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'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.

And he almost laughs. Because how to describe what it is to be a Thropp. To be a Ko. To be a prince in a princeless land and a witch's son in a world looking desperately for a witch. There are many reasons why he's here in this world. The fact that he'd just been following Rain is almost incidental. She'd just been the first to find the way out.

"You're not wrong in the least."

"No."

No he's not. Alex and Nathan and Maddy and Jean and Rachel and Hope and No, no he's not wrong.

"What can you tell me about your routine here? I don't want to get in the way."

That gets a snort, though it seems more like he's making fun of himself than any sort of commentary on Scott's question. That becomes clearer a moment later.

"Not much of one. I generally do as I like. The most important thing is food," he says with a wave to the pot, "and that's provided by the garden and a bit of hunting as needed. The rest is taken care of."

It was part of his agreement with Erik.

"...Then you're about to develop a routine." At least be in the presence of one, and a pretty rigid one at that. "I don't do spontaneous. Give me 24 hours and you'll be able to set a watch by me."

He's making fun of himself, though.

"Probably for the best," he says, and there's no sarcasm. A bit of self-depreciation for his own erratic nature but otherwise, it's rather plain. He's gone by schedules before, even made them, kept to them like a religion. Then it'd all gone up in ash, quite literally. But he didn't blame the scheduling, certainly.

He reaches over and, given that it's burnt almost to the end at this point, smudges out the cigarillo. The last of the smoke flutters to the ceiling.

"As long as there's no scuttling about for crackers or somesuch at all hours of the night, I doubt I'll mind much of anything."

"Once you show me where I'm sleeping, you won't hear from me before morning." Well, probably, barring screaming nightmares.

"Rain's room," and he dusts himself off unnecessarily before leading the way, out of the main living/dining/cooking space towards one of the few doors. He opens it to reveal a small bedroom with almost nothing but books in it, but there's enough books to make up for the other kinds of furniture. All the same, the bed itself is clear.

"Unless you're cold or need another body in the room," he continues, going to the next door, "at which point you can bunk in with me."

He's not flirting, or joking, or making any manner of advance. He'd grown up in a mauntery, stuffed in beds with a dozen other children. Then he'd moved to Kiamo Ko with the witch and slept on a half dozen different floors when he could get someone to let him in. He'd only gotten a room of his own as a prize for nearly drowning to death and that period seemed so short when there'd been the hollows of the street and the crowded barracks after it.

He needed another body in the room. God he needed another body in the room. He didn't even really know how to handle being alone in his mind yet. He needed connection; he could work with just having someone in the same space as him. Like Jake, in prison, before he'd been killed.

He couldn't ask Liir for that, but there was a moment where he came so, so close. "I'll probably be all right." Probably and h narrowly managed to get that out. "If I'm not, we'll both know soon enough."

"Rain won't mind?"

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.

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