"Nastka!" Loux laughed, caught half between hysterics and some strange measure of drunkenness. Cradling flesh and bone in his hands as if a boy playing in a sandbox, shaping the squelching mass into what vaguely resembled a person - a most dangerous thing for someone like him to craft; Was Nastka familiar with the concept of golems? A toothy grin spread across his face, speckled with blood and sinew. Wobbling slightly, chuckling to himself - ever so pleased with his use of magic to play with his food, weaving chaos and order together like finest silk. Too bad Loux liked a grand finish, something that really popped. "Yer always late to th' party, ma cherie... 'm beginnin' to think ye don' like watchin' th' fireworks wit me."
Taunting the only man that frightened him was more dangerous a move than he could rightly know - titillating all the same. Though it hadn't been merely Nastka's most inconveniently placed men strewn about the pavement, but others too, of every stripe and faction; Would that have mattered? A sleight was a sleight. How many more buttons could Loux press before the pain gifted to him broke him? Why was he so hellbent on testing that boundary? One day, there'd be no coming back from it.
"Sorry yer boys got caught in th' mix. Didn't mean t' get 'em this time - was aimin' fer th' sorciers an' Deadeye's goons, but I cain't always control th' ricochet. 'm good, better 'an most anybody, but e'en I'm not tha' good." Sobering, calm, tilting his head. Two truths and a lie. He was sure Nastka could figure out which. He gave a sharp nod of his head, a bits of blood dropping from his chin. "Make it up t' ye, though."
The laugh reached him before the words did.
It echoed through the ruined street like broken glass scattering across marble. The name was thrown into the night with all the reckless delight of a man setting fire to his own house just to watch the flames dance.
Nastka stopped. Around them, the aftermath breathed its final breaths. Blood ran in thin rivers through cracks in the pavement. Smoke curled upward from shattered stone and twisted metal. Bodies lay where gravity and violence had left them, their shadows stretching long beneath the sick amber glow of the streetlights.
And in the center of it all stood Loux.
Covered in blood. Smiling. Playing. As though death itself had become a toy placed lovingly into his hands. Nastka watched him shape ruined flesh into something vaguely human. Watched the concentration behind the grin. The delight. The childish satisfaction. For a moment, an old exhaustion settled over him. Not anger. Something worse.
Because for all the horror before him, Nastka did not see a monster. He saw Loux. That was the problem. That had always been the problem. Anyone else and the decision would have been simple. Anyone else would already be dead.
Instead, he found himself staring at the same creature who had spent years tearing holes through the world and then looking surprised by the blood on his hands.
A fox caught in a trap of his own making. A starving animal chewing through its own leg because it had forgotten freedom existed.
Nastka felt something dark twist beneath his ribs. Not because of the taunt. Because Loux genuinely sounded pleased to see him. As though his arrival completed something. As though disaster felt lonelier without an audience. His gaze moved slowly over the carnage. Then returned to Loux.
"Fireworks," Nastka repeated quietly. The word drifted from his mouth like smoke.
He stepped forward. A boot crushed bone beneath its heel. The sound disappeared into the night. "You think that's what this is, moje kochanie." Not a question. A realization.
His eyes lingered on the grotesque thing Loux had assembled from flesh and arrogance. Then rose again. The look he gave him then was impossible to mistake. Disappointed.
And somehow that was always worse.
"You kill half a street." Another step. "Turn corpses into art projects." Another. "And still manage to convince yourself you're merely entertaining company." The smile never touched his eyes.
Excuses carefully wrapped around truths. Nastka listened.
Every calculated omission.
By the time Loux finished speaking, Nastka already knew exactly which part had been the lie.
A small silence followed. Heavy. Dense. The kind that made the air difficult to breathe. "You know what's fascinating?" His voice dropped. "I never asked." Another step. "I never asked who you were aiming for." Closer. "I never asked whether it was intentional." Closer still. "I never asked for an explanation."
Nastka tilted his head. Almost curious. Like a scientist studying a wounded animal that continued biting despite being too exhausted to stand.
"You walked into the conversation defending yourself." His eyes narrowed slightly. "That's guilt." A pause. "Not remorse." The distinction landed with surgical precision.
Because Nastka knew Loux. Better than most. Perhaps better than Loux knew himself. He knew remorse lived in him. Buried somewhere deep beneath arrogance and self destruction and violence. He knew Loux carried ghosts. The problem was that Loux wore guilt like jewelry.
Turned it into another excuse to bleed. "You don't regret what happened." The words emerged softly. Almost sadly. "You regret that I witnessed it." For the first time, something flickered behind Nastka's composure.
A crack. Tiny. Invisible to anyone who did not know him. But Loux would know.
Because beneath the disappointment sat something infinitely more dangerous.
The kind that survived long after reason had abandoned ship. The kind that became ugly because it refused to die. Nastka looked at him the way one looked at an old hunting dog that had gone half feral.
Still trusted in strange irrational ways.
Still capable of tearing someone's throat out.
Still capable of turning around and biting its owner.
And somehow none of that changed anything.
That was always the tragedy.
When Loux offered to make it up to him, a laugh escaped Nastka. Low. Brief. Devoid of amusement. His eyes closed for a second. Just one. As though he were tired. As though he suddenly felt every year of this exhausting dance. Then he approached.
Close enough now to smell blood and smoke and magic clinging to Loux's skin.
Close enough to reach out.
His fingers brushed a streak of blood from Loux's cheek.
The gesture should have been gentle. Instead, it felt devastating. Because it was instinctive. Unthinking. The sort of motion that betrayed years of familiarity. Years of knowing exactly where to touch. Years of noticing. His thumb lingered there for only a moment. Then withdrew.
"Make it up to me?" The words came quietly. Almost fond. Which somehow made them hurt more. "You still think this is a debt."
"You still think everything has a price." A long silence stretched between them. Then Nastka smiled.
"The things that worry me about you cannot be repaid."
The street seemed suddenly very empty. Very cold. Nastka looked at him for a long moment. At the blood. The grin. The chaos. The loneliness hidden underneath all of it.
And for just a second, beneath all the disappointment and anger and exhaustion, there was something painfully human in his expression. Something dangerously close to grief.
"You keep treating yourself like something that needs destroying."
"And every time I see it, I wonder whether one day you'll finally succeed."
