#sealone

@sealone inquired: I knew you would climb to the top of the tower on a pile of corpses. (victorian)

"Dɪᴅ ʏᴏᴜ?"

Pale eyes regard the other, but they lack the usual sharpness. Drugs and alcohol have dulled it for a while. It gets easier, each time, and he's more willing to do the step with every single one behind him, but it will take some more before he's numb to the feeling entirely. And harder still when it's one he once regarded something akin to a friend. There's been his poor Barnabas, even though that one has not been entirely on his own hands. (One could argue not at all; there is some fault to be found, maybe, but it was not his actions that lead to his demise, at least.) There has been a couple of acquaintances. A few meals, some experiments. Strangers and pretty distractions.

The last of the books he brought from Germany lay almost discarded, stacked among the others. How was he to know? One would think if anything he should have loaded a curse on himself like that (as if that would stop him), not removed protection. And perhaps he should feel more regret. Grief. Guilt. Anything.

He feels something, alright, but it's hard to tell what it is. It's not that he would undo it all if he could. It's... a lack of control, perhaps. The second time that he has brought misfortune and worse upon former friends, with not even any particular intent to do so. But also not too much care.

"Spare me." Another man might have taken his ill mood for grief. Another man might have thought remorse. Jonah just laments the loss of his autonomy in some twisted way. Not becoming a monster: he's always been vaguely aware he's been one of the mundane way. Just differently. Tearing hearts apart in the metaphorical way. No, this is all about being unsure what of his actions are still his, and what are random chances, and what are strings pulling on him. (A thing he will forget in centuries to come, and never should have.)

     Aɴʏᴏɴᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ really paid attention to it knew the Avatar world was small. Sure, there were new ones left and right, but barely of them managed to stick around long enough to be worthy of remembering, and those that were, good chances were they were people like themselves: someone who dabbled with these things long enough to be consumed by it eventually, one way or another.

     Her own mangled hand was proof enough of that.

     Point was: people knew each other. Undoubtedly, she's known too: not to him, maybe, although she wouldn't rely on it, not with the close ties to the Eye, but being one of the last surviving assets of the former Archivist undoubtedly gives her some questionable reputation, and that at the very least means they can cut the crap of pretending. It doesn't mean she likes it, or that she isn't fully aware this can backfire terribly. There's no trust here. All hope is that there's a mutual understanding of the worries that comes with having someone they care about fall deeper under the grasp of the Eye.

     "I need to get rid of something — destroying it would be worse. I don't know if the bottom of the ocean will hold it, but it would do for now."

I am, of course, writing to congratulate you on your secretive and undoubtedly terrible nuptials. 

Please take this moment to remind Jonah   James    Elias that I have, LONG ago, told him this day would come, and that he should put more confidence in my ( evident ) foresight. If you are not so wedded to your otherworldly obligations as to abandon all husbandly duties, please, do the rest of the world a favour, and keep Jonah your dearly recently-wedded as far as possible from the rest of humanity. 

Yours in friendship,  

     "Wᴇʟʟ, ғɪɢᴜʀᴇs. I mean, nobody in their right mind goes 'this is the person I'm married to. I absolutely hate their guts'." He pauses after that sentence and makes a face, one of disgust. "Actually, scratch that. It's a thing way too many people do. Never understood that." It's one of the strangest apparently normal things that make absolutely no sense, but that's hardly the point right now.

She's not here because she likes him. She isn't. She's here because disrupting his nice little quiet Lonely time brings her great enjoyment, probably almost as much as it irritates Peter himself. That's the only reason that she's found a way to sneak into his wonderful little boat while he's otherwise occupied, made herself at home with her feet propped against something that's probably important? Who knows. Certainly not her.

Frankly he's gone a lot longer than she expected, which is why when Peter finally returns it's to find Char absently humming to herself, fiddling with whatever sits at hand.

Tᴇsᴛɪɴɢ, ᴘʀᴏᴅɪɴɢ the limits of what the other is willing to give and fighting inch by inch for more, to know, to be aware, partly because it's his very nature to want to know (an image of a child, then, too young to venture along his father into the city from their estate, too young even to understand the books that spoke of different places, and his mother's offense whenever she would find him with them regardless, trying to make the symbols into sense, trying to convince them to give him their words - back when nobody else had thought yet of him as him). Partly because he's so used to not being denied the smallest bit of what he asks, it has become on pure principal now.

The answer is not very satisfying. It tells him nothing and is exactly what he expected: words that mean nothing, secrets ungiven. A phrase for the sake of filling the silence.

"That says to me nothing of how long you'll be gone." Or why. Or where. Or with whom -

@sealone​ inquired:  ‘ oh,  please! it’s ten in the morning. ’

     "Vᴇʀʏ ʟᴀᴛᴇ then." He's been well up for hours. Even at a time where sleep was still needed, he hadn't thought much of longing in bed forever, unless it was with a lover — and even then there were often letters to be read and written, books to look for, and a thousand other things that demanded his attention that wouldn't let him rest as long, and neither did he long for it. One would think the other man would know all about it: and there's annoyance in his voice, too. Nevermind the fact they had more than eight hours still.

     "I know you don't want to go, but you promised you would, and I already let you off the past three years. Come on. There's a thousand things to do until the event."