The world swam in fog and lightning.
Coming together was a maelstrom; memories and thoughts merged violently, struggling for a place in time before being crushed together in his head. Wants and fears crashed together and like broken glass slotted into each other, a mosaic of confused thoughts, of two beings who were apart just slightly too long. He wanted to go home, he wanted to be free; he wanted control and to relinquish it, for the commands of his gods and to escape, to taste so much, to be numb.
What must have been a few seconds around him stretched and contorted into an eternity; Elliot and the Prince fought within his mind, struggling even as they came together once more.
Throughout it all he was in agony; Leviathan's grasp reclaimed him in blue, and he was paralyzed as his internal chains tightened and discipline reclaimed his mind. He was Unbound, he was Elliot, he was blinded white-hot by the pain of becoming himself. The two voices within him shouted, fury and righteousness, incoherent in their volume. They were so unbearably loud.
They were so loud
They were so
They were
I am.
The lightning receded. His mind was still swimming; he was still grasping internally, grappling for reality, trying to right himself. He drew in a breath, and somehow his lungs felt deeper, or perhaps the part of him that had truly needed breath hadn't tasted air. He blinked, looked, found a shape in the dark. A human. A woman. Brown eyes and curly hair.
Kirsty.
It came flooding back to him, two concurrent memories side by side. She must have hidden it -
No, not must have. She'd told him.
"Elliot, can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear, Miss Summerskill." He saw Kirsty roll her eyes a little and chuckled. Thank mercy Kirsty had turned the radio down in her car, and they were far away enough that Angelique would not interfere.
"Alright, good. So I kind of have a plan, and I want to apologize in advance."
"Apologize? Why?"
"It kind of involves lying to you. Him. I mean technically it's both by the end, but you're one person... I think."
"You understand as well as I do." Elliot had tried his best to understand what might happen, but even he had to admit to himself he was unsure. Would they merge back so easily? He couldn't express that, though; they all had enough worries to contend with.
He'd figure it out, as Elliot or as his true self. Somehow.
"So this," she said, holding the casket up while her other hand was on the wheel, "is where I've been keeping the pin hidden for years. Nobody knows about it - everyone thinks it's just something I keep on my desk for my father. And it is, but my point is that to me, it's also an important secret. I'm going to give it to him - you - the other half of you when I get there."
"I'm not sure I see where the lie comes in," he said, puzzled. "That is what he asked you to do."
"No," she said, putting it back down, "he asked me to bring him the pin. And I will, while thinking about how I've been hiding it in the casket."
"... but by the time it reaches him..."
"Exactly." Kirsty smiled a little. "You said that if he puts it in by himself, there's a chance he could keep you out. So while he's opening the box, my idea is that you can stay focused on manifesting inside the pin. Put all your power into that, and as soon as he looks down..."
"Quite clever," he said with a note of approval, "but yes, I can see how that might feel deceptive."
"I hope you can forgive me," she said, voice soft. He understood, somehow, that it wasn't him specifically she meant.
"We will have to see," he said, before feeling a shift in the energy. "We're close."
"I know." She pulled into a small lot. "We'll walk from here. Don't try to signal anyone from here onward." She parked, and took a breath. "Just hold onto the pin no matter what, okay?"
"As you command, Kirsty." She smiled again as she turned the car off, and Elliot did as asked, slotting into the energy surrounding the pin and holding on as if it was his body. It felt, somehow, like home.
Now here she was. Dazed, he'd asked her the first coherent thing he could think of - perhaps he should take to learning sign language - before his thoughts started to slowly but surely come back to him, before he started coming back to himself.
Elliot and the Unbound Prince grew quieter in his head, their voices slowly becoming one. His.
Slightly unsure but unwilling to show it, he held a hand forward. Kirsty - brilliant and frustrating Kirsty, he'd have never caught the trick - stepped closer, and slowly, almost tenderly, put her fingers on his.
"I suppose," he said, and her brow furrowed a little, "I can forgive you, just this once." He felt her laughter in her touch before it reached her voice, but laugh she did, a short sound of relief and almost of joy.
"You're back," she said, smiling at him, "thank goodness, you're back."
"Almost," he said, and again she looked at him quizzically. "The two parts of me are still... refitting themselves. I am afraid I cannot simply pick up where I left off, and we are short on time."
"I know," Kirsty said. She let go of his hand to push her hair back from her face. "I don't know what Tiffany's plan is, but I trust her to come up with something to at least hold Angelique off."
"That is not truly her name," he said, partially because it was a coherent thought and he was still struggling with them in his mind. "She follows the same rules that I do - I do not know her true name, only that Angelique is what she was given when she was dragged to this realm and sealed within human flesh."
"Then why call her that?" She frowned, and he couldn't help the cruel little smirk that crept across his lip. Perhaps his discipline was not entirely in place just yet.
"To remind ourselves, and her, that she is fallen." Oh, he would savor the look of shock on Kirsty's face forever if he remembered it. His expression turned grim quickly. "But she is powerful yet. We will need to be careful."
"So what can we do?" He finally felt steady enough to move, and started towards the door. Kirsty followed after him; he offered his arm, and to his immense satisfaction, she took it.
"I am afraid that to stop her, we will need to go with her idea." The doors swung open for him, and he saw Joey, who stared at them both with disbelief. Kirsty nodded to her, and she raised both hands in confusion before following the two of them and shaking her head. "We will need to open the door."
Holy smokes ya'll I can see the finish line. We're so close. I don't know what I'm gonna do when I'm done.
Okay, I kind of know, but still. Thank you all for reading this long, and I hope you enjoy!
-Inky
