This had been expected, and at the same time not. Nothing ever lasted, least of all anything good and it figured when he had finally settled into the idea of having a place to belong the lost son would turn up, very much alive, and bring it all to ruin.
Sadly, as much as Cyrus would like to despise the man for it, he was the one in the wrong. Very, very wrong and the fact he was not in his bottle, at the bottom of the ocean or a deep hole in the ground was a little surprising.
The anger when Rumple had turned towards him had been enough to wound him; the man could not have cause more damage by striking him physically. All the betrayal and hurt that reflected in his eyes was all the genie needed to cut him deep. Closing his eyes, as though to shut out the voices and everything happening in a flurry around him, he tried to calm his breathing and perhaps even out the erratic beats of his heart.
What Rumple, or his master rather, would do to him for this terrible lie was a mystery yet to be revealed, but he was determined to deal with whatever retribution the man felt owed with some sort of dignity. He would deserve it, all of it, after all.
Although that didn’t stop the twinge of annoyance at Baelfire’s tone of voice when poising his question. Eye’s flying opening, they slide to the one side to look the other man up and down. With all the excitement, if that word even suited, of his arrival, Cyrus hadn’t really taken time to look at the stranger. It struck him more then how they didn’t look a bit alike; not only was their skin tone different but their very appearances were so like night and day, he couldn’t even begin to guess how Rumple had mistaken him for his lost son.
“A slave cannot help when offered something that looked far better than forced servitude, be it he knows better than to lie or not,” he stiffly returned, his tone tight as the realization struck he was only moments away from that life again. It had taken everything in him not to speak the title slave with utter distaste, as that was exactly what a genie happened to be, what he happened to be. All that turned around with the next question, which took a few seconds longer than needed to process. Cyrus turned to look at him fully, shaking his head. “I would never have done anything to hurt your father, whether you wish to believe me or not is up to you, all I was attempting was to make him happy. And he was, although I felt nothing but guilt for the lie I was living…yet looking at you I still am confused how he made the mistake of identity.”
Pressing his lips together for a moment, he brushed a stray lock or two of black curly hair out of his eyes as he toyed with speaking again. Was it his place to talk freely now, and to the man he’d been pretending to be all this time? When he made up his mind, there was a cautious edge to his voice. “If I may be so bold, do you have any idea as to why? We are quite different; you obviously come from his land and I from a desert…yet there had to be something to make him believe upon our meeting I was you.”
The word slave was something that Neal hadn’t expected. He didn’t actually know that much about genies, if he was honest. Sure he’d read fairytale books and watched movies in this land dealing with genies and the three wishes they gave, but he hadn’t really thought much about if they actually existed and what life would be like for them if they did. He felt a bit bad for his joking now, and he rubbed a hand behind his head as he looked at the other man.
He brought up an interesting point. He and Cyrus didn’t look much alike. But as a child… well he’d had that curly hair. And they both had the dark eyes. Assuming that Neal got tan and lost some weight they might look a bit more similar. It wasn’t a stretch for him to see why his father had thought that Cyrus was him, when all was said and done. Especially after having been apart for centuries, something he was still very mad about.
“Er sorry about that,” he said with an apologetic smile. “I never ran across a genie before. But yeah no problem. He probably thought you were me cause you do look a bit like how I did when I was younger. The curly hair, dark eyes. And I was skinnier then too. Besides, we’d been separated for awhile and… well I guess he just saw what he wanted to see,” Neal said with a shrug. But now he supposed he wanted to get to know the other man better, since they were here and all. It’d make things a bit less awkward.
“So, what’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking. If you do I can just call you Bae. I go by Neal now. Though that might be a bit awkward,” he said with a bit of a smile, his way of offering up an introduction while hopefully learning a bit more about the genie. “You can always give a nickname too if you want. I’m not really picky. Just don’t want to go around saying ‘hey you’ and what not.”
