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 considers that information. It makes him feel exposed, which is painfully uncomfortable when he still has burn marks around his neck from being collared and controlled, but it's also a relief. Both because he's in the presence of a mutant of some sort and because -

Well, because he's him and his love/hate relationships with people who can read anything except what comes out of his mouth is as much a part of him as sunshine and ruby quartz. More, in many, many ways.

So he mentally shrugs and carries on. Doesn't examine it too far, though he does sort of beat both responses to death.

"It may be. It may also just be because he's Erik. He's...mellowed."

Edited 2016-09-30 18:33 (UTC)

"He listens to all of himself instead of shouting over it half the time," is all Liir says to that, though it's agreement all the same. It's the sort of statement that really ought to come soft, like a pronouncement. But Liir never has had a touch for those. Instead, it sounds like a fishwife gabbing, not far from the sort of activity they're doing otherwise, or like something Scott could hear himself. Office gossip.

Almost absently, he reaches over with freshly cleaned hands and pulls a cigarillo from the kitchen drawer. He lights it and pulls over what might have at first looked like a cup holder or a spoon stand but no, it's an ash tray.

Not a single puff before he puts it in the tray, as if he was lighting incense.

"Do you like dill?" is the next thing out of him. "Some people can't stand it so I won't put it in the potatoes if you don't. I'm impartial but it's a few days to bad so I figured I'd get it used."

He makes a noise in the back of his throat that is more or less agreement with the statement, regardless of tone. In truth, the 'fishwife gabbing' or 'office gossip' methods of delivery keep that sort of thing easier for him. He's more inclined to blunt statements than soft announcements, no matter the circumstances.

He looks up and around at the sound of the drawer opening and it takes him a second to process the question. "I'm not a picky eater. I don't have any strong preferences." Just to get that out of the way, but - "Did you say you'd been in prison?"

Yes, he's slow.

"Been to a prison," he provides as he starts chopping up the dill. Might as well use it. There's all sorts of vitamins in it, more than likely. It's green. Greens have vitamins, or so Nanny would have said if she'd still been alive and not in an entirely different world, which was less of an obstacle for Nanny than one might suppose. The woman's voice had a way of echoing through his fingers when he did anything with cheeses especially.

"So I suppose I've been in one. But I was on the more fortunate side of the bars. Well, if there was a fortunate side. Southstairs didn't have much fortune to spare for anyone. Not really."

There's a second there where Scott isn't sure if Lir's speaking English - followed quickly by Scott wondering if he's coming out of prison more brain damaged than he went in. Then he manages to scrape his brain cells together while he finishes peeling the potatoes and more or less track what Lir said.

Enough of it to figure out the key things he actually didn't know, anyway. "Southstairs?"

...He's clearly really talkative right now. Sorry.

There's another of those pauses, the considering ones. And if Scott is paying any kind of attention, it's clearly less about trusting him (that's apparently not a problem) and more about whether he wants to get involved in explaining.

"A subterranean prison. Any farther into that and we'll have to go into my life story, which is not even half as interesting as rabbit stew and potatoes." A glance at his stores, not far from where Scott is, before he frowns. "Think we'll be using red onions instead of the white."

A few more slices through deep pink meat before he looks the other man in the face again.

"Did Erik mention anything about me other than the fact no one'll find you here?"

Scott makes an amused noise and waves a hand at his face. "I'll never know the difference." In the color of the onions. Or, truthfully, in the taste. He can't exactly visually identify which is which.

There's another pause on his end. Lir is considering whether or not to get involved in explanations. Scott's just trying to scrape together his thoughts and put words to them. He's so tired he feels almost drugged, but he's still tense as hell. It's a combination terrible for conversation but that will get better.

"He didn't tell me much, and I didn't think to ask many questions. What do I need to know?"

Edited 2016-09-30 19:41 (UTC)

This time, he actually puts the rabbit down as he considers the question. What does Scott need to know? What is the most important information for a man brought here by Erik, a mutant who'd been taken from a prison, who'd obviously been tortured? Someone who makes his mind buzz with the angry static of suppressed panic?

A man who seems to want, more than anything else, to move forward?

"I'm both a former soldier and a former terrorist. My abilities are hard to quantify but the longer you stay here, the more likely it is that I might very well remember pieces of your past. My daughter is a lovely girl with green skin who doesn't visit enough. I spend most of my time writing pro-mutant political articles for a number of underground publications and keeping the books for organizations Erik is affiliated with that can't contract a proper accountant. I was raised in a ruin out in the middle of nowhere and my mother was the woman you'd know fictionally as the Wicked Witch of the West."

...yes, that should cover it.

"Pass me those onions?" A moment before- "The ones in the left most container, if you please."

Scott considered that and then very literally shrugged and passed the left container of onions over. "My parents were abducted by aliens and sold into slavery." Which was to say as weird as some of that might sound to someone else, Scott wasn't unduly rattled.

He continued along with more or less the same theme by adding: "Let me know if you remember anything interesting about my past. Maybe I'll learn something." Probably not, he didn't seem to have the same kind of gaping holes he used to, but it was hard to tell when you spent that much time with telepaths - it wasn't like he knew he didn't remember Gabriel until he did remember him.

"I shoot force beams out of my eyes. Don't knock my glasses off." That was about as complicated as he felt like he was. There was more, of course, about Nathan and terrorism and soldiers and all sorts of things, but right now none of it felt important.

Edited 2016-09-30 22:51 (UTC)

He clearly considers what to say to that for a moment, decides to skip it, and finally puts down the onions. A couple are pulled out, chopped up, and tossed into the large pot with a pat of butter before he lets it go on the burner before he says anything further. And it's just a 'hmm' at first. Then his hands are washed and-

"Do you want that burn on your neck?"

He won't assume anything. Some injuries are necessary. Sometimes, you need the ache.

He's confused by the question - but only because he's forgotten it. He only feels it when Liir draws his attention to it. It's not dissimilar to the fact that he's only noticed that, yes, he's absolutely and quite literally starved when he can smell the onions starting to cook.

He reaches up and presses his fingers against the burn and then shakes his head minutely as he pulls his hand away. "No. I'm done with it."

Which means, at least, he fully understands the implication that sometimes you need the ache. He had needed it. He'd used it. The purpose was served the moment he had Danger carve an X into the asshole of a warden's face.

He dries his hands against one of the kitchen towels before lifting a hand in obvious offer.

"The onions need to soften."

His eyebrows rose above the rims of his glasses. He had the idle thought that he should really get a visor on his face, but - Well, his range of vision was better this way, and for now it was enough.

"I don't know what you need me to do."

"I don't want you to do anything," he admits with a shrug of his shoulders. "If you'd like me to help your skin remember how it was before the burn, come here and let me put a finger to the mark.

"It will hurt like the moment it seared your skin. And then it will be gone."

"No, but in order to do what you were offering, you need me in reach." He was a little confused by the instruction, wasn't sure he had that great a memory of his skin in particular, but he did his best and stepped forward to get in reach.

And didn't react to the pain at all.

It's the skin remembering the wound. And it's the skin that has to move past it. Forward or backward; sometimes, he's not sure which way he's working the memory, if they're forgetting the future or moving through it into the past or the right way around. But he knows the pain is there because the pain has to be felt in order to heal.

His touch, for that part, is light as a feather, almost not there. Gentle in the way of fragile things, though the press a moment later seems to say that the fragile thing was the moment itself instead of either of them. And when he's done, as the memory of a beautiful soul who loved it when they were alive settled into his soul, he dips his head just once before slipping away.

There's rabbit to add to the pot. The onions and the butter should sear it nicely.

He just - let the moment happen, accepted it for what it was along with the brief sear of pain. He was a little more curious about Liir, but still in a pretty distant way. "I'm going to get cleaned up," he murmured, and then more or less wandered off to do it.

He'd be back in plenty of time to help get food on the table and to eat.

Edited 2016-09-30 23:58 (UTC)

It's a stew, honestly, and without having to direct someone unfamiliar with the kitchen who's still recovering from a prison stay on how to 'help', the preparations go much faster. Not that he begrudges Scott the need to do something, to assist, to be active in rectifying his own hunger. But the facts are the facts.

Scott will come out to sliced potatoes garnished with a pile of stewed rabbit with carrots and onions. The bowl will be placed on the counter for him to take when he's ready.

Scott comes out smelling slightly of soap and damp around the edges, and moves directly to the food. He glances at Liir and while he thinks pretty hard that he should say something once the food is right there, there is no way.

He doesn't wolf his food, his manners stay decent, he doesn't talk with his mouth full, he chews, but mostly he's on that food like a starving man. He's eating and eating is all he does for a bit, but the food helps steady him mentally and emotionally as well as dealing iwth his hunger, so there's that.

When one bowl is done, another one is put in front of him without a word. Liir, for his part, eats standing and if not sparingly, then much like a bird, plucking pieces here and there with some speed. All the same, his food disappears and it seems he doesn't have much to say while they go at it.

Scott finishes the second bowl but doesn't allow opportunity for a third since he really is really full.

He does however, immediately start cleaning up after himself. It isn't obligation, it's habit and desire. Not even to earn his keep but to put order back into the place and because it's just what he does.

But - "That was impressive. Thanks." And also, belatedly: "I should have thanked you for letting me stay here, before."

"I've gotten used to never getting used to being solitary," he offers in return, quite content to let him clean, "but it's not the same as being accustomed to it."

He realizes, as he watches Scott at it, that he's being particularly Ozian. In an attempt to be helpful, he translates:

"Company will be a nice change. As I said, Rain doesn't visit often enough."

He's actually managed to translate the sentiment behind that one, though not exactly and not well enough or quickly enough not to be glad for the translation.

"Rain's your daughter? How old is she?"

"In her twenties somewhere," he says with a flutter of a hand. "Time is... odd for me. And she spent most of her life until we were here with others while I was on the run with her mother." A brittle smile. "There's a reason she doesn't visit much."

He turns a hand.

"We're both angry we love each other. Mostly because neither of us are good at it. Never learned it at the right age."

"My son's something like fifty - I think. Time's gotten weird for us, too." Though undoubtedly in a different way. "Family is always complicated."

Where the hell had Nathan been? First time it had occurred to him to wonder, and then he really wondered.

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