Chapter Text
The god of love rests on the edge of the realm, his mind a raging, swirling storm of thoughts. This life is difficult to understand, to leave behind as yet another story. How could he?
Of the many lives he’s led, This-Life-Vegas’ had been the most confusing. His father, his brother, their respective hate and love is no new story in his anthology. He’s had lovers when he lived as a mortal. But…
Mortal Pete.
To be pursued so ardently. Wanted so fervently. To brandish his broken-glass-heart and expect it to cut both of them and instead finding someone to soothe the cracks together. Not unblemished but once again whole. Love cannot recall such an experience in any life before this one. He knows of it, weaving gently between humans, beloved to be strong enough to overcome any challenge. Threads in a loom, the strength of weave only told by time and hardship. It is his domain, what he holds but has never had.
He knew it as That-Life-Antilochus, always second to Mortal Patroclus, the useless addition to the perfect tragic love. Upon seeing one of Love’s own flower petals on Mortal Patroclus’ chest, Mortal Achilles had wanted no other, and That-Life-Antilochus was merely a replacement.
He knew it as That-Life-Nedjem, handmaiden to Cleopatra, ardently and violently in love, but never able to hold her mistress who dominated her heart so thoroughly.
He knew it as That-Life-Pauline, watching Mortal Napoleon, who cared for her dearly but loved her only to an extent that could not be passed, for he loved his title more than he ever would her.
In most lives he was a concubine or never married. Second to the romance epics he unwittingly pushed, his own love was never a question. In many of those mortal lives he lived, none of the fragile but priceless bonds of that hungry, all-consuming love that mortals named “romantic love.” How could he have? Even in this life, Vegas was for Kinn and Porsche. But Vegas had Pete.
Nobody has ever sated his hunger for being wanted. Love should return to him, find him.
But he is not truly This-Life-Vegas anymore. Mortal Pete would probably find him a pale imitation.
And to think of that! A love that marks a god inferior to a man!
No, certainly, This-Life-Vegas and Mortal Pete could not have lasted, for every one of his lives had ended in tragedy. Lives where’s he’s been accused of infidelity and beaten to death so a better-loved mistress could take her place, lives accused of witchcraft after miserable years of being ostracized, lives where he’s been lonely for every second, lives consumed by bloody wars and conquest where his head was less than a digit of a number. Love recalls them all, legendary and quiet.
He breathes out a sigh and feels his domain, the brilliant red thread between Mortal Kinn and Mortal Porsche remains, the epic love story that the character of Vegas had somehow been fated to push as the villain, despite doing little related to either in this timeline, when he had been Love. His once-brother Mortal Macau’s thread will take him to America, where he will never look back on the soil they’d bled on. Good. Good.
“Love,” a voice behind him breathes. And Love has heard his own name as an endearment, but no one has ever said his name like it was, in itself, the sweet word. Not to him.
Never to him.
It’s a famous presence, but not one he has spent much time with. A dominion the mirror image of his own, obsession and bloodshed. But this voice, it’s a voice he knows.
“War,” Love greets softly. He turns to face the god, who bears Mortal Pete’s face.
Love is suddenly, violently reminded of the stone frieze, gray in the lush green of the Buadaeng manor. The alleged tale he’d never thought too hard about in the face of—
War bears Pete’s face.
Love wants to cry. To scream. There’s the damning proof isn’t it? Of an endless cycle of chasing?
“Was it you?”
“Yes.”
“Was it always you?”
“I’m sorry it took so many lives to find you.”
Love doesn’t know what to feel. Is it rage? For all the lives he’d loved and lost as a mortal? Neverending tragedies? Is it relief? That maybe it could be building to this? That there is something at the top of the mountain he’s been climbing for centuries? Is it fear?
“Why?”
“Since that time so long ago, I knew it could only be you,” War says gently. He extends a hand. Love takes it.
“Is that an offer?”
It’s coded, so coded. A million implications. War smiles, his true face bleeding through. For he is not That-Life-Pete, and Love is not That-Life-Vegas.
“Yes.”
So many stories, chapters building to an ending.
And this is that one.