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It's so strange, being back.

Ishgard hasn't changed in hundreds of years, strange to think it would have changed since he'd been here last, but then, everywhere else he'd been has changed just in the time he's been there. So it's strange to be walking streets he knows from his childhood but with eyes that are so different.

Beside him, Emmanelain chatters on about the different facets of city life. He had made sure Haurchefant knew to petition his former family with as much discretion as possible. They, of course, had simply said their son had died and they were certain some fugitive from Uldah couldn't be him anyway. He hadn't expected any differently. He feels like that person is dead and he breathes on as someone wholly different anyway, but it's strange, to be being shown around the place he grew up in by a member of one of the High Houses, someone his parents would have killed for him to be friends with just a few short years earlier, as though he were a stranger to this place.

He has always been a stranger to this place.

Dressed in Gridanian fashion and tanned lightly by the sun, he doesn't expect there's anyone here who would recognize him. He'd been barely more than a ghost when he left, hardly a warrior of anything. But as they pass through the Jeweled Croizer and Emmanelain gets caught up talking to some girl he's been trying to woo, there's a sudden, strange sensation at the back of his head, something like and unlike the Echo, and he turns, eyes scanning the busy street for... something. Someone.

(For some reason, unbidden, he remembers the night of the Calamity, giant pieces of some other part of Eorzea raining from the sky..

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Somehow, that is worse.

Phillip looks up from his braid, his eyes sad. "...We shouldn't be judged by our worst day or our worst feature, is the point," he says softly, "At least, not it alone. There is more to us, all of us, then that. And, for the most part, we try our best to make it all the best it can be."

He's quiet a moment, before dropping his hair and stepping closer again, though not yet touching. "There is an old saying, that it is better to have loved and lost, then to have never loved at all." It is a saying he holds dear, and Gustavain may remember the time where it all came lose, where he'd said as much- that even though he was doomed to live years beyond Gustavain, he still wanted this, wanted the time they could have together. "Is it better, then, to have existed and suffered, or to never have existed at all?"

That is, essentially, Hermes's question, with Meteion answering in the later. But Phillip can't believe that. Not for a second. Life is too precious to just throw away because not all of its parts are pleasant.

"I don't know," he says, and it's honest, not a deflection or an argument. "I know my own answer, but I don't know that I have the right to make that decision for everyone, for good or ill. To force everyone to continue to suffer and die and be reborn, over and over again. To know that it will not get better, because if it does get better, it will only lead back around to the very despair that Meteion found out in space. Gods, if you could have heard her... listing off the fate of thousands, millions of other people, the emptiness of their hopes and dreams, what became of them."

He shakes his head,

"I can't be angry at Hermes, or at Meteion either, even though I believe what they did, what they are doing, is wrong. Not without being an utter hypocrite."

Phillip reaches out, taking one of his hands and squeezing it. "And it's not hers or Hermes's choice to make for everyone, either," he says, "And... I don't know exactly what she said, but it was just their ends, wasn't it? She didn't know what their lives had been before, the highs and lows of their lives. That's far from all of their stories."

He supposes he understands a bit more now, having heard Gustavain mull over it, but... he's not going to stop being angry. It's-- well. It's bit more personal, for him. He had to live through the whole damn thing.

"No, it shouldn't be their choice, either." He doesn't respond to the rest of it. He's too tired to argue any of this. It's true that it's more personal for Phillip, but it's more recent for him. And what he mostly feels, worn bright on his sleeve, is worn thin, to the point he's almost surprised anything is solid, that he's still solid. He's no stranger at this point to carrying the hopes and dreams of others, their lives and their deaths, but it never gets easier for him, and it's never been heavier.

He'd been there. He'd seen her-- Venat. Hydaelyn. He'd failed to prevent anything-- even if he was told not to expect he could change things, it still feels horrible, to know that, instead, he caused it, in a way. He doesn't want to debate anything right now.

He's quiet for a moment, just rubbing Gustavain's arm gently. He doesn't really wan to argue it either- though he might if he knew the man was blaming himself- but... unfortunately that is how he tends to deal with these things.

"...It doesn't really matter," he concedes after a moment, "We can't change it. We just... well, right now you need to rest." Though how to get that rest, when physical fatigue isn't the problem...

"Rest sounds lovely," is what he says, but the tone of his voice, the almost desperate tint to it, says that he's having similar thoughts about how to even attempt to rest given what he's seeking solace from. He'd feel guilty about taking the time to rest if there was anything, anything at all that he could actually do right now. But he's done what he does best, flung himself headlong into something only he could do and see and experience, and brought back the knowledge for everyone else. Now it was their turn for a while-- he's an excellent tactician once he has something to fight, a set of known variables. But the research and deep thinking and problem solving that is likely going on in his wake is not something he will have any meaningful contribution to. They will come up with a crazy plan that relies on him being crazy and he will do whatever it is.

If he was anyone else, perhaps that would feel belittling or exhausting. He does have some Thoughts about how much he occasionally is used as a weapon or a tool rather than a person, and he's learned not to bury those too deep, lest they consume him again. But truthfully, most times, he's grateful that this is the part he can play and not any of the others. Even when he's threadbare to the core, he'd rather be here than in there trying to figure out how to make sense of what's next.

"Do you remember your time in Elpis much at all?" he finally says, because there is something else to deal with here, something that doesn't have the fate of the world hanging on it.

Phillip will try to steer him to the bed, to at least get him to sit, running a hand contemplatively through his hair. This... does need to get talked about, too, but somehow he feels like he has less of an idea where it was going.

"I do now," he says, twisting a bit of hair in his fingers, "It-- sort of faded from memory, I suppose. Not sure how in hindsight." There's a bit of tease in there, even though it's not really surprising he forgot in the massive span of time one little incident with one of "Azem's familiars".

He lets himself be steered. He doesn't show any particular desire to lead himself to anything or do anything without being prompted, but it doesn't seem like a particularly dangerous fugue or anything so much as just that he's exhausted, in every way it was possible to be exhausted, and the thought of navigating, of thinking through, even so much as the path to the bed, seems an impossible climb. Far easier to just trail along easily with Phillip's prompting.

(And though Phillip would almost certainly say he's still too selfless, he's not above enjoying being fussed over a little bit.)

"So... you do remember what just happened. Or well... what just happened for me, I suppose."

"What just happened for you," Phillip repeats, because it's not a fresh memory by any means. He strokes Gustavain's hair, possibly moving him to lay with his head in his lap if that seems like something the man would fall into. "I may be missing some details, but perhaps you'd refresh my memory on another occasion."

Listen, the day that Gustavain isn't going to latch onto something like that when given a chance is a day when he's dead. Or at least an indication that Phillip would need to be seriously worried about him. He's easily lead anywhere, head in Phillip's lap included, and he shifts to look up at him with a sly little grin,

"I'd be happy to refresh your memory about it whenever you'd like," and if there was any ambiguity about the kind of thing that he's referencing, if Phillip hasn't really remembered one of Azem's familiars and how... well, familiar he would be now, the tone doesn't leave much. Not that that's definitely going to jog the entire memory loose or anything, but it definitely gives it the context.

"It was strange," he adds after a moment, shifting back to more properly use Phillip's lap as a pillow. "For it to be you and also not you."

Oh, he definitely remembered the context. He doesn't remember any specifics of conversation, or how the familiarity got so personal. But frankly, this does explain a lot about what he does remember.

"I can imagine." He will not add that he probably has a better idea than most, given Azem and... all of that. "...I was very different back then." They all were, in a time before any real threat really existed. It wasn't quite as perfect as Emet-Selch had made it out to be, but it was certainly less fraught with danger than this one.

"It was... intriguing," he decides on the word after a moment, and then can't help but laugh, though it's a short, sharp one, "Obviously I couldn't resist you even then. I did try, I assure you." He falls silent for a moment, just closes his eyes and lays there, lets Phillip fuss over him a bit if he's doing so, before he adds,

"I'm biased, of course, but I prefer you like this. To steal a glimpse of something that was cannot be described as anything but lovely, to learn someone new who isn't new at all. It was unique and precious. But in this time and this place and this... me, I suppose, I wouldn't wish for you to be any different than you are."

Oh he’s definitely fussing, mostly through soft affectionate touches through his hair and around the lines of his face. He laughs a little too, smiling. “I was not unhappy that you failed,” he hums.

That admission gives him pause, and he leans down to press a kiss to his head. “Flatterer,” he says, though it’s impossible to hide that he’s a little surprised, his tone a little softer. He wouldn’t have thought anyone would have reason to prefer this tired and cynical version of himself.

"I've no need for flattery when I can just tell the truth," he returns, doesn't really let Phillip run from that opinion. In fact, he rolls back over slightly, enough that he can reach up and cup the side of Phillip's face, "I am certain that Azem had little to complain about in how you were, but I prefer you like this. I could never compare to the heart of someone from that time, to have never known loss, to have never feared death. It would be like falling in love with a god-- distant and hopeless and uncommunicable. In the world I have always known, tragedy and beauty cannot be unwound from one another."

His lips curl into the smallest of smiles,

"That's why we're going to save this world. Meteion isn't wrong. But I can't believe that is wrong, either."

Phillips still for a minute, taking that in. “I… suppose that does make sense,” he admits, reaching out to touch the man’s cheek. If he went back in time, how would he even feel about it all? People who didn’t know what was to come, and had absolutely no previous experience with despair? Jealous? Sad? Frustrated?

He leans in, catching Gustavain in a soft kiss. “No. I don’t believe it is either.”

And that is also why he finds it hard to blame Hermes. To live in a perfect world, where only you believe it to be anything but, where only you seem to understand sadness. It's no wonder he looked to the stars for answers-- there was no one else who could give him any. Gustavain wasn't sure he wouldn't have done the same, or similar. And then to find that there was no hope anywhere, nothing out there but other failed hopes, nothing to learn, no answers to be found.

He would go mad.

He doesn't want other people to suffer, of course, but suffering is just a part of life for him, not an aberration, and it's somehow easier to deal with, he thinks, for it's communal-ness, for it's inevitability.

And all of this is too much, after everything, too emotionally intimate, and there's only one proper way to ease that pressure as far as he's concerned. So he lets his mouth curve into the smirk it wants to move into, though his eyes still say love more than lust,

"I do have to admit, I did enjoy how easy it was to have you so clearly aching for me, though... I barely had to do anything."

Phillip tilts his head playfully, reading the little shift and moving slightly in that direction himself- this keeps being how they deal with things like this, and he's not sure if that's a good thing but it hasn't hurt so far. "Mmm, well, could be a few reasons for that," he muses, "Younger, less generally experienced, and less likely to just be a brat for the sake of it--"

Though something strikes his memory, and he pauses to try and remember. "Did I sing for you?"

There is a difference, Gustavain thinks, between running away from something: fear, emotional intimacy, feeling something too deeply and allowing the tension to ease, the pressure to release. The emotional weight of what he's had to bear would be too much for anyone and he just keeps having to bear it and if the only way to vent some of that pressure is in bed, is that actually unhealthy in some way? Particularly with a partner he loves?

(He knows what running from his emotions looks like. He saw it at Whitebrim. This is not that.)

"You did," he confirms and his tone speaks volumes. "I didn't realize it until then, but we've never actually performed for each other, have we?"

"We haven't," he says, though his is a tone more that he hasn't really considered it, and perhaps the next thing he says is why, "I haven't sung like that in... a long while."

An incredibly long while. Not quite before the world was sundered, but close. (No time for 'foolishness' once it was on them to save their world, a certain Paragon might have told him.)

"Well, I meant more prosaically, even. By the time we met again, I was a bit too infamous to be singing in taverns for the most part. But I wouldn't mind hearing you sing like that again, either." He can't help the smirk, of course, "Though perhaps this time, it could be somewhere a little more private."

"I'm quite rusty," Phillip warns him, but at the same time he tilts their heads together, drawing more attention to their closeness, "...but I wouldn't mind either. More private than this, or?"

...He's genuinely not sure. Fucking around with dynamic during the Final Days may not be the best idea in a city, but it probably wouldn't go too badly- he's smart enough not to sing about despair, thanks.

He doesn't really understand that the singing is powered by dynamis, because how could he possibly, but he does react with surprise about the offer to do so now, nevertheless.

"I'm not entirely sure I have a good song in me right now, honestly. Maybe after I sleep for a million years. All of this has been barely even a day and a half for me, and I haven't slept since I got back," practicalities first, for all he pushes himself, but then he does add, "If you want to help me get cleaned up and then sing me to sleep, though, I'm not going to complain."

He does the thing where he clearly means a bath and to sleep and also very clearly is including sex in there somewhere.

Phillip chuckles. "I can certainly help with that," he says quietly, arm around the other man's waist. He probably doesn't actually need the help getting to the bathroom, strictly speaking, but it certainly couldn't hurt after all he's been through.

He doesn't need it, but he takes it all the same, Phillip one of the few people allowed to see him like this, to offer this kind of comfort and have it accepted so easily. From someone else, he's able to graciously accept what's needed, and mostly knows the difference between needed and merely wanted. Mostly. But with Phillip, there's no hesitation to lean his weight into him, all but let him carry him to the bathroom.

If left to his own devices, he'll run a bath and put some relaxing oils into it, the tub here a little spartan and small but big enough to at least somewhat soak (and to somewhat disguise the fact that he's not really sure that he's able to stand up through a shower) but if Phillip takes the lead on that, he'll just slump against the wall instead while he works, perfectly happy to turn even that over the the other man.

Phillip's glad he does, because Gustavain's entire life would probably be more needlessly difficult if he didn't accept it from someone. And, on the selfish angle, he's glad it's him.

He will draw a bath, just because from a comfort angle that sounds more relaxing, with what oils he can find nearby. He won't join him in it- it's too small for that, but he might sit behind him on the edge, toeing the line between teasing and genuine care to help get his hair suds up.

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