“Why DO you keep on disappearing?” Phovos asked as Kairos pulled up a chair and sat down. He dumped several very large plastic bags on the table, then began to spread everything out.
“In what way?” Kairos asked. “Because lately it’s due to my brother being a depressed dick and constantly trying to kill himself.”
“I thought you hated your brother and wanted him dead?” Phovos blinked. “I mean, there was a whole massive war a few decades back where you hatched a plan to try and kill him. I know, I was there, fighting against you.”
Kairos smiled slyly, emptying the bags. He had bought way too much food, slow-cooked meats all coated in a large array of sauces, as well as small tubs of egg noodles and stir-fried poppy-pops and even smaller tubs with luxurious dipping sauces in them. “Well, you see, time may be ever-moving forward, never changing its course, but that doesn’t mean I am stuck in my ways. I realised that, deep down, I need Arkay more than he needs us.” Kairos waved his arms over the food. “Tuck in, dear!”
Phovos shrugged. “You know I was willing to cook, right?”
“Yes but I don’t want pasta and cheese sauce again. And I thought you could do with a stress-free meal.”
“Or several stress free meals…” Phovos shrugged some more as she helped herself to one of the tubs. Inside was aggelad meat, marinated in a salty yet sweet, dark sauce. “You do spoil me too much.”
“You deserve it!” Kairos continued to smile. He picked up a container filled with white meat and a curious pink sauce. “After all, I really, really like you. I haven’t felt the way I do when I’m with you for a really long time.”
The Raptor licked sauce off her fingers, feeling somewhat curious. Phovos had been having this weird on and off friendship with the Whenvern for a few years now, but they had only really ever been just that, friends. There’d been very little intimacy between them, and Phovos was pretty sure it wasn’t completely of her own doing.
“How long has it been then?”
“Since I had a partner?”
“Yeah.”
Kairos fell silent, quietly chewing on pieces of meat, somewhat forgetting that he really, really liked the sweet, sticky, saucy Ksithan cuisine in this corner of the universe. He chewed on several more pieces of meat, before eventually coming to an answer.
“It’s been about… fourteen…”
“Fourteen what?”
“Fourteen thousand years.”
Phovos dropped the slab of meat she was holding, shocked by that answer. After all, Phovos herself was an unnatural freak who had managed to live over a thousand years, but she hadn’t been… single the entire time. It was only her current iteration who was useless in relationships.
“That… is a really long time.”
“Not really, when you consider that I’m nearly 14 billion years old…” Kairos went back to his meal, happily downing chunks of delicious stewed meat and vegetables, then following it up with mouthfuls of noodles. “Why are you so curious, all of a sudden?”
Phovos stuttered. “I’ve been… uh… thinking of… growing up a bit.”
“You’re one thousand and twenty seven years old.”
“Yeah but technically I’m only twenty seven right now. My… last revival hasn’t been going that well…” Phovos looked up. “I’m sorry, do you know how my extended life works?”
“You basically grow old, pseudo-die then revert into a child and grow up again.”
“Basically.”
“And you have to grow up again, right? Which is why you are… not as fearsome as you used to be.”
Phovos nodded. “This time round, I’m a socially anxious plum who hates herself. It’s not the worst case of this happening but… I’m trying to snap out of it.”
“And?” Kairos smiled inquisitively.
“And… I like you…” Phovos cautiously admitted. “I don’t want to, uh, be lying to myself any more. I don’t want to be alone like I was in my last few… iterations.”
The Whenvern smiled a bit more. “Plus, a Time God is a little less likely to die than your average boyfriend…”
Phovos paused, her mouth hanging open. Suddenly, she burst out into laughter, caught completely off guard by Kairos’s statement.
“That’s hilarious!” Phovos giggled as she pulled herself together. “Sad but hilarious…”
Kairos snickered to himself, pleased that he had made Phovos laugh so heartily. As the two of them went back to their food though, something on Kairos’s person vibrated.
“What’s that?”
Kairos opened a flap on his armour, peered at some sort of device then slammed it shut.
“It’s just Arkadin, going on about one of his friends. He can deal with it though. After all, he is a fucking deity…”
Phovos leaned in, smiling up at Kairos. “So are you.”
“So am I…” Kairos grinned back, as he grabbed a forkful of noodles and shoved them in Phovos’s mouth. “Now eat up, this stuff’s way nicer when it’s fresh!”