poly_chromatic | ♦ ♦ 26th Contract

[ Anonymous Text/Unhackable ]

Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager managing an imaginary menagerie.

[ It reads like total gibberish. But it's a code -- recognizable to any soldier from his team in Heaven's War. If old faces (Amber, Pai, Carime) are here, at least they'll get the message. I'm here where you are. ]

Here we go again. It's a beautiful day in the neighbourhood. And the tourists are scattered out like maggots with half the brains. Even under 'new management', the City never changes.

As for me, I have time to kill. A ton of it. The City's a waiting room, and life here's a waiting game, but I'm getting good at it. Who would have imagined? Probably not those I knew before. But if they're not about to confirm or deny, I guess you'll have to take my word for it.

[ Come on, guys. Take the bait. Let him know you're here. ]

[ Options For Run-Ins: ]

[ ∰ Xanadu (Li): It's late evening, and the first stars twinkle in the sky. He's found a good spot on a grassy hill. A telescope rests on its stand beside him, a few small books and tools scattered nearby, along with the remains of a picnic on a checkered cloth under 'Li's reclining form: scraps of bread and cheese, a few tumbled apples, a thermos mostly empty of tea. Just an ordinary young man, out for a night of stargazing. ]

[ Come join him, why don't you? The skies couldn't be clearer. ]

[ ∰ Underground (Reaper): His clash with the six tusked demons has ended. The final monster has dropped -- decapitated, oozing blood. Masked and armed, Hei lies sprawled on the grime-slippery ground, not too far off, a blade still in his hand. The hilt feels hot, and molded to his gloved fingers. But it's quiet now, and that has to be good. He has a few scrapes and bruises that ache from the brawl, but it's nothing serious. The rest of his muscles are singing, the high-pitched song of the battle well-ended. ]

[ If you recognize the masked man, step forward -- carefully. If you don't? Keep your distance. ]

[OOC: Have at him, one and all. Just please be aware tags will be slow, so backtagging is mightily encouraged<33 ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ For a while, the food and the tinkling of flatware spin an atmosphere of almost-contentment. Hei keeps one arm slung loosely around Pai, navigating forkfuls into his mouth with the other. The fettucine looks like confetti, the dark chocolate cake spilling out a black goo of sweetness. But he barely tastes anything. Part of him is still waiting as if for an airlock to break open, for the butterflied anxiety of this reunion to turn to loss. ]

[ Swallowing, he focuses on Pai. She has a familiar look on her face. Calm and meditative, its secrecy echoed by the twin curves of her dipped eyelids, the eyelashes making shadowy crowns on her cheeks. ]

[ Setting his fork down, he tries to catch her eye. ]

What're you thinking?

[ Amusing, how that's what the lover in the story, the movie, always asks. Amber used to ask him that too, always with a lilt of humor. Every time, Hei would reply: You don't want to know. Unless you already do. ]

[She finishes off her sandwiches before speaking.]

I'm just taking everything in. [I'm not ready to talk about it yet, in other words. For all of their love, care, trust, mutual dependence, Hei has never been someone she bounces her ideas off of. He's too protective and controlling. If she doesn't come to him with a plan fully formed and ready to defend, he'll try to take over the whole thing. He'd rather risk failure than risk her.

She starts on her parfait.]

[ What Contractors lack in empathy, they make up for in perception. In Hei's case, as a human functioning under-the-radar with Contractors, he's learnt to develop both. Except he doesn't need his usual repertoire to catch facial tics or trains-of-thought. He knows, with a queasy stirring in his gut, that something is brewing in Pai's mind. He just isn't sure what. It's how it's always been between them -- siblings twined by bloodshed, but separated by a tangible wall -- emotionalism vs. logic. For all his inquisitions, all his desperate fumblings to catch her soaring comet... ]

[ Well. Like him, Pai has always had a mind of her own. ]

[ Instead of pressing for details, he takes up his fork again, finishing the colorful stuff on his plate. Watches Pai's hands, so small and delicate, their joints whiter than the surrounding skin. He stares at the dainty movements of her fingers, and thinks -- If I could freeze my consciousness at this point, this moment, after she's gone, maybe I'd survive the truth of it. Maybe everything would be okay. ]

[ Years of bullshitting other people. But he can't bullshit himself. ]

[She looks up at him when he doesn't say anything. The look on his face hurts. (Stupid, irrational, but he's always been her weakness.)

She leans over and feeds him a spoonful of her parfait -- an almost unthinkable act of generosity.]

Stop worrying. Everything will work out. [Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not soon. But nothing can keep them apart forever.]

[ There's a moment's reluctance, before he leans in and neatly accepts the spoonful. (He'd permit no one else to feed him this way. Not even as a joke. They'd find the spoon embedded in their eye-socket instead.) Everything will work out, she says. Terrible, that she should have to reassure him. Even with white-lies. That's supposed to be his job. The responsibility he'd charged himself with, to stand between her and all the monsters -- not with arms protectively crossed but with a monster's gaze of his own. Still, he doesn't rebuff her. Doesn't use any cliched, jaded aphorisms to invalidate her efforts. ]

[ She's here. Right now, that's all that matters. To absorb every iota of it, he has to cut the fears loose, let them float off unmoored so he can gain the cool relief of perspective. They'll float back when he's ready, but in the meantime there is reddish sunlight and the squishy sweetness of parfait and dainty Pai-hands and an entire City to show off. ]

[ He hesitates, before allowing his lips to curve. It's a full-on smile, meant exclusively for Pai, like he's never forgotten how to smile at all. ]

Finish your dessert. Then I'll show you the rest of the City.

[She loves that smile. Even if it's not true -- and she knows that it's not -- she appreciates the lie. His lies to her are a sign of love. Her lies to him are the same.]

Okay.

[The two parfaits are finished in half a heartbeat.]

[ Once she's done, and the bill's been paid, Hei slips out of the booth. He wants to say something. But it's as if fear is airborne and spreads through the spoken word. Admitting it, Hei feels, will enlarge it. He and Pai have fought in a war, hedged in by shrieks and explosions and gunfire every hour, to at least appreciate a moment of simple silence, and everything it can convey. ]

[ Gliding two steps ahead of her, his hand trails behind instinctively, the fingers opening in the empty air before catching hold of hers -- an old habit that's still imprinted in his muscle-memory. The mirrored door throws a bright ellipse of sunlight as he swings it open. Blinking the spots from his eyes, he scans the street before leading Pai out. ]

[ (When the Visitor Weekend ends, and she's gone, walking past this teashop will be hard. The street-corner will be a little easier. By the time Hei gets to his apartment, pulls up the welcome mat and locks the door, he'll know the worst is over. ]

[ (And a voice will speak up inside him, quiet and factual. So is the best.) ]

♦ ♦ 26th Contract

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