synflux | [closed] we shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us

I don't think it's...embarrassing.

[Ugh. He doesn't know what to say. His words feel like lead. He's stuck in this quagmire. He wants more. He can't have more. The tug, the push and pull, like he's being stretched between two extremes.]

[He looks at her face, smiling so sweetly up at him, and feels weak.]

I...don't know. I don't...think I am.

[ ... but he doesn't seem to know, really, and malkuth wonders how she can help. maybe nothing. but it's her fault they're like this, he's like this, and she withdraws her hands to reach up around his neck, just like their "dance" proper. ]

You can do what you want, whatever it is. Even if it's stepping away, even if it's not. This isn't... it doesn't have to be a one day thing. I mean, it won't be.

[ which might sound more than it is, but, ]

I'd like to get used to this too, Vergilius. So... we can get used to it together.

[ there's no one better to ask than a similarly untouched individual after all, even if their circumstances are different as can be. ]

[Her hands wrap around his neck like that time on the dance floor, and he feels like they're liable to burn through his skin. She's lived many lives. He's nothing more than a ghost. She's saying such things that feel like the sweetest temptations. But he, the eternal sinner, what is this for?]

[What did he ever do?]

I don't....

[He starts, stops. The glimmer of his eyes looks a little watery, like a lantern at the bottom of a deep ocean.]

I don't. Deserve this.

Edited 2024-04-10 15:27 (UTC)

... And you think I do?

[ a little incredulously. she's lived many lives, and they'd all come to nothing good. there's a lot she's told him, and a lot more she hasn't. malkuth leaves one hand there as the other comes up to press into his cheek, wishing she could-- do something more, feeling like she's done too much. ]

We didn't manage anything in my first place. I spent my second killing those who hesitated, who weren't strong enough to face their job -- who couldn't handle being tormented, hurt, spending every day close to death -- and watching those who were suffer day after day after day from behind a screen, with a cheerful attitude and words of encouragement and advice on how best to disarm and dismember the ones that had rightfully gone mad. [ her voice, which had grown pained and rushed the more she spoke, as if impatient with herself, catches there and she bites her lip.

it's nothing she's proud of, but it is what happened. she won't shy from it. she speaks quieter. ] All the applicants were hopeful and desperate, just like I'd been. But they were just strings of numbers.

[ the ideal sephirah. how proud she'd been of that. ]

And now, in my third life, I'm still causing others to suffer. Even in the future, our actions continue to hurt the innocent. [ ishmael had made that clear enough. ] Do you think I deserve any of this either? Can't I want to anyway?

[He hears it. She talks about her sins. None of them are good people. He's known that about her in some sense, even if he's only got part of the story.]

[But just because she has her own blood-stained sea doesn't erase his own guilt. It's always been his failing. He lets himself be scarred, lets himself suffer, if that will even make an ounce up for the amount of wrong he's done.]

[No. Even as much as he insists, it still feels like his sins weigh greater on the scale. He failed those children. He failed his crew. She merely did the work of a corporation...]

You can. You can want and deserve it. I believe in...that. In you.

[He has no room to judge. He's not here to enact justice. Everyone does what they have to do in the City. But he...]

[He leans into that hand, almost involuntarily, but the sorrow in his eyes feels like an endless well.]

Then I can decide that you do too.

[ since he's out here deciding she can. she just wants to deserve it, wants to experience it, even if...

even if she really, really might not. ]

I believe you should. Even if you don't. Okay? You can't change my mind on that.

...

[He closes his eyes, with a sigh that betrays a sort of exhaustion he's built up for years.]

Why?

[Why do you believe I should?]

Because the City says otherwise.

[ simply that.

their group was a rebellion from the start. it continued to be. it grew into a tree no one could look away from, a stand against the vultures of the city, and while it hadn't struck the way it should have-- something changed, evident enough in the distortions, the e.g.o. that began to appear. they continued to rebel in their own way.

the methods weren't different in the end. use, kill, manipulate. but it wasn't aimed to keep people down the way the city does it. that, malkuth is certain of. ]

We aren't there, but it still tells us we can't. Isn't that unfair?

...It is unfair.

[If there's anything stronger than his feelings of self-hatred, it's how much he loathes the City. That place where not even innocent children can grow up without it pushing its darkness onto them. He wanted to uproot it. Part of him still wants it.]

[That horrible City, who makes people into monsters, in more ways than one...]

So this right now...it's an act of rebellion?

It is.

[ every bit is a form of it. if the city says they can't have something, doesn't deserve something, then doing the opposite is rebellion. even speaking up the way the blue reverberation had, violent as it was, by taking in the outcasts and desperate... was a kind of rebellion, even if she hates to admit it.

it went against the wishes of the city. that's all. so does the library. ]

Something like this isn't going to uproot that rotten City.

[He can't see it as rebellion. The Head isn't going to just drop dead from them embracing.]

Many people have sought this and died for it. In the end, the City takes it all away, Malkuth.

[Like that man in black, with tear-stained eyes behind a mask.]

[Is there even a point?]

Edited 2024-04-10 16:52 (UTC)

And is the City in the room with us right now?

[ it isn't. she strokes his cheek with her thumb. ]

It doesn't need to uproot it immediately. But it starts by uprooting ourselves. That's all I'm saying.

Malkuth....

[STOP STROKING HIS CHEEK HE'S TRYING TO DWELL ON HIS OWN TRAGEDY OF HUMANITY!!!!!!!!!!!]

I still don't see what it could do. Not like it could erase anything we've done.

I'm not saying it's supposed to, you big moron. It just makes it easier to bear if someone's there with you.

[ he's not alone, or rather... malkuth isn't leaving him alone. she never had a single intention to, after all.

but there's not much she can say that she hasn't, so she pulls back a little to simply take his hands and squeezes them. ]

You need to live in the present to make a difference, however small, in the future. In anyone's future.

Mm.

[She pulls back - he misses it already, but he'll mentally admonish himself for being a little too selfish perhaps - and is content with the hand holding. He still doesn't want to believe in this. It's too good to be true. A wretched thing like him should not have kindness offered to him on a silver platter.]

[But he relents, if slightly, nods, and lets his hands grip hers with a squeeze of his own.]

...Is this you just saying you'll continue to be a constant menace in my life?

Did you think I'd stop?

[ please. like this, malkuth lifts one arm and turns herself under it for a different kind of hug, back to his chest. ha. sucker. ]

I think you enjoy my obnoxious company too much.

Edited 2024-04-10 20:23 (UTC)

[erghhhHHHHHHHHHHHHH]

[AFFECTION >:/]

Jury is still out on that one. [OBVIOUSLY]

And you were being so cute before.

[ when he was awkward... maybe it's easier for him to breath when they're not face to face, like it is for her. malkuth'll move one of his hands to her neck, warm and soft. just to press his knuckle against her quick pulse there.

she likes his grumpy company, at least. ]

Now you won't know if I'm coming over to take you out or come in.

I'm not cute.

[LOOK AT HIM!!!! HE'S CORPSE MADS MIKKELSEN!!!]

[But his hand being pulled to her neck like this makes his eyes widen slightly - he could easily imagine another scenario where these same hands would strangle an enemy, crush a windpipe - but he's letting them rest here, over this pulse.]

[Alive. Alive. How very alive.]

[He swallows, his Adam's apple moving up and down.]

You won't even warn me? How mean of you.

What, [ her teasing words a hum against his hand, ] and let you escape?

[ who's the wolf again? ]

I'll be kind, don't worry. You'll know when we're going out.

...

[He's glad that his ears are hidden by his hair because he can feel them heating up a little because hi. What the fuck.]

[Acchem.]

You are going to allow me to have some time to myself sometimes, right...

[ why can't you get hot over her cute smile ]

Of course! I need time for myself too, you know.

[ she'll stop teasing him, untwirling from his arms and letting their hands loosen. just fingers, if he'd still like to hold. ]

Thanks for bringing back my pin, Vergilius. We should go up to the greenhouse sometime though, it'll be a nice date.

[Of course he'd like to hold, because he's weak and he loves it too much and he can't help it.]

Mm. [He's looking at their hands now. His fingertips trace down into her palms, thumbs caressing the sides of her hands. A date....he doesn't know how to feel about that. Weird and fluttering all at once, like he swallowed a fairy. No. It's nothing. Just a word.] You'd think this guide is too old for such things...

[ that's nice, too. the small explorations of her hands, shifting on her feet as she's preoccupied with the movements herself. they're ticklish in a way, leave a lingering path beyond his scars against her softness, and malkuth is thankful for the way her face can hide this way.

he can't help it, with her. treating her so delicately. the admittance still chimes in her ears, the hands between them proof of concept. ]

You'd think. [ correction. ] But you're not. I'm sure there's even grandparents that still go out on dates with each other here.

[ here, here. where the city shouldn't be able to touch them, but the bruises of its grasp remains. she'll tease a little. ]

Don't I make you feel young again?

Please. I'm not that old...

[He's only middle-aged....old but not that old.........please spare him......]

[He sighs at the question. Because when he was young, what was he? An unfeeling machine, someone who tried to rise up in the ranks, perhaps? That man who destroyed a Syndicate in one day?]

[He shakes his head, leaning in to rest his cheek lightly against the top of her head. It all hurts. This may only be a temporary balm for his soul, but even a moth can't avoid the light.]

I'm not sure about "young". That was a distant country, of sorts. An island I won't return to. But this makes me think of....possibility.

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