“Hey! You came back already!” Kayel was grinning as he opened the door to his apartment, but that grin very quickly faded as he realized that Arkay had fabric wrapped around his neck and wrists. “Uh… are you well?”
“No… can I come in?”
Kayel nodded and led Arkay in, gently closing the door behind him. Arkay looked around, but didn’t sit down.
“May I use your bathroom?”
“Yeah, of course. Care to tell me what’s going on in the mean time?”
Arkay sighed, then stepped into the back room. He didn’t close the bathroom door, and was very careful with where he placed the fabric that he removed from his arms. Kayel noticed that the fabric was very thick and, after the first two layers, the fabric suddenly changed to pure black, soaked in Arkay’s blood.
“Epani found out about our little date.”
“Oh. Did… did she do this to you?”
“No. I did this to me. I worked out where Epani’s stupid trackers were implanted and I cut them out of my stupid body. Made a stupid mess of myself though since I was doing it on the fly. Maybe I could have asked Sini to do it for me, but I don’t know if she would have.”
As Arkay finished removing the bandages, both he and Kayel could see the damage done. He’d cut off some of his own arm plating, but at least everything seemed to be healing up, and the wounds were now just weeping, rather than heavily bleeding.
“She might have?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she would have. But… Epani summoned me to the Fortress. She told me off. Told me to stop speaking to mortals completely. Again. Said she’d hurt you if I disobeyed her. But then Sini came along and they started arguing. Epani couldn’t understand why I keep on not going completely cold and constantly stated she was keeping me chained up so I wouldn’t succumb to the Perpetual Hunger.”
“What’s that?” Kayel asked. “Sorry, I… don’t really know about this stuff.”
“It’s fine. Basically, same way mortal beings need to feed themselves, gods need to as well. Otherwise there’s a chance we can turn into Corruption ourselves. Because I’m… not a normal deity, I’m more at risk of it, apparently, and that’s Epani’s excuse for starving me.”
“But… you… that… that makes no sense! If you’re hungry, you should eat, right?”
Arkay reached for some nearby wet wipes, which he dabbed across the wounds. Once the liquid was mostly gone, Arkay then licked the wounds, which caused them to start healing up properly.
“That’s what I said, that’s what Sini said. Sini then went straight to the point, blatantly said that I am Epani’s slave and told Epani that, even though I am a slave, I still need to be fed and given basic needs. And you know what Epani said? She said I was a god, I didn’t need any of that. Pretty sure Kairos agreed, even though Sini called him a hypocrite for harassing Phovos but saying I shouldn’t even be talking to you!” Arkay paused. “Uh, do you have a plastic bag I can put this all in? It needs to be incinerated. I can’t risk my acid blood hurting anyone or someone getting a sample of my DNA.”
Kayel did as asked and fetched an old rubbish bag. While he did that, Arkay removed the fabric from his neck and repeated his actions, but since he couldn’t actually lick his neck (well, Arkay could if he extended his tongue, the shapeshifter he was, but that would have been a little creepy). Instead, Arkay licked one of the wet wipes and pressed that to his neck. Wasn’t quite as effective, but with a second dab, his neck injuries also began to heal up nicely.
“So, uh…” Kayel stuttered as he returned with the bag. “How did… all of that go?”
“Bad. I shouted at them. Told them I literally died so they could make their perfect little universe, that I didn’t even want to be resurrected and that I had more rights as a corpse then than I do now. I don’t know what they said after that, I stormed off and sobbed for a bit in the room Sini lets me sleep in. They’re probably discussing another reset for me.”
Arkay fell silent. He threw everything into the bag, then tied it up tightly, before heading back into Kayel’s living room and sitting down on the sofa. Kayel sat down next to him but didn’t say anything.
“I thought about just killing myself. Can’t do that, that would break the universe, and me hurting others is the worst thing I could do. So I thought about putting myself into a coma. Apparently I was in a coma for nearly a month, and the universe was fine without me. Makes sense to go back to that. I don’t get hungry if I’m asleep, I don’t have to be a slave if I am dreaming. So I cut out my trackers, left them in one of Kairos’s stupid crystal castles, then made my way here. I…” Arkay choked on his words. There were inky tears in his eyes. “I guess I came here to say goodbye.”
Kayel hesitated, then immediately wrapped his arms around Arkay. “You’re not fucking going anywhere! I won’t let you!”
“But-”
“No! You’re staying here! With me! You’re my room mate now! Alright, admittedly, I mostly live at Retvik’s place now, but Retvik’s still in Phos, and I’m sure he’d be 100% fine with you staying with me! Or whatever! No matter what though, you’re fucking staying here, I won’t let you leave! You saved my stupid life, I want to save your stupid life!”
Arkay didn’t say anything. He closed his eyes and leaned into Kayel’s hug.
“You put yourself into a coma, then that bitch-ass whale cuntbag will win, forever.”
“She won two billion years ago.”
“She didn’t. You’re here. You’re talking to me. Epani told you not to talk to anyone, but you came here. You’re looking for ways to break free, you feel like you have no options left, but you do. Sure, hiding is nearly as bad as being in a coma, but I’ll hide you. And Tenuk and Nyssi and Retvik will help. And Talok, even if she’s a Vohra and a little weird. Kuta too, even though you kinda dumped them. I’m sure the Raptor can help as well, she likes you, she still worships you even though you tell people not to. Heck, we could even ask Thassalin, the fucking massive pink Thraki. He fucking threw himself the Whenvern in a bid to protect you when you were comatose, just before you got reset. My point is, the gods don’t care, but us mortals do.”
“I… I appreciate that…” Arkay hugged Kayel back. “I don’t want to put you in danger though.”
“Which is why everyone I just listed is technically immortal. I’m not sure about Thassalin, I’m just going by what Kuta and my old buddy Psikay said, but everyone else is stupidly hard to kill. And in all honesty? I think Sini will help too. She’s fucking weird and fucking terrifying but she seems to want you to be happier.”
Arkay sighed. “You’re right. You’re always right. Can I, like, stay here for a couple of days? While I work out what to do with myself?”
“Yeah!” Kayel’s eyes lit up as he realized that Arkay had calmed down and wasn’t going to do anything too stupid. “You can sleep in my bed with me, if you want.”
“Um, I think, right now, it’d be better if I just slept on the sofa. Plus, I need to head out tomorrow to grab my handful of belongings from Sini’s lab before Epani or Kairos try to take them away from me.”
Kayel shrugged, then patted Arkay on the head. “Fair enough. But you’re stressed as fuck, you need to take a few hours to cool down. So we should, I dunno, sit here, watch some TV or something. I’ll order pizza if you want. Not from that place down the road though, they were late and their pizza sucked.”
Arkay smiled ever so slightly. “Alright. That sounds like a plan. Thank you, Kayel.”
Kayel hugged Arkay again. “Mate, you made me unkillable. Letting you stay here for a bit while you sort yourself out is the least I can do.”