whatsina_name | (no subject)

(no subject)

You know, it really figured that pretty much right after Phillip and Carden had talked about what they wanted with each other, wanted to stay together even if it meant dealing with Duplicity, thrown out the possibility of being together forever in a very literal sense, that they immediately got separated.

Fucking typical.

Phillip showed back up in his college dorm room a week into term, exactly when he'd left, thoroughly disoriented and not remembering a goddamn thing about what he was supposed to be doing and frankly not super caring. Because it was all well and good to be back home, away from the powers that be of Duplicity, but there was no way in hell he was just going to let Carden slip away that easily. Delaying only long enough to call Mia and update her on what had happened and what he was doing (a conversation that had a lot of 'what the FUCK's on her end of it), he reached deeper into his power than he had ever dared on this world and figured out how to cast himself into the multiverse.

In reality, he kind of didn't know what he was looking for. He had no way to tell if a world he landed on was Carden's or not. It was entirely... by instinct. By feeling. By trying to listen to whatever magic existed in the world and imagining Carden's as part of it, trying to figure out if there was a whisper of it in there.

Phillip had no idea how long it actually look him to find the right one, but he knew it was right the second he materialized on it. There was something about it that just resonated in a way that the others he'd tried hadn't. Now to just... figure out where, exactly, Carden was. The American south was still a big, big place. So first thing was to slip into a female form- she had no idea what the state of homophobia was in this world and didn't want finding him to be ruined by idiots. Then she played a magical game of 'hot or cold': dropping into small towns and usually staying just long enough to confirm Carden wasn't there (and often causing a bit of a stir) before moving on, trying to follow what she thought was the feel of his magic. Hopefully she was right.

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Oh, Phillip absolutely remembers Carden's reactions to his teleporting- which is why he does pull Carden closer and make sure where they end up is his (hopefully empty) dorm room.

He did have to do a lot of practicing to find Carden in the first place, and during the weeks Carden was finishing up he did make sure it was easy for him to get back so they wouldn't have to jump around again. The actual shift won't feel like much to Carden if he keeps his eyes closed, mostly like someone opened a door and let a breeze in. With his eyes open, he would have seen glimpses of too many worlds to count.

So yeah, probably for the best he keeps them shut.

"We're here," Phillip says a moment after they land in a college dorm, thankfully vacated for the moment. It's still pretty sparse, technically still being before the semester starts, just the standard issue bed, desk, dresser, and chair on either side. It is... pretty easy to tell which is Phillip's since the other one looks way too boring for him.

He's pulled in and goes easily with the motion, curls his arms loosely around Phillip. They're still working their way around to him touching him more freely, but that had taken a while in Duplicity, too. He's still mostly reactive, but Phillip had months of that to get used to in the city, so it's easy to get around. And he's very reactive, which helps, all but curling into Phillip's arms with the slightest tugging there, like he remembers on some level he's allowed, he just has to be reminded on the conscious level.

He makes the hottest little noise when Phillip's magic coils around him, shock and desire, and he's not as attuned as he was but he also doesn't know what to expect. He doesn't quite lose his footing, but Phillip can easily feel his knees go a bit jelly for a moment, his hands cling harder to keep his feet.

"It keeps taking me off-guard..." he murmurs in explanation, because he doesn't know he doesn't need to give one, "when I realize how powerful you are."

Coming from someone else, that might sound impressed or like he's intimidated or something, but there's a heat to Carden's tone that would convey something quite different, even if Phillip wasn't already sure that was the case.

Fuck, he loves the way Carden reacts to that. He holds him tight to him when he feels him cling, feels him go a little weak next to him. He's not sure he ever really explained to Carden that it didn't bother him at all that his power was something he reacted to like that, because he was so used to people being freaked out by it on some level that just how into it Carden was made him feel really good. He might not have needed to tell him.

"I know," he says, and there's a grin on his face as he leans down to catch him in a deep kiss. But he makes the conscious decision to try and pull back before it escalates too far- there's still some things they should do to actually get Carden settled. "So there's a couple things we could do," he says, maybe a touch breathless because of the depth of the kiss to start, "I am at the least going to magic up like... legal ID for you and stuff so we don't run into problems with that. Do you want to try and find a job, have me get you in as a student...?" He knows Carden sometimes wanted to do more school, he just isn't sure how much meddling he's comfortable with right now.

Even now, there's always just that little voice somewhere in the back of Carden's head that says that he never wants Phillip to feel for even a moment that whatever powers he has are in any way relevant to why Carden loves him. There's a difference, of course, between thinking something is hot coming from someone you love and loving something because it's hot, but even without the memory of why, he's extra conscious of that line.

There's no way to be cautious when he kisses like that, though, particularly not on the heels of being wrapped entirely in Phillip's magic, and there's a desperate edge to Carden's side of the kiss, a little involuntary whine when Phillip pulls away.

"God, give me a minute," he says, breathless, though he doesn't sound annoyed in the slightest, just like his brain is scattered in a million pieces, "You can't kiss me like that and then ask me questions I have to think about..." He reels a little, lays his head on Phillip's shoulder, and tries to get his breathing back steady.

Phillip laughs, keeping his arms wrapped around Carden and still supporting him and his weight. "Fine, fine," he says, kissing the side of his head and rubbing a hand over his back. There's not really a rush, just that the conversation might get awkward if they wait for his roommate to get back.

Even with all of his memories, it surprised Carden each and every time when Phillip was as steadying of a presence as he is. Just leaning here with his eyes closed, listening to the beat of Phillip's heart, is enough to bring clarity in a way that's a bit shocking, for all that he enjoys it.

"Identification would be good, yeah," he says, first, because that's hardly in doubt, "But I don't think I'm ready to go from fugitive to college student. There's so much else I want... need to learn." The hint of a plan starts to form, "I don't suppose there's any way to make it so your roommate gets reassigned and just... no one else gets assigned there? I can play the part of a student just fine and it will give us time to find somewhere to live near campus."

There are some presumptions there, and a slight bit of a question mark in his tone to all of it, but Phillip hasn't rebuffed him yet for talking about the two of them as though they really are sharing a future.

Phillip would have thought that them sharing a future was obvious, at this point- he wouldn't really have jumped across universes and brought someone back to his own if he didn't at bare minimum want them in his life. And with Carden, it's the more intense version of that feeling.

He grins at the idea, though. It hadn't actually occurred to him to make his roommate less of a problem. "I'm pretty sure I can do that," he says, leaning in to give him another brief kiss. This time after he breaks it, there is a definite shift in the air of his magic working around them. Changing things like this isn't something he's really done before, would have freaked him out before Duplicity, but he's so much more in tune with it now and more comfortable as a result.

Look, Phillip isn't the only one that can completely ignore the obvious in relationships.

There's a little tremor of shock that goes through Carden when Phillip just starts... rearranging reality to suit them, eyes going wide. They glaze over a moment later, though, and then flicker closed as his head goes limp on Phillip's shoulder. It's not quite like the teleporting, which gets the reaction it does because it might as well be Phillip putting his hands all over Carden's body and soul at once, but Carden can feel what he's doing.

"I can feel that..." he murmurs, when it's done, voice soft, "What you were doing." His tone is warm, but a little spacy.

"Yeah?" Phillip nuzzles his face into Carden's neck, just enjoying having him there. He's just... so happy to have him here. He meant it, when he said he would stay in Duplicity for him, and to have him somewhere he actually wants to be makes it even better. Even if he knows he'll get to keep him, he has no desire to let go just yet. "You're getting better at that. ...You're probably better than me, honestly." That's always been one of Phillip's blind spots, actually being able to follow people's magic. He was really only able to find Carden through his because he was so intimately familiar with it.

"Yeah. It feels kind of... good?" it's not that he's not sure if it's good or not that causes the question mark, but more than he's not sure if that's really the impression he wants to give. It's not good like the teleportation was, it's more just... warm, maybe, calming, "Nice. Like... uh... hearing someone else in another room doing something?" He's not sure if that gets across what he means or not.

"I want to remember," he says a moment later, "I want to have that with you, too."

Some things have changed. Carden having no chill has not.

Phillip thinks he gets what Carden is trying to say, more or less. He reaches up, playing with his hair a little and a fond smile on his face. "It'll be ok," he says quietly, because not only does he have to believe that he actually does, "We've got time."

He loves how little chill Carden has, honestly, and even though he should probably be letting go and getting them settled he just tightens his grip instead, pressing them up very close indeed.

And they do have time.

Things settle. The roommate is transferred and a new one doesn't arrive and no one really questions it when Carden comes and goes and they push the beds together and generally, it's the most wonderful thing Carden can remember. To wake up in the same place and know he's not being hunted, to not feel strange or out of place. He fits in with the other students, even if he has to kind of keep it vague about his classes. No one really cares, no one is looking at him. And while he wasn't sure about the city before, once he figures out how to just disappear in it, there's something just as soothing about it as about any small town. Life is different, but life is good.

And the magic comes back.

It's bits and pieces, but he catches himself working with it without really thinking and he gets a bit of a reputation as a space cadet because once he can see the pattern it's hard to stop looking at it. He doesn't have any of the Merlin-specific memories, but they're secondary to the magic anyway.

And so, it's weird, to jolt upright in bed, a scream halfway up his throat, with a nightmare of power under his skin, the feeling like he's coming apart at the seams and then... then... He turns wide, started eyes over to Phillip, whether he's managed to sleep through that or not.

Phillip can be a bizarrely deep sleeper for someone who doesn't actually need sleep, but he does still have an awareness of what's happening around him all the same. It's less the jolt and the scream that cause him to stir as the sheer anxiety radiating off of Carden. He opens his eyes a little groggily, lifting his head up off the pillow look at him, not totally able to decipher the expression on his face.

"Hey... you ok?" he asks softly, and the picture in front of Carden might be hard to reconcile with the dream he just had.

"I... I..." it's all he can manage for a long moment, drowning suddenly in fear. He's not afraid of Phillip in the slightest, it doesn't even occur to him to be, but he's mired deep in the fear of the unknown, that feeling like the ground is yawning open around him and he's panicking trying not to fall.

One deep breath, hard won, another, shaking,

"I... died. You..." he throat closes around the words. He doesn't know how he knows it's not just a nightmare, but he does, fingers rubbing at his wrists like he can still feel the clasp of metal around them.

Oh, shit.

"Hey, hey," Phillip says softly, pulling himself up to sit and carefully resting his hands on Carden- ready to pull aware in an instant if the touch isn't welcome. If he's remembering that out of context, then, well-- he's a little surprised Carden hasn't jumped out of bed to get away from him. "I-- you did. But it... it turned out ok."

He doesn't pull away, but he doesn't collapse forward into him either, mind still half caught in the memory.

"So much power... I had to save someone... had to... Azwel," that's enough to startle him out of the panic for a moment, "I remember Azwel!" and then brow furrowing as more ticks through, trickles, but this isn't like being certain of something he can't remember, he does remember, "And you. I remember..." he falls silent, reaches out to lay cold fingers against Phillip's cheek. "I remember you."

It's very clear with the context that he means on the beach, a richness to the word you as he says it that says he means more than just the young man in front of him.

Phillip reaches up, resting one of his hands over the one on his cheek to try and warm it. It is probably good that he's remembering Azwel. This is a terrible context to do that in.

He gives the hand a little squeeze before asking, "Do you want me to fill in the blanks, or do you want to see how far you can get?" This might be a.. particularly unpleasant one for Carden to reflect on.

"No I... I remember," he doesn't know how to explain it, how it's different from how he just kind of knew things before, "I just... it's a hell of a memory," he chokes out, "Just trying to..." but he's not sure how to finish that, shudders instead.

It's a lot, is what he means, remembering dying, remembering what it had been like, to see Phillip as he is and not this. But also... not wholly not this, either.

"Oh." Well then. What an... awful first real memory.

Phillip just quiets down for the moment, hands still on Carden but hesitant to pull him in. He will shift a little closer as a compromise, his chest resting against Carden's back in hopes that would steady him and also not freak him out.

Carden is extremely freaked out, but it doesn't seem to be made any worse by Phillip pulling in closer. He's tense, but he doesn't tense further at the touch, doesn't flinch or pull away. He doesn't say much, either, but it's easy to see that he's reliving it a bit in remembering, has to process through it.

"I knew before, you know? When I've felt your power. Even before I knew, I knew," he says finally, "but there's a difference between knowing in theory and remembering the reality, knowing for sure." That is not a good start and there's a pause there where Carden is clearly psyching himself up to say something that likely is absolutely horrifying for Phillip to have to sit through, but Carden just leans back in his arms, finally, until he can sort of make eye contact over his shoulder,

"Why do I feel guilty for being fascinated by that? I'm still missing that memory."

It is not a pleasant pause to sit through, and there's a horrible curdling feeling in Phillip's stomach as he tries to be patient and wait and not panic. Carden has never expressed any kind of fear or disgust or anything negative related to what he is before, but he can't help but feel like that's what's coming. Maybe there needed to be a build up of other memories between them first, for it to be alright. Maybe this combined with his actual death is just too much.

When Carden finally looks at him and speaks, there is a very conflicted train of emotions as his brain tries to figure out if he's relieved it's not bad or confused by what Carden's saying. Guilty? Why on earth would he feel gui-- oh.

"You don't need to feel guilty," he says softly, wrapping an arm loosely around Carden to give him a little squeeze, "I kind of like that you're so into it, honestly? It beats the normal alternative of people still being low key terrified of me and just knowing me well enough to know I probably wouldn't do anything with it. But... if I were to guess?"

Phillip sighs, tipping his head forward into Carden's shoulder. "The only person other than you who's been... I guess 'fascinated' is a fine way to put it, they kind of wound up using me and my powers. You've already made it really clear that it's not why you like me, more like it's a bonus, and I appreciate that, but... if that's why you feel guilty then you really don't need to."

"It's... okay?" he turns a little more in his arms until he's more snuggled against his chest than anything else, "Are you... sure?" he waits for some kind of nod, confirmation, something, and then there a breath out, some of the tension melting out of him, not exactly like that was what was making him tense, but like that is the signal that it's over. There's a beat, but it's clear he's not wholly done, is still carrying something, and it's a mark of how much he's changed even without remembering, that he immediately tries to put words to it, instead of just holding it in.

"It's..." he has to pause before he's even really started, "Uh. Well... Hot isn't quite the right word but it's... not quite the wrong one, either. It's more just..." he struggles, but he's still moving, "I still don't understand exactly what someone like me has done to get someone like your attention. No, shh," he lays his fingers on Phillip's mouth, whether a protest there is actually coming or not, "I just mean, you're on a completely different level. But... I'm glad I did. Do. But there's something about that memory and when we teleported, like... when I'm seeing you like that, or your power like that, it brings this kind of... gratitude to the front, I guess? No, that's not right either," he huffs, frustrated, and then turns more and suddenly his mouth his hot on Phillip's neck, his body shifting against his and there's this sudden edge to him. He's turned more and now he's somewhere between curled up in Phillip's lap and pinning him to the mattress,

"Do it now, and I'll show you."

It's the kind of boldness that only exists in the middle of the night when you've either stayed up too late or woken up, when the consequences of the evening don't exist, when you're in some kind of liminal space between days.

Phillip nods, wrapping his arms around Carden a little more securely when he feels him relax. They're not done with this yet, not completely, that much is obvious. So he keeps up little soothing motions, even as he absolutely would have protested if Carden let him, just trying to let Carden work out what he's trying to say.

And then the mood changes entirely.

There is a definite flush that streaks across Phillip's cheeks as Carden completely shifts around, suddenly makes this feel way more sexual than it has any right to when he was shaking with terror just a few minutes before. But the way Carden has zero chill and can ramp up from zero to a hundred in mere seconds is one of the things Phillip loves about him, and he has no defenses against this.

He swallows, the moisture seeming to have just vanished from his throat. "Yeah-- ok." The darkness swallows them up, and they only move a couple of inches on the bed, but it doesn't really matter- the magic feels just as potent as it always does.

He just pursues things, sees something he wants to understand and dives for it, with no real care for the consequences. It's one of the reasons he doesn't really consider himself "good" even as he's usually kind. This is no different.

He's been told this is okay, that he's not going to hurt Phillip with it, and he just trusts that, and when the magic wraps around him, he groans, body shifting so he's definitely more pinning Phillip now and his mouth works what would be an impressive hickey on anyone else into his neck while he does before he's travelling down.

There's something just intense about him, hands pushing whatever clothing needs to be out of the way out of the way so that his mouth can touch skin, a constellation of points being formed slowly down Phillip's torso. Every reaction from Phillip pulls an answering one from Carden, a low, rumbling noise of pleasure, and Phillip can immediately tell why Carden both chose and discarded the word "gratitude" to describe this. It's too possessive, ravenous, but there's also a level of care, here, like he's both laying claim and trying to get Phillip mindless in pleasure at the same time, teeth sinking into his skin a little bit harder every time he makes a particularly good noise, like he's literally hungry for them.

Phillip lets himself be pinned, leaning back into a position that is hopefully more comfortable for them and will allow them to linger here. He tips his head to the side, allowing whatever angles Carden wants with soft and aching noises at every possessive touch.

It does still sometimes confuse him, how fast the switch can flip and Carden can go from unsure to forceful, but he does not mind in the slightest. It's hard to get him out of his own head as Carden well knows, but catching him off guard makes it harder for him to think in the first place. So if 'mindless pleasure' is what Carden is aiming for, he's very much on the right track. Phillip sinks into the bed, his own hands aiming to peel whatever clothes Carden might sleep with back to touch at skin on his own. It's less focused than it might have been on his own-- Carden is being very distracting, and those teeth in his skin earn a shuddering moan.