Chapter Text
Cesare doesn’t exactly know what the ever loving fuck is going on with Steve’s imaginary friend, but he’s really beginning to like the guy.
Is that weird? That might be weird. The whole thought is weird, actually.
Let’s start over.
So, Steve has a friend.
Cesare’s always sort of called him Steve’s imaginary friend. Mostly because Cesare didn’t ever get to meet the guy for quite a while, and wasn’t certain the guy was even real up until one day, he was.
Until then, he more or less heard about ‘Munkustrap’ - Mr Munkustrap - in passing.
The implications were always pretty vague. Long time best friend, maybe coworker. Definitely Steve’s… boss? Superior? Some sort of demon-ish hierarchy must exist, maybe, one that Cesare has no idea of by virtue of knowing only the one demon personally… and vaguely of this second one.
Cesare thought, at first, that ‘Munkustrap’ must be Steve’s maker, in a way.
As Cesare’s sort of creature called it, their keeper.
…
..
.
He’s not really sure how and where they differ. Cesare barely even understands what he is, let alone what Steve is- and by extension, his friend, too, wherever he is, which my extension of being a little bit not like Steve, is even less like Cesare.
About half a century after the whole second murder back-stabbing, Steve took it upon himself to attempt solving Cesare’s self-ignorance. To Cesare’s surprise, Steve has apparently met other angels before Cesare had become one, and sort of knew where to find at least one of them, nearly a hundred years later.
This is how Cesare ends up dumped in front of Hazakura, the first angel he ever meets personally; and once again feels the sting of abandonment when Steve disappears shortly after dropping him there.
It’s clumsy, and Cesare finds himself feeling suddenly and inescapably small before a stranger.
The first thing she says when she looks at him, is “And where is your keeper?”
Cesare’s knuckles tighten hard enough a stray muscle in his arm spasms and subsequently locks. This is the reason he does not immediately raise an arm to hit anything, particularly rainbow-colored strangers. Or else their meeting might have gone very very differently.
The second reason is the sudden grip on his arm- blisteringly hot like a hand fresh from a forge, strong like steel, and every fold and joint just as burned into his memory as the heat of it.
When Cesare stiffly turns his head, Steve isn’t there beside him. Cesare clicks a vicious tsk from between his teeth.
He shoves down the itch to scold the air, because Steve always did leave him to deal with shit on his own. Always disappeared when it was the most convenient.
But Cesare feels the grip anyway, so he’s around even if he’s not, and gets the point. And reads the unspoken plea, to behave, for what it is.
He cocks his head back at the woman watching him down her nose, like he is a particularly strange, flamboyant bug that tried to bite her.
She doesn’t look like he does. Not really. Cesare’s skin is a translucent swampy blue-green, still, and wont soften into a baby blue for a few more long years yet. His hair is clean which is a major improvement to his days before, but it’s still patchy, uneven, brittle. He looks different, though, than he did before his second death. The weight on his back is feathery and feather-light both, the light over his head glows perpetually. His hands are his own, of which he hasn't felt so certain of since before death. There’s no sign of rot. The skin still peels and rips when he digs his nails into it, but the wounds fade when he stops paying them mind.
He looks… whole, for a lack of other words.
He’s something else, now, and he is still trying to reckon with that. With the truth that he is changed, just as much as the questions of what he is now.
The woman in front of him does not look like him. Her hair is straight and weightless and flowery pink, shimmering with other colors like it refracts the light too well. Her face and body are soft, round, and healthy. She dresses in layers of silk and lace and tulle, in a loose style he has never seen before in life or death, and is draped in enough silver jewelry it might have fed his entire village for lifetimes to sell even half of it. He’s sure none of it is particularly real, like the simple pale fabrics he finds himself wearing aren’t real, either. Her eyes are strange. Pupils almost triangular, and glowing a soft green.
But the rest of her- the vibrantly rainbow colored feathers of her wings are a little much but they’re there, and the flowery green of the headlamp sitting above her head is vibrant and blinding to look at directly.
So no, they don’t look alike. But they’re unarguably the same thing.
And she asks, with her first breath and at the first sight of him, of his keeper. Who has been dead for years and has gone entirely unspoken of that entire time.
“Beg your pardon? My what?”
He knows this thing can read him, to an extent. He knows because he can do the same. He gets snippets. Her revulsion and her concern come hand in hand. So does her apathy. She could not care less if he will be well. She wonders why he is and she thinks him inconvenient but not enough so to turn away entirely. She is wracked with a sense of responsibility, and this and this alone encourages her to continue looking at him at all rather than disappear immediately. He sees her well, knows her name, knows she’s older than him by a fair minute, knows her hollows and her lights and even sort of knows her worsts; she died, once, and he knows it innately, can almost see it, could act it out on stage if he had the production budget.
She sees into him in turn, he’s sure. Her face stretches tight as he speaks. Whatever glimpses she caught, she must feel him snarling. He knows her name. He knows she is significantly older than him. He knows how to crumble her to dust if he wanted to try. Hopefully she knows he would sooner bare his teeth than speak of any of that bastard ever again.
“Your keeper.” She waves a hand, all those flimsy layers and fabrics dragging across her lifelike, vibrant look. “The one who kept you past the dark. One makes another, stranger.”
“Can you speak like a regular person, maybe? This isn’t teahouse poetry hour.” He challenges, one brow arched and crossing his arms. The hand still set on his arm finally fades. He clicks his tongue at the loss.
“You died.” The stranger says. She speaks slowly, a pause between each word, and continues to speak that way. Cesare doesn’t really care if she treats him like a child, as long as she gets on with it and explains. “You lingered. That happens. But another had to hold you, guide you. Your keeper.”
Cesare jerks a finger over his shoulder offhandedly. “Oh, that guy? He’s not-” he waves a hand between the two of themm sharing feathers and lights and all, “Whatever this is. He doesn’t know shit. That’s why I'm talking to you.”
That’s what Cesare figures, at any rate. Steve hadn’t really said much of anything before dumping Cesare here in this colorful stretch of springtime forest. It’s hard to argue, though. They both know that Cesare had been declining, up to this. There’d been a steady uphill of recovery at first, sure, back in early years. One could argue, though, that anything is an improvement from where Cesare started, so.
The decline following the recovery and period of plateau had been gradual. Not just the pockets of meltdowns and general weakness, but a slow decline they could both see. Steve had dragged Cesare all over the place, rambling about strangers and stopping in on random people to watch them move around. Cesare had stayed quiet, stayed depressingly emotional, and had shown little interest in any of it. The strange glow that accompanied him everywhere occasionally shifted between bright and dull, and he got used to that, but only enough so that he could tell when it steadily began to lose color.
He’s not really surprised that Steve eventually got overwhelmed and shoved him in front of someone else in a bid to fix him. He sort of wished Steve had given him some warning, but then again, Cesare’s sure he probably wouldn’t have wanted to go along with it if Steve had.
And so this is how Cesare came to understand, at least partially, what he is.
Cesare knows better about what was going wrong with him, after ‘apprenticing’ and generally after time and experience. He doesn’t know anything ever about himself with certainty, but he knows better about angels, anyway. Hazakura’s variety of them, normal angels. They wither on their own, and Steve’s random selection of humans to follow around had been in a bid to hunt down a human Cesare could or would attach to. Unfortunately for Steve, Cesare hadn’t cared for it, and also hadn’t known how to do that, and it’s apparently a sort of thing that needs to be learned.
Cesare’s time with Hazakura was, relatively, short. A few decades is a lifetime, sure, where and when Cesare was alive. But he spent plenty of time not with her, wandering off to stand among people again- at her recommendation- and occasionally trying to pin down his missing demon in the crowds when he was supposed to be watching the people, trying to feel them.
Steve didn’t come around when Cesare was around Hazakura. It was… well, Cesare’s not going to admit to anything too emotional, but it was definitely… something, so long without the company he’d known for many years up ‘til then. If Hazakura was right about her various lectures on the importance of keepers on new angels, then it was understandable why Cesare had initially felt a certain sort of way about not being around Steve, the guy who ‘kept’ him through death. Then again, though, a century was long enough Cesare should have gone on his own way without his ‘keeper’, according to Hazakura, despite that whenever she looked at him she seemed to think he should still need one, hadn’t adapted or grown or some ‘thing’ Angels eventually do before leaving their keepers behind.
She thought him young. Knew he wasn't when she looked harder, knew he’d been around long enough, but still saw him at first and thought him new. She put in more effort than Cesare could say any adult ever did when he was an actual child, but that’s not a high bar. He could never say Hazakura ever was a ‘keeper’, mostly because he never understood the phrase and never liked it, and the scant few angels Hazakura introduced him to during that time seemed perplexed by their… surrogate-ship, and didn’t consider her his ‘keeper’ either.
That is to say, Cesare doesn’t really have a keeper, and most angels he encountered don’t have one around for long. Seems Humans stay the same after death- short lived parenthoods before the kids eventually strike off as soon as remotely possible. At least, it’s how things were done back then.
Cesare, despite everything, survives long enough to function.
.
..
…
So Angels have a keeper, but Cesare’s no earthly clue what a demon has. But they’re similar enough, in some ways, that Cesare assumes they mostly come about the same way, surely.
He thought, the first few times Steve mentioned ‘Mr Munkustrap’ visiting while Cesare was busy ‘apprenticing’ under Hazakura, that Steve must firstly be talking about another demon, and secondly, his own version of a keeper. He also assumed that Cesare and this supposed Munkustrap weren’t supposed to meet, for whatever reason, maybe the same reason Steve always disappeared before Hazakura could ever encounter him.
Cesare would find out in time that all of these assumptions were at least sort of wrong. The leading thought that Munkustrap was to Steve as a Keeper unto an angel was inaccurate- and it wasn’t even some demon equivalent. Nor was there any kind of force or requirement keeping Steve from meeting other angels or Cesare from other demons.
It’d take time to figure it out, it always does. But Cesare knows some things, even without time, and one of those immutable facts is that whatever the relationship is, even if it wasn’t real and was entirely imaginary, Munkustrap mattered a great deal to Steve. If not based on the way Steve sounded when he brought the name up, then because Steve brought up the name at all.
Cesare noticed, eventually, that Munkustrap was the only person Steve ever mentioned at all. The crippling sense of loneliness wafting off him certainly makes sense when you consider that.
That realization, and the uptick in Steve Visits when Cesare started attaching to his first couple humans, is when Cesare started to bully Steve into attaching to his own people. Cesare hadn’t thought it would work- they’re different, the dichotomy between Almost-Angel and Whatever-Demon that they are.
Turns out it does work, though. Steve and Cesare take to humans, Cesare teaching him how to do so ‘the angel way’ and Steve teaching him how to subsequently do it better than Hazakura ever did, and it quickly becomes clear to them both that one’s pet project human becomes the other’s.
It’s not the angel way, but Cesare’s not particularly fond of most Angels he’s met, anyway. He might like the Demon way better.
They become a sort of Duo.
.
..
…
One day- Cesare does not remember when, exactly, cares little for time keeping, but definitely far enough back the humans had yet to come up with electricity. One day, Cesare tries to catch up to Steve, after one of his periods of absence. He goes fishing, finds the unwavering cord connecting them, and pulls.
He feels something- something not unlike the cord itself, but askew- reach back, midstep.
Cesare stumbles hard, harder than he usually does, and finds himself hovering too high to reach the ground when he comes out the other end of the tunnel line. He’s strung, dangling in the air, by a grip on the back of his gown, feet dangling shy of reaching the floor.
He blinks owlishly at the wide-eyed… purple… clown in front of his face. And watches in real time as it’s own eyes widen back at him, staring at him in perhaps equal amount surprise.
Cesare would probably be more alarmed about this if he didn't already spend a lot of time with Clown Things who are there-but-not-really, a more familiar one’s cosmic smog of an aura already falling over him as soon as he’d stepped through the pull of the wire, even if he was face to face with someone else, some who was stealing Steve’s whole look.
Admittedly, Cesare was not expecting another one, nor for it to be here, nor to be dangled from it’s hand like a toy where it stares at him utterly frozen. Huh??
Neither one of them says anything for what feels like far too long, and eventually Cesare breaks first: “What the actual hell?”
A new set of hands land on Cesare, large and clear and burning and instantly familiar. He’s plucked from mid air the way over-eager children used to grab at dancing marionettes; Cesare’s easily unhooked from the strangers’ grasp, and set on his feet. He stumbles again, more literally, as he lands- properly lands this time, thankfully. He’s not sure he likes all the picking him up, thanks.
He turns his startled eyes on Steve, who is looking at him with narrow-eyed amusement even if his whole everything is rolling particularly aggressively. Then Cesare looks back at the other clown, who is in fact clown looking as hell, and is still watching him with head cocked and eyes round like Cesare is the oddity here.
He’s purple instead of Steve’s pink. He lacks the features Cesare associates with Steve as a creature- wings, tails, horns, halo, or even the haze. He’s also entirely different from Steve in shape and size, unless you count being taller than Cesare as ‘same’.
But Cesare looks, and still gets the same glimpses he always does, and the whirlwind of feelings remind Cesare of only one person. And also- literally, this thing is a clown.
This thing is unquestionably like Steve. This is unquestionably Steve’s imaginary friend, the only person he’s ever cared to mention meeting with.
“Holy shit, he’s real.” Cesare points at the taller clown, turning back to Steve with his jaw half-open. “Steve. Steve, I thought he was- what do you mean he’s real!”
Steve looks at him for several seconds, huge eyed and stiff, before he finally giggles once, breaks some sort of dam, and quickly devolves into all-out laughter. His agitation, at least, seems to be knitting with proper, genuine delight, so. There’s that; Cesare has broken tension. Call him a Clown Whisperer.
Cesare turns back on the stranger, pointing more forcefully at the oversized clown. It raises both brows at him, as Cesare shuffles closer, inspecting. He grabs a handful of… star-patterned cloak, shifting it between his fingers. It’s warm under hand, the same strange and crystal-clear way contact with Steve, or ‘parts’ of Steve like the jacket, him-but-not-compeltely, always is.
“Ugh, he’s got your dramatic fashion sense, too. This feels fancy.” It does. it doesn't feel like thread, it feels immaculate. Reminds Cesare of Steve’s thing with the purple clothes, and the weird jester getup and the spotted onesie when they first met. He evolved past that at some point, but still keeps the purples. Which is getting less lavish and expensive-looking as the world ages and purple becomes a commodity less set aside to kings, but still, the initial impression is hard to get over.
This guy is the inversion of him. He himself is a muted color of lavender, and warm violets, dressed in dusty roses. He seems less like a candy found in a fancy confectionary and more like something you’d pick in a lavish garden. Crazy.
Cesare throws the cape up and is amused with the clown outfit underneath it. Oh he is just like the early Steve! This thing is dressed like a clown! “Oh this is rich, he looks just like you!” He grabs at the ruffle around the guy’s neck and finds himself taking note of how easily the guy bends to allow it. Very fun. He might enjoy bothering this guy. “Look at this, Steve. You should have really committed more to the jester bit when we met, this is fantastic. We could always put you back in poofs. Make the two of you a matching set.”
When the tall clown-thing straightens up, Cesare lets go, folding his arms across his chest with a short laugh when the guy preens by re-adjusting the poofy neck guard and ‘straightening’ the cloak back out in front of him.
Cesare is already sure he knows who this is by this point, by first sight even, of course, steve’s imaginary friend turned reality, the guy Cesare hasn't been able to meet for centuries; none the less, he watches with fascination as the taller clown clears his throat and ducks a dramatic, cape-flourishing bow. “The pleasure is mine, my friend. I am Munkustrap, as you seem aware.”
Cesare is aware. He’s aware by virtue that he’s heard Steve ramble that name thousands of times- clipped comments about Mr Munkustrap this and nostalgic Mr Munkustap that. But Cesare is aware of a lot of things about Munkustrap on sight, the way he always is, always knows certain things, upon finally meeting a person for himself.
He knows on first sight that this person is important to Steve, and it has less to do with sharing eachother’s presence in this moment or countless years hearing Steve talk about him in passing. It has everything to do with the rolling anxiety, and the tightly-wound attachment coiled between them, larger and stronger and unbreakable, the way they mix where the two of them seem to ‘overlap’ while standing in the same room.
He knows on first sight that this person- this thing- this creature, whatever he is, considers himself so far and away removed from Cesare as a being that it’s a little dizzying. It’s also probably true. Cesare isn’t much like anyone, even other Angels, few and far between as he’s met them. He’s not much like Steve, and this thing- seems similar to Steve, but there's a distinct quality that is not like Steve.
While he shares the not-reality-qualities of Steve, the pinker of the two’s unreality is significantly stronger, and a fair bit darker and stronger on the back of the tongue, and Cesare sort of gets the feeling Munkustrap is rather far away despite that they are less than two feet away from each other, face to face. Something here is intrinsically different.
He knows that this thing is Munkustrap, knows itself as Munkustrap, but also knows it the way he knows every human he’s ever met: by name. “I know who you are, Thomas.” he drawls, toothy grin and all, gesturing offhandedly in Steve’s direction like he can excuse the knowledge of the name on the clown, though Steve had never used the particular name. “Although I was beginning to think you were a figment of certain twisted imaginations, so there is that.”
He feels a little victorious over the taken-aback look Munkustrap is giving him, the grandness he was going for wilting a little. Steve has turned away from them both and has redoubled in his attempts to laugh himself out of air.
Smug, Cesare grabs for the edge of the cloak again, fascinated with the way it’s warm as a body to the touch and sears his eyes with false color. It also feels incredible, it’s the softest thing he’s ever touched.
…
..
.
After that surprisingly anticlimactic encounter, they became a Trio instead of a Duo, actually, because with Steve comes his mysterious imaginary friend. And with the ice broken, Cesare notices Steve disappears less suddenly, and a little less often; more or less confirming that he’s the one that kept them from meeting and isn’t caring to try anymore.
Munkustrap has, evidently, been there all along. He visits in increments- goes somewhere else, not that Cesare is sure where. Hell, maybe? Wherever demons go. Wherever clown demons go. Maybe one of the circles of hell is actually a three-ring circus.
.
..
…
Cesare hasn’t seen Steve in a few weeks.
The humans are doing fine enough. Well, even. They’re doing well.
Cesare has finally convinced Conrad to get back into collecting records, bringing the old collection from high school out to flip through and marvel over. He’s also convinced Allen and Frances to take a day off at the same time next week, and is trying to arrange that they bump into each other, arrange a playdate of sorts. Penny’s doing… okay; she really needs a night or two out of the house sometime soon. Cesare can probably convince Tim, who’s doing really well right now, to pick her up and do something fun; that’s been getting easier to do lately, as Tim gets a little bit happier and listens to Cesare’s prodding a little more willingly.
Billie, the newest one, is probably having the roughest go of it. Their humans all have their own little troubles, and Cesare is awkwardly fumbling along with all six of them at once, but for the most part, their humans are doing well and listening when coaxed. Billie’s still new to the collection; one of Steve’s cohorts. And as much as Steve likes spending time with his attachees, he prefers a… mild sort of guidance, usually. Billie being new means she needs a lot of things, more than the others, though. Immediate needs to be met, that require more steady focus. For a while there, Steve was with her constantly, as he usually is with his newest connection.
Steve did something last week that got her a job, finally, even if it’s nothing glamorous, so she’s making some money and her hopes are going up, which in turn is making Cesare feel lighter. It was a good move at the time, however Steve did it. Cesare wasn't there in the moment, busy prodding at Tim and Conrad; but he… felt it. A small shift, a certain weakness trickling through where Steve’s connection tethers them; not worrying, just a sign that he’s up to some sort of antics. Tired himself out, or something. Cesare’s gotten used to that, and simply makes a note to check in soon.
When he does, popping over to see Billie, he finds her finally employed, with decent hours to boot, and Steve already gone. This isn’t unexpected; even if Steve prefers not to leave his newest chicks on their own, the mother hen usually drops off the face of the earth when that tingle of exhaustion tickles Cesare that way; he wasn't really expecting to see Steve when he got here. The note to check in was to check in on Billie, to keep his eyes on her while Steve inevitably dipped off again.
Cesare’s been nudging Allen to open his phone and scroll apartment ideas, lately. Sooner or later, they need to get the kid out of her car. Preferably before the winter rolls in and Billie freezes in the old clunker overnight. But it’s going to have to be Cesare’s hand that does it, now that Steve has gone off in one of his moods, off wandering who knows where.
Point is, everything is going alright. Steve disappeared shortly after Billie got her new job, which is more or less the signed check that he did something naughty; Steve always dips for a while after doing dramatic crap. When Cesare had checked in on the kid, she’d been fine herself, so. Whatever. As long is everyone is happy, Cesare doesn’t see much point in pressing for answers, and Steve’s wander lust phases tend to be accompanied with a cranky desire for solitude.
And so, Cesare’s been playing tag along; Steve will eventually wander back. For now, Cesare keeps an eye on his abandoned strays; Billie in particular, of course, because she both sort of needs the oversight most and because Steve just sort of left her confused and concerned. He’s been watching her for the last day, and the last few hours have amounted to observing as Billie dodges her coworker’s befuddled stares, and watching her take the same monotonous requests for orders and confirming the same dozen food items, when he feels the tug.
He tenses, holding out a hand for a grip on Billie’s untamed waves of hair for the balance, as the sensation pulls on him. She barely acknowledges; a soft twitch and a tilt of her head. Billie’s a good kid; he can feel the slight way she shifts her shoulder up to hold steady and the way her arm rises, wary if he slips. He likes Billie- she reminds him of Allen. Crystal-clear awareness, remembers him perfectly even when he’s gone, overly aware of him when he’s there. He’s wondered, more than once, what makes a human so sensitive to him.
When the feeling of pulling softens and instead washes over him with the usual sense of arrival, of a clumsy step off a climbed cliff, Cesare relaxes and pats her cheek in dismissive thanks.
It’s not Steve, Cesare knew that toward the end of the pull; the grip is different, and the feeling of the one drawing near is similar, but not the same. When Cesare rotates on one heel, the lanky shape of Munkustrap is standing next to him on Billie’s shoulder, limbs all tucked gracefully under the rosy star-patterned cloak. Cesare barely needs a glance to know that Munk just came from wherever Steve is; the feral-looking grin is barely contained and his face is tight.
Seems he wasn't the only one who felt Steve getting up to something and deciding to check in. Munkustrap, though, went and bothered the cranky clump of cotton candy.
“Hm. You look positively exuberant, just totally high on life. Here to learn about the wonders of the fast food industry and get even more pissed, or are you just looking to explode at a miserable food service worker to feel better?”
Billie snorts quietly, punching buttons in her pos.
“A word, if you please.”
“Not foreboding at all.” Cesare mutters, then turns from the simmering purple beast, to Billie. “If I find out you lied and didn’t keep your promise Billironnie, so help me-”
With a hand between her face and the mic, she answers drolly, “You’ll be even more annoying than usual, I know. I will eat something other than the free employee meal. Bye.” and drops right into taking the next order in the drive thru line.
Cesare grumbles, along the lines ‘you better’, not sure he believes her. Then gives her a final pat on the cheek.
He steps back and makes the leap; the dizzying sensation of falling, the wind catching under the usually inert feathers of his wings, and promptly landing on the slippery grease-slicked tile behind Billie’s window position. She turns just enough to look at him over her shoulder and nod- which will never not be weird. It’s not any less weird when Allen acknowledges him off-shoulder. He’s always slightly panicked that it means something is about to go wrong, even if the not-good-feeling of dread doesn’t accompany it. The two of them just are that way.
He just waves back at her, loosely and trying not to tense up again, and starts navigating through the busy kitchen full of perfectly normal humans that don't see him as-is.
Munk never exactly falls into step behind him. But once Cesare is out of the building and chooses a particularly nice looking spot under the tree where Billie usually takes her lunchbreaks behind the parking lot, the tug comes again.
He curls his hands into fists and hunches his shoulders, and takes a breath to loosen them, and when he does, Munkustrap is standing next to him where he’s sat.
“Bickering about the usual, I take it?” Cesare prompts before Munkustrap can stand around brooding all stoically.
“Do you have any idea-” Munkustrap stops, inhales, and folds his hands in front of himself. “You are aware I am coming to see him soon, yes?”
“You’ve only been saying that for the last dozen years, so, yeah, sure. You’re on your way.” Whatever that means.
“I am to leave tonight.” Munkustrap states, one finger raised. “Three days travel. In this time, I will be allowed by custom to land on this planet. Three days until his banishment ends, and he- he- is being infuriating.”
“Oho, so it is the same fight as always.” Cesare leans back into his tree.
“You didn’t know him before-”
“Nope.”
“And he isn’t supposed to be-”
“Sure.”
“And I do not understand-”
“Yep.”
“Cesare.”
“Thomas.”
That always catches him slightly off guard, and so, is Cesare’s favorite tool. Cesare resists grinning, but not very hard, as Thomas trips over his own anger and looks at him round-eyed for long enough to be unmissable, before going back to scowling.
After a moment of quiet and staring at each other, Munkustap breaks first, already worn down from the same argument with a different person, and sighs. His shoulders drop, he flips the edges of his cloak over his shoulders, and he takes a seat next to Cesare on the ground. Then drops his head into his hands with a groan, for good measure, the drama queen.
Cesare reaches up and pats his shoulder once, twice, three times before slumping back into the tree.
“You truly do not understand.” Munkustrap says after a moment. “I do not understand. What it must take to change a Jellicle such a way, I do not know. I leave tonight. Centuries of research and I do not understand how any of this happened. How it could happen. How I will fix it when I arrive. I am leaving tonight and I know just as little as I did when I first felt…”
He trails off, each sentence quieter than the last. His argument with Steve must have been a grizzly affair, if he doesn’t even have the energy to get frustrated or rant. He usually does, and Cesare will end up listening to the bitching for a good half hour at least.
“So he broke first this time, huh?” Cesare guesses. Their worse arguments always go one of two ways. Either Munk runs out of steam, or gets too worked up, and leaves- goes wherever he “truly is” because apparently he’s not here the way they are.
Or… Steve breaks first. His temper flares and he bites something cutting, the exact words Cesare has rarely been privy; it doesn’t even have to be good, Cesare knows, because it always takes Munkustrap off guard, far worse than anything Cesare could ever manage with just a name. Cesare sort of gets it, because it's very rare that Steve lashes out, even when he’s cranky. It’s less about what he could say and more about the fact that he does.
It must be the latter, Munk’s clearly worn all the way down. He can't imagine the guy’s energy had been all that high in the first place, considering that wherever he is, he’s about to be on his way toward them, nerves at the max. He really has been talking about coming to see Steven in person for whole decades. The last couple years in particular, muttering about travel accommodations and rambling about arranging retirements and replacements and ‘auditions’. Cesare knows the preparations are becoming.
And apparently they’re already culminating, if Munkustrap is beginning whatever journey toward Steve tonight, finally.
Cesare’s not sure what that means, exactly. When Munk comes for Steve, and actually gets here.
He’s been careful not to ask questions.
As usual, there are answers to some of those questions he would not be able to… bear thinking about. Better to let the cards fall where they will, right? He’ll deal with it how it comes. He wont have any choice otherwise. He- never does.
Munkustrap doesn’t answer Cesare’s assumption, pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes instead. Cesare looks down at his own palms.
Maybe not never does. Just- never when it matters most.
But in the current moment, he does, at least, have his own hands. That's a choice of a kind, and maybe he won't have much of a say in anything as the pieces all fall into place, but he has his own hands now.
He grabs one of Thomas’s arms, and when the clown pauses and looks side-eye at Cesare, Cesare slides his hand down his forearm to his hand and tugs it from his face to himself. Then makes a show of jamming his other hand into Munkustraps’ face, knocking his head back into the tree, laughing wildly at the strangled complaint of offense it earns him.
Munk’s fingers slot neatly between his own when Cesare threads them together, but go barely noticed, the clown-demon squeezing his hand as he sputters and turns pointed teeth on Cesare’s grin. “She was right. But alas, you’re not just annoying, you’re insufferable.”
“I get that a lot, thanks.” Cesare shuts an eye and mimes a hair flip. “More importantly, have you considered chilling the fuck out?”
Munkustrap leans away, aghast. “I beg your pardon? This is important.”
“You’ve said.” Cesare bobs his head. The arguments always go back to… that quiet admission. That something happened, and that Munkustrap- felt it, and now everything is different. Cesare is intimately familiar with people changing for the worst- just look at him, every step of the way of life and death and death again. Cesare doesn’t know what to make of their arguments, but he gets it, he does, to have no control of the devastating change. But while Cesare never gets a choice, no one else bears that curse- and it’s his job to remind people about that. “Whatever it was you felt, he’s still here. You’re on your way, and I know he’s looking forward to that, even if he’s grumpy. Just try being happy when you get here, already. You’ll have him, wont you?”
That seems like all that should really matter, in the end, that he’s going to have Steve in the end, but Thomas does not seem cheered. He just looks down, and the hand tangled with Cesare’s is tight enough it might have hurt if such things still did without intent behind it.
“Will I? He isn’t… he isn't the Steve I knew.”
Cesare tightens his own grip, backed with the intent to hurt, if such things matter to whatever the clowns even are, the way it matters for him. He’s never sure. Maybe not, maybe he doesn’t feel it. But he puts his back into it, squeezes, and tugs, glaring, hopes he has the capacity to hurt, even a little. “Do not be an idiot. He’s Steve, whatever he’s been through, however he’s different. You can’t take that from him.”
“I’m not!” Munkustrap hisses back at him, the spitfire attitude rising steadily in spite of exhaustion. “He is Steve, of course. He’s family. Always has been, far as it matters. Don’t you have the gall to think I feel otherwise.”
“Good.” Cesare agrees, shrugging but holding his stare even when Munk meets him with bared teeth. “Then you’ll have him when you get here, and you’ll be all happy about it, because he’ll be here when you get here, and you’ll have him.”
Cesare will be happy about it, too. Whatever it means. He will.
Munkustrap breaks the eye contact first, eyes flickering to the side, then over Cesare’s head, and then away. His face pinches but he’s clearly tired. “Such confidence you have, my dear boy.”
Cesare smiles pointedly, dropping in close enough they’re practically rubbing shoulders. “I only have good feelings about this, my dear Thomas,” he mocks and lies in the same breath, but it’s true where it matters; he’s sure this reunion’s only for the better for both of them, with the sort of certainty that comes from the place his truest hunches do. The dread he gets about it- that's just him; his own selfish, useless monster. The good, the lightness, the eagerness- it’s all there; fate, or luck, or good will, whatever it is. he knows deeply, innately, that Munkustrap and Steve are going to meet again, and whatever else it means, it will be good for them both.
So he’ll be happy. Whatever happens when it happens, it will be a good thing. He’s going to live with it, and he’s not going to ask any questions, he’s just- he’s just going to be happy. He has to be. There is no other choice.
Munkustrap scoffs, but then does laugh, quietly. “I’ll take that as a good sign, my dear Cesare,” he adds back with a snide slant. “And perhaps I should go and get that old engine rolling. Everything is packed and all the positons are filled… Yes, it’s all done, and I have slumbered enough, I believe.”
Cesare nods, leaning his shoulder into the warmth, the softness, of the cloak and Thomas’ shoulder. “I’ll keep an eye out for Steve, and I’ll have him scolded by the time you’re-” Not back. He’s not here; not leaving and coming back. Munkustrap always made a point of that. No, when he gets here, one supposes. “-by the time you arrive. I’m sure he’ll be all teary eyed and apologetic and everything. He’ll be kissing the bottom of your shoes. Begging your forgiveness and singing your praises. Throwing fists in the mists for your gracious and magnanimous attitude.”
Cesare’s hand is empty well before he stops making up platitudes, and Munkustrap has gone; the slow fade of his presence, away, leaving Cesare alone under the tree. The wind whistles soft and the streetlamps are artificial and bright, the rumble of the cars lined up around the building is twice as long as when they first stepped out here.
It’s just him. He’ll- he’ll have to get used to that again, won't he?
He contemplates going back in, to return to Billie’s shoulder; if he’ll bother walking or if he’ll just let himself fall into place the way the tethers take him. Or instead, going and checking in on Steve’s other beloved pets, because if he had a shouting match with his beloved Mr Munkustrap, probably in regards to his pending arrival, his absence is probably only extended now. If he won't just stay away until Munkustrap’s arrival, even. And then, if he even- if he comes back, after that.
Cesare stills where he’s gotten himself standing, watching the cars pass on the road; the world, unrecognizable to what he remembers when any of his choices mattered, and he still made all the wrong ones. Nothing at all like when he still lived, when he was a person, when he was whole.
The parking lot rumbles with human machines and human heartbeats and human thoughts, but he’s alone.
Might stay alone.
He’ll have to get used to this, too. Steve’s humans were always his humans, after all. Even if six is a lot to juggle on your own, he’ll have to get used to it. He’ll have to.
He aught to check on his own humans. He hasn’t seen over Frances since this morning, Conrad since lunch, or Allen for a few hours. There’s work to do. He has responsibilities. It’s his job. To remind people of choices he doesn't have. To pursue. To find joy.
He wonders, briefly, about checking in on Steve. Now- no, not now, but maybe before Mukustrap arrives, or- but no. Cesare decides against it- he’ll only be angry, and his beloved imaginary friend will be here soon enough, which Cesare knows will be better than anything Cesare could offer, anyway.
He wonders how long it takes until the world he doesn’t recognize will be too far away. Without those unbreakable metal cords to hold him here. Hazakura called the world a stranger to her just before she finally felt relieved of the responsibility to care for it, when he last saw her, before she stopped being her.
He wonders how long he has, without sturdy anchors to it. He’s been known for short lifetimes.
The arrow strikes his torso, slides right between ribs, hits him through the back of one shoulder and juts out through the chest. He doesn’t realize until he looks down and sees the glimmering silver tip sticking out. How many times he’s going to have to look down and find himself pierced?
He goes out, a candle blown out, scattering loose feathers, before he hits the ground.
Huh.
Shorter than he was expecting.