about it. “Do I really remind you of Cú?”

“Oh, absolutely,” said Travis. “You’re both big, dumb-” Travis ticked off his fingers as he went “-Corsairs, puppeted around something and pretended it was the captain-”

“Hey,” Gable interrupted. “That was at least eighty percent you.” 

“I beg to differ. Anyway, you both have a spooky raven buddy,” said Travis, gesturing to himself. 

Gable furrowed their brow. “Cú doesn’t have…?”

“Right, she’s a crow. Fine, you both have corvid friends.”

“What…?”

“The Morrigan turns into a crow. Very spookily, I might add. She gave me pointers on how to make my transformations spookier.”

“ Okay, ” said Gable. “But just because we have similar crew’s doesn’t mean we’re similar.”

“Of course you are!” said Travis. “You’re both big and dumb and resort to violence whenever possible.”

Gable went to smack Travis, stopping just before their hand hit the back of his head, realizing that would only prove his point. He caught their eye and smirked. “Okay,” said Gable, lowering their hand.  “But I could say the same about you and The Morrigan. You remind me of her.”

Travis went deathly still. 

‘This is about your conversation with her last night, isn’t it?” asked Gable. 

Travis carefully rewrote his face back into a cavalier expression. “No.”

“For someone who makes their fortune out of lies, you make a shitty liar.”

“Well, I’m not going to talk about it,” said Travis. “We were just discussing how nice it is that we don’t have to talk about our feelings, so I certainly won’t start just because you got curious.”

“What did she say?”

“I just said, I’m not going to talk about it,” said Travis. He turned to Jonnit and shook the teen’s shoulders, forcing Jonnit to pay attention to him. “Jonnit. How was the tornado calling? You beat the bandit queen.”

“Oh- Sefa! Yeah, she was really nice about it. I had a nice conversation with her, before I went to go hang out with Jani.”

“She didn’t curse you again?” asked Travis. 

Jonnit frowned, but his face quickly lit up with a smile again. “No, she was really nice about it. Once you get to know her, she’s kinda like a really scary grandma.”

“Jonnit, does that make Orimar a scary grandpa?”

Gable clapped a hand over Travis’s mouth. “Nope, I can see where this conversation is going, and we’re going to have it away from Jonnit. Jonnit, why don’t you go talk to some of the other cool teens here?” 

“Mhhggg,” said Travis, Gables hand still covering his mouth. Gable released him.

“You didn’t even know what I was going to say!” exclaimed Travis.

“I had a good enough idea.”

Travis stuck out his tongue, but didn’t comment. “Hey, have you seen the captain recently?”

Gable frowned. “No. He’s been doing his own thing.”

“That’s… Concerning,” said Travis.

“I don’t think Dref knew how much of a person Orimar still was,” said Gable. “I don’t think any of us realized that.”

“I wonder if I can still control him with the heart,” Travis mused. 

“ Don’t.” 

“Okay, okay. I won’t. I just wonder, you know. If I could.” 

“Every single time you say something like that, Travis, I know that I’m in for a headache, trying to fix whatever mess you got yourself into.” 

“That’s not fair,” Travis whined. “It’s not my fault you keep running to get me out of trouble. I can get myself out of trouble just fine. ”

“Oh, can you?”

“Yes, I can.” 

Gable stuck out their tongue. “Then where were you, getting yourself out of trouble in Burza Nyth?” 

“I was fine. ”

“You were dying.” 

“ Like I said, fine.” 

Gable rolled their eyes. “Okay, you weren’t fine in Nordia.”

“That’s because you didn’t put my hand back on!” 

“How was I supposed to-? Nevermind.”

“And that was Margaret, not you.” 

“I helped! I was one of your three loves! And I bought you a new coat.” 

Travis wrinkled his nose. “So we’re even.” 

“I- Even?” 

“Yes, even. I cut off my hand, became a hero, and in return, you got me a new coat. I think we’re more than even.” 

Gable sighed. Very loudly. “Please don’t try to control Orimar.” 

“I won’t be able to. Now that I remember clearly, I definitely gave the heart back to him.” 

“You know, I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.” 

“Probably worse,” said Travis, kicking his feet. “Who knows what he can do with that?” 

“Be a person?” 

“Exactly. Awful. Now we might have to face what we’ve done. And where will we be then?” 

Gable closed their eyes and pinched the bridge of their nose. “Let’s go find someone for you to beat at Illimat.”

Chapter Text

It was- it had always been- a competition of stubbornness between them. It was always whoever could endure the other one longest, who could needle their way under the other’s skin, which one of them could better pretend to be apathetic. It was a dance, and a game that relied on hiding emotions for as long as one possibly could. 

Travis, in truth, didn’t know why he used Gable as a means to hurt himself. They didn’t deserve it, and there were plenty of better avenues to rip his body and soul into pieces. Still, he couldn’t pretend that he didn’t enjoy the part of the game that led up to Gable eventually either smashing his head in or walking away in anger. 

And Travis suspected that Gable used him in the exact same way that he used them. They both took each other as a tool to hurt themselves, centuries after centuries, and neither of them made a motion to stop that kind of fucked up relationship. They were both each other’s subtle knives. 

Which perfectly explained why they were standing on the deck of the ship, screaming words the other one couldn’t hear over the rain. Travis didn’t remember what the argument had originally been about, only he had gotten in trouble again and Gable had been upset, and it had led to, well… this. 

The two of them, standing on deck, far enough apart that they couldn’t hurt each other if they tried, and the wind and rain beating down on them so much that it felt like the mariner was back. 

It wasn’t a surprise, then, when Travis stalked over to Gable, grabbed their coat collar, and- Gable was expecting anger, Travis could tell that much- he pulled them into a rough kiss. 

Gable immediately went still, their hands moving to grip his waist. 

It wasn’t a soft kiss. Travis’s teeth clicked against Gables, reverberating into both of their skulls even as he pulled Gable closer, trying to get them to understand all the anger and fear and desperation that he was feeling through a single kiss. 

They broke away when Travis went lightheaded. 

“So,” said Gable, still holding onto his waist. 

“So,” he replied. 

“What was that about?” 

“I wanted to shut you up,” said Travis, frustration leaking back into his voice. 

“And?” 

“And what ? I wanted peace from whatever dumb things you had to say to me.” 

“That’s it,” said Gable, in a monotone. 

“That’s it,” said Travis, and kissed them again. 

Chapter Text

“It’s so stupid, ” said Gable. “Getting drunk with a rabbit.”

“I am a wonderful rabbit, and I feel as if there are many other things you could have insulted that aren’t my rabbit-ness.”

“I mean, you're normally a lightweight, but you’re literally less than ten pounds right now,” said Gable, waving their glass as the ale sloshed against the side. “It’s almost useless.”

“It does save a lot of money,” said Travis, trying and failing to be dignified. He grimaced at the bowl of ale Gable had set for him. “Get me a straw.”

“Say please.”

Travis just glared, and Gable supposed that he was trying to lap at the liquor with an aloof air, but it just looked pouty. Especially when the white rabbit looked up at Gable with ale coating its muzzle and looking quite pitiful. 

“What’s it like, being a rabbit?” asked Gable. 

“What’s it like, being an Angel?” Travis retaliated. 

“Do you really wanna know?” 

“Kind of.”

Gable took a deep breath. “It’s like… well, I don’t remember being an angel. But I remember the potent feeling of missing when I plunged back down to earth. Like I was bigger than the flesh I’m confined in and I’m still not exactly certain what I should be able to see. Missing,” said Gable. “Missing and pain. My chest is hollow and my back aches. I should be more than this, but I… I don’t know how.”

Travis was quiet. “Wow,” he finally said. 

“So, what’s it like to be a rabbit?” asked Gable. 

“Frightening,” said Travis, twitching his nose. “On edge.”

“I wonder what it’s like to be afraid,” mused Gable. 

“Have you never been afraid?” 

“No,” said Gable. “Never for me. I think fear might be something like caring for Jonnit, something too small and too fragile to exist for long.” 

“You’ve watched people die before,” said Travis. “Wasn’t that frightening?” 

Gable mused, their fingers idly tapping at the table. Travis wondered how those fingers that had killed God and Tiberius, could possibly be Gables, tapping on wood in a low-lit bar. “I don’t think that was fear,” Gable finally said. “Like… sadness. Expectation. Killing God might have been something to be afraid of.” Gable paused again. “But I don’t remember that, not well. Except for the anger. I think I might have anger in lieu of fear in my world.” 

With these kinds of conversations, the dirty bar seemed almost holy. Travis forgot, briefly, the charade of nonchalance he was meant to wear. “Which would you rather?” he asked softly, before remembering the hostility that was so much easier to implement. Gable answered before Travis had a chance to add a rude comment at the end of his question. 

“I don’t know,” they said. “I don’t know which would be easier, hurting people or being hurt.” Gable paused again, this time for much longer, so that Travis nearly opened his mouth to speak before Gable cut him off again. “Anger, probably,” they said. “I’m better at that.” 

“To each their own.” 

“What about you?” 

Travis wondered how much of this conversation would come back to bite him in the morning, but the words slipped out of his mouth, unbidden. “Fear.” 

“Why?” 

“I know how to do that.” 

“Oh,” said Gable, in the same dreamy tone that they talked about their fall from heaven. Travis stayed silent. 

“Oh,” Gable said again, this time turning to face Travis, the full force of their gaze suddenly on him. They offered him a hand. “It’s late,” they said. 

Travis didn’t take the hand, pushing himself up from the table, and pretending that nothing had changed. “We won’t talk about this in the morning?” 

“Of course not. If I even remember.” 

Travis just hummed. 

Chapter Text

One of the good things about Travis is that Gable never had to worry if he died. They did, of course, he was the kind of person to get himself fatally stabbed, but Gable never had to do the math before meeting with him like they did with other people, making sure that the time still made sense for them to be alive. 

So when they had nowhere else to be, they’d find Travis somewhere in Speir, annoy him for a few years, and then part ways once more. It was a nice routine to have.

It took Gable nearly fifty years to realize that the two of them were actually friends. That they didn’t hate him, actually.  Gable was pretty sure that it took Travis the same amount of time to realize that they were friends, too. They wondered if Travis hated the way they met up, even when neither of them was trying, and Gable decided that Travis probably hated the situation more than anything. Hated that they were tied, more than anything else, so they supposed that was okay. He was always finicky about the people he sought the company of, Gable didn’t mind that they weren't one of those people.

They were both too old for it to hurt, so they pretended that after all these years, they still hated each other, and they pretended that there wasn’t some sort of link that bound them with the red strings of fate, fated together for the rest of eternity.

---

Travis liked to pretend that coincidences existed. He didn’t believe in such a thing, of course, everything was always going to happen from the beginning, but it was nice to sit in something you didn’t believe in. Travis had spent this long doing that, after all. 

So sometimes Gable found him in Speir, and sometimes the two of them would end up in the same place, to be executed on the same day, and sometimes Travis thought that he’d never actually hated Gable, that it was easier to lie, even to yourself. 

And then he put it out of his mind.

So they found each other, so Gable was a good part of fate. So what? 

So maybe that meant something Travis wasn’t quite ready to examine. 

Chapter Text

“I hate everyone,” said Travis. “But nobody more than myself.”

Gable went quiet. They knew that of course, after two hundred years with Travis they had cried on each other’s shoulders drunk more than once, but to hear Travis admit how much he hated himself, and in a manner devoid of sarcasm… that was jarring indeed. Especially when he was so close to dying, he was so close to being gone forever, something Gable never thought they would have to deal with.  

For a while, they chatted idly with Travis as he slowly died, wondering if, in this addled state, they could make him open up to them. But bringing that up might make Travis be quiet, and they didn’t want that. Not for any sentimental reason, of course. If he was quiet, it would mean he was close- closer to death than he already was. 

Not that they cared. 

“Have you ever been to Burza Nyth before?” asked Gable. 

Travis hissed as he shifted his wounded wing. “Once or twice.”

“Was it once, or was it twice?”

“Fine, twice.”

“Adn what was it like?”

“We’re here now. See for yourself.”

Gable rolled their eyes. “How long ago were you in Burza Nyth, Travis?” There was a pause. “Travis?”

“Hnng. Fifty-no, seventy years ago? Time is all blurry.”

“And was it like this?”

“Less blood. Less.. weird…. Eye stuff. Travis tried to sit up, and almost immediately flopped back on the bed.

“Shh, it’s okay,” said Gable, catching his wing. “It’s okay, it’s okay, just talk.” Gable thought to themself how glad they were that Travis probably wouldn’t remember any of this. 

“Do you know what Tiberius’s eye’s taste like?” asked Travis. 

Gable jerked backwards, letting go of Travis’s wing. 

“Would you like to?” he asked, still slightly slurring his words. 

“No,” said Gable. 

“Mm,” said Travis. “Good choice. It’s like… it tastes like eyes.”

“Yes,” said Gable, completely confused as to where the conversation had gone. On the bright side, at least Travis was talking. 

“Eyes are kind of like chicken liver,” said Travis. 

Gable was silent. 

“Gable?”

“Yes?”

“Oh. I just wanted to make sure you were still there. You know because… sometimes people leave.”

“No, buddy. I’m still here,” said Gable. 

“Get me something to eat,” said Travis. 

Gable smiled. As annoying as it was, at least the rudeness was a sign that Travis wasn’t completely fading away. “What’s the magic word?”

“Hocus pocus. Jonnit, get me something to eat.”

“Okay,” said Jonnit, who just looked pleased to have something to do. Gable sighed. “Jonnit, don’t get him something to eat until he uses his words.”

“Those were my words.”

“Your polite words.”

“If I eat pheasant, is it kind of like cannibalism?”

“ What?”

“Because I’m a bird. So it’s… Gable, should I be vegetarian?”

“Haven’t you already eaten people?”

“Gable, Gable. Have I?” Travis looked concerned, an odd expression. 

“Yes, after the stars fell but before you were immortal. There wasn’t any food left to eat, since the sea belonged to the Mariner and the crops couldn’t grow with the changing seasons.” 

‘Oh,” said Travis, looking more relaxed. “That makes sense.” 

There was silence. 

“Gable,” said Travis, “She won’t let me die.” 

Gable knew exactly who Travis was talking about, and responded accordingly. “No, she won’t.” 

“Why?” asked Travis. “Why do I matter so much to her? I’m just-” he struggled to raise his head, losing more blood as he did so. “I’m just me. I don’t wanna be important.” 

“That’s new,” said Gable. 

“I mean- bad important. She watches me. She’s watching me right now.”

“How do you know?”

“I feel her eyes on me. She’s- she’s laughing.” 

A chill ran down Gable's spine. The idea of the forest queen, observing, all for her own amusement, was the wanton cruelty Gable had expected. Still, it was jarring. “Why does she watch you?” asked Gable. 

“Do you think her eyes would taste the same as Tiberius’s?”

Gable reeled back. “No. No, and don’t try.”

“Why not? She won’t let me die.”

“There are worse things than death.”

“Hmm,” said Travis. “Not for her.” 

Gable had no response to that, so instead they went quiet, and began to idly stroke Travis’s wing, hoping and knowing that the pain of the physical wound would be gone by morning. The forest queen, though… she would still be watching with every tree they passed and with every splinter of wood that the Uhuru was made of.

Chapter Text

Travis downed the shot in one gulp, the liquor burning as it went down, feeling like he was coughing blood. He couldn’t muster up the energy to care about his throat burning or his head turning. None of it mattered, not really. 

The worst part was that there was no reason for him to be so upset. Margaret had been dead and gone for two hundred years, he’d been broken for a long, long time, and it was just another night on the Uhuru. 

He thought it was unfair that sometimes, you could completely put something out of your mind for months, years even, and suddenly the pain was back, not as a dull, throbbing ache, but like it was the first time you were experiencing that kind of pain. It was unfair that the grieving was the same emotions over and over again, in different orders. 

It wasn’t supposed to be easy. This was what was meant to happen. 

Travis wondered if grieving was respect. 

He decided that it was probably as close as he could get to either one, this state of mind that he was in now, tears burning his eyes and liquor burning his throat. 

Travis wondered how Gable managed something like this. 

No doubt, they had become more accustomed to it. Travis saw the way that they spoke with everybody they met, the way that every port was filled with their laughter and stories. Travis resented how much he admired Gable for that, for the way they’d continued to forge a memory out of the world, even when it closed up around them. He wondered, if he did that, would the luminaries meddle in his happiness again? Would they let him forge new connections to people? 

Travis decided that he didn’t want to find out. 

He watched Gable. 

He wondered if it would be better to be like them, pretending not to be lonely and then running. He decided that Gable wasn’t something anybody with any self-respect should be thinking about, but then again, he didn’t have any of the aforementioned quality, so it didn’t matter. 

He put it out of his mind, downing another shot like it wouldn’t burn this time around. 

Chapter Text

Travis’s fingers shook as the queen picked up his okus. His mortality. 

Travis was good. He didn’t lose, not even if it was the forest queen. But he wasn’t going to win this, either. 

Partially because he didn’t want to. He would win what he wanted, and then he would lose what he wanted. Half the fun was  determining how to play it just right. Half the strategy, rather. Fun wasn’t part of the forest queen’s repertoire. Travis glanced at Gable, who was staring at their cards in rapt attention. They weren’t bad at illimat, but they weren’t good either, and you have to be perfect to beat the forest queen. 

Luckily, Travis was better than perfect. By the skin of his teeth, he was going to get what he wanted from The Forest Queen. 

And he did. When he walked out of her court, arm in arm with Gable, he had lost exactly what he wanted to. “You’re never getting rid of me now,” said Travis. 

There was a ghost of a smile that rested on Gable’s face, masked behind annoyance and the disappointment of not quite losing, but not quite winning, either. “Awful,” said Gable. “You mean no matter how long I live, I’m never going to leave your smug face for good?”

“Stuck with me,” said Travis. 

“Do you plan on tagging along wherever I go, now?” asked Gable. 

Travis actually considered that, the bastard. But then, he stopped suddenly at the very edge of the Queen’s domain. Gable turned around, confused that he wasn’t walking with them. “I think I’ll stay here, actually,” he said. 

“Oh,” said Gable, and looked down at their feet, just across the bounty between her world and the regular one, and then looked to Travis, balancing inside of her domain. “Is this because she’s trapped you here?” 

‘No,” said Travis, but it was more of a lie than any kind of bluff in a game. “I just want to stay here for a bit. Learn about my immortality.’ 

Gable knew better than to press the issue. “Okay,” they said, and turned around, glancing back at Travis every few feet, who was looking at them like he was a lost animal. When he noticed them staring, he waved with a flick of his wrist, and turned to retreat back into the forest. 

Gable watched him retreat, and he didn’t glance back, not even once. Travis had just gotten immortality, just became the only other person on Speir that could understand their predicament, and he was gone into the forest. 

Gone, because his immortality had come from the queen, and she was never a generous one. 

Chapter Text

“I need you to promise me that,” said Travis, and he hated how desperate he sounded. Maybe he was just a little bit glad of it too, though. “And I need you to mean that promise.”

---

Later, Travis knew that there would be conversations and questions and unspoken words in a place neither of them wanted to be. But right now, the world was drowning around them, and they were both safe and unhappy and relieved in each other’s arms. Tears were streaming down both of their faces, but there was no need to admit that when the water would wash away all signs of sadness, and they’d both learned to cry silently a very long time ago. So instead, they were content to hold each other on the beach, while a thousand raindrops pelted them, stinging through the fabric of their clothes, and a thousand questions were left unanswered for another day. 

A minute that felt like two hundred years, and the two hundred years that had passed in the blink of a minute, because I love you’s can be said in so many different ways, and mean so many different things, but right here, and right now, it meant I am so relieved that you are still in my life. That you will continue to be in my life. It meant Isn’t it sad, that the most we can hope for is to die together, because we don’t have a bit of life untrodden anymore? 

It meant This is something we'll have to talk about, and this is something we’ll have to talk about sober, this is pain we share and will continue to share, I will continue to pretend I hate your voice and I will continue to smile behind your back, I will continue to love you and not say a thing. 

It meant We’re both so fucked up, and this won’t fix a bit of that, you’ll continue to be you, and I me, and we have our problems and we will continue to hurt each other, but maybe, just maybe, this newfound understanding will make things easier. 

This kind of love was a promise, and both of them knew it. There was already red string binding them tight to each other and forcing them to live, but this kind of love was the promise that would be broken over and over again, mended and healed and broken again until only scraps of the original were left. 

The finished product would not be beautiful and it would not be perfect, it would not be desirable to anybody save the two of them, because it would be the kind of love that is broken and mended imperfectly in so many places that it is not for show. 

The kind of love like a teapot that sits on the dinner table, the kind that you hide away when the guests come over because you don’t want them to see the items that you just can’t stand to throw away, the kind of love like a thing that is ugly but useful, and like a thing that you grimace at when you see but can’t help but laugh about because it’s so silly to keep something so broken, and it’s so meaningful that you don’t want to admit the sentimentality of the item you hold. 

This love would be broken, bruised, imperfect, perhaps not even worth keeping. It would be hidden and it would be ugly and flawed and it would be scorned by others, and it would hurt, but above all, this love would be something they chose to keep, and the two of them knew what they were keeping, and were glad of it.

This love was a promise that they both meant. 

Chapter Text

“When I found you,” said Travis. 

“What about it?” asked Gable. 

“How long had you been floating there?”

Gable paused to think. “I wasn’t counting. It didn’t seem important to remember, at the time. It doesn’t feel important to know right now, either. But-” and Gable spoke carefully, “-it was a very long time.  It was like I was in the space between sleep and death for months, but I don’t know the exact time. I just… wasn’t present.”

“From the beginning of your fallen life,” said Travis, “You have been boring. Why did I expect your first moments on earth would be any different?”

“Oh, shut up.” 

“Weren’t there sea monsters? Those are interesting. Don’t tell me the Mariner didn’t bother you for all of those months you just spent floating there in his domain.”

“I don’t remember him,” said Gable. 

“You don’t remember, ” said Travis. 

“Yes, I don’t remember. Maybe he, I don’t know, hadn’t started terrorizing cities yet?”

Travis thought. “I don’t remember. You know how it is, so old, and eventually pieces of your memory start to go.” 

‘No,” said Gable. “I don’t know that.” 

Travis looked at Gable curiously. “You mean you remember everything, from the moment I found you up until now?” 

“Yes?” 

Travis sighed and flopped back on the fainting couch that The Broker hadn’t taken away yet.  “That sounds exhausting. ” 

“Do you not?” asked Gable. 

Travis propped himself up on one arm. “Of course I don’t. You think I remember everything from the moment I met you to now? That would be far too much for me to keep. Besides, I don’t really care.” 

“You don’t care about what you’ve experienced?” 

“No. Why would I?” 

“Because it’s a part of who you are.” 

“Says who?” 

“Everyone, Trais. You- you can’t  forget things and stay the same person.” 

“I can, because I have.” 

Gable groaned and rested their head in their hands. “That makes no sense. You’re so concerned about the agency that you have, but you have absolutely no opinion on the fact that you just forget things sometimes?” 

“Eh,” said Travis, kicking his feet. “It was a mortal thing, too. That’s just the way that our brains work.” 

Gable looked down at Travis in shock. “You mean you people just forget things sometimes? You just lose pieces of yourself and you don’t mind ?

“No?” said Travis. “When you’re young, you forget, and then you get to middle age and you don’t forget, and then you get old, and you forget again.”

“So,” said Gable, still trying to comprehend this piece of information, “You live your life all while forgetting parts of it?” 

“I suppose so,” said Travis. “It’s not like I need all of it, anyway. It’s just bare bones.” 

Gable was silent. 

“What?” asked Travis. “Are angels better than that?” 

“Yes,” said Gable. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to have pieces of my mind flake off like dead skin.” 

“Gross.” 

“But true. You forget the same way your body rebuilds.” 

“In my case, often.” 

Gable snapped their eyes to look at Travis, and he nearly flinched. Nearly. “Are you sure this isn’t just a changeling thing?” 

“Positive. It happened before I was a changeling. It happened to you, Gable, right after you fell.” 

“But that’s different. That was when I lost myself. How can you forget things without forgetting yourself?” 

“Here’s what you're missing,” said Travis, a smug smile adorning his face.  “We do things by halves. You, an angel, can’t fathom doing a half-ass job on anything, but me? I’ve never once put my whole effort into something. I much prefer to float down the river without actually swimming.” 

Gable was silent, and Travis abruptly remembered how loaded his words had become. In true Travis fashion, he doubled down on the bad idea.

“I think that your obsession with keeping all of your memories, every single one, intact, has to do with who you were before you fell. As an angel, it’s easy to say that you aren’t anything without your memories, because you weren’t anything before you started making them. Just a humanoid form floating out in the ocean, doing nothing.” Travis risked a glance towards Gable, who had started to look more upset. Good. 

“I was something before I had memories,” said Gable. 

“Really?” asked Travis. “I mean, how can you know if you don't remember it? For all we know, Angel Gable was a completely different person. ” He paused for effect. “They killed my family.” 

“That was Uriel. ” Gable's eyes were usually the blue of a cloudless sky, but when they got angry, their eyes reflected the storm. When they went berserk, Travis could almost swear he saw lightning reflected from Gable every moment. Right now, they were approaching a storm, one that Travis could be caught in easily if he wasn’t careful. 

“And William let go of Margaret,” he countered. “It doesn’t make any difference.” 

“I-” 

“And Uriel killed my family.” 

Chapter Text

Travis doesn’t know the shape of the love he has for Gable, whether it is romantic or platonic or something else entirely, but he knows one thing, despite the fact that he will never admit it out loud. He loves Gable. 

Travis would go so far as to say he is in love with Gable, which is a jarring thought indeed. 

There is a difference between loving and being in love, and it is not the difference between that love that is platonic and that love that is romantic. It is not even about the amount of love that one has for another. Loving is something you do, like breathing, or pumping blood from heart to lungs to heart again out to the body in grand waves. Loving somebody is inescapable, broad, an ache of anxiety in one’s chest or the feeling you get just after taking something your mother always told you to avoid. Loving is like fire, it’s addictive and intoxicating and natural, something that you never chose, loving somebody is a duty or an obligation. Travis loves his parents and Travis loves the forest queen, and he loves Jonnit and Dref, but he is not in love with them, for he did not choose that love. 

(That is not true, and Travis knows it. He has been in love with the Forest Queen, in some kind of awful, painful way, he is in love with the person who hurt him so very much.)

Being in love with somebody is much smaller, it is just to say that you saved the plums in the icebox which you were probably saving for breakfast, and lending the sweet cold sugar to somebody else. Barely a sacrifice. Being in love is a choice that you make over months, over years, over decades or millennia. Being in love is somebody coming to the market with you even though you didn’t ask, and being in love is trusting that secrets make no difference when love is unconditional. 

Travis has been in love with only two people in his life, one for each hundred years, and he is just beginning to make sense of the second person. 

Travis believes that he fell a little bit in love with Margaret when he danced with her by the riverside as the sun waned, and then when she held him as he became a rabbit, screaming into her chest as she held his shoulders. He remembers that evening vividly, the daffodils beside the river and the daisies in her hair, a cruel mockery of what was to come, and he remembers how he didn’t take in any of it, because he had chosen to love her, and that was more important than anything else that could possibly capture his eyes. 

Travis supposed that his love with Margaret was soft, just as love could be dreamlorn or cruel like the Forest Queen, or waiting, or unremarkable in the best of ways. 

The love that Travis had for- or with, it didn’t really matter- Gable, that was a kind of solid love. Unyielding. The kind that it didn’t matter to express, because both of them knew they were parallels. He lived forever out of spite, and they lived out of necessity, both of them crossing paths again and again as the strings of fate tangled them into some sort of fucked tapestry. 

The two of them had ended up running together out of fluke, both trying to escape something nameless, and both trapped in their own ways. 

They had learned the fallen world of Speir together, and they had built their own kinds of stars together, imperfect shapes, though they were all five-pointed. 

And Travis fell in love, more in love than he already was. And then he grieved, because that was the only way to build a shrine to everything he’d lost. It was a stable kind of love, the kind of love two people build separately when they are both trapped in a hell of their own making. (What did it matter if they had built hell? Gable had killed god, so Travis could do his part with the place he belonged in.)

Travis wasn’t glad that Gable was with him, he wasn’t even happy. He couldn’t find it in himself to be anything but relieved, when he saw their solid, sturdy presence before him, he could only be relieved. So he supposed that was love, that they would always be there, somewhere in the world. 

He could survive without them, he knew that much. He could live, because there was no other choice, but he would not like it, and Travis was scared. He could live, but he was scared of losing Gable, of losing the solid things in his life. Travis is relieved that Gable is on his side, and though he has no choice but to survive without them if they choose to live, he is scared. 

And he is a little bit in love. 

Chapter Text

“What’s the matter,” said Travis, more than a little drunk.  “We both hate ourselves. We both hate each other. I hate you. I’m awful.” 

“God, what I wouldn’t give to get rid of you,” said Gable, taking another large swig of their drink. 

‘I’m so glad to let you know that the feeling is mutual,” said Travis, handing his bottle to Gable. “You’re drinking the equivalent of whatever Dref has in the infirmary. I’d bet it doesn't even have a taste.” 

“Tastes like bandages,” said Gable, turning the bottle slightly so Travis could read it, as if he would even try.

“Holy shit, is that actually what Dref keeps? Why aren’t you dead yet?”

“Angel.”

Travis scoffed. “Figures. Have you even thought that maybe the reason you’re so pigheaded is because you drink that shit?” Travis snapped his fingers. “Nevermind. That would require thinking.”

Gable shoved Travis, and he fell off the stool he was sitting on with a thump. He flipped them the bird. 

“Do you ever think that drinking yourself to blackout every night is a problem?”

“Never,” said Travis. “I can’t get addicted, my body rebuilds itself every day.” 

“That’s not how it works.” 

“Yes it is. It’s why I can’t keep scars, tattoos, gold in my arms. My body reabsorbs in and builds back perfectly.” 

Gable frowned. “But that doesn’t mean you still can’t get addicted to things.” 

“Prove it.” 

“You’re a gambling addict.” 

“That’s different.” 

“You’re not going to… deny it?” 

“It’s not a vice. It’s gotten me out of many a bad situation. It’s gotten you out of quite a few places, too,” said Travis. 

Gable shook their head, but opted not to start this particular fight right now. “You were saying?” they asked. 

Travis furrowed his eyebrows, which might have been cute if it wasn’t entirely insufferable. “I was saying something?” 

“You’re always saying something. Ever since I met you, you’ve had something to say. Don’t disappoint me now.” 

“Oh Gable, I didn’t know you cared.” 

“I don’t.” 

Travis huffed, and set his drink down. “You’re the worst.” 

“Oh yeah!” Gable snapped their fingers. “That’s what you were saying.” 

“Huh. Sounds like me. Do you really want me to continue?” 

“Not really.” 

“That’s what I thought.” 

“Either way,” said Gable, their eyes boring into Travis like he was being judged again, and this time, they weren’t going to be so merciful, “We’re both going to face the consequences eventually.”

Chapter Text

“You deserve to die.” 

Travis scoffed. “Really, I don’t deserve anything. Don’t you think it’s weird I remember more about Uriel than you do?”

Gable froze. “What?”

“You know, fire, thousands of eyes in the fire, the burning feeling of shame, etcetera, etcetera.” Travis waved his hand. “Normal angel shit.”

“Travis, did you see me when I was Uriel?” 

“Of course,” said Travis, dropping his hand.

“What was it like?”

“Like I said. “Eyes, fire, hatred. What else do you want?”

Gable was on the edge of their seat. “Describe it to me. Every detail.”

Travis was silent for a long moment, shuffling his illimat deck before unexpectedly, one fell out, facedown on the floor. He sighed, closed his eyes, and picked it up. “The starwatcher,” he read. Travis slipped the card back into his deck. “When I was seven years old, an Angel came to wreak havoc and death on my city. I was caught between a rock and a hard place, or, if you will, a family and a fire.” Travis’s fingers continued to play with his deck as he told the story, like it was some sort of comfort animal for a small child. “I chose the fire.”

“And that fire was me.”

“It was Uriel. A thousand eyes, all of them focused on me, watching me, judging me, seeing into me without mercy, only justice. It saw me.”

“And?” Gable urged.

“And they decided I deserved to live.” 

“If you deserve to live, surely you deserve to die as well.” 

“I’m not William,” said Travis, “and you’re not Uriel. So don’t judge me.” 

“Sorry.” 

“The seven year old deserved to live,” said Travis, “because he was a child. He wasn’t me, he was seven, and a child that Uriel saw too few evil deeds inside. I am not- I’m not on the good path.”

Gable just barely stopped himself from resuming the course of judging him, and settled instead of placing a hand on his shoulder. Travis flinched at first, but placed his own hand over where Gable’s was before they thought to draw back.

“Any child can deserve to live,” continued Travis. “That’s easy. It’s more difficult when you have an entire lifetime of fuck-ups behind you. If I was judged now, is there any chance in heaven or hell that I would deserve anything at all?”

Gable was silent. 

“Answer me,” said Travis. 

Gable opened and closed their mouth a few times. “Well, I thought it was rhetorical. You know, you need to be more clear in what you want! You can’t blame me, you just told me not to talk and now suddenly-”

“Just answer it,” interrupted Travis. 

Gable paused. “You deserve to die,” they said, and thought. “But not because you’re a good person. Because she had no right to take that from you.” 

“Oh excellent,” said Travis, flopping down onto his back. “ I’m not worth it, but she’s worth the spite. That makes me feel great.” 

“That’s not what I said,” said Gable. 

“Really?” asked Travis, sitting back up. “Really, Gable? Because what I heard was, oh, let me think, ‘but not because you’re a good person.’”

“That’s not- ugh,” said Gable. “You really want me to say you’re a good person? Because we’ll both know I’m lying.” 

“I mean, no,” said Travis. “But do I really deserve to die if it’s only to spite the queen of roses?” 

“I think so,” said Gable. “I didn’t deserve to kill the sovereign, but he deserved to die.” 

“That’s different.” 

“How?” 

Travis paused. “Nevermind.” 

“No, I want to know-” 

“ Nevermind.” 

“Okay,” said Gable. “But does it really matter what you deserve when god is dead?” 

“ One god is dead,” said Travis. “The rest still have their claws in me.” 

Chapter Text

“You know it’s okay.”

“What?” asked Travis. 

“It’s just us two, again,” said Gable. “I’m saying that… that it’s okay to leave, if you find a way to die. I’ll survive.” 

“I know you will,” said Travis. He paused. “I made a promise.” 

“So?”

“So I’m not going to break it.” 

Gable rolled their eyes. “You’ve broken plenty of promises before.”

Travis spoke slowly this time, carefully. “Not like this one.”

“What’s different about this one?”

“Margaret…” said Travis. “She made this one important.” He sighed. “Which is stupid, because there are plenty of other things she could have made important, but no, she decided that instead, I’m going to have to be tethered to you for time and all eternity.”

“Jonnit…” Gable tapped their fingers on the table, a nervous habit that Travis had become familiar with after two hundred years, “He was always meant to burn bright, like a flare, and then go out just as suddenly. He reached towards that destiny as surely as you tried to push away from yours.” 

“He didn’t deserve to burn out,” said Travis, his fists clenched hard enough to leave half moon indents in his palms. “I hate this. I hate that this is how it goes. I hate this so, so much.” 

“Would you rather have him here, with us?” asked Gable. 

“No! No, of course not, he never deserved this, but I don’t want him dead yet. He had so much he could have done. He could have lived for a thousand years before getting tired.” 

Gable thought. “He was so much like Orimar, but not in that way, I don’t think. I think that it was good for him to have a deadline. Otherwise, he never would have stopped.” 

“Did he need to stop?” 

“Would you rather him turn out like us?” 

“No,” said Travis, “Not really. But we never get the choice.” 

“Are you still hung up on that?” 

“Of course I am! And now one of my friends is dead and it wasn’t his choice so it feels like… we always get what somebody else would have wanted.” 

“I think,” said Gable, “You’re full of shit.” 

“Well, that’s nothing new.” 

“Just let him die.” 

“But I want him to stay with us! What if I told you that I didn’t care what he wanted, that all that mattered was that he was still here with us?” 

“I don't believe that you’d wish this on anyone else.” 

“You’re wrong. If I could convince any one of the luminaries to bring him back, I’d do it in a heartbeat.” 

“Then why haven’t you?” 

Travis paused. “It’s done.” 

“You know as well as I do what Dref did with Orimar. It’s never done. You could bring him back, unwillingly, and you haven’t. Why?” 

“Fine!” Travis buried his head in his hands. “You’ve caught me. I wouldn’t bring him back. Is that what you wanted?” 

“Honestly, yes.” 

“Well, you’ve got it, you big dumb idiot.” 

“Great.”