Essence of Purity [boyxboy]

Chapter XXV

~Saturday 29th May 2010~

Meeting with Mourn might not have been the best idea. It wasn't that Salem wasn't enjoying himself. In fact, the problem was that he was enjoying himself. Every moment, Salem looked forward to. Mourn would message him the night before, suggest somewhere for them to go, and Salem would have trouble sleeping because of the excitement. Anyone else would have felt comforted by that. It would have been a dream for them to be so happy with another person.

Salem struggled with the guilt. It was a constant battle, glee waging war against remorse. When he was with Mourn, Salem didn't care about anything. The whole point of them meeting up was to get Mourn out of his home, away from his ex-husband who was still so obviously reigning in that little kingdom. Salem didn't want to ruin his time with Mourn. As egotistical as it made Salem feel, it appeared that Mourn's only happiness came from their meetings. Be it walks in the park, meals at cafes or hours spent at arcades; Mourn barely stopped smiling.

It was abnormal. Salem could tell, he saw the poorly concealed surprise on Thell's face the first time Mourn laughed. Not chuckled. Laughed. Teary-eyed, belly-aching type of laughter. Salem couldn't even remember what he had said to set off the elf like that, the words didn't matter. Watching Mourn happy, watching him honestly emote without a shade of self-doubt, Salem could never forget that. He wished he could have recorded it, wished there had been some hidden camera that had captured the moment so there was no chance it would fade. He wanted to remember, wanted the sound burned into his brain and the images carved behind his eyes. In the end, Salem concluded he would settle for repeats instead. He would make Mourn's laughter such a regular occurrence not a single eyelid would be bat when it was heard.

A particularly bright flash of lightning had Salem flinching where he sat on the couch. He tried not to look toward the window, keeping his eyes on the TV instead, focusing on the subtitles beneath the actors on screen. Even with the curtains drawn, the storm still bothered Salem. The fabric was only flimsy, thin to let in the light rather than black out the living room. Salem wished he hadn't been one to advocate for such a choice.

The fae curled in on himself more than before, drawing his knees up to his chest, resting his chin atop them. The blanket wasn't doing much to comfort him, nor were the sweet scents of lemon and sea salt burning through the candles set around the room. Naveen had promised he would be home before the storm started, then promptly called Salem an hour ago to apologise. He wouldn't be home all night. Isla's apartment was flooding, he could hardly leave her there alone to deal with that herself.

Salem didn't kick up much of a fuss. Leif was due to be home in an hour, that's what he had told Naveen when he heard the sorrow brewing in his brother's voice. That was two hours ago. Leif was stuck in surgery now, saving the life of a nine-year-old. She was a car crash victim, that child, her mother had lost control on one of the freeways beside their city. Two humans. There was no time to get them to another hospital, they had to be treated in the city. Salem imagined Leif was the first to volunteer. It was the humans who pushed for segregation, Leif always liked an opportunity to prove their myths wrong.

The one call Salem hadn't gotten was from his eldest brother. Alonzo and Edrei had taken the twins over to their in-laws that evening. Given that the storm had been somehow so egregiously overlooked in the weather report earlier that day, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Alonzo had texted an apology, bad service preventing him from talking to his little brother over the phone. The roads were too dangerous now, too slick with the rain still beating down over the city. There was no chance Salem was having his brother risk his life to come comfort him all over a little bit of bad weather. Salem chose to just suck it up that evening. He had no other option.

Taking out his hearing aids wasn't planned. Typically, Salem kept them in whenever he was alone. That night, however, with a migraine brewing, it just became unbearable. Although it did mean he couldn't relax, the pain dulled. There was method to his madness. Salem hoped that the game shows he was watching might send him to sleep. He was wrapped up in a blanket he had stolen from Alonzo's bed, wearing Naveen's t-shirt and Leif's hoodie. The clash of scents was comforting, a welcoming sense of safety that Salem always felt whenever he was close to his brothers. He had hoped that would be enough to send him to sleep.