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KAMALI

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[multiverse]

Both, I suppose.

( uncle, she means. she didn't experience godliness on their wedding night — she experienced gale, which was better, because he was attentive, generous, and there. not godly of him at all.

there's a lilt to her lips as she sticks out a foot, all the same memories to the forefront. once, a broken heel on an early date (vintage jimmy choo, if you can believe it), gale swoon-worthy and etched by the fine print of romance novellas before him, sweeping her up, laughing at her. it rained too, a real dud of a date, except gale still kissed her at the end of it, wet rat hair and shivering lips and all, so it wasn't really bad at all. a lot of her memories end on the period of life between his big arms, be they lazily dancing beside the seine river to the dulcet tones of murmured french and sucked cigarettes, or in front of the venus de milo, sharing one passionate kiss in the effort of worshiping old gods. it's not like she's not thinking of kissing him now, or if the christian god he so adores appreciates sinning as tribute as much as $1 donations. parisa draws her eyes from a crucified jesus to gale and is happy to make the exchange, smiling at him fondly.

parisa is the kind of asshole to wear sunglasses indoors, but is not the kind of asshole to wear sunglasses in a chapel, and so has them clenched in her hand as she steps away, just to get a full look at him, pointing her sunglasses at him from the top. tracing the curve of his expression, wary and maybe a little bleeding, but is so gale it negates any other definition. reverent, a museum curator handling an ancient relic of his past. )

You changed your hair. I like it. ( generally men with long hair give her the darling impression of her brother, and she supposes there is some comparison there — boys like poems in the flesh, romantic, written in cursive. she goes lower. ) Your eyes, too. More coffee than chocolate, now. Also good.

( the next thing, the biggest change, the outfit he dons. her gale was more — purple sweater vests and buttoned shirts, well tailored woolen slacks. parisa is suddenly shocked that she's never looked up what priests wear under their robes. decidedly: ) Not the kind of collar I'm used to you wearing.

( the rest? she thinks it's the same. he hasn't put on any noticeable amount of weight, still firm and fit from what she can see. maybe some vanity in the quality of his leather shoes, which peek out from his robes, but parisa imagines everyone has their vices, and can't imagine it was anything but a pragmatic choice. if given the choice, the gale she remembers would spend all his money on first editions of jane austen before he'd think of cycling to a summer wardrobe. she drops her arm, still smiling at him — sad, but also happy, nostalgic in that way. )

You look happier. Are you?

[corporeity]

[ a hand escapes his pocket and strays to his hair, carding back through his gray-threaded waves. longer than it was when she saw him last. he finds himself too-pleased to hear she likes it, both because he respects her taste and because he hasn’t fully excised that part of him that desires her approval.

he almost says, i don’t think one can change their eyes. well, not in any way I’m willing to imagine. visions of lasers and terrifying perma-contacts, plastic surgeries gone wrong. but he’d rather hear parisa’s patter than his own rambling. has always loved the burr of her voice, sultry without effort. softened by the french she knows so well.

but she jolts him into action, as ever. ]

Ah — ha. [ two fingers flit to his decidedly more refined collar, tugging at it to ease the burn of his flush, rising from his neck to his cheeks.

as for the rest, gale thinks it could be true. that he’s settled by his profession, his lonely heart put to bed at last. no more pouting and pleading. kneeling only in service of a higher calling. it’s easier to have the holy armour, a safe remove from those who might open new and old wounds. only when he thinks of happy, as a concept, he conjures the summer blue above astarion’s smile — or was it the sunset hue of his gaze? certainly the ease of conversations with him at mealtimes, elbows and fingers brushing.

you haven’t been cured at all. not of the longing. that damning desire for something tangible, like the warmth of entwined fingers. ]

I am — [ suddenly shy as a deer, like he was when parisa first looked his way. his weight shifts from one foot to the other. ] Happier, of late.

[ at least intermittently, when he visits this strange place and finds a well-worn book on his nightstand. ]

Are you well?

[ the question hangs, when it ought to end in a darling, dear, love and can’t any longer. ]