[There are dozens of reasons Paul is better self-regulated this time than the last, and the ones that would embarrass Paul are the simplest and most animal: he's been sleeping in a warm bed under an unleaking roof, eating regular, approximately balanced meals, spending in the company of people who care about him, and safe enough in all three to have begun to be able to bring his guard down.
It was surprising to learn how much energy he'd spent just surviving before he settled under this roof. When he'd been immersed in it, he'd hardly noticed. He'd even been able to tell himself that it made him sharper, when really it had only made him brittle. He'd been weaving between two threats, one real, one imagined, and in their passing, he's found a balance.
So he smiles back at that grin, the subsequent face pulled at the stale taste of cold tannins.]
You should sign my letter of request. I've been saying that we should get a few for the house.
[Paul makes his own squinting face of disappointment at the news Palamedes wasn't able to manifest a bubble of consciousness in the ocean, and it's barely exaggerated for effect.]
I've been thinking about the differences between what you [collective 'you' of necromancers] say about the River and what the sea here is like. I'm not sure how to test this yet, but I wonder how much the unstable quality of -
[Ah, indeed. Paul catches himself up short and smiles sheepishly, looping his arms around his chest-tucked knee.]
[Look at Paul, getting into necromancy. Palamedes is certain he probably shouldn't, but the questions about the River vs. the sea are too myriad and burning for him to politely advise against it. These are good things to know! He would like to know about the unstable quality of whatever thing it is Paul stops himself from saying, and how!
Instead, he puts the cup down and counts off on his fingers, says:]
Time to work, [because it's true, and maybe this go around he will have more of it without interruption; then, very subtly,] Someone to listen to my theories. A workshop, if I could manifest one that needed minimal work to get up to standard and I didn't have to share.
[That's three, and there's a fourth that betrays him only in the milliseconds' pause and minuscule curl of his fingers in on themselves, which is, of course:] Camilla.
[It was God (Actually) who found him on the beach, which is all the answer he needs to whether or not Cam has also suddenly come back. He shakes his head and drops his hands, drumming fingers on his knee-under-blanket with reserved restlessness.]
Maybe a new set of notebooks. That would be the top five most pressing, I'd say. [A beat. He pointedly quashes down the edge in his voice to a softer thing when he adds,] I'm not planning on falling apart, if that's what you want to ask. Thank you, though.
[Paul would (and may yet) argue that a theoretical understanding of necromancy on his part is vital to collaborating on the various projects going on under this roof. He might save that for when he shows Palamedes the room in the Pale Sanctuary he's been containing his own brand of work in, whenever it seems appropriate. If anyone will understand what he's doing there, he hopes it's Palamedes.
Four out of five list items support the theory. The one that doesn't brings them back to Gideon Nav's Unified Theory of Things That Fucking Suck, which Paul has found to have compelling explanatory power.]
I think I can make some of those happen for you. And that's good to know. [The lack of plans, as well as the list.] I won't have to get out the bucket again.
[The bucket has been through enough, his tone suggests, a light ruefulness that also closes the door on that particular line of questioning. Palamedes isn't falling apart. He's been gathered up and set down here by someone with a knack for reassembling people neatly, when he wants to, and speaking of -]
[Palamedes makes a face - bucket? no thank you? he's fine un-bucketed - and hums, picking at one of the embroidered little goth children on his blanket. Some of those things happening is quite good, all things considered; he's not going to say no, and he'll be glad to have Paul's input on whatever insane takes about the River vs. the sea he comes up with.
Because - and he had thought this while sitting on God's study floor - something is different now, about himself and his place in Trench. That he is here, again, and breathing and heart-beating and all of it, again, feels a bit like the world itself has slapped his hands away from wasting time waiting to be returned home. It's not a lack of hope but an injection of new drive, so: it will be fun! To work, to talk to Paul about it, and probably Harrow too, while he's at it...
That said,] No, could you imagine? In the middle of your party, which I'm told was quite the event?
[Look him in the eye and tell him he wouldn't have been declared an apparition and had worm teeth pinned to him. He knows.
... Anyway, the point-] He made me tea and let me lay claim to this blanket. I said a few rude things about the ocean to him. It was faintly surreal.
[Paul could go for a small goth child of his own to pick at when the party is mentioned. There's another thing to dissect and slot into discrete categories: it was quite an event, and had been almost enough to drown memory in a sloshing bucket of golden liquor and bronze spice.
It wasn't even really his birthday. It wouldn't make sense for this to be a gift. The laws of this universe bend towards poetry, but not everything that rhymes is verse.]
It was. You'll have to be at the next one.
[The revenge party, that is, which will take another round of explanation at some later date.]
Faintly surreal is how it tends to be. [His shoulders rise higher on one side than the other when he shrugs.] ...you were right. I was overreacting.
[That wasn't exactly what Palamedes had said, but it's what had turned out to be the case.]
So that's one more controlled variable. If the sun would come up, I'd say you picked the perfect time to come back.
[Oh, the next one, hmm. Palamedes hums his agreement, because he's already quietly promised himself to try harder to stay alive this time so yes he will attend The Next Party, but parties as a whole... He'll bring puzzles. He will bring so many puzzles and lose all of the pieces by the end of the night, for certain.
A fine plan.]
Oh, come on — that was never my angle. Not in so many words. [He himself lives on the border between normal reactions to things and constantly vibrating out of his skin, after all. It's not much of an objection, though, as he extricates an arm from the goth blanket to reach over and give Paul's hair a ruffle.
A controlled variable is better than the alternative. He elects to consider it a good thing.]
The dark isn't that bad. [rip to non-sixth but pal is different] They've invented this thing called a torch for going outside, you know, it's incredibly handy.
[Paul doesn't know this yet, but the way things turned out at this party may mean that Palamedes ends up with a fellow puzzler at the next event. The main point remains that Palamedes will be there, an already decided thing, so this time there's no need to make promises of safety aloud. It's not superstition, he tells himself. It's precautionary hedging.
These and other preoccupations are banished from his still-sore skull when Palamedes ruffles his hair, contact Paul leans into with all the shamelessness of a hungry cat.]
You're right. It was a lot more words.
[Not completely true either, but maybe the slightly dewy (or hungover) admiration he has when he says it makes up for that.]
Is that what they call it? A torch? I was just going to bleed on things. I was trying to come up with a name for it - hemolocation? Blood dowsing? But that sounds more efficient. Any other insights, oh wise and learned magician?
[Gideon is proving to be a positive influence in more ways than one.]
[The roasts Palamedes is experiencing, here on this midnight morning...! He snorts, giving Paul another hair ruffle that might be closer to a noogie proper, if he weren't a necromancer with no muscle beyond what moves his skeleton around.
Truly, Gideon has been a stellar influence. Later, when he asks her if she's teaching her new roommates to raise hell, he will be thinking of this.]
I'm the most learned magician of my generation, [a pause, in case Harrow is going to stumble in half-awake to argue him on that point - no? okay,] so you might respect my insights a little more.
Everyone knows if you're going to bleed on things, you have to do it in the privacy of your own home. [Helpfully, he holds up two fingers.] That's tip two. Tip three: the buddy system.
[Paul's curled leg falls outward, his hand dropping to secure his tucked in ankle, a very visible cascade of uncoiling tension under the continued contact. Sometimes, he's not so complicated of a project.]
I do respect your insights. I'm just proposing alternate approaches.
[He considers and discards a joke about seeing if he can make himself glow in the dark again. It's not as funny if a person wasn't there to see it.]
So - torches, no flagrant public bleeding, and the 'buddy system'. [The quotation Mark's are carefully inflected.] Is there anything more esoteric? Ghost lamps? Guide skeletons?
[And what a gloriously uncomplicated project this one is right now, particularly for people who might have, not twelve hours ago, been squids with no knowledge of arms or what they're for. Palamedes drops his hand to Paul's shoulder and commits to the side hug, glad for at least one kernel of proof that Paul is broadly Alright.
But hey, do not knock the buddy system, that's culturally insensitive.]
Now I know you've been taking cues from the Ninth, if that's what you come up with. I would have suggested a light-up card catalog. Requisition forms for any hostile parties to submit in advance, that kind of thing.
[Maybe, like, a hall pass but with a skull drawn on it. Cool guy things.]
And despite your vicious mockery, I am- [don't say "dead serious"] -incredibly dedicated to the buddy system. Nobody has a good time alone in the dark.
[Paul answers the side hug in kind, looping his arm around familiarly narrow and bony shoulders. Logically, he knows that Palamedes isn't more fragile after his watery sojourn, as if he survived injury or illness, but that doesn't prevent his carefulness. He doesn't think Palamedes will hold that against him.]
I strive to take input from a diversity of sources. [He's obliged to defend himself, although without conviction.] Your ideas do sound more civilized. And more practical.
[The requisition forms in particular, if he could hope to get anyone or anything to agree to them. Visions of impending doom aren't the same.]
I think you won't have a shortage of people to keep you company. [He says softly, with a slight squeeze of his encircling arm.] You might end up getting sick of it. You'll let me know if you ever need me to fend anyone off?
[It's a strange thing to come back to oneself this way, Palamedes has decided. The first time he'd washed up on Trench's shore alone, and no one had come to get him, and no one had wanted to confirm the physical reality of him besides himself, in the hours before he ran into anyone important. Paul's arm curls around him and Palamedes remembers the urge in the River to clutch Harrow to himself (like one might wrangle a hissing cat, granted), equal parts confirmation of one body and proof of the other, and so — no, he doesn't think he'll be scolding anyone for affording him the privilege of physical actualization.
He says nothing about this, but settles back into the couch a fraction more easily.]
That's the goal. And while they're busy with the requisition forms, you go around and carry on unimpeded.
[Master Warden tip no. 3875489]
But I've no forms on me, and certainly not enough people to be fended off. [He says this as if a parade of people aren't about to walk through this room and chatter with him all day long, and he will field criticisms in the arena of dramatic irony later.] You're doing well, though. Within the system. I've heard there are a handful of you staying here, now.
[Here's a fun game to play: repeat what you learned from God neutrally and without betraying a single other emotion. That's the whole game.]
Edited (don't perceive me. i can't say field twice in one sentence) 2022-04-16 05:37 (UTC)
[Palamedes' slight easing doesn't go unnoticed. Paul imagines he can feel it in the thin scars along his knuckles, in the gaps where he'd fused on himself and been cracked open and clean. It's a little like that again, the drawing out of brittle accreted obstructions. The same goes for nearly laughing at the joke about requisition forms-as-distraction, a hah that's caught between that and an exhalation of relief.
It makes responding to that carefully unemotive statement easier and harder at once. Easier, because he's not so worried about Palamedes' well-being. Harder, because he doesn't want to bring any of that tension back to him.]
That's right. I came here the same way you did. [Retrieved from the beach, in one form or another.] I wasn't doing as well as you are. It made sense to stay.
[Paul tips his head back, resting on the back of the couch. He examines a stain on the ceiling shaped like a duck or a rabbit, and he considers how much an omission counts as a lie. Enough, he decides, to hedge closer to a whole truth.]
[Well, Palamedes thinks, here comes this whole thing. He's been fiddling with the idea in the back of his mind since he was told there were people here besides the Ninth (in between telling God to shut up and not talk to him like a child, in so many words); it's a conundrum, because here is the thing:
Paul, he trusts implicitly. Paul has a good head on his shoulders, Paul can evaluate and determine what's best, objectively, for his projects— things on a level that, based on their conversation about his dreams, Palamedes has no idea how to handle. No; Paul knows best in that regard, certainly.
But God is a liar. That one is the thing, actually; God can't manage a full sentence without couching it in at least two non-answers to simple questions and distracting shiny baubles, look at the notes, let's collaborate, I'm so very sorry, something something Lyctors, he didn't ask—
(you lied to us, you lied to us, you lied to us, a litany he cannot ever shake—)
Palamedes hums, putting a firm lid on his own, hm, issues. Maybe God doesn't lie to Paul, that would be nice. He says,] I'm glad you found a place that looks after you.
[And that actually is true? Paul can be trusted but not to sleep in a real bed or live in a real house if left to his own devices, it does seem, and so: Palamedes is, in fact, pleased that he's found a good thing here. He can say that without hedging around anything else.]
I'm not going to pretend I entirely understand, because I don't; that's fine. Arguably, that's how living in the world is supposed to work. [you know like normal people, whoever those may be] So, to that end, I'm going to ask for your opinion.
[A beat. Okay,] He more or less assumed I would help him with his projects. What do you think?
[There was never going to be a world where Palamedes and God coexisted in proximity to each other where Palamedes wasn't going to catch his attention eventually. Paul never had the ability to keep his eyes off the Warden of the Sixth, not really - all his furious, miserable accusation of God's lapse (and his mirrored culpability; their mingled failure) might have done is accelerate a timeline already in motion. That's one of the projects that Paul is working on: perspective.
But it remains a work in progress, like the rest of him. When he lifts his head from the couch to look into those luminous and discerning grey eyes, it's with a cold, sharp clench in the pit of his stomach, protective and possessive blurred to indistinguishable urgency.]
I think that's a good idea. We can work together on it.
[Careful and quiet, because they're under this roof, but there is emphasis on together, and the slight curling of Paul's fingers in the blanket draped around Palamedes.]
Some of the work has a few hazards I've been working on mitigating. It's safer to collaborate.
[Or: Paul sleeps under God's roof, and eats at his table, and he is looked after. He knows how God takes his tea, and he's learning when a cup should appear unprompted on his desk, and these are all things that are shaped like trust. And Paul does trust God. He trusts him to be what he is, and that is a thing that crushes people like Palamedes - brilliant and incisive and relentlessly truthful - in a gravity well.]
There are complexities we should talk about when you're back on your feet. Nothing I don't have handled. [He smiles almost all the way up to his eyes, because he knows what he's about to say has never really worked to reassure anyone.] Don't worry, all right?
[When God says we, Palamedes' fight or flight instinct goes absolutely insane; when it's Paul, he thinks, ah—so it's like that. He will never trust every person living in this house and that's just how it's going to be, and while he's only barely approached "accepting," when it comes to God so generously offering him his notebooks, Paul's we helps matters marginally.
That is what it is, he supposes; Paul has never once tried to ply and distract him with the equivalent of a fun new toy, so we and together and safer don't come with the same... something. Resentment, if he had to pick a noun.
It's not fine. Objectively, it's not super encouraging, the whole thing. But it's manageable, and that means something.]
I'm not worried. [Not yet, maybe he'll revisit that when he's not so low-grade irritated about God's Useless Apology (et al).] Give me some time to chase out whatever's undoubtedly moved into my bunker in my absence and I'll be in top form.
[Or: whenever, frankly. He could do it now, but he understands the nature of not running one's mouth in this house. He's only acknowledging it for Paul's sake, granted, but still. Whenever.]
[Paul's smile finds its way to his eyes. There is relief to it, easy and broad, but there's something else that follows it like a loping shadow. He sits there, a lanky teenager with his punctured ears and tousled hair, and there is a feral liminance behind it all that briefly makes him look like something entirely different. Something with another kind of teeth behind closed lips.
It passes like a wave rolling out, and he's only Paul again, an easily worried young man who appreciates the appeasement and the concession to his anxieties. He laughs softly, jostling Palamedes like a bundle of reeds with a quick shake of his shoulder, and withdraws.]
That sounds like an excellent plan. You might need a little more energy for it. I was about to make tea. Do you want me to bring you some?
[Yes, Palamedes hadn't needed anything the last time he asked, but they had other things to get to first. They've been addressed, and Palamedes isn't worried, so Paul resolves not to be either.
He really can hardly wait to show Palamedes what he's been working on.]
Besides. I can't monopolize the Master Warden on his first day back, can I?
Palamedes resolves to continue not to worry. When Paul bends into something he cannot recognize he simply blinks, and in his distraction, is jostled nearly to startling. He doesn't; he comes close. He purses his lips, like - honestly? More tea would be godawful (fully intended), and so he says,]
No. Yes; I need something to do with my hands.
[Which is as close as he need bother coming to cracking the shutters, to making pointed eye contact with the put-away part of himself that is perhaps still unwell -
(and he thinks, Still, as if he's been not-dead for more than 24 hours)
- but also, no one has ever accused him of not being fidgety. He remembers not to unravel; he thinks about drinking even more tea, and even fits in a good-natured sigh over Paul's suddenly insistent good mood. Alright, alright.]
Your overestimation of my popularity is flattering, really, but I think I'll have plenty of extra time.
[Snarls and snags, nets and hooks. Palamedes catches on one, and in his wake, so does Paul. It's a pendulum swung in the other direction, a partial reversion to the uncertain concern he'd shown towards Palamedes and his blood wards on the beach, imagined he'd disciplined himself out of, and he wishes - for any number of things.
He'd start with being better at this.]
...water, then.
[Less bitter, less of an obligation. A thing to have at hand or set aside. Paul bites the inside of his cheek as he considers the rest of it.]
I have a chess board. [He smiles faintly, in the arc of a question.] I haven't had a chance to use it yet.
[It's even thematically appropriate, a memento mori of a game with skull carved pieces. Lazarus has interesting taste.]
[Ah, a concession; Palamedes raises both eyebrows, as if merely idly considering the topic of water and the option of chess. He doesn't enjoy chess, it's quite dull and he's never understood why Camilla finds it relaxing, but— in the interest of concessions. In the interest of not wandering off to be alone just, yet, then-]
I could have water, [he offers, and sits up to shrug off his hideous goth blanket, to mentally prepare for Games. Alright.]
And I could try chess— but you'll have to keep me distracted with a story or two, or I'll solve the whole thing. Something I've missed, maybe?
[But not something passive-aggressive, a la The Lord, and not something upsetting, either. He can say "something I've missed" like he was merely away on vacation, so - small steps.]
[Paul rolls his eyes, just a little, another concession in and of itself. Palamedes agrees to water and chess, and so Paul agrees to treat him as sturdy enough to withstand some light disparagement.]
Think of it as a cognitive function test. If you can beat me, we know you're correctly calibrated.
[A quality control test for post-resurrection soundness of mind, more or less. Paul rises from the couch and stretches, ticking his head one way and then the other between his upraised arms. A story about something Palamedes missed, one distracting enough to make up for chess, but not so distracting it ruins the atmosphere of rest and recuperation he's trying to cultivate.]
You remember when I told you about spice, and its psychogenic effects? Some of it turned up here. I let people have it at the party, and [he grins, halfway between recalled contrition and fascination] there were some interesting outcomes.
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no subject
It was surprising to learn how much energy he'd spent just surviving before he settled under this roof. When he'd been immersed in it, he'd hardly noticed. He'd even been able to tell himself that it made him sharper, when really it had only made him brittle. He'd been weaving between two threats, one real, one imagined, and in their passing, he's found a balance.
So he smiles back at that grin, the subsequent face pulled at the stale taste of cold tannins.]
You should sign my letter of request. I've been saying that we should get a few for the house.
[Paul makes his own squinting face of disappointment at the news Palamedes wasn't able to manifest a bubble of consciousness in the ocean, and it's barely exaggerated for effect.]
I've been thinking about the differences between what you [collective 'you' of necromancers] say about the River and what the sea here is like. I'm not sure how to test this yet, but I wonder how much the unstable quality of -
[Ah, indeed. Paul catches himself up short and smiles sheepishly, looping his arms around his chest-tucked knee.]
Do you need anything else, besides a chalkboard?
no subject
Instead, he puts the cup down and counts off on his fingers, says:]
Time to work, [because it's true, and maybe this go around he will have more of it without interruption; then, very subtly,] Someone to listen to my theories. A workshop, if I could manifest one that needed minimal work to get up to standard and I didn't have to share.
[That's three, and there's a fourth that betrays him only in the milliseconds' pause and minuscule curl of his fingers in on themselves, which is, of course:] Camilla.
[It was God (Actually) who found him on the beach, which is all the answer he needs to whether or not Cam has also suddenly come back. He shakes his head and drops his hands, drumming fingers on his knee-under-blanket with reserved restlessness.]
Maybe a new set of notebooks. That would be the top five most pressing, I'd say. [A beat. He pointedly quashes down the edge in his voice to a softer thing when he adds,] I'm not planning on falling apart, if that's what you want to ask. Thank you, though.
no subject
Four out of five list items support the theory. The one that doesn't brings them back to Gideon Nav's Unified Theory of Things That Fucking Suck, which Paul has found to have compelling explanatory power.]
I think I can make some of those happen for you. And that's good to know. [The lack of plans, as well as the list.] I won't have to get out the bucket again.
[The bucket has been through enough, his tone suggests, a light ruefulness that also closes the door on that particular line of questioning. Palamedes isn't falling apart. He's been gathered up and set down here by someone with a knack for reassembling people neatly, when he wants to, and speaking of -]
I'm guessing you didn't let yourself in.
no subject
Because - and he had thought this while sitting on God's study floor - something is different now, about himself and his place in Trench. That he is here, again, and breathing and heart-beating and all of it, again, feels a bit like the world itself has slapped his hands away from wasting time waiting to be returned home. It's not a lack of hope but an injection of new drive, so: it will be fun! To work, to talk to Paul about it, and probably Harrow too, while he's at it...
That said,] No, could you imagine? In the middle of your party, which I'm told was quite the event?
[Look him in the eye and tell him he wouldn't have been declared an apparition and had worm teeth pinned to him. He knows.
... Anyway, the point-] He made me tea and let me lay claim to this blanket. I said a few rude things about the ocean to him. It was faintly surreal.
no subject
It wasn't even really his birthday. It wouldn't make sense for this to be a gift. The laws of this universe bend towards poetry, but not everything that rhymes is verse.]
It was. You'll have to be at the next one.
[The revenge party, that is, which will take another round of explanation at some later date.]
Faintly surreal is how it tends to be. [His shoulders rise higher on one side than the other when he shrugs.] ...you were right. I was overreacting.
[That wasn't exactly what Palamedes had said, but it's what had turned out to be the case.]
So that's one more controlled variable. If the sun would come up, I'd say you picked the perfect time to come back.
no subject
A fine plan.]
Oh, come on — that was never my angle. Not in so many words. [He himself lives on the border between normal reactions to things and constantly vibrating out of his skin, after all. It's not much of an objection, though, as he extricates an arm from the goth blanket to reach over and give Paul's hair a ruffle.
A controlled variable is better than the alternative. He elects to consider it a good thing.]
The dark isn't that bad. [rip to non-sixth but pal is different] They've invented this thing called a torch for going outside, you know, it's incredibly handy.
no subject
These and other preoccupations are banished from his still-sore skull when Palamedes ruffles his hair, contact Paul leans into with all the shamelessness of a hungry cat.]
You're right. It was a lot more words.
[Not completely true either, but maybe the slightly dewy (or hungover) admiration he has when he says it makes up for that.]
Is that what they call it? A torch? I was just going to bleed on things. I was trying to come up with a name for it - hemolocation? Blood dowsing? But that sounds more efficient. Any other insights, oh wise and learned magician?
[Gideon is proving to be a positive influence in more ways than one.]
no subject
Truly, Gideon has been a stellar influence. Later, when he asks her if she's teaching her new roommates to raise hell, he will be thinking of this.]
I'm the most learned magician of my generation, [a pause, in case Harrow is going to stumble in half-awake to argue him on that point - no? okay,] so you might respect my insights a little more.
Everyone knows if you're going to bleed on things, you have to do it in the privacy of your own home. [Helpfully, he holds up two fingers.] That's tip two. Tip three: the buddy system.
no subject
I do respect your insights. I'm just proposing alternate approaches.
[He considers and discards a joke about seeing if he can make himself glow in the dark again. It's not as funny if a person wasn't there to see it.]
So - torches, no flagrant public bleeding, and the 'buddy system'. [The quotation Mark's are carefully inflected.] Is there anything more esoteric? Ghost lamps? Guide skeletons?
no subject
But hey, do not knock the buddy system, that's culturally insensitive.]
Now I know you've been taking cues from the Ninth, if that's what you come up with. I would have suggested a light-up card catalog. Requisition forms for any hostile parties to submit in advance, that kind of thing.
[Maybe, like, a hall pass but with a skull drawn on it. Cool guy things.]
And despite your vicious mockery, I am- [don't say "dead serious"] -incredibly dedicated to the buddy system. Nobody has a good time alone in the dark.
no subject
I strive to take input from a diversity of sources. [He's obliged to defend himself, although without conviction.] Your ideas do sound more civilized. And more practical.
[The requisition forms in particular, if he could hope to get anyone or anything to agree to them. Visions of impending doom aren't the same.]
I think you won't have a shortage of people to keep you company. [He says softly, with a slight squeeze of his encircling arm.] You might end up getting sick of it. You'll let me know if you ever need me to fend anyone off?
no subject
He says nothing about this, but settles back into the couch a fraction more easily.]
That's the goal. And while they're busy with the requisition forms, you go around and carry on unimpeded.
[Master Warden tip no. 3875489]
But I've no forms on me, and certainly not enough people to be fended off. [He says this as if a parade of people aren't about to walk through this room and chatter with him all day long, and he will field criticisms in the arena of dramatic irony later.] You're doing well, though. Within the system. I've heard there are a handful of you staying here, now.
[Here's a fun game to play: repeat what you learned from God neutrally and without betraying a single other emotion. That's the whole game.]
no subject
It makes responding to that carefully unemotive statement easier and harder at once. Easier, because he's not so worried about Palamedes' well-being. Harder, because he doesn't want to bring any of that tension back to him.]
That's right. I came here the same way you did. [Retrieved from the beach, in one form or another.] I wasn't doing as well as you are. It made sense to stay.
[Paul tips his head back, resting on the back of the couch. He examines a stain on the ceiling shaped like a duck or a rabbit, and he considers how much an omission counts as a lie. Enough, he decides, to hedge closer to a whole truth.]
He's helping me with my projects.
no subject
Paul, he trusts implicitly. Paul has a good head on his shoulders, Paul can evaluate and determine what's best, objectively, for his projects— things on a level that, based on their conversation about his dreams, Palamedes has no idea how to handle. No; Paul knows best in that regard, certainly.
But God is a liar. That one is the thing, actually; God can't manage a full sentence without couching it in at least two non-answers to simple questions and distracting shiny baubles, look at the notes, let's collaborate, I'm so very sorry, something something Lyctors, he didn't ask—
(you lied to us, you lied to us, you lied to us, a litany he cannot ever shake—)
Palamedes hums, putting a firm lid on his own, hm, issues. Maybe God doesn't lie to Paul, that would be nice. He says,] I'm glad you found a place that looks after you.
[And that actually is true? Paul can be trusted but not to sleep in a real bed or live in a real house if left to his own devices, it does seem, and so: Palamedes is, in fact, pleased that he's found a good thing here. He can say that without hedging around anything else.]
I'm not going to pretend I entirely understand, because I don't; that's fine. Arguably, that's how living in the world is supposed to work. [you know like normal people, whoever those may be] So, to that end, I'm going to ask for your opinion.
[A beat. Okay,] He more or less assumed I would help him with his projects. What do you think?
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But it remains a work in progress, like the rest of him. When he lifts his head from the couch to look into those luminous and discerning grey eyes, it's with a cold, sharp clench in the pit of his stomach, protective and possessive blurred to indistinguishable urgency.]
I think that's a good idea. We can work together on it.
[Careful and quiet, because they're under this roof, but there is emphasis on together, and the slight curling of Paul's fingers in the blanket draped around Palamedes.]
Some of the work has a few hazards I've been working on mitigating. It's safer to collaborate.
[Or: Paul sleeps under God's roof, and eats at his table, and he is looked after. He knows how God takes his tea, and he's learning when a cup should appear unprompted on his desk, and these are all things that are shaped like trust. And Paul does trust God. He trusts him to be what he is, and that is a thing that crushes people like Palamedes - brilliant and incisive and relentlessly truthful - in a gravity well.]
There are complexities we should talk about when you're back on your feet. Nothing I don't have handled. [He smiles almost all the way up to his eyes, because he knows what he's about to say has never really worked to reassure anyone.] Don't worry, all right?
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That is what it is, he supposes; Paul has never once tried to ply and distract him with the equivalent of a fun new toy, so we and together and safer don't come with the same... something. Resentment, if he had to pick a noun.
It's not fine. Objectively, it's not super encouraging, the whole thing. But it's manageable, and that means something.]
I'm not worried. [Not yet, maybe he'll revisit that when he's not so low-grade irritated about God's Useless Apology (et al).] Give me some time to chase out whatever's undoubtedly moved into my bunker in my absence and I'll be in top form.
[Or: whenever, frankly. He could do it now, but he understands the nature of not running one's mouth in this house. He's only acknowledging it for Paul's sake, granted, but still. Whenever.]
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It passes like a wave rolling out, and he's only Paul again, an easily worried young man who appreciates the appeasement and the concession to his anxieties. He laughs softly, jostling Palamedes like a bundle of reeds with a quick shake of his shoulder, and withdraws.]
That sounds like an excellent plan. You might need a little more energy for it. I was about to make tea. Do you want me to bring you some?
[Yes, Palamedes hadn't needed anything the last time he asked, but they had other things to get to first. They've been addressed, and Palamedes isn't worried, so Paul resolves not to be either.
He really can hardly wait to show Palamedes what he's been working on.]
Besides. I can't monopolize the Master Warden on his first day back, can I?
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Palamedes resolves to continue not to worry. When Paul bends into something he cannot recognize he simply blinks, and in his distraction, is jostled nearly to startling. He doesn't; he comes close. He purses his lips, like - honestly? More tea would be godawful (fully intended), and so he says,]
No. Yes; I need something to do with my hands.
[Which is as close as he need bother coming to cracking the shutters, to making pointed eye contact with the put-away part of himself that is perhaps still unwell -
(and he thinks, Still, as if he's been not-dead for more than 24 hours)
- but also, no one has ever accused him of not being fidgety. He remembers not to unravel; he thinks about drinking even more tea, and even fits in a good-natured sigh over Paul's suddenly insistent good mood. Alright, alright.]
Your overestimation of my popularity is flattering, really, but I think I'll have plenty of extra time.
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He'd start with being better at this.]
...water, then.
[Less bitter, less of an obligation. A thing to have at hand or set aside. Paul bites the inside of his cheek as he considers the rest of it.]
I have a chess board. [He smiles faintly, in the arc of a question.] I haven't had a chance to use it yet.
[It's even thematically appropriate, a memento mori of a game with skull carved pieces. Lazarus has interesting taste.]
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I could have water, [he offers, and sits up to shrug off his hideous goth blanket, to mentally prepare for Games. Alright.]
And I could try chess— but you'll have to keep me distracted with a story or two, or I'll solve the whole thing. Something I've missed, maybe?
[But not something passive-aggressive, a la The Lord, and not something upsetting, either. He can say "something I've missed" like he was merely away on vacation, so - small steps.]
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Think of it as a cognitive function test. If you can beat me, we know you're correctly calibrated.
[A quality control test for post-resurrection soundness of mind, more or less. Paul rises from the couch and stretches, ticking his head one way and then the other between his upraised arms. A story about something Palamedes missed, one distracting enough to make up for chess, but not so distracting it ruins the atmosphere of rest and recuperation he's trying to cultivate.]
You remember when I told you about spice, and its psychogenic effects? Some of it turned up here. I let people have it at the party, and [he grins, halfway between recalled contrition and fascination] there were some interesting outcomes.