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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"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.

"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?"

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