Chapter Text
After months of being cooped up on the journey to Earth, everyone’s nerves were a little frayed despite their eventful arrival. Clive and Jason were bickering in the cloud palace again. And for once, Zara couldn’t squash her comment. It was just so obvious. “Will you two just fuck already?”
“What?” Their unison response was almost as comical as the way they danced around each other. She gave them a pointed look. Jason looked to Belinda who shrugged with a twist of her lips in sad agreement.
Turning back to her, Jason appealed to Zara, “I thought we had a thing?” He gestured back and forth between himself and Zara. “We were definitely working toward a thing.”
She sighed. “You can have more than one thing, Jason. You of all people know that. You’ve got more things than you can juggle most of the time.”
The utter betrayal running across his face would’ve been comical if he didn’t look like he actually meant it this time.
“Clive’s only love is to the system.”
Zara’s eyes swung the other direction, like watching a mirage chamber match, indignance painted across Clive’s face.
“That’s absurd.”
“You’ve barely spoken to me since I got back. It’s always about the system or the cosmos.” Jason gestured wildly with his free hand. “You couldn’t go one week without the system now that you’ve got it—but you could go FIFTEEN YEARS without me!”
Clive stared, horrified at the madman venting his frustrations out in the enclosed space. The air grew thick with the weight of emotions long buried, vomited all over the floor.
“Well,” Clive's voice came out quiet, but sharp, “why don’t you just shut it off then.”
“You know I can’t.” Jason said pointedly. “They warned me I couldn’t just go around shutting it on and off Willy Nilly. I already used my freebie. I’m not that petty, Clive.”
The anger coming from both men vibrated like ripples across a pond. Jason’s was less impactful, but Zara suspected that was only due to his extreme control over his aura.
——
Clive couldn’t bring himself to look Jason in the eye as he stared through the floor. Jason couldn’t have been further from the truth, but he had no idea how to get that point across.
He had no way of proving that he could go without the system. Even if he did, Jason would probably assume he was “cheating” whenever Jason wasn’t there. Perhaps Jason had a way of monitoring use? He dismissed the idea.
It didn’t matter.
Jason didn’t want platitudes.
He honestly didn’t know what Jason wanted. He was here. He’d been here since Jason’s return. The truth was that he didn’t really know how to act around Jason anymore. Every time they spoke they seemed to be butting heads.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” the words rasped out of his throat. His anger bled away. After all they’d been through, Jason really didn’t need him anymore. He had fifteen years of rubbing elbows with or testing his abilities against Greater Astral Beings.
What did he need him for now? Blowing things up? Jason could do that on his own too. He was nothing but another addendum, an axillary addition who was smart enough to know Jason was beyond needing him.
Clive’s shoulders dropped. He turned and left the room.
——
As the words left the scholar’s mouth, Jason felt an empty hollow replace the anger that had been pulsing from Clive’s aura. He didn’t understand it, but his own anguish rubbed it in his face. No one needed him. They’d all gotten along just fine while he was away. Clive more than anyone.
He’d built a damn Empire while he was gone. And the system had just made it even easier to sweep away any desire Clive had to put up with Jason. He’d gotten what he wanted.
Melding into the shadows, he tucked himself away before anyone saw the tears collecting in his eyes. At the top of the atrium, hidden among the thick branches of a Pallimustus native tree, Jason hugged his knees to his chest. As he let himself feel everything, the loneliness spread further on its route, slowly taking over.
——
The following week was painfully awkward. Every time Clive entered the room with Jason, the atmosphere would shift. As they started exploring Earth, Clive made a decision.
One that he knew might do more harm than good, but he just couldn’t see a way out of the charged situation they found themselves in. He’d leave.
With his new cellphone and Lindy’s contact information, he easily replicated the anti-tracking ritual on the device. The internet had proven to be even more efficient for informational gathering than the system itself. Though he didn’t dare mention that to Jason.
Clive wasn’t sure anymore what was safe to say or not in his presence. It would be easier to take some time apart. They’d already taken fifteen years. What was a few months? It would give him time to acclimate to the new environment, Clive reasoned.
Ignoring the niggling feeling in the back of his mind that this was a huge mistake, he finished slotting the last of his belongings from the cloud house into his storage.
——
Jason watched from the top of the tower in his Spirit Domain in Saint-Étienne. He watched Clive removing every trace of his presence from the cloud house. And then walk away.
Every time he thought about interceding, all that came to mind was more vitriol. He wanted nothing more than to lash out at his once friend. Every hurt felt like he was bleeding out on the inside and he couldn’t, wouldn’t take it out on Clive again.
It was better this way. Just let him leave. They didn’t need to say anything.
——
——
He had no idea what that was. Clive pulled up his search application and typed out “graffiti”. Interesting. He was tempted to pepper the two of them with questions, but restrained himself yet again. Tapping the microphone button on the keypad, he asked the search window, “what is the purpose of graffiti?”
The results were somewhat enlightening. The urge to delve into each meaning itched at the back of his mind. They seemed to range from self expression to politics to gang culture. Fascinating.
After spending the rest of his afternoon researching graffiti and its many functions, he decided to try his own hand at it.
Clive purchased a few ingredients from the local store and mixed some of his own into a mixture in a small bowl. Once the mixture was complete, he balanced out the ambient magic in the area and drew his own ritual, etching it lightly into the stone.
A small crowd had gathered around him, which he ignored as he completed his work. As long as none of the individuals were part of law enforcement, he wasn’t likely to be interrupted.
When he finished, color blossomed out from the focal point, spreading and swirling around in a rainbow display of ever changing colors and patterns based on geometric forms. The crowd gasped before breaking out into cheers as he tucked his supplies back into his storage.
He took a single photo and then a short 30 second video and sent it off to Lindy and Farrah. By the time he reached the hostel he was staying at, he had multiple messages and a link waiting for him.
Clive watched the recording someone must have taken as he completed the ritual, his shoulder and the back of his head were all you could see before the screen shifted to follow the swirling patterns as the ritual activated.
He shot back a text before digging into the soup he picked up along the way for dinner.
——
Clive stared at his screen. It had been two weeks since he’d left Jason’s spirit domain. Everywhere he looked, everything reminded him of Jason, alien and strange. Peculiar and utterly fascinating.
He caught himself right after he hit send. Damn it. He’d been doing so well at not asking a million questions. Asking his cellular device the question, he got a wall of images of penguins along with Lindy’s next text message.
Two searches later and he found himself immersed in a sea of moving pictures the likes of which a recording crystal had never seen. Some had words on them. Others danced across the page. It was overwhelming and invigorating all at once.
For the first time since they arrived on Earth, Clive pulled up Jason’s number and opened up a new message. His thumbs hovered. If he was going to start sending Jason regular pebbles, he had to do it right.
He closed the window and opened up the meme generator he found. Several searches later he cobbled together information from several tabs. ‘Going to a new planet’ and ‘worst things that can happen to you on said planet’ being among them.