taxonomites | [location: Central | closed thread] with many a winding turn

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[location: Central | closed thread] with many a winding turn

Mr Cabal: Check the map. -SH

Sherlock Holmes, damn him, has always been too clever for anyone else's good.

Panic rises immediately in Horst's throat, all his fears and theories momentarily confirmed: someone knows the Cabal name, and they know that Horst bears it. He stares at the words Mr. Cabal for several seconds longer. This is awful.

It's a while before he settles himself again and goes through the arduous process of remembering how Sherlock told him to use the tablet, the right voice commands to open the map. It's another few seconds of looking at it before something jumps out at him that he realizes Sherlock meant him to find. A name floating around a city block in the middle of the Central district:

Johannes Cabal.

He stares at the name for a full minute longer. By this time, it's lucky that Herr Holmes didn't deliver his message in person: he'd have no doubt complained about the exceptional slowness with which Horst executed every piece of this process, the long stretches of time spent staring dumbly at things.

Or then again, if he knows Johannes Cabal, maybe he'd understand perfectly. Sometimes Horst's little brother really does invite various forms of dumbfoundedness.

He looks at the map once more, at the name, that damned name.

But a tiny voice in his head says, He came for you. This time, he came. And Horst knows he has to see for himself.

After that, he moves quickly enough that even Sherlock Holmes would call it satisfactory, gone in a soft blur.

* * * *

Horst finds his brother on the map in a little pub, the kind that sells food he'd recognize by name. He melts away into thin air and slinks through the door when someone else is exiting, and scouts the room till he finds what he's looking for: blond hair, black suit, miserably unfriendly facial expression. Well, it certainly looks like Johannes.

He stays out of sight and out of mind for the time being, watching, not sure yet of what he'll say. He'll make himself known when he chooses to.

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The likeness is uncanny, anyway. Johannes's hair has grown a little untidier since the last time Horst saw him and he looks unslept and tired--and yes, almost imperceptibly older--which is, of course, curious, for two people who've rightly not seen each other in little more than days. Otherwise he looks like Horst's brother. He pinches the bridge of his nose like the world's giving him a terrible headache all of the time like Horst's brother. He even orders "bangers and mash" with the same facial expression as Horst's brother. If it is an illusion, it's a very good one.

Johannes, for his part, does not have the same things on his mind. For him it's been a full year and change since Horst's death and the last thing he generally likes to do is think about that. And as anyone could tell you, he's got a terrible knack for not thinking about things he wouldn't like to. Right now he's leaning on his elbow and staring at his bracelet while having thoughts more like: how am I ever going to get this goddamned thing off? and what is the purpose of this? and when in God's name is anyone going to tell me what I'm supposed to do?

The bartender sets down his plate in front of him at the bar with a polite "here you go, sir." Johannes completely ignores him. He has a pint of some sort of dark English stout sitting untouched next to him as he picks up a fork and pushes some of the mash a little skeptically across the plate, like he's ten years old and his mother just fed it to him. He's wedged himself predictably into the corner of the bar with a good five stools separating him from the nearest Extra patron.

"Bartender," he calls out to the 'man' in English. "These mashed potatoes. Were they actually made from a potato of any kind?"

The bartender's puzzled difficult-customer smile turns up a few notches. He opens his mouth to answer and Johannes cuts him off, "Never mind, you're not even sentient. Go away." He goes back to picking at his (powdered box, he's not wrong) mashed potatoes with an air of irritable resignation. Like he does many things.

When Horst blends back into visibility, he's behind Johannes, pouring whiskey into a shot glass he filched from the bar while the bartender was off putting possibly-Johannes's order in with the kitchen.

"English pub food -- the worst, most flavorless meals in the history of culinary creation. You've certainly come down in the world in the last few days, Johannes."

Is it cruel to open their conversation with an insult at his brother's expense? Perhaps.

But no moreso than he deserves. Let him stew a little.

The beer mug hits the floor with a heavy clunk and tips its contents all over Johannes's shoes. His reflexes in panic haven't suffered, anyway, he's on his feet almost as fast as he has his cane in his hand and the blade is out in the next moment. Not, of course, that it matters, if this is actually Horst Cabal. As far as a vampire's concerned, he may as well have gotten lazily to his feet and pulled out a toothpick.

The Extras are staring, of course. This definitely qualifies as 'a scene,' if anyone is counting, but neither of them really cares.

It would be wrong to say that Johannes feels like he's seen a ghost, because Johannes has seen quite a few ghosts, actually, and none have provoked this reaction. Nothing about his brother seems to suggest ghostliness, anyway, although the reverse is plainly impossible: there are many ways to fake one's death, or one's second death, at any rate. That one would have been difficult. His heart pounds in his ears and for a moment he doesn't even bother trying to look composed about it all, too preoccupied being at a loss for words.

Words do come to mind, but they're, this is a very sick joke. So he just blinks.

Edited 2013-02-20 23:17 (UTC)

There's a flash of motion: and then there's an empty shot glass on the bar, and a whisky bottle beside it, contents still sloshing wildly, and Horst is much farther into Johannes's personal space than he was a moment before, with the tines of Johannes's fork pressed to his throat, a sliced piece of sausage still speared on it. The fingers of his other hand are curled overtop his brother's own, wrapped around the death's-head pommel of his cane -- one man with death in his grip, and another holding him back, and isn't that so fitting for our relationship, Horst thinks.

Horst is the much stronger of the two, and pins him in place there, against the bar, with nary a hold but his fingers and his brother's dinner fork. "Shouldn't you be in Hell, where you belong?" he hisses into the blond man's ear. "Or have you paved your way out of that with other people's futures as well? Is this my prodigal brother, come after me to beg my help in doubling down on his first idiot bet?"

Horst snarls threateningly. "Or is this some impostor, wearing his skin? Why aren't you in Hell, you little bastard?!"

Horst supposes this constitutes an overreaction. It's funny how justified it feels even so.

English speakers they may be, but there are some points on which the Extras don't require interpretation. Several are already shuffling out when Horst shoves him back into the bar, the rest ringing them with morbid interest in what Johannes distantly finds to be a canny likeness of human behavior. Funny, the things that occur to you at times like these.

Johannes flinches by reflex, turning his face away from his brother's teeth and his cold breath when he speaks. No, he's got to think rationally: there's nothing stopping Horst from having killed him already if he wanted to kill him, but there's also nothing stopping him from wanting to vent a few of his frustrations and then killing him, and there's nothing Johannes can do about it either way. Rationally, Johannes, rationally. Think--

Horst's hand is frigid. It would be; it's winter outside. He isn't gripping Johannes's sword hand especially tightly--he wouldn't have to. If he did he might break his hand.

Rationally. Think.

"The summer of my thirteenth birthday. I found a pet by the river." He amazes himself with the flatness of his own voice. Evidently he's still got something. "Horst? What was it?"

Horst peers at him through suspicious eyes. When he laughs, it's dark and dry and chalky, as though he hasn't laughed in years, even though it's probably only been hours. "God, you really are terrible at this, little brother," he says with snide humor. "When you come up with a question only one person could know the answer to, you should try to pick one they'd actually have any chance of remembering. Anyway, you..."

He pauses, thinking about it. Horst had been seventeen that summer. He'd been seeing Lara Reisling at the time, and they'd spent most of the warmer months fooling around on the construction site of the new water refinery that was being built. If Johannes had had some pet for a few days, some frog or turtle or something, Horst might not even...

"My brother never had any pets," Horst corrects himself. "He never even understood how to hold a baby properly. But you did bring home a plant that summer, didn't you. Some kind of a plant."

He eases the fork off of Johannes's throat and sets it down, but effectively traps his brother into place even so with his free hand now resting against the bar.

"A purple cyclamens," says Johannes. "You have an awful memory."

It was the only bright flower he'd ever found around their home. Even Johannes could have an appreciation for that. It looked wretched and lonely and unprotected all out by itself. So while Horst was busy sticking his tongue down Lara Reisling's throat, in Johannes's recollection, he dug the cyclamens up carefully around the root system and potted it. This was the closest thing to interest in a pet he ever had, mind. But at home Mother told him, that doesn't belong to you, Hänschen.

He probably should have said something closer to the truth like That's a cyclamens and it's going to die, Mother. Whether it belongs to me has no bearing on why I potted it. But instead he remembers sulking: It does now.

Horst still has his cold hand curled around Johannes's own and the blade's still resting uselessly against the bar. Unsurprisingly, everyone has vacated that side of the room. The berth a pub crowd gives an armed fight is distinctly wider. Johannes supposes that he should meet Horst's eyes at this point, demonstrate that he's not afraid of him.

There is a colored photograph of a family on a carnival ride on the pub wall over Horst's shoulder. Johannes looks at that. "Let go of me, Horst," he says.

"I should kill you," Horst answers him; but Johannes's hand is trembling, ever so faintly, and he can't look him in the eye, and the words 'let go of me' couldn't more clearly be translated to 'you're scaring me' if Johannes had put it on a radio broadcast. Goddamn him. Horst swore the last time that he wouldn't stay his hand again. Goddamn him.

Horst releases Johannes's hand, eases off a step, but he doesn't quite comply with his brother's request to let him go. Instead, he moves his hand to Johannes's face to grab him by the chin and force Johannes to look him directly in the eye.

What was the name of the girl I almost married, he thinks, remembering when he'd asked his parents for his grandmother's wedding ring at age fifteen, knowing Johannes won't have forgotten the smug joy he must've felt when Horst came home the next day, not at all engaged, just as their parents had warned him, and what a triumphant moment it must've been for his little brother to see their mother holding Horst in her arms as he sobbed and said he didn't understand.

He opens his mouth to ask Johannes that. What comes out instead is raw and quiet:

"What was the last thing Mother said to me?"

Make sure your brother remembers to rest! Mother reminds Horst again in the theatre of memory as Horst steps off the platform: Johannes is already on the train. Horst! Are you-- (I know, Mama!) Johannes sheathes his sword again and straightens up at the bar. He steals the moment to recover, so when he meets Horst's eyes again, it's coldly and expressionlessly.

"I don't remember," he lies. "Are we quite finished?"

"You bastard. You horrible bastard."

Johannes is lying. Horst knows that. He has to be. Johannes remembers the goddamned purple cyclamens and the joke at Conrad's party and every other detail under the sun. He's not allowed to have forgotten this. He has no right. Horst smacks him across the face -- not hard enough to take his head off, not hard enough to snap his neck, though he could (because, really, the pathetic thing is that he couldn't, not actually, not ever) -- just hard enough to let him know he's crossed a line.

It is, nonetheless, Horst's brother Johannes Cabal standing before him in the flesh, even though he couldn't (wouldn't) answer Horst's question. Horst knows because if anyone in the world understands Johannes's own personal language, it's him. Only the real Johannes Cabal would protect his own emotional well-being at so high a cost to others. Only the real Johannes Cabal could manage to find the one answer he could give that would make Horst feel like his guts had been carved out and were spilling on the floor whether or not he was telling the truth.

He lets Johannes go, and Horst turns away. "Tell me you came here to rescue me. Go on. You're such a good liar, lie to me about that. One kind lie in your whole godforsaken life, or else tell me whatever sales pitch you've got this time, or whatever the hell you've got to say. Make it count, Johannes."

Johannes flinches from the blow even though he's expecting it or something like it. Some elements of human reflex are difficult to suppress. It leaves a sting and a livid mark, which he rubs with the backs of his knuckles after Horst lets him go.

In response to Horst's demand he just shakes his head and braces himself for another blow. A few spiteful little retorts have bubbled to the fore of his mind, after all--why, are you having buyer's remorse?--but he lets them be. You can count that as goddamned progress if you like, Horst. In reality he's just weary, and he's--he doesn't know what else, really. Something. It's been a year.

It occurs to him that Horst is colder and paler than he was when he left Johannes. It hadn't been so long since he'd eaten. That shouldn't happen if Horst is dead or if they're both dead, or if Horst has just been here. Have you been trapped here for a full year? Johannes wonders, feeling a familiar twist in the gut when he glances back at his brother.

He shakes his head again and looks around them. "Would you care to have this conversation somewhere else?" he says instead, a bit drily.

Horst pauses, considering his request. How like Johannes, always having difficulty letting go of control of every situation. That's Johannes's problem with death, too, he supposes: he can't control it.

Horst probably should've taken his brother to a good therapist instead of an English graveyard. A little protective voice had bubbled up inside him, though, had said, They wouldn't understand him. He needs someone to believe in him. He's so alone, and Horst had gotten on the train with him instead.

He sighs. "Finish your meal and we'll take a ride on the train. Nothing comes cheaply around here."

Johannes has lost his remaining appetite, all things considered, but he sits down again and picks up his abandoned fork in silence. It's more than a little awkward, trying to eat when Horst is staring at him in silence. He's not entirely sure if he's doing it in spite of Horst's telling him so, or because he told him so. He stubbornly finishes his meal anyway. He makes a practice of it in his life: you never know when you're going to get another. He doesn't know when next he's going to get another here.

He reaches for his drink and too late remembers its absence and feels his soaked feet again. "You made me spill my drink," he murmurs under his breath with a touch of resentment, eyes flickering up to Horst's briefly. But he lets it alone and polishes off his food without saying anything else, feeling his brother's gaze on the back of his neck.

When he's done he stands back up and gives Horst another look-over now that he has a moment and at a reasonable distance. He couldn't have been here for an entire year, Johannes surmises: he hasn't even gotten changed. Surely not even Horst is that fond of that suit, the one he--

Johannes glances away and picks up his cane again by the pommel. Sometimes he dislikes his soul a great deal, having gone so long without it. It is a cold, heavy presence in his body; it bores a hole. "You look no different," he says, low, as he nods for Horst to lead the way. "Time can't pass the same way here. It's the following year for me. Or was. I couldn't say what time it is now."

1899? 2013, like they keep saying? Are they all Rip van Winkle now?

"They say this is the future," Horst tells him blandly, walking them out of the pub and toward the nearest tram line. "I've been here some two weeks. Right from when..." He trails off, looking over to see if Johannes is keeping up, showing him how to pay his way onto the tram with his bracelet when they arrive. He looks over again as they step off the stairs and onto the platform.

"Tell me something. My purple coat, the one that goes with this suit. Tell me honestly. This is important. I left it in the field that day. What did you do with it?"

Horst knows exactly where that purple coat is right now, of course. It's draped over the back of a recliner in his living room, waiting to be hung up. But its existence in Johannes's world, the one he claims he stayed in a year longer (A year? How did he survive a year? Is he alright?), is what you'd call a clue. And he has to fill up the conversation on the train with talk of something.

"I--" That question catches Johannes completely off his guard. He's been busy staring at the tram tracks with a little more confusion than he's let himself betray so far in front of the strangers; they look like little banisters, in no way capable of supporting a locomotive. For some reason this sticks with him more than the steel buildings or the contraption welded into his wrist.

He leans over to look at the light of the approaching tram and also to conceal his expression long enough to settle it again. "I buried it," he says after a moment as the tram light grows in size, gets brighter, emerges out of the dark. "I thought--" Johannes then realizes what Horst may actually be asking him and shoots him a dark look as the tram pulls up, boarding with him and waiting for them both to sit down in two seats wedged into the edge of the car before answering.

He takes the more inward seat, the one tucked into the corner, and sits up as straight as he can while taking prim care that none of his clothing or person actually touches his brother's. "Yes, I'm alive," he answers the unspoken question with a cool shrug. "No thanks to you. I've had an eventful time of it. But I suppose that's all," he glances out the window through the futuristic glass, "bygones now."

Does Horst want to see him squirm? He's not going to. (I doubt it, says Reason in his head, uninvited, but that certainly makes a tempting apologia for ignoring him, doesn't it?) In any event, any discomposure from a moment ago or from the pub is certainly gone: Johannes has put himself back together quite summarily and when he speaks up again it's icy and detached. "We are not in Hell," he says. "And you're not dead or you're making a surprising good showing of it for being so. I'm quite sorry to disappoint you."

I'm quite sorry to disappoint you is a low blow -- unfortunately, it's one Horst can't quite deny, considering the terms on which he parted from Johannes two weeks ago, fully intending to have murdered his brother and then himself. He never intended to be sitting on another train with him.

"Hmm," is all Horst says, noncommittal. They sit in uncomfortable silence during the train ride, Horst not even nudging Johannes's knee with his own as he normally would ("Mother! Horst is on my side! He's doing it on purpose!").

He hears his brother's voice, frantic and desperate, calling after him as he walks away. He pictures Johannes burying his coat, all that Horst left behind of himself for his condemned sibling. He thinks of his brother, wandering the world friendless and alone. "Johannes . . . " he starts -- but the train arrives at the end of the line, and a crackling voice from overhead reminds them that it's time to change trains. They stand up and disembark.

"Wait," Horst says quietly, reaching out to grab his brother's arm and stay him there for the moment. "Watch this," he says, and with his first, small smile, holds Johannes there while the tram makes a quiet huff and pulls away in the opposite direction.

Johannes tugs his arm away, or tries to, anyway, but not being a vampire himself he only succeeds in registering his objection in more of an official capacity. He gives his brother a frosty look intended to communicate, I wasn't aware we were on arm-grabbing terms, but turns to watch the tram anyway.

He blinks. "Are you trying to say it goes in the other direction?" he asks after a moment. "If so, yes. It goes in the other direction. Is that all?"

It seems that not everything runs in the family.

***

Johannes Cabal has never lived in a city before, not even a pocket-dimensional one, and as such has rarely had occasion or time to sit down on anyone's front steps and look out over the city lights. He supposes it's not an unattractive place, for something so uncanny and so cobbled-together: it looks like a collage, a rubbish bin of leftover buildings from other times and places, and he supposes it may as well be. Not every creator of a dreamscape bothers to put any sort of coherent effort into it. (I would, he thinks with some disdain. If I were going about imprisoning people in a dimension of my own creation I'd at least put some reason to it.) Then again, he also wouldn't make them wait, would he?

He scuffs the heel of his shoe--he's going to need new ones--against the cobblestones in front of his brother's house and looks up at the sky. What would be the point, he wonders, in trying to pick out constellations: they aren't real stars. This isn't a real place. This is a holding cell, a waiting room, and sooner or later he'll find out why, and/or he'll be on his way, both if he's lucky. Of course it doesn't make sense. It wasn't designed to make sense.

Still, he glances up and looks for Orion. Like many people, Orion is the only constellation he can find with any reliability. He can't find it here.

"So no one's said anything to you either?" he muses when Horst joins him and sits down next to him. He doesn't look over, just draws further into the circle of personal space he's designated for himself. Death has not seemed to effect any lasting change in Horst's proclivity for invading that. "Nothing about what they've dragged us here for? You'd think that since time's at such an apparent disjoint," Johannes makes a diffident face, "that they could get on with it."

He supposes he could also wonder what anyone capable of creating a dimension of this complexity would need Johannes Cabal for, of all people, but that's never stopped them before.

Edited (grammarrrrr) 2013-02-24 17:02 (UTC)

"There is no 'anyone,' thus far. Just the other people here with wrislets like ours, who all claim to be captives. The longest anyone says they've been here is three years. Other than that, you've seen the residents of this world. They're harmless." He hands his brother a glass of water, pressing it into his hand with motherly insistence. "Drink."

Horst looks over at Johannes, studying him, not sure what to say next. God, he can't do this. He doesn't know how to do this. He can't just move on like the past year never happened, forget the people he -- they --

"I'm not doing this again. I'm tired, Johannes; I'm tired of hoping that if I help you for a little while, you'll meet me halfway, then finding you haven't budged a single step. I can't. I can't keep waiting for you."

No, he was wrong, thinks Johannes sourly: apparently Horst does want to watch him squirm.

He takes the glass, though, and has a sip anyway as he thinks. At least he's gotten all of his outward astonishment over with for the evening, he supposes, and this is hardly the first time in his life he's had to deal with his brother's goddamned scrutiny. Story of his goddamned life. Horst wants to talk about something. Horst wants to talk about their feelings. Horst wants to talk about the moral implications of what they're doing. Horst wants to talk about the weather.

You're supposed to be happy to see your dead loved one again. Or you're supposed to be unhappy. Or you're supposed to be indifferent. Or some other option that makes sense, and which you can sort out, remotely, at all.

Johannes makes a concerted study of the bottom of his glass, like it's become suddenly interesting. "What are you looking to hear from me?" he says. "I'm sorry? I think I may have made a poor choice or two somewhere along the line? In retrospect I might like the chance to reconsider one or two of those decisions? What else do you think I'm going to say? 'I've got my soul back, so really, overall I think I came out ahead there?"

He takes another drink and transfers his attention to the cobblestones. "Look, I know it hasn't been--long for you, but--" he trails off, not sure where to go with that. Lovely. A heart-to-heart. Just what he needed. I'm alive, you're alive, can't we just...? But clearly they can't.

Johannes sighs and re-starts, "If you're worried that I've been on a merry campaign of mass murder and soul-stealing since you've been gone, I can assure you it's not the case."

Horst shakes his head. "It says everything about you," he sighs sourly, "that you always assume I do these things to punish you, or to put you in your place in some kind of hierarchy. I know it's hard for you to imagine, but I did not, in fact, kill myself just to spite you."

Nonetheless, this is as forthcoming and out of his element as Johannes ever usually gets. That's not lost on Horst -- and somehow his anger doesn't feel as crisp as it did, not when he looks at Johannes, actually looks at him. He just feels . . . he doesn't know. He misses feeling like there isn't a deep gulf in the earth between them, even when they're centimeters apart.

Horst looks down at his own hands. "How did you get your soul back? I can't imagine you found a hundredth soul stuffed down between the sofa cushions."

There are some things there's no use in trying to phrase in a flattering manner to oneself. It's like trying to break certain sorts of news to one's mother: no amount of careful well, Mother... makes failing marks look any better. So Johannes just puts his forehead in his hand and says after a moment, matter-of-factly, "His Infernal Majesty didn't have any use for it. I threatened to destroy the remaining ninety-nine and he had a good laugh and gave it back; evidently he's had a good time with the girl and all but, well, she's been around a bit, and he's had better. He called it 'tawdry.' Something about how I'm more use to him left to my own devices. My own campaigns of mass murder and soul-stealing, that is."

At least he isn't trying to make it sound like he did something clever, Johannes thinks, wearily--aren't you terribly proud of him. "Oh, and he said there was no use, I'm always 'whoring myself out' to the Devil with or without his particular help."

He squints down at the bottom of his glass. "If it's any consolation, Horst, I don't disagree," he says. "Satanic whim, to answer your question. People--things like that, they don't give a whit for my soul, or yours, or Miss Barrow's. If you were hoping for some sort of metaphysical sword of Damocles to take off my head," he shrugs, "I'm afraid it was content seeing us squirm."

He does not sound terribly triumphant.

Edited (GRAMMAR AND I ARE FRIENDS OKAY) 2013-02-24 19:27 (UTC)

Horst feels his heart seem to deflate in his chest with a small, painful flop. He can hear the exhaustion, the resignation in Johannes's voice, and he thinks: it really has been a year for him, hasn't it? He never sounds this insecure, this lost, when he's got someone to comfort him. This is how he sounds when he's locked himself away alone too long with his research. With his fear. With his guilt.

Horst rests a hand on his shoulder. "That was the Sword of Damocles that fell on you after all," he argues softly. "It was always the game. He didn't want to see you squirm. He wanted to destroy you by showing you your own irrelevance. The joke wasn't the game, it was the surprise ending."

He has the urge to gather Johannes in his arms, to stroke his hair and soothe him like a bullied child. Johannes, unfortunately, is not most bullied children. That sort of thing will never work for him. Instead, Horst forces himself to look manfully off into the street.

"There's no one I know who holds life more precious than you, Johannes. But the one thing you never figured out -- the one thing that I think was harder for you to believe in than the damned ridiculous idea that death was conquerable -- is that it's never too late to change your tune. You only get one life. You don't have to bury yourself in it from age ten."

"Is that the sound of Horst Cabal trying to turn something into a valuable lesson I hear?" speculates Johannes with a sidelong glower, downing half his water like it's the beer he ordered at the pub. "Why, I do believe it is. Goodness. I don't ever know what I'd do without valuable lessons." He leans back on the steps by his elbows. "No, no, don't let me interrupt you. Do go on showing me the error of my ways, lieber Bruder."

That tactic, unfortunately, the candid advice addressing Johannes's own stubbornness, tends to be little more effective at changing Johannes's behavior than hugs. It's hard to say what is effective at changing his behavior. No one seems to have discovered that method. That's sort of the problem, unfortunately.

A year has passed, however, he's nine-and-twenty, and perhaps last year he might've left it at that. Now he glances back up at the unfamiliar stars and considers. "You'd be surprised," he says, "at how often I've changed my mind."

He sits up again. "This is unproductive," he mutters and sets the glass down, taking his feet. "Come on. Let's have ourselves a look at the prison walls, see if we can't find ourselves a door."

Count on Johannes to always, always boil any reassurance down to a reminder that he's somewhat less than perfect, and a recollection of all his old resentment for his elder sibling. But there's something new this time, a new hesitation, and a timidly ventured, "You'd be surprised," and maybe -- just maybe -- something's changed.

It's a start, anyway. And if there's one thing Horst knows, it's that getting through to Johannes Cabal takes both time and a truly saintly amount of patience.

Time and patience, he has in spades.

Horst gets to his feet, taking a few seconds to dust off the back of his trousers and check them for stains. "Johannes," he says, waiting till his brother looks back. He raises one eyebrow with a wry, intimidating smile. "Don't turn your back on me."

The handprint on Johannes's cheek has faded, for the most part, though the pinkish outline remains. He rubs at it anyway with the back of his hand and thinks of sunlight, and a graveyard, and a purple velvet coat. "I wouldn't dream of it," he says with no small degree of bitter irony.

But he waits for his brother to catch up with him anyway before he sets off--not in any particular direction, mind. In truth, Johannes is completely lost when it comes to Taxon. He's studied the 'map' to the best of his ability on his wristwatch: this just means he gets the sense he's supposed to not be lost. That doesn't help matters, mind.

When they reach the top of a hill he frowns. "I don't suppose we'd be lucky enough for that sea to have another side," he observes of the sprawling dark water and the blank horizon. "How picturesque. Is that a lighthouse?" Johannes pushes his hand back through his hair in mild exasperation. If there's one thing that irritates him in dimensional simulacra, it's architecture without any particular logic to it. "Why would there be a lighthouse?"

Horst has spent some time along this very rocky coastline before, staring up at the weird, ugly grayish structure interrupting the sky. He prefers the look of the sea. False or real, it's a reminder of what it was like to live in a wide open world, once.

(He'd always wanted to see it; he'd considered running away with a theater troupe, a carnival, an Egyptian expedition. But there had always been something Father needed help with during the summer, some life event coming the next year that Mother had wanted to see him accomplish. Some sport championship the boys were counting on him to be involved with. Some girl he was seeing. Johannes isn't the only one who's wasted some of his life finding excuses not to reach for opportunities.)

"I don't know," he says, "on either count. I haven't been close enough to know for sure. I haven't seen any ships far enough out on the water that they'd run a risk of running aground or coming in amongst the rocks. There's an air field near my house, the other way -- but I haven't been able to find anyone at night who'll charter a flight up in the dark. I'm not even sure it's operational."

He looks between Johannes and the sea, a stiff wind blowing the water into choppy, shifting fragments. "Are you cold? I can go back for a coat."

"I'll survive," says Johannes evenly, only managing to leave off a sarcastic --Mother as a concession to maturity and something of an olive branch. He has no doubt that Horst is still unhappy with him, of course; it's just the way of elder siblings to fuss over fetching you a coat while still managing to be unhappy with you. Neither of these things are surprising, exactly, but: brothers.

It is a little chilly, but not so much chillier than the climate Johannes left. He frowns at the odd white building and sets off again at a brisk walk towards it with his hands in his pockets. However, he casts a glance over his shoulder in the direction Horst indicates as the airfield. "I was in the air about eight hours ago," he says. "I'm not terribly desirous of returning. Do you know, I had to learn how to fly one of those things?"

Horst stares at him for a few very long minutes, trying to make sense of that. Then he pulls a face, half befuddlement and half wild amusement. "You know, I tried to work that out in my head just now, I really did -- how on Earth learning to fly an airship could be related to necromancy. But you have me there, Johannes. Alright, alright, I give. Why did you have to learn to fly an airship?"

Horst follows along behind him to the base of the Lighthouse. It's no more attractive close up.

The face Johannes makes in turn seems to emphasize how thrilled he is to discuss his abilities as a pilot. "An entomopter," he grinds out after a moment, in the service of accuracy. "I learned to a fly an entomopter, to be exact. You know, the small ones, they go--" He makes a few motions with his fingers to represent the propellers of an automated entomopter, which end up inadvertently looking like he's directing the universal gesture for 'crazy' in the lighthouse's direction.

He sighs. In for a penny--"It turns out that an airship," he says, "is considerably more technical. But I'm here, aren't I," he punctuates it sourly, and that's the end of it. "Miss Barrow sends her regards," he adds, as if Leonie Barrow is in the habit of passing her best wishes along to her worst enemy's deceased brother.

Horst nods, nonplussed. "I take it you learned to fly -- " The word comes a bit awkwardly on his tongue -- "an entomopter -- but failed to learn to fly an airship? But still for no apparent reason that you care to mention. My mysterious brother."

He paces a bit, laying his hand against the side of the Lighthouse wall for something to do, mainly to pretend they're still doing what Johannes wanted to do, and not having an Important Conversation. "Miss Barrow. The damned woman?" he asks, using the word in the sense of 'condemned,' not 'confounded.' He thinks about that one for a bit. "Followed you, did she? I can't imagine it the other way around. You like to put a lot of distance between yourself and your mistakes, don't you?"

"It's where I prefer them," Johannes says, snippy. He has a bit of a groundhog's approach to guilt, even he's aware. When confronted, dig deeper.

He tilts his head up at the eerie white expanse of the lighthouse. It's ugly to his turn-of-the-century eye, to be sure, but it's a fascinating sort of ugly that reminds him of things he's seen described in books he's read. And not novels or travelogues, either. Sunken cities, alien cities, places he's never been and never cares to visit. It has occurred to them that they might be in one of them, but this place is a bit... orderly, for that. It sort of reminds him of Geneva. Sarnath probably wouldn't remind him of Geneva.

Distractions. Useful things. "Yes, the damned woman. I gave the damned woman back her damned soul, you know," not so much using the word in the sense of 'condemned' except perhaps in strictly literal terms. "I gave them all back. It was a bluff. To the damned Devil. Do you know, she intended to turn me in," he says with disgust, not necessarily with Leonie Barrow. "I had no idea some of those laws were on the books anywhere. She certainly did. I didn't kill her," he appends in what is perhaps the most suspicious disclaimer that ever seemed perfectly natural to Johannes Cabal. "Quite the opposite. Are we done accounting for what I've been up to on my holidays, Horst?"

Horst ignores this last question. He's in that habit, from having known Johannes so long: he just tunes out his little brother's attempts to shut down conversations with his little digs. Johannes is addicted to snide comments.

"And just what is quite the opposite of killing someone, from a necromancer's perspective?" he wonders aloud, his mind wandering a bit, as it tends to do. "Did you return Miss Barrow from the dead? Give birth to her? Did you duel her and delope? Your notions of semantics really are fascinating sometimes, little brother. I could ponder that one all evening."

But half a beat later, showing no deference to conversational graces as he usually might, he turns back to his brother and stops still, all the humor gone as quickly as it had been pasted on. "'You gave them all back.' Johannes. Did you do something selfless?"

Progress or no progress, some conversational quarry is not so easy as that. Johannes stretches his arms behind his neck and cracks his knuckles. "Does anyone really ever do anything 'selfless?'" he says in tones suspiciously philosophical, considering he's never been given to contemplating the theories of David Hume prior to this particular moment. Johannes may not actually recall which one Hume is, come to think of it. That would be typical.

He leans back against the white wall of the lighthouse and half-expects it to fry him alive or else transport him to some distant plane. It does not. He supposes, in a detached way, that he should be relieved. "I sorted it out. You know I never set upon a damned thing I can't win," he informs Horst. Then, with a smile without warmth: "Except when it comes to vampires, it would seem."

Johannes left his cane leaning against Horst's (obsolete) dinner table and his spectacles are folded up and tucked into his pocket. But for that, he looks more or less as the same as he did this morning on the Princess Hortense. The only signs to the contrary are some wrinkles in his suit jacket, the faint handprint on his face, and of course, the rate of his ever-beating human heart. "We should go," he says. "You look hungry."

Brotherhood is a complicated thing. Family... family is complicated. Things would all be so much simpler if Johannes would just volunteer deeply pertinent information like I had second thoughts about condemning innocent souls to eternal torment and decided not to go through with it. If Johannes were able to talk about his misdeeds and missteps in tones other than just defensiveness and blithe disregard, if he were able to just say I'm sorry without acting like 'sorry' was a form of profanity, he wouldn't have so much difficulty getting on with people. Most people don't have the familiarity with Johannes that Horst does, to be able to recognize his brother's avoidance tactics, or the self-protective mechanisms of his personality. They can't possibly understand him.

But then again, maybe Horst doesn't really want Johannes to learn how to get on with people after all, deep down. Maybe there's a part of him that's always liked knowing he understands Johannes better than anyone else can, a part that likes knowing he's his brother's only loyal defender. After all, it's the nature of older siblings to be protective of younger ones.

God, he doesn't know what to do with Johannes, no more than he did the last time.

I need to feed, he notices Johannes's reminder suddenly, and the hammering of his heart. Yes. "Yes, I'm hungry."

Horst blurs around to stand in front of his brother again, idly watching the pulsepoint of his throat without realizing he's doing it.

I don't know what I'm going to do with you, he wants to say. You can stay for the night, but I still haven't decided. One belated attempt to make things right doesn't undo all the things you did, you know. But I know you're sorry for what you did, even if you don't say it. And it means a great deal to know you did something to try and be a better person somehow.

Johannes, I'm glad you got your soul back. Everyone deserves the chance to care for their own spiritual well-being.

He doesn't say any of that.

Instead he says, "Let's go home," and before Johannes can protest, Horst enfolds him in a full, strong embrace.

I'm glad you're still alive. I'm glad you're here. I love you.

Horst Cabal really is terrible at holding a grudge.

It's been some years since Johannes Cabal has returned a hug from anyone but his mother and father, probably not since he was six or seven and skinned his knee or bent one of his toy men out of shape. He was never an affectionate young man. He freezes and might have indeed stood uncomfortably still through the whole experience, wondering when it was going to be over, if he didn't have the fresh memory of Horst snarling to his face: why aren't you in Hell? And the less fresh one, too, of ash all over a velvet suit.

He supposes--he supposes he can spare an embrace for his dead brother. For his brother. So he awkwardly braces his arm around Horst's back too and says over his shoulder, "Let me go, Horst," like he did earlier, not really meaning it. Horst doesn't. Johannes doesn't really expect him to.

Horst is correct: brotherhood and family are complicated. Much more complicated than Johannes can properly articulate to himself, now or ever. He shuts his eyes for a moment and thinks of saying something flip, like, Well, now that we've established we're both alive and you're probably not going to try and fix that again, I think we can-- But Horst is still very cold in the winter air. Whatever's going on, that isn't quite true.

Johannes glances up at the unnerving light from the lighthouse and curls his fingers in the shoulder of his brother's waistcoat in a tight, brief grip. He lets go again in a moment. "Come on," he mumbles under his breath. "Dawn's going to come eventually."

Edited 2013-02-25 06:55 (UTC)

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[location: Central | closed thread] with many a winding turn

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