Work Text:
Darius knew better than anyone in the castle that sewing anything was a delicate art. There were plenty of people who dismissed it as mindless work, or a fixation with clothing and fashion as a frivolous pursuit with too much time on their hands. Of course, there were many people in the castle who only needed to care about their clothing being functional, but Darius was not like most people in the castle. The former apprentice of a Golden Guard, he had been shown glimpses of the castle’s dark underbelly from a young age, seen and learned things that few people would ever know, let alone live to tell about.
His mentor had not been one of those people. His disappearance had been sudden and swift, the mourning that descended on the castle a dark stormcloud that left seemingly as quickly as it had come.
Not Darius’s mourning, of course. The loss of his mentor had left a hole inside him that he wasn’t sure anything would ever truly fill. He was told this was simply the nature of grief. He would always feel this was unfair. Mentors were supposed to die heroically in battle serving their emperor, or peacefully of old age surrounded by loved ones and accolades gained from a lifetime at the Emperor’s right hand. Not simply go away one day and never, ever come back. Darius had been given an explanation, of course, but dark doubt had churned inside him early on. It gave him an overwhelming sense of wrongness that tinted his world, made things off-kilter. Other people, especially those outside the castle, seemed to be blissfully unaware of how not-right things were, which worsened the feeling. It came and went in waves, but always persisted, for years, until he found himself part of a secret plan to take down the Emperor and stop the Day of Unity.
During those harrowing final days before the Day of Unity, Darius occasionally wrestled with a new sense of wrongness amid the overwhelming tide of feeling. It was the sensation that his adult and child life had somehow collided, converged. As if he was experiencing some kind of eclipse of the spirit alongside the literal eclipse ominously approaching. He constantly felt as if his younger self was alive and well in his head, and his adult self was telling him you were right, you were always right to be wary of the Emperor and what you were told about your mentor’s death. He occasionally found himself tearing up on the behalf of that boy, whose confused voice still cried out for closure after all this time. Even worse were the moments where he thought he saw the younger selves of his comrades in flashes in their eyes, or remembered all the fun they’d once had at Hexside. Any second now, Raine is going to laugh about what an elaborate and childish game we’ve all conjured up and then the bell will ring and we’ll have to go to class and-
“Darius?” Raine had pressed, gently. “Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“I know this is a lot, but I need you to stay focused for just a little while longer. Just hang on.”
“We’re all hanging on by a thread, Raine.”
“I know.” the weariness in their voice made them sound ancient. They were about to say something else, but sensed that Darius was losing himself to thought.
“Raine, it’s like my adult self has been stitched over the fabric of my child self. It’s like- it’s like…” his eyes widened, taking in the horizon. “It’s like the whole world is stitched together incorrectly. All jagged and lumpy and warped. Has it always been this way?”
“Maybe,” Raine said. He wasn’t sure they understood his metaphor, but in their defense, he didn’t entirely understand what he was thinking either. “But we’re doing something about it. We’re re-stitching the world, Darius. Okay? Hang onto that. Hang onto that thread.”
And he did. He held onto that thread until he lost consciousness, the magic draining from his body. The pain was unlike anything he’d ever felt. As he slid in and out of consciousness, not even able to open his eyes, he thought he heard his mentor’s voice saying something. Calling out for him? Then the voice became someone else’s. Hunter. Hunter! Hunter, I-
Then Hunter was gone, and Darius let unconsciousness take him and he was gone too.
We’re re-stitching the world. He told himself for the millionth time over Titan-knows-how-many days. The days bled into weeks, which became months. Not that it mattered. His life was now at the mercy of the Titan-forsaken Collector, who he often fantasized about punching in the face as soon as he got the ability to move his own body back. On some level that was probably wrong, since the Collector seemed to still be in the child stage of whatever life cycle their nightmarish species had, but Darius cared very little about morals by that point. This was because his routine looked something like:
Enter a stage of consciousness that could almost be called sleep. Be woken by Collector for their games. Think about Hunter and what I’ll say to him when (if? No, when.) I see him again. Have awkward one-sided conversations with my mentor and wonder if I’m hallucinating, dreaming, or if it’s his ghost still walking the Isles. Become fairly certain that it’s the last one, and contemplate how I actually feel about that. Contemplate how much I hate Belos. Contemplate how I actually feel about just about everything that’s ever happened to me. Wonder if it’s possible to re-stitch the world when you’ve been turned into a man-sized puppet forced to experience levels of indignity that should not be possible. Rinse and repeat. TITAN, PLEASE SAVE ME.
Eventually, Darius was saved, as was everyone on the Boiling Isles. Things settled into some semblance of where they were supposed to be again. The world was indeed having its stitching altered, but it was not with the reckless hand of a bloodthirsty colonizer, but rather with duty and love. That was enough to fill with a sense of contentment that it almost made him fully relieved.
Almost.
“So, Darius.” Raine said. They were in his room. Raine had asked him to discuss something important, with several people present. Since the castle was swarming with more life than it had in ages, he’d rather begrudgingly allowed them into his home, just hoping they didn’t mess anything up. Indeed, Raine and the rest of the C.A.T.S, the Clawthorne sisters, Hunter, and Luz Noceda had not touched anything. Yet. He had his eye on Luz and Eda in particular. Just because they saved his life from an eternity of misery didn’t mean he trusted them with some of his most precious belongings.
“We wanted to talk to you about your mentor.”
That sentence alone hit him like a giant abomination to the chest, but it was nothing compared to the story that Luz would slowly piece together. Long story short, they’d found out what happened to him. And his predecessors before him. It had not been anything good.
When she finished, you could have cut the silence in the room with a knife.
“I know this is a lot to take in.” Luz eventually managed. “I think I’m gonna leave now and give you some space, okay?”
Darius was looking at the girl, but not at her. She was back in her casual attire. For working. Repairing the isles called for clothing that was meant for intense physical activity. There was a peculiarly colored food stain on the front. By her belly button. Barely noticeable against the fabric. What was that fabric made of, anyway? Human realm stuff? How did humans make their clothes? Hunter had told him about sewing machines and the like but he still didn’t understand it, he didn’t understand any of it, he didn’t understand anything anymore. The world was having its stitching altered but the thread he hadn’t realized he was still holding onto was unraveling, oh, it was unraveling-
“Darius?” Raine tried again. “Do you want us to leave? Stay?”
“I want you to wash your shirt, Luz.”
She didn’t seem that phased. “Okay. I’ll do that when I get home.”
“Why do you want her to wash her shirt?” Eda ventured hesitantly.
“Eda, I think he just needs some space right now-” Raine said, several other people offering similar sentiments. He heard Hunter’s voice among them. Hunter. For the first time, he managed to look at the boy again. He seemed fearfully hesitant, cautious of Darius’s reaction. That grounded him just a little, just long enough for him to say: “Don’t worry, Hunter.” that was his crude attempt at some kind of I love you, Hunter. He tried to get those last words out but all that came out was a strangled noise. Hunter had been stitched and sewn (Literally? Metaphorically? I don’t know anymore-) from Darius’s mentor and his predecessors. Maybe the world could not be stitched and sewn into something better if it had done this. He was a tailor and a Coven head who had somehow gotten tasked with taking down a dictator and ended up getting turned into the plaything of a god before getting rescued by a teenage girl. How could he fix any of this? How had it all become so broken in the first place?
Oh, it was all just so… absurd. Utterly absurd in its total incomprehensibility. This world was broken, it was horrendously messy, it was wretched and despicable and about a billion other words that ran through his head, some more profane than others, as he sobbed inconsolably surrounded by abomination goop in his bathroom. He was finally alone, which was good because he didn’t want anyone to see him crying this hard. He hadn’t cried this hard in years, maybe ever.
Once he’d forcibly wrenched what seemed like every negative emotion he’d ever experienced from his body with his sobs, he found himself making a noise that was almost a laugh. This world was everything he hated it for and more. But it also had almost been taken from him by the same monster who stole his beloved mentor from him, and almost took Hunter, and everything else he’d ever loved from him. He wouldn’t Belos take any more happiness from him, especially not from beyond the grave. He was going to rest. Then he was going to change clothes and go talk to Hunter, where the both of them would probably spill their guts and cry even more, so he had to take care to wear something presentable that he was also okay with getting tears and snot on. Then he would…he didn’t know what he would do.
And for the first time in a long time, he found he was maybe all right with that.