nevermorethroppish

A meeting

It's not often that he gets visitors these days. His daughter only visits when she needs a place to hide for a while and he'll always provide it; he'd told her since she'd walked out the door that she could always walk back through it. Erik, on the other hand, hasn't been up in ages and Liir's neck is probably less sore because of it; they'd never much gotten along even if the two of them agreed on more than they didn't. But he comes today, someone new in tow, and Liir starts the creaky old engine of hospitality up once more if only out of necessity.

As Erik makes introductions, they don't talk much. They don't say much of anything as he leaves either. But once he's actually gone, Liir gestures to the most comfortable spot in the small cabin that he makes his home in for Scott to take as he likes.

"Have you eaten? Prison's a hungry business from what I remember of it."

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He looks at the room, then at Scott, and for the first time since Scott had come in, something lights in his green green eyes.

"You're right. She'll be livid." A tilt of his head to the door he's in front of now, "Or she'll fly in the window, think you're a very odd sort of sneak-thief stealing more than 40 winks, and break her broom over your head. No, no, clearly, you'll have to bunk in with me."

A pause before-

"I'll take the floor. It's been my bed more often than the feathered kind."

He isn't sure if he believes Liir or if he thinks he's being given an out. The thing is, if he is being given an out - if it is an excuse - he.

He isn't going to argue with it.

He's going to take it.

"I don't need to take your bed. And you don't need to take the floor, anyway." But whatever. As long as someone was around.

"Twist my arm, why don't you?" he says with a snort before pushing open the door to his own room. It also has a great number of books, but they're all blanks. Words and words and words and words again, spilled out of him like blood on stacks of pages. He's adapted, learned to use the technology in this world, but the words must be written first, inked, before they can be typed. There's a magic in that, part of his magic, and it gives the room a strange sort of warmth as if they held candle light instead of bootblack and parchment.

"If you're ready to fall over, you're welcome to get on with it. The morning will come soon enough for us to get started on that schedule of yours."

"I am not going to fall over." That comes out a little sharper than he'd intended, because he's defensive, but.

He is tired and it is late, and he does get on with it. Stays dressed, except for his shoes, and goes to bed and sleep curled up in a tight little ball with his arms trapped between his knees and his face.

"How very strange," he says, "I do it all the time, after all."

But he leaves it at that, climbing in once Scott has settled to his place and laying out. He looks unfortunately like nothing so much as a corpse when he sleeps, or a wax doll. Something animated missing the piece to keep it running.

Scott, fortunately, can't see when he's working so hard to keep his eyes covered. He's likely to notice sooner or later, but not tonight.

Tonight he just quickly falls asleep and stays that way for several hours.

When nightmares start, at least, they're fairly subtle. Less screaming and thrashing and more curling tighter, getting tense, and muffled mumbling and... choking.

Subtle enough until the mumbling and the choking. That is enough for a waxy hand to lift and settle feather-light with just the tip of the longest finger against his side. He won't take. Won't look. It's not his place, not his right. A man is nothing more than flesh and bone and blood and memory and most of all that last one. But he can give.

He can give the taste of floutberry pie baked fresh, the sauce smearing at the corners of a young girl's mouth as the pastry dissolves on her tongue and the bright sunlight streams into the kitchen.

The feel of grasstops fluttering against the palm and fingers, sunlight deep enough at the right angle to make eyes water as a young hunter stalks the beast that will be his family's dinner. The light through the grasses, through the clouds, brings a warm glow to the brown skin and the deep blue markings.

An aching back from too many hours in the laundry of a mauntery, the hot steam cooling in the drafty hallways on her way to dinner. It would be plain, should be plain, but their newest maunt had been a chef in her life before and she knows to make even the dour meal of a religious dedicant taste sweeter than the Unnamed God's favor.

And when they are delivered, when they are remembered again, he draws back and lays still once more.

Scott flinches at the touch, even asleep. He doesn't even initially seem prepared to accept anything, though of course he does.

But once things start to settle at all, he does, in a very, very easy way. Soaks it all in like a sponge and there's something familiar enough about it that he actually unwinds from his position, stretches and moves just enough to be in contact with the person in bed with him.

Then he does sleep - and continues to sleep through until just pre-dawn, when he wakes up properly, and -

Gets to work. On anything he can come up with to do.

Liir wakes after him, at dawn, content to let nature tell him when he ought to sleep and when he ought to wake up. All the same, there's plenty of things to do at the house.

Neatening, organizing; Liir's cleaning is simple and functional, but he's fallen past the exacting military corners and white glove dustings that he'd once done. Not to mention a washer with a bit of a leak, a dryer whose steam release has slipped a little out of place, and a stove that could do with a bit of cleaning.

He takes the time to dress and groom himself, read over a couple of things, and only then does he emerge. Then hens will provide them some eggs, which is why he goes out the back to get them before heading for the kitchen.

By the time he goes out to get the eggs, Scott's cleaned back to near military corners and white glove precision. He's also straightened everything, cleaned the hell out of the stove and is busy investigating the washer.

He washes his hands when Liir comes back in, though. "Good morning."

"Morning," since he's never been the sort to assign such things good or bad till he's been at them for a while. "Over easy, sunny, or scrambled?"

That, a hunk of hard cheese and some crusty bread from the day before with an ungodly amount of butter will be breakfast. Hopefully, Scott's hungry again. Liir certainly is.

"You remember me telling you that I don't have real food preferences, right?" There's a smile to go with it, but he truly does not care. He will eat what's there.

And, yes, he's hungry again. He's going to be for a while. He has some weight to gain back. If he's not careful, he'll just get fat. Or would with less activity than he's going to be doing.

"Lucky you. Over easy is the only one I'm not rubbish at," he answers as he starts in on the cooking. That had been the way Cherrystone like them so it's the only way he's ever really had to learn to cook them. He'd learned to like them that way just for expediency's sake.

Auntie Witch had liked them scrambled, but she also hadn't tasted anything so there hadn't been much need to worry about it.

The plate is served up quickly enough since they don't take that long to cook and Liir takes a little more time, dipping the toast into the egg yellow, lingering.

Scott takes his plate with him and effectively manages to eat while he finishes the washer and then takes care of the dryer hose.

After which he does a decent job of scrubbing the kitchen again.

"Did you pick this place as somewhere to stay?"

"No," he admits in between bites. "Erik did that." He tips his chin towards the washer. "I would have been satisfied with much less. I didn't even know half of these things existed until I came here. I figured them out on my own."

Erik's idea of a little joke. Really, their relationship is such a gas.

"...You can leave here, if you want, can't you?"

Dammit, Erik, don't make him kill you. Because he's in a murder the world kind of mood right now.

It's clear from the expression on his face that he doesn't quite understand how they got from A to B, but all the same, his hand reaches out.

While Scott was cleaning, he would have found two brooms: one in a modern style, with plastic bristles, and another built like something in a fairy tale, a long piece of wood with cut and dried grasses tied to the end. It's the second one which comes to his hand before he lays it against the breakfast counter.

"I can go wherever I like whenever I like. I've even got funds of my own since the accounting I mentioned is actually quite lucrative. Especially when you don't skim off the top and that reputation proceeds you."

He tips his chin towards the door.

"There's only one person in this world who matters. And when she comes through the door, I want there to be someone to welcome her."

He loves her, even though they're both bad at it. And she might not come often, but he's earned that, no matter what his intentions were.

"Erik and I have a long and not entirely pleasant history," he is all he says, by way of explaining why he questioned just what the hell Erik was doing with Liir. Whether he could leave, whether there was something truly nefarious happening.

He can't say there's one person in this world who matters. The world matters. The world matters more than any of them and he wonders if Rain would appreciate her father more if she spent time with Nathan. Hypothetical of course. He's earned his son's absence, too.

Yesterday, he wondered where Nathan was. Today, he assumes he knows.

"How much did he tell you about me?"

"I could say the same." After all, he had mentioned the frequent death threats, yes? And the arguments? The fact that it was an arrangement as opposed to anything more personal?

And sad to say, he would agree with Scott. He'd lived that concept and died that concept and lived again only after he'd made the point about that concept to those who would not listen, those who in their desperation for power or resources or whatever it was that filled their mad little minds, had sacrificed all manner of lives and pain and horrors for it. Of course, they'd sacrificed other people's lives and pain and horrors, which was why they'd been so ready to. He'd only ever had himself and those he loved and he'd lost all of those but Rain, who occasionally wandered back where her mother and Trism had never once darkened his doorstep since he'd seen them last.

He stays there for Rain for the same reason that he had refused the Grimmerie: he has seen what he can do when he has a goal and a purpose and a driving need.

He can smell it any time there's no cigarillo in the ash tray.

"You heard everything he said. That's all I've gotten from him." A pause before- "But I do have the internet. And while I may be a fool, I'm not a blind one. Ask what you'd like to ask."

"I don't actually have anything that I need to ask." Not if he was aware of Scott's identity, and what he'd done . There were other circumstances that might be relevant but those were defenses and he wasn't interested in defending himself. "I just wanted to know."

Which was - dead on true, if somewhat tired. Though - "I doubt that I will be here for long." It was meant to be reassuring. He wouldn't be in Liir's hair for longer than he needed to be, to recover. How long that took - Well, time would tell but it would be some.

"Everyone leaves. I didn't expect it would be any different this time," which was said matter-of-factly. There was no malice, nothing passive aggressive. But he hadn't made his comment the other day idly. He was a solitary man, but never by choice.

That was a reason he stayed here too.

"I'm going to go out and collect the rest of the eggs. Tend the garden. Do you know how to hunt? Farm?"

That answer surprised him. It was also telling and it wrenched something in his chest - hard. "The only thing I know how to do is be a soldier and fight, but if you tell me what needs done, I will do it."

"I'll show you the garden once I've brought in some of the eggs," he said simply enough, "and tomorrow, I'll show you hunting. I've been a soldier before. And a former soldier."

He knows how to survive the emptiness after. And how to fill it with enough to keep going.

"I'll finish your washer and dryer." Those things are things he knows how to do. He can do and keep himself busy with them and figure out the garden and he can probably work out hunting without much trouble.

That he's killed people should help, though god knows he's resisted killing animals before. He didn't need them to eat, then.

"If you like." He likes the tik toks but he still knows how to work around them if they don't work. They break often enough and Erik usually doesn't find out until he comes to visit because Liir's never been one to fuss. "I've got a wash board and a tub if need be."

A pause as he realizes how that might sound.

"Though I appreciate it. I've just never had a way with tik tokery."

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