deercountry | will you witness me in a pit of fire

[Lazarus speaks. Paul remains calm, in the studied, careful way of someone who very much does not want to regret the next thing they do or say. He shifts his focus to the drifting flowers in their bowl, which helps. He even nods at a few key points.]

I do know that.

[But he doesn't manage to keep the bruised note of teenage sulkiness out of his answer. He hates the way it sounds immediately, hates the way it's all but a concession to the point Lazarus is making with an obliqueness that barely stops short of insulting.

It's not meant to be insulting. He recognizes that. He's trying to recognize that. So he takes a bracing breath and brings his attention back to the man rearranging Paul's place settings with spider-like fingers.]

And I know that I won't convince you just by asking you to be convinced. I wouldn't respect you if you were that easily swayed. But I'm asking you to t-

[When the kettle whistles, Paul flinches hard enough to rattle the table and everything on it. He pales in a misery of irritated embarassment, grabbing its edge at once to still it, and exhales through his teeth.]

I'll be right back.

[He stands up, brushing the front of his sweater for nothing, and returns to the kitchen to finish preparing the tea.]

[He's struck a nerve, but that's not always a bad thing with Paul, L's learned. Sometimes he needs to hear these things, and if he can't rely on L to say them, well...

...perhaps it would mean relying on someone else, who might be more charismatic honey than honest sting.

He nods acquiescence when the kettle sings and Paul excuses himself, recognizing that Paul could well need a moment to collect himself. If he truly saw Paul as an opponent, he wouldn't allow him to take that moment; it's a testament to the trust they've built that he does.

It's a testament that he remains, lost in thought and staring into a middle distance as he takes stock of his own strategies and center of determination. If Paul was going to ask him to try, perhaps to see things ~~God's~~ way, or to keep an open mind, he's considering that, too.

Empathize, if you would, with a destroyer of worlds. Shake the hand of a self-proclaimed Messiah; smile like you're his friend. Join him openly or oppose him discreetly.

Paul had said it, hadn't he? L is discreet; he likes that about L.]

Edited 2022-03-29 22:25 (UTC)

[ There is movement in the hall, at the door. These aren't Paul's footfalls. God does not walk with any particular grace or gravitas; he ambles to the door, and then he's very simply there, looking as he always does. Black shirt, black pants, his short hair slightly rumpled. There is no crown in his hair, not of ash or bone or shining laurels. The glowing rings of his eyes are the white of nuclear fission.

He regards the boy who trespassed in his dreams, and he regards Paul's carefully sauteed blueberries, and then he steps inside. ]

Good to see you up and at 'em.

[ His voice is just as it's always been: gentle, mild. Difficult to say whether the way he looks at Lazarus has changed. If there is something assessing here, some cool weight of attention, it lurks just out of sight. ]

[L does his best to not startle too violently or noticeably at the stirring in the hall. He keeps his hands still in his lap, his chin tilted slightly upward even as his shoulders tend to slouch forward.

He's not paying tribute to any sort of king, after all. Just paying basic respect, to just another man entering the room.]

It's good to see you, as well, Tisketkenchak-Folgraboto.

[He's always glad to say the name that The Emperor gave him permission to bestow. It always rolls easily off his tongue.]

Paul told me this is called a "solar". Considering the capacity of the Sun... that's interesting, at least I think so.

[Radiation, he doesn't say, it's interesting, and hilarious, for a reason.]

[ From Tisketkenchak-Folgraboto, and the lines of this young man's shoulders, he knows it'll be an interesting talk. When Lazarus says the capacity of the Sun, it shows ever so slightly in God's face: a tightening around the eyes and mouth, a settling stillness. Ah. So they're having another chat of this variety, then.

He wonders how much Lazarus has learned about the Sun; his Sun; Dominicus. There are sources enough in town, and none of them would know the significance of his questions. Difficult to guess how much he's extrapolated, and how much he's now digging to find out. The boy has only a few pieces of a vast and terrible puzzle, but it's not one John is keen to have thrown in his face, incomplete or not.

He says, patiently: ]

I just think of it as a nice spot for tea. Paul went all-out, eh?

[ He drops into a seat at the table, the ancient black of his eyes incongruous beside the pastries and flowers and spiced blueberries. ]

I'm sure he's glad to have company.

[ We are both here at his invitation, he doesn't say. But you are the guest and this is my table, he doesn't say. ]

[At all times, it's important to L to ensure that the extent of what he knows is not obvious. Whether he's ignorant or an expert, or occupies the wide space in between, he wants it to be unclear, mysterious, perhaps even concerning.

If one sets himself up as God, raised so very high, there is still room to put him on his toes. Always worth a try; always worth the risk.]

Isn't it typical of Paul [our Paul? My Paul, not yours] to go all-out? I wouldn't expect a half-effort in any matter.

[His heart is beating faster, ticking in the way that is so difficult to replicate artificially. Something sweet and exciting is pushing through his veins, sweeter than any of the delicacies on the table in front of him.

He's hungry and pale and has spent a recent week curled in a fetal position under a chaise longue in the Pale Sanctuary. He might as well have all he needs in the promised intensity of this conversation's hidden depths.]

I wouldn't expect him to have any shortage of company in such a full house, either.

[Here, with you and your army. How many exactly? How many plates in those cupboards?]

Is there something I don't know?

[Lots, and you're going to tell me at least one of those things before this is over.]

Edited 2022-04-06 02:38 (UTC)

Is there something you want to know?

[Paul occupies the doorway with his head tilted in mild curiosity, a tray bearing both a coffee press and a teapot held between his hands. He wonders, between the two people in front of him, who notices the spike and subduing of his pulse more readily. He doesn't expect to fool anyone into thinking he's naturally calm, but tension has a tendency to amplify circularly, accelerating as it goes.

He steps into the crackling arc of the existing circuit and sets down the tray smoothly. It settles without a clink or a drop spilled from the three (matching) cups arrayed on it. He'd considered pouring at the table, technically more correct, but the considerations of which cup to fill first gave him a mild headache. So they're already poured, each doctored to the tastes of the person they're intended for, and all he has to do is distribute them.]

If it's a question for me, please, go ahead.

[Paul sets tea in front of their host, coffee for his guest, and the last cup in front of himself before he joins them in his own seat. There's only a faint gleam of cautioning intensity in his eyes when he looks across the table at Lazarus.]

[Paul poured the tea. Had anyone else in the house done this for him, he'd have turned it restlessly in his hands for the duration of the meeting without taking a single sip.

He takes a single sip, glancing back at Paul. His answering gaze is sharp and alert, truly alive the way it rarely manages to be. This side of him is rarely active but impressive while it is, and also irrepressible.

It's like showing one who can read a page of text while asking them not to comprehend, or playing a musician a melodic refrain and believing that they will not hum along and begin to formulate where to place their fingers to fit within it. It's like tossing an able-bodied bird skyward and believing that it will not move its wings.

He pretends he can't read. He pretends he is not musical; he pretends he cannot fly.]

You're happy here, Paul? You have company? That's what I don't know... though perhaps I infer too much.

[Perhaps he's a loaded gun on a hairtrigger.]

[ Of course Paul has already poured the tea. John knows him well enough to know what vibrating, taut intensity went into that decision, and he cracks a smile with his murmured Thank you as Paul sets down his cup. There's a real glimmer of fondness in it.

Plus it's a good look with Lazarus making his intimations, halfway to bristling and posturing like an affronted owl across the table: just as wide-eyed, all predator-in-a-corner desperation. This isn't God's first tense peace accord. ]

Well, I can't speak for the company. [ This in the tone of a self-deprecating joke; he lifts his tea in cheers and drinks. Gives an mmh, perfect, thanks before he continues, as unflappably good-natured in tone as he knows it is cruel to be. ] For myself, anyway. I certainly hope Harrowhark and Gideon are doing me proud, though I'll acknowledge we're something of an eccentric bunch.

[ Eccentric, as though present company presents some outside baseline. As though the First House constitutes a charming little oddball family. ]

I know the girls have been glad to have Paul with us... and Kaworu's recovery has come along all the stronger for it.

[ The cup gives a tidy clink back onto its tray. He is in no hurry. ]

[The efforts being made on the opposing sides of this table are two very different kinds of restraint. They are, whatever furtive, itching feelings Paul has about them, a good start. He inclines his head to Lazarus in the slightest of nods, unwinches his shoulders by a degree; he glances at Teacher when he murmurs thanks, and the faint furrowing of his brow fades.

It's useful to have a barometer on hand.]

I wouldn't say eccentric. Not in context. [He curls his hands around his yet-unraised mug.] Gideon isn't, at least. She was one of the first friends I made here. I don't know what she saw in me.

[Gently self-deprecating, he shrugs, looking down into his cup. He still doesn't know what she sees in him, sometimes, but that doesn't matter. She's one of the people this is for, like Harrowhark, like Kaworu (and Paul doesn't think of sitting at this table rubbing his numb back and reminding him to keep eating, one wavering spoonful at a time under dulled red eyes).]

Am I happy here?

[He runs a thumb under the rim of his cup, the question a quiet one, inwardly directed.]

I'm safe here. [He says it like he believes it; belief, like anything else, being a matter of practice.] I'm not sure I'm happy anywhere. I'm trying to be. Does that answer your question?

[L watches the Emperor flatly as he fairly preens out his airy... what? It's not a dismissal, but it's distantly condescending. An eccentric bunch, he says, as though to imply that it's expected for one on the outside to misunderstand motives based on odd mannerisms or appearance. Even one like L... but what Tisketkenchak-Folgraboto might not know is that L was born on the outside, has spent his life peering in from the outside. The outside is his element, and in that way, nothing is odd to him. Only harbingers, indicative, part of a sequence that has one inevitable answer.

His eyes flick to Paul when he speaks. Paul will not be collateral damage in that sequence, or the end inevitable result of its unfolding. He can't see the future as some Palebloods can, but perhaps he never needed to. He understands the odds; he understands what it's not too late for at any point in the sequence, and that, in short, is why he is here.

That's why he sits across from a man who would be captain, teacher and God, and a boy who would die or kill for the guidance of a father to shape his chaos into something powerful and glorious.

His exhale catches on the half-breath he was holding when Paul answers him.]

It does... yes. Thank you.

[You still perceive reality as I do. We can proceed productively.

He addresses the Emperor next, with a question that is nosy, but not inappropriate as an innocently curious houseguest. L is not ever innocent in his curiosity, but that's the pretense they've all accepted, along with the amiability of the Emperor to host tea with a surly and strange scarecrow he does not like much at all.]

How many reside here? Five, at least, counting Paul, yourself, Kaworu, Gideon and Harrowhark...

[He's careful to name the Emperor second, after his priority. This is extremely intentional.]

[ I'm not sure I'm happy anywhere, says Paul, and there is a slight sad tilt to his Teacher's mouth. There is unquestioning recognition in it: he knows that truth like a mark of tribe. That's the real shared trait of the First. They are powerful, and brilliant, and not a single one of them happy.

They try for it together, though. With each other. There's a rare camaraderie to that. ]

Just the five.

[ Lazarus names him second, sure, but he shows no recognition of the slight. It's a humorously minor one. The King Undying has had vastly worse meetings than this one, with vastly more on the line.

Except not one of those problems at his table had been bold enough to inspect his deepest sanctum or card their fingers through his hair. He sips his tea, and is patient. ]

But you never know who might wash up. I'm glad to see the house with a little more life in it.

[ Like an act of violence, he winks. (It's funny because of the skeletons.) ]

[Teacher takes the question and the slight well, all things considered. Better than Paul does, staring across the table at Lazarus with muted shock ringing his widened pupils.

Paul had understood that things between these particular teachers of his were not friendly. He understood there had been friction. But he had assumed, without knowing the assumption he had been making, that Lazarus was acting with a sense of self-preservation. But that plausibly innocent question may as well be so much chum scattered in choppy waters, may as well be the flashing sweep of a cape. It's a tactic Paul recognizes, one he's used, the attempt to draw someone out into a revealing reaction, and if this is Lazarus on his most restrained behavior - it requires some recalculation on Paul's part.]

No monsters in the underground, or mad relatives in the attic.

[The reassurance is deliberately brittle. He refrains from asking if Lazarus is looking for a place to stay only out of concern he might say yes, just to see what happens.]

Not even any prisoners in a dungeon, though I'm sure I could make the utility room serve that purpose, if necessary.

[Almost imperceptibly, there's a narrowing at the edge of one of L's eyes. It's the phantom mirroring of that vaguely malevolent wink, as though he is participating in this kinesthetically to better recount and dissect it later. He's doing that a lot, actually, traces and echoes of the Emperor's own mannerisms and movements showing up in him, grooving it into his memory impeccably.

He glances back at Paul, the movement in his eyes alone. He doesn't change the position of his head, which is still faced and centered diagonally, toward the man sitting beside his Bonded.]

What's in the closets, I wonder?

[He takes a handful of blueberries, only to fuss and nudge them around his tilted placemat. Not a single one makes it to his mouth, which is set in an attempt at playfulness that looks just a bit manic and twisted.

Paul's right to be worried. L gets higher on this, dancing close and feeling rushing heat, than he could ever manage to on any drug.]

Edited 2022-04-11 20:39 (UTC)

[If they were on the same side of the table, united against a common adversary, Paul imagines he would witness Lazarus' unfolding stratagem here with unfettered admiration, and depending on the adversary, less concern. It's the off-kilter brilliance that captured his respect in the first place, fanned into a consuming, purposeful blaze.

But he thinks he would still remember the shuddering vulnerability of Lazarus' nerves as Paul sought to calm them one cool grey ripple at a time, watching Lazarus stain the tips of his fingers blue in a way that makes Paul's stomach twist. At least he can distinguish the sensation from true premonition.]

Towels.

[He says it almost like a joke, rotating his cup slightly in his palms with a slanted twist on his own mouth.]

Spare blankets. A bucket, if you want to see it. Do you want to know what's in the cupboards next?

[ Paul rankles, rises to his defense with the taut attention of a man trying to keep something precarious from collapse. Lazarus only seems to lean in; Lazarus only seems to thrill at the recognition of an audience. He rolls a blueberry between the tips of his pale fingers, and John considers that fidgeting energy.

They've played this game already, with Lazarus poking for reactions, testing the line. If John was gentle with him then, with the memory of leaves in his hair and the memory of a planet under his feet, it is nothing to be gentle with him now. ]

I think it'd be off-brand if there weren't a few skeletons.

[ For Lazarus's every press and jab, God is implacably pleasant, and Paul winds tighter and tighter. ]

In with the towels, you know. Cozy place for them to rest.

[There are components to this, gears and interlocking parts that a watchmaker's mindset is beneficial for studying. Even one small shift can change its functionality or break it into pieces, and L is the unusual man who is too captivated with the precise way things break to be overly concerned with preventing that fate to begin with.

It turns out that it's a very hard way to live, without much security or safety. While he used to outsource all of that, his habits and his tastes have been slow to adapt.

The hungry heart still wants the closest thing it's found to happiness, right along with all the pain and loss that sing it in.

You're going to be no help with this, are you, Paul? That's why you need me; that's why I'm here.]

They're secured adequately, I hope. It'd be a shame if they were to fallout.

Edited 2022-04-12 21:24 (UTC)

[ It's a pun.

It's a weaponized jab, a thinly-veiled threat, blackmail. And it's an apocalypse pun.

Paul won't get the joke; Paul, he can only assume, doesn't know about the dream. Lazarus wouldn't lean into this conversation like a dog after blood, otherwise. No one else has spent even a moment in God's mind, sifting through memory and metaphor for his worst and oldest sins. Still: Paul doesn't need context to catch the flicker across God's face, a break so fine no one outside this table would see it as significant.

It is to him what a proper flinch would be to a younger man: a quirk of the eyebrows, something startled in his eyes. It is an echo of the face he makes when he is genuinely astonished someone had the nerve. But there hadn't been a smile to that look, not ever. This time, his lips twitch.

God raises his cup of tea to hide it. Point to Lazarus, then. ]

A shame indeed.

[ Paul does not know about the dream, the bomb, the poisoning ash. But Lazarus has planned his blackmail badly. Lazarus does not know what Paul has done and will do; what Paul is; that, told he is taking tea with a destroyer of worlds, Paul might close those terrible blue-lit eyes and say I know. Might say He's teaching me how to survive it.

John has made a good study of that. John can look a man in the eyes as he is accused of apocalypse, set down his tea, and say: ]

But we're not much afraid of skeletons, here. If you ask me, they're... dead useful.

[ He flashes that same we're-all-friends-here smile and picks up a crumpet. ]

Thanks again for setting this up, Paul. Looks great.

[The shot isn't aimed at him, and that's why, if Paul thinks about it in the correct frame of mind, there's something objectively a little bit funny about the way that the fully articulated flinch that Teacher refrains from ends up housed in him. His tea sloshes just below the rim of his cup as he draws his hands towards himself in the tow of his rigid shoulders, a lancing flicker of worse color in his too-volatile eyes.

The accusation is opaque. It could mean any number of things, an encoded reference to something between them that neither of them has seen fit to mention to Paul. God knows (and that is funny, joylessly so) there are enough secrets in the skeletons alone to hold over this House. The alignment with one of his sensitivities is coincidental.

But Paul doesn't like the way Lazarus says fall out as one word, the unexpected touch on a fissile nerve.]

Thank you, Teacher.

[He doesn't need to append that title, quietly apologetic, but he's unsettled, and it doesn't bring out his better nature.]

I left the skeletons in the closet for this. I thought they could use a rest. Don't you, Lazarus? [If they're trading in points, Paul can make his own.] We'll see how it turned out.

[There's a patchwork of motivations sitting here at this table. Paul wants to be good; L wants that for him, while maybe also redeeming himself a bit in the process in a way that only he's privy to, that only matters to him. It starts with not letting a mass murderer lead him, he thinks, and finds it disturbing that he even had to think about this at one point.

Most people surely take it for granted, that fraternization and allyship with mass-murderers isn't ideal, is in fact death to any sort of goodness in one's soul.

You mean well, Paul, but you won't get better. You won't be free; not like this. He reads between the lines of what Paul says, a wedge between the civil-not-civil words between L and the Emperor.

I see your borderline insanity, and raise you one "step the hell away while you still can." It's understandable. Paul's afraid, wouldn't anyone be, especially a child? It's why L is here, it's what he's here to do, and he is not afraid of a false god.

Has he found purpose after failure here, after all?]

Who would be afraid of the dead?

[Children. Small ones; little babies. Which none of them are, of course.]

It's the living that get me tense. The dead are well beyond that... past-tense, if you will.

[He still doesn't take his tea, but his fingertips are stained violet by this point. There's something gruesome about it, reminiscent, perhaps, of corpses and decay.]

It's my understanding that they're past fatigue, as well.

[I won't stop, regardless of how it turns out. That's how much I care, Paul.]

Edited 2022-04-13 22:34 (UTC)

[ God's smile cracks brighter and more open, at the skeleton joke. Say what you will about him, but he loves a good skeleton joke. Ten thousand years is a long time, and tired humor has looped around to funny again so many times the revolutions could make anyone dizzy.

He doesn't fuss about mixing metaphors. He doesn't dwell on the necrotic stain of purple in a young man's hands. It's still just blueberry juice; he hasn't had blueberries in a long, long time. God spreads compote on his crumpet, raises it in cheers to his self-declared enemy with the skeleton puns. ]

You're telling me. But Paul's got a point... sometimes it's better to let them be. I'd hate to beat a dead horse.

[ He can do this all day. Surely Paul will forgive him if he does this all day; with Lazarus all but playing with knives, and Paul with his shoulders scrunched halfway to his ears, and God gone sharp and halfway to laughing. ]

[There are parts of this interaction that Paul might have anticipated. The underlying tension was a given, after the still-horrifying relaying by Lazarus of some of their past conversations, in the context of what he knows about both of these men. That Teacher would slip into the distancing stance of polished affability was a near certainty. Lazarus meeting it with an edge fell into the realm of likelihood.

But the fact that the edge Lazarus has picked up and keeps using is matching wordplay - that, Paul wouldn't have credited as believable. That, he still barely believes, with a faintly hysterical twist at the corner of his mouth.

Past-tense winds him up like clockwork. Dead horse is a twitch in his jaw and a hitch of his shoulders between strangled silent near-laughter and a shrug.

The sensation that courses through him as he leans forward, dropping his voice a fraction of a note in false conspiracy, is difficult to describe in words that come easily to him. Gideon would know what fuck it looks like on sight.]

You wouldn't want to run them into the ground.

[L has much in common with the necromancers of the Emperor's world. Among them is his tendency to find weapons in unexpected places, right along with keys and files and crowbars. Words are some of the most versatile, provided one can narrow them down and choose the right ones from the ether of infinite possibilities.

It's a joy he would not be sure how to explain to someone who doesn't already understand it, as Tisketkenchak-Folgraboto does. Which is why it surprises him, to the point of silent shock, when Paul ceases to maintain his tensely pleasant facade, at least not in quite the same way. No longer a hopeful and largely powerless referee, he's joined the game himself, and L isn't sure if he's amused, angry, or very worried.

Is this an exercise in compelled empathy? A point-blank call for L to understand what it's like to see someone else playing with knives and edges in a space where they really should not?

He glances down at the slanted placemat and the pulverized blueberries between his fingers. The interruption hasn't spoiled any fun inherently, but it has shaken things into disquieting perspective. Perhaps that has.]

Speaking of running. I certainly wouldn't... but my watch would. Slow, as it would happen.

[He's not wearing a watch, and in fact has no other obligations today.]

It's not unusual for any man to wish he had more time... but as much as I love to play, this tea might meanwhile turn into supper.

[And he wouldn't eat then, either.]

will you witness me in a pit of fire | march catch-all

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject