Now Is Your Chance Boy || Michael DePalmado
Emery's smell tangled with the aromas in the air. It flooded the entirety of Thirst, dominating over all the other scents filling the main room, engulfing it like a curse the building would be stained with for a thousand more lifetimes. At first, it froze Michael in place. He had thought about this moment for many nights. He had thought about what he would say or do, paced around his study for hours upon hours, not leaving the confines of those four walls just thinking. Thinking until the thoughts ran mad in his head, until he was certain that the only thing he could do was to go to Emery first. Prove to him that what he had promised years ago still rang true then, after everything they had been through. But, when the moment finally turned up, he was not in control of the situation, and all of those thoughts bled away and paralyzed him.
He closed his eyes. He braced himself in the seconds he would have between the time Emery stepped inside, to the time it would take him to make it towards the back room. He clenched his hands and drew a deep breath. When he heard the doorknob begin to turn he looked at it with a visible desperation. But also, with a quiet disappointment. What does a father say when actions always spoke louder than words to his son?
"I'm sorry."
Michael remained quiet, but the phrase caught him off balance. He only listened as his child stumbled out the words choking in his throat, with a muted disposition that they both knew so well. It wasn't the first time they had met like this. It wasn't their first go around at Michael watching Emery with a knowing, saddened gaze, and his progeny standing in front of him trying to relay his feelings like a scared little kid.
He watched his boy stare at the ground, both of them fidgeting. He felt the pang in his chest of those fatherly instincts wanting to scoop up the child who hated physical contact in his arms and tell him, as he always had, how all right everything was going to be. But instead, he listened. And within fleeting seconds, the boy was gone again.
When the door shut behind him, Michael gasped as if his lungs had collapsed all over again. He gripped at the back of a chair and leaned on it as he tried to stop the dizziness of his head, the dead Maker inside of him telling him to go, to follow. If Emery wanted him there, he would be there. He would stand by his progeny's decisions, whether he found them realistic or not. But... was it the right thing to do? Is a Maker only ever there to follow their progeny blindly? Is a father only there for his son to watch him spread his wings and then constantly fly too close to the burn of the sun? Perhaps it was more complicated than that. Perhaps, after all this time, Michael and Emery weren't like other Makers and their progeny, and maybe because of that they couldn't adhere to the same laws and structures as they did. Couldn't be held to the same standards as they were. Perhaps they were unique. Or perhaps they were just denying themselves of the mundane that came along with following the rules.
But either way, Michael had made a promise. He was not going to follow in his father's footsteps. He was not going to abandon his child and become a figment of the boy's imagination. He was not going to leave Emery's side when his world was on the verge of changing. He would be there, come hell or high water, for everything -- every major change, every minor slip up, every step of the way. No matter what.
I'll be there.
Michael grabbed for a jacket and headed out the door minutes after his kin. He was careful to stay as far back as he could, to keep a distance between them. This wasn't his moment. It wasn't his duty to be involved or join in on whatever was going to happen in that field. This was all on Emery, and he was fine with that. He was only going to spectate, and be there to pick up the pieces of a fragile little boy should nothing come of it. But strangely, in some part of him that didn't find all of this absolutely impossible, he hoped it would work. He hoped that he wouldn't have to take a disappointed Emery back home to nurse those wounds ever again. He hoped that whatever was going to happen wouldn't wind up scarring the child he cared about anymore. Emery didn't deserve more pain. He didn't deserve to be let down by whimsical magicks that told stories of resurrecting a dead wife. Of rekindling lost love...
And so he prayed to Mother Moon to give her favorite her blessing, and to spare him anymore hurt.
Let this work.