the permanence of worms

Apollo has been in Khura’in for two weeks now, which means that it has been two weeks since he found out that Dhurke is dead. Although he had announced to the Wright Anything Agency that he was staying in Khura’in indefinitely, it had just been a week of getting his foster father’s minimal affairs in order, trying (and somewhat failing) to repair his relationship with Nahyuta, and then another of desperately missing Klavier and the little life he left behind. So, he had booked his return home, and the world had kept on turning.

He’s set to leave tomorrow, and has been sent off already with well-wishes from the royal palace. Now, he feels more alone than he did when he touched down at the airport two weeks ago—at least then, he had had the illusion of his father, and a case to keep him occupied. The streets are all but deserted at this time of the evening, which, when Apollo thinks about it, is nice; he’d rather be alone right now. Or, rather, being alone is the second-best possibility, the first being that he wants Klavier right by his side, as he has wanted and wished for since finding out that his father is dead.

It’s snowing. That’s good. It’s an easy way to explain away the redness in his cheeks that, when accompanied by the puffiness around his eyes and the occasional sniffle, would tell anyone who cared to look (so, nobody, then) that he’s been crying. And not because he misses Dhurke—it’s nowhere near that simple. He just feels such an alien disconnect with the very same places that he remembers from his childhood, although it’s not the scenery that’s changed. It’s him. He’s no longer small enough to weave through the carts and back-alleys, chasing Nahyuta over some stupid game they were playing. He no longer remembers the quick way home; no longer even has a home here in the first place. The last thing tying him here had died before Apollo had even managed to return to salvage what he had left of his childhood, so there’s really no wonder that he feels both ready and terrified about leaving, knowing that he may never come back.

There’s no wide-eyed hope of rescue here. Just Apollo. Just resignation.

When he sees Datz calling to him from the law offices, he tries to turn his face away. He had replaced the sign when he had intended to stay and fix the legal system, but now it has been taken down again, and Nahyuta has graciously taken up the mantle that Apollo—like Atlas holding the world—couldn’t bear. What was the Sahdmadhi Law Offices had become the Defiant Dragons’ hideout, then the Justice Law Offices, and then cycled all the way back.

Still, Datz is impossible to ignore. Apollo walks up to him, giving him a half-smile as a greeting.

“So you’re leaving us tomorrow morning, huh?” Datz says.

“Yeah. Sorry, I could stay longer but… I’ve got a life back in L—back home.”

“What, you got yourself a girl?”

“A guy, actually.”

“Ooh, get you,” Datz playfully shoves him. “So, what, you got a husband and a bunch of mini-AJs running around the house?”

“Oh, we don’t have kids,” Apollo says. “We have pets, though. And an apartment.”

“So you got something to go home to, huh?”

“Y-Yeah. I do.”

“What about a little reminder of your folks back in Khura’in?” Datz beams. He opens his bag and pulls out a tattoo gun. “Just like Yuty and your old man, eh?”

“N-No thanks,” Apollo manages. “I’m not very good with needles.”

“Ah, c’mon AJ, it doesn’t hurt!”

Apollo thinks for a moment. Chances are, the only time he’ll return to Khura’in will be for a funeral—maybe Datz’s, maybe Nahyuta’s, maybe his own. It might be… nice, in a way, to have a piece of home to take home with him.

And he nods.

He instructs Datz to make the tattoo smaller than the ones he’s seen on both Dhurke and Nahyuta, and he decides that it should be on his wrist, hidden by his bracelet most of the time. It doesn’t hurt as much as he expected it to—but it’s more prolonged, a dull kind of ache that lasts longer than a sharp, stabbing pain, and which he doesn’t entirely think is more preferable to getting it over with.

But then it’s done. And it still hurts. And it’s done.

He slips his bracelet over it and feels the pain when it automatically tightens. There’s nothing more to be said, and goodbye feels too final, so he smiles at Datz and spends the rest of the night wandering until his flight leaves.

Although he’s scared of heights, the one thing stronger than fear is the sheer exhaustion that he feels. The moment he sits down on his allocated seat on the plane, he feels intricately the weight of everything that’s happened, and he slumps down. Sleep comes in halves, drowsy and hazy but never satisfying enough to leave him rested.

When the plane lands, he’s sluggish as he goes through security and ends up back in LA. Although he’d texted Klavier his plans, it’s still early, and Apolo fully expects to have to call a taxi to get back to their apartment. He trudges through the mass of footfall, staring down at the ground, just focusing on getting out of here, going home, and getting straight into bed, when—

Oh. He feels Klavier’s arms before he even sees him, and doesn’t even need to look up, all bleary-eyed and worn-down, to know that he’s safe.

“Long flight?” Klavier says.

Apollo, completely depleted of energy, simply nods.

The thing about Klavier Gavin is that everything is music to him. He can tell when people are happy or sad by the lilt of their voice, even if they try to hide it, and he must be able to feel the swell of exhaustion taking over Apollo’s entire body, because he doesn’t ask any further questions. He just takes the backpack off Apollo’s back and puts it on his own, hands Mr. Worm in his travel jar to Apollo, and then picks him up off his feet entirely and carries him.

Normally, Apollo would protest at being treated like a damsel in distress in a public setting, but nothing about this situation is normal. He’s grieving, and hurt, and so, so overwhelmingly tired that he just buries his face into Klavier’s warm chest, holds Mr. Worm close, and closes his eyes.

Klavier carries him all the way to the car, and wordlessly opens the door for him to get in the backseat, where he normally sits with Mr. Worm, but Apollo shakes his head.

“Front seat,” he says. “I want to be next to you.”

When Klavier holds Apollo’s cheeks and gives him a gentle kiss, Apollo all but melts.

The simplest and most effective act of kindness Apollo has ever been on the receiving end of is Klavier’s uncharacteristic quietness. Somehow, he doesn’t feel ignored, he feels seen, like Klavier knows he needs to sit and think for a while, and the best comfort he can give is a gentle hand on Apollo’s thigh as they drive. When they reach the apartment, Klavier holds Apollo’s hand all the way up the stairs, and Apollo feels like he’s truly at home the moment he puts on one of Klavier’s big t-shirts and sinks into bed.

He’s been in the habit of taking his bracelet off around Klavier for a while now, but he’s apprehensive about doing it this time. Still, all he wants is to be comfortable, and if he leaves his bracelet on for too long, he gets a pain that flares up his arm for days afterwards.

The moment Klavier sees the tattoo, he links his fingers into Apollo’s and looks at it.

“I like it,” he says. “When did you get it?”

“Yesterday,” Apollo mumbles. “Datz did it.”

He traces his fingers over the tattoo. He’s been so tired that he hasn’t really had time to think about the fact that this is on his body forever, a testament to Dhurke and his abandonment and the way he had died before Apollo could ever get any real closure. And yet—it doesn’t feel like a mistake. None of it does. He’s not much of a believer in the butterfly effect, but he wouldn’t test his luck by trying to change anything that happened to him in the past, because it might prevent him from being exactly here, exactly now. Safe and warm in Klavier’s arms, looking at Mr. Worm in his enclosure across the room.

It’s in this little pocket-moment that he has an idea—a way to reconcile himself with his new tattoo and everything it symbolises. If his left wrist shows his past, then his right wrist should show his present, which in turn shows his future, because there’s a hopeful little part of him that tells him things won’t be ripped away from him any more.

He just manages to mumble, “Klavier, come with me to get a tattoo tomorrow?” before he falls asleep.

It’s funny, Apollo thinks. For his whole life, he’s been cautious and never made reckless decisions, and now here he is, about to get his second tattoo in three days. Having spent all morning researching reputable artists who take walk-ins, there’s nothing left to do other than wait on the plush leather sofa of the tattoo parlour, his hand wrapped in Klavier’s. He doesn’t have to wait long, however, until he’s called over for a discussion with the artist and he tells them exactly what he wants, showing a picture of Mr. Worm.

For some reason, this one hurts a lot less. Maybe it’s because Datz was hardly trained in professional tattoo standards, maybe it’s because Klavier is holding his other hand, maybe it’s simply because he’s sure about this. It doesn’t take too long, either, a permanent decision made and executed quickly, and one that he doesn’t regret at all. He pays and is out of the shop within forty-five minutes, feeling a lot more in control of his life.

As soon as he’s home, he takes Mr. Worm out of his enclosure and rests him in the palm of his hand. Although he tries to get Mr. Worm to dance with the temptation of a leftover carrot peel and a huge smile, the worm seems far more interested in his new tattoo; he wriggles across the plastic wrap that’s keeping it sterile, and then rests on Apollo’s arm, just above the tattoo.

And he dances.

“Aw,” Klavier says. “Look. He thinks it’s a friend.”

“I suppose it is, in a way.”

“How so?”

“Well, I’m his friend. And it’s my tattoo, so…”

“Fair point.”

Apollo gently pets Mr. Worm’s head, letting him get acclimatised to the new tattoo. After a while—because Apollo imagines that worms, even rare ones, don’t have very long attention spans—Mr. Worm gets bored and finally makes his way over to the carrot peel, which Apollo takes as his cue to put him back in his enclosure. He keeps him close, though, and keeps Klavier even closer, as they all sit on the sofa and put some dumb Netflix movie on to drive out the quiet.

“Y’know,” Apollo says. “I’m really happy I have you in my life.”

Klavier kisses the top of his head.

“What?” Apollo continues. “Are you not gonna say you’re happy to have me in yours, too?”

“To be honest, Herr Forehead, I thought you were talking to the worm.”

At this, Apollo laughs. Oh, how far they’ve all come from the days of Klavier’s jealous SoundCloud songs and Apollo’s complete obliviousness to the fact that someone actually liked him. It feels like family, but in a way that Apollo has never understood it to be before.

His left wrist: family. Abandonment and return. Forgiveness as a necessity, even if it was a decision made too early. Deciding that home is mutable and taking the risk to have a home anyway.

And his right wrist: also family. Permanence. Loving something that most people would just walk past on the sidewalk. Making beautiful mountains out of ugly molehills. Turning the norm on its head. Acceptance, and love, and forever.

Smiling, he types up an Instagram post on his phone, mainly just so that he doesn’t have to update Athena and Trucy and Mr. Wright and Ema and Simon and Clay all separately.

And then, finally—and maybe for the first time in a long while—he rests comfortably.