And You Feel Like Falling Down
Call stood, frozen, as Master Joseph grinned a grin that was as far from a kindly smile as you could get. Evil. “Are you sure?” he asked, not saying anything else, but Call knew what he meant. Are you sure that you shall not join me tonight in your former empire? We could rebuild again. A phoenix from the ash. Master. He might not have been standing at all. Call might have been kneeling, or fallen down. He didn’t know. The question was one of the usual ones. But it apparently pleased Joseph to let Call 'choose'. Joseph was in control. He only added ‘Master’ to things to mock him. From Joseph, your servant. Master.
Yeah, right. This wasn’t a dream. But it wasn’t reality. Maybe. He could never be sure. Call inevitably found himself in this place, a dream that had all of the feelings, choices, and pain of reality, every night. No matter his three triple espressos and nightly vigil. Don’t close your eyes. Don’t let your head slump forward. Don’t let Joseph take you. Failing at all of that. Always. Each night and every night Call was sucked to this dream- reality. He was exhausted to the point of not even trying to avoid them. Joseph let him have maybe an hour of sleep for every six hours in that other place. That other place that Joseph had complete control over. Call didn’t. Maybe as Constantine he would be able to…. No. Call couldn’t think like that. Doing that would be doing just as Joseph wanted. A greasy, dirty river wearing down gray rock. Call would be swept away in the current. Sediment.
He hadn’t really told Aaron and Tamara about the dreams. What would be the point? They couldn’t do anything about it. It might just worry them. The dream- realities had been going on for maybe a week. It felt longer. There wasn’t any real reason he had kept it from them- especially with the promise not to tell the truth he had made that seemed so long ago, but was actually Copper Year- but, still. They probably, ostensibly, hadn’t noticed. Maybe hadn’t cared. It had been a busy week, made worse by all this, all the exhaustion. All the Gold Year tests he was sure he had failed. Collegium examiners that no matter his scores, needed, absolutely needed to have the Makaris in their school, training to become EVEN BETTER. Masters, even. He could care less. All he really wanted was twelve solid hours of sleep. Not three years of nothing but Makar training, without Master Rufus. Some random teacher who didn’t really get it. Who picked Call and Aaron for all the wrong reasons. Power. Politics. The Makaris dependent on that teacher. That feeling of triumph when they struck a blow against Joseph, even when that new ‘teacher’ really didn’t have anything to do with it. When they really didn’t understand what the three of them had been through. Probably now two of them. Tamara’s parents might be forced to separate her from them. ‘Makar training.’ No matter how regretful they would be to have their youngest daughter separated from the glory of the Makaris. ‘Makar training.’ And just that. Nothing else. Call somehow had a feeling that Master Rufus did. Constantine. His soul. Whose soul. The reason he had two Makars in his group, not just one. The reason one of his students had the exact same eyes and temperament of another former student.
Constantine.
Call usually tried to avoid talking with Joseph during the dream- reality. Or at all. One, because it usually wasn’t worth it, because Joseph wouldn’t let him talk unless he was being asked 'the Constantine question', and two, because whenever he did say something, either defiantly or not, Joseph would exclaim something about how Constantine always said that. He always used to say that, getting frustrated at some failed experiment. You can’t change your nature. The time is much closer than you think. Call, Callum, whatever silly name you insist on me calling you, know that it doesn’t really matter. You are Constantine. You cannot avoid the inevitability of your soul.
But Call did try to put on an aura of (faked) boredom. He was terrified. For real. Maybe. But he hoped that if Call acted like he was bored, the entire dream-reality might end a little sooner. Or Joseph might decide that he needed a new way to motivate Call.
It didn’t really appeared to have worked.
Besides, if Joseph decided he needed a new motivation, it would probably be way more awful than this. So maybe in the long run, it was a good thing. Maybe. Call couldn’t be sure. Master Joseph stared at Call, probably reading his expressions like an open book. He seemed to be the only person he knew who could do that. Anymore. And he didn’t like it. At all.
“Right now, you’re sure,” Joseph decided to himself. “Very soon…..” He left the sentence hanging. Which was almost worse. Around the edges of the dream- reality, there were always Chaos- ridden somethings. Even, to what probably would have been to Drew’s perverse delight, ponies. The few times that he had tried, Call couldn’t control them. Of course. Which annoyed and relieved him in equal amounts. They were all Joseph’s. Like everything else in the blank white background of the dream- reality. Except for maybe Call. Maybe. He didn’t really know anymore. Joseph beckoned over to one of the humans and muttered something in its ear that Call couldn’t hear, no matter how much he strained to listen. The Chaos- ridden immediately dissipated into the mist of the dream- reality. Joseph grinned another nasty smile worthy of a true Evil Overlord. “You’ll just have to wait a moment. Don’t worry, Master! Our friend will be back.”
And Call’s vision turned black.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blacker than chaos. The moment of darkness could have been a second or a hour. Joseph might've made time fluid right then, probably just because he wanted to mess with him. Call’s consciousness or subconscious or whatever (he didn’t particularly care what it was called) was active when he was in the dream- reality remained aware the entire time, though Call didn’t know how long that was, and no matter how much he tried, Call couldn’t wake up or even fall back into ‘unconsciousness.’ He was stuck. No refresh button or ice bucket on his face could get Call out. He couldn’t even see his face. Hands, feet, body….. Nothing. Just the roiling blackness. Just a disembodied trio of 'eyes,' thoughts, and soul. What the hell was Joseph doing right now? Call already knew the answer: something awful. Master Joseph would do anything to get Call on his side. To get Constantine on his side. He didn’t care about the cost. Would the price be paid in blood? What if he did decide he needed a new motivation, despite Call’s (somewhat) hopes to the contrary? What if it was some new, agonizing, torture?
It had already.
He did.
And of course it was something agonizing. What did Call expect? He hadn’t been labeled as a cynic by almost everybody who knew him, at one time or another, for nothing. The agony was already imagined.
But it was even worse than that.
Worse than he could have imagined.
Impossible to have imagined.
Ever.
The darkness cleared.
Joseph was standing not-quite-so-casually, clutching the Alkahest in one hand, an inch from-
near two Chaos- ridden, with brutal force, holding-
Aaron.
And Call’s vision tunneled.
Was this an illusion? Maybe.
But maybe it wasn’t. Call couldn’t really tell.
Or maybe not. He was wearing the same old ratty sweatpants and t- shirt he usually always wore to bed; no matter that if he had asked any one of the rich mage families, like the Rajavis’ or the Tarquin, they would’ve had
Aaron
outfitted in monogrammed silk pajamas, dressing gown (who even wore those anymore? Weird old Brits?), and hand- stitched, made in Italy, (or whatever crap) fluffy bunny slippers in an instant. He had the exact same number of freckles on his cheeks (eighteen), and his duck-fluff blond hair was sticking up (as usual), but it was more than that. Call was close enough that he could’ve brushed his fingers against
Aaron’s
cheek, if Joseph would have let him move. Close enough to look into his eyes, that were sometimes as light as a spring oak leaf being shined through the sunlight and other times were as dark as an evergreen forest in the mist. The eyes are the windows to the soul. His eyes held surprise and pain in them. Terror. Call would make Joseph pay for that. But there was absolutely no doubt at all, as much as Call could be sure of anything now. The surest thing he knew right now, at that moment, was that these eyes were true windows to
Aaron
Stewart’s
soul. His counterweight. He was
Aaron’s counterweight. He is the light and I am the dark. Each other balanced the other out. The light needs the dark to burn away, otherwise it is useless. Has no point or balance. No counterweight. The counterweight of the void is the soul. Call knew the feeling of
Aaron’s
soul intimately. Didn’t he? A strange fluttering increased in his stomach as he stared at Aaron. He might've been much more than a counterweight and best friend to Call. Right? So much more. Maybe.
And so shattered Call’s last, desperate hope of
‘Aaron’
being an illusion. He was here. In the dream- reality. Like Call. Call had no idea if his body disappeared when he went to the dream- reality, (and didn’t especially want to know), but he somehow sensed that
Aaron
was more stuck here than he was. Stolen. Makarnapped. Call did try to reach out, to graze
Aaron’s
sun-freckled cheek with his fingers or to muss up his duck- fluff hair- he didn’t know what he had been about to do. But he couldn't. Joseph prevented him from moving at all.
Aaron’s
expression was now unbelievably sad, like he was being prevented, just like Call, from speaking. But before he could do any of that, before they could silently have a conversation, maybe just through the touch of a hand, Joseph extended his left pinky and shoved Call back, magically, thirty feet, maybe, and grinned gloatingly. He had seen it all. Noticed it all. “Have you changed your mind yet? Master? Maybe we could do a trade. Your TRUE enemy for Death’s Enemy. You.”
The
Alkahest
moved
even
closer
to
Aaron’s
heart.
Half a centimeter from his firm left pectoral.
Half a centimeter from killing
Aaron.
Half a centimeter from sucking out his chaos and leaving
Aaron's
hard, beautiful, hard, muscular body a withered husk.
Even in a reality-dream. It would be real.
Final.
Maybe.
But he was pretty sure about that.
About death.
Half a centimeter from destroying Call's counterweight.
His balance.
His-
Call didn't know. He wasn't sure. Maybe.
Call saw that Joseph had looked back at his ‘Master’ and wondered if he noticed the excess water that had welled up in Call’s right eye as he had tried to reach out to touch Aaron’s
cheek. Definitely not a tear. That would be ridiculous. Just some extra fluids. Yeah. Maybe. He couldn’t be sure.
And then he might have been falling….