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His city twinkled and shimmered with a myriad artificial lights as he took in the sight from his favorite spot atop the watchtower. "When did it grow so vast?", he mused absently as he let the tranquility of the moment wash over him. Space and time ever shifted around him, bubbling, swirling, flowing gently or rushing like a stream, yet there he stood, at the eye of the silent storm, at the center of all, unchanging, eternal. He could recall the image of the shanty town as if it were there just yesterday, a creaking and sighing mess that threatened to collapse in on itself, and today, somehow, a magnificent city sprawled in its place, standing tall and reaching wide, enticing more and more people with the promise of tomorrow. He'd only blinked once or maybe twice, he thought with a wistful smile, and life did what life's wont to do.
It was a strange feeling, to be an inextricable part of this lovely society, at the same time to not belong to any given part of it. Were he to descend from the tower, walk wherever his feet would take him, knock on this crystalline or that wood-and-metal door, yes, of course, a familiar face would greet him and welcome him with all the warmth, and yet, it wouldn't be the selfsame kind of warmth that these people shared among each other. He was a caretaker, yet an outsider, everyone's favorite character, yet a legend veiled in mystery, never someone held by the loving hands. Links, he was all but made of links, - to the Crystal Tower, to every last resident of the Crystarium and beyond, - all these connections swirled around him, though never quite reached the center, silent and hollow.
"Exarch! Exarch! Frank!" - a pleasant voice pulled him out of his trance-like state. All smiles, the owner of the voice strode into the field of view, across the lawn and towards his tall perch, poised to jump up right to where he sat. Exarch didn't scramble to his feet, - that'd give away things he needed to keep hidden, - and waved with pretense ease. His mind raced. Shake himself awake, improvise, come up with a lie or a half-true excuse to leave as soon as possible, before the two of them could end up sitting next to each other, framed by the city lights and cradled by the starry sky. Not again. Never again.
He fumbled his way through a short conversation that he wouldn't be able to recall after running, - why did he have to run, again? - down the cold blue corridors to his crystalline chamber, lurching in the general direction of the bed, and burying himself in the sheets and pillows like a grub would hide itself in dirt. He played it safe. He managed. All was well, the status quo preserved for the day, and, gods willing, there wouldn't be too many days like this. A century of planning and waiting didn't prepare him for this.
Bit by bit, adrenaline receded, leaving his body limp and sluggish. He blindly reached out and pulled the disarrayed sheets over himself, not caring to undress. To return to that moment, he mused, to indulge in a simple human need, a single kiss, perhaps, would it truly put his plans in jeopardy? Knowing the grim and absolute answer, he let out a rattling sigh, and curled up tight.
Left unsupervised, his mind flipped through those freshly made memories, the sight and sound and scent and almost-touch and almost-taste that would infuse themselves into his very essence. He would carry all of that with him to - ah, wherever his borrowed eternity would come to a logical conclusion. The setting sun, the haze, the sway of foliage above his head, the tickle of grass under his hand, the softly speaking hero - close, so close, and, all of a sudden, closer still, their breaths mingling on the precipice of something beautiful that mustn't be.
As risky as it was, that moment, that would be his to keep. A prize. A proof of something he'd never hoped to achieve: to attract the man he was attracted to, not as a bumbling scholar from a lifetime ago, but as his current self. The alarms blared in his weary head, for one misstep today could spell doom for the past and future alike, and yet, somehow, he took relish in suddenly having to walk the razor's edge. Of course he would. He hummed to himself in a neutral tone, drifting, softly sliding to the dreamy state once more, to the recreation of that moment shared with his hero, rewritten so that neither of the two would pull away.