deercountry | 15 . JOHNUARY

Well. That changes quite a lot, doesn't it?

[ it's a subtle shift, but he and stelmaria both are listening with rapt attention now. ]

I had assumed they were native, at least. They would not have any more right to meddle with us if they were, but some people act like we're meant to be polite guests in someone's home.

I suppose the next question is: why?

[ John's smile is utterly humorless. ]

Why invade? They don't usually bother unpacking that bit, in the alien movies. [ Still: ] Depends on who you ask. It was destined across millennia, with a whole grand prophecy, if you're into that sort of thing. Or the head of the Pthumerians took notice of us, and wanted to see what she could use us for.

[ He drinks, and begins to fall into the rhythm of a story: ] Pthumeria was a world of gods or monsters, whatever your preference, separated from ours by a great unimaginable sea. The queen and her partner were enamored with man. They conceived a child who would keep a human shape, and they wed her to a human— some small-town mayor in coastal Maine, apparently, no idea why that was the play— so that the two would create a little girl. That's Julia Sodder, the first hybrid. The girl born to end the world.

[ It is a kindness. He can recognize that, sitting beside each other and looking only at the fire, with Qrow's voice careful and low. ]

It's good advice. [ He exhales a long breath, and looks at Qrow again, his expression gone wry and tired. ] But it's right there in the story: once you've been a god, it ruins you for trying to be a man. Even though he tried to pick one and not the other... he couldn't pull it off.

I don't know about that.

[And here's where Qrow is at an advantage, of course, knowing the story is real.]

There's many versions of that story out there. Some versions like to imagine epilogues for it. The infinite man doesn't stop being infinite just because one of his circles was broken, you know? He carries on. But the great thing about that story is that it's exactly whatever you want to make of it. You can still decide what he does next, write an epilogue for your ideal version.

[He lets out a quiet huff of a laugh.]

I mean, we're all a little bit infinite out here in squidland, right? That calls for a few tweaks, if you ask me.

It doesn't seem sadder, trying to picture what came next?

[ He sits back and rubs a thumb at his temple, weary, but some of the weight has gone out of the moment. He says it like a hypothetical, even if no one's fooled. ]

With everyone gone... nothing left but ashes and one pissed-off old woman... you think he just starts over? Seems like we've got the opposite, here. Nothing ever really dies.

[ asriel bites back the urge to shoot the question down at once and continue being as useful as a stone wall, mostly because he already has ideas and has concluded that he still hates every single one.

stelmaria paces near enough that her tail brushes against his leg, which is more significant a gesture than it would seem at a glance. they orbit each other with the natural ease of two bodies which have always done so because they are never not aware of the other, and so even their little collisions aren't accidental. she recognises the struggle this presents, but anything more would be too obvious and only worsen the problem; reassurances in their quiet way. ]

It might not even be a universal solution. Why not make it the worst thing you could think of? In all likelihood, it gets what it wants every time we try and fail.

[ sure, he's an optimist, but not about curses intended to force people into uncomfortable situations. ]

I doubt the solution is purely physical. If that were the goal, there are far easier ways of achieving that outcome than this.

[ surely pointing that out as clinically as possible will make it less ridiculously awkward. ]

What choice did he have? I mean, it's not like he could die. If I had to guess, he'd probably already tried. He was known as a man who'd lived many lives, after all, well before he ever saved that village.

[Qrow speaks as though this isn't a story about someone he knows, and John carries on as though it hasn't hit home. Both of them maintain the kindness of continuing to politely pretend as though they believe each other.]

The one nice thing about hitting bottom is that the only way left to go is up, even when it's a treacherous climb and your shoes are torn to shit.

[ John accepts this with good grace, mild and resigned in contrast to Asriel's animated fury. ]

The worst thing I can think of is likely to involve more viscera than the worst thing you can think of, I suspect. Cultural backgrounds, and all.

[ This is said concerningly deadpan. But he leans in over the table again, settling the way he might when faced with a research problem. He smooths and resettles his fingertips against the back of Asriel's hand, a thoughtless little motion of self-reassurance. ]

We've had any number of curses that press for... metaphorical closeness. Secrets, fears, confessions. I can only think of one that wanted, you know, a physical solution, and even that didn't have a one-size-fits-all. [ If he makes it sound awkward, it's because it was awkward. ] Which brings us back to trust falls.

That's the truth.

[ There's a clean-slate simplicity to losing everything. That's what doesn't sit right with him, here: no one ever starts fresh. Their deaths and disasters follow them again and again. With people around to watch it all play out, the only way up is through hell, and all that's at the top is the view of the bottom.

Their fire is burning low, by now. The forest around them is cold and still. It isn't the kind he wanted to live in, when he was a kid, and there's nothing out in it but a world that'll keep them for infinity. ]

Thanks for the story.

[ that strikes him as unexpectedly funny. it must be the absurdity of all this again on top of his nerves. it's probably a bad sign. ]

Maybe not. Needing to carve someone's heart out was always on the table.

[ you can't help where the mind goes. ]

I've noticed you've mentioned trust falls a few times, though.

[ asriel assumes it's a nervous habit. what does he know? he is possibly projecting, considering how quickly he jumped to adamantly refusing to share earlier.

he is trying to ignore that hand entirely, but he's always had this problem with failing to not think about certain distractions. ]

If you have an idea, you might as well say so. If I were going to hit you, it would've happened already.

[ comforting? ]

[ This startles him into a low huff of a laugh. ]

How's this, then. I'll tell you something very personal and sad, and if that fails to touch your heart, plan B can be to literally touch your heart. Nonlethally, mind. I'm very gentle.

[ The joys of necromancy! It is again unclear whether he's kidding. ]

Well, I have some sympathy for that. It's never been crystal clear to me, either.

[ Robby lets him get away with the shift, and John doesn't press the issue. In moments like this the whole thing feels too absurd to bother with, but hey: it's not like he has many competing priorities, here. The weight of an unsteady empire has been shelved indefinitely. They have nothing but time. ]

Same to you. Thanks for the pep talk. I'll try to put it to good use.

[ something unsaid passes between him and stelmaria again that draws asriel's attention from john momentarily this time. she is now, as ever, his last vestige of caution and the fact that he does not veto this idea at once has apparently been a (reasonable) cause for concern.

neither of them reflects on the fact that they automatically assume plan B is the more likely outcome. he isn't easily moved and doesn't expect that to change. necromancy is also the obvious place where his mind goes — it's not his fault, it's fascinating — and all the implications that go with it that he can only guess at. pain seems obvious, which is still easier and preferable a thousand times over to having to share anything personal, and it shows. ~~some men would let someone handle their organs before they'll go to therapy.~~ ]

That's seems like more effort on your part, but if that's what you want, I won't object.

[ He did not expect grave commitment to what is ultimately a bit. John lifts his free hand to rub a thumb at his temple again, looking both troubled and accepting. ]

Then let's start with the easy bit, and hope we don't need to get hands-on. [ He gives Asriel's hand a little squeeze as he says it, to make plain that this is another unreasonably obvious joke. Before Asriel can rile at this, he cuts in: ] Look, I'll find something relationship-themed to share, in honor of the season.

[ Something about craving connection, he doesn't say. The longing for touch doesn't feel so foreign to him, but he's aware of the itch every time Asriel drops his hand: there's an urgency underlying the breathlessness. Contact being as crucial as air, something along those lines. He gets the poetry of it. ]

This one's no grand secret. Not anymore, anyway. [ He goes wry again, and silent, for just a beat too long. Then: ]

I have a daughter.

[ One child by blood; by any other metric, the number is a nightmare to unpack. He'd rather start touching hearts. John shifts his grip in Asriel's slightly, betraying restlessness under his steady tone. ]

I wasn't exactly around when she was a kid, so we've been trying to catch up. You could call it a work in progress. [ You could call it more unkind things than that, but he likes to give himself some credit. It's been a bad year. ] Everything I can do, and I've still never had the hang of that.

[ It hits him on the street, which is just insult to fucking injury. John avoided this, last year, and chalked it up to not looking like an easy mark. That was apparently the wrong call.

He's almost gotten used to throwing his blood around. Ten thousand fucking years of never misplacing a drop, and now here he is, bleeding out into cups for any monster with a box of chocolates. It's shameful.

Anyway: it's a raspberry truffle.

The most embarrassing part is what he does about it, when the nausea hits. He thinks it'll last a moment, like everything does; he thinks it'll pass before he can bother to react to it. He assumes he can shrug it away as easily as he shrugs off Vileblood in his veins, a knife through the heart, anything else that tries to take apart his body. It can only ever hurt him for a little while.

That he spends the next minute hunched against the pale flowers at the edge of the healer's district, vomiting tarry red blood down his shirtfront, really should come as less surprise. ]

[ it's amazing how after all of asriel's work on Dust and how to control it, he still doubts his intuition. he knows how it works, but he has a hard time submitting to the process — and asriel has no excuse, given stelmaria's explicit warnings, but he chooses to ignore it anyway. he likes what he thinks and he's sure this is a gamble he can win. he always wins and it's only a little pain, after all. he won't have to do what he doesn't want to do because lord asriel gets what he wants because he wants things more powerfully than other people, and so on.

stelmaria couldn't know what john would say, but she knows how well asriel has painted himself into this corner to save face. he doesn't consider that she might know better because only one of them has ever been completely honest.

his mistake, of course, was believing there was nothing john could ever say that would get under his skin. arrogance. his daemon gives him a long, knowing look before stalking off with a growl. their separation no longer strains their bond how it used to, but he remembers the feeling keenly enough that it might as well.

asriel is silent for too long after that, but there is nothing good nor clever to say when one half of you has abandoned the other to reap what he's sown. ]

Effort counts for something, I'm sure.

[It's February again. Qrow, for his own part, is more concerned with not finding himself on fire from a string in the heart for a third time, but surely there's no occasion for that, this year. He and Xerxes have settled into a comfortable routine, and unless Doorway is expecting an I love you out of him any time soon, it's about as settled and domestic as it gets with Qrow.

He's sure something will get him eventually, because it always does, but for the time being, he's enjoying the simple pleasure of just being a bird, soaring through the skies where nobody expects you to talk about your feelings.

And he probably would've just kept flying, if he hadn't caught sight of a certain someone suddenly collapsing and heaving blood into a patch of flowers. It'd be a more alarming sight if he hadn't heard of this curse specifically from Break just two weeks ago, when he himself had been stricken by the cursed food at Madam Generosity's party. There is a moment where he considers not stopping, honestly. He imagines John has people he could call for help, presuming he didn't burn all his bridges in July. It's not like they're friends, either. Despite that little moment in the forest, Qrow is still not quite sure he likes the man.

He thinks all of these things even as he finds himself descending, touching down at a street corner several feet behind john, and he's assumed his human shape by the time his conscious thoughts reach around to how much he would hate for someone he cares about to see him like that. He might hate it more if someone he doesn't like saw him, though, and by the time he's made his way to John's side, the way he's justified going out of his way like this to himself is as some kind of petty victory, like that time he punched him in a library.

It's embarrassing how transparent an excuse it is, but Qrow needs these things for his dignity, okay. He has an image of a grouchy sarcastic asshole to preserve, after all.]

...Lemme guess. Cursed food?

[Casually, like it's conversation. This doesn't need to be awkward, he insists to himself.]

[ Well! That's something. John hadn't been tracking the cat too closely; she hasn't been particularly talkative, and he's not well-versed in regarding an Omen as an extension of some singular self, when the only Omens he spends time with are an entire can of worms. No one's ever met his in a situation that didn't involve bloodshed. Usually she's the one shedding everyone's blood.

Still: he watches the split with a little furrow of startled fascination in his brow. As she stalks off, he tracks the movement out the corner of his eye, drawn again to the intangible weight of her.

There's a surprising number of people with odd souls, in this town: two-part melanges and muddied hundred-part infusions and his own cohort of walking black holes. He's never quite seen a person split in half. One essence in two shapes, not evenly distributed.

Asriel couldn't know how darkly funny it is. ]

I like to hope so.

[ He's saying nothing in particular, politely glossing over whatever just happened there. Even more politely pretending there's nothing to read into it. ]

I'd like to have something there, you know? It's been a shaky start, and her mom and I didn't exactly see eye-to-eye.

[ This is a very funny understatement. ]

[ There's something strange about this. A little flash of intuitive foreshadowing telling her that this is not going to go how she thinks it will go. But that doesn't matter. ]

What is there to fucking say after this long? You had front row seats. You know why any one of us would want to do this, even if we die trying. Or do you really not fucking believe we could want anything but to love you until we're nothing but extensions of you?

[ For just a moment, she'd wounded him. Left him mangled. A stone thrown at the reflection of the moon. But it feels good. ]

I fought for you. Because I didn't want to believe he fucking died for nothing. I really wanted to believe I was serving God. I wanted it to mean something.

I was asking him.

[ Light knows L too well to have to even ask. They can talk later when the subject isn't immediately in front of them. There isn't a lot of optimism regarding his ability to change L's mind, but the odds are greater without John present. ]

I can ask more directly: how much further are you planning on pushing your 'punishment'.

[ Normally, Light isn't going to ask that question and expect a truthful reply. Even now, he'll be weary of the answer, but John doesn't seem to bother really hiding his murderous streak. If anything, he's more likely to use it as a chance to threaten L further. ]

[ Simultaneously, Light regains the ability to breathe. The next breath is full enough to fill his lungs so that he can speak without coughing or sounding weak.

Unfamiliar with the scenario, Light can only continue with the assumption that John is planning to use this as some kind of chess move against a known enemy. Logically, the move makes sense; weaken Light so that he can grab him. But, another realization manages to pause his tongue: that was a look of shock and then realization. John wore both on his face well enough that Light had no problem reading the emotions no matter his own situation. Perhaps he's a good actor, but based on their last encounter, he hadn't been too terribly difficult to read. ]

You didn't do this.

[ His eyes look around, but he does note that the choking stopped as soon as John grabbed his arm. ]

Mm, [ he says, and while he could leave the subject at that- they have a whole city around them that's rather important- Robby can't help but ask... ]

One thing I don't get, though...if you're her dad, how come she barely knows what My Chemical Romance is, but you know what Jumanji is?

[ Clearly, the two are comparable. ]

[ if you're into that sort of thing. he rolls his eyes at the mention of a prophecy before he can think about not doing it. whatever. it's a habit he has no reason to break. prophecies are never, ever going to be a thing for asriel, as he is critically unprepared to unpack what it all means for his entire life to have been a part of one. ]

Well, I can fully admit my complete ignorance of alien movies.

[ it's safe to assume if he's ever seen a movie, it was some tragically uninspired propaganda piece because the magisterium had greenlit it for public consumption. ]

But I might've thought monsters from another world wouldn't fall for the same tired cliché of pinning all of their hopes on a little girl, at least.

[ it's the politeness that gets him. asriel wishes john had been a little crueller because then he might've had a defence for that. he's bracing for the barb because there isn't anyone he can think of who would've passed up the opportunity to kick him when he's down. asriel doesn't begrudge them for it — he never set out to make friends, he set out to win a war.

here, this earns john a small measure of respect, and his prize is something asriel wouldn't even consider a secret if he wasn't being held hostage and threatened with real human connection. ]

I also have a daughter.

[ a fact he's shared with as much scholarly detachment as he can muster. he doesn't know what else to say about it, which feels uncomfortably appropriate. ]

But I never called myself a father.

[ it's difficult to know the exact meaning of those words because asriel isn't sure either. a confession? an admission of guilt? the same lie he's used forever to deflect any responsibility? yes. ]

[ That would do it. John can recognize a breakthrough when it's laid in his lap, the hesitation over a touched nerve. He has gone carefully still and thoughtful in the face of Asriel's uncertainty. ]

It's a learning curve. [ He slants a wry, awkward smile, as though he can invite them in to the same pathetic little club. He won't mention that he's a whole world's deadbeat: playing the Father, capitalized. ] I'll let you know when I've learned it.

15 . JOHNUARY

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cw: reference to "hypothetical" suicide

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puking organs! cw: emeto, gore, vivid descriptions of living organs, the usual

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