[Mello's been pacing for going on an hour now; situations where he can do almost nothing to help are few and far-between, and this is L on the line. L. The man who had kept him going even after he'd died, the man whose image is burned into Mello's mind as both a hero and bleeding idol.]
[The stress and anger are visible on his features; his skin is paler than usual from a lack of eating and sleep. Regardless of what he's been told, Mello doesn't believe for a second that anyone present has L's best interest in mind. He's valuable; why else would they all be so determined to help him?]
Oi.
[He has to take it out on someone, doesn't he? Everyone, optimally.]
They're not fixing him; everyone keeps saying that they're trying to fucking help and he's still out.
[He glances anxiously to where L sleeps. He looks positively dead, and it's doing Mello's head in, in ways no one here can possibly understand.]
[No, he doesn't recognize you, and it doesn't matter. Because everyone is here to do something about it, aren't they? Which makes Myr both a potential asset and a suspect. Mello's eyes are fire; his posture is tense and ready to burn this place down with everyone in it if this situation isn't resolved soon.]
[Helplessness has never suited him. And it shows.]
[Where a Witch was almost useless, a Faun--a blind Faun, at that--might fairly be even more so, yet that hasn't kept Myr from Linden's bedside. There are menial tasks even he can do to care for someone comatose; there are innumerable little items of upkeep a house needs that Adeline can't be expected to do all by herself. (He has not yet asked why she's here or what she knows or whether she's been charmed. It doesn't seem the moment for it.)
And, when the allure of mere busyness grows thin, there is prayer. He has his antlered head down now even as Mello interrupts, his interlaced fingers folded beneath his chin. Focused on invoking the Maker as he is, he--
--is still painfully attuned to the smallest sounds in the world around him, because any of them might mean Linden's waking up (or getting worse). He breathes out slowly, not letting himself be chivvied along to that final word with his Creator; it takes him a solid thirty seconds more to lift his head and respond,]
There's only so far healing magic can push things. Hurt as bad as he was, we ought to expect he'll be under longer as he mends. Waking him won't hasten the process.
[Even if Myr very dearly wishes Linden would wake, and speak, and prove his marvelous mind had taken no permanent hurt.
He simply has to hope that's in the offing, else despair will eat him hollower with every hour that ticks by without Linden stirring. Those who didn't awaken after so long often couldn't... ]
I'd suspect it's the same anywhere--or do you come from somewhere they can awaken the unconscious in hours?
[Too well he understands how helplessness can gnaw, and whether or not he likes this fellow, he can sympathize and play distraction.]
[Oh, Mello's scowl is for the ages. He's learned long ago — before and after the world collapsed and rose anew around him — that prayer does nothing. He's prayed so hard that his forehead has gone red with abrasions from cheap carpeting; prayed hard enough that the rosary which still hangs around his neck has dug near-bloody indentations in his palms. He's prayed and raged hard enough to crumble kingdoms, and it never did him any good. A waste of time: L was taken down by their Enemy, and to see someone putting faith in something so futile is both painful and enraging to witness.]
[His teeth are digging into the inside of his bottom lip; his voice is hoarse from nothing short of desperation.]
There's so much magic here. [Within himself. Within the world. He hates that he's not strong enough to fix this.] It's bullshit that we can't do anything — there has to be a way.
[There's always a way. And he's eyeing Myr with an accusatory curiosity; what is he to L? Why does his pain run so deeply? He wasn't fourteen fucking years old sitting at the detective's feet, seeing all of the knowledge of the world contained behind those large eyes, confident that he would be his successor.]
[None of them were. No one here.]
Your mouth isn't doing him any favors.
[To be fair, neither is Mello's, but he's always been shit at containing his outrage when things don't go his way. He clenches his fists, exhales a hard breath in frustration.] I'm from the same place as him; nothing can just pull someone out of a coma.
[Bitter.]
But we're not there. There has to be someone powerful enough. Something. We need to find it.
[As he's moving to the other side of L where Myr resides. Mello can't fucking look at this. It tears at something that has never truly healed over. His swallow is audible as he takes stock of L's position, his expressionless face. Death in life; what if his mentor is doomed to remain this way forever? What if he doesn't wake up?]
[That's interesting--that's something confirmed that Linden had been so dodgy with on their first and fateful meeting: His world did lack nagic. Or, if it had it, it didn't have it to the extent anyone might be knowledgeable of its rules...
Which, fairly, not even everyone on Thedas was.]
There might be something, [he says, keeping his tone level and passing kind by force of will alone,] that magic can do; but it has its own rules, and the principle one here in Talam is that it all comes at a price. The cost might be higher than anyone with the ability might willingly pay.
[He rises from where he's sitting as he hears the other fellow come round, to put himself on more even footing. Dealing with someone so utterly bristling--even when Myr would do it kindly--always feels a little like a fight and he can't fight sitting down.]
Or they might tell us exactly what the other healers have said: It's on him now to come out of this. [More quietly,] I've faith he can. He seems to exist by the force of his own will alone.
[Somewhere while listening to Myr speak, Mello has made his way with the slow, careful steps of a sneaking child to the other side of L. A knee touches the floor — both — and he's quiet long enough to process the information he's been given and come to a conclusion that only someone who refuses to give in would reach.]
[Eyes like glass focus on his mentor's face, his hands itch to grab at his arm. But Mello doesn't. There's only so much weakness he can show in the presence of another. Despite his distaste for the act, the instinct to ask Myr that they pray together is strong enough that it sits on the tip of his tongue, threatening to spill.]
[But instead — ]
Mmno. [Eternal denial.] Everyone has a price. The key is to find someone who's willing to sell.
[Everyone wants — no, needs — something.]
Existing isn't the same as living, [He mutters with the weight of a thousand deaths on his shoulders.] He can very well exist in this state forever.
[What a hideously cynical and reductive view of mankind, one that somehow doesn't surprise Myr at all. (For which bit of cynicism he ought himself to repent; he hardly knows this man, hasn't even got a name for him. Just a perception of desperate worry for Linden to match Myr's own.
If asked, he'd join Mello in prayer without hesitation.)
He breathes out a noise like a laugh.] I'd be interested to meet the mage who'd let you purchase her death from her, if that's what it took.
Mm. [Myr has no compunction about showing his too-soft heart to others--but he does have one about touching those he's fond of where someone might see and recognize any degree of fondness inappropriate to a Circle mage. That's why he drifts closer to the bed (direction and number of steps from that wall both long-since memorized) and reaches down to hover his hand just shy of Linden's hand. Wanting contact--trained against it--not even sure he deserves it any longer, if he's the one who's condemned Linden to that existence.] He could--but I doubt he will,
[By which he wishes he meant only surety Linden would wake and not that he'd rather be dead and they all of them ought to honor that wish.]
Not for very much longer. And you've come to that conclusion already, have you? Because the Maker Himself hasn't intervened to set things right?
[Never mind how very far Myr is from home; his own doubts are all the easier to bury in the face of outside opposition.
For all that he keeps his tone--mostly--level, keeps it kind. Return patience for provocation, compassion for cruelty...]
[All individuals operate differently — Mello has always been aware of this — and to think that anyone would share the desperate mindset of someone they'd never met before this moment is absurd. The laugh near-enrages him — of course it does — but if nothing else, even if this individual did have a hand in causing this, he's clearly mourning something. (Even if that 'something' can't possibly hold the ability to compare to a boy grown into a man witnessing the loss of something he's lost so long ago. A waking nightmare; a repetitive dream with no glitch point from which to end.]
Then we give them no choice.
[Isn't that obvious? If someone isn't willing to negotiate, you are to force their hand as they've forced yours with denial.]
What fucking Maker, [He snaps, perhaps out of annoyance. Perhaps it's due to his own wish that he could hold some form of faith that would allow Mello to believe something this catastrophic would work itself out. It occurs to the blonde that he and Myr aren't from the same place. Perhaps for the other, there is a tangible 'Maker." Maybe it's just another word for a God who has proven Himself non-existent by refusing to answer a single prayer.]
Don't answer that.
[He's thinking in circles. He wants hope. He needs hope. He doesn't care for an answer. Nothing will subdue him aside from those dark, long lashes fluttering open and a single sound from L's throat.]
[He closes his eyes, runs a hand over his face. He's taken note that the other can't see him — through his appearance, through his lack of response to most of Mello's movements — and Mello is grateful for it. No one should see the state of his expression. It's weak. A child's desperate insistence on a killer's face and oh, if Myr only knew what the body lying before them meant to Mello.]
[Who cares. Doesn't matter.]
He's still human. [Magic be damned.] He can't eat like this. [State the obvious, focus on the small things.] What's being done to ensure he doesn't starve?
[There's steel behind the words, final as a sword-cut; Myr's assessment of the man across from him is rearranged for the worse on the instant. Kind and trusting as the Faun's accustomed to being, there are some things--discussed in the actual, with intent--that he knows for warning sighs. This fellow would bear monitoring--a knight-enchanter could do no less with knowledge of that threat.]
We don't compel the innocent to pay prices we wouldn't ourselves. You're a Witch,
[Buy him back with your own life, if you'd murder for him.
Myr--might, such is the state he's in over this, such is his guilt, but doing that would come with its share of equal guilt for abandoning a post he'd pledged himself to not two days before. As long as we will it, he'd promised Everett; there wasn't a suicide clause in that.]
He's been given broth and water, as much as he can take. The Coven's also spells for maintaining one unconscious without risking choking them. You might learn those, too.
[Truly, transferring him to hospital might've been the better choice in this case, but there were so few empty beds there after the chaos of the mist--and Adeline would not leave the home easily, nor let Linden and his Bonded from her care--and so... Here they are.]
[There is no we. Whichever code by which Myr operates, Mello seems to be on the opposite side of the spectrum. You do what you need to do in order to get things done, sacrifices be damned. If he'd ever stopped to consider who he was hurting during the process of getting what he wanted, Mello would simply have nothing at all.]
I am.
[A witch, and his tone mimics the biting reprimand — some things need not be spelled out for him — but Mello imagines how reckless L would find him if he were to sacrifice his own life to wake his mentor. The two of them already teeter on the edge of distrust — more so on L's side regarding his successor — and such an act? Would break whatever delicate bond Mello is slowly forming with the older man. What use is Mello to him if he shows no regard for his own life?]
[No. No, as tempting as it might be: it simply won't do.]
[As far as Myr is concerned? Mello doesn't trust nor agree with his standpoint on this. Anyone who gives a shit about L would do whatever it takes, so long as it doesn't jeopardize their own standing with the unconscious figure before them. What would break between Myr and L if a sacrifice were made to save him?]
At least those precautions have been taken.
[Flippant, dismissive. Mello is frankly disappointed and frustrated that more hasn't been done. He's frustrated that he simply doesn't hold the power to just fix this. The answer is simple: he needs to become as strong as possible. But right now, there's no time. Waking L holds importance above everything, and the amount of time it would take Mello to become that powerful is unacceptable.]
Listen to me.
[Grave. Insistent. Mello has no patience for opposition.]
I would burn the world to save him. [He wraps his fingers around the crook of his mentor's elbow. Can he feel him? Can he feel anything?] But not myself.
[His voice is near-hoarse with the confession.]
He would never forgive me. You wouldn't understand.
[Dearly and deeply as Myr loved those close to him, there were lines he would not cross for anyone--much as he would not expect anyone to cross them for him. To do so would forever pervert whatever positive bond they shared, turn any affection grasping and tainted by it. Look, I will render myself a monster, a sinner, a maleficarum for you was not an act of love or loyalty in his book. How could it be, if it diminished or destroyed the lover for his beloved's sake?
The point was to become better for one another. All else was a perversion.
It roils uncomfortably in his gut to realize Linden has someone like that devoted to him, someone who has twisted up inside for his sake.
He will not question the hows or whys of it now, simply take the facts as they've been offered him and think through them later.
Softly,] I'd hear you out on it even so.
[And understand a great deal more than you think.]
[Silence takes the place of an immediate response; there's something to be said for someone who is starkly against Mello's idea who would attempt to understand the situation regardless of their own views. It's respectable, and if Mello's head were in the right place at the moment, he would be able to acknowledge as much.]
[But it isn't. So he doesn't.]
[Instead he shakes his head, aware that the motion falls on useless eyes.]
I'll take care of it my own way.
[Stubborn thing that he is.]
[Because dead things have always remained dead, and life has been restored to someone who was long-gone by the time Mello found himself wandering in that forest that existed within a dream that wasn't a dream at all. L's arm is near-stiff beneath his hand, and he thinks that if he doesn't let go, Mello might die along with him.]
[So he does, but he can't tear his eyes away. He won't.]
[The question catches him off-guard. For all of his life after he went off on his own, Mello has been forced to hide any connection to L, play the part of an enemy against the title in order to infiltrate a criminal organization. He's had to hold his tongue at those L would see put in prison had he still been alive spit curses at the title, the unseen force that would see them all jailed if they took their activities too far.]
[But that was then, and this is now. A life left behind. A life born anew.]
[My idol. The only fucking person in this world I've ever cared about. An inspiration. A legacy. Something that turned my soul black when it disappeared.]
[But all that comes out is — ]
He's a father to me.
[The words escape his lips before he considers the gravity behind them.]
Take care, when you do. This world isn't like those we've come from.
[He will not threaten, nor make explicit that he would stand in Mello's way if he could, should the other man truly intend something akin to murder. This isn't the time for that argument, with a hideous grief thick between them; and besides, Myr's an inkling--given Linden--that his standing on that point here and now would not be an effective deterrent.
Given Linden. Something in that thought, something in He's a father to me breaks through Myr's hesitation at last and he reaches to touch fingers to Linden's wrist. To remind himself a pulse still beats there, that there's still warmth to that body that lies still as a corpse.
Maybe, maybe, something in the touch and the desperate worry that moves him to it will get through and call Linden back. Storybook reasoning, neither logical nor coherent, but what he'd beg the Maker for all the same.]
He's my dear friend. [The translation magic that makes them comprehensible to each other would not stutter over the word he uses, even though it's not in Common but in his father's tongue--Tevene intimus. Nearest and dearest, a brother of the heart.] And my responsibility as well, for all I put him here.
[Perhaps it's a good thing that Myr doesn't possess the ability to see; Mello's expression when the other lays his had on L is something positively murderous. It's temporary: a fleeting rise in rageful emotion that passes as quickly as it arrives. Mello has never known L's life — not really — and it would be absurd of him to assume that he's never possessed a single connection with another individual.]
[Myr's words are genuine, that much is an easy tell. He wishes L no ill-will. Whatever happened: it happened by accident and with Mello being the reckless thing that he is, he understands how these things can happen.]
[That doesn't, however, denote forgiveness.]
Take care of him, then.
[As though he's in any place to give orders. Mello's ego has always been larger than the earth, itself.]
I'm not leaving for a while.
[Read: deal with it. It will take everything Mello has to avoid curling up next to L in this bed while he lies lifeless and Mello takes the rest he's so needed since arriving here.]
Just know this:
[Maybe it's a threat; maybe it isn't.]
I'll do anything to keep him safe. If you prove to be a problem, you become my enemy.
He doesn't like that he did, doesn't like what it says about his fundamental and immediate negative view of the other man, but he knew the threat was coming before it was uttered.
There's something deliberate in the way he takes up Linden's hand, presses his friend's nerveless palm before setting it gently back on the bed.]
Perfectly, serah. [Oh, he understands.]
The feeling is mutual. I would do a great deal to protect him myself.
[It's said quietly, politely, to sound like agreement. Maybe it isn't even a threat.
Maybe it is. He may be a Monster in a world of Witches, he may appear unassuming and crippled, but he is not without recourse of his own.
Breathing out a low sigh, Myr turns away from Linden's bedside, to retreat to his vigil and prayers.]
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faithlikeaseed) wrote2019-08-01 12:00 am
[Backdated to Oct 15; L's house]
[The stress and anger are visible on his features; his skin is paler than usual from a lack of eating and sleep. Regardless of what he's been told, Mello doesn't believe for a second that anyone present has L's best interest in mind. He's valuable; why else would they all be so determined to help him?]
Oi.
[He has to take it out on someone, doesn't he? Everyone, optimally.]
They're not fixing him; everyone keeps saying that they're trying to fucking help and he's still out.
[He glances anxiously to where L sleeps. He looks positively dead, and it's doing Mello's head in, in ways no one here can possibly understand.]
[No, he doesn't recognize you, and it doesn't matter. Because everyone is here to do something about it, aren't they? Which makes Myr both a potential asset and a suspect. Mello's eyes are fire; his posture is tense and ready to burn this place down with everyone in it if this situation isn't resolved soon.]
[Helplessness has never suited him. And it shows.]
no subject
And, when the allure of mere busyness grows thin, there is prayer. He has his antlered head down now even as Mello interrupts, his interlaced fingers folded beneath his chin. Focused on invoking the Maker as he is, he--
--is still painfully attuned to the smallest sounds in the world around him, because any of them might mean Linden's waking up (or getting worse). He breathes out slowly, not letting himself be chivvied along to that final word with his Creator; it takes him a solid thirty seconds more to lift his head and respond,]
There's only so far healing magic can push things. Hurt as bad as he was, we ought to expect he'll be under longer as he mends. Waking him won't hasten the process.
[Even if Myr very dearly wishes Linden would wake, and speak, and prove his marvelous mind had taken no permanent hurt.
He simply has to hope that's in the offing, else despair will eat him hollower with every hour that ticks by without Linden stirring. Those who didn't awaken after so long often couldn't... ]
I'd suspect it's the same anywhere--or do you come from somewhere they can awaken the unconscious in hours?
[Too well he understands how helplessness can gnaw, and whether or not he likes this fellow, he can sympathize and play distraction.]
no subject
[His teeth are digging into the inside of his bottom lip; his voice is hoarse from nothing short of desperation.]
There's so much magic here. [Within himself. Within the world. He hates that he's not strong enough to fix this.] It's bullshit that we can't do anything — there has to be a way.
[There's always a way. And he's eyeing Myr with an accusatory curiosity; what is he to L? Why does his pain run so deeply? He wasn't fourteen fucking years old sitting at the detective's feet, seeing all of the knowledge of the world contained behind those large eyes, confident that he would be his successor.]
[None of them were. No one here.]
Your mouth isn't doing him any favors.
[To be fair, neither is Mello's, but he's always been shit at containing his outrage when things don't go his way. He clenches his fists, exhales a hard breath in frustration.] I'm from the same place as him; nothing can just pull someone out of a coma.
[Bitter.]
But we're not there. There has to be someone powerful enough. Something. We need to find it.
[As he's moving to the other side of L where Myr resides. Mello can't fucking look at this. It tears at something that has never truly healed over. His swallow is audible as he takes stock of L's position, his expressionless face. Death in life; what if his mentor is doomed to remain this way forever? What if he doesn't wake up?]
We can't just give up.
[The idea is offensive.]
no subject
Which, fairly, not even everyone on Thedas was.]
There might be something, [he says, keeping his tone level and passing kind by force of will alone,] that magic can do; but it has its own rules, and the principle one here in Talam is that it all comes at a price. The cost might be higher than anyone with the ability might willingly pay.
[He rises from where he's sitting as he hears the other fellow come round, to put himself on more even footing. Dealing with someone so utterly bristling--even when Myr would do it kindly--always feels a little like a fight and he can't fight sitting down.]
Or they might tell us exactly what the other healers have said: It's on him now to come out of this. [More quietly,] I've faith he can. He seems to exist by the force of his own will alone.
no subject
[Eyes like glass focus on his mentor's face, his hands itch to grab at his arm. But Mello doesn't. There's only so much weakness he can show in the presence of another. Despite his distaste for the act, the instinct to ask Myr that they pray together is strong enough that it sits on the tip of his tongue, threatening to spill.]
[But instead — ]
Mmno. [Eternal denial.] Everyone has a price. The key is to find someone who's willing to sell.
[Everyone wants — no, needs — something.]
Existing isn't the same as living, [He mutters with the weight of a thousand deaths on his shoulders.] He can very well exist in this state forever.
[Now, a with a bit of cruelty.]
Your prayers are useless.
no subject
If asked, he'd join Mello in prayer without hesitation.)
He breathes out a noise like a laugh.] I'd be interested to meet the mage who'd let you purchase her death from her, if that's what it took.
Mm. [Myr has no compunction about showing his too-soft heart to others--but he does have one about touching those he's fond of where someone might see and recognize any degree of fondness inappropriate to a Circle mage. That's why he drifts closer to the bed (direction and number of steps from that wall both long-since memorized) and reaches down to hover his hand just shy of Linden's hand. Wanting contact--trained against it--not even sure he deserves it any longer, if he's the one who's condemned Linden to that existence.] He could--but I doubt he will,
[By which he wishes he meant only surety Linden would wake and not that he'd rather be dead and they all of them ought to honor that wish.]
Not for very much longer. And you've come to that conclusion already, have you? Because the Maker Himself hasn't intervened to set things right?
[Never mind how very far Myr is from home; his own doubts are all the easier to bury in the face of outside opposition.
For all that he keeps his tone--mostly--level, keeps it kind. Return patience for provocation, compassion for cruelty...]
no subject
Then we give them no choice.
[Isn't that obvious? If someone isn't willing to negotiate, you are to force their hand as they've forced yours with denial.]
What fucking Maker, [He snaps, perhaps out of annoyance. Perhaps it's due to his own wish that he could hold some form of faith that would allow Mello to believe something this catastrophic would work itself out. It occurs to the blonde that he and Myr aren't from the same place. Perhaps for the other, there is a tangible 'Maker." Maybe it's just another word for a God who has proven Himself non-existent by refusing to answer a single prayer.]
Don't answer that.
[He's thinking in circles. He wants hope. He needs hope. He doesn't care for an answer. Nothing will subdue him aside from those dark, long lashes fluttering open and a single sound from L's throat.]
[He closes his eyes, runs a hand over his face. He's taken note that the other can't see him — through his appearance, through his lack of response to most of Mello's movements — and Mello is grateful for it. No one should see the state of his expression. It's weak. A child's desperate insistence on a killer's face and oh, if Myr only knew what the body lying before them meant to Mello.]
[Who cares. Doesn't matter.]
He's still human. [Magic be damned.] He can't eat like this. [State the obvious, focus on the small things.] What's being done to ensure he doesn't starve?
[L is already so thin and frail.]
no subject
[There's steel behind the words, final as a sword-cut; Myr's assessment of the man across from him is rearranged for the worse on the instant. Kind and trusting as the Faun's accustomed to being, there are some things--discussed in the actual, with intent--that he knows for warning sighs. This fellow would bear monitoring--a knight-enchanter could do no less with knowledge of that threat.]
We don't compel the innocent to pay prices we wouldn't ourselves. You're a Witch,
[Buy him back with your own life, if you'd murder for him.
Myr--might, such is the state he's in over this, such is his guilt, but doing that would come with its share of equal guilt for abandoning a post he'd pledged himself to not two days before. As long as we will it, he'd promised Everett; there wasn't a suicide clause in that.]
He's been given broth and water, as much as he can take. The Coven's also spells for maintaining one unconscious without risking choking them. You might learn those, too.
[Truly, transferring him to hospital might've been the better choice in this case, but there were so few empty beds there after the chaos of the mist--and Adeline would not leave the home easily, nor let Linden and his Bonded from her care--and so... Here they are.]
no subject
I am.
[A witch, and his tone mimics the biting reprimand — some things need not be spelled out for him — but Mello imagines how reckless L would find him if he were to sacrifice his own life to wake his mentor. The two of them already teeter on the edge of distrust — more so on L's side regarding his successor — and such an act? Would break whatever delicate bond Mello is slowly forming with the older man. What use is Mello to him if he shows no regard for his own life?]
[No. No, as tempting as it might be: it simply won't do.]
[As far as Myr is concerned? Mello doesn't trust nor agree with his standpoint on this. Anyone who gives a shit about L would do whatever it takes, so long as it doesn't jeopardize their own standing with the unconscious figure before them. What would break between Myr and L if a sacrifice were made to save him?]
At least those precautions have been taken.
[Flippant, dismissive. Mello is frankly disappointed and frustrated that more hasn't been done. He's frustrated that he simply doesn't hold the power to just fix this. The answer is simple: he needs to become as strong as possible. But right now, there's no time. Waking L holds importance above everything, and the amount of time it would take Mello to become that powerful is unacceptable.]
Listen to me.
[Grave. Insistent. Mello has no patience for opposition.]
I would burn the world to save him. [He wraps his fingers around the crook of his mentor's elbow. Can he feel him? Can he feel anything?] But not myself.
[His voice is near-hoarse with the confession.]
He would never forgive me. You wouldn't understand.
no subject
The point was to become better for one another. All else was a perversion.
It roils uncomfortably in his gut to realize Linden has someone like that devoted to him, someone who has twisted up inside for his sake.
He will not question the hows or whys of it now, simply take the facts as they've been offered him and think through them later.
Softly,] I'd hear you out on it even so.
[And understand a great deal more than you think.]
Who is he to you?
no subject
[But it isn't. So he doesn't.]
[Instead he shakes his head, aware that the motion falls on useless eyes.]
I'll take care of it my own way.
[Stubborn thing that he is.]
[Because dead things have always remained dead, and life has been restored to someone who was long-gone by the time Mello found himself wandering in that forest that existed within a dream that wasn't a dream at all. L's arm is near-stiff beneath his hand, and he thinks that if he doesn't let go, Mello might die along with him.]
[So he does, but he can't tear his eyes away. He won't.]
[The question catches him off-guard. For all of his life after he went off on his own, Mello has been forced to hide any connection to L, play the part of an enemy against the title in order to infiltrate a criminal organization. He's had to hold his tongue at those L would see put in prison had he still been alive spit curses at the title, the unseen force that would see them all jailed if they took their activities too far.]
[But that was then, and this is now. A life left behind. A life born anew.]
[My idol. The only fucking person in this world I've ever cared about. An inspiration. A legacy. Something that turned my soul black when it disappeared.]
[But all that comes out is — ]
He's a father to me.
[The words escape his lips before he considers the gravity behind them.]
And my responsibility.
no subject
[He will not threaten, nor make explicit that he would stand in Mello's way if he could, should the other man truly intend something akin to murder. This isn't the time for that argument, with a hideous grief thick between them; and besides, Myr's an inkling--given Linden--that his standing on that point here and now would not be an effective deterrent.
Given Linden. Something in that thought, something in He's a father to me breaks through Myr's hesitation at last and he reaches to touch fingers to Linden's wrist. To remind himself a pulse still beats there, that there's still warmth to that body that lies still as a corpse.
Maybe, maybe, something in the touch and the desperate worry that moves him to it will get through and call Linden back. Storybook reasoning, neither logical nor coherent, but what he'd beg the Maker for all the same.]
He's my dear friend. [The translation magic that makes them comprehensible to each other would not stutter over the word he uses, even though it's not in Common but in his father's tongue--Tevene intimus. Nearest and dearest, a brother of the heart.] And my responsibility as well, for all I put him here.
I am sorry.
no subject
[Myr's words are genuine, that much is an easy tell. He wishes L no ill-will. Whatever happened: it happened by accident and with Mello being the reckless thing that he is, he understands how these things can happen.]
[That doesn't, however, denote forgiveness.]
Take care of him, then.
[As though he's in any place to give orders. Mello's ego has always been larger than the earth, itself.]
I'm not leaving for a while.
[Read: deal with it. It will take everything Mello has to avoid curling up next to L in this bed while he lies lifeless and Mello takes the rest he's so needed since arriving here.]
Just know this:
[Maybe it's a threat; maybe it isn't.]
I'll do anything to keep him safe. If you prove to be a problem, you become my enemy.
[Blunt as it comes.]
Understand me?
no subject
He doesn't like that he did, doesn't like what it says about his fundamental and immediate negative view of the other man, but he knew the threat was coming before it was uttered.
There's something deliberate in the way he takes up Linden's hand, presses his friend's nerveless palm before setting it gently back on the bed.]
Perfectly, serah. [Oh, he understands.]
The feeling is mutual. I would do a great deal to protect him myself.
[It's said quietly, politely, to sound like agreement. Maybe it isn't even a threat.
Maybe it is. He may be a Monster in a world of Witches, he may appear unassuming and crippled, but he is not without recourse of his own.
Breathing out a low sigh, Myr turns away from Linden's bedside, to retreat to his vigil and prayers.]