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SHANKS

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[redsoil]

[ What never ceases to surprise him, is how he and Shanks always find a way to deepen their understanding of one another; his husband draws the words and emotions and concerns from him without truly asking — his patience like gravity, tugging soft and incessant at the burdens Set has long since heaped upon his own shoulders until he's made to tuck them into Shanks's palm and let him look upon them. To fear, every time, some manner of judgment that will shatter him anew or flay his heart open.

They talk of their brothers, this time. Similar in some ways, and different in others. ( Truly, Set believes Osiris's kindness had to have been real. That his presence had induced some sort of madness in him, that he had been greedy beyond his right and Osiris's desire to placate and please him had been twisted. / Truly, Set believes all of Osiris's kindness was a calculated method of isolating him, of making him smaller and more dependent by patiently, arduously sowing the seeds of doubt among those who also loved him. )

He wishes,

so much,

that someone, anyone, had questioned it. Had chosen him. Had saved him. Had the faith in him, to look at the wreckage of his body and mind after that night and said: It wasn't your fault, because so much would have been different. ( He wishes, sometimes, that things had been different. Even if his fate was to become what he had. ) Swallowing hard, he cradles his phone in both hands. Digesting what Shanks had told him, had shared with him. The things he's always shared with him. He wants to be sick, he wants to die — even as his small, shaking voice says: ] He was so easy to love. Everyone thought it was incredible to receive even the slightest bit of attention from him, and he doted on me. All the time! The other goes used to ask me what it was like, being so close to the King of Gods. Do you know what I told them? I don't know. It is my brother's side I stand at — I was so fxcking proud of it! And he used to, he always used to make these warm petitions on my behalf: Forgive Set, it's in his nature to be difficult, or my brother's passions often get away from him, do not take what he says to heart. And so —!

Nobody! Not a single soul, not even my own mother who saw what he did to me —! Nobody asked me!

[ Anything. Not what happened, not why it happened. Not anything. ]

Do you still love your brother? Even after all he did and all he is and all he would still do to you?