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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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Phillip gently strokes the hands in his own, trying to muddle through this as well. "Is that surprising?" he asks after a moment, looking up at Gustavain, "Your memories and experiences are different, but... even sundered, your soul is still your soul. There are things that change with the life you remember living, but it's entirely possible that how you handle those experiences wouldn't change."

He doesn't know if that will help. Hells, that might even be the crux of the problem. He feels like that might be the kind of thing he would take issue with. But-- "I don't think it's necessarily bad or anything like that," he continues, "You're still you before anyone or anything else."

"It's just... strange. There are people who know me who don't know me, there's echoes of me everywhere," he shakes his head, "I'm sure each one of those lives has been it's own person, the same as every soul on this star, and you're right that I'm not any different, not really," he tilts his head more into Phillip, until his lips can brush across his skin,

"But you also know that's not entirely true..." there's something darker to his voice, something that's not quite how he can get in bed or how he sounded when he was that golden-eyed version of himself, but something that takes a bit from both. And then, softer still,

"I wonder if I've found you before, even, and neither of us have known..."

Phillip hums, an acknowledgement that yes, that is probably very strange; it was certainly strange (and heart breaking) from his end when the world was first sundered, seeing thousands of small, stunted souls that may contain his lost loved ones, no longer able to remember him.

"I... suppose it's possible." If he sounds doubtful it's because it had been a long, long time since anyone had been able to stir the kind of desire and love from him that Gustavain has. The last was, well... Azem. (A point he's sure to have to bring up eventually, but it's easy enough to blame the fact that now seems like a horrible time for his desire to not talk about it.)

But maybe that doesn't eliminate the possibility- even when Gustavain had been born, there had been six Rejoinings already. Did it take half of that soul to pull him in? Was it worse to picture that this was their first reunion in thousands of years, or that it wasn't and Phillip hadn't know? Because if they had met, knowing Gustavain and the soul he has, it would like have been on the battlefield, and likely not as allies.

He does not voice these thoughts, instead just tipping his head towards Gustavain's and reaching up to run a hand through his hair. "...I wish I had some kind of answer for you," he said softly. They don't know, and likely never well. And the wondering can be much worse than the knowing.

"Hm. I'm not even fully sure if answers are what I'm truly looking for. Maybe it's enough to just speak it into the world, to stand and say this is something that happened," he shakes his head slightly. "Maybe my discomfort is just hubris, knowing that I've tried to save the world before, more than once, even, and failed, lost my life, not lived to see what I built crumble to the dust a future version of myself would walk through. It's just strange, to have an unbroken line of the past, seen through someone else's eyes, but to only know this self, myself. And yet..."

And yet Emet-Selch. And yet Phillip. And yet here he is when he should very definitely not be. He shakes his head again,

"Whatever the case, I don't want to sit around and feel sad about it forever, certainly. It's just something too heavy to carry without consequence."

Gustavain is extrapolating a little, but Phillip doesn't bother to point it out because he's probably right. They don't know for sure, not really, about any of those lives other than this one and Azem's, but... given the two data points they have, it's not unreasonable to assume that all versions of him have been like this. (Maybe a thought for that future he doesn't much want to think about, just looking for the biggest damn hero around once Gustavain's left this version of himself behind.)

He doesn't much know what to say about any of this still, it all just a bit too much to handle, so instead he turns his head to press a soft kiss to the side of the elezen's head. "Do you want to sit and be sad about it for a while longer?" he asks, and he's teasing a little bit it is a genuine question, "Or would you prefer to be distracted?"

"Somehow," he drawls back, clear from his tone that he doesn't mind in the slightest, that this is in no way a complaint, "I feel as though I know which of those options you'd prefer," he turns further, until their mouths can meet in a lush, but brief kiss, before he answers for real,

"Truly? Neither. But you know what I can be like, when I have too much on my mind," it's a bit of a tease, gentle self-mockery, but like Phillip's tease holds a serious question, so does his, "Are you sure you want to present me with the temptation and opportunity, both, to chase what's in my head?"

Gustavain fucks his problems out, at least where Phillip is concerned. Gustavain would call it something more esoteric, perhaps: a kind of meditation, a way to bring emotional intensity to the forefront so he can get at the truth of something. But they both can remember their first real night together. There are questions here that are not going to dim any the more their souls intertwine. Even so, the words are almost sensual and he runs his thumb along Phillip's lower lip in a way that is obviously intended to be convincing.

"You say that..." Phillip chuckles, tilting his head back just enough to make that thumb pull his lip, ever so slightly, "but it seems an awful lot like you've picked one anyway."

It is potentially fraught territory, in a way two people willingly in bed together should not be. The connection between their souls does exist, and even though Phillip hasn't exactly explained how, it's not impossible for Gustavain to guess at it... or perhaps, even 'remember' now that he knows to. There is other damage that could be done in allowing them to explore that, to 'chase' what's swirling in both their minds. But it's damage that is going to have to be done, sooner or later, unless they just walk away. Perhaps ripping off the metaphorical bandage is better.

Phillip reaches up, caressing the elezen's cheek before pulling him into another kiss, this one longer and slower. "Thinking has done us little good," he says quietly when they part, "Maybe it's best to put that aside for a bit."

"Since when have either one of us wanted the easy option?" he throws back, to the first, another clear warning shot that this is not a distraction, just a different way to have a conversation. Gustavain certainly can ignore things with the best of them, set deeper problems aside to deal with at a later time. Absolutely everyone who has lived through the Calamity caries trauma, after all, and he more than most. He's not usually avoidant, though, not when he has other options.

What he often is, though, is at a loss for words-- not because he's not good with words, but because he feels so much that there are no words for. It's part of why he'd become a bard-- a desperate desire to try to capture that in poetry, in music when words failed. This, too, is a kind of art, a self-expression of the body rather than the mind or voice, more intimate than the battle dancing he'd also taken well to.

He straightens up from the most recent kiss and there's not really much in the way of foreplay to start with, but he's already working his clothes off with a deliberate, ritualistic air. Phillip's seen him do a version of this before, not always with sex on the brain, as though he could take off the mantle of Warrior of Light and leave it on the floor if he just unlaced his leather deliberately enough (or, occasionally, if he had it torn off of him.) Nevertheless, there's very clearly something sensual about it this time, slow and baring.

Phillip cocks his head slightly, taking the point- easy is not how they do things, and even though from the outside this may look like an escape he knows very well it is not. This is, in a way, facing it head on, in the only way they really can when words have failed them so very thoroughly. He may not have a bard's stone, but he understands the instinct and the need that comes with it, to find some way, any way, to express what needs to be.

He doesn't usually interfere with Gustavain's more practiced undressing, unless he's the one disposing of the clothes himself. From his seat, he reaches out to brush the tips of his fingers of the newly exposed skin, light as if it was entirely new flesh. What is the man shedding this time, he wonders? Warrior of Light? Azem? Gustavain? He doubts he knows yet; likely it is the pursuit of discovering what is left behind that they'll have anything resembling an answer.

Once his shirt is off, Phillip shifts in the chair so he's facing him and lefts his hands drift, falling to the bones of his hips. There's a moment where blue eyes glance up through dark lashes before he leans forward to press his lips above his abs. It's so soft and tender than some might call it worshipful, reverent- but knowing Phillip as he does, the ache in it is clear.

He looks down at the brush of fingers on his chest and his expression is unreadable save that it contains love. He still doesn't say it very often, almost never, in fact, but now that Phillip knows that it exists more as a given, as a fact, than as something in debate in Gustavain's head, it's easy to see everywhere.

Gustavain isn't sure himself, what he's discarding this time, not really. The Warrior of Light is definitely part of that, any part of him that Hydaelyn has touched with it-- symbolically if not in full fact. It's not so much that he thinks that any of this walks him into Darkness, or even that she wouldn't approve, but it's more that he goes seeking somewhere before Hydaelyn. Phillip has known him, before, and whatever it is that feels empty and yearning in his chest since he picked up that stone and knew, it won't be discovered if he just asks Phillip something like What was I like?.

The answers lie somewhere deeper. The questions he needs to get at them do as well.

He had said that he wasn't looking for answers and that's a lie, but also not one at the same time. The answers he's looking for are more complicated, more complex, than just thinking about them will get him. He needs to feel them. And the moment Phillip's lips touch his skin and he looks down and sees that ache, he knows part of what he needs to ask.

It's not quite the time, though, not until his hands slide into the band of his lower layers, smallclothes, not until he's pushed everything down and away. He's still scarred and bruised from the last fight-- the healers have seen to him, but he's refused too much deep healing, has wanted to carry the reminder at least a little longer.

Remember us. Remember that we lived..

The bruises will fade, but until then, he'll wear them in both pride and penance. He reaches down and curls his fingers in Phillip's hair, tips his face up so he can lean down and kiss him warm to his toes.

"Bed," he says softly, and it's hard to say what, but there is something different about him.

Phillip would likely say it more, if Gustavain did, but he’s still the more likely of the two of them to. Passing comments, mostly, when they part in the mornings or when half asleep, cuddled up in bed. There was a time where to say it and not hear it returned would have made him anxious, prone to withdrawing, but… he knows, now, even if it stays unsaid.

He did know they were going to have to address this, and maybe it’s easier to do it like this rather than say it. It’s easy to manipulate him by his hair, turn his face upwards into that kiss. There’s something a little different about him too; the softer parts that Gustavain knows exist but rarely pull from him, and… something else.

His hands glide over the new scars, feeling them under his fingertips but barely looking, focused instead on his lover’s face. He nods, and rises, pulling enough away to at least begin discarding his clothes in the short distance to the bed, though when he gets there he reaches out instead to pull Gustavain with him.

They fall to the bed in a tangle and if Phillip makes it there with any other clothing on, Gustavain will wrestle it off in the first few moments of them laying against the covers. If they don't naturally roll out to the center and sink into the mattress, he'll pull them there and he rolls on top decisively. It's just to start kissing a leisurely path down Phillip's body though, and there's only anything dominating or insistent about it if Phillip tries to move much, where he's just moved back into place and shushed.

Gustavain doesn't quite kiss like he's searching for something with his mouth, but there's something inquisitive about it all the same. Still, the search is languid, meandering, and he avoids Phillip's cock to mouth down over a hip to his inner thigh. He slips his knee up over his shoulder to do so, which does spread him out under him, vulnerable, but it's likely bearable with the way he's looking at him. There's another, deeper kiss there, the hint of teeth, a deliberate choice to leave a ghost of a mark, before he proves his earlier point about this being something that wasn't running from this, something different,

"Were your brother Hades and I lovers?" it's asked with a tone that's almost idle curiosity, though both of them know it's anything but, lower though, a bit oddly seductive, paired a moment later with him sinking his teeth into the skin again, slow, deliberate.

Phillip does try to move, less because he's trying to take control and more to see how still Gustavain wants him to be, what the boundaries are. Those identified, he allows himself to sink into the mattress, hands holding on to Gustavain where he can, fingers tangled in that long hair.

It is vulnerable, held down and spread as he is, but this time there's not even a hint that it bothers him. That day where they finally talked about it all, spurred on by that yellow-eyed version, there was uncertainty of an entirely different idea. This is not easier, not by any means, but leaving his heart open does not contain the fear it once did.

He hums softly as lips move over him, something rumbling deeper in his throat at the tease of a mark, head tipped back against the bed. "Not... that I know of," he says to the question, and maybe that question should bother him more considering their current positions, but, well. It needed to be asked. (He doesn't think so, but there was a time before he really knew Azem...)

"Hmm..." Gustavain isn't... entirely sure that's the case. There'd been something... some kind of thing in Emet-Selch's eyes and perhaps Amaurotine's had a different version of platonic love, or even romantic love, than he's used to as a "mere" human, but it certainly looked the same to him-- a level of betrayal he would have expected of a spurned lover, a softness to the offer to come turn into a monster in Emet-Selch's lair. Regardless, sentiment does not equal action and perhaps it had been one-sided. Regardless, it immediately begs the next question, more dangerous, but also more important.

Phillip surely knows he's going to ask it before he does so, but that doesn't stop Gustavain from leaving a line of bruises with his mouth up the inside of his thigh, shifting to peer up at him with a look that's somehow both serious and slightly impish when he asks,

"Were we?"

He doesn't really give him time to think too hard about the answer, because he asks and immediately sinks his mouth over Phillip's cock, shallowly, but enough to make the answer both difficult to get out and to make it clear that the answer to the question doesn't matter a damn bit to what they're doing currently.

Had Gustavain phrased the question differently, he would have gotten a different answer- Hades definitely loved him, though how far it extended, how physical that love got, Phillip doesn't know. It wouldn't have surprised him to learn that they had been together.

This question is far more dangerous, for both of them. Phillip doesn't brace himself for it even as he knows it's coming, a hand gently stroking through the other's hair as he focuses on each of those marks. He's not sure why. To ground himself, maybe? To remind himself that they've made their choices, that the past doesn't matter other than to inform what's to come?

He opens his mouth to answer the question as soon as it's asked, the words forestalled by a needy hum when Gustavain takes him in. "Y-yes," he manages to get out, and the flood of emotions he knew was coming breaks through, past the walls he's tried to build up since this star was young and new.

There's the soaring feeling of remembering what it had been like, to fall truly and deeply in love for the first time, making all of what came before and much of what came after seem shallow. There's the pain and fear of the Final Days, where Azem was just gone and he didn't know whether he'd ever see him again. And there's the confusion and guilt of when the world was sundered, one of only four left untouched and the only one not of the fourteen, why me, why not one of the others, why not Azem--

His hold on Gustavain tightens, closing his eyes to stop the wetness forming behind them escaping.

It's not really his intention to split anything open for Phillip, but he's also not particularly contrite about it, either. This needs to happen, and he trusts both of them know it. If there's something that has always been true about Gustavain (and also Azem, and also everyone he's been since then) it's that there's no easy way out. It's like his soul was born to break down the barriers people build that keep them comfortable and safe, but separated from their truths and the beauty of themselves.

There's no real emotion that wells up in him when Phillip confirms what he's already guessed was true, which surprises him a bit, but there's a soft swell of rightness that settles in his chest, something that makes the rest of everything feel far away. The guilt comes with it, though, the understanding that he's killed all the others, now. Phillip is alone and it's his doing, if not exactly his fault. When does he get to wash the blood off his hands?

There's something fiercely protective that rises up in him at that, a sudden desire to make sure nothing happens to Phillip-- who will outlive him, who will have to wonder if he'll ever find him again through the march of time, who will not know if they will meet on the same side or even at all. When he draws off of him and looks up, his eyes are golden for a moment, devoted.

But whatever that is, it doesn't last longer than a moment as he dips his head back down, slick fingers tracing a slow path between Phillip's legs. There's been no visible effort to get any kind of lube, but Phillip knows it's more likely to have been slight of hand than some kind of magic-- after all, there's a very good chance he'd been prepared for something like this the moment he walked into Phillip's room-- having something serious to discuss has never stopped them from falling into bed with one another before.

"What was Azem like?" he asks, a minute or so later, absorbed in a slow-but-steady bit of preparation, "As a lover, I mean."

The slip into past grief is… not momentary, but it passes. Phillip has never properly dealt with those emotions, and he has yet to grapple with how very alone he will be in the, to him, not too distant future. He will, though. He doesn’t want to, but with Gustavain here he knows he will.

For now, he doesn’t push it away, more lets it slide past him, clearing his eyes and opening them enough to see the golden ones staring up at him. Maybe it should worry him, to see them again, but instead something about the gaze soothes him, untangling his fingers enough to gently comb through the mess his tighter hold had made.

He shifts his legs to make it easier on them both, physically relaxing again as the tension of his emotional flare up eases. “Hmm… unpredictable,” he says, though there’s a wry little smile that accompanies it, “I never knew, when he came back from his adventures, where his mood would be or what little ‘tricks’ or ideas he’d picked up on while he was gone. But… he always took care of me. And stayed for as long as he could after.” Which was part of the care- giving Thanatos the time he could between his duties.

"Hmm..." he thinks about that for a long moment, working his finger, then fingers deeper. There's something methodical about it, a soothing set of motions meant more to underline the conversation rather than distract from it-- though of course, he's expecting it will be distracting. He's certainly distracted occasionally by a hitch in Phillip's breath or a shift of his hips on the bed. In the end, he chuckles though and grins his own little wry grin,

"Hm. He does sound like me," he's joking but he's not, because he really does sound like him and it's weird. There's no jealousy or anything like that-- he's not even jealous about Phillip potentially sleeping with other people in this lifetime, he wouldn't be jealous of someone who was himself thousands of years ago. But knowing that they'd done this before is... odd.

He dips his head again to have a moment to think about it, loses himself in sensation for a moment and the feel of Phillip under him.

The only real reason that Phillip has never made the direct comparison between the two of them is because he tried very hard not to. This far into his lifetime, he'd reasoned, he should be over Azem, and with no longer wanting to have a hand in this world's end, he should stop expecting to be able to see him again. It is ironic, in a way, that giving up on the path that should have led to finding him again is what actually found himself in some version of his long lost lover's arms.

"Mm," is all he saw by way of agreement, both distracted by the gentle ministrations and wanting to allow that space, for them both to think, to settle with the thoughts. He lets out a warm sigh as those lips find him again, pulling a thought from him and a little laugh with it. "I'd assumed I just had a type."

Gustavain laughs to that, the sound muffled and humming, sliding back up slowly, until he can rest his head against Phillip's hip again. His fingers aren't idle though, a soft stretching that's slowly turning into something rhythmic while he considers his next words.

They've never been exclusive, have talked about that situation at least once, but mostly idly. It's never seemed important. Both of them have wanderer's hearts, though in different ways, and Gustavain has been neither celibate in the other places he's traveled, nor without emotional attachments. But just as what's between them is something different than all that, so too is the next admission. But it's as much a part of this as anything else is, and so, he does decide he has to give voice to it.

"I almost slept with him. Emet-Selch," because it wouldn't have been Hades he was sleeping with, not then. It both is and isn't a confession. He doesn't feel bad about it, but it feels... odd, now. "I think I would have," he adds, "if the worst had happened and I had actually succeeded in going to his version of Amaurot on my own."

Phillip gently runs his fingers through Gustavain's hair. It's hard to not think, to just let this happen and work through the emotions that come with it without his brain getting in the way, but he's trying. And in some ways, that non-confession makes it a little easier.

"That doesn't really surprise me." His voice is ever-so-slightly wry as he says it, but he doesn't sound bothered by the idea at all. (Perhaps that's odd, given what Gustavain now knows about the connection between the two, but... maybe the Amaurorites had different ideas about that kind of thing, too.) "...I think I'm actually... glad? That you wouldn't have been alone, if the worst had happened."

He's quiet for a moment longer, other than little hitches of breath as the elezen works him, tipping back against the bed. "...I do think I want to go see it at some point." A bit of an aside, but also related. To see his home as it was, one last time- and to go back again when the magic fades, to see what it has become.

"I barely understand how I got to the First. I definitely don't understand how Emet-Selch got there. But if you can figure out how, I'll take you. It seems... surprisingly stable, now, though it wasn't for a time," there's a pause and a smirk and then he's sliding up over Phillip's body, fingers still inside him, until he can murmur in one ear,

"Do you have some kind deep seated fantasy to fuck me across one of those counters in the Bureau or something? I imagine it would startle all of the simulacrums, but I don't think they could actually do anything about it."

He doesn't re-mention Hythlodaeus or his strange sentience, doesn't even fully remember if he told Phillip about him at this point, but everything about his "new old friend" suggested that he might find it amusing, if nothing else.

"Getting to the First wouldn't be the hard part, for me." He won't actually try to explain the method by which it works, but one of them doesn't need to rely on aetherytes for traveling suspiciously fast.

He instinctively curls around Gustavain as the man moves up his body, always prone to press the warmth of their skin together. Though when he actually hears what he has to say, he can't help but laugh. "Well, I didn't..." he says, a grin on his lips as he uses the hold on him to pull him closer, into a lush kiss.

(There are certainly other places he's thought about, even if it's not the same. But he'll probably decide what's worth it when they get there.)

He's laughing in delighted mischief when Phillip presses their mouths together, the sound turning more purring as he dives deeper into the kiss.

"Well, if you're making a checklist," he deliberately misunderstands a bit, "then we'll just have to make sure we mark off all of them. Scandalous, probably, but if I cared about propriety, I assume I wouldn't be here." It's a joke, but it's also not a joke. He's basically just said he's down to fuck across every part of a lonely, insane man's dying dream palace. But said lonely insane man both did try to kill him and also, Gustavain has siblings he'd grown up with. Sometimes, doing something specifically to piss them off is really just another form of love.

Or grief, he thinks, though getting drunk at his sister's grave and yelling at the sky is a bit different from fucking your once and current lover in your dead sibling's memento mori, even before considering Gustavain was the one who killed him.

Look, he's not been known for his reverence in any lifetime.

While Phillip is exactly the kind of younger sibling who delighted in doing things to annoy his brother (even more so after he became Emet-Selch), grief is more the emotion to attribute to things here. He knows now, without a doubt, that he will never see his home again, and even if Rejoinings somehow continue happening on their own, the lives lost will never come back. If he's going to say goodbye to it all, he may as well do it in a way that will hurt less, masked by intentional reminders of what has risen from those ashes.

"Mm, and I love you for it." Like most of the rest of this conversation, it's both teasing and not. Gustavain knows well enough to be able to guess that the very uniform nature of Amaurot likely drove Phillip, a stubbornly individualistic soul, completely mad. Reverence would not, and likely never will be, something he looks for.

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