( closed ) where have all the good men gone?

[champions]

WHO: Marisol & Nikos
WHAT: cocktails and gossip (but DRAMATIC)
WHEN: sometime…. recent….
WHERE: Marisol’s mansion
NOTES: they’re such jerks honestly, carried on from a chat

( Being rude as hell, Marisol naturally doesn’t reply to Nikos last grumble. He’ll find his way in, to find the place conspicuously lacking in the usual staff who might be found about. A night off, perhaps.

She is making drinks as he arrives. Mimosas, of course mimosas, because she promised him them and hadn’t yet had a chance to deliver, and she holds one out (prepped to his exact preferences) without looking. There’s a fire burning in the grate, and she holds a cigarillo between her fingers in her other hand, smoke slowly spirally upwards. Typical Marisol opulence and all, but there is something weightier to it that she wouldn’t normally allow to be apparent except in the most trusted company. )

Keeping out of trouble, lately?

Comments

[champions]

( She sighs. Still stubborn, stalwart, but choosing to consider her affection for him and tempering it. )

I am not asking your permission, Nikos. I'm telling you about a plan already in motion.

( Moving a step closer to him, if he will allow it and not immediately withdraw, she holds out her hand to try and touch his wrist. ) If we don't do all we can, then all of us will be owned. And, quite frankly, being away from so many self-righteous rifters is to my own benefit even if it kills me in the process.

( She's hilarious. )

[exsecutus]

[Nikos allows her closer, but snatches away his hand when she reaches for it, like her grasp is a viper. His pulse feels too heavy, too quick; anger courses through him, in his blood, his veins, pricking anxious and insistent at his fingertips like needles. If he could punch something right now, he would. It's a good thing the flamingo is on its way out of view entirely.]

Why is it already in motion. Why didn't you come to me first, instead of--settling yourself, on this, fucking, [words he's nearly spitting out, too angry to speak properly,] waste, of you, and what you are, your--

[It's a double standard that he has always refused to confront. Marisol, his wealthy cousin, safe in all her luxuries. He forgives her anything, in the end, because he knows who she is beneath it all. Because she is his first friend. Because he loves her--and it's unfair, that he loves her, because he is thick and stupid and imperfect and always with an anger in him, too cantankerous to be kind or good or anything but full of dissatisfied fight. It doesn't matter when he doesn't care. But he always cares, really, and that's what makes him so angry.

And Marisol is his. Not owned, or possessed, but his in a way that means more than bond of word or coin or even blood. In Tevinter, she will not write. In Tevinter, she will live in some beautiful fucking mansion that he will never see, where he can't critique her taste and her vices and her penchant for spending, and she will be married at a ceremony that he won't even be allowed to refuse to attend.]

I could have told you not to do this to yourself. I would have found some way, for you--

[She shouldn't have to sacrifice herself. Nikos is the one that cuts it all apart and burns it down and bears the burden of all of that. He would do anything to protect her.]

--to see, that this is-- fucking grotesque--

[champions]

I know.

( Gently. She doesn't try to reach for him again, in case it only serves to drive him further away, to escalate the hurt she's inflicted on him. ) You'd do anything to protect me. That's why I couldn't talk to you first.

( If there is one thing in the world that she knows to be true, it is that. As surely as she feels the hum of magic in her blood, as the sun burns in the sky, Nikos would do anything to save her from anything in the world, including herself. )

You have taken massive risks to do the right thing. You have— endured betrayals from people who abandoned your cause. I don't know if I'll learn anything of value, but it will be me learning it. I will be the person on the other side, who will be trying to learn and orchestrate. Even if there is nothing else that comes from this, there will be someone in Tevinter who aid in your missions there, no matter what.

( It isn't just about Nikos, but the potential of being able to aid him was certainly a boon in this fucked up situation she's deliberately designed for herself. )

It's not permanent. Have enough faith in me to believe that, Snapdragon. Even if it is only faith in my stubbornness, for now.

[exsecutus]

Don't call me that. You made up that stupid name, I didn't want it--

[Just like everything Marisol does, and Nikos has no choice. She was his friend in much the same way. She could endure him, or ignore him; she could even be mean the way that he was mean. An immovable wall that Nikos couldn't shake or shock.]

You won't be able to answer a letter. What good is a contact in Tevinter who can't answer a letter?

[This version of anger is like a bulwark, to keep safe. It won't last long against Marisol. He can't even bring himself to be actually properly cruel or cutting--tell her that her work will be in vain, that she is fooling herself if she thinks she will make some difference--he could have tried that tack earlier, but the conversation's course has changed. And he's shown his hand anyways. He doesn't think any of it.]

I could get a contact in Tevinter. I don't want one. You won't be any use to me there, don't pretend as if that thought entered into your mind. [Don't would come out furious, if he said it, but its plaintive color would show beneath.] And you can't promise that it is not permanent. If you can, tell me how long it will last.

[champions]

It will last as long as I believe it is necessary. ( Her tone sounds cooler, with that, frost crawling over it. ) I told you this because you are the person dearest to me in this world, and I knew that if I didn't you might kill yourself being stubborn enough to try and drag me back. If you won't respect what I'm doing, please don't sabotage it.

( For a moment, her voice almost wavers. Deliberate and contrived, or genuine? Hard to say. Perhaps Marisol doesn't even know. )

I love you more than anyone in the world, even if this means you despise me. And... maybe I'll be wrong, and you'll be right, and I won't learn anything. But if there is even the slightest chance that I can make a difference, then I want to take that chance. And maybe one day I'll... have a place in the perfect world that you want, and I'll have earned it.

[exsecutus]

Shut up, [Nikos says, through his teeth,] stop--

[If she's chilly and cool, he's the complete opposite. Seething with heat and anger, with that passion that is always simmering in him. It's easier to be angry. He knows how to be angry. It's harder to admit what he actually feels. The weight and shape of sadness is not easily accommodated. He can only hate sadness, only to have that hate boil over and corrode.

He's not Caspar. He doesn't have words. And he's not Marisol, who can just say things, who lays plain her feelings and her thoughts whenever she chooses. For Nikos, that is impossible. Instead, he drains the rest of his mimosa in a single angry gulp and throws the empty glass at the fire. It shatters on the back of the hearth, and the flames flare and hiss, almost as angry as he is.]

You're a fucking fool, you're walking into--some marriage, a prison, a cage, you were always willing to do that to yourself but now you've dressed it up, and you think that will do something, but it's only going to hamstring you, you're going to ruin your-- everything, and for what, for a child, that's what you want, and the off chance that you get some information worth knowing, so you can come back, and you can--

[He grabs for her hand now, tight--and then all at once he pulls at her, pulls her close and puts his arms around her. She smells the same, cigarillo and expensive perfume, soap, and Nikos is so angry that there are hot tears standing in his eyes, and he crushes himself to Marisol and holds onto her, like that will keep her here. Like he can fix this by holding her in place. If she stays he can protect her. He can watch out for her.]

[champions]

( For all that she knows him, being pulled into a hug is unexpected. It's so often her initiating contact, even if the affection is mutual. Marisol is the leader in much of that, nudging him with her shoulder or dramatically hanging from his arm, and now—

Gently, as much as she can with how he's grasping her, she brings her arms up to wrap around him. )

I know. But I want to try.

( If she told him she'd set aside the thought of a child, for now, she's sure he'd not believe her. And maybe it would be a convenient chance, but how she'd keep the child out of the clutches of a Tevinter father keen for an heir if things went severely southward was another thing she'd need to figure out.

One of her hands soothes up his spine, and rests at the back of his neck. )

If you need to be angry with me for a long time, I understand. ( It's inevitable, maybe, but she understands. )

[exsecutus]

[She's nearly as tall as he is. The incongruity of the hug comes in how hard he holds to her, glaring over her shoulder at the wall opposite. Her hand is pressed to the back of his neck and Nikos doesn't do anything to move it, to pull away. Not yet.]

Fuck you. Shut up.

[I could never, is what he means to say. He could never hate her, not really. Not knowing. But saying that would be too plain. He already feels like someone's stabbed him in the throat, like he has to spit out anything that he wants to say to her, working around an obstruction that is bleeding him.]

I won't be able to write to you. [It's so small, and stupid. It's all nothing in the face of what could be done, meaningless. Like Nikos matters more than the whole of it. Like Marisol matters any more than the whole. But she does. To him, she does. More precious than any fucking thing.] You're such a-- fucking dramatic idiot. You can't just do this normally.