WHO: Charls Goodwyn WHAT: Receiving Adel's bounty for his good work. WHERE: Esthar WHEN: Evening to Friday, August 07. WARNINGS: N/A
Looking up to his penthouse apartment, Charls wouldn’t have known that he would have a visitor waiting for him from within seeing as the point of keeping this flat was not to attract company when none was needed or much less appreciated. Only the mailmen and the delivery men ever found their way to his door and even they didn’t get through it at all.
So imagine his surprise when he passed by the receptionist to ask for any messages and was informed that he had a visitor waiting for him. She was young, she was new, and she didn’t know him as a resident. So with an empty but polite nod, he accepted his envelope and crossed the polished lobby to access the elevator.
The faux marble hallway was absolutely still, quiet save for the light footfalls of his approach despite the urgency with which he did it. The visitor was absent...which meant they were inside. Quick inspections of his biometric lock and the door slit informed him that the visitor hadn’t forced his way through either. His because the only man he could think of now was Zachary Clark. But he wouldn’t be smart enough to trick the machine into letting him through either…
It gave a quiet beep. The door slid open. His hand fell on the glock pistol he wore next to his thigh as he slipped inside the illuminated interior of the flat which normally welcomed him soaked in darkness. Warm, golden light fell to grace the stoic furniture from the ceiling spotlights but besides the electricity, everything within was also still.
The door slid shut. Finally, he brought out his gun and poised his thumb to free the safety catch as he toured his residence, flattening himself against walls and keeping his breathing to himself. The dining area was empty and so were the bedrooms. Save for the lights, one would think that Charls had just forgotten to switch them off before he left for the day.
Charls never forgot anything. After a full circle, he came up with the following: nothing was out of place, he had no surprise package or memory stick waiting for him and thankfully, no dead body. His fridge was as it was, He had no new messages in his answering machine…
Now the question was: was there anyone still inside? Some fool could have just dropped by to look for something but failed to clean after themselves by switching off the lights. Charls made a mental note of accessing the security files of the apartment building but for now, he flicked at the pages of his mental spellbook and cast out a Scan to spot for any life forms. There was none.
No, wait, there was something above…
Taking the stairwell led him to his upper living room which was again lighted by the spotlights overhead but this one showed him something new for once: the door was opened.
The gentle breeze of an Estharian evening on the 30th floor of a high-rise flowed in to push his white robes back. Charls unlocked the safety of his gun before he marched out of his living room, turning left to the direction from where he felt the slightest tension against his Scan. His arm tensed, ready to send the gun flying at the smallest hint of aggression.
It froze when he caught the profile of a man in his own robe, looking out the vista of Esthar at night, a dark jewel that sparkled green and blue from above. In a heartbeat, Charls returned the safety catch of his gun as he approached his visitor, careless about the sound his feet was making now. “Phil?”
He was Phil. When those brown eyes turned to look at his former roommate, he smiled and revealed his crooked teeth which Charls insisted had always been one of his most endearing features, the way he shamelessly shared them despite their imperfection. “Overtime?”
“How did you get here?” Charls asked, turning to the city below them before he sought for his eyes again. “How did you come back!”
“By whatever means was necessary. I swam, I rode on chocobos...just kidding, I met our brothers in the Forgotten City and asked to hitch a ride with them.”
“Brothers? Forgotten City…” Charls searched his memory--
He gasped. “Adel.”
“Something happened and brought us out of unconsciousness.”
“Us?” Charls persisted but he didn’t move when Phil rested his hands on his shoulders. When those stubby fingers gripped him, he felt like he wanted to shake in his knees. He wouldn’t have thought that he would be able to feel the pressure of it ever again. Phil welcomed him to rest his forehead on his shoulder. He did.
“Us who passed away. I would have returned to you faster but it’s a little hard to do if our brothers are busy attending to their own dead and you have no money on you. Suffice it to say...all hail the Sorceress.”
“I didn’t see it in her to be so generous.”
“Life is full of mysteries.” Phil shrugged. Speaking of mysteries…
“Wait!” Charls looked up to face him. “But how did you get here? No one else has access to this flat but--”
But the both of them. Phil showed him his own thumb, moving it as if to click a pen until Charls remembered: he never removed Phil’s biometric data in the lock.
He never removed Phil’s anything in the flat years after his death.
“Bless you for that.”
“I waited so long for this!” Charls gathered him in his arms and felt those longer ones wrap around him like before. He sniffed his robe. “Mm, Phil, you smell like the closet.”
“Join me in the shower, then?”
“Phil,” he groaned, and Phil laughed.
“You never changed, Chuck.” Phil poked him on the nose. Charls frowned, wrinkling it. “I was worried.”
“Why?”
“Who’s Zach?” Charls’ face fell open as his eyes went wide. “He left you five messages in the machine.”
“Clark?” Charls snarled.
“Oh, is he Clark?” Phil smiled a little. “So you’re that close?” When Charls glared at him, he laughed. “Okay, okay, I get it. So who is Clark?”
“A waste of space,” Charls grumbled, linking their fingers as he took him back to the flat. “I don’t enjoy working with him but I must makedo. I have to concede that there’s something about him that the Descendants deem worthy. Probably the fact that he’s an expendable asset. He’s an oaf, he knows nothing and he’s rude. He constantly stinks.”
“Have you asked the Sorceress for a partner switch?”
“I don’t want to try my luck,” Charls said, turning to face Phil after he shut the breeze out of his upper living room. “The dead can’t come back without something in return, I don’t believe that. What do you think she sacrificed?”
“Sadly, not Clark.”
“Ahh yes,” Charls sighed, looking at his coffee table. “Very unfortunate.” Phil reached for him, though, and carried his face back to his.
He parted his lips to accept Phil’s, hanging on to the end of his first kiss in what felt like decades. “I know what you’re thinking,” the taller brunet assured him. “You want to know if this is permanent.”
“I want to know if we can die together.”
“I don’t know the answer to those,” Phil admitted. “But...for what it’s worth, we’ll make the second time last for as long as we can. Wanna go out tonight?” Charls shook his head. “Okay. So...how about pizza? Is that pizza place still around?”
Charls nodded. “Pizza sounds great.”
“Great, then.” He slipped his arm behind Charls and led him down their stairway. “You call the pizza guy. I’m not sure how they’ll react to a dead man talking but I’ll get the bath going. You look tired…”
“Overtime,” Charls explained, resting his head on Phil’s shoulder again when a hand pushed him to it. “I’ll tell you about it over dinner.”