the marquis de Carabas (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mattersverymuch) wrote2013-08-02 12:18 pm
mattersverymuch) wrote2013-08-02 12:18 pm
1o ɂ spam
spam } victor creed
[There isn't any point in waiting. The marquis wants to start this now. In part because he trusts Iris's judgment, in part because she's right, he's bored, in part because he'd like to see if he can warp a monster into a different kind of monster even in this place with all of its bizarre checks and balances.]
[He follows Victor starting shortly after lunch, watching his path out of the cafeteria carefully. He knows Victor's habits; he knows most people's. And while he starts out following at a distance, he gradually decreases subtlety until he is abruptly waiting for Victor by the door to the CES. Just watching.]
private/video } dean winchester
[The decision is made abruptly. Succinctly. Like a light turning on, or off, or the breaking of a bone.]
[He sits on a flat stone step in his room, or what passes as his room; he sits on it like it's a throne, and he smiles for the camera.]
Have you ever heard the story of Puss in Boots?
[There isn't any point in waiting. The marquis wants to start this now. In part because he trusts Iris's judgment, in part because she's right, he's bored, in part because he'd like to see if he can warp a monster into a different kind of monster even in this place with all of its bizarre checks and balances.]
[He follows Victor starting shortly after lunch, watching his path out of the cafeteria carefully. He knows Victor's habits; he knows most people's. And while he starts out following at a distance, he gradually decreases subtlety until he is abruptly waiting for Victor by the door to the CES. Just watching.]
private/video } dean winchester
[The decision is made abruptly. Succinctly. Like a light turning on, or off, or the breaking of a bone.]
[He sits on a flat stone step in his room, or what passes as his room; he sits on it like it's a throne, and he smiles for the camera.]
Have you ever heard the story of Puss in Boots?
[ Private : Video ]
At first, the surrealness of it all is almost too much for the hunter, the Marquis telling him a fairytale, and he's about to ask if something is wrong, trying to figure out if he can surreptitiously check the network for a flood or something without interrupting or giving himself away. He feels alright for himself, but then he usually does, for a given value of alright. More alright right now than in a while, certainly.
That lasts until the Marquis gets to the first mention of de Carabas, and Dean almost misses it. He doesn't even hesitate, doesn't hitch or emphasize, just throws it out there, casual, like a discarded glove; Dean visibly comes to attention, sitting up straight in his chair, tilting his head and not interrupting.
He doesn't even think about interrupting despite his habit for doing so. He's collecting the bits and pieces as best he can, trying to read between the lines and not sure what it means that he almost can't. The Marquis keeps flashing smiles and little side comments but Dean knows that dance, he knows to ignore the bells and the whistles without ignoring them at all; he knows how often the most glaring issues is the one with the brightest bauble tied to it, laid out in plain sight.
There is no moral. What was good for him. Clothes make the man. The Marquis who does not exist and the miller's son who does not matter. Dean picks his way through all of it, not minding that the bare, functional cogs and gears of his own personality that he normally keeps hidden beneath brass and varnish are laid out and plain; the Marquis already knows. Dean is convinced that's at least part of what this is, but he doesn't know what the other part is.
He does know two things: one, he's on uneven ground here, lost among metaphor and literary contrivance. Two, he wonders who this is costing more, and where their ledger will be at the end of it, if the meter is running and which way it's turning. He has no patience for either of these things.
So the teasing cockiness is at an ebb for the moment, dark hazelgreen eyes serious below bemused eyebrows, his mouth a crooked line of consideration.]
That's an awful lot of talking without a point about a guy who, in the end, doesn't exist and doesn't matter.
[Dean believes none of these things and has no thought to hide it.]
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[It would be highly inaccurate to claim that the marquis is never spontaneous. He often is. It's just that his spontaneity has been developed by centuries of growing instinct such that, in the end, it's not really all that spontaneous at all. His actions are based in evidence gathered over too many years, and so even the things he doesn't have an explicit reason for doing, he quickly discovers: they are the right thing to do to get to his goal.]
[Except on those rare occasions when they aren't - but he doesn't discuss those, afterwards.]
[In any case, this is right. He watches Dean, tilts his head as the cogs turn, and when Dean finally speaks - ]
[He's seen. And that, more than anything else, makes the marquis smile almost fondly, not at Dean but at the memory of crisp pages, slowly dampening in the humidity of the hours after rain, the first time he held Le Chatte Botte in his hands, the absorption of crucial knowledge, of philosophy, the metamorphosis . . .]
[He smiles.]
And?
[Which means Yes. You're right. So pleased. Well done. You see.]
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He raises an eyebrow.]
And I think the miller's son matters. I think he matters very much. And I think the Marquis exists. I think one couldn't have been without the other.
And I think he's always exactly who and what he needs to be.
[The question isn't whether this was right or not. The question is, what is the goal?.]
And I think you're having to chase mice to survive, again.
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[He's not sure why he doesn't expect this by now. He should. He should, he's smarter than this.]
[Which begs the question: is he doing this deliberately? Going behind his own back, giving away too much, just to see how far he can be pushed? He's never been a masochist, but he's curious, he can admit this consciously. Curious and bored and desperately trapped.]
[If Dean pushes him, he'll push back. He's confident of this. (Unless he isn't. But why wouldn't he be?)]
[His smile falters only for the briefest fraction of a second.]
Mm, you need to work on both listening skills and literary analysis. He doesn't, because he's dead; never did, because he was only ever a pawn. Do you know what happens to third sons? They seek their fortune. They slay giants.
Except for this one.
The marquis de Carabas is - a coat. Packaging.
[As to the last - he blinks slow, snake-like, and doesn't answer. On the one hand he wants to say of course I am; on the other hand he wants to say they're chasing me.]
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Dean shakes his head, unfazed by the non-answer, by the rebuttal. He's got his eye on the prize. It's only a matter of getting there, now, before the ground drops out from under his feet while he's not looking.]
No, I don't think I do. You need to work on not outsmarting yourself.
You're making yourself a pawn, not anyone else. No one else can. Not you, of all people.
[The Marquis is clever and resourceful and uncompromising for the right cause. Dean has seen it all, maybe more than he was intended to, definitely more than almost anyone gives him credit for, and he knows this much: whatever it is that drives the Marquis to mad restlessness, he let it in, and he's the only one that can chase it back out again. He has only to figure out how to trick it into becoming something smaller.]
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[He's earned respect from Dean without resorting to ruthlessness, that's the thing. And he's aware it's a fluke, he knows, it wouldn't work with everyone; with Dean it does because he can see the danger lurking beneath, not because of anything else. But - it's novel. It's curious. It's meaningful.]
[Not that he wants, in any way, to admit to that last.]
[Not him, of all people. It's true. Not even angels can use him; not even assassins older than known time; not anyone. Not even the Admiral.]
[He puts his head on one side and, for the first time, actually considers this. This concept: that he could be something else.]
[Considers, dismisses. But the moment's there.]
I'm not. [Outsmarting himself, that is.] I am precisely what I want to be.
[What he needs to be. For survival.]
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Dean sees the consideration and he waits, uncharacteristically patient, and snorts when he hears the lie that comes out next. It's almost an insult, and the look he gives the Marquis says as much as plainly as any words.
The hunter is not the type to do things without warning. The problem is, the warning never makes a difference.]
Then what is this conversation? Why are you here? [The Barge. An inmate.
Why doesn't he feel safe enough in his own body and his own mind to get some sleep.]
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[He believes this in the deepest, darkest part of himself: that the kindness that's only ever tripped him up is something that works for other people, to some extent, but also allows them to be used. That especially in his home, in London Below, he must be what he's become.]
[The trouble is, the story isn't complete. It ought to have a Hunter, too, a Hunter, a Warrior, an Opener, and an Angel - a Fox and a Wolf, nipping at heels, biting at throats. There's no space in this other story for a cat, he thinks sometimes, or a cloak of a man who never existed.]
[And sometimes . . . sometimes he wants there to be space. But only on odd days, or in the equilibrium time when it's too late to be early but too early to be late.]
Or I'm here because I've outgrown my home. Because I need something new.
[No. He misses home. He aches for it. This is a transparent lie; he doesn't bother making it anything but.]
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There's too much here that Dean doesn't know, and he's aware of that. It doesn't always stop him from pressing forward anyway but now he's almost cautious, taking a step only when he's certain of it. He only has the story the Marquis has told him, and it is a story of creation - it's a story about the past.
The distant past. The Marquis has been the Marquis too long for it to be fresh, and even Dean knows that. So he works with what he's been told, and what he hasn't been.
The hunter asks again:] What is this conversation?
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[He thinks about Door. He knows she knows the story; her father would have told her, when he was telling her that the marquis would look out for her, that he owed it to Lord Portico to protect her with his life. That man would have told Door all about him, all of his crimes, and yet it was the way of London Below that she came to him in a moment of desperation anyway. Desperate souls will do quite a lot.]
[And yet she never feared him, not even a little. That's what he misses, he supposes, that quiet confidence, sharpness under a veneer of vulnerability. Dean has that same sharpness in him - everyone here he's not brushed off has some of that in them. So perhaps this conversation is about her.]
You tell me.
[A half-smile, absolutely the most genuine expression the marquis has ever shown Dean during the entire period of their acquaintance. If Dean tells him what he thinks, perhaps the marquis will know if this is a mistake. It probably is. Not much to do about it now.]
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[Dean doesn't even have to think about it, and he doesn't hesitate to answer, either. He could be even more specific, he thinks, but not yet. Dean hasn't had a home for a long time now, not one that most recognize as such, but he recognizes the look, recognizes the gritted teeth of missing someone as well and being unwilling to admit it. The Marquis, Dean thinks not for the first time, wants people to think he's a loner, but he's not. All of his power, which he undoubtedly loves, resides in the manipulation of people; it should make Dean wary of him at the least, disgust him at the worst. But he's never really minded the Marquis, not like he should for that sort of motivation.
And besides, they've talked about it. In feints and bluffs and through the teeth of a liar's smile, and the Marquis has given him more than enough hints. The conversation outside Dean's door the day he left, the uncontrolled, last ditch punch Dean hadn't expected until it happened, hadn't known what it meant at the time. Not even, really, the extent of it until he was handed a few more pieces. It might have been lazy on his part, but while Dean's methods are clever, he's no pick pocket in this regard. He couldn't have stolen these tidbits without losing his hand in the process.
And then there's that other thing, which he has also known for quite some time, though he only just now realizes it.]
You want someone else to know.
And you're testing me. Again.
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[But Dean is someone who could live there. He could sink his jaws into it with the right motivation, could own segments of the city the way the marquis has owned all of it, could be a force to be feared and reckoned with. Which is why he is as close to a friend as the marquis has.]
[London Below is his home because it's a challenge. Door is esteemed because she is a challenge. Richard is scorned because he isn't. The marquis is clever enough that he has constructed an existence for himself entirely separate from the average man's reality in order to survive, but he did it where he did it because he's too clever not to be constantly challenged. If he isn't surrounded by threats he must overcome, his or someone else's, he wilts.]
[So, yes. He's testing Dean. He's always testing Dean, because he trusts him to pass with flying colors in one remarkable way or another, though he never can guess just how. He doesn't test people when he's working - he makes his moves based on almost complete certainty and highly educated guesses - but he needs this sort of mental stimulation.]
[This is the change in him since coming to the Barge, the only major change from sheer exposure to inescapable people: when given the choice between protecting his secrets and being forced to think, he will take the path of thought every time, lately. The long spells of stillness and boredom might lead him to true madness otherwise.]
[As to Dean's first assertion - yes. He does. London Below is as close to a love as he's ever had, and it's helplessly, hopelessly out of his reach.]
[He nods, just once.]
Yes. [To the first.] I always am. [To the last.]
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The hunter hedges, quirking a small, cool smirk and cracking a self-deprecating joke of the variety he's used to build the person most others are familiar with and fooled by.] Damn. I hope it's open note, and even then, I'm the worst test taker in history. All nerves.
[But it's just hedging. He's sifting through the information, wishing - not for the first or last time - that Sam was here with his giant brain and his freakish memory for random details no one cares about, though Dean does pretty well for himself in this regard. The hunter slowly sits back, rolling the pencil between his fingers, predator's gaze steady above the polished, crooked smile.]
So. You're the fairytale boy, is what you want me to believe. Created out of the imaginations of others at your direction.
The ultimate trick: make someone who existed disappear, and someone who never existed become real. That it?
[That is not, he knows, it. But the Marquis isn't the only one always testing.]
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[And as it turns out, Dean isn't that far off. He's alarmingly close. That's the trouble. Other people might not expect it from the hunter. Even the marquis didn't at first. But he does now, at least most of the time. Dean's a wildcard, but he's also very, very clever when he needs to be.]
[De Carabas tips his head to one side, then nods again, once.]
That's reasonably accurate. You pass, at least.
[But he doesn't win.]
[The marquis pauses, then glances to the side and back.]
It's not a matter of your belief.
[Nor even of Below's belief. It's a matter, in the end, of his own.]
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[But there's genuine satisfaction in it, though he doesn't take an obscene amount of pride in his ability to reason like Sam would, or the Marquis. He still respects a job well done and takes pleasure in being the one to do it, whatever it is; and he's proud of his friend, though the Marquis won't thank him for that, doesn't need it. It's still true.
Dean's gaze follow the cast of the Marquis' black eyes, ticking sideways, ticking back in perfect unison. He raises an eyebrow and, lazily wagging the pencil up and down in his hand until it appears to the trickable eye to be made of rubber, snorts.]
Sure it is. Not mine, specifically, but someone's.
If there were no one but you to convince, you could be whatever you want. Anyone could. I could say I'm a rockstar and all I'd have to do is convince myself and it's true.
That's the trick. Belief. Only other people can make something true of ourselves that isn't.
[Normally, this would be well outside of Dean's domain, too close to philosophical when he is anything but. The trouble is he's seen it in himself. He knows he's not a good, or a strong, or a bright person. But others believe it of him, and so sometimes, he can be more than he is.]
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[It was a good day when he found that book, really, he thinks, and goes a little distant for a moment, gaze focuses elsewhere with serious intent. Then he snaps back again.]
Exactly.
It's a joke, really. [What he is, what he has become, what he will be in the future. All a very private joke. He's committed atrocities because they get him somewhere, yes, but also because they're expected. He's a villain, but not exactly - more of an archetype.]
[Every people needs a trickster.]
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[And this is where they differ; this is the part of the Marquis that makes Dean wary, as he has no doubt was the intent. Every people needs a trickster and every people needs a guardian, and the Marquis is one and Dean is the other, and while they may not always be exactly at odds they are decidedly never on the same side. Dean knows that. He's safe as long as he doesn't forget that.
He wags the pencil back and forth a couple more times, then drops it into his lap. The hunter sits forward with casual, lazy ease until he's bracing his elbows on his knees, intent on the communicator sitting square on his desk, lips curved but not smiling, eyes bright but not amused.]
But is it a funny one?
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[The marquis's expression now is a perfect mimic of Dean's - bright but not amused. The sharp edge of a half-drawn knife.]
[Yes. It's funny. He enjoys it. He isn't sorry. Not for the pain he's caused, nor for the slice of empire he's built for himself. His reputation makes him as close to happy as he'll ever be, for happiness in the marquis's eyes is certainty of security. Of carrying on - breathing another day.]
[Occasionally he regrets having lost the rarely-tempting privilege of feeling fondness. Then he regrets his regret, and washes it downriver.]
You disagree?
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I certainly don't agree. But then, I know the story isn't over.
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[Something flickers in his eyes, uncertainty or anger or a combination thereof; and he shrugs, disdainful.]
Stories don't always end the way you expect them to.
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The smile spreads to a grin, a low chuckle.]
No. No they don't. But that's the point too, isn't it?
Are we done with this metaphor yet?
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If you like. I've said what's to be said.
[And he has been understood. Remarkable in its own right, even if Dean also argues too much for his own good.]
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It lets him drive away when it's over. Now he rolls his eyes at his friend - his friend - and taps the communicator with his foot in lieu of slapping the man's shoulder or elbowing his side.]
You eaten lunch yet?
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I'm not hungry. [A pause.] I will be eventually. [He can stuff several burgers in his pockets at dinner.]
[Yes, he is inviting himself to have dinner with Dean. Your point?]
For the record. It's an allegory.
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I always am. [So really, whenever. He reaches to pick up the communicator, rolling his eyes.]
Your face is an allegory. [Which would be a childish comeback, except the quick flash of teeth that punctuates it.]
Enjoy your castle.