Freedom (Uxie)

Alex nodded his head. "I will," he said. "I have to." He couldn't go back into the world weak. That was just asking for something awful to happen again and he didn't think he could handle that for a second time. Not in his spirit. "I can feel my brothers again. That is enough for now." He would get to see them soon. He wanted to so badly.

"Okay." Wolf said and picked up Alex again. He was gentle about it. "Like, I mean no offence, but you're kinda tiny and breakable right now so you get to hang with me." he said, because he wasn't leaving him to fall off something or just float into a wall. He went into his room and then into his bathroom and set Alex up on a towel. "I gotta shower"

"You do smell of alcohol," Alex replied. "I am not offended that you think I am breakable..." He added that because he was worried that Wolf might think that he was. The little uxie got comfortable on the towel. He did not mind being carried from place to place until his strength returned.

"Funny thing about humans, when their emotions are laughed at, sneered at, nose turned up, even a door being slammed in our faces about it causes us sadness. Some of us drink to escape it." Wolf said, as he busied himself getting the shower ready and waited for the water to heat up.

"I wasn't trying to hurt you, Wolf," Alex said from where he was propped up on the towel. "I'm sorry that I am but I'm not trying to." He was going to hurt Wolf by not caving. And he knew that. But he didn't know what to do about it either. Caving to Wolf was so complicated and had such a little chance of success for them. Could that really be the right thing to do?

"I know. But I still have to cope with it in my own ways, even if they smell badly to you." Wolf said, but then he got naked and got into the shower. He wasn't massively bothered either.

Alex was aware of things psychically even if he couldn't physically open his eyes to see them. He ignored that Wolf was naked and the feelings that brought up, in no small part because of what Liron had done. He was not aware of that though. But he was haunted by it all the same. "Yeah..." He had to reluctantly agree. If he wasn't going to cave then Wolf was going to find ways to cope. That apparently meant alcohol.

"I'm not going to be a drunk." Wolf said then, because he knew Alex well enough. "Can't, anyway. Trent lives here now. Sometimes. So you know."

"That would impede on his progress," Alex agreed. "But I did not think that you would go so down so desperate a route," he said. "I have more faith in you and how strong you are than to believe such a thing."

"No, I'll just throw myself into hunting." Wolf said, because that's how he relieved his stress. He had no work for now, so whiskey had been key.

"That's a very productive way of dealing with your feelings," Alex commented. He couldn't actually protest that. Wolf being more enthusiastic about his work would be bad for the fiends he was hunting but good for the people and fiends he was saving.

"Until the bodies mount up," Wolf said, because he knew what he was like. He was very... Dark.

"I'm trying not to think about that," Alex admitted. Because he was not dark. At all. In fact, dark was actually his weakness. Just another thing on the list of reasons why he was trying to avoid caving to Wolf, trying not to love him as he was loved.

"I've accepted you for you," Wolf said with a sigh then, washing the soap suds from his hair and body before turning the shower off and climbing out.

"I am not sure what you mean by that statement," Alex admitted. "I have also accepted you for who you are. I do not expect you to be any different even if I do not particularly like the dark way of things. For personal reasons."

"Nel and I wouldn't use darkness to hurt you. I guess we are both broken, my princess and I. We are dark, but we aren't twisted. We aren't evil." Wolf said as he dried off and then started to brush his teeth.

"Of course you're not evil," Alex said. "Dark doesn't necessarily mean evil. It just attracts evil more than light. But they're not a mutually exclusive thing. Light can contain great evil as well."

"Hmm." Wolf said around his toothbrush. He was just thinking on it. "I don't hurt people who don't deserve it."

"No, you don't," Alex said. "Which is why we're friends." But he'd made Wolf with a heart of gold. A dark heart but a golden one. He knew who Wolf truly was, more so than Wolf even did, and that was why he had feelings there that he didn't want and kept pushing away.

"You know you said that you are like my creator?" Wolf pondered then. He rinsed his mouth and tapped the toothbrush against the side of the sink.

"Yes," Alex said. He had said that and he didn't know how any of them had fully taken the knowledge that he had quite literally made them all with his brothers. That they were of his design. But their free will was what made them their own persons, of course.

"I know you only made my knowledge part, I mean, I guess you did... Your brother, the one who did feelings. You think he made me to love you?" Wolf asked then, he didn't mean it negatively either. Just that he was literally made for Alex. "Like, there will never be another for me. Because that's part of who I am. I'm not against it."

Alex really had to think about that. And even then he didn't know the answer. "I don't know," he admitted. "I am not sure that is something Mesprit would do, especially choosing the Master of Dark for such a thing." His brother couldn't have known that they would meet as they did, that uxie would come to rely on Wolf as he had. But the thought wouldn't leave him. "Perhaps I'll ask him..."

"Even if he did, you know I'd love you anyway." Wolf aid and he knew that with such conviction it was ridiculous. "I was just curious."

"It's certainly a thought provoking question," Alex said. Would Mesprit have done that? Why would he have? Mischief? He just didn't know. But perhaps it was nothing but a sweet thought. Which was also fine.