<blockquote>Requiem remained poker-faced, his hands reaching to Cay's and gently intertwine with his - their knuckles knots of snow and flame. The half-breed began to flick errant bangs from his face, and they fell back, covering his eyes. He tried again - flick, fall; flick, fall; flick, fall - the gesture was metronomic and mesmerizing. "Umwhat?" he muttered, and canted his head to one side at Cayson. "Nyuh, I'm babbling. Tired. Water'd be good, yeah - I'll go with you." His grip loosened on his boyfriend's and with open palms, he smoothed down the material of his crumpled jeans. Dy set in on his usual air-drumming routine, index fingers rotely slicing space. The beat was softened, contained, more subtle than his usual punkish seethe - but then again, everything with Dylan was finger-to-the-wind conjecture, hurricane as likely as calm. He turned to Cayson, smiled. "I was at Candrice - my head got so screwed-up by it all that they made me retire." He shrugged, throwing back his lean, elegant shoulders, and smirked at 'Ani. "Ah, but it was so much fun. Think I got my first piercing 'round then, too - " he said, gesturing to his labret with one finger.</blockquote>
Cayson slid to his feet, gently pulling Requiem along with him. “Come on then, I'll get you something to drink. Maybe wake you up a bit while I'm at it." Even though Cayson was finding the conversation between them and the grownups increasingly interesting, his first priority was always Requiem. He liked being at his lover's elbow, ready to assist and please. “Um... Koani, and ah, sir? Would you two like anything?" He still wasn't quite sure how to address Dylan. Most likely he'd want something informal, given that he was after all Koani's friend and Requiem's father. Candrice, Koani, all that chaos, all it did was muddle Cayson's thoughts. “I don't need anything, Cay'sla. Thank you for asking." Koani tilted her head to look back at Dylan, first glancing at his labret piercing, and then all of the other piercings that now decorated his person. He'd certainly grown up to be a rather interesting looking individual. Even if it hadn't been for Candrice, Koani felt like he still would have been set apart from everyone else. Both in appearance and personality. “I remember the labret... I can't say I ever got that adventurous with my piercings. I just stuck to poking more holes in my ears, much to the chagrin of my mother." She grinned.
<blockquote>Love, Requiem had learned a few years ago, was not something you could measure in the length of your hair or the breadth of your shoulders; you could not calculate it in the twists of your own DNA or the beat of your favorite song. You could not measure it in how many times you fucked a sexual partner, or took them out to dinner, or went down on them in a movie theater - you could only measure it in the stumbling, feeble beat of your heart and the ratcheting of your lungs. "Ah - just call me Dylan," his father said, laughing quietly in a rumbling baritone, and added, "Just some water." Req followed Cayson to the doorway of the kitchen, and there he leaned back against one of the countertops, fumbling through one of his jean pockets and pulling out a square velveteen box. Opening it, he pulled out a promise ring - a plain band of platinum, set with a tiny jewel of tourmaline, and walked behind Cay, wrapping one arm about his stomach. "For you," he breathed, grinning, and kissed him gently on the neck. Meanwhile, Dy was running his calloused fingertips over the couch, as if to scrape away their shared memories from his very fingerprints. "I think that was about when I tried growing a goatee for the first time - didn't work out so well." He laughed, and, withdrew from the inside of his coat an aged black-and-white polaroid. "I found this the other day," he said quietly. It was the two of them in Watani - Tessera 36th, 81352, it was labeled - they'd been 17 and 18. There they stood, eating ice cream, laughing, Dylan's hair cut short, horns not yet fully-grown, missing the laugh lines and the crinkles at the edges of his eyes, the scars and Grading marks. There was an obnoxiously red heart circled around Koani's face - her eyes were half-shut in the midst of a shared chuckle. "See? I loved you even then."
“For... wait, what?" Cayson stammered, his breath catching in his throat – he'd just caught sight of the ring. Without any forewarning, the arden's mind suddenly became a rushing torrent of emotions. There were good memories of course, but among them were several that caused his guts to wrench and twist out of control. He had loved Riot after all, and their breakup had been nothing short of turbulent. Cayson still didn't like to talk about it, nor did Riot for that matter. The two of them had even ceased talking to each other. It was too painful. Someone aside from that damned Nyri had died on the cruise that night. Riot had saved Cayson's life then, but in doing so she'd cost the life of someone else. “You're serious, aren't you?" Cayson asked, wiping at the tears that had decided just then to course down his face. They made his permanent red upside down triangle markings become a subtle shade darker. “You know 'Quiem," Cay said as he sucked in a shaky breath, “at one point, I was actually going to be a father." ~ “So you did," Koani said quietly. She was enjoying reminiscing over their shared past. It was this lack of shared history that often made the Grader feel distant in comparison to others. Even Plicae, who'd she'd been with briefly, had come up short. He had also known lost, yet she had been determined to push him away. To keep him safe. Now she felt like she was doing a similar thing to Dylan. Keeping him at arm's length and far away from the corruption that was her soul, if it could even be called that anymore. Studying the photo closer now, Koani smiled. “Dyl', you were an amazing best friend. You were always there, even during the on-and-off relationship I had with Sabe. Looking back now, it must have been pretty hard on you to deal with that."
