[ For most, the touch would incur a bit of a flinch-like reaction, a snap back to attention and reality and pulling his hand away, a touch too-sensitive. For Camille, the first part holds true but he just looks at her, meeting her gaze with just a little bit of intensity. ]
Fine. Just dealing with remembering it'd been a while since I last used occult healing, especially more than once in such a short amount of time.
[God. There's a sharp streak of grief already, cutting her down the middle. Camille's patting her own pocket, fishing her pack loose. She wasn't even smoking that regularly when she was at her worst. Not her vice of choice.]
...As much as I want to leave this hellhole, I don't imagine it'll be easy to do.
Seems like the kind of dream that drags the whole day long with you.
[What a gentleman. She'll let him light it for her, smiling soft.]
Thanks, doc. [She takes her first puff with a touch of indulgence. That first inhale always treats you so nice. By the time you hit the filter you wonder why you picked up the habit in the first place.] What'll you do? Come tomorrow, provided the damn machine works.
... Can't go back immediately, can tell you that much. I'll die, or worse, if I show back up right to the time and place I was.
[ Dragging his feet a little as they walk. ]
Need to wait out... at least a night. Just one if I'm lucky. Just need the Festival to be over and hopefully the train will be running again and able to take me back to Rondon.
[It's why she asked. The chat at the Pyre had haunted her. I'd been just about to accept.
Once they'd gotten into the specifics of the machine, her heart had sunk. Ideal for some. A death sentence for a few.]
You could make it longer. Two or three days? [How about never?] And if it's not over, maybe you can jet back out again. It's supposed to be able to do that.
[ ...He runs his own hand absently through his hair, feeling the strands slip through. Not as soft as he'd like, a little dry... idle thoughts to get away from the dreadfulness that lies underneath. ]
Two, three-more days, sure... I can excuse that as being caught up in bureaucracy with my superiors and not being able to go back straight-away. Just don't want to wait too long before the property vultures start swooping in, assuming I'm able to inherit anything...
I need to clear those up, if I need to. And at the least, I think... I want to arrange a proper funeral for Elise.
[ He never got closure about what happened to her, but he can at least accept that she's dead. A funeral might only be one step to trying to achieve that, but it'll put him more at ease than as a corpse in the basement, a monstrosity in the bunker.
...After, though? He goes quiet, not meeting her eyes. He's not sure about an after. He still feels that ominous pull at the corner of his mind, a cordial chuckle, gloved hands so loving and gentle. He doesn't know when it'll return, when his touch will become its touch. It promises to take him some day, and he can only swallow with difficulty at the thought of whoever he's with at the time getting dragged down into it. ]
[you can drop this if you want I was intending to respond all week, but alas...]
...Paperwork. [And a memorial. God. Hard to remember there's a functioning society outside of the horror show he'd been treated to.] It'll really clear out that quick? Be safe to show up at all?
[It's complicated, she knows. There had been a last minute hallucination, like being thrown into a memory — one that kiboshed her idea that maybe he could take backup. It was a guaranteed last man standing situation, with a maddening magic as insurance. Coming with tagalongs was just marching them to their own grave, or yours.
One more reason her gut won't untie from its knots.]
If it looks like you can't get out of Prehevil in one piece...you'll hop back out, won't you? [She looks to him, fretful emotions simmering.] I'm guessing you've got invites elsewhere, but Chicago's a good bet for a peaceful landing. Nothing supernatural about it. Pretty close in tech and era to the apartments, the island with the farms. Wouldn't be too strange.
Definitely wouldn't be in my top ten picks of places to get buried in, no...
[ Of course, presuming he can slip back out. He can't really meet her eye because he has so much uncertainty about his future, and it all looks and feels so bad right now that he can't admit otherwise even as a lie. Most everyone wouldn't even believe him if he said so.
He nods though. ]
Thanks, I'll keep in mind.
...
[ He wonders if he should extend an invite to his estate if she ever wanted to visit. God knows it's got enough rooms. But given everyone's horrid impression of his life and all his uncertainties, maybe not right now. ]
Going to be a bit busy for a few days first, I think...
[Though his reticence is hardly promising. She wonders if she should come. Give him the requested two or three days, let the festival close in one way or another before she checks in with fretful wringing hands. And a gun. Sorry to say but if he hasn't made it out of Prehevil at that point she will not be taking chances. Should she ask Karlach along? Would he resent them for interfering?]
...If you need help with the paperwork end of things, I'm free. Nothing's waiting on me.
[Just a pair of concerned borderline senior citizens who she'll have to justify her new slit neck to. And the disappearance of her scars. And, also likely, a whole new host of night terrors and cryptic thoughts, nothing she can trust to her own mundane, lonely world.
They're close enough now to either dovetail to Heaven's Night and its slim pickings bar, or slip back to the apartments. Call it a night. She looks to him with a raised brow.]
Did you still want that drink?
[How's he feeling? Has the night air settled him some?]
[ A gun for the first few days would be wise. Practicality, since he's told them all how he would first return to Prehevil before anything, and he's certainly talked enough about what a nightmare that place was. A nice security measure that wouldn't hurt anyone but rotten monsters straggling about. And even beyond then. What else? If Prehevil isn't the danger, maybe it'll be him, masked and all too glad to see her even with a bullet saved just for his head. Or maybe he'll still be Daan, but look at the barrel with the same eagerness as an addict looks at their supplier's satchel.
Or maybe it'll be fine, and he'll just have some shitty, witty comment to make about her supposed over-preparedness. ]
I appreciate the offer, but I think the paperwork specifics I should probably sort out alone.
[ One part because it's personal, to organise everything for Elise, and he'd rather not include anyone in that save perhaps Marina who's from the same world. He'd even ask Karlach to busy herself with something else. The estate is more for practical matters, to avoid having to answer questions about why he's returned with a new woman, who is she, and why he's arranging for such things with her. He'd hate to have Camille act as some sort of old friend and nothing more and deal with their prodding inquiries. People like that are always so awfully curious.
He's quiet for a moment, weighing options as he stares off into the middle distance between apartments and bar. A smoke eases the electric over his skin, but a drink could do it even better. ]
Yeah. I figure I'll just take a bottle back out with me.
[ The Heaven bar has kinda gone through some shit, supposedly. ]
[While she has no access to this atrocious inner dialogue, she can very much sense the dead end conversation (no puns intended). She will come, she decides. Give him the alloted days, then show up. Drag him out if he's knee deep in the shit, keep her distance if he's tangled up in bureaucracy. Or make it a social call, if it all looks above board. And in the worst case scenario...
Well. She killed the cat once. Not happily, not easily, but she knows it'd be a mercy. At least for him.
Camille can't guarantee how she'd manage after a second go. It's lucky she didn't send herself tumbling after him that same week, lines drawn down each wrist and a stiff drink to ease the wait. Without the threat of the cult and a passel of kids expecting better of her, who's to say how long she'd last?
She's not going back to anything herself. Instead of too much to contend with she has too little. Frank and Eileen and their good intentions, but no dreams. No life, no family nor friends. No aspirations, save to drag her feet through each passing day and hope this one will be better. That night will come and envelope her like a thick quilt, swaddled in the comfort making it through again. Or it'll come heavy and inescapable, press over her face, stuff the mouth and nostrils and cut the air supply off. She'll finally sleep, for good. Disappear in a truer manner than this place ever permitted.
Urgency served her well here, as had a misplaced sense of responsibility. A debt owed: she was brought back to life so she best live it well. Be grateful. Gale had clapped his hand on her shoulder after that last trial and told her he'd hope she'd live. Then he allowed himself what he forbade her, body undone the following day.
None of it is a fix. When it comes to dwindling odds of survival, she's not trailing too far behind him.
For the moment?]
Well. I suspect you'll have visitors one way or another. Hope everything sorts out by then.
[She nods about the bottle. Her own thoughts are drifting, cold loneliness creeping through the air between them. What's next? Make sure he lives or help him die. Then what?]
One for the road, then. [We'll try on a smile. For god's sake, can't they take one scrap of good cheer along with them? They killed a god and beat back an intergalactic cult for heaven's sake.] Guess I'll settle for another non-alcoholic beer. Hope that doesn't spoil any victory toasts.
[She's fucking trying.]
Edited (didn't like the ending :\ they're so miserable and for WHAT) 2024-08-16 23:01 (UTC)
[ Visitors, he means. His thoughts do drift off to the estate and whoever he might have to deal with, however way that might end up, depending on so many factors. He's fairly sure they sent in a marriage certificate, his papers should be in order. But he supposes before that he should consider how the hell he's going to get back there to begin with. He's always known it but this place has driven it so deep into him with a serrated stake, that he really can't take anything for granted and nothing good in life comes for free. Here he frets internally and with doubt.
But he'll snap out of it at the question, blinking once. ]
It won't, but is that fine? [ He remembers again and frowns. ] You can have a perfectly serviceable drink that isn't trying to mimic alcohol.
[Casually robbing the strip club on a Saturday night, nbd
Anyway fast forwards them to her apartment, it's likely filled out by now with more personal touches. A knitted afghan in a seventies palette, tossed over the back of a plush and lived in couch. Books on dark wooden shelves, one dead plant by the window — she's never been the homemaking type, and that this place would summon her potted failures from a year ago to prove it seems especially catty. If there's personal touches they're rarely hers, momentos from the cozy home she's been allowed to live in as she relearns how to be a living being.
In the corner, though: a large blocked and turreted shaped is obscured by the spare bedsheet she'd tossed over it. Pliers on the floor at its side, along with a plastic cup that stinks faintly of bleach. And the medicine cabinet behind the bathroom mirror overflows. Unlabelled goodies, pills upon pills in sectioned plastic boxes, viscous tonics rebottled in comely blue glass. She'd tried throwing each offending reminder away, only to find them reborn in the time it took to climb the stairs.
For now she spreads their goods out atop her humble counter.]
Poor selection for anything bigger than a pity party, but it'll do us fine.
Though — I should text Lavi quick. Make sure he's not up to something stupid.
[Have the jjks kidnapped him again. Lavi blink twice if you need help]
[ It does indeed feel much more fleshed out and shaped, the room of someone whose personality is quite known. It draws to mind the apartment rooms of white mould he saw, abandoned and yet able to see the personalities and histories of each person in it clearly. All except one, the one in the back with the notebook and the unknown sigil, the thing that still haunts him at the corners of his mind when he spares thought to it. He's curious about the blanketed structure for about all six seconds it takes for him to spy pliers and connect the dots, looking away politely before his gaze outlingers it's welcome.
He settles by the table, looking over what they've got, already imagining what else goes well with elderflower and tonic. ]
Come on now. It's only a pity party if you intend on throwing one... should at least replace the adjective with something nicer.
[ As much as today was... something, it's still a victory. ]
Go ahead.
[ Of course she doesn't need his permission to talk to or text anyone, take a minute or five or however long she needs. He's one room over anyway, after all. ]
It's very hard to resist good alliteration, is all. ["Pithy" party comes to mind, but that hardly works either. Can't hit the same punchy rhythm so why bother?] Maybe chuck the adjective route. "Thank Fuck We Made It" Party?
[It'll only take a moment, though. She pulls out the brick and taps out a quick message.]
Not like I expect a response, but oh well. [Kids will be kids. She frowns and fires off a quick message to Kate while she's at it. Then cuts herself off there. They'd be here all night if they went checking in with all forty sacrifices. Or worse, suddenly find themselves hosting them.]
[ While she's clicking away, he makes a decision of some syrup, elderflower, sparkling water. It's nothing spectacular given they brought home what their hands randomly grabbed and carried, but it's something. Pour it neat in a glass and it looks fine, like a soda. ]
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Fine. Just dealing with remembering it'd been a while since I last used occult healing, especially more than once in such a short amount of time.
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Makes sense. Anything that'll help with that, or...just need a rest?
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[ His eyelid droops a little bit. Tired, distant. It's been a long series of weeks, months, years. ]
Rest would be nice.
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Well. You got one out three going. Let's get you the other two.
Come on.
[She'll beckon to him, making for the graveyard portal. Hate to say it, but the amenities are just better over there.]
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He snuffs out his current cigarette only to fish out a second one anyway, and trudges along. ]
Tomorrow.
[ Presumably, when they'll get the machine up and running. ]
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[God. There's a sharp streak of grief already, cutting her down the middle. Camille's patting her own pocket, fishing her pack loose. She wasn't even smoking that regularly when she was at her worst. Not her vice of choice.]
...As much as I want to leave this hellhole, I don't imagine it'll be easy to do.
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[ Imagine that? Sorry Daan smokes a fair bit, not constantly but these last few months... they have been taxing... holding up a lighter for her. ]
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[What a gentleman. She'll let him light it for her, smiling soft.]
Thanks, doc. [She takes her first puff with a touch of indulgence. That first inhale always treats you so nice. By the time you hit the filter you wonder why you picked up the habit in the first place.] What'll you do? Come tomorrow, provided the damn machine works.
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[ Dragging his feet a little as they walk. ]
Need to wait out... at least a night. Just one if I'm lucky. Just need the Festival to be over and hopefully the train will be running again and able to take me back to Rondon.
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[It's why she asked. The chat at the Pyre had haunted her. I'd been just about to accept.
Once they'd gotten into the specifics of the machine, her heart had sunk. Ideal for some. A death sentence for a few.]
You could make it longer. Two or three days? [How about never?] And if it's not over, maybe you can jet back out again. It's supposed to be able to do that.
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Two, three-more days, sure... I can excuse that as being caught up in bureaucracy with my superiors and not being able to go back straight-away. Just don't want to wait too long before the property vultures start swooping in, assuming I'm able to inherit anything...
I need to clear those up, if I need to. And at the least, I think... I want to arrange a proper funeral for Elise.
[ He never got closure about what happened to her, but he can at least accept that she's dead. A funeral might only be one step to trying to achieve that, but it'll put him more at ease than as a corpse in the basement, a monstrosity in the bunker.
...After, though? He goes quiet, not meeting her eyes. He's not sure about an after. He still feels that ominous pull at the corner of his mind, a cordial chuckle, gloved hands so loving and gentle. He doesn't know when it'll return, when his touch will become its touch. It promises to take him some day, and he can only swallow with difficulty at the thought of whoever he's with at the time getting dragged down into it. ]
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...Paperwork. [And a memorial. God. Hard to remember there's a functioning society outside of the horror show he'd been treated to.] It'll really clear out that quick? Be safe to show up at all?
[It's complicated, she knows. There had been a last minute hallucination, like being thrown into a memory — one that kiboshed her idea that maybe he could take backup. It was a guaranteed last man standing situation, with a maddening magic as insurance. Coming with tagalongs was just marching them to their own grave, or yours.
One more reason her gut won't untie from its knots.]
If it looks like you can't get out of Prehevil in one piece...you'll hop back out, won't you? [She looks to him, fretful emotions simmering.] I'm guessing you've got invites elsewhere, but Chicago's a good bet for a peaceful landing. Nothing supernatural about it. Pretty close in tech and era to the apartments, the island with the farms. Wouldn't be too strange.
If you ever need to lay low, offer's open.
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[ Of course, presuming he can slip back out. He can't really meet her eye because he has so much uncertainty about his future, and it all looks and feels so bad right now that he can't admit otherwise even as a lie. Most everyone wouldn't even believe him if he said so.
He nods though. ]
Thanks, I'll keep in mind.
...
[ He wonders if he should extend an invite to his estate if she ever wanted to visit. God knows it's got enough rooms. But given everyone's horrid impression of his life and all his uncertainties, maybe not right now. ]
Going to be a bit busy for a few days first, I think...
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[Though his reticence is hardly promising. She wonders if she should come. Give him the requested two or three days, let the festival close in one way or another before she checks in with fretful wringing hands. And a gun. Sorry to say but if he hasn't made it out of Prehevil at that point she will not be taking chances. Should she ask Karlach along? Would he resent them for interfering?]
...If you need help with the paperwork end of things, I'm free. Nothing's waiting on me.
[Just a pair of concerned borderline senior citizens who she'll have to justify her new slit neck to. And the disappearance of her scars. And, also likely, a whole new host of night terrors and cryptic thoughts, nothing she can trust to her own mundane, lonely world.
They're close enough now to either dovetail to Heaven's Night and its slim pickings bar, or slip back to the apartments. Call it a night. She looks to him with a raised brow.]
Did you still want that drink?
[How's he feeling? Has the night air settled him some?]
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Or maybe it'll be fine, and he'll just have some shitty, witty comment to make about her supposed over-preparedness. ]
I appreciate the offer, but I think the paperwork specifics I should probably sort out alone.
[ One part because it's personal, to organise everything for Elise, and he'd rather not include anyone in that save perhaps Marina who's from the same world. He'd even ask Karlach to busy herself with something else. The estate is more for practical matters, to avoid having to answer questions about why he's returned with a new woman, who is she, and why he's arranging for such things with her. He'd hate to have Camille act as some sort of old friend and nothing more and deal with their prodding inquiries. People like that are always so awfully curious.
He's quiet for a moment, weighing options as he stares off into the middle distance between apartments and bar. A smoke eases the electric over his skin, but a drink could do it even better. ]
Yeah. I figure I'll just take a bottle back out with me.
[ The Heaven bar has kinda gone through some shit, supposedly. ]
cw: more...suicidal thoughts
Well. She killed the cat once. Not happily, not easily, but she knows it'd be a mercy. At least for him.
Camille can't guarantee how she'd manage after a second go. It's lucky she didn't send herself tumbling after him that same week, lines drawn down each wrist and a stiff drink to ease the wait. Without the threat of the cult and a passel of kids expecting better of her, who's to say how long she'd last?
She's not going back to anything herself. Instead of too much to contend with she has too little. Frank and Eileen and their good intentions, but no dreams. No life, no family nor friends. No aspirations, save to drag her feet through each passing day and hope this one will be better. That night will come and envelope her like a thick quilt, swaddled in the comfort making it through again. Or it'll come heavy and inescapable, press over her face, stuff the mouth and nostrils and cut the air supply off. She'll finally sleep, for good. Disappear in a truer manner than this place ever permitted.
Urgency served her well here, as had a misplaced sense of responsibility. A debt owed: she was brought back to life so she best live it well. Be grateful. Gale had clapped his hand on her shoulder after that last trial and told her he'd hope she'd live. Then he allowed himself what he forbade her, body undone the following day.
None of it is a fix. When it comes to dwindling odds of survival, she's not trailing too far behind him.
For the moment?]
Well. I suspect you'll have visitors one way or another. Hope everything sorts out by then.
[She nods about the bottle. Her own thoughts are drifting, cold loneliness creeping through the air between them. What's next? Make sure he lives or help him die. Then what?]
One for the road, then. [We'll try on a smile. For god's sake, can't they take one scrap of good cheer along with them? They killed a god and beat back an intergalactic cult for heaven's sake.] Guess I'll settle for another non-alcoholic beer. Hope that doesn't spoil any victory toasts.
[She's fucking trying.]
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[ Visitors, he means. His thoughts do drift off to the estate and whoever he might have to deal with, however way that might end up, depending on so many factors. He's fairly sure they sent in a marriage certificate, his papers should be in order. But he supposes before that he should consider how the hell he's going to get back there to begin with. He's always known it but this place has driven it so deep into him with a serrated stake, that he really can't take anything for granted and nothing good in life comes for free. Here he frets internally and with doubt.
But he'll snap out of it at the question, blinking once. ]
It won't, but is that fine? [ He remembers again and frowns. ] You can have a perfectly serviceable drink that isn't trying to mimic alcohol.
[ Mocktails!!! God bless them. ]
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[Perhaps he could have earlier but they were...busy...Pyramid Head and otherwise.]
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[ Or, while it'll be less effective on the Mind heal front... ]
Or I can just arrange to make some nice tea.
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No more tea, I feel like I've been soaking in it for a month. I don't mind the tonic one bit.
Long as it's not too sweet, I'll try whatever.
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[ As long as the spread isn't dogshit he can make whatever work. ]
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[Casually robbing the strip club on a Saturday night, nbd
Anyway fast forwards them to her apartment, it's likely filled out by now with more personal touches. A knitted afghan in a seventies palette, tossed over the back of a plush and lived in couch. Books on dark wooden shelves, one dead plant by the window — she's never been the homemaking type, and that this place would summon her potted failures from a year ago to prove it seems especially catty. If there's personal touches they're rarely hers, momentos from the cozy home she's been allowed to live in as she relearns how to be a living being.
In the corner, though: a large blocked and turreted shaped is obscured by the spare bedsheet she'd tossed over it. Pliers on the floor at its side, along with a plastic cup that stinks faintly of bleach. And the medicine cabinet behind the bathroom mirror overflows. Unlabelled goodies, pills upon pills in sectioned plastic boxes, viscous tonics rebottled in comely blue glass. She'd tried throwing each offending reminder away, only to find them reborn in the time it took to climb the stairs.
For now she spreads their goods out atop her humble counter.]
Poor selection for anything bigger than a pity party, but it'll do us fine.
Though — I should text Lavi quick. Make sure he's not up to something stupid.
[Have the jjks kidnapped him again. Lavi blink twice if you need help]
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He settles by the table, looking over what they've got, already imagining what else goes well with elderflower and tonic. ]
Come on now. It's only a pity party if you intend on throwing one... should at least replace the adjective with something nicer.
[ As much as today was... something, it's still a victory. ]
Go ahead.
[ Of course she doesn't need his permission to talk to or text anyone, take a minute or five or however long she needs. He's one room over anyway, after all. ]
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It's very hard to resist good alliteration, is all. ["Pithy" party comes to mind, but that hardly works either. Can't hit the same punchy rhythm so why bother?] Maybe chuck the adjective route. "Thank Fuck We Made It" Party?
[It'll only take a moment, though. She pulls out the brick and taps out a quick message.]
Not like I expect a response, but oh well. [Kids will be kids. She frowns and fires off a quick message to Kate while she's at it. Then cuts herself off there. They'd be here all night if they went checking in with all forty sacrifices. Or worse, suddenly find themselves hosting them.]
Have you got enough to work with over there?
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[ While she's clicking away, he makes a decision of some syrup, elderflower, sparkling water. It's nothing spectacular given they brought home what their hands randomly grabbed and carried, but it's something. Pour it neat in a glass and it looks fine, like a soda. ]
If I didn't, you'd just have to settle for water.
[ Stay hydrated, folks... ]
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