closed.

[exequy]

WHO: Ilias, Isaac, Kostos, Leander
WHAT: Four mages stuck in a library (a bottle episode)
WHEN: Early Solace
WHERE: Outside Starkhaven
NOTES: Probably some violence at some point

Comments

III. Go the fuck to sleep

[libratus]

The only good thing about settling in with four grown men and their bedrolls, crammed beside a dying fire in a nonetheless continuously damp room, is, eventually, for some blessed and far too brief span of hours between the ceaseless dripping of some unlocateable leak and someone's elbow in your back, at least a few of them will be unconscious.

And maybe a few won't.

Packed bookshelves muffle sound; the door to the hallway, better; the howling wind outside best of all, and none to the satisfaction of whoever you manage to wake up anyway, or Maker forbid step on in the near dark. Until then, however, perhaps it's quieter.

ota, multiple threads and threadjacking ok

[libratus]

Ilias is not much of a sleeper on a good day, and this isn't. But he is accustomed enough to sleeping beside someone (two of the three someones in this room, to be specific, though he'd chosen the bedroll between Kostos and Leander -- previously occupied by the latter's feet -- with a distinct lack of fuss) that he knows when to take his tossing and turning elsewhere.

Not terribly far elsewhere, of course. Nothing can be simple today. In a corner of the room that's a little less damp than the others, he's choosen precarious perch on an uneven bench over a soggy seat on a sturdier one. The steady drip into the basin at his feet is the sort you either get used to or hear echoing endlessly as if from the fucking Deep Roads.

Maybe the soft turning of parchment is the only sign of his presence, a book on his lap spread from robed knee to crossed ankle to knee again, even if the shadows have barely receded enough to illuminate the shapes of the pictures. Maybe there's a silver case there instead, a cigarette in hand, and a look passing better the Mortalitasi and the window above not unlike might be cast toward a bough of hanging fruit. Maybe it's the idle tap-tap-tap of curled fingers and still-unlit cigarette upon the benchtop. His striker glints merrily in the firelight back beside the bedroll and the fire and fucking everyone else.

Maybe it's the stream of hissed Nevarran profanities that graces the air next, alongside the tang of singed skin.

leander;

[libratus]

[ Eventually, one way or another, a window is cautiously cracked, a cigarette is lit, neither library nor mage is set aflame in the process, and Ilias makes room for Leander on his rickety bench.

The cigarette, too, is for sharing. Ilias is taking a long, miserable drag from it, two fingers inelegantly pinched, when it occurs to him to ask, murmured on the next smoke-heavy breath, ]

Is this what it is like for you? Being around me now?

[ This. An exposed nerve. A set of rattling bones. They haven't talked about this new blank space in his life, the one he skirts even today when the effort is near entirely wasted. As ever, Ilias prefers to disintegrate in private if he must, but there are limits to his resolve -- stretched vellum thin, just now. ]

It has always been very different for me, with you.

[sarcophage]

[It's one of Leander's, wrapped of a dark leaf, the smoke thick and fragrant: Rivaini, harder to come by than Antivan stock (although the latter will do in a pinch). He reaches to take it as he answers,]

It's... challenging to navigate, at times. But I don't mind it.

[Sitting close enough to bump shoulders, still barefoot, wearing only breeches and loose shirt, the rest hanging somewhere comparatively dry. He looks comfortable. He can look comfortable almost anywhere.]

What's it like? Being with someone else.

[libratus]

[ A puffed breath, thick. Only you wouldn't mind this, says the track of an eye. ]

Challenging, [ he decides, affectionate in mirror. ] He is very cautious.

[ Compared to Leander, everyone is cautious. Ilias doesn't say it like it's a bad thing, though. A smile chases the words — hooks halfway, blips out of existence again. ]

It does not much matter now.

[sarcophage]

[Through smoke,] Doesn't it?

You should know, I didn't mean to frighten him off.

[Then a proper exhale, slow, watching his own breath brighten the ember before he hands it back.]

Not even from your memory.

[libratus]

[ The flinch is slight; blame is pointless. ]

I don't think it's you he is afraid of.

[ Leander was a trigger, a threshold (an excuse), not a reason. Two fingers bring the cigarette in to hover near his lips. Adds, with a miserable sort of smile— ]

He thinks I am too forgiving.

[ Isn't that a wonderful joke? ]

[sarcophage]

[Leander doesn't laugh. Does turn his head toward their cramped nest, though it isn't fully visible from here, and contemplates the overstuffed shelf as though he can see Isaac straight through it.

I do not think he agrees. Not the way that you mean.

Leaning back in to whisper,]

Does he dislike himself that much?

[wythersake]

The bed is too large, is the sort of thing that dramatic men and women flourish in their books. The bed is too large without him.

It's not; it's never been. If anything, the bed was and remains undersized, and Isaac's been sleeping very well alone. Fewer elbows in his ribs.

But he doesn't often sleep by night, and it's a fucking bother to now, with the air dank and humid and no way of saying which two, three, four of them are only pretending to doze. The campfire's dying, never quite enough light, enough dark.

They might all be staring at the same high, cracked ceiling, and no way to tell.

Well. The curses are a way. There are a dozen or so words that Isaac can say in Nevarran; hasn't expected to hear any of them from Ilias. (Or Kostos, Leander.) His chin twists to survey the little silver box between blanket and floor. Ah. Ah, well. His eyes slip shut again.

The vault inverts, becomes a garden,

Not tonight. He sits up.

Easy to catch his silhouette, neither tallest or leanest; advance warning on a familiar step. A familiar scene, if not a frequent one. Ilias isn't much of a sleeper.

He knows. The bed's too small.

"Don't go," Itself dismissal and not plea. The striker clatters to set on ledge. "I'll only be a minute."

[libratus]

He's still got the pad of a thumb caught between teeth, an instinctive effort to trade one hurt for another (the burn is small, the pain of it sharp as it is absurd for its disproportion, the bite a welcome distraction). Too quick, it drops from lips to lap again, a sliver of soft motion in the dark.

The striker rings louder. Ilias lets it, for a beat.

"If that's what you want." To leave. To keep leaving.

Or—

Metal scrapes across wood, the striker pulled over the edge between two fingers, and the silver case pushed across the ledge into its place. An offer. Sooner or later, they are going to have to figure out how to be alone together again — for more than a minute.

[wythersake]

What do you want? Would bait an argument, the one that they're going to have sooner or later (can feel it every time they speak; pressure before teeth). They're going to have it, but he doesn't want to have it now, with an audience and the wind already howling. This isn't really alone. This hasn't been alone for a while.

In better light the inclination of his forehead could pass for gratitude as he fishes out a cigarette. Isaac doesn't reach for the striker, and when the old spark flicks between his own fingers, he doesn't reach for Ilias either. The trade's been made. They can both help themselves.

A minute nears, then passes. Finally,

"It's Isaac." He says, quiet, and says it the right way: Sight, not seeing. I, not me. "You say it Isaac."

The words flatten dull, excoricated of what intimacy they might have held. Maybe that's as it should be, dead flesh peeled back to air.

[libratus]

It isn't how he wanted to hear it. Warm on the breath, maybe. Close against a shoulder. A mark of trust finally earned, a bond made solid, not a knife opening a corpse. To have even that vain, stupid hope so aseptically gutted—

He doesn't answer, at first. The dip where jaw muscle meets cheekbone is quite distinct. This isn't really alone.

"I don't want pieces of you."

He'd returned the shirt well washed. Taken every scrap of parchment and plant he'd ever sent back as if intimacy could be cut away just as cleanly. Better to try than to leave so many little dreams dangling like nerve endings between them.

"Not if they're to be the last."

[wythersake]

Isaac watches him tense, and for a moment, it’s almost satisfying.

Then Ilias speaks.

Frustration is obvious to those who know where to look. Genuine: The slight cant of his mouth (hide that missing tooth). The pinch about his eyes, subtler than the arches and scowls that punctuate a public performance.

Digging through his chest the better part of a drunk hour; cataloguing, its slim contents undisturbed for chess pieces, the handle of a knife, a hidden phial. Looking for the rest long after he knew it was gone – letters and notes and tokens of life –

Eventually, he’d poured the bottle out.

"I didn’t think he should have something that you didn’t."

As though they’re synonyms: Didn’t think, didn’t want. The curve of a shoulder, that would have been nice.

open, banter spam welcome;

[sarcophage]

[An unfamiliar house, a strange room, two men he's never slept beside and one to whom he'd like to sleep closer, all of them variously interesting. In arrangements like these, Leander sleeps lightly and intermittently; at any time, even as he lies still with eyes closed, one may fairly assume he's awake and listening.

One may even glimpse the glint of an eye in the dark.

Or—if the timing is right—Lea might be caught awake and out of bed entirely, just opening the library door, or else already leaning into the gap and listening to the hallway beyond it—]

[exequy]

[ Kostos jerks himself awake in near-silence—a foot placed on a step in the Fade, moving here and finding nothing beneath it—and summons a wisp to hover overhead the same way. Out loud, though, he whispers, ] Not so bright, [ so it dims its glow to the level of a dying ember.

A moment later, he props up on an elbow to look over Ilias (ugh) at Leander and his glinting eyes. ]

Need someone to knock you out?

[ Still a whisper, but slightly louder. ]

[sarcophage]

[Both eyes, now, brighter for the wisp's light. Silently, they narrow: a drowsy smile.

He snakes a hand up to his mouth, lays a finger against it, points to Ilias. He wakes up easily.]

[exequy]

I'd knock him out, too.

[ Gladly. For the record. But he also doesn't really want to wake Ilias up and then be forced to interact with him at all, nor does he really care whether or not Leander can sleep, so he lies back down and resumes staring at the wisp. ]

[sarcophage]

[The single, slow twitch of a laugh contained. Somehow, everything's funnier at night, especially when it shouldn't be: something he never outgrew.

Kostos settles back down, and Leander rises, a lithe shape curling up from the floor, careful to avoid disturbing the body next to him. Barefoot and silent, with a pointed look over his shoulder, he disappears down one of the narrow aisles.]

[exequy]

[ Wouldn't it be great if Kostos just let him go stand in the aisle, alone, indefinitely, like a tool. ]

kostos

[wythersake]

"I'm not coming back in nine months."

Hello, Kostos.

Isaac makes a poor gargoyle, slumped on the floor at the side of the doorway. The hall is more ledge, a short stop before a sharp drop; the stairs blessedly empty of bodies. No one's about to turf out into the storm for the presence of a few mages, but one or two have decided to pack in a little tighter elsewhere.

He casts a brief, baleful look to the handle.

"Where'd you even find the room?"

[exequy]

His shirt, since dried, is back on, and he stands at the bottom of the stairs and finishes fastening the upper buttons (but not all of them, he's not Ilias) before drawing a vague square around himself with both hands, large enough for two upright bodies and some movement, small enough to be an alcove or space behind furniture. One of his hands still has teeth marks.

"Doesn't take much."

He's in a better mood. It's identical to a cockier mood. And it will be ruined as soon as he goes back into the stupid library (or, really, sooner, but for now he thinks, as soon as he goes back into the stupid library), so he only climbs halfway up the stairs before sitting down sideways and looking up at Isaac.

"Which one are you hiding from?"

[wythersake]

I'm not hiding —

Dies before it begins, on the shake of his head: Both, neither. He's overheard enough to not want to hear anything else. Would prefer Kostos not hear it, either.

"They're worse together," He means that, if not like this. A gesture falls to his knee, eyes to Kostos' hand, away. Alcoves. How nostalgic. "I don't know how you put up with it then."

Nevarra City. Happy days.

[exequy]

The happiest days of his life, honestly.

“I didn’t.” A pause long enough to separate thoughts that are only tangentially connected. “I broke Lea’s nose.”

For reasons very different from the reasons Isaac might now find them difficult to deal with, alone or in combination, he’s sure. Kostos doesn’t care what stupid bullshit is going on there, with all of them, but not caring and not noticing are two different things. Unfortunately. He’d prefer not to notice.

“But he wasn’t around long. And Ilias was already living in the Necropolis.” The jealousy is old and faded, but still: “So talented.”

[wythersake]

A contemplative noise. Blood washes into Leander's open mouth —

Less than satisfying.

"Why didn't you break his?" Ilias. Kostos is a lot of things. Wealthy. Noble, in the circuitous way you never really stop being so; even a mage in exile. A medium, a rarity, "Or was he above all that?"

Set apart, and set in a jar. A rarity; an exile. Kostos is a lot of things.

[exequy]

“Who fucking cares what he’s above,” Kostos says, but he doesn’t have an answer otherwise. Only a shrug. “I thought we were going to fight once, but he kissed me instead.”

He’s never thought about Ilias, in so many words, as being the first man he kissed. Too sentimental. Too much thinking, in general. He’s never thought about why he never hit him—maybe because it would have caused too much trouble with the same authority figures he wanted the most to impress, maybe because it just never worked out—and he’s not thinking now about whether or not Isaac might give a damn with whom Ilias has had tongue to tongue contact.

Not that it would make a difference if he were. It probably wouldn’t. But maybe it would. He doesn’t like Isaac very much, but these days the competition has thinned enough that not liking someone very much can still land them in his top ten.

“In a crypt,” he adds. “He wasn’t above that.”