Zevran Arainai (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
antivanleather) wrote2012-07-14 08:26 pm
antivanleather) wrote2012-07-14 08:26 pm
Entry tags:
Voicemail / Appointments
Threads that don't fall into posts or logs, sneaky private gatherings or midnight rendezvous. Whatever your fancy.
Please indicate the type (Written, Voice, Action) and the Date.
Please indicate the type (Written, Voice, Action) and the Date.
Just a bit before June 4th / written
I will be found behind the Battle Dome. Come and be quick about it, lest I change my mind.
[His penmanship's not as neat and crisp as to his usual standard, the lines scratched into the page and somewhat wobbly as if he had scrawled the words in haste.]
Just a bit before June 4th / action
action
Pages upon pages of warm, laughing eyes and full lips rendered with a patient, loving hand greet him one last time before blackening beyond recognition and crumbling away. He closes his eyes a moment, letting out a slow breath before he tears out another page carefully along the edge of the notebook and feeds it to the flames, staring deeply and unseeingly into the ashes.
It was not the first time he had been in thrall to another’s whims, his mind and body not entirely his own. He had lashed out at himself first, tearing at flesh and feathers, and every curse he knew he had screamed at a god he had always known to be deaf to every word, beating the jeering ghosts of Rosaly and Hector and Dracula back into his mind. So many hours had been lost to a powerless, burgeoning rage that drained the life from him and left him tired, so tired in its wake, his head throbbing relentlessly. But he couldn't find sleep.
There is no doubt in his mind that Jack has spoken of their encounter and that Zevran must hate him for it. Writing him hadn’t been part of the plan when he had nursed a few glasses of wine, feeling it slosh around the hollowness inside him with every struggling, bitter swallow. But there are things that need to be said and have long needed to be said. Too little too late, he knows.
He doesn’t lift his head at the soft rustling of grass, waiting for it to draw nearer.]
action
To see him like this cements in his mind what he had always thought. The man had not been himself.]
Rosso?
action
Do you remember… [He begins musingly, looking skyward.] Long ago, when we stood by the bath and you had asked me... if that was all there would ever be?
[For a moment he considers extending a mute invitation for him to join him by the fire but then he makes things simpler, rising slowly to his feet as if not having had reason to stand in some time. With only an arm’s length between them, he stops, worn, haunted eyes fondly tracing the features he has long since memorized. There’s a gnawing sensation, a cold queasiness deep in the pit of his stomach that no amount of numbing drink could reach. ]
…do you?
[He asks again, and doesn’t make a demand of it. Not this time. His low, almost toneless voice holds something rare, something so close to defeat, and what little remains of his self-respect has him cracking a thin, lopsided smile. But this comes too late, too.]
You need not say a word.
[Please.]
action
Without anything to compare this to or any comfortable joke or smile to fall back on he simply stands and watches Isaac move, eyes flicking from the curve of his spine to the hollows under his eyes. They skitter across his face, entirely uncertain and uncomfortable for it before he settles for looking over to the fire.
He wouldn't have to say anything, Isaac has said as much. But he owes it to the man to be honest.
So he says nothing, but reaches out instead to twine his fingers in the Forgemaster's. To tug if it is permitted and rest the man's palm against his back, the patch of unmarked skin where Isaac's work had been etched in place until he died. He remembers that moment well. That question. The scorn and derision it earned him.
Slowly, tentatively, Zevran nods.]
action
I knew not, then, of where your loyalties could lie. [He says it bluntly, devoid of the anger that would have raged any other day] I knew not whether you could be everything I had ever hoped to know… and no mere dream of mine. One of many glorious fantasies nurtured for much too long.
[Words catch like fishbones in his throat and he glances aside ashamedly, the line of his jaw tautening. The crackling and spitting of the fire fades into awareness.]
I have always thought it better to treasure them in silence than to ever speak of them, for fear of that which I had being destroyed by but a single word. God forbid you might refuse. God forbid -- [He suddenly snarls it through his teeth, voice cracking rawly. -- you might vanish like everyone I had ever--
[Breaking off, he forces himself to breathe, chest heaving. The wild passion comes and goes, leaving a shadow of a man and the ragged, sob-like laugh that wheezes from him, low and soft under his breath.]
Ah. But I needn’t worry of that any longer. It has now been made simple for us both.
[Such is what he has always claimed to have wanted. He should feel happy, not gutted.
His free hand slides into his own shirt and from it he draws the little pouch with its earrings within, as pretty as the day they were entrusted into his care. Not throwing it or thrusting it at Zevran, but surrendering it, his grip on it slackening. Perhaps he would curse him for having kept it and lied. It didn't matter now.]
action
[More the coward, he, for having believed it. Easier to settle in and be alone, for them to have continued as they had before without changing it. Had he pressed, had he remained, had he not left Isaac alone for a month and some- not abandoned him...perhaps they might have had something.
And perhaps it would be cleaner. Neater. He would not need to censor himself around Isaac. He would not need to explain the glib manner in which he spoke of death, loss, and pain. They were equally well versed in such things. It was their bread and butter, their profession, their purpose, the very strains of it writ into their bones. They handled it differently, true, Isaac gripping and spitting anger like fire, devouring what he felt he deserved and leaving ruin in his wake- Zevran flitting along, ever playful, ever wandering, carrying bits of where he'd been and what he'd lived as long as it suited him before collecting something new, much like the wind.
Had that shadow spirit not claimed him so thoroughly, Zevran could imagine easily Isaac resplendent in flame, wings large and as red as his hair.
Not himself, he'd told Jack. And still not quite the man he knew.]
I...may not be able to be what you might have wished, before. But I will not vanish if I can help it, Isaac. This I swear.
[His fingers tighten around Isaac's, tugging that hand from his back to his chest. His beating heart that Isaac had put an end to when he suffered. In killing him he gained Zevran's unending loyalty- only an assassin would look at it in such a way, he supposes. But it was what it was, they are what they are and it fits for them.
He's content to forgive, to apologize for no remaining, to offer anything until he sees that pouch. The true earrings.]
...I thought you had forged them into something else.
action GUESS WHO IS EDITING
This vow, so resolute, leaves him shaken and unbalanced as it's left too long to sink in. It brings into focus all his flaws: his lack of grace and talent for friendships; how unworthy he is of this, as much as he has come to value it; how he’s destined to be second to someone else, never good enough. To Dragos; to Hector; to Rosaly; to his own perceptions of the man he should have been.
There’s only so much he can do and be and it seems it's always a losing battle. Eyes press shut, prickling hot, and he sucks in a slow, thin breath through parted lips, struck with a pang of regret for ever having said anything.]
Would it that I could have a part of you for myself… and that I might be of as much worth to you as them one day. But these… now bring me only pain.
[Isaac shakes his head softly, throat bobbing when he huffs a breath as if in an attempt at a laugh. It isn’t true that it was never too late to act, to say something, and now he's desperate to be rid of the ruthless squeezing ache in his chest, the disappointment he had always lied to himself to avoid.]
‘tis indeed a fearsome, bewitching curse, this... need and this want that man thinks to be so noble and selfless. Love. [The world feels foreign and strange on his tongue, too rich for him.] Many have killed for it... and pursuit of it was my own undoing, in the end. [The things he had done for recognition, for love. Dracula had never really cared and he'd known it. He'd known it and chose the warm comforts of illusions instead. He deserves this.]
One would think I might have learned something. [He swallows tightly and manages a giggle despite himself, unaware of how much tension he's carrying until his shoulders sag.] Not nearly enough, it would seem. [Faltering, he slants his heavy-lidded gaze sideways, something unseen off in the distance holding his attention at length. Steel in his jaw, but not in his eyes.] It matters not.
action
It's an odd feeling, to have someone care, to know they do as they stand before you, and to be unable to say anything about how you feel for them.
There's a swell of affection for Isaac whenever he thinks of the man. Even with the fight, with the possession, with all that came after. With the attack of Jack that wasn't at all in Isaac's nature- at least not in such a way. He should hold it against the man. Should spurn him and spit at him, rebuke and revile him for the remainder of his days.
He should hate him.
And yet he cannot. He cannot do to Isaac what so many have in his life. Cannot make the oath and turn around on it so very quickly. He is an elf of his word.]
...some have died for it.
[It's as close to an admission for the man as he could make. Was it as strong, as certain and pure as what he felt for Jack and Eugene? No. But it was something beyond friendship, something beyond what might be acceptable. And yet it was how he felt all the same.
He reaches out for the pouch, squeezing it a moment before tucking it away. Secret and safe.]
It matters enough. Were I a wiser elf, were I unwed-
[Now that was unkind and he knew it. Zev cuts himself off with a soft sigh and steps forward, leaning up with all the daring he had in him to brush his lips against that steel'd jaw.]
You are worth much to me, Rosso. More than you know. I regret that I cannot be what you want me to be.
action
Don’t-- [He spits it through gritted teeth, staring. But the rest abandons him, words, and what remains of coherent, rational thought. And as he feels Zevran’s eyes still on his face and his own regrets bear down with the weight of all the world, his cracked mask quietly crumbles away like the sketches in the fire. He lunges, all adrenaline and impulse, before his mind has the chance to catch up with him. Lunging to steal a bruising kiss from a mouth he remembers too well, framing his face with grasping, uncertain hands.]
action
[And there was no room for words, no breath for him as he's held and kissed- no, devoured- in a fell swoop that is so very familiar. He almost aches for the comfort in the gesture, would return it in force were it only in him to do so.
But he had died. And in dying he had lost that spark, that smoldering ember that bid him keen and sigh and writhe along with the rest of humanity.
He'd lost his desire, and all he can do is stand, hands on Isaac's arms, and let him take what he wants without offering anything in turn.
It'd be a lie, and that would hurt him more than it would sooth.]
action
But this is far less a pleasure than it is a plea, clumsy and delivered with a roughness that manages to be both apologetic and unapologetic. More the former as it goes unreciprocated. Fears of what it means to pull away gnaw at the edges of his mind, triggering the old animal instinct to fight as he’s always fought. Even if he knows he has already lost. He kisses, soft and wet, deeper and insistent, and with the unspent tenderness he had once meant to reserve for Hector alone, had he loved him. A searching, expectant pause follows. A heavy pause, his chin quivering. And then he tries again, pouring himself into it in his desperation to dredge up a different answer. Something better. Desperate for some sign that he wasn’t as mad as ever in deluding himself.
But it’s met with the same emptiness of something dead and gone and he doesn’t know how to stop shaking when he draws back, his breath ragged and rattling in his throat. This is it, then. This is how it must be.
His hands slide away and he looks elsewhere, one absently rising to his face to brush at his mouth with the back of his hand before he lets it drop. He tastes Zevran and salt on his lips as he steps back and turns towards the fire, not trusting his voice. But there’s nothing to say.
Forgemasters weren’t meant to cry. They were to grow cold as they learned to let love and mercy - dangerous sentiments – and the expectation of them wither away, lest it jeopardize their operations. Failure meant weakness. Failure meant losing power and respect and inciting Lord Dracula’s wrath. Being killed, if one was lucky.
But even now, he’s not as good a Forgemaster as he wanted to be. Never good enough.]
action
[Every kiss broke something in him- not his heart. For his heart to break for Isaac right now was to pity him, and while he feels many conflicting things for the forgemaster Pity is, and never will be, one of them.]
...when you die. When you are brought back? You lose something. I did not respond because it would be an act. I could, I suppose, I know the motions well enough to mimic desire and passion but. I feel neither.
[It's a tentative gesture, when he reaches up to tilt Isaac's face back in his direction. Gentle and tender and everything that Isaac had poured into every kiss that went without reciprocation. His hands can do what his lips cannot. They can smooth away pain and offer comfort. Warmth. Assurance.]
When I returned to life I lost my desire. I feel no stirrings of lust or passion. I do not wish for it. I do not dislike it but I just...do not have it in me to respond as I would normally. A cruel thing to take, I should think.
[Passion he cannot offer, for he does not feel it. But what he can do, and what he does is lean up to press his lips to Isaac's in a slow, close mouthed and incredibly chaste display of affection. There is no gritting bite or clawing of hands, no delving and devilish tongue. It's almost juvenile. It's far more pure than anything he'd ever offered the man before. Slight physical contact and nothing more than sentiment. Such sentiment- for he does feel something. How could he not?
Zev falls back onto his heels and presses a second chaste kiss to Isaac's cheek before taking a half step back. His lips were warm and bruised, he knew. Well ravished as he would normally say. But it isn't in him to say such things.]
I am sorry I am not what you want me to be. But I am your friend. I know you did not intend what happened before, and I know you hold me and mine no ill will.
action
On some level he’s aware that the words twisting into him are meant to be a kindness, and he doesn’t know when it all begins to form an impenetrable haze around him. Or when he shuts down and folds in, his eyes filming over with death of a different sort. Another kiss comes, short and stingingly sweet, and he gives it nothing it deserves. He can give it nothing at all. Giving in and giving out and there’s nothing left in him to give. Changes have been set in motion and he’d be powerless to stop them if he had wanted to.
‘I am too far gone’, he’s told Julia more than once. ‘There is nothing you can do.’
The apology long-sought is more of one than he’s ever gotten in his life for anything, and now that he has it, it sits there in his hands like a heavy weight and he’s at loss for what to do with it. It’s not the panacea he had hoped for; it does not bring with it satisfaction, even of the bitter sort. It just is, and he’s sorry too. Not for what he’s done so much as all that he hasn’t in his lifetime, more than he will ever know how to express.
His short, hitching gasps begin to peter out and he straightens his shoulders, head tilting, the set of his jaw betraying what is otherwise a tired, but almost defiant impassivity. At least he knows now. There’s nothing left to doubt as his castle of sand lies in ruins at his feet, to be swept away like the one he’d built for Hector.
And at last it comes, raw and barely above a whisper. A single word.] No. [Wetness clings heavily to his lashes, eyes unfocused and gleaming incandescent in the dark. He swallows, nearly choking on a clot of phlegm and saliva sticking in his throat.]
‘tis I who is sorry.
[Above all things, for having been honest. For having gone and humiliated himself and never being able to undo it. How much safer, how much easier it’d have been to keep hiding behind hollow laughter or a painfully wry joke, suspecting but never having the courage to ask.
Tics tug at the corners of his mouth as viciously as ever and he tenses his jaw and bites down hard on his cheek. Chest surging, air puffing in and out his nose.]
You have all you need now. [He manages when the moment passes. Looking at Zevran with different eyes, he hasn’t it in him, here and now, to do anything with anger other than to let it bleed out of him. Come the arrival of the morning light, there is no saying the sort of man he will be.] The hour is late.
[He doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore, let alone with his one true friend. He wants more than anything to be able to say that there are pressing matters that need attending but there aren’t, a lack of purpose and direction haunting him since the dawn of his second life. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow will be lost in an indistinguishable blur, he thinks, as have all the days that have come before. Empty and wasted, unwanted.]
action
[He wishes there were more he could say. That there was something he could do to ease this for his friend, to make it less complicated for both of them. And for a quiet, vicious moment he is very glad that he had died and lost his desire. The affection, the desperation, the sincerity in those earlier kisses would have been more than enough to twist him thoroughly into Isaac's bed and another set of complications. Infidelity on that level would never be forgiven.
The breach of trust from sneaking out of the house like a thief to meet with him in the first place was toeing the line more than enough.
Part of him, the part conditioned to strive for approval, to please whoever came closest to him in an effort to remain valid, to remain of use, to remain wanted wished nothing more than to wipe away Isaac's tears and promise him anything to make him less wretched.
The rest knows it cannot be done, even as he reaches out to offer one last gentle caress before the man turns away. They simply cannot be. Not now. As much as he cares for him, it does not fit. They are too similar to truly be compatible. Or at least that is what he tells himself to rid his shoulders of some of the guilt.]
...Rest well when you do, my friend.
[It is all that he can say.]
action
Dracula had been right - that much he will give him.
He remembers Hector had known love once, and it too had doomed him. And yet sometimes, despite how devastating his loss, Isaac thinks his erstwhile companion has come away richer than he ever will be. How could he not burn with envy? How could he not burn with self-contempt for all he had become and all he could never be?
He blinks his eyes clear and from the corner he acknowledges the elf in a quiet farewell, too spent and dazed to say anything more. Then his hands finally remember to tug the hood of his cloak over his head, casting his sallow, tear-blotched face in deep shadow. The dark of night beckons him as it always has and into it he’ll soon steal away and fade unnoticed while Luceti sleeps, crawling into his glorified hole in the ground where he knows he won't be finding sleep. He could disappear forever and no one else would know, he muses. Dawn would break and the world would keep on turning with cruel indifference, but it’d be alright in the end. He’d be buried deep under a mountain of crumbled stone, at rest and beyond reach of what ifs and if onlys, freer than he had ever been in life. He can’t think of a place he would rather be.
There is no leaving with Zevran and slipping into a warm bed, nor can he go back to his hole. He won’t go back. Time’s slipping away too quickly and a stab of desperation pushes words from his mouth.]
Wait. [The urgency is absent from the hoarse murmur scarcely heard above the sputtering of the dying fire. But there’s a sudden sharpness and insistence to his gaze, some small, daring gleam of expectation, and it’s the most he can to do to regard him steadily.] There is one last thing I ask of you tonight.
action
[There wasn't much he could do at the moment. That much is painfully evident to the both of them. But if there is something Isaac needs him to do, to say, or to offer. That he can manage.
It is the least that he deserves.
At least in Zevran's eyes. Jack and Eugene would likely not agree- but they are from a different world. One not so kind, true, but they are not of the shadow. They are not murderers. They are not the forsaken, the forgotten, the used. They have use, they have hope, they have light in their lives. They'd never been sold or abused simply on a creature's whim.
Just one more reason why he wishes to protect them from the brunt of his background. From the things he can and has told Isaac without fear of censure or disgust. Some things they simply cannot understand or have the reference with which to accept it.
Isaac ever has, and ever would.]
Name it.
action
It’s selfish, but to need is what it means to be human. No; not only human. Any being with a sense of self-awareness and a heart that beats away. His is not so much a rock as it is a black hole. A vacuum that consumes all it can but finds nothing to fill the void.
He presses the pommel into the elf’s palm and gently closes his fingers around it, his own curled over them. There is a moment now, a moment of absentminded tenderness with which he strokes Zevran’s knuckles with his thumb before he slowly guides his hand up and up, pressing the blade’s tip into his chest. Not yet breaking the skin.
It’s all there’s left to ask for, and he feels no electric trill of fear, of adrenaline as he stands on the edge of the abyss, looking his salvation in the eyes.
Take what was yours.]
There has to be an end.
[He whispers around the joggling knot of his Adam’s Apple and a faint, lopsided smile tugs at the corners of his thinned lips. Tired amusement that never reaches his eyes. He keeps his hands framing his, reluctant to let go.]
action
No.
Whether it is due to dramatisim or reluctance of Isaac's part or his damnably keen senses, everything moves as though it is a fade's dream. Far too slow and far too sharp and far too clear and all he can think is No.
Not this. Not like this. There was no mercy in this. Isaac hasn't even finished unsheathing the blade yet and he already knows what it is he is about to ask and every way in which he has the right to say no. To tell him to live. To quit wallowing in it and stand up again and keep going because life was going to hurt, that's what living was. Spots of bright pleasure and joy amidst the muck of pain. Ending it early is cowardice.
And yet he'd jumped on a blade for Isaac. Set himself to die for Rinna.
He's an old had at death and still. No.
No.
One small syllable races around in his head and his heart until the sound ceases to have any meaning other than an endless litany of refusal. He cannot. He will not. No matter how keen Isaac's pain he simply cannot do this thing.
Yet he knows full well by the time there are fingers on his and the weight of the pommel is pressed into his stiff fingered hands made inelegant by every fiber of him screaming silently NO that he will do as Isaac asks.
Because it is in his power. Because in a macabre way, it will make them even.
Because it's redemption and forgiveness and apology bundled into one clean thrust of a blade he cannot manage with the usual cold demeanor he would offer anyone else.
Rinna he'd watched, never cut. He'd been spared that though he counted himself so very guilty. He does not love Isaac the way he loved Rinna. Does not love him the way he loves Jack and Eugene. Does not love him the way he loves Katniss- but he does love him all the same.
Here he stands, knife in hand, and Isaac's fingers are holding tight and not so tight at all and he cannot look him in the eye because he has done this. He has had this horror in his mind and walked through it not one week ago. Death at his hand.
Death he would enjoy.
He parts his lips to finally give voice to the thing screaming and scrabbling in his head. All that comes out is-]
Close your eyes, Rosso mio.
[Because he will do this thing. He will for Isaac and then they will be even. But he will not watch the life slip from him like so many others. He cannot.]
action
Yes.
It washes over him, hot water soothing tired flesh, and his shoulders sag, eyes sliding shut. And from the darkness behind his lids, Zevran slowly takes shape. His knowing, world-wearied gaze; full lips softly pressed thin; and every little crease in his brow, each telling a story. That he is a masterful assassin has no relevance here and now. This is a deed that demands not cold-blooded efficiency or steeled nerves, but an understanding he has found in no one else.
His only true friend.
This is the last thing he would see and remember -- and for the first time he has ever known in his life, it feels like all might be right with the world. His mind doesn’t know what to do with something so fragile and new, restlessly picking at it for imperfections until it finally gives up and finds rest, pain pushed aside to make room for it.]
You are all there is…
[The words are left to sink in deep, and he gives the barest hint of a nod before letting his hands slip away and fall reluctantly to his sides.]
action
[He'll not be able to take another. And the night's air is perfect. Crisp and cool and simmered in the smoke from the nearby fire, the wind just so that Isaac would get the warmth of it along with leather and oil from Zevran's kit. One last breath for them both and he does not want to do this.
Part of him, vicious and vindictive and petty, tells him to make it slow. To make Isaac feel every inch of the blade as it goes in. As recompense for nearly killing Jack. For frightening him. For things that were not under his control.
He squashes that voice, grits his teeth, and reaches up with his free hand to hold Isaac's shoulder.
It takes surprisingly little force to stab a man. He's been doing it for years. Even with the breastbone at this distance, with enough pressure a good shove would handle everything.
He barely feels it crack under the kneenly honed point of the knife. With little more than a quick shove, shoulder to bicep to wrist, reluctant, murderous intent blooms and twines and does it's bloody work.
It's less than the beat of a heart between the moment where Isaac is breathing and the moment that Zevran has the dagger hilt deep in his chest. The one time he is doing the impaling, and it's like this.
That skittering voice in the back of his mind is silenced. Revere the dead. Respect them. He does not look Isaac in the eye but he listens. Every rattle and sigh, every last twitch before the soul escaped that lean, intimately familiar body, he holds. Catalogs and filters away. Wraps up and tucks with every other memory of someone he had to kill that he did not want to see dead. As Isaac goes limp, they all go limp, Zevran steps in and embraces him one last time. Lowers him to the ground with all the respect he can offer a fallen comrade. He doesn't apologize. Isaac did not want any more apologies.
He simply lowers his friend. His first, true friend in this place to the ground, stares at the fire. And weeps.]
action (tw: graphic imagery)
He’s been told he ought to be burned alive at the stake. To have the Pear spring open inside his screaming mouth until he chokes on blood and broken teeth, and then thrust in again to tear through his insides, death coming not by the wounds gouged by brutal force but by the infection that would set in. Such is what witches and sodomites deserve.
And it’s what he knows he deserves. Not as a sodomite or a witch, but as a devil who has wreaked so much havoc. It’s selfish of him, too, to have chosen how he wishes to die. Each and every person he had killed, innocent or guilty, had hopes and dreams and ambitions of their own. Some had had loved ones; others had spent their days alone. He had never given them the luxury of choice, ending it all out of fear, out of the need to satisfy his thirst for bloody vengeance, out of the need to further his misguided, futile search for approval and favour and love from a master who hadn’t cared for such ideas, let alone for him.
Unlike the sharpened stake that had come at him so long ago, this does not miss its mark, and all he can think as the hilt slams into him, metal jamming into meat and bone, is that it’s too good for him. The air’s punched out of him and he manages a strangled croak, the pain bleaching his mind a blinding white. But there’s something keeping him from slumping back. A hand. Zevran’s hand moving from his shoulder to press up against his back, easing him down as his body trembles and chokes and dry-heaves all too briefly, struggling lungs denied the chance to snatch at air. It’s the easiest he’s ever had anything.
Zevran’s touch and the ground beneath him fade away, and as he’s falling into vast, empty silence, there’s a small flash of realization like a flare in the night.
this is
love]