Heartthrob

Esthrielle coughed, wheezed, and hacked; her vision focused, unfocused, and refocused again like a camera unsure what the fuck it was trying to take a picture of. Purity gave her a little slap - once, twice, and the eternally ubiquitous thrice was made to move before being caught mid-send by Est herself. She pinched Purity with measured tenderness about the rosette's wrist, though when she jerked her head about to stare Puri in the eye, Est was more than a little peeved about getting slapped.

"Oi, yes, okay. I'm fucking good, okay? Stop smacking me." Est stared Purity down like a tweaker eyeballing a cop, daring them to fucking 'do something'. Purity decided not to 'do something', at least in the sense that she was immediately cowed; she backed down without a fight, eyebrows lowering and a gentle whimper escaping her lips. "Ah, f-fuck, ah... Sorry, Est, I... Sorry..."

Est realized what she'd done a second later, and she opened her mouth and started to reach to comfort and apologize to her beloved - but, then she remembered the situation she and her girlfriends were in. A situation only she knew about, funnily enough. Another knock came from the door, right behind Esper James's head; a voice came along with it this time, and EJ was only a little bit pained to recognize whose it was. Of course, one of the only people here who would willingly speak... but also, why was Est running from him?

"Esthrielle, please... Come on, sweetheart, mi bambina dolce... Come on. You knew this was coming, right? You knew it. Every day, you had to think of it... Please, let me in..." Another knock right after that, more insistent. Luca's voice was stained with an ever-growing sadness, like coffee spilt across a paper tablecloth; just as warm and sweet, but quickly growing cold and disappointing and sad. EJ didn't even know what the hell Luca was talking about, but she... well, she couldn't help but feel sorry for him, with how he was pleading.

Est shut her yap immediately, eyes wincing closed, face stricken with sudden, temporary pain. She looked as strained as she seemed to be feeling - as though Purity could nick her with a pocket knife and she'd release like a ripcord, split down the middle. She gathered herself then, rubbing at her eyes through her lids for a moment, and then another, before beginning to explain in a stage whisper.

"Fuck. Luca's... Luca's leaving. That's not great, but I'm not fucked up about that. He's got his own life to live and his own shit to do, right? He's a busy fucking guy. Running a whole ass city-state-thing-whatever the fuck Venice is nowadays is hard, right? Right. Right, yeah, but..." As Esthrielle continued, more voices cropped up outside - female voices, speaking to Luca, and then with Luca. One sounded like the mother abbess, EJ figured, pressing an ear to the hardwood and really focusing her senses on it.

The other? That weird blonde girl... what was her name again. Angelien? An odd woman, for sure... and an odd woman who put Esper James just a little bit on edge. She had showed some softness when EJ had woken up from pain and sleep a few days ago, it was true, and Esper James couldn't hold her emotional distance against her therefore, but... She still seemed like she had thoughts she wasn't sharing. Hrm.

Well? Whatever.

Est continued once more, screwing up her face and seeming that much more frustrated by the new voices joining the search party's chorus. "F-Fuck...! Okay, okay, so... Luca's leaving, and he wants to bring me with him. That's it. That's the whole issue. He wants to bring me with him and there's zero fucking chance he can take either of you with him cause of stuff and reasons, not least of which is that the Church would destroy him and raze Venice to the ground for bringing you back home, EJ. They would rather scorched earth the entire city than let a single second-living exist there happily and peacefully... I know, I already talked with him about the possibility. It's a no-go."

That sent ice through EJ, the ghost of Jack Frost dancing in her chest cavity. It was a pretty grim possibility, yeah... The idea that she and Est may be wrenched apart so cruelly and callously, and especially by someone as otherwise kind and inobtrusive as Luca. Him being a fairly decent man to be around, at least in EJ's opinion, made this feel all the worse.

"I don't want to go. Obviously. I want to stay here with the both of you, r-regardless of... regardless of what happens. I can't just abandon you two, and I love you. I love you two, god fucking damnit. And now it comes up that I might be going back to Italy... haha, fuck, y'know... I wanted to go back to Italy all last year, and the year before... but now..."

She didn't need to finish the sentence for the words to come across. 'But now, I want to stay here', or something to that effect - EJ was sure of it, down to the marrow of her bones. She didn't want Est to go either; she wanted Est to stay here, to stay with her and Purity. How could she not? EJ felt hot grief begin to well at the corners of her eyes, though it wasn't quite sadness, and she wasn't quite crying; it was closer to frustration, and while her expression became anything but a smile, it was far closer to a grimace or a baring of the teeth in rage than out of sorrow or melancholy.

Purity was... numb. She looked broken up, but in the same way that glass shards looked even more broken up when they were ground into a fine, glittering powder. Purity was powder, then, and just like powder, she looked as though she could be blown around by a strong wind. She nearly fainted back onto the bed - Est allowed her to fall, but before Purity's consciousness slipped free, Est gave her a firm shake to keep her grounded. Grounded enough to maintain consciousness, if nothing else.

"Ok! Yes, yes, Purity, I get it! I'm... I'm not leaving. I am staying here. I will... I will fucking disobey orders if it comes down to that. That might mean we'll need to find a new place to stay, find a new way to be safe on our own, but... But we'll still be together, right? That'll be... that'll still be better than being apart. Anything, a-anything would be better than, uh, than being apart..." Est's fury simmered down and mellowed out into a bitter tea of wine-dark sludge now, the acrid, astringent flavor of her own bitter melancholy causing her to wrinkle her nose.

Esper James decided it was finally her time to speak up, also offering a stage whisper that she tried her best to project outwards toward Est, and away from the door that the blonde was currently pressing herself to. As she began to speak, someone actually pushed on the door - a new development - and there was a sound of soft frustration as they found their exploratory prod pushed back at them.

"Est...! Fuck going home, I agree - but what're we gonna do?! Should I try and, like, put down an ultimatum that if they take you, I won't help them anymore? Or something like that? Or, uh... maybe that we still need you, cause you've got-" Esper James was all set to continue babbling with whatever came to the top of her mind, floating up like scum in a fermenting vat. Est, however, raised a hand and presented her palm to silence the blondette.

"Shush. Please. I... I need to think. We've gotta... we've gotta get him to leave alone. It fucks me up to need to trick him, but, like... f-fuck it. I can't let him take me away...!" Her rage cracked then, and in that minute crack, the pain of preemptive sorrow and grief and impotence shone through. It was hard, EJ though, to see Est like this... strong, beautiful Est, independent and headstrong to a fault, reduced to this...

The knocking did not come again, but now, Luca's voice returned.

"Esthrielle. I know you are in there... I know you can hear me. You are a grown woman; you are my little sister, but you are your own adult. I will not force you to do anything. Would you come speak with me, even through this door, so your lovers can hear?" Est's expression shifted upwards to a display of pleasant surprise, eyes widening and mouth making a gentle circle of soft wonder and intrigue. She didn't quite hop to her feat yet, but the disbelief in her eyes and on her lips was enough for a bewildered smile and to have her turn to face the door.

Luca continued in the silence, but not before sighing long and hard, drawing in every ounce of breath he seemingly could before releasing it all in a single, prolonged huff. "I am leaving. I must return to Venice. I have been here a week, perhaps, but even a week is a considerably long period of time for one such as myself to be away from their jurisdiction. My lands, and my people, need me. They need you, too, Est... but the time is not yet correct to bring you, and Purity, and Esper James, home. Not yet."

He cleared his throat before proceeding. Here, Est found herself inclined to push up to a stand and pad towards the door, barely able to parse what she was hearing. Barely able to believe it, at least. "So. Since they can not return with us... you have my leave, as your ruler and dispatcher, to remain here to ensure the safety of valuable assets. And... H-Heheh, uh... ah... As your older brother, Est, you have my permission to stay here and keep the women you love safe. I would never take you from them, not... not when your passion burns so hotly. Not when you have so much yet to do here... not just for the crusade, but for yourself."

Est began to grapple with something in her own throat, a metaphysical frog of emotion that threatened to choke her to death at any given moment. She swallowed, coughed, moved her tongue about as if she was stirring a soup with it... nothing. No words came to her; no syllables, even. No, she couldn't create within herself the barest ghost of a sound, even after trying with everything she had. She was, well and truly, speechless in that moment.

Luca lingered there, paused for some response that never seemed as though it was about to come. EJ looked at Est, standing a foot in front of her, the Wayward staring past her, past the door behind her, straight to her brother. Ghoulish shoulders dropped and their owner hunched to try and be that much more diminutive, some meagre attempt to get out of the way of Est's peering eyes.... But now, instead, she decided that it would be better to just fucking move. Smart idea, EJ.

And so, 'just fucking move' is exactly what she did. Esper James ducked out of the way - almost immediately, Esthrielle rushed to the door and pulled it wide. She was still fighting to produce any sort of words, but her eyes were wide and watery, her lower lip trembled like a ripple on the surface of a pond, and she seemed so much smaller than she ever had before.

Luca turned to look down at her. He was dressed for travel, back in the black suit and slacks that he had been wearing during his first trip to the hell of a city-state that was Vitus. At his left, Angelien was dressed the same - ideally, she would be his driver now just as she had been his driver then. The mother abbess was vacant, notably, but Est didn't feel like she was missing anything for not having the abbess present for this emotional compromise and goodbye.

"L-Luca... Luca, I... I..." She managed those, at least. Luca ruined it, though - doing so by turning his body, too, to address her, then gathering the smaller sister up in his arms for an enormous embrace. He held her so very close, then, whispering softly in Italian into her ear; she couldn't find the strength to respond, but she certainly found the strength to return his hug until her mechanical prosthesis started to creak and groan and beg for mercy.

"No, Esthrielle, no... no words. I understand. I love you, my sweet sister... I love you, and I love what you are doing here. It is in God's plan to unite all peoples of the Earth, si? You are taking the first steps towards uniting the second-living and the New Way. Thank you. Please, stay here... continue on. I love you, little sister. Send me letters." She was bestowed an extra squeeze, and then he broke away. Time was of the essence: the window for any sort of smuggling, including smuggling people, was short in a given day or week or month. Luca had to fucking go.

"Luca...! I-! I love you! I love you, big b-bro-! Big brother!" It seemed to Esper James, in retrospect, something from a Hallmark film - but in the moment, it may have been the first time Esthrielle ever got the chance to say those things aloud. Hell, she may have never even considered what Luca meant to her before, except that he was important. And now? Now, it was clear. Now, it was oh so very true. It was nice for her, to finally acknowledge that she had something resembling a family - something outside of the women she loved, at least.

She fell to her knees then, beginning to bawl inconsolably, though EJ certainly attempted to console her. The blonde couldn't deny a bit of relief that it had all gone seemingly well...

...seemingly.