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text: un: koby | post-departures

[kobes]

Luffy and Usopp are gone. They went home.

I'm checking in on the crew, but then I'll be home and
Will you be home?
It's okay if you're not but if you are I'll
Be there soon.

[He is absolutely not spiraling :)]

[longitudinal]

Gone?

I'm home. I didn't hear anything.

Come home.

[ he will be waiting - one with a mug of hot tea sitting on the bedside table for him, but then also waiting to gather him into his arms. luffy's absence feels strange and surreal and all it took was a peek inside to see the room had been cleared, cleaned.

empty, save for the little snail they both fed. ]

[kobes]

yeah, i just
felt it.

[Like the sun blotting out. Like losing a limb. A howling emptiness that even checking in on the others doesn't cure. He knows where Luffy's gone -- home, back to their world, back to a place where he's Koby's enemy. Back where all the crew is destined to go, eventually.

When Koby opens the door, it's with shaky hands, with his heart in his throat, because even though he can feel Quentin's presence pulsing and warm and shining like a sunlit sea, what if -- what if it's not real, what if it's a trick, what if he opens the door and finds this room empty too?

He doesn't, of course. Quentin is there, real and warm and solid, and Koby crosses the room in a couple quick strides, clinging onto his boyfriend with both arms, with all the strength in his body, breath coming quick, shuddery.]

[longitudinal]

[ quentin doesn't need to ask questions about this, doesn't need to share his own sorrow in it. luffy and usopp were never part of his crew, his foundation the way they were for koby. and so when koby comes in and clings, quentin wraps his arms around him, keeping him tight and close. he says nothing, just presses kisses to the top of his head, to his cheeks.

he doesn't ask before he picks koby up, before he carries him to their unmade bed and lays him down, crawls in beside him, drags koby onto his chest. he doesn't ask to hold him, to kiss him sweetly, to touch anything that might look like tears and wipe them away. ]

You're okay.

[ he threads fingers through koby's hair, keeps his lips atop the downy pink of his hair. ]

I'm here. I'm with you, let it out. I know how it must have felt.

[ koby now so in tune with everyone, with the manor, with the people he cares for. ]

It will be alright.

[kobes]

[The gentle bundling over to the bed, the warmth and affection of Quentin scooping him up and curling close beside him, stroking his hair, his face, wrapping him in his presence -- it soothes the sharp edge of panic, the urge Koby has to cling on with all his might, like Quentin might be next. Because he might. Because all the research and all the studying and all the planning and learning and working hadn't done anything, in the end.

It's perhaps a bad sign that he isn't crying -- his eyes are glassy, wide, stricken with grief, but dry. He's in that place beyond tears, brought back bit by bit with the steady pulse of Quentin's heart beneath his palm, the stroke of Quentin's fingers through his hair. Koby breathes in, out, slow, feeling like something's broken, shattered in his chest, like there are shards jabbing at him when he inhales. It's a grief he hasn't felt before, not like this.]

...I didn't get to say goodbye. [It comes out soft, small, and Koby's breath hitches, eyes flicking upwards.] I -- last time I did, but this time I couldn't -- I didn't get to.