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The truth is, Mephisto is not naive. He knows what kind of atrocities he commits every time he's sent onto a battlefield, knows exactly what kind of monster he is when he twists the Originum in his victims' bodies to do his bidding.
He knows he is something much more dangerous than a weapon, blindly following his master's whims, because he knows all this.
The truth is, if Mephisto stopped at any point to think, and he only makes this mistake when he's awake at a funny time in the morning and the world is too quiet to drown out his guilt, he would not be able to justify his own existence.
Faust finds him in one of these moods only once, walking into the medbay to find him slouched over his desk, gun pressed to his forehead. The Pythian doesn't know this, but Mephisto had already squeezed the trigger—the stupid thing went off half cocked, leaving him damnedly unscathed.
A long second passes before Faust all but runs to him, coaxing the firearm from Mephisto's hand and carefully placing it facing away from them on the desk. He's shaking as he drags the Liberi into an embrace so tight it leaves bruises.
"Mephisto," Faust murmurs, soft and trembling like a prayer. He would say nothing more, leaving the unspoken words hanging in the air to choke them both. Mephisto traitorously succumbs to the comfort of being held, despite the fear plain on Faust's face.
He still cares, he remembers thinking, and then; how long has it been since he has said my name?
They slept together that night, fully clothed, the way they used to when it was just Eno and Sasha against all of Ursus. Faust fell asleep wrapped tightly around Mephisto, as if he was scared that the Liberi might disappear, and Mephisto counted his best friend's breaths until he, too, drifted into unconsciousness.
The next day, everything was back to normal—better, even, because Mephisto had a chance to hold Faust before they separated for their own duties. He knows that this incident is a one-off, a small and selfish indulgence, for he had hurt Faust to obtain it by striking the Pythian's weak spot: himself.
But, oh, how quickly his raison d'etrê is restored if only Faust looks at him like he matters. Like he cares.
One day, it will not be enough. Mephisto knows this, too.
There has never been a time where Mephisto's reputation was a good one. He hears what his squad calls him behind his back—what most of Reunion think of him, even. They call him a monster, a devil, some unholy creature of violence.
It's funny, because that's not even anything new to him; his family has been telling him this since he was old enough to understand language. They taught him the cruelties of the world, and made sure he knew pain intimately for the sin of being born. Violence is all he has known, so of course he misunderstands orders at times—he's been raised thinking things like 'be quiet' meant holding his breath lest he wanted someone to hold his breath for him with a hand around his throat.
The only people to ever correct him were Faust and Alina, and Alina isn't here anymore. Lately, it feels like Faust hasn't been here either. He's so closed off these days, and anything Mephisto does makes things worse.
At least Talulah still treats him the same, indulging him with smiles and hugs, and reassuring him that things will be okay so long as he continues to follow her, so he does.
Her orders make sense to him, even if the things she asks him to do are Not Good.
Not Good as in: Faust goes all quiet, more quiet than usual, and his lips turn downwards in a tight, unhappy scowl. Mephisto has prodded his best friend over this before, but Faust only shakes his head and turns away so Mephisto can't even see his expression.
It's fine, Faust would say. Sometimes; I'll talk to Talulah about it. Mephisto believes him. If it wasn't fine, then that would mean that things have not been fine for a very long time, ever since the village, and Alina, and the fire. They end up burying the topic the way they do everything that makes Faust sad, and after so many years the graveyard of their silences has gotten rather large.
"Good job, Mephisto," Talulah rewards him with a smile when he finishes his report. Thousands, dead by his hand, in just one mission.
"Thank you, Talulah-jiejie," Mephisto beams. The reward of her praise is enough. It has to be.
"My talented boy," she says, standing and walking around her desk so she can give Mephisto a hug. He throws himself into it, squeezing back tightly. "I knew sending you was a good idea."
"Of course!" Mephisto preens, inhaling deeply of Talulah scent. She smells acrid, like fire; like ashes. "I'll do anything, jiejie. For you."
She pulls back just enough to tilt Mephisto's head up to face her, a sharp nail glancing past his pulse point to the underside of his jaw in one smooth movement. "I know."
Mephisto senses the intention behind her affection, and his stomach drops. "... Is there something you need?"
"I have someone willing to give us a generous amount of firepower, but..." Talulah says, maintaining unblinking eye contact. "He needs more convincing."
Mephisto swallows. He knows what she means, but still, he asks; "What kind of convincing?"
"The kind only you can do."
She's not talking about his arts. Mephisto's smile grows strained.
"You will, won't you?"
"I- yes, jiejie," Mephisto says, stretching his smile wider as if that will make it more authentic. "Leave it to me."
"Good boy." She leans down, holding him closer, and Mephisto allows his body to melt against hers. It's easier to remind himself that she loves him when they're this close, when he's able to feel the warmth of another person.
He misses her as soon as she lets go.
Talulah doesn't notice, sitting back at her desk, and Mephisto straightens his back to show that he's paying attention. You must do as he asks, Talulah reminds him, and Talulah wouldn't hurt him in any way that matters. This is just another thing he needs to do to keep his family safe, another thing he is useful for. It's nothing compared to the nightmares that lived in his childhood home, whose claws have marked Mephisto's very bones with their violence.
He takes his leave after she gives him the details of his assignment, and goes to Faust's room, situated directly next to his own. The Pythian is out, likely training, but Mephisto settles down anyway, wrapping himself in blankets that smell like comfort.
If he closes his eyes, Faust is holding him. "I love you," he whispers, and Faust doesn't even need to be here to give the same answer as always.
The next time Mephisto sees his best friend, they are about to be deployed on a mission together.
"Faust~" he greets, draping himself over the boy. He narrows his eyes at the Phantom Crossbowmen that Faust is talking to, and smirks when he sees them stutter in conversation.
"Stop it, Mephisto," Faust mutters, quiet as always.
"I'm not doing anything," Mephisto pouts, but he relents, letting go of Faust. He leans heavily on his cane, hip cocked in a casually pompous manner to disguise his aching limbs.
Faust only presses his lips into a thin, unimpressed line.
It hurts, Mephisto wants to say; look at me.
The Pythian looks away.
Mephisto's grin turns brittle. He knows Faust will protect him, but he wants it to be because he's worth something rather than a force of habit, an obligation of 'well, it would be a waste if I gave up now'. It's enough, he tells himself. It's better than nothing at all.
He throws himself recklessly into battle, curious to see if Faust will stop the blades seeking his soft, mortal flesh (and he does), or if the purple bolts will ever bury themselves into his back to stop the merciless destruction of Mephisto's arts (and they do not).
It's not quite happiness, to know that Faust is still on his side because it's hollower than that. But it does feel good to be invincible, so long as Faust deems him worth fighting with.
"You're hurt," Faust hurries to Mephisto's side as soon as the last body falls. He's worried, and Mephisto wants so badly to let himself enjoy the attention but he can't because he's hurt in ways that Faust cannot know about.
"You're not," Mephisto smiles, and scatters some of his arts in the Pythian's direction anyway just to be sure.
"I didn't see anything-"
"I'm fine," Mephisto says, betraying his words immediately by limping into Faust's arms. He inhales the scent of gunpowder and sweat, and is comforted.
"Is it your leg?" Faust supports his elbow on his bad side with one hand, holding the Liberi close with the other.
His leg is an old injury, healed wrong in the midst of a battlefield, made by a younger and less experienced Mephisto who fused the fractured bone with Originum so he could drag them both to safety. It's a symbol of their survival, but Faust always looks at it with something like regret.
"The fight's over," Mephisto mumbles, "I'll be okay."
Faust hums, unconvinced, and picks Mephisto up. He is solid and strong, no longer the scrawny boy with mottled bruises decorating his body that Mephisto shared his bread with in the dirty streets of the city. He's grown up well, unlike Mephisto, who only seems to be rotting in his own skin.
"Is this better?" The Pythian asks, his low voice rumbling through Mephisto. He starts walking, meeting up with the rest of their squads, and the rock-rocking of his gait lulls Mephisto ever closer to sleep.
"Yeah," he says, tucking his face into Faust's chest. He commits this moment to memory, for the next time Talulah sends him to negotiate alone.
"Good."
While Mephisto isn't strictly a doctor—he's never had any formal training beyond the books in his family library back when he would treat Sasha's injuries—he is considered one of Reunion's best medics. He alone blurs the line between the living and the dead with arts that defy the rules of nature, and while he flaunts it as if it is a God given gift, his arts take a lot out of him.
The number of injured returning from missions has been increasing to the point where Mephisto is having trouble keeping up. He spends his days with his hands in other people's guts or sleeping at his station, and on the rare occasion he isn't in the medbay, he is on the field, leading a squad.
He's doing this for Talulah. He's doing this for Faust.
He is so tired these days that he fantasises about allowing himself to be struck down by the enemy, just for a chance to rest.
Winter rolls through the same way it has every year since they left the tundras of Ursus, making Mephisto nostalgic for the freezing nights huddled with Faust. Pythians run at lower body temperatures so Faust would coil himself around Mephisto, tucking his cold nose into the feather down between Mephisto's shoulder blades and wrapping his tail around the Liberi's waist. The weight was comforting and grounding when Mephisto woke from nightmares, and there is something distinctly intimate about being able to feel a heartbeat that isn't his own.
It never gets cold enough for that kind of thing here, especially with proper shelter and bedding. Talulah said it was good to have privacy from one another, so Mephisto and Faust no longer share a room. Now, the Liberi sleeps in his own bed, and wakes up from nightmares coughing up blood from irritating the scarring in his throat, and more often than not, he goes to the medbay to play with his arts instead.
Tonight finds him picking at the Originum on his body until his fingernails are bloody and he has a pile of the crystals and flecks of skin in front of him on the table. It bothers him when they grow on areas he moves a lot, like his elbows, or his waist. He doesn't care that it hurts when he rips pieces of himself off; he's had this habit since before he was even infected when he would pull out his feathers, hoping it would make him less of a freak to his family of Sankta.
Faust was the first person to see him as a person, to treat him with any semblance of kindness. He used to let Mephisto preen him, picking at loose scales with his teeth, and in return the Pythian would return the favour with his claws, gently pulling out loose feathers that Mephisto can't reach. It was a ritual they fell out of doing once Reunion's missions started to ramp up intensity, and they lost their lazy mornings.
He wonders what Faust thinks of him now. He isn't even sure what he thinks of himself.
When he's picked all the crystals off his skin that he can, his mind is still buzzing restlessly and itching to keep going. He pulls out his dagger, spinning it between his fingers to distract himself, and when that proves ineffective, he uses it to draw a thin line down from his wrist to his inner elbow, watching the red squeeze itself out of his skin in beads. He blows on it gently, and crystals start to form from his blood. If he's not careful, the damaged skin will start to necrose, and it's always harder to heal wounds with dead cells.
Mephisto is rarely careful with himself, though.
He takes his fingernail and scrapes it down the line of Originum, ripping it clean off. He blows on it again, and the gash knits itself back together. He points his dagger at the dip between palm and wrist, and does it again.
There's a point where he starts to get too dizzy to cut a straight line, when his hand is numb from the abuse and his dagger slips, cutting far too deep.
Ah, Mephisto thinks. Oh well.
He watches himself bleed. There really is a lot of blood.
The surface of the table is cold on his cheek, and he is slipping, slipping.
It feels like falling asleep.
When Mephisto wakes, he is disappointed, even if he didn't strictly mean to bleed himself dry. He lifts his arm, squinting, and frowns to find a puckered wound held together with messy blue stitches. It's going to scar. If he had been the one to heal it, the skin would be flawless. It's too late to do anything about it now.
"Eno."
He snaps his head to the side, so quickly his neck cracks.
"Faust," Mephisto croaks. The other boy looks exhausted, with dark shadows under his eyes.
"...Yelena found you," he says. There's a long pause before he speaks again. "She happened to need something from the medbay."
"Oh." A coincidence he was saved, then. He doesn't say anything else, because he doesn't know what to say. How do you tell your best friend that they are no longer enough to keep you on this earth? That you are going to break your promise, and the most he can do is cover his ears and avert his eyes so he does not see you at your worst?
Besides, Mephisto already knows how the rest of this conversation is going to go: Faust will keep his mouth shut, looking at Mephisto with a disappointed and tired expression, until Mephisto cracks and smiles, pretending he had just slipped and everything is okay actually, declaring that so long as there is a Faust there will be a Mephisto.
He's tired. His throat burns, his mouth tastes like rancid blood, and does not trust his voice.
To his horror, he starts to cry.
"Eno?" Faust asks, piercing Mephisto with his gaze.
How long since he's looked at me? Mephisto wonders as his sniffles turn into sobs, which turn to coughs. He covers his mouth, desperately trying to regain control of his throat, but it feels like he's swallowed a ball of needles and his lungs start to seize. Red spots splatter on the pristine white sheets of his cot, and Mephisto doubles over, half in pain and half in an attempt to hide the blood.
"Eno!"
A hand rubs his back. It's warm—since when has Faust been warm compared to Mephisto?
"What's happening?"
God, he's going to choke to death like this.
"Eno— doctor! Doctor!"
The sound of Faust's chair scraping against the tile as he stands is the last thing Mephisto hears as his consciousness fades again.
"...him do?"
"That's between me and Mephisto."
"You're killing him."
"No, Faust; you are. Who do you think he comes to when you refuse to even look at him? You of all people should know what lengths he will go to for just a smile in return."
"Who are you?"
"You should have left while you could—at least then he wouldn't have to suffer this limbo of whether you even still care."
"Stop avoiding the question, Talulah-!"
When Mephisto wakes, Faust is still here. Talulah is not—or never has been.
There are no windows in the medbay. Mephisto stares at the wall where he thinks there should be one, imagining the clear grey sky of Ursus, just like Alina used to paint.
"Eno," Faust says from his side. Mephisto does not turn. He cannot reply with his throat in tatters, anyway.
"... Will you let me brush your hair?"
Mephisto shrugs, keeping his eyes fixed on the wall. He doesn't expect Faust to actually do as he asked, tilting Mephisto's head to face him and carefully combing the dirty white hair, using his fingers to untangle the more stubborn knots so they don't tug at Mephisto's scalp. It's... Nice, and reminds him of the days when Alina would care for them. She used to have to chase Sasha around to bathe him, and Eno would run too just so he didn't get left out.
God, he misses Alina.
"You're crying again," Faust says gently. His eyes are such a striking colour, reminiscent of the oil paintings that hung in his family home before he burned it down—the sea at night, a deep turquoise jewel on a nobleman's throat, cut with the brilliant red of his pupil.
"Why are you doing this?" Mephisto asks, despite the words clawing his throat on their way out. His voice comes out scratchy and rough, and he does not miss the way Faust's expression drops in pity.
"What do you mean?"
"Jiejie told me you wanted to leave," he says, as evenly as he can. He remembers the conversation clearly, as a reminder of how precarious his right to exist is. I promised him I wouldn't tell you, but I thought you deserved to know, she said as she held him- as she was the only thing holding him up after his legs gave out. I managed to convince him to stay but be careful, Mephisto.
Faust bites his lip, and the silence is answer enough.
Mephisto watches the conflict fly across his best friend's face and understands, all of a sudden, why Faust is still here, and why Talulah had told him this. Hysteria bubbles up his chest, and the room becomes too small to contain him. His laughter erupts as a coughing fit, but this time Faust is quick to drag him into a tight embrace, holding him still so he cannot hurt himself.
"I wouldn't leave without you." Faust tightens his arms, misinterpreting his outburst. "I swear."
"No, you should," Mephisto says distantly. "You can still go."
"... What?" Faust pulls back, and Mephisto immediately starts to shake.
He isn't stupid, he knows all these things, he knows, and the writing has been on the wall the whole time—he simply did not want to look, so he let himself be played. She knew he would be unable to say no, and she took advantage of his willingness to do anything, body and soul—
"Go, Sasha," he spits, fingers flexing under the sheets like he wants to claw the filth out of his skin. He's ruined, but Sasha is not. "The- the things I've done, I can't- I can't leave. But you can."
"I thought you..."
"You never spoke to me about anything! How would you know how I felt?" Mephisto snaps. No, this is wrong, he's getting distracted, this isn't the point. The point is that things have already changed so drastically from where they started that Mephisto doesn't even recognise himself, that the life he was trying to preserve was never something he could have. It was a fluke that he lived happily at all in that small pocket of peace he found with Sasha and Talulah and Alina, because monsters like him do not get happy endings.
He pushes Sasha away, biting into his stitches with his teeth to tear them open. Fresh blood weeps from the wound, and he takes advantage of Sasha's shock to form an Originum stake with his arts.
"I'm the only thing keeping you here, right?" Eno asks. He feels like a wild animal, cornered, but he also feels powerful, like he's finally doing something right.
"No," Sasha breathes, reacting faster than Eno can move. He grabs the Liberi's wrist and twists, forcing him to drop the weapon. It hurts.
"No!" Eno growls, but Sasha isn't done yet, grabbing his other arm to make sure he can't do anything else. Eno's blood has crystallised in patches, but Sasha squeezing the wound breaks his concentration and his arts halt. "No, why won't you let me—"
"Stop it, Eno!" Sasha yells, loud enough to shut Eno up. "Why are you so..." He snarls before catching himself and trailing off, shaking his head. When he speaks again, he is more composed. "I didn't... I've done terrible things, too."
"But I wanted to," Mephisto says, "I wanted to hurt the uninfected, make them pay for what they did to us—"
"I know!" Sasha snaps again. "Your family hurt you. The towns we stayed in, the villagers, they hurt us. They hurt Talulah, and they killed Alina, and I get it. I wanted them to hurt, too. Just because I... I think they deserve mercy doesn't mean I don't hate them." He relaxes his grip on Mephisto's wrists, but does not let go. "I made the same choice as you did to stay with Reunion. Do not mistake this."
"You stayed for me," Mephisto says, quietly. "I don't... I don't deserve that. You don't deserve to have your soul corrupted with the same sins I've committed."
"Do you regret it?"
"... No. I would do it again. I would burn everything for you, Sasha."
Silence.
Instead of replying, Sasha squeezes Mephisto's wrists as a gentle warning before letting go. With his hands free, he rips the sheet with his claws to make strips of cotton that he wraps tightly around the wound on Mephisto's forearm. The Liberi watches dumbly, trying and failing not to feel weak over being treated with such care. He doesn't deserve this.
"I don't want you to burn anything," Sasha says, placing his hand over the bandage. He's warm. "I just— I want my friend back."
"I don't know how to be Eno anymore." Mephisto looks down at Sasha's hands, soaked in crimson. The adrenaline is starting to fade, and the pain is starting to overpower his other senses.
"That's okay," Sasha says patiently, "I'll help you find him."
"What if he doesn't exist anymore? What if I've already killed him?" Mephisto asks, more frantically.
"You haven't." Sasha reaches up, cupping Mephisto's cheek and wiping away the tears with a thumb. "I'd know. You always say that there's no you without me, but I can say the same— and I'm still here, see?"
"I-" Eno takes a long, rattling breath. "Is it too late to run?"
"No. Never. Just say the word and we can go."
They could run. They could run. He wanted to say yes all those years ago when Sasha first asked, of course he did, but he thought that there was still something worth proving to Talulah, who had inherited the part of him that Alina nurtured. He didn't want to believe that she would twist it into the ugly, evil person he's become under her tutelage—
Eno freezes, his eyes wide. Talulah still holds that part of him. He will betray her by leaving.
"I-I'm scared," he whispers. "I don't- I don't belong out there. They'll, they'll hurt us again. I'll hurt them. I don't want to anymore, Sasha, I—"
"It's okay," Sasha says again, firmer. Eno feels like it's been a while since the Pythian has spoken so much. "We're older now; stronger. My arts will help us hide, and yours will keep us well."
"My arts are horrible," Eno mutters. There's a small pause, as Sasha is unable to deny it.
"Then don't use them anymore," he says eventually. "Nobody is telling you to make monsters of the dead."
Eno flinches, but Sasha continues.
"Your arts have always been gentle when you're healing." He sounds so earnest, Eno does not know what to say. He was unaware that there was something still so soft within him—that something he does could still be described as gentle.
The emotion that fills him is both familiar and not, like a faded memory of a life that Eno never had, but desperately wants. It makes him weak, and it makes him want.
"I love you," he blurts before he can stop himself. He's said these words countless times before, but right now with his chest carved open and his beating heart raw between them, it feels like a confession. He's mortified, embarrassed, mouth dry like he's admitted to too much.
Except this time, for the first time, Sasha replies; "I love you too."