the minotaur (un)slain

"Let me tell you what I do know: I am more than one thing, and not all of those things are good."

[minotaur-unslain]

catalinaccarter‌:

If you told Catalina she’d fall for a disgraced lawyer, she’d laugh.

If you told her she’d be joining the circus where she’d meet said disgraced lawyer, and actually make friends and find self love within herself as well as a newfound independence, she’d really laugh.

And yet, here she was. It was hilarious, it was a dreadful. Dreadful because she was beginning to realize too much that her naivety wasn’t cute anymore, that she had to realize the world she was in was darker than she wanted to deal with and that she had signed her freedom away for the sake of science.

Hilarious, because, well. Her life was always a little funny.

Catalina didn’t know how to approach Jin for awhile. She didn’t like that she chose to lash out at him, she didn’t like that she couldn’t handle the truth so violently like that. But just when she had wanted to speak to him again, the bar happened in Shanghai. And then he hurt someone, or he killed someone, she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t… angry. Not at that, because who else would kill for her? Even if it wasn’t for her, even if it was for some other far off reason. She knew this messed up man had to care about her somehow for him to do that, right?

She was mostly shocked and traumatized in general from the whole night. But the icing on the cake was that she didn’t know how to approach him again. The fire was worse than the drowning, fire was more painful than the time she almost drowned. Drowning was terrifying but fire was too fast, too hot, too much. And the panic that seized through her if Jin had been there?

But still, she wanted to talk to him. She just didn’t know how.

So when he approached her, she was shocked. It was the most direct he had been with her in a long while and a small part of her screamed that she was finally going on a date in what? A year? Two? Another part of her told her to calm down, it wasn’t a date when they hadn’t been able to speak for so long.

Whatever.

“Yes.” She nodded. “Yes I would.”

Never in Seong-Jin’s life had anyone ever said no, well, not never, his very presence in the circus came out of facing a long list of denials, but it was  an exception to norm. However, when Catalina said yes it occurred to him that he had expected to say, to tell him in hero own way to fuck off, and that now that she had instead chosen to be direct and bold as his offer to have dinner together Seong-Jin had no idea what to do next. “Oh. Okay? That’s....okay.

He hadn’t even considered where he would take her, where he was going to go before he had thought to ask or if she had said no, and studying a map before your arrival in Paris had saved him from not being able to tell one street from the other, but it was clearly not thorough enough. “Is there somewhere you want to—” He began before cutting himself off. It was an absurd question to ask, as if there was anything else they would in France beside french cuisine.   

So instead Seong-Jin was forced to do what he did every time when faced with a situation beyond the scope of his knowledge. He gestured towards a general direction before beginning to walk. There was a high probability that they would stumble upon a restaurant eventually. 

[ultimate-rp-memes]

Munday Meme~

Send in a symbol or two to learn about the person behind the blog!

❤ ; A trait you admire in your closest friends?

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♋ ; What made you choose this muse?

☮ ; What’s your life motto? 

✌ ; An achievement that you’re proud of?

☢ ; A mistake you want to fix?

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☑ ; The easiest thing about roleplaying your muse?

☒ ; The hardest thing about roleplaying your muse?

♚ ; What’s a personality trait you have that you’re proud of?

♛ ; What’s a physical trait you have that you’re proud of?

ツ ; Tell us about your first love.

☣ ; The biggest lesson life has taught you so far?

➳ ; A personal goal for this year.

[minotaur-unslain]

ceydran-aecor‌:

Brilliance in the stars and right behind him, it seems. “That is incredible, Jin,” he says before he even realizes it’s coming out of his mouth. He doesn’t blush, exactly, but he does turn his eyes down, glancing anywhere else before inevitably back at Jin. He smiles, and starts to make a joke– You are a jackass– until he blushes for real and is shocked silent.

“It’s not,” he starts, protesting. “I was taught how to read, and I still can’t do math beyond basic multiplication.” He’s aware, peripherally, that what he’s done could be considered impressive. But to him it was only ever survival. It doesn’t change, however, the warm glow and ghost of a smile that spreads over him when Jin asks about the library. His library. 

“Well,” he begins, and is more than a little surprised at how his voice changes. “It was enormous,” he says warmly. “There was everything. Starting from the left there were science books, old textbooks and whatnot, maps and things. Then we had history, so much fucking history. My dad–” and here his voice hardens, becomes cold. “He built naval ships. So there was every book on naval war history that you could possibly imagine. I could probably tell you how to build a 19th century sailboat from scratch,” he chuckles, smiles weakly at the fire. “And then the other wall was my favorite, all the fiction. And at the top of the fiction, was a shelf you could only get to by taking all the book off and climbing the ones below it.” Ceydran softens, and glances up at Jin for a moment before staring back at his feet. “It was all that was left of what I assume was my mother’s collection. Ten or so books about the Cetea, including The Iliad and The Odyssey.” He sighs. “God do I wish I still had those copies. All the mentions of Ketos were circled, little exclamation marks.” He shakes himself out of his reverie, checks the heat and starts to scatter the coals.

“How about you,” he asks quietly. “Have a library you wish you could go back to?”

Ceydran is not the first person to call Jin impressive, he’s never allowed himself for anything less than being the best, but it feels different when he says it. Maybe because it doesn’t feel backhanded, half concession from classmates struggling to accept they had been beat, or come with a sense of relief, as if not being impressive would come with a demand for an answer he could not give except to promise to do better next time. “It really is.” He begins over protests, before pulling back to listen. It not unfamiliar to feel a sense of common ground with Ceydran; they have gravitated to each other too many times to say they have nothing common. But there is something in the tone of his protest, that is both familiar yet cannot be placed let alone to described. Everything Jin has ever achieved had never felt optional; the worth of his life was intrinsically tied to every test grade and award. But what did one call that: doing everything in your power to live?  He can speak multiple languages and Jin’s not sure any of them have a word for it. 

“It’s a crappy subject.” He offers, half as a joke. “I could—” Teach sounds too condescending, who is he to offer Ceydran help he didn’t ask. “If you wanted....I could, you know, show you sometime.”

Jin doesn’t notice when it begins, but the longer Ceydran speaks about his library the more he begin to smile. It sounds wonderful and he wishes he could see it, that he could him his own. When Ceyrdran speaks of his mother something overwhelms inside him, like when he play the cello and the moment of harmony leaves with him goosebumps even though the room isn’t cold. Jin respects Ceydran too much to pity him, but his own library had far too many books than it had any right to, he’d give the copies Ceydran had lost with little hesitation though he could not make up the sentimental value.

“Yes. It was enormous too. The walls were white and gold and the ceiling was blue though how anyone reach it baffled me. I used to think every book ever written could be found in that room and I’d dedicate my whole life to reading each shelf from top to bottom.” The memory of  it embarrasses him and he looks around the Louvre again. It sounds so foolish, as if he should've known better at ten. “I can’t imagine where she got them all. My grandfather was a translator and so my mother had all his work shipped over after he died and then were some from old book store and antique shops and textbooks recommended from the universities.” He tries to remember the order of things, but while the home was labyrinth everything from the smell to the layout of the room to the feel of the shelf carvings against his palms is as clear in his mind as it was years ago.  “It was an inverse to yours. Right was all non-fiction, biographies mainly. I loved it, my life felt so boring in comparison. There were some technical books. If you build me a sailboat I could probably build you a house. Or at least design the blueprint.”

“Fiction was my favourite too. We had this ladder that moved along the shelves and I wasn’t supposed to use but of course I did anyway. Loved mysteries….read Doyle too many times to count. Austen. Bronte. Shelley, both of them. Keats. Joyce. Had a very long postmodern phase. I feel like Shakespeare is expected.” The memory of it, sitting in a chair in the middle of the room and allowing life to slip away for hours upon hours, nearly moves Jin to tears, but he holds it back. He cannot keep his voice from wavering. “I love that room….It was the only good thing in that house.” That couldn’t be right. His manor, the beautiful of infinity home that had room for Jin’s every need, had more to offer than a library where he spent most of his nights alone. It had to, he has longed for it since the moment he set foot on the circus grounds, yet he couldn’t remember anything. Had he really been gone that long?

Turning back to Ceydran he attempts to change the subject. “Do you want to check out some paintings? I don’t think anybody’s watching.”

[oogs]

February 20th. The Louvre. @minotaur-unslain

He almost enjoys the look on people’s faces when he tells them that he won’t be doing any interviews unless they’ve got someone that can sign, that the translators they’ve brought with them won’t exactly cut it for him. It seems like disappointment and intrigue, on some parts, but either way, he offers an uncharacteristically polite smile and makes his way out to the back, hand rushing to reach into his pocket to grab a cigarette.

But it’s a shadow he sees coming around the corner that makes him pause, eyes turning dark as his body readies to defend itself. He’s not entirely wrong to be alarmed, he finds, as he comes face to face with a familiar figure, standing as tall and proud as ever. Eyes return to their usual state as he turns back to his smoke and lights it up, though he keeps his eyes on the other.

A part of him thinks they could both enjoy this silence for once, but he’s never been one to hold his tongue back - especially when it comes to Jin. And especially not after the last conversation they’d had, words never to be spoken again, blood on their hands, on the sheets.

“Interesting character, Volkov,” he starts, tilting his head up and blowing the smoke towards Jin’s direction, small smile tugging at his lips. “Reminds me of you a little, actually. He’s got a pretty little mask on, too.”

This game, this dance - it’s far easier, makes him feel like he has the man back in his grasps. If he pushes the right buttons today, will it get them to where they need? If he begs, will he get to feel all that hurt and anger against his cheekbones again? Tossing the cigarette aside, he steps forward, taking the collar of Jin’s shirt between his two fingers and pulling on it, trying to move him closer.

“You’re not still avoiding me, are you?” He asks, eyebrow raised, “don’t think I didn’t notice.”

[minotaur-unslain]

They do not make it easy to slip away. Jin had seen it once in action, sitting on the dorm room floor of a journalist he was dating and watching as he went over the questions for an interview he was doing tomorrow. The rapid fire he had prepared for any answer and refused to back from any opposition reminded Jin of being on the debate team. Except instead of admiring from the floor he was the topic of discussion and while he had never been one to crave the spotlight he had never backed down when it felt earned.

He had earned this, fitting the criteria of the subject interest like all his co-workers, but he did not want it. As stubborn as reporters could be so was he and after a wall of one word answers they finally presented him an opening to slip away. He is certain it won’t last long, but a moment alone to finish a cigarette might just be enough. So of course fate pushed Omari into path. It didn’t feel like avoiding him, Jin had never been one to seek him out to begin with, but there was tension where annoyance should be as Omari locks eyes with him and looking away way not enough to ease it. He made a dismissive noise in response and inhales again. It was too soon to decide what to make of Volkov; he presented himself as trustworthy in all the ways Metzger wasn’t, but that was just type of thing one would do if they wanted to win them over. After the last weeks the absence of violence and suspicion was too easy to mistake for kindness. But someone had to show Metzger how to be the skillful manipulator Jin suspected him to be. It was not a thing that comes naturally. At least, it hadn’t for him.

Omari was only saying to get under his skin, but like all his attempts it comments it hits a little too close to the truth. Jin had worn a mask long enough to recognize it on someone else, but if Volkov was wearing one it was plastered tightly to his face.   By now he should have known better than to put his hands on Jin, especially without warning, but was likely exactly why he did it. There was no flight mode when it came to Omari, he would take win and Jin could never give him the satisfaction. The shock of Omari pulling on his collar made him drop his cigarette as Jin brought his fist up at chest level, held between the two of you.

“You owe me a cigarette.” Jin pushed his hand off his collar and straightened up, face to face so Omari wouldn’t misread his lips. “Actually, I don’t think about what you don’t notice, I’m sure the list is long, or what you do. I’ll admit I’m touch you’re vying for my attention, but like I said last time you are not on my mind half as much as you think. So I’m not avoiding you.” He stepped closer, if Omari wanted to do this Jin wanted him to be one to say it first. “What reason could I possibly have to avoid you?”

[minotaur-unslain]

💬 jin's in lurrrrve and he's got it baaaaad

“There is neither a u or r in love. Also, what are we 12? Will you sing a song, next.”

[ Send 💬 + a rumor and my muse will react to it. ]

[minotaur-unslain]

💬 + jin secretly approves of yale

“It is an inferior institution, but their student body has been known to rise above it.”

[ Send 💬 + a rumor and my muse will react to it. ]

[minotaur-unslain]

💬 + jin rehearses the court scene out of legally blond, he knows every line

“I did not graudate summa cum laude from the top law school in the country to be pegged a cliche.”

[ Send 💬 + a rumor and my muse will react to it. ]

[minotaur-unslain]

💬 jin has a daddy kink

“Contrary to what Freud thinks not all psychological scars bleed into your sex life. Not that I have issues in relation to my father, for the record.”

[ Send 💬 + a rumor and my muse will react to it. ]

[roleplaymemesforyou]

Send 💬 + a rumor and my muse will react to it.

[minotaur-unslain]

DATE & TIME: February 21TH, Midnight LOCATION: Streets of Paris TAG: @knxwsbest

How did that saying go again: once is chance, twice is coincidence, third time is a pattern. How many times now had it been that Sol has caught him off guard in a moment of stasis?

( Or that’s what Seong-Jin would prefer to call it. Better than to say, I have no sense of direction and I’m hoping if I walk long enough I’ll see a familiar landmark.) It’s certainly been more than he cares for and he wonders what she make of him. He would take eager tourist over the reality any day, but from where she stands at the top of the cobblestone steps he can’t read her expression at all.She blends well into the scenery, the few people also loitering around her maneuver around her with careful precision, as if none would dare bump against her, and Seong-Jin thinks of mentioning it, though with less admiration and more sarcasm, and he ascends the steps to meet her. Instead when they finally come face to face he says, “Here we are again. How many does times does that make this now?”

[minotaur-unslain]

📂

Jin actually has no sense of direction. Zero. And google maps actually makes it worse. So whenever they go to a new place he finds a map and outlines it heavily and then tries to commit to memory so that nobody figures this out.The fact he keeps running into Sol ( @knxwsbest ) (first in shanghai? and now paris.) is a huge inconvenience because it’ll look bad if she knows he literally got lost.

[ Send “📂“ for a random yet completely useless headcanon I have ]

[anoracle]

DATE & TIME: February 20TH, 10:30AM LOCATION: The Louvre TAG: OPEN

It’s silent here, hallways sneaked into when they’re meant to be in front of cameras. She can’t tell how long she’s been standing by the painting, standing as its side to view from an angle, the layers of blue against canvas, think her body would match it - all dressed to look like stars. 

All starry, except the lingering blush from cameras pointed at her. And the red only grows too when there’s a shadow near and her hand is almost close enough to the layers of paint to touch it, wondering how someone made those. “Will alarms blare, do you think? Is that just for the movies? If I barely touch it at all?” Half-defense, half still stuck too much in her thoughts to care, when the figure is familiar from a circus.

[minotaur-unslain]

Paris will be different. There is not a single ounce of evidence to back this claim up, on the contrary everything about the Seong-Jin’s life for the past few weeks - maybe even the past five years - say this will end badly. He has never been for blind optimism, it is safer to always assume the worse and be pleasantly surprised by the best, but he need to be different anyway. He’s not sure you can go through it a third time.

There had once been a time when he could be bothered with Emmeline at all, she was as much of an inconvenience as everyone in the circus if not more so for the way she seemed to seek him out with her questions while everyone else was content to ignore him in return for him ignoring them. It had been easy to push back against her, to tell her that she needed to find her own age to hang around or standing up just as she sat down across from him, and though Seong-Jin could recall the action he cannot remember the feeling.

Until the moment he did.

It wasn’t Emmeline fault that she’s  instinctively kind and considerate and himself so out of practice that he fumbles every attempt at doing the same. It’s not her fault that she will not simply be the proxy of his redemption, but still it had annoyed him the way she kept pushing to help him, asking how he was and putting his wellbeing before her own, at the moment in his life where Seong-Jin trying to turn away from the self. After nearly thirty years he had grown tired of putting his own feelings at the center. So he had snapped - or that’s what it had felt like, in reality he had hardly raised his voice - caught between pleading with and reprimanding for not herself first. One of them had been trapped in a fire and it hadn’t been him

( Wasn’t that how your mother always got him to change his ways when he did something she did not like? A look of discontent and stern clipped sentence expressing her dissatisfaction. And it had always worked. Hadn’t it? )

Except it had the opposite effect, could see from the look in her eyes and a part of him wondered later on if that was how he had come across back then. Trying to desperately to get his mother to open up, even if only to avoid his own feelings, and being rebuffed and left with no idea what step to take next.

Seong-Jin should have apologized then. Instead he simply stood there, until the silence had gone on for too long and the only option seemed to turn away and keeping looking away until the moment he came to stand next to her by the painting.

“I think so….yes.” You stare at the painting closely too. It definitely will, he’s sure of it, but there is an impulse to reach out anyway. This was not how Seong-Jin imagined their conversation to restart and he’s at a loss of what to say next. Or maybe to pretend it had not happened at all, to repress the transgression and move on. 

“But on the plus side….at least you know your painting will be safe.”

Emmeline deserved better than that.

[minotaur-unslain]

DATE & TIME: FEBRUARY 20TH, 11:10pm LOCATION: OUTSIDE THE LOUVRE STATUS: CLOSED @catalinaccarter

Much like the first time one learns about death, the discovery that to be alive is a finite state, there must have been a time where one first becomes aware of the power one has to hurt someone. That bodies are malleable and emotions fragile and with your own two hands or with certain phrase could render another feeling helpless against you. 

If so, Seong-Jin could not recall the memory of either, only that in terms of the latter it had a powerful effect because since than he had never stopped. Time and time again he had pushed people away, acted out defensively or with cruelty, wielding his words like a dagger and relying on fists when that alone wouldn’t suffice, until thirty years later the list of people who could say they had been hurt by him was long enough to fill a dense book. 

And it was only then that Seong-Jin had realized how wrong he had been. That while he believed few had deserved it, many of them had not. It had been a reflex, saying things without thinking about how they sounded or how someone might take it and only allowing it to sink in when the damage had been done. But what use was guilt without action? An apology. Being better. Instead, Seong-Jin had simply turned away, repressed the thought, retreated inward.

Traveling into the heart of Russia in order to avoid being in a confined space with the woman he had hurt, no matter how unintentionally, because he could speak seven languages, but could not figure out how to formulate an apology that could measure up to his action. But for once it had not been enough, not even the bitter cold of his surroundings had been enough to distract him from the gnawing guilt that he been unnecessarily blunt with Catalina all those nights ago, and worst of all had thought that he was being kind. How did one reconcile that? Seong-Jin wondered as they stood out the Louvre (whether by accident or because he had sought her out he wasn’t out he still wasn’t sure.) How does one concede completely to another person, say not just that they are sorry for the pain they have caused, but ask for forgiveness because it took a week and a fire to realize that you couldn’t live with avoiding them?

“Would you want to have dinner?”

[minotaur-unslain]

ceydran-aecor‌:

The wind blows through the air with a gentle bluster, sending pine needles down that shimmer into sparks in the fire. Ceydran smiles. Of course it was a childhood hobby. The way Jin speaks the words, like an heirloom hidden under a bed and pulled out, held close to his chest, is telling. “I probably would have hated it,” he chuckles softly, poking the fire with a stick. “I was never good with teachers.” A deep breath, and he watches the smoke curl into the clouds for a moment. Dissipation. “You know I only went to school until third grade?” 

The statement hangs in the air for a moment, but just like the smoke, it spreads and mixes with all the other things between them. Translucent, in the end. “We had a library in my family home. And, well, being–” he motions towards himself, lets a scale flicker across his jaw– “this, I had a lot of curiosity towards Greek myth too. I read them in English, though. Did you teach yourself Greek?” He’s impressed already, knew that Jin was clever but didn’t really fathom it, had too much envy clouding the air in front of his eyes. He’s pleased, far more than he’ll say, by the fact that Jin is self-taught too. Ceydran tugs his jacket a little tighter and spreads the coals again.

Jin went completely still at the confession, a silence fell between them save for the echo of the wind and the fire crackling in front of you. Had he known that about him? If so he had forgotten it and while the information should have felt like another puzzle piece in the picture of Ceydran being formed in his mind, it did more to disrupt the picture than bring it together.

How on earth Ceydran could stand Jin when he was clearly leagues ahead of him was a mystery. But Jin was glad he did. At least for tonight.

“I did.” Jin said and it was strange to talk about it as accomplishment when at the time it had been a rebellion from the strict curriculum laid out for him. “I became obsessed with getting as close to myths as possible and I thought by dissolving the barrier of translation the text feel more alive. But I couldn’t find anyone to teach me. It was one of the first times I broke away from academia and just did my own thing. Which was…..strange at first. Not having someone standing over my shoulder telling me what to read, how exactly to interpret the text. But that’s also what made it fun.” 

“But that’s...nothing. You-” He cut himself off. “I’m probably going to sound like a jackass, but that’s amazing that you’ve taught yourself....” Everything. All the small and large insights, his advice and technically skills. ”I can’t imagine…” There had been a time where Jin would have thought it pointless to speak if he could not manage to convey his thoughts concisely and coherently. Would rather remain silent than flounder. But how could he stay silent when faced with the reality of how impressive Ceydran really was. And yet how did he explain that if Jin was to look back on his whole academic career and all the people he had met within that he didn’t think a single one of them could hold a candle to him. Or what a shame it was that he hadn’t been there. That you wanted to know more about what Ceydran had read in his family’s library and if it mirrored all the night alone Jin had spent in his own.

“Can I ask what it was like? The library, I mean.”

[minotaur-unslain]

oogs‌:

It’s difficult, especially when they’re sitting so close, but Omari manages to ignore Jin’s protests as he works on cleaning him up. There’s only so much he can do with a flimsy first-aid kit but he figures it will, at the very least, stop the infections and keep them from getting worse. There’s no way to tell if there’s something else creeping up on them just around the corner, if Metzger has another trick up his sleeve. (The other cryptids seem to think that Metzger won’t do any worse because they make him money - but since when have humans only lived for money? Power is a potent motivator - fear even more so.) 

“Take your shirt off,” he demands once the face is relatively clean, but he hardly waits for the other man to move before grabbing him by his shirt and unbuttoning it from the top, pulling it down to see if there are any visible cuts on him. It’s hard to tell with now-dried up blood covering most of his body, but there isn’t anything to be too alarmed about, as far as he can tell. 

Then, of course, he notices the way he’s holding his left arm and tuts his tongue, reaches over and touches it just to see if it’s broken. (It isn’t, but it’s not in good shape, either.)  

Omari grabs a pillow and tears the fabric off of it, and while he rips it into long pieces, watches Jin’s lips. The words are heavier than expected and his own hands still, jaw tightening. Nothing’s waiting for me out there. It’s one thing when he says it, when he’s trying to goad the minotaur - it’s another thing to hear him admit it. 

And though he knows he owes him nothing, for the first time in years he feels compelled to give up a part of himself. His hands busies itself again as he begins to tie the pieces together to create a makeshift sling for the arm, avoids Jin’s eyes again as he responds. 

“Nobody’s waiting for me out there either, if that’s what you’re asking. The one person I did know -” He stops himself, pretending he’s lost his train of thought as he leans back in and wraps the pillowcase-sling around the other’s neck. 

“In here, we’re as good as dead, Jin.” It’s strange to feel himself using the minotaur’s name instead of nicknames meant to mock, to taunt. He can’t help but hope that things will go back to their usual routine after this. Fighting is easy - but this? This is a much more dangerous game and one he refuses to ever play again. 

“Doesn’t matter if you have nothing out there. You know what I’ve always hated about you? You believe me when I tell you that you have nothing. You know you have everything I’ve ever wanted - why the fuck do you even believe me?”  

“I am capable of taking my own clothes off.” Jin says as Omari reaches for his shirt, already unbuttoning it. If only his body didn’t so much and he had the strength to actually pull away from care instead of protests that feel dangerously close to a whine. “See, I’m fine.” But then Omari notices his arm and it’s back to square one. 

Jin watches as he tears at the pillow case, it is too late now to pretend his arm isn’t injured or reject the help, and he had to keep reminding himself that he will return the favour. The last thing he wants is to be indebted to him. Though Omari isn’t watching him, more preoccupied with creating a sling to support the arm, Jin can’t look away. It’s not a shocker, at this point is assumed that everyone in the circus was in the same position with nowhere to go for one reason or another, but the way he cuts off mid sentence speaks volumes. For someone fully aware of his own facade it had never crossed his mind that perhaps Omari was not always a man who seemed to care for nothing.

Jin wouldn’t dare push it further, to ask what happened to this person and why they were no longer waiting for him out there, and not just because from that angle Omari could easily attempt to strangle him with a makeshift sling. Not that he would, it would go against the unspoken rules of their fight, but it’s an easier excuse to reckon with.

He’s so unused to hearing his name in his voice that he tenses at the sound. Once again he is vocalizing an already held fact: Jin is thirty; he has been a performer for the circus for 5 years and as long he stays there he is as good dead. The only difference is that it never sounded so tragic in his head. The truth was from the moment he had shook Metzger;s hand he had accepted, somewhere deep inside, that he would probably never go home and as such the circus was the place he had come to die.

Except back then it was supposed to by Jin’s own hands, now it was guaranteed to be someone else’s.

“Oh is that what you hate about me? Well, allow me to clear things up. It has nothing to do you. I don’t believe you.” It was purely semantics, Jin knew that and he was being petty and defensive. But he wasn’t sure what he hated more, that Omari had him so thoroughly figured out or the perception of power over him. “You’re just a voice box for what I was already know about myself. What is that I have, Omari? What could I possible have left that you want. And frankly, you’re one to talk.You want to know what I hate about you? You refuse to take any conversation I try to have with you seriously unless it devolves into me punching you in the face. This, right here, is the longest you’ve gone without a snarky comment trying to rile me up.  You want to talk about belief? Tell me, would you believe me if I said that your childishness aside I actually think that you’ve got as good a shot as half us of getting out of here simply because it’s something you want?”

[minotaur-unslain]

📂

when he was eight, someone told him that you can’t lick your elbows and he took it as a personal attack and spent month trying to do it.

[ Send “📂“ for a random yet completely useless headcanon I have ]

[minotaur-unslain]

“You don’t understand it now, but I’m trying to protect you.” - sol

It sounded sincere, but almost everything did when Sol said it. Jin had once told her that she would make a great lawyer for that very reason, the way she could talk people into doing and believing anything. It had been a bold remark, even at the time, but she took it in stride, never once faltering as they continued to walk the streets of Shanghai. 

“So, what does that say about?”“Touché.”

You were no closer to knowing now than he had been there.“I don’t think you believe that.” He studied her face, tried to find some hidden truth reflected in her eyes, but if there was any to business it was buried deep. “I sure don’t.” Jin took a step closer, eyes lingering to sharp lines of her face. Is this what people had meant when called him statuesque? From what marble had Sol been carved, he wondered. Had it been the same as his own. “But it does get a little boring being right all the time. Prove me wrong. For my sake, I hope you’re not the type to gloat.”

[ protective sentence starters ]