antivanleather | Fifth Drop - Again, until you decide to drop. Now I'm so high, so high, so high [Action]

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Fifth Drop - Again, until you decide to drop. Now I'm so high, so high, so high [Action]

plans.

His eyes snap open as the thought finishes and for a long moment he can't breathe or think past the remembered pain of a gaping wound and the cold, blissful slide of a knife through his heart. No Isaac, so kind, so cruel to cradle his head. No grit of dirt or stone under his cheek and digging into his back. No clash of battle or distant, strained cry that was so very familiar- oh. Katniss. She'd seen. He's still wrapping his mind around being alive, around breathing when his hands fly to his chest- whole and slick with sweat rather than blood. Alive. He is alive. It is no trick, it is no twist of necromantic intent. He feels no lesser than he had before. Well. Mildly ill and lethargic, yes. But he lives.

And remembers nothing at all of being dead aside from it being a decidedly uncomfortable process to achieve. If he spends too much time thinking on it, he'll drive himself mad. All he can do is take that he is alive with good grace and get to his feet. Laying here is becoming uncomfortable- but for a fair while he can't bring himself to move, relishing the simple act of laying out in the sun and being able to breathe without smelling his own death

When he does rouse himself from where he's settled in the woods he will, without any real sense of urgency- which is fairly odd for him, go first and foremost to Isaac's home. There was something he gave the Forgemaster to hold onto that he needs back. Afterward he finds himself wandering to the clothing shop to find a shirt. Perhaps shoes. Something beyond the plain white trousers the Malnosso gave him upon his revival. From there, it's home. Home to check in on his boys and be yelled at quite a bit.

At his house he'll pick the lock to the front door since he does not have the key upon his person or feel particularly inclined to calling attention to himself, slip inside, and make his way to the kitchen to brew himself a mug of coffee. If a hearty measure of brandy makes it way into the mug as well- can anyone blame him? He's settled there for the first hour he is back home, sitting quietly in the kitchen and sipping away.

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If nothing else, there was tea. It had meant that the house had been rather heavily caffienated as of late, but tea was something they were all used to. It was something that made them actually get up and move, which had become a rare thing in the hours that they were home, huddled up in two and threes and silent save for the ever-present background noise of Jack's music. They'd all fallen into a patchwork provisional routine, tumbled-up bits of what was good for them and what they needed, the former as much as they could handle and the latter to fill in the inevitable chinks. Tea, at least, was blessedly a little of each category.

That, and that alone, had Jack wandering into the kitchen with an empty mug in each hand, perplexed by the time he reached the doorway by the smell of coffee. It wasn't like Max to make coffee when there was already a kettle on, so why-

-and that was where his thoughts stopped - his everything stopped, to be precise. Because while he'd said loudly and repeatedly that Zev would be back, of course he would be back, this was Luceti after all, he hadn't quite figured out the trick of actually believing it. In his mental best case scenarios, the dead stayed dead. In the worst case you were going after your former friends with bludgeoning weapons. And he couldn't quite work his brain around it when faced with the precise reality of what he'd been saying, any more easily than he'd been able to in the past week and change, that Zevran would ever be sitting at their table again, quietly drinking a coffee while the sun streamed in through the window.

To his credit, at least, he neither dropped the mugs nor fainted. He only stared, and went paper-white, and listed until his shoulder hit the door-jamb with a very solid thump.

There's an odd buzzing in the back of his head, still. The newness of hearing everything. He'd checked himself over when he'd grabbed the ratty, oversized turtleneck, the sleeves long enough to cover his hands and the cuffs folded back to prevent that from happening, the hem hanging to his thigh. The tattoo Isaac had given him? Gone. The knicks and small scars earned while cooking? Gone. He had a harder edge to him, leaner, paler, hair shorter. As he was when he first arrived. Fresh from the Deep Roads, all lean flesh and hollow eyes.

Perhaps that was why he chose so bulky clothing, the sweater and worn jeans that hung low on his hips as he leaned against the counter pouring himself another mug of coffee and brandy. Thud had his head snap up- tense and startled like a deer. He should have noticed.

But everything was still a little muzzy.

Jack. Just Jack. He offered the man a crook of a smile.

"Argento."

[Bruised, bloodied, and with a heavy sense of tiredness in the body and mind, the Forgemaster had made an uneventful return from the draft to find another loss awaiting him at home. There was no savaged corpse, like Zevran had left, and yet, what little remained for him was somehow worse in that there was no immediate, cold, undeniable sense of finality to Hector’s disappearance. Isaac had smoothed his fingers over Hector’s shirt and breastplate in an absent, meaningful way, memorizing every fold and contour and mark engraved. And even after skimming the contact list for the name of his erstwhile companion twice over, he had stepped outside and reached far for him, palpating the air for the faintest trace of his aura until he allowed the reality of the situation to penetrate.

Hector had vanished yet again from his life, without warning. While turning the fact over and over in his mind, the sense of heat and pressure building in Isaac’s chest had given in a sudden, wildly irrepressible fit of laughter. On and on he had laughed until he collapsed into bed, spent and heaving for breath. Yes, of course. As expected of him. As expected of the Malnosso with their clever sense of humour.

The lone Forgemaster then did as he was wont to do, and pursued his interests with a fiery intensity, busying himself with hunting and sorcery. The days are growing warmer and he’s grateful for it, spending longer hours outdoors. He happens to be out at this hour, sitting atop a boulder with his attentions on a crow perched on his raised gauntlet. It decides after some shifting about and ruffling of feathers that it prefers to rest upon his shoulder and preen itself. They are beautiful, verbose animals and made for affectionate company, he muses; nonjudgmental company, moreover, something that had meant that much more to him as a lonely child. It's hard not to like it; he tends to feel a sense of kinship among creatures believed to be of ill-omen.]

Did I say you could stand there, you miserable sack of feathers? [The crow blinks its wise, beady eyes, carefully considering this before cawing by his ear.]

Edited (editttting... and never anything actually significant) 2013-04-10 12:27 (UTC)

Did Zevran look different? Jack couldn't say. His last memory of the man's face was the distinctive off-coloured, sunken pale of someone who's dead and mostly exsanguinated, too still and faintly glossy with the water they'd used to get the worst of the blood off. Plus it was hard to focus on him, mind flitting hummingbird-erratic to a thousand things, skittery and terrified of the incomprehensible thing that was Zevran breathing and moving, Zevran without a speck of grime on him, Zevran in the damned kitchen drinking coffee in a terrifyingly ugly sweater like a one night stand cocooned in borrowed clothing, Zevran-

Zevran smiling at him.

"Oh. God."

The Jack's voice, when it finally evaded the leaden obstruction of his tongue, carried a dozen intonations, high among them what is happening and am I going mad, with a close third being taken by I literally cannot believe you. He took a shivery breath and forced himself to advance a step, just enough to put the mugs down on the table and let himself sink into a chair, before his suddenly-unreliable knees could deposit him on the tile. If there was a correct response he didn't know it. He didn't even know how to make the world go un-fuzzy at the edges.

"Zev." He swallowed thickly, and croaked a noise that was half laugh and half something he refused to contemplate, leaning back in his chair and looking up at him with that same lingering, distraught disbelief.

Edited (I am super-annoying and just like flooding your inbox with revisions.) 2013-04-10 04:27 (UTC)

There had to be something he could say or doe to make Jack look a little less broken. A little less hysterical. But he still did not quite felt right in a way and all that came to mind was to ever so casually lift a shoulder, as if he had not gotten himself killed during the draft after insisting that his boys be careful because it would be so very easy for any of them to die, as if he had not been gone for a week, as if he had not been a strange mess of anger and anxiety for the past few months before this mess.

As if things were not a good deal clearer for all that his head felt thick.

He lifted his shoulder, crooked smile spreading into something a little wider. A little sheepish. Faintly embarrassed, really.

"Miss me?"

What is this world coming to, when not even one's crow will take heed of your words?

[Daring, perhaps, to announce himself so boldly, so blatantly, but he was not yet quite as clear minded as he could be and whatever ill will or bad blood had been cut out of him on the battlefield. From this angle it suited Isaac, at least. High and easy with a vicious and cheeky crow glistening upon his shoulder. There was much he might have said differently. Much he might have done instead of walking into the clearing and leaning against the nearest tree. But this was simplest. And for the moment simple suited him best.]

That. Zevran just looking like he'd forgotten some sort of important date and was a bit embarrassed, but all things considered thought it was actually a rather minor concern. That was the hand in the proverbial side. Because while appearances and pet names and voices were one thing, that attitude was entirely another, and . . . Christ, Jack didn't actually know any more. Maybe Luceti had him doubting what his own eyes told him more than he'd ever realized, or maybe it was just his own penchant for skepticism that had chosen this of all possible times to be especially problematic. Regardless, his shock finally began to dissolve rapidly into a roiling mess of other feelings - bafflement and outrage, of course, but there were stranger things in there too. Renewed-but-abruptly-obsolete grief. Unreasonable terror that this was some illusion or dream, fated to end abruptly and mercilessly.

And joy. Joy was the strangest of all, and the one he was absolutely least prepared to feel cascading down on him in a too-slow acceleration, like all those chunks of concrete and steel in the slow-motion footage of a building being demolished.

"You- rgh, yes-" he interrupted himself, and although even inane and obvious questions needed answers, he found that even having to answer that in the first place had helped fuel the beginning of an impressive rant. He glared up finally, still overwhelmed but clearer, sharper. "-but, you . . . ngh. You bastard, you utter-"

That was the place where the accusations fit. The you died and the of all the hypocrisies and the do you have any idea what the last nine days have been like. But when he let loose, the most needling, most insulting thing of all shoved its way to the front.

"How long have you been here?" It was more demand, more declamation, than actual question. He wasn't even sure he wanted to know. "Here, in the bloody kitchen! All of us in this constant state of missing you, every. Damned. Day, and you're sitting here drinking a coffee in the other room like- like-!" He'd gotten to his feet at some point in all of that, and stood now, breathing visibly and fumbling for the next word in that chain of strident objections. But it felt good for a moment, to just be loud, to be upset with Zevran for being so never-endingly stupid.

Because everyone died, sooner or later. That wasn't the worst part. The torture came from never quite knowing if someone was alive.

Edited 2013-04-10 13:28 (UTC)

[Pale eyes do not lift in greeting, the Forgemaster’s expression betraying no surprise at Zevran’s arrival. What acknowledgement he does offer is in the soft snort that escapes him and in his smile, fading at the edges as he mulls the words over. A rather impudent remark for one whom had virtually begged him for a hastier passage into death, he muses grimly, but this too comes as no surprise.]

‘tis not under my dominion. [A gloved finger absently nuzzles its chest-feathers and it croons, hopping onto his wrist.] It does and takes as it pleases… [He produces a small scrap of bread from under his cloak which is quickly plucked from hand.] …and offers a moment’s company in the hopes of receiving a little more. A clever little creature.

[Leaving the thought to hang in the air, he meets the elf’s gaze at last, a faint, lingering smirk on his lips.] ...You are late. [He observes in his lackadaisical, matter-of-factly tone.] I take it that it isn’t the bread you have come for. I'm afraid I haven't any left, anyway.

"...an hour?" He responded in a flat tone with a slow blink- and yes. Maybe he has been at the pot for so long he was a little drunk. The mostly empty bottle of brandy set next to the coffee pot was a solid indication of that. Nothing to eat and naught but coffee and brandy for want of forgetting that blank stretch of utter nothing that had been death. That had been the very thing he'd longed for once- the very thing Katniss threw herself bodily into. Something he'd stepped into without second thought for the sake of preserving the life of a man that he had no reason to believe would mourn him. He finished what was left in his mug and set it down- a little harder than he would otherwise and yes.

He was drunk.

And Jack was upset and that, that spurred life back into his limbs, light back into his eyes because Jack was upset and that was wrong on a fundamental level in his world, Jack was angry and frustrated and Eugene and Max were probably equally broken and he wasn't worth mourning didn't they know that but he was and he cannot simply wrap his mind around the fact that he was missed. And missed so very keenly. So he does not think on that, he pushed that all aside in favor of taking the few swayed steps from the counter to Jack to haul him in by the shoulders and just. Hold him.

Hold him and mumble into his shoulder in drunken Antivan that he was here, he was solid, and cling because this was not a fade dream. This was true, this was warmth and life and he'd missed it dearly without missing it at all.

"I did not wish to make a fuss. I am sorry."

Crows do tend to be clever. And insubordinate. And linger where they may not be wanted.

[Whether he spoke of the bird or himself it isn't easy to say. It could be one, it could be the other, but for the moment he's taking in the fact that he died for this man. And is gauging if it was worth it. Then there's that word, that smirk, that bit of jibing innuendo and he knows that it was worth the pain. Worth the week and whatever he might have lost.

He's leaner, now. Much as he had been when he first met Isaac, nestled warm and comfortable in his bed. His eyes faintly hollow, his hair shorter, his stance more wary- all from a few seconds worth of action.]

I shall strive to be more punctual in the future, Rosso.

[Of course you will. While thinking these to be empty words, he humours the answer with one of his own all the same, offering a pleasant, dismissive nod.]

You should. For had you returned a day earlier… [Pausing briefly, his keen, hungry eyes trace the all-too familiar patterns of ink twisting intricately across the elf's bare skin.] …I would still have that pouch to return to you.

Edited 2013-04-11 02:19 (UTC)

...that was not yours to discard as you willed, Isaac.

[The closest to cold his voice has ever been- though it's far more tired than anything else. The ink winds it's usual paths, all in place save for the mark Isaac himself set on his back. That had come after, and as such was gone.]

What did you do with it?

An hour-! Jack gave a choked, indignant noise at that, but still could not think of any words, especially after the mug thunked to the table. He half expected a fight back, maybe even a slap, and he wouldn't have thought either unreasonable. He was being a tit and he knew it, carrying on about how Zevran handled having been dead when even brushing past the thing himself had made him a wreck for days. He braced himself as Zevran grabbed him, and found that strength doing nothing more than half-supporting a brandy-soaked embrace, propping up strong limbs gone clumsy and the weight of earnest-sounding words he could only understand in tone.

And then the apology, which bled all the fury right out of him - the apology, along with the increasingly powerful sweet-sharp smell of ethanol that came with Zevran close enough to breathe heat against his shoulder. Jack wrapped his arm around him in return, and it was terrible how much of the motion came on instinct, a desire to feel Zev snugged against him that had wormed down to the part of his brain so deep that it didn't even consider before reacting. Rubbing firmly along his back, he tucked his head in close, breathing the smell of coffee and liquor and clean skin with a guilty flush of comfort. Nothing dead, nothing otherworldly smelled like that, he was sure.

"Yeah, well. All right. But you're getting a fuss whether you like it or not," he muttered against his hair, passionless unhappiness sounding like something dangerously close to petulance. But even at the end of that he could feel a corner of his mouth struggling upwards, especially when he heard the familiar thump-thump of Eugene's crutch beginning to move out in the otherwise silent house. He wasn't sure about straight-up misery, but complicated emotional duress definitely loved company.

"Can we skip the fuss and go straight into relieved drinking? I may have a head start." He doesn't look up, does not want to look up. He was tired and he was oddly hollow but Jack was warm and alive and upset with him and there was a way to make it better, but he couldn't recall. All he could do was hold onto Jack and try not to list too far to one side.

He truly had far too much brandy in that coffee and too little in his stomach to start. His blessedly intact stomach. Perhaps it is the twisting sourness of bile and copper he wanted to forget, or the pain, or the blankness of the intervening days. He did not want to think of that and as such focused instead on the arms around him, the sounds of the house, and Jack's solid shoulder under his hear. The beat of his heart.

"Mocha and Nodo- are they well?"

[Unfazed and intrigued by the sudden coolness underlying Zevran's answer, he spreads his hands, the bird’s wings fluttering in its efforts to maintain its balance.]

Discard? [Isaac's tone holds a small measure of incredulity.] ...Oh, no. 'twould have been a waste. As for the sack itself… that, I assure you, is in the very same condition in which you entrusted it to me thinking me to be the keeper of your belongings. [He chuckles low in his throat.] Blood and all. Of greater use to you, I believe, than piercings infused with magic for those keenly sensitive ears of yours.

I do not wear them upon my ears.

[He mumbles, not entirely feeling up to Isaac's game. But he did earn this, after a fashion. He would have asked someone else to hold onto those for him if he thought he'd have the time. He didn't. So all there is to do is climb up the boulder to settle not far from him, wings flapping to adjust to his path until he is perched properly.]

I keep them for luck.

…I am aware. [He answers unsmilingly and with a tiredness of his own running like a thread through those three simple words, leaving it a mystery as to which remark he was addressing while he half-absently watches the other pick his way up.

Words, old words drift to the surface of his mind from the times he has lingered with Abel on dark, quiet nights, gazing out from the highest point in the village towards his home deep in the woods. ’tis a sad place; but ‘tis ours, Abel.

The crow stirs, swiping its beak from side to side against Isaac’s glove to clean it of stray crumbs. He slowly turns his hand to invite it to rest in his palm, but it squawks and takes flight in a sweeping blur of feathers, making for the trees above. His hand remains open and half-outstretched for a moment longer, less expectantly and more thoughtfully, before he lets it sink to his side.]

Edited 2013-04-11 05:17 (UTC)

[Recently there had been a quiet in the house, more or less from an absence of much to really want to speak of. The sound of a cup being moved in the kitchen went without notice as he slipped in, heading for the ice box. Jack often would partake of tea-- same as Max, he figured. Must be a British thing, though he did have the shock of his life when he turned to see who was sitting there.

It was hard to shock someone who had likely seen a lot of shocking things, but here Eugene was, with a sound stuck in the back of his throat and eyes transfixed on the figure before him. Long, blond hair, pointed ears, tanned skin... and speaking of skin, he was in the flesh...]

Zev?

[There was a small chance that this was a dream, though admittedly in his dreams he still has all his limbs, which led him to believe that his eyes, and mind, weren't deceiving him. When he didn't dissipate or otherwise vanish, he let out a soft scoff of laughter, disbelieving and very... hopeful in a way that could be painful. That should know better.]

H-how long have you--?

[For a long moment he's silent. Watching Isaac and the bird, trying to pick out whatever it was that went unsaid, whatever it was that the forgemaster is playing at here. He cannot tell at the moment- his ability to read him seems off. They'd never been quietly contemplative with one another without the addition of wine.

Which would be a lovely addition to the conversation at this point. Alas, there was none to be had. He will make do.]

They can be fickle creatures, Crows.

[It's said slowly. Carefully.]

Their attentions fleeting.

Mm?

[He's slow to turn, slow to stare, feeling halfway outside his own skin at this point in the bottle. Third pot of coffee, the dregs of his previously full bottle of brandy. One he'd brought in for a rainy day. He'd intended to share it but such things were brushed to the wayside when one has just come back from the dead.

Odds are Eugene expects a lusher, livelier, healthier elf in his kitchen. He will have to make do with the lean, hard edged assassin slumped against the counter, sweater and jeans too large, baggy, hanging upon his frame to obscure the fact he'd lost some of his softness earned by mornings lying in bed with them and indulging in sweet foods. His hair is shorter, his eyes a little more hollow and faintly haunted, but the smirk is all Zevran. Every inch of lip the same that Eugene had kissed not two weeks ago.]

...perhaps an hour? Maybe a little longer? I did not wish to make a fuss.

[He's sort of moved back into his own room and out of the pillow fort that the living room had become after their return, although he still spends most of his time around Jack and Eugene. He thinks it makes them feel less worried about him, and he- he likes the company, honestly. It makes him feel better.

He's returning to the house late that night though, a few drinks in the bar in the village has left him a little on the tipsy side, but happily so.

He just stares when he sees Zevran in the kitchen, reaches up to rub his eyes and he's too tired for this, really.]

Figures the night I get drunk would be the night we get ghosts.

Oh, you are drunk as well?

[Though Zev was not quite on the 'happy drunk' end of things. More of the 'listless' but Max is there and he's alive and that should be more than enough for him to finish the mug of mostly brandy and some coffee in his hands. He does so, sets it on the counter, and shoves away from the counter to pat around the cabinets for another bottle of brandy.

His motions betray a loss of fluidity in him, the shades of light in the dim kitchen hide the sharper cut of his jaw, the shorter sweep of his hair, the faint glaze in his eyes.]

Let us continue to be drunk together.

[At the remark, a soft, contemplative smile tinged with bitterness creeps across his lips.]

Yes…

[A strange, tenuous silence follows as thoughts and feelings whirl chaotically with a tireless ferocity inside him. He pushes his fingers through his hair, his hands stopping to grip the back of his head as the futility of his rage sinks in. Too many days had been devoured by fury, as if it had any power to undo the past. As if it could command any man to fearfully revere him, or to - -]

Of that… [He answers lowly, hands falling.] I know well.

[And it burns. He scoffs mirthlessly, so harsh and breathless a sound, it might have been the beginnings of a sob. But his lowered eyes are inscrutably hard, his features firmly set.]

Edited 2013-04-12 04:08 (UTC)

[He would not insult Isaac with an apology. For leaving. For arguing. For dying to save him. That was not their way. Things might be a great deal easier if it was- but such words had been empty to Zevran too long for him to offer them.

He cannot help but shake the feeling that it might have been the same for Isaac, especially after what he was told not long before he died.]

...they do return in time, though. Long memories of safe harbors. Such things are terribly rare for Crows. Most think them a nuisance. Pests. Something to be scuttled aside and ignored.

[But not Isaac. Isaac took his company as he willed and cared little for what anyone else might say of it.]

"All in one piece," Jack reassured him quietly, in a tone that betrayed his own relief to even be able to say that, roaming hand drifting up into his hairline and skritching softly. "Upset, but on this side of the draft without much more than a few clinic check-ups."

All right, so it was a massive understatement of the way the last few days of the draft had actually transpired. Zevran wasn't in fantastic shape to be taking any of that news, and whether Jack liked it or not, there was a certain beautiful logic to relieved drinking and just being together again. But for safety's sake, he opted for steering Zev down into his recently-vacated chair, settling him into it with a grip used to supporting unsteadiness and a thoughtless prattle optimised for obscuring just how awkward these processes were.

"God, fine, I'll join you," he huffed, more wry than annoyed. Good, both thighs on the chair - both shoulders . . . hell, it was hard to stay objective and clinical and a little pissed off when he was leaning over Zev, maybe a foot from his face, just being saturated with how here he was. So he was drunk too, not to mention probably a bit the worse for wear. But who among them wasn't?

He swallowed, then questioned, voice dropping to the register that meant only uncertainty. ". . . I hope it isn't too soon to kiss you?"

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Fifth Drop - Again, until you decide to drop. Now I'm so high, so high, so high [Action]

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