[closed]

[katabasis]

WHO: Silver, Flint
WHAT: Two pirates scouring Kirkwall's bookshops in the service of important diplomacy work.
WHEN: Early Drakonis
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Doing their JOBS.

It is their fourth stop. They've wound their way through the more prominent Hightown booksellers, having worked their way from out of the company of skittish shopkeepers anxiously overseeing the systematic scrutiny of their shelves by two alleged pirates and into the clutches of what can only be described as Kirkwall's most peevish old bat:

"I don't care who you think you are; you can't be here this long without purchasing something," she'd wheezed at them in the cavernous old place, one hand trembling at the head of her cane and the other arm wrapped around a ginger cat with large blinking eyes.

Which is why they now own a collection of romance novels with increasingly unlikely love interests, including but not limited to a Chantry sister and a shapeshifting witch, between them. It's also why they're being left alone now to pick through the labyrinthine shop's back room, wading through unorganized stacks of used titles, and--

Choking on dust, mostly.

"Have you considered simply copying the book instead?" This said into his sleeve while scrubbing a thick layer of grime from one of the room's upper shelves.

Comments

[katabasis]

One hand remains in place, hooked there on a ladder's rung as if this will be the shortest part of this conversation and he means to resume this nonsensical task as soon as it's finished. There is spilled paper to be swept up and a shelf on the verge of collapse which demands a few volumes to be shifted from it. There must be other book sellers in Kirkwall.

"I'm not implying anything. You're welcome to any thought I have. But I am telling you if that is the case and if my presence in this isn't enough, more than yours will be required. Clearly you have concerns which extend past what we learned in Nevarra and whatever you think needs repairing between us. Why not voice them now? I was under the impression this road could be traveled in either direction."

Is it the time? The distance? The disappointment that Nevarra has not yet paid out as it was meant to? That taken on paper, they are hardly closer today to the goal then when they first made their way South to accomplish it?

(It will be easier to create the right thing to say if he knows that much.)

[hornswoggle]

Am I?

What is he welcome to? That he feels the need to ask at all shows to John the fissure between them. There had been a point not so long ago when he'd understood Flint's thinking well enough that his questions could be concise, pointed. Now every inquiry at hand is broad, trying to grapple with large swaths of territory unaccounted for.

"You find no need for repair?" He asks instead. "You find our present state of affairs tolerable?"

But almost the instant he poses the question, he considers that it's likely Flint does. Consider the state John had found him in. Consider the stretch of time in which they were first acquainted. The answer is almost a foregone conclusion when set against that memory.

[katabasis]

That hand is a tether.

It keeps him within arm's length of the ladder, one in a series of checks. But the distance between them in this back storeroom with all its dust and moldering paper isn't really so great; the way Flint flexes forward against it in response isn't inconsequential and neither is the shifting line in his face. There is a bright, scalding heat in it - the instinctive snarling look when clipped by something sharp -, which bristles then at once involuntarily gives way into a shape which is both more razor keen and more open to battery.

"Is that what you think this is? That I'm enjoying this? That I would be rather be in a room with the likes of Rutyer and the Provost, trying to convince them that the way forward should be more certain than pinning all our hopes on the whims of rich Antivans and whomever in Orlais still has people left standing to drive in front of them? Don't be fucking absurd," is snapped back, though the brittle part is--

"It's a sacrifice. One I have been willing to make in the interest of keeping you comfortable here rather than dictate circumstances you would find yourself obligated to avoid. If I didn't want to preserve this, don't you think I would have found a cleaner way of setting you aside?"

[hornswoggle]

Somewhere, in the backroom, the decrepit shop-keep is certain they're still arguing over someone named Beverly.

But the reality is this: the earlier assertion of happiness sliced like a dagger, and this further assertion of comfort is salt thrown across the gash. The weight of sacrifice does not settle easily onto his shoulders, would not even if he were truly untouched by the endless isolation of his present position.

"I did not want this."

Again, the old refrain. One more entry in the long list of events and circumstances he had tried uselessly to avoid.

"You're angry with me."

The statement is almost resigned. He should have said that first, knowing they would end here anyway.

[katabasis]

"For what?" Is his grip flexing on the ladder rung. "I'm not angry with you. I'm"—searching for the right word—"concerned."

Isn't that true? He thinks it must be. That if he wasn't, every part of this - not just the argument, but the demands of the work and what has become necessary to invest in - would feel less severe.

[hornswoggle]

"I'm sure you're capable of both."

It is of some comfort to John that he can divine the place where anger gives way to something more complex in Flint's expression. But that doesn't leave him with any path forward. He knows the root of both anger and concern.

After all these years drawing breath and walking this earth, John has not yet found a way to rip out the part of himself that creates trouble. What sacrifices Flint makes in the name of safeguarding it adds a new layer to John's misery. He'd suspected, but confirmation brings no real peace.

"My well-being, and our goals, all come to nothing if your time spent in those rooms wears you past the point of tolerating the situation at all. I'd thought at the least I could offer assistance with that."

But it's useless. It's repeating the same offer in hopes of trying to find some new combination of words that will push past the impenetrable wall Flint has constructed. Maybe there's some truth he could offer (that he's miserable, that he's grown tired of this city and this organization, the kind of truths he cannot ever say aloud) that would rattle Flint enough to sidestep his rationalization, but John deems the risk too high. He's already been truthful enough about privately held facts for a lifetime.

[katabasis]

"Stop," is curdled frustration as much as it is an order of dismissal. His hand comes away from the ladder, and at once he is moving: around Silver to begin collecting the loose papers spilled over the floor. It's a ready substitute for-- it's something to do with his hands, with the impulse to do act in some way.

"This is not a question of what I can tolerate," he says, gesturing with the growing collection of papers. The upended box is righted. "This is about how I have been asking what exactly it is that you're so troubled by and how you still haven't given me an answer which includes you in it."

[hornswoggle]

The answer, the truth, is akin to cracking his own apart. For all the trust between them, there are instincts he can't shake. An answer that includes him feels like an impossibility. There are limits to how vulnerable he can allow himself to be, especially now that he's already given over a far more destructive truth to Flint.

If he cannot frame this in terms of the effectiveness of their partnership, of how useful John can be with Flint withholding information, then how does he frame it?

"It's a simple answer, really."

So simple John doesn't know how to speak it aloud.

"I can't tolerate our present circumstances."

Two concise statements, so narrow as to not betray the full scope of John's feelings on their situation.

[katabasis]

He straightens.

There in the shop's dusty, ill-lit back room, the shape of Silver seems somehow folded shut. As if there is very little to study, nothing to look at and find an answer in. He looks anyway, and his attention is bright in the way that burned things sometimes are.

When he does speak, Flint says, "We're not having this conversation here," and dumps the collection of papers back into their box.

[hornswoggle]

The beat of silence is all it takes for John to reconsider. That single slip of armor is enough for a knife. It's a matter of when it will come.

"Alright," he answers.

In this moment, he misses Madi so acutely it's hard to draw breath. He'd slipped with her as well, though he can't recall if that moment had felt like this one. The details are lost to him now.

But he does wonder (if only because it's a tactic he would certainly fall back on) whether the objection to venue is just a way to divert any further discussion altogether.

"Where? A tavern? The Walrus? Your office in the tower?" John's tone is forcibly light as his hand blindly settles on the dusty shelf to his left.

[katabasis]

They are not having this conversation today, is the thing that bubbles up into his mouth. He keeps his teeth around it until it can be turned instead into: "A tavern. Whichever you prefer," as he brushes past him back to the ladder.

There is that lifetime of labor in motion - how promptly he making his ascent and sees the overloaded shelf put right. When next he descends to Silver's level, it's with that slim volume in his possession. Flint pushes it into his hands.

"Pay the woman. I'll see you outside."