@mercyunto said 〉 ❛ don’t tell me how to do my job . ❜
He’s struck a nerve. Roland looks up from the small table he’s seated himself at, hands stilling where they shuffle the cards atop the lacquered wood. It occurs to him, belatedly, that there was a time where such a realization would have cowed him into complacency, head hung low like a scolded dog whose muzzle has been struck back-handed. Mountains had never moved for Balthazar when they were young men — rather, Roland had taken it upon himself to move them for him. It was a task he had done gladly, eager to prove his worth, to prove that he was made of softer stuff than the grizzled, snarling loner the younger man had been forced into a haphazard partnership with.
Now all he can do is blink and cant his head to the side. The beaten hound cannot find it in him to cower under the weight of his transgressions; rather, he gazes up at his caretaker, a slight pinch to his brows as curiosity gleams in his eyes. It is one thing to relearn a man you once knew. It is another thing entirely to relearn a man whose grief has misshapen him into something crooked and different.
“Do it good an’ proper, then,” he grunts, looking back down at the playing cards grasped between his fingers. “Like we used to. We cared about the people we helped.” The deck has proven to be a surprisingly good tool to retrain his dexterity. He will sit in this room for hours for want of freedom, for lack of anything better to do with his time, the television droning on in the background as he shuffles the deck, deals the cards to no one, and gathers them up to shuffle ad infinitum. He used to be able to do tricks with them, he recalls. Could shuffle them from one hand to another, could find all manner of crafty ways to cut a deck. But that was a very long time ago.
There is some infomercial for a male virility supplement airing on the television, complete with scantily-clad women, bleached hair and flawless complexions beckoning with with sultry smiles. The world has changed quite a bit since he was first interred within it, though he looks upon the shift with something akin to indifference. There are times where he flips through the stations, the selection so much more robust than when he’d been alive, and will occasionally happen past some bombastic newsman griping about the downfall of polite society, the unraveling of the country’s moral fabric. There are times where the posturing makes him angry, though on other occasions it makes him laugh — is time not supposed to march on just because the stubborn will it to stagnate? Or better yet: who gives a fuck if “polite society” shits the bed?
“You used to scold me for that, y’know.” Roland shuffles the cards again, the edges snapping from the callused pads of his thumbs to intermix with the rest of the deck. “I was too crass with everyone, y’said. I was never as kind as you were. I always liked that, how gentle you could be with people. I liked watchin’ how you talked to ‘em. We all felt very safe with you once.”
He swipes a finger across his tongue and begins to deal the cards. “Was it worth it?” There is a quirk to his eyebrow when Roland glances up from his repetitive task. “This is a fine place you’ve built up here, darlin’. But I think two people died back then, an’ they’d be horrified by us now.”
He sets the deck on the table, then looks up properly. Y’can sit an’ play, if you want. I remember how the game goes.”
Mercifully, Balthazar directs his gaze at the wall. He stares at dark green wallpaper, so chosen to make the room feel claustrophobic, so chosen to squeeze him back out of it with its constricting walls and dark corners. He has never designed a space with comfort in mind. He must be a creature of motion, or rust where he rests. Especially in later years, when the injuries and ailments of his life began to catch up with him, when the patchwork of scar tissue that decorates his side started aching before each thunderstorm, Balthazar resigned himself to constant directed momentum. This room reflects it, and thus does not lend itself to the hideout he hoped it would become for them. In his high and mighty flights of fancy he imagined it as a refuge, where he can gently bring his creation to completion, where he can teach Roland what he needs to know, where they can, selfishly, rekindle the flame that has been so cruelly snuffed all those years ago.
But that is not how this story goes. Roland sits sullen and disapproving, shuffling his cards, and he jabs his finger into every bleeding wound. Balthazar is jarred by the realization of his own recklessness. He was so focused on the destination, he didn’t gauge the distance that needed bridging. Now he has to contend with an ignorant mouth spouting ignorant criticism, as if he had the right to comment, as if he was there when the choices were made that have led them both here.
What is worst is the utter indifference with which Roland adds insult to injury. He glances up, he lets his eyes roam. He skewers Balthazar’s life’s work with a careless comment and thinks nothing more of his transgression. He vowed patience and kindness and understanding, but they are elusive, those beasts, and he cannot harness them as readily as he once did. So what? He isn’t a young man anymore. He is old and he is tired.
A scoff snakes over his lips, contorts them into a malignant sneer as he looks back at the man he made, the man he dragged back from death’s domain. To think that this is the thanks he gets. To think that he may have been too late. Not for Roland, but for himself. There is a quiet fear that gnaws at his brainstem, murmuring about the possibility that it isn’t his partner who has changed so crudely, but himself. Maybe there was never anything to be gained— No, shut up. Focus.
“’Once’ is not now, Roland.” He refuses to repay like with like. He won’t flinch from the cruel form of address, kitschy and utterly inappropriate. Lord knows, he is not dear to anyone in this room tonight. “I am doing my job the way it needs to be done. I do what I have to. Nobody here needs me to hold their hand. Nobody needs me to hold them through their assorted sob stories. I am protecting my people the way I see fit and the way that is best. This ‘fine place’ is all that stands between us and annihilation and I won’t have you disparage my work without so much as looking me in the eye.”
He rounds the small sofa he has made his bed and approaches Roland, what masquerades with varying success as Roland, and tosses the TV magazine onto the low table. “You are being melodramatic for no reason. I didn’t die. I just grew up. And I learned my lesson. You cannot help if you care too much.”
There is no real use fighting with Roland. In part, Balthazar isn’t even sure if he understands what rage feels like, if he isn’t too muted and dulled down for that altogether. Nothing quite reaches behind those eyes, once very soulful, now hollow. He swallows his ire as best he can, even if his pride continues to cling to his teeth. Roland switches topics so suddenly, it’s liable to give him whiplash. Balthazar should adopt the correct persona, too. He is too easily agitated, too quick to jump at bait. That would never fly in the test chambers. He evens out his temper and lowers his voice:
“... How is your dexterity coming along? Show me, then I’ll play a round.”
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