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quentin toma NOTES: sailor, navigator, loverboy, war-bringer. THREAT LEVEL LIKABILITY LEVEL SCANDAL LEVEL FASHION LEVEL WEALTH LEVEL

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a million years later

[longitudinal]

[ sitting outside will always be easier than returning to the cabin that smells of koby, that has koby's things, that is everything and nothing without him. the lake isn't easier, but the water is where koby would be if not back in the commune.

he doesn't register anyone's walking up until set's arms are around him, until he's leaning into the other and feeling the shell of himself begin to shatter. anger, rage, grief, emptiness. he doesn't know what he feels. ]

I don't wish this kind of death on anyone. Everyone here has someone to miss them.

[ his voice made of gravel, his eyes wet, he reaches for set's arm and grips it, tilting his head into his chest. ]

[redsoil]

[ Quentin has always, always been kind to him. Even at his most insecure and lost, the patience and grace given to Set has been memorable — from Quentin, Matthew, Maxine, Diarmuid — all of whom are gone except for the one he holds to his chest now and strokes the hair of. Perhaps to repay him, for all of the warmth he's extended to him since the very beginning. Even in his grief and pain, the man with him now still manages to utter generous words on behalf of all others. ]

— you can be selfish, you know.

[ Rather than agree with Quentin's assessment, he urges the opposite.

Certainly, it is true. Everyone will lose someone. In the game of wolves, everyone who is not a wolf is a target — they will die, often violently and mockingly, the victims of beasts functioning beyond their will. Everyone has someone they will miss. ]

I do not care about "everyone else", right now. I am here with you, and you are the only one in the world who matters while I am. You miss Koby. Miss him, and abandon your compassion for others for a time. Be liberated, with me.

[ There's never going to be a healthy balance, not when it comes to how Set approaches someone. He's not modest, nor possessed of empathy that extends far and wide. He is single-minded and mulish, but when the full intensity of his attentions rest upon someone, there is no doubt: in that moment, they are the center of existence itself, and the brutal, burning focus of a god has been lain upon them. Expectations are high, and freedoms come without mercy or judgment. ]