closed; in dread i looked up once more

[sarcophage]

WHO: Ilias + Leander
WHAT: !!!!!
WHEN: right the heck now
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: these characters tend to go real dark real fast. will add warnings as needed.

As far as either of them are concerned, it's been just another day in a sequence of days, all equally unremarkable in their shared undercurrent of suspense. Of anxiety. Awareness of proximity, indecision, avoidance. Secrets pressing at thinning seams. Just another day of the same.

A phylactery could prevent this. Even a homemade phylactery produced in secret by a couple of clever young men (idiot boys) at the height of their romance (hormones) could prevent this. But unless Ilias has made a habit of carrying it around with him, and unless he has decided—unwisely, and very coincidentally—to observe it while he travels through populated common spaces on his way to the kitchen, he'll have no way of knowing.

Leander has made no such habit, himself. And that is why, instead of a precision encounter, he wanders straight into an accident. It's as easy as walking through a doorway. Just one doorway, and there he is, same height (but somehow taller), same shape (only stronger), same colours (dark and tan and grey), same face and eyes and No, no no no, this isn't how it's meant to be, there are too many people here, it's too fucking early—

Absurdly, ridiculously, he does precisely the opposite of what he intended to do all along, and might have done in any other circumstance:

He runs.

Not literally. No flurry of fabric or clattering footsteps. Just Leander, a familiar silhouette in a doorway, thinner and paler than before, but very alive, very there—and gone again before either brain can fire a rational impulse.

Comments

[sarcophage]

[What are you doing here? What is he doing here?

The notion of laughter occurs distantly to him, lacking any impulse behind it. His mouth moves indecisively, a tense line, a bitter smile; none of the above.

A hallway isn't ideal—even a quiet one underground—but it seems to be where they're doing this. It's appropriate, maybe. Stone walls and cobwebs. (The ceiling here is sound.)]

I've joined the Inquisition.

[A barely relevant truth, passed over quickly. (what is he doing here—)]

You never answered my letters. Not one of them. And you came anyway. Why?

[libratus]

That is different. [ A deflection, not an answer, too well ingrained to come out any other way at a reflex. ] I didn't get any letters.

[ Could have guessed they'd been written, could have written any himself; did neither. Would rather quibble over that detail than answer the question. ]

I did not waltz into your life and join up with an organization full of— [ Templars, Seekers, things that seem suddenly dangerous to say in the middle of the hallway when any type of mage but one might trust in the Inquisition's protection; a silent hinge of the jaw takes their place, ] —as if that was a perfectly safe and acceptable course of action.

[ He's alive. Suddenly, undeniably, with a certainty to it that a soft red glow could never convey, and all Ilias can think is, how long can that last now? (How long until he has to decide whether it does?) ]

[sarcophage]

[Wearing creases of deep confusion, Leander lifts both his hands as if to deflect the scolding halfway through. It doesn't work, and that's fine, it's fine, he'll just hold them there, he can wait—no he can't, he hears perfectly safe and starts talking immediately.]

Stop— stop, I don't care. You didn't get any of them?

[It's almost possible to track the shift in his perspective as he stares, a suspicion confirmed in shallow nods of understanding. He smiles, mouth only, looks down. Still nodding.]

And you came anyway.

[Lea wipes a hand across his mouth, his chin, sucks a breath through his nose. He's rolling a decision back and forth; it's obvious. (He didn't want this answer; that's obvious too.)]

[libratus]

[ Ilias's eyebrows arch in an effort to convey how much he appreciates the combination of interruption and disregard for what he has to say in this moment, a breath loosing itself from his ribs. ]

Of course I did.

[ Reflex again, only this one sends his lips pulling with regret as soon as he's said it. That isn't a fair way to put it; he doesn't know how else to. Eyes track the motion of a hand, but flick away again sharp, searching, as if the Gallows' stones or the flicker of torchlight upon them would have better answers than he does, as if there was any one honest answer he could give even if he wanted to. ]

What else was I going to do? What else was left?

[sarcophage]

Us.

[The word is right there, quick, no decision necessary.]

Only us. In the whole world, there was never anyone else.

[No, she was there with them; but he's stared into that empty space enough that he barely sees it now.]

And then, [reaching around his hip,] you decided, [pulling something free,] it should be only you.

[Leander's folding knife, the one he used for everything: sharpening sticks, cutting twine, slicing apples. Putting a stranger out of his misery. The same one he wore in his neck, felt grinding against his spine, until a healer with proper focus could pry it loose without killing him. He holds it up—thumb and two fingers, the rest elegantly raised, incongruous to the moment and so very like him—for Ilias to see. Still closed. Wooden handle stained dark.]

What I am doing here, Ilias, is giving you another chance. [The distance between them shrinks in steps. With his hand, Leander offers the knife; with his eyes, a dare.] Take it.

[libratus]

Don't— [ With a breath drawn swift as he might from a bare blade, Ilias flinches from it, one hand coming up to catch Leander's. Palm curls under fingers, closing instead of taking, deflecting instead of deciding, his touch cautious as if to hot iron. Do not offer him that. ]

You know that isn't what I decided.

[ He'd said. He's never been a good liar. (His actions said something else.) ]

You cannot just act like all that mattered between us is whether or not I fucking loved you.

[sarcophage]

Can't I? What else was left?

[It feels a bit cheap, throwing his words back at him so quickly—come on, boy, you can do better. Sentiment is no excuse. Don't fetter yourself to a script.

His hand, still clutching the folded knife, moves only as far as it's pushed. How far will Ilias move? Another step, another measure of distance reclaimed in place of a day, a year, easy for anyone else to mistake as an attempt at greater privacy.]

You left me there. Alone. [Hissing raw through his teeth.] You did, Ilias. If that wasn't your decision, whose was it—the Maker's? Or do you mean to blame that on her, too?

[Too far, too far—]

[libratus]

[ Too far.

There's a warning twitch in the muscle of his jaw, a twisting tilt of the head before his hand moves for the front of Leander's shirt — stops short of balling in it, trembling fist instead finding a familiar resting place. (The knife isn't what he'd use a second time.) ]

They had to reconstruct most of her skull. Did you know that? [ T's sharp, chin lifting as he continues. ] I remember it taking days, just for that. Weeks, maybe, before the rest of her held its shape well enough to house a spirit. Weeks before she could cross the Veil.

[ It isn't her he blames for anything. ]

I am sorry I'm not as thorough as you.

[sarcophage]

[Denying his reflex, the impulse to recede from Ilias's hand, is like bracing against the wind: as simple as leaning into it, even as it snatches the rhythm from his lungs. The stuttering exhale, the momentary shudder, the sudden brightness of his stare.]

Not as thorough? Oh, no. You surpassed me by leagues. She felt nothing—no pain, no fear, [a clean snap of his fingers,] gone in an instant.

[And in the minutes that followed, vaguely aware of distant cries, young Leander emerged from the paralytic daze of having done what can never be undone—and he felt what he reckoned the Maker must feel.]

But you, my dear, you left me there to suffer. And worse, worse than the months of pain, of—of pissing blood, and being hardly able to move, or eat—worse even than that, you let me believe in a lie. You came back to me after so many years, and stayed with me, slept beside me, and you knew what you'd come to do all along. It wasn't only that morning—you knew all along. Didn't you.

[libratus]

Do you imagine you did anything so different to me?

[ Stayed with him. Slept beside him. Planned her death so carefully. Didn't make lace of his ribs, perhaps. (Left him alone, in the end.) A shake of his head — Don't answer that — but his fingers loosen, begin to drop from his breastbone again. Gentling, despite the lingering bite. ]

Nothing true is so simple. I came back. I tried to kill us. It didn't work. [ Those are all the certainties he has to offer. ] If you'd asked me the day I found you, if I was thinking about harming you, or myself, or just hoping like some idiot fucking child that you wouldn't hurt anyone else and I could forget that you had, I don't know that I would have had an answer for you then either.

[ All of the above, maybe. ]

[sarcophage]

[That first sentence, of all sentences, quiets him. The letters—Ilias never read them. All this time he's been processing, shaping his personal narrative, mourning, deciding on revenge, and all he knows is what he was told in the woods that morning. The crescendo of a song he never heard. And these answers he's designed—he's trying to share them.

Leander watches him intently, allows the hand to slip away, the silence to grow with meaning while it stills.

Abruptly disentangling from himself,]

I didn't know it would be her.

[Carefully, now.]

Not until seconds before it happened. That's when I decided.

[libratus]

[ It catches him under the ribs, that. Brows pull in and waver tremulously, as if just trying to process that handful of sentences has pulled the stitching out of the shame he wears like a second skin; the flesh beneath, abruptly exposed.

He'd always imagined it as something preventable. Something he should have seen coming. Layer upon layer of guilt built upon that belief, so certain in it that even now, his eyes narrow in search of the lie. But if there is one, he doesn't see it. He just sees Leander, puzzling him out too. ]

Why?

[ Why not anyone else? ]

[sarcophage]

[Because she was the last piece, clicked suddenly into place—she stepped beneath the beams and the disorderly ideas that had worried at him coalesced, just like that, in a single moment of opportunity.
Because he'd been creeping toward the lip of a precipice all along—his most fiercely protected secret—and the Harrowing had shoved him across and into the void.
Because the chance to change everything and get away with it was there, and he took it.
Because he wanted to see what would happen.

Finally he's found his footing; at last he knows just what to say. Leander tilts his head, twitches his mouth in the memory of a joyless smile. The woods. The broken window.]

You know why.

[libratus]

[ Because no one else would have had the desired effect.

Ilias's eyes squeeze shut, something souring in his gut, in the line of his mouth, because that isn't any better, is it? Clearer. More honest. But split-second decision or a year of lies, both end in the same fucking waste. He shakes his head. His hand, the one still lingering around Leander's like they've fused together at the knife hilt, gives a slight, considering twist. ]

And are you very pleased, [ the words hissed, ] with the result?

[ Him. Them. The aching void where she ought to be. ]

[sarcophage]

I meant it when I said I was proud of you.

[And then the name that will likely never be spoken again.
(And the peculiar void where another name ought to be.)

Leander's fingers neither tighten nor loosen around the knife, still folded shut, the wood warming between their hands. What would've happened had they met somewhere more private, he wonders, from the distance afforded by a growing calm. Would both of them still be standing?]

But right now, no, I'm not feeling very pleased. If you were anyone else— [I'd have killed you already? Please. That's just gratuitous—and it might not even be true, besides.

Quiet, his mouth slightly open, tongue working inside. If you were anyone else, I'd know—]

What else do you want me to say?

[libratus]

[ Proud. Maker. Of him like this? A bitter incredulity twists on his lips, but—

If you were anyone else—

Eyes lift to the line of a jaw. Higher, studying. He isn't anyone else. Neither of them are to the other. Once upon a time that had been the measure by which he'd known his own worth (Lea doesn't love anyone the way he loves me), but in this moment it feels remarkably like
Leverage.

Silence stretches. Shoulders begin to soften beneath his robes. A thumb gravitates across skin and wood. ]

Tell me what happens, if I don't take this.

[sarcophage]

[That, not the knife and what it might be used for, is the chance he's offering. He's fought through these past years to become stronger, more focused, more frightening, to ensure he'll survive another attempt. (The way his body frustrates him now, he needs that edge to persist. A fitting reflection in a fractured mirror.)

The moving thumb grazes him inside; two fingers loosen just so; his expression doesn't change.]

I put it away.

[The scales tip even.]

Beyond that, whatever comes next... we'll have to discover it.

[Together. Whatever form that takes.]

[libratus]

[ Together.

It doesn't need to be said. The risk of it feels free fall swift, and not just to accept that whatever resolution he'd once intended for the two of them won't come to pass, but to open this little world he's started to build here between stone walls and splitting skies, to the man who'd shattered the last one. Trust, when he knows exactly why he shouldn't. Torchlight shivers in the still whites of his eyes.

But the wood beneath his thumb — funny, how even after so long, the texture of a thing can have left an imprint clear as in clay, where fingers once gripped tight around it, pulled it in with desperate force until it blunted on bone. He remembers feeling like he didn't have any choices. Like he didn't have control of anything at all.

(What if he does, now?) ]

Then we'll discover it.

[ Fingers uncurl. Drop to his side. ]

[sarcophage]

[In his imagination Leander followed Ilias to somewhere out of the way, one of his habitual haunts—patterns he had begun to notice, then deliberately let slip, thinking it too sordid a method for this—and confronted him at the correct moment. He was confident. Purposeful.

Their hands move apart, and Lea looks down to the folded knife, turns it over once in his fingers. It's just an object. He'd used it for any miscellaneous purpose before the woods, and he continued to use it for such after it was hesitantly returned to him, by his own firm request—and now, he thinks, it might be time to get a new one.

He puts it away, as promised. Takes his time doing it.

(Silence buzzing like flies returning to swarm, like the inexpressible gathering of the Veil between his ribs).]

I don't expect you to forgive me.

[But...]

[libratus]

Good.

[ It's quick. Brittle. More so than he means by the next beat, perhaps, but there it is all the same, the bone beneath more forgiving flesh. He's decided to leave the door ajar; not to welcome. Not yet.

Soft shoes slide back a step across stone; air opens between them, and in the space of it Ilias's eyes lift -- studying, where they might easily be colder. ]

If forgiveness is something you seek, you might consider how it's earned.

[ Penance. Not just suffering. ]

[sarcophage]

[For Leander, forgiveness has always been a certainty, won easily by softened features and sorrowful eyes, or a few shyly spoken words. It's a tool. A weapon. A game, bait to be dangled, to delight in the way a person's face changes when finally they see the void where mercy should be. It isn't something he's had to cultivate for himself.

At a glance, knee-jerk, the directive is unappealing. If you were anyone else—he'd turn his back on the door and the glimpse of what lay beyond it.

But this isn't anyone else.

Still,]

I'll consider it, if you'll do the same.