Time alone is a fleeting thing, now that Titus is a magi.
It doesn't seem real. Nothing about Titus seems real now.
"Am I that different?"
Titus's voice is a little softer now. He's less on edge, and Sphintus has to wonder just how long he's been terrified of death. He can't help but think of Titus's fierce determination when they'd met, the way he'd been so focused on becoming the best of the Academy in a final, desperate hope that he could make a last stand worth remembering.
Sphintus shakes his head. He takes a hesitant step forward, palms sweating and heart thudding as if it's like it was long weeks ago, when he'd first gotten up the courage to talk to Titus alone in the dorms. It almost feels like they hadn't gotten to know each other so well since then, hadn't tasted each others' lips and felt firm hands gripping each other and looked into each others' eyes from bare inches away.
It almost feels like everything is new.
The moon touches Titus's skin, making him look as pale as marble. There's almost an aura to his skin, even though he's not trying to look otherworldly. He smiles, hesitant, as if he's really not sure whether there's anything different about himself.
He turns, and Sphintus catches the look in those clear blue eyes. The eyes themselves might be different (and how weird that is), but the look is the same.
"Not that different." Sphintus tries to sound casual, but it's full of relief. He's all too aware of how much the same he himself is, how much he's suddenly the one of the real world when his two best friends are suddenly ethereal beings of pure energy and spirit.
Titus wavers, but he doesn't advance any further. Maybe he knows it feels weird, now.
"I'm not her," he says suddenly. A pale arm raises, and he scratches self-consciously at his neck. "The Lady Scheherazade. I might have her memories, but I'm not her. She…went on." His next smile is more tentative, more anxious. "So if that's…I mean, if that's what you're worried about, it's not like you'd be—I mean, it's not like she'd be watching—"
"Shut up," Sphintus all but growls, and rushes forward the last couple feet to grab Titus's waist in two large hands, hearing a squeak before he smothers it with his lips.
Titus tastes different, but his arms are just as strong, and it feels as familiar as Sphintus wants when they loop around his neck. He'd never thought to feel that surprising strength again, to feel bony fingers digging into the base of his neck again, and all the little things he hadn't bothered to mourn suddenly seem more important than anything else.
God, he wants to not only hear Titus laugh, but see him get angry, to tug on his hair or feel him up and watch him squirm, to show him things he'd never heard of and watch him learn, and…
Yeah, and he wouldn't mind kisses like these every once in a while.
His hands don't knock off the familiar hat, but tangle in a new wild mass of hair, and he lets out a startled oath when it seems to eat his hands. "What the—"
"All of them had hair like this," Titus admits, breath heaving as he looks down, and Sphintus realizes only then that he'd jumped into Sphintus's arms, legs wrapped securely around his waist. "I cut most of mine off with a razor before I came to school. I noticed no one else had hair like that."
"Don't cut it this time."
Titus looks a little bemused, but he nods. "All right. Just for a little while. It's kind of—"
Sphintus wraps one hair through the strands and tugs, and Titus's reaction is just as good as it's always been, making him shiver. "If I don't mind carrying it and you," he says firmly, "you can leave it long."
"You say that like I'm heavy!"
"All your weight is in your ass. Ow!"
"Serves you right." Titus hesitates, then gives him another kiss, this one a little shy for all that he's still wrapped around Sphintus's torso. "You're my doctor," he reminds him, a trace of that haughty command surfacing in sarcasm now if anything. "You shouldn't let your patient wander around at all hours of the night. I should have you replaced."
"Some things never change," Sphintus mutters under his breath, and drags his patient off to bed.