mattersverymuch | 19 ɂ spam & text; fin.

Entry tags:

19 ɂ spam & text; fin.

spam } snow

[He doesn't know how he knows. He just does. Every atom in him turns like a key in a lock, with a very nearly audible click.]

[All that's left to do is wait. Which he does on the deck, looking out at the stars with a curious and abnormal stillness.]

private } ned

I want pie.

[Firm and straightforward, for once.]

private } door

[He heard it once, from mysterious sources. His voice is rich, thick, syrupy as he repeats it. The sound of satisfaction.]

I turn my head and you may go where you want. I turn it again, you will stay 'til you rot. I have no face, but I live or die by my crooked teeth.

What am I?

spam } dean

[It's easy enough to let himself into Dean's room after all this time. He knows how and, moreover, is allowed; is encouraged, in a silent way. Because Dean is his friend.]

[Out of respect, he doesn't sit on the bed, but leans against the dresser and thumbs through one of the more arcane books on the shelf, for something to do until his friend - his friend - comes back.]

[Attachment was unforeseen, and distresses him.]

text } public

[The marquis de Carabas is not in the habit of goodbyes; certainly not to a population that he is not, as a whole, fond of. This is what he gives instead, as a gift, or something.]

There are a hundred thousand ways to die, a hundred thousand traditions of death, a hundred thousand death gods. The people who know all of them are probably dead. [Which is fitting enough.] But death isn't exactly real.

An image can die. A person can die. But they don't have to.

There was a monstrous giant named Goëmagot, set by fate or one or the other's stupidity against Corineus in what is now Cornwall. He slaughtered a number of men who are forgotten by history and then was captured, by some miracle, by Corineus, who wanted to wrestle him, to best him. Goëmagot broke three of Corineus's ribs; then Corineus threw him into the sea, and Goëmagot died. That place is called Lam Goëgamot - Goëgamot's Leap - probably to rub it in.

So the giant was dead. But remembered alongside Corineus, which was probably not the man's intention. Corineus is, in fact, inextricably tied with the story of the monster now. And somewhere under the ground two very tall men walk hand in hand, and we call them Gog and Magog, because that's what they're called. That's what they've always been called.

That's what death is.

[And that's all.]

[There may be a point, but there is no moral.]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

I wouldn't know.

[He has no practice. Therefore, he's definitely terrible.]

[The marquis leans on the doorframe for a moment, then sighs, leans down and scratches Digby behind the ears.]

Ned.

Just a minute.

[He bustles away from the counter, hugging a pie in his hands and dropping it into the oven. Lightning fast, he twists the dial on the oven and returns right to the counter, rolling out another ball of dough]

[Digby leans into the marquis' hand, looking silently up at him. No, he doesn't know either]

One day, I pray you might.

[She cants her head.]

What shall you do Below now?

[Because there's no doubt in her mind he will return home. Where he belongs.]

[Well, this is just fantastic. Graduated he might be, but an expert at consoling anyone at all, let alone Ned, he most definitely is not.]

[Digby's ears are very soft, so he contents himself with petting them for a count of sixty seconds before he straightens up, crosses the room - and plants his hand firmly in the middle of the dough.]

Ned.

[The dough is folded right over the Marquis' hand, as the Piemaker attempts to lift it into a pie pan and cover it with blueberries]

In a minute. Less. 47 seconds.

I'll prepare it for whatever's to come.

[Use his contacts to bind rather than to fray. It may work, it may not. But he's preparing the way for something greater.]

Try not to get too many people killed along the way.

A key.

Where did you hear that?

It was a minute. Ned.

[He shakes off the dough, leaving a mess of dough in the pan, and presses his hand down heavily on Ned's shoulder.]

I wasn't actually asking you to feed an army.

Doesn't matter.

Where did you hear it?

I think it does matter.

It was the answer I gave the Black Friars. To get the key Islington so desperately wanted.

You hear things when you're dead. And I've had the opportunity to do a lot of reading. Pick, choose.

More importantly, keep those who matter safe.

[Snow realizes that's about as good as it will get for de Carabas. He's better, not changed. In some ways, that's perhaps for the best. Below is a ruthless place and kindness would not do in the long run.]

[He stares down at the ruined dough, shoulders tensing up. But he doesn't look at the Marquis' face, even when the hand presses against his shoulder]

I don't want you to go hungry when you leave.

I imagine that's true.

To be honest I'm rather glad your death was not a permanent one.

[Dean's schedule tend towards the aimless, these days. Unpaired, with an empty department, on a ship that doesn't really need a maintenance team most of the time anyway, and with a lessened inclination to involve himself in the lives of others - not nonexistent anymore, not after his coma made him restless, but still lessened - he's feeling the closed space more than ever.

So all in all, the only schedule he really follows is the meal periods in the dining hall; he spends less time in his room than he has been, but he still returns frequently and fairly randomly. He knows the Marquis comes and goes as he pleases and he's fine with that, but he rarely actually catches him here; furthermore he's not expecting anyone there anymore. He has, miraculously, no enemies and he lives here alone.

So when he walks in and knows, instinctively, that it's occupied he knows something else just as instinctively and his stomach drops without stopping to register why with his conscious mind. He looks up from trying to re-tie the knot of his necklace, newly threaded onto a new waxed cord, and finds the Marquis instantly.

He smiles and when that cannot hold, it morphs into a smirk. His hand stalls on the doorknob.]

Hey, sunshine. You don't have enough of my books stashed away where you think I'll never find 'em?

[At this point, there are options.]

[He could tell the truth. Easily, actually; it no longer rankles him to be honest when there's nothing to gain, although he always considers gain even now. He could definitely tell the truth. He could say he's graduated, like he will say to Ned, and weather the storm.]

[Or he could lie. Could come up with some quip and spend the moments that he last sees Dean here grinning, thrilled with his own cunning. Could slip away at the last moment, unbeknownst to anyone. No way to know for sure until Snow makes the announcement that the marquis is sure to come.]

[Dean's smile slips. The marquis finds himself unwilling to lie in this moment, or to tell the truth.]

[He is calm, unsmiling; he stares at Dean, and puts the book back on the shelf.]

[Not a word.]

Of course.

[He hesitates - truly hesitates, it isn't deliberate - and considers his hands, the calluses on his knuckles.]

I suppose that's my role now. [My archetype. He doesn't say it. But it helps to think it.]

And I'm glad you never died at all. But being glad doesn't change the way of things.

When you go home. You're going to continue what you started?

[His heart sinks. Previously, he wouldn't have thought this possible. Slowly, he loosens his grip and lets his hand fall.]

[There are no words.]

[He leans against the table and just looks: at Ned, at Digby, at the bustle of life in this kitchen that was, for a while, dead, and is now resurrected.]

[There are no words - there never will be words.]

[Except:]

Do you want help?

[Not too long ago, Dean walked into this room to discover Felix unexpectedly waiting for him, and he hasn't been the same since; he's masked it, wrapped it up the legitimate trauma from the Mirror Barge, but it started before then. That time, Felix had desperately hoped that Dean would have an inherent understanding of what was going to happen so he would not have to explain, would not have to say it aloud.

Dean hadn't, then, looking too pointedly, too deliberately, too desperately in the completely opposite direction until he'd honestly fooled himself. This time he does know inherently - and he chooses, again, to look away from it even when the Marquis does not respond, his dark hazelgreen eyes meeting the cat-black of his friend's squarely. Dean closes the door definitively behind him, strides forward to his writing desk to find the file he'd come here to get.

His voice is cheerful, bright. Fondly exasperated, pitch perfect in every way but for how it only goes surface deep. If the Marquis is unwilling to lie, Dean will pick up the slack for just a few moments more.]

Fine, take it. I probably owe enough in library fees to fund a third world country anyway. Good thing we're already in prison, huh?

Edited 2014-01-28 03:23 (UTC)

[On the contrary, the marquis is not hoping Dean understands. He knows that he does. He does, or the smile would have reached his eyes - he would not look so desperately afraid. Would not be lying so blatantly.]

[And yet the marquis cannot manage to be angry with him. Not even annoyed. There is a certain hollow feeling that gives him an unexpected lightness - sorrow, he will discover later, when he comes solidly, heavily back to earth - but no frustration.]

[This has already happened. Only a matter now of admitting it's happened.]

[His mouth tugs up at the corners in a smile. Fond. Unexpected. Unplanned. Unpredatory.]

Idiot.

I believe it always was.

[That goodness, regardless of how much is there, has always been there as far as she's concerned.]

You would believe that.

[Which means thank you.]

[And incidentally, something occurs to him.]

What was your deal? I never thought to ask.

[It's that completely uncharacteristic lack of a barb, or grating, or exasperation in turn that refuses Dean any kind of traction a moment later. There's nothing to hang onto, nothing safe anyway, and he runs right up against this thing he cannot change - this thing he would not, all told, change - without being able to fight against it.

His mind gets there before his body does, before his ruse runs out, barreling onward without brakes. He shuffles through the papers on his desk without any memory or attention for what he actually came here for, what he's looking for. Too distracted, even, to just pick one up and fake yet another thing. This goes on for several long moments, Dean's back to the Marquis, his eyes unfocused because too much is happening inside his own head and he can't process any of it. He couldn't even say, really, what it is he's reacting to. He doesn't know on the level that has language.

Not until he hears that smile. Then it clicks. His voice is still cheerful, but his throat is dry, and he does not look up.]

You're going home, aren't you? [His aimless hand turns over the same folder for the third time, and reaches forward for a loose piece of paper with several numbers and no real information on it.]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 3 of 6

19 ɂ spam & text; fin.

spam

Spam

Spam

spam

Spam

Spam

spam

private;

Spam

private;

private; whoops why did i do text let's ignore that shall we?

private

spam

Spam

private

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

spam

private

Spam

[ Spam ]

[ Spam ]

spam

spam

[ Spam ]