The Ghosts of Right Now

"The Ghosts of Right Now" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread written on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
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==Full Text==
A break. Just one night. They’ll all be there tomorrow, just as you left them.
The stag wandered aimlessly through the cold evening with no intention of finding an end goal. It was a walk to clear his conscious, as fruitless as he knew it would prove to be. The incident in the garden was overwhelming, even a day later, and he couldn’t bring himself to return to it quite yet.
The frigid air entering his lungs was exhaled in bursts of warm breath that filled the motionless air in front of him. Something about this weather reminded him of his childhood; most things did lately. He took a knee where he stood, letting his head fall and eyes shut for just a moment. He let images of his parents flood his mind in a blur of what he was barely able to remember… he did what he hadn’t been able to do since returning to the realm of the living.
He spoke softly to them, not to be deterred by anything around him. The timing felt… right.
“I’m sorry… I am so sorry.” He sighed deeply in an attempt to fight off the tears that would likely follow. “I knew what I did. I knew it – in that moment, I did what you made me promise to never do. I am… I’m…-”
His voice cracked unexpectedly. His previously composed demeanor shifted to a shaky anger.
“Why can’t I know? I have to spend my years not knowing where you went; what happened after I made the most grave mistake of my life. I would give anything. Gods, damn it. I would give anyth-”
“For what it’s worth, bud, I don’t think it was a mistake.”
Dario’s words were cut off at the sudden emergence of a familiar tone. Soft footsteps behind him neared closer, and the deer could see the silhouette of his friend kneel down at his side in his peripheral vision.
“I heard that last bit, I’m sorry for intruding.” Vox rest his hand on Dario’s knee, also looking to the ground beneath them. “I know we haven’t talked in a minute, and the last time we spoke wasn’t the most cordial I’ve ever been. I have to apologize for that.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Vox. We’ve been through it lately. I was just… you know, when we made it to the outskirts of my old home… nobody could tell us where my parents went, or if they were even still alive.” Dario didn’t take the time to look up at his friend. There was a washing sensation of shame that overtook him. “I just need to process some things.”
Vox removed his hand and pushed his own hair back. This was still a heavy topic for Dario, and approaching it required caution.
“I remember… too well. That was before we finally made our way back here.” He shifted his head just slightly to have a better view of Dario, and could immediately see the light tear formations. “I promised you we would go back one day. I can assure you, someone has to know.”
Dario winced at the offer being brought up again – the guilt that filled his heart couldn’t handle the kindness he was being shown.
“Vox, I need to tell you something. It’s… this is hard for me to say, and no matter what you feel, I’ll understand.” He had to remind himself to breathe at this point, as his nerves nearly put his respiratory system in arrest. “When Sylar took me and… everything happened, I had… a memory.”
He took to his feet, walking towards a stone fence nearby. He motioned for Vox to join him.
“I was barely able to comprehend what was going on, and I had the day I died on repeat. I could see every detail as if I were out of my own body. It looped over, and over, and over… and I remembered something.” He still couldn’t look at Vox. Please understand.
“I tried to do the reanimation incantation before I got hit, and I think the stress of the situation caused it to overwhelm my entire body. I tried to save myself with you, and I failed.”
Vox continued to look ahead, careful to take in this information with a neutral appearance.
“Who could blame you for that, Dario? There’s nothing wrong with wanting to save us both. I could never be upset with you for that.” He motioned to placed his hand on the stag’s back, before it was swiftly pushed away.
“No, no, Vox. That’s not… that’s not the issue. I did try to save myself, yes… but how I went about it is…” He swallowed and took a deep breath. “…my father taught me that incantation. I knew what would happen if I tried to do it, and I went for it anyway with no regard for what it could mean for me. I think he called it magick debt, and it’s essentially repercussions for using magick in a manner that isn’t for the benefit of others. ”
He felts his hands trembling. This was his worst fear.
“Either I was going to die, or it would have worked, and I would have dealt with the consequences later. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, and we know what happened that day.” Dario’s fingers began racing in their tapping pattern. “What I didn’t consider, and what came to me when I was being tortured, was the fact that the magick debt doesn’t just… go away, if you manage to come back. I knew why we had left, and I knew that I didn’t know why I hadn’t aged at first, but in those memories…”
His antlers weighed his head further down, and he could see Vox’s expression turn to a disappointed understanding.
“So… you know? Or you knew?” Vox could feel his chest tighten, creating a twinge of pain in his heart. He was slowly coming to a full comprehension. “You knew far before we returned home, Dario. You never told me any of this. Why would you keep that from me? When I spent all those years away from-”
Vox had to stop speaking. Rage was building in his entire being, and there was no telling what this new information would cause him to do.
“Vox, I swear, I didn’t do it out of malice. I promise you this with my entire heart. I thought of my parents, and I wanted to find them. I thought of my shame and… and I see now that I made a horrible, terrible mistake that I could never possibly make up to you.”
The scout quickly rose and moved away from the deer.
“Yeah, no shit, Dario! Gods, this… have you not seen what my family had to go through? I take so much responsibility for what I did, but… we could have gone back so much sooner. I could have seen them grow up. I could have been there to keep them safe. Dario, I-” He pushed his hands against his face, stifling a loud yell. “This isn’t you, Dario. You don’t do that to people. What happened? Why would you knowingly keep that from me?”
He clenched his fist tightly. For the first time in his entire life, he wanted to hit Dario with everything he had.
“You know, Stonegit wanted to shift a lot of the blame on you for us being gone. I fought him for even suggesting it… and I’m the fool. I was the fool this whole time.” He was pacing back and forth feet away from the deer, who still had not managed to break his eye contact with the ground below. “I heard the words of those I’ve known for so long, telling me that I made a mistake going with you. I could never imagine regretting it, but even now…”
Dario rushed to Vox and pushed him back, without any control of his actions.
“Do you hear yourself, Vox? I admit it – I fucked up! I cannot tell you the guilt and pain I feel for it, but you talk about what it did to your family. At least you had a family to come home to.” Dario’s voice was surprisingly loud for how it waivered as he spoke. “I had nothing. I had the pity of my friend and his family that would forever treat me as a charity case. I needed closure, and I’m sorry for what happened with Treepelt, and with Liam, and with Kendra… but don’t think that I didn’t have my reasons for not telling you soone-”
Vox had swung before the deer had any time to register it. The blow landed directly below his left eye, causing him to stumble a few feet to his side. Even with his shorter stature than Dario, Vox had put his all in that punch.
“I gave up a decade for you, Dario! I missed watching my children grow up! I missed being there for my wife when she needed me the most, and I missed keeping my family safe from danger. Nala had to step in and do what I couldn’t, all because I thought you were worth it.”
Vox turned to face away from Dario. As far as he could tell, the conflict was over with.
“You have to tell them. I won’t do it for you.”
Dario fell back onto one knee and he saw the feet of his old friend wander away from where they fought. The tears streaming from his eyes fell to the ground in rapid succession; his words caught themselves in his throat so tightly that he couldn’t say anything more to the departing scout.
I wasn’t worth it.