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@oliver-the-coroner
Hello.
I got back to London recently, and Mike suggested this as a simple way to start interacting with people again. He says it's worked out for him, so I guess it won't hurt to try.
I just got back from the end of the world, ask me anything.
Ooc under the cut:
A sharp knock comes from Jon's office door, followed by two equally impatient ones.
- @lightning-bastard
If it weren't for Jon's already scarred nerves, on top of his quite memorable history with spiders and doors and knocking, he might have been completely immune to the sudden, loud demands made on his office door. As it was, Jon felt the urge to smother his anxiety in something terse and frustrated.
❝ What do you want? People usually just barge right in. ❞
[ @lightning-bastard ]
Mike entered the office, looking much better than when Jon last saw him. Better of course meaning standing on his own, without a gaping head wound. Not dead. His hair was longer, but his eyes were bright as ever, pupils shrinking slightly when he laid them on Jon. He closed the door, kicking a chair under it as he quickly made his way towards the desk. "You asshole."
Jon's skin went cold as the realization sunk in that this man intended to trap him in his own office. It took him a second to realize who it was, but more than his face or his familiar voice, it was the sudden violent feeling of freefall that swept through Jon's body, and everything from that day came rushing back. Jon gripped his desk. "You came to finish the job?" he asked, wry and bitter.
Mike laughed quietly, looking absolutely delighted by Jon's panic. Still, under the amusement there was a deep anger. "Well, you almost did me in after I was gracious enough to let you leave, so I think that'd be more than fair." Up close, Jon could see a healed wound on his temple and the way the eye near it twitched oddly from time to time. The feeling of freefall let up for a short moment.
Jon had faced down so many things that seemed to enjoy his pain. Jude, Daisy, Michael, Nikola, even Elias... So many things that wanted to harm him because of things he did not intend. So here was another one, joining the collection. Back from the dead somehow to haunt him. "Unfortunately, things scarier than you have tried," he said, trying to shore himself in the moment of stability. Still clutching his desk, he stood, facing down the other man. "What happened to your eye?" he compelled, quickly, desperately.
A strong wave of vertigo hit Jon again, more powerful than before. Mike seemed to be trying to resist the compulsion, but it wasn't working. After a brief struggle, the answer escaped his mouth. "I got shot and it damaged the nerves." He spat out, groaning afterwards. "Oh my god, you just can't figure anything out, can you?! I have a lightning shaped scar because I was struck by lightning, I have a bullet wound and fucked up insides around it because your damn guard dog shot me, how hard is that to figure out?!" He yelled, frustrated. "You just need everything spelled out for you?" Wind seemed to be swirling around him, which definitely shouldn't be happening in a closed space.
Jon lurched forward, elbows hitting his desk and the threat of getting sick gripping his stomach. His mind raced with what he could do against Mike, besides keeping him talking. "Did you die when she shot you? Can you even die?" he shouted above the air building speed around them, throwing everything he had into the compulsion. Papers were crackling in a whirlwind around him, pens rolling off his desk and hitting the floor. Jon tried to breathe, found every intake panicked and shallow. He expected if Mike took him this time, he might never stop falling.
Mike took a shaky breath, again unable to resist. Unable to stop talking. "Yes." Despite the loud air around them, his quiet words were easy to hear. "Yes, I can die, I died and I was put in the domain of my patron's antithesis, and then I died again!" He laughed weakly, another wave of vertigo hitting Jon. "I had to dig myself out and go on a hunt again to return here. Now I need to take care of what's left. Question time is over." He laughed, louder this time. The wind descended upon Jon, and then he was falling, the office floor collapsing under him.
Jon felt a surge of uncontrollable panic consume him when he realized what was happening. He screamed but anything vocal from his throat was swallowed up in the careening endlessness of space and air below him. He couldn't breathe and his body stiffened, gripped with the terror of certain death. Why would Mike let him live after everything he'd just told him? It had been his own hands after all that buried Mike. And if Mike somehow thought Daisy was his responsibility too? Jon tried to close his eyes, tried to tell himself this was better, if he was honest with himself. If Mike killed him that would be okay. But he was still so desperately afraid, afraid that he'd never know the moment Mike would make him hit the ground.
Mike was falling too, but he didn't bother making himself known. He just reveled the pure fear he could fear coming from the man sharing the domain with him.
Eventually, it did stop. Jon crashed into the roof of a penthouse, pain radiating up his body from the contact with the roof tiles. He had the wind knocked out of him, though it seemed he was otherwise unharmed. Mike landed much more gracefully, coming over to look down at Jon.
The tiles of the roof sent a wave of sharp pain through Jon. It hurt, but no more than the explosion in the wax museum, no more than Jared pulling bone out through his skin, no more than Jude scalding him within a metre of his sanity. He wondered if this is what death felt like, when Mike delivered it. Georgie's words rolled through his head, "The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one..."
He tried his limbs though, found them capable of carrying his weight as he leaned up. They burned with pain but he wasn't sure if pain was something that meant he was still alive, or if that transcended death as well. It would be a pretty awful universe if the latter were the case. He found himself nearly laughing. He decided he was alive. What did he have to lose?
He felt Mike's shadow fall on him then and Jon forced himself up a little, bending his knees under him and gazing up at the man who now looked down on him.
"So you didn't you kill me?" he asked. Not compelling. Just a question.
Mike snorted. "That'd be a bit quick for you, wouldn't you say? Fall for a few seconds, land, die immediately? You don't deserve that." He said casually, his bright eyes glistening. "You deserve to suffer. To be thrown and hit the ground a thousand times before I decide I'm done with you." He sneered.
Jon felt his body freeze at the pure sadism in Mike's words. He didn't want to feel paralyzed again, didn't want Mike to get to him. He was pretty sure it would be impossible to lie to him though. He was scared, pure unadulterated fear, and his vision was already swimming with the thought of having to endure this over and over and over again.
He debated trying to offer Mike something, parry with something, anything.
"What would it take to keep me alive?" He did compel this time, but he couldn't keep the gasping, pleading, terrified waver out of his voice.
Mike let out a breathy chuckle, the wind slowly picking up around them. "A damn miracle." He said simply, despite the compulsion. "But I'll let you make an offer, if you're so desperate. Beg." He hummed coldly, stepping out of reach as Jon's stomach tugged at his insides again. He didn't have much time.
The nausea curdled inside him, not just from Mike's vertigo, but from the option he was given, the offer Mike demanded of him. He closed his eyes. The last time he was trapped between death and a desperate need to survive, he chose wrong. And he honestly didn't know what Mike could want from him, if Mike was truly an avatar worthy of his reputation. What could he possibly say that wouldn't be met with an airy, heartless laugh?
He looked up at Mike, met his eyes. Nikola had goaded him to curl into a ball and cry, Michael told him to scream loud enough for the Circus to hear, Trevor and Julia licked their lips and told him to run. Mike told him to beg for his life on his knees.
He was desperate and terrified, but he was also stubborn. "Just... just do your worst, Mike," he said, forcing himself to speak, despite the terror in his lungs. If Mike really did plan to send him to purgatory, he might have a chance to do something the next time he hit the ground...
Mike raised an eyebrow. "Hm. Boring... I suppose I wasn't expecting much, anyway." He chuckled, shaking his head. "Don't die on me too soon, would you?" He laughed as Jon fell upwards into the sky. Reality turned on its axis and he was plummeting again, wind whooshing around him, making him cold and nauseous. This time it took a few minutes for him to hit the roof again, and the impact was just as severe as last time. Mike looked over from the barrier he was balancing on. "Oh. You're back already?"
The impact forced a withered, scrabbling yell out of Jon. His body was screaming and it felt like something must have broken but he didn't really want to check to find out. His hands and arms were scraped though, stained to a grainy red from the clay tiles. He was so cold, so tired, so terrified.
He leaned up, as much as he could, finding Mike. And Jon bit his tongue, let the iron taste filling his lips shock him to distraction from the nausea still roiling in his stomach. Know him, See him, Jon commanded himself. He gasped, letting the Eye filter through his mind, directing its beam of knowledge towards Mike. And Jon commanded the craving power inside him to Look: What did it feel like to be eight years old, before the lightning, before Ex Altiora? Who was your friend, what were your games? What was childhood like to the boy you once were? He didn't Ask, he simply reached through Beholding and pulled as hard as he could.
He still didn't know what it felt like to be on the other end of the Eye's power, when it was fully directed at extracting knowledge from the unwilling. But he'd done it to Breekon, even if it drained him completely. But he was desperate, throwing open the floodwater of his mind, absorbing everything this man was unwilling to give him.
Mike froze up, a shaky breath escaping his mouth as his head exploded. Some things came to Jon silently, images, a reflection of a little blond boy grinning without a couple teeth in his mouth. Others were forced out of his mouth. "I was happy, my parents made time to take me out and spend time with me. We went to parks, and lakes, and forests- I used to have a friend, back when I was still a little kid. His name was Dominic Swain, and we would spend hours playing together outside…" He started reciting, like in a trance. More images flashed through Jon's mind, green fields, clear skies, an amusement park from a low perspective.
"Pirates, detectives, cowboys, pretty much whatever was interesting to us that week. Our houses were next to eachother, and behind them there was a large field that we liked to go to for play. We'd even play in winter, or in the rain-" Mike's voice briefly sounded strained. "I didn't like playing in the rain, and I don't think my parents were particularly fond of it either, but they weren't always around to put me back inside." The wind picked up around him, and that seemed to snap him out of it. He yelled in anger, jumping on top of Jon and pining him down as more images flooded his mind. As Mike's hands closed around his neck, and cold metal of a band around one of his fingers pressed into his skin, there was a faint noise of a latch opening somewhere on the roof. Mike didn't react, staring down right at Jon with his impossibly bright eyes. The left one kept twitching, seemingly more now that he was angry.
Jon felt his body strained, but emboldened, channeled and funneled into this single thing, this vessel for Knowing. He swallowed Mike's words and the pictures that came crashing through his head, absorbing it with a voracity that felt like pressure loss in an airplane.
The new information he was given almost distracted him from the reason he had asked Mike in the first place. He tried to pull himself away from being just the Eye and find himself again.
But suddenly, he felt something at his throat, and he couldn't breathe. Jon scrambled, instinct making him clutch hopelessly at the hands gripping him. Sheer terror broke him out of the drugging draw of the Eye, and he focused his eyes, meeting Mike's ferocious stare and cowering in the face of it.
But... something was wrong if Mike was resorting to such base physicality. His kills seemed to mostly be hands-off. He tried to figure out what to do with that, if he could do anything. But he couldn't speak if he couldn't breathe, and maybe that's what Mike wanted?
Jon tried desperately to stay conscious, but between being strangled and just being so goddamn terrified, he wasn't going to last long.
Thump, thump, thump, came the approaching, rushed footsteps from somewhere on the roof. Mike broke eye contact to look up, chuckling weakly. "Shit." He mumbled, just before he was yanked backwards by the collar. He released Jon as a tall, broad shouldered man with long locs pulled him up and off his victim, forcing him to stand away from Jon.
The argument that ensued was messy, and with the distance and the pain Jon could only pick up bits and pieces of it. From the new man with a suspiciously familiar voice he could catch phrases like "not again" and "he's not yours to take", while Mike spat out argumentation about "my business" and "he deserves it".
From his position he couldn't see very much, even as the stranger grabbed Mike again and pushed him towards the edge of the roof. He released him just close enough to fall, immediately running back to Jon once the other disappeared over the edge. He knelt down next to the injured man, black, tired eyes scanning over him rapidly and sweat beading on his dark skin. "Shit- I'm so sorry, Jon, I thought I'd get here on time." He said quietly, starting to gently inspect his injuries. "Did you break anything? Can you stand?"
Jon gulped air as he was abruptly released. His vision was swimming, his throat stinging from the pain of almost dying, his slight frame still exhausted from drinking in Mike's knowledge.
The argument in the distance relieved him greatly. Whatever Mike was up to meant more time for him to recover, maybe prepare to face whoever this new person was. He felt himself being talked about, from a voice he knew, somewhere deep in his bones. Where had he heard it? He tried to get up, to have some say in whatever was happening, but he was so tired, so spent. Arms still raw with a rash of blood and back aching.
But... Mike was gone now, and this new man approached him, kneeling over him and seeming to care. Jon kept his guard up.
"Not sure," Jon said, truthfully, for both questions. He pressed a bleeding hand to the roof, tried to lever himself up and hissed in a breath as his body fought the effort.
Something trickled into his mind, the awareness of a fellow Avatar... an aura of dreams and desolated islands and strangling vines and make a choice, Jon. Jon felt a chill run through him as he locked eyes with the man above him. "It's... it's you. You visited me. What do you want?"
"I want to clean up the mess Mike made." Oliver shrugged. "Mm, this would've been useful last time. I don't have much to tell you now, I'm afraid." He looked over the broken man under him, gently pressing his fingers to different points of his body to find any breaks. A thin, golden band around his ring finger caught the light, similar to the one Mike was wearing. He stopped over his ribs, his hand hovering over the right side. "Right here. Are you one of those avatars that heal on their own, or do you need a hospital?" He asked softly. He couldn't help but worry for the man, somehow more than when he last saw him.
Jon watched warily as the Avatar of Death touched him. He felt strangely helpless, unsure the motivation for this kindness, for the calm of Oliver's presence, for someone laying hands on him and not... leaving another mark. He wasn't sure he liked it, any of it––good, bad, whatever this was.
He felt the pain in his middle, now that the adrenaline was wearing off, and Jon winced. He honestly didn't know where his healing abilities ended, if broken bones were worse than stab wounds, or if he'd just exist in mangled pieces, just so long as he could serve the Eye...
"Hospitals are for people," Jon said, almost to himself. "I'll live," he sighed, and tried again to push himself up.
The glint of metal on Oliver's finger prompted something in his mind, a familiarity, and a simple fact pressed itself into Jon's mind. "I didn't know you had time for romance," he said, reaching for Oliver's hand. He didn't feel strong enough to get up on his own.
Oliver frowned at the wording, but nodded slowly. "If you're certain. Maybe we could get you downstairs... the couch is better for recovery than here. Mike shouldn't be back for a while." He said softly, taking Jon's hand and gently guiding him to sit up with his other arm. He glanced to the ring, chuckling quietly. "Oh, it just kind of happened to me... I'm grateful, really. It's a nice break from all the awfulness." He sighed, glancing to Jon's ribs worriedly. "Let's get you standing, yeah?"
Jon was grateful for Oliver's... gentleness. It was disturbing to think about, to imagine anything like what they were being capable of genuine kindness and still be... still serve the powers they did, still kill people. Maybe finding someone to care about, to distract you from it all... maybe that's how avatars like Oliver managed it. Maybe that's what love was for most people, something to distract you from the terror of truly knowing yourself.... Jon wouldn't know.
He pressed an arm to his side, feeling the pain burn as his body adjusted to this new position. He swallowed tightly. "Ah... unless you have a way down that doesn't involve throwing myself off the side... I don't have your partner's, um, talents for heights."
"I live here." Oliver hummed, glancing down. "He didn't take you to some random place to- yeah. We live in the penthouse." He gestured to a hatch a little ways away. "There's a few stairs down, so you'd need to walk a little, but then we'd be inside. Unless you'd like I try to carry you." He chuckled. He was hardly fragile looking, with wide shoulders and solid build.
Jon tensed slightly. It was one thing to accept the kindness of an avatar, another to enter the place he called home. The last time he visited Mike Crew's home, terrible things had happened. And he was in no condition to defend himself.... Why did Mike decide to bring him here? To terrorize him again? Have him backed in a corner so he could play with him anytime he felt like it?
He was spiraling and he could feel his breathing race. He wanted to trust Oliver Banks. He certainly... seemed friendly. But trust wasn't something he could really do nowadays.
"Just, uh... just help me up, I'll walk." His voice caught and his fear weaved the words into a compulsion. "How do I know Mike won't... just kill me? What are... what are you planning to do to me?"
Oliver started gently pulling Jon up into an upright position, careful not to rush him. He paused briefly at the question, his eyes glazing over. "Lay you down, give you some water and get something you can eat." He recited, looking mildly annoyed once he snapped out of it. "Okay, Jon, you don't have to do this every time-" He started, then his expression softened. "But. Whatever makes you comfortable." He sighed. "Mike's not going to hurt you while I'm around."
A sharp knock comes from Jon's office door, followed by two equally impatient ones.
- @lightning-bastard
If it weren't for Jon's already scarred nerves, on top of his quite memorable history with spiders and doors and knocking, he might have been completely immune to the sudden, loud demands made on his office door. As it was, Jon felt the urge to smother his anxiety in something terse and frustrated.
❝ What do you want? People usually just barge right in. ❞
[ @lightning-bastard ]
Mike entered the office, looking much better than when Jon last saw him. Better of course meaning standing on his own, without a gaping head wound. Not dead. His hair was longer, but his eyes were bright as ever, pupils shrinking slightly when he laid them on Jon. He closed the door, kicking a chair under it as he quickly made his way towards the desk. "You asshole."
Jon's skin went cold as the realization sunk in that this man intended to trap him in his own office. It took him a second to realize who it was, but more than his face or his familiar voice, it was the sudden violent feeling of freefall that swept through Jon's body, and everything from that day came rushing back. Jon gripped his desk. "You came to finish the job?" he asked, wry and bitter.
Mike laughed quietly, looking absolutely delighted by Jon's panic. Still, under the amusement there was a deep anger. "Well, you almost did me in after I was gracious enough to let you leave, so I think that'd be more than fair." Up close, Jon could see a healed wound on his temple and the way the eye near it twitched oddly from time to time. The feeling of freefall let up for a short moment.
Jon had faced down so many things that seemed to enjoy his pain. Jude, Daisy, Michael, Nikola, even Elias... So many things that wanted to harm him because of things he did not intend. So here was another one, joining the collection. Back from the dead somehow to haunt him. "Unfortunately, things scarier than you have tried," he said, trying to shore himself in the moment of stability. Still clutching his desk, he stood, facing down the other man. "What happened to your eye?" he compelled, quickly, desperately.
A strong wave of vertigo hit Jon again, more powerful than before. Mike seemed to be trying to resist the compulsion, but it wasn't working. After a brief struggle, the answer escaped his mouth. "I got shot and it damaged the nerves." He spat out, groaning afterwards. "Oh my god, you just can't figure anything out, can you?! I have a lightning shaped scar because I was struck by lightning, I have a bullet wound and fucked up insides around it because your damn guard dog shot me, how hard is that to figure out?!" He yelled, frustrated. "You just need everything spelled out for you?" Wind seemed to be swirling around him, which definitely shouldn't be happening in a closed space.
Jon lurched forward, elbows hitting his desk and the threat of getting sick gripping his stomach. His mind raced with what he could do against Mike, besides keeping him talking. "Did you die when she shot you? Can you even die?" he shouted above the air building speed around them, throwing everything he had into the compulsion. Papers were crackling in a whirlwind around him, pens rolling off his desk and hitting the floor. Jon tried to breathe, found every intake panicked and shallow. He expected if Mike took him this time, he might never stop falling.
Mike took a shaky breath, again unable to resist. Unable to stop talking. "Yes." Despite the loud air around them, his quiet words were easy to hear. "Yes, I can die, I died and I was put in the domain of my patron's antithesis, and then I died again!" He laughed weakly, another wave of vertigo hitting Jon. "I had to dig myself out and go on a hunt again to return here. Now I need to take care of what's left. Question time is over." He laughed, louder this time. The wind descended upon Jon, and then he was falling, the office floor collapsing under him.
Jon felt a surge of uncontrollable panic consume him when he realized what was happening. He screamed but anything vocal from his throat was swallowed up in the careening endlessness of space and air below him. He couldn't breathe and his body stiffened, gripped with the terror of certain death. Why would Mike let him live after everything he'd just told him? It had been his own hands after all that buried Mike. And if Mike somehow thought Daisy was his responsibility too? Jon tried to close his eyes, tried to tell himself this was better, if he was honest with himself. If Mike killed him that would be okay. But he was still so desperately afraid, afraid that he'd never know the moment Mike would make him hit the ground.
Mike was falling too, but he didn't bother making himself known. He just reveled the pure fear he could fear coming from the man sharing the domain with him.
Eventually, it did stop. Jon crashed into the roof of a penthouse, pain radiating up his body from the contact with the roof tiles. He had the wind knocked out of him, though it seemed he was otherwise unharmed. Mike landed much more gracefully, coming over to look down at Jon.
The tiles of the roof sent a wave of sharp pain through Jon. It hurt, but no more than the explosion in the wax museum, no more than Jared pulling bone out through his skin, no more than Jude scalding him within a metre of his sanity. He wondered if this is what death felt like, when Mike delivered it. Georgie's words rolled through his head, "The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one..."
He tried his limbs though, found them capable of carrying his weight as he leaned up. They burned with pain but he wasn't sure if pain was something that meant he was still alive, or if that transcended death as well. It would be a pretty awful universe if the latter were the case. He found himself nearly laughing. He decided he was alive. What did he have to lose?
He felt Mike's shadow fall on him then and Jon forced himself up a little, bending his knees under him and gazing up at the man who now looked down on him.
"So you didn't you kill me?" he asked. Not compelling. Just a question.
Mike snorted. "That'd be a bit quick for you, wouldn't you say? Fall for a few seconds, land, die immediately? You don't deserve that." He said casually, his bright eyes glistening. "You deserve to suffer. To be thrown and hit the ground a thousand times before I decide I'm done with you." He sneered.
Jon felt his body freeze at the pure sadism in Mike's words. He didn't want to feel paralyzed again, didn't want Mike to get to him. He was pretty sure it would be impossible to lie to him though. He was scared, pure unadulterated fear, and his vision was already swimming with the thought of having to endure this over and over and over again.
He debated trying to offer Mike something, parry with something, anything.
"What would it take to keep me alive?" He did compel this time, but he couldn't keep the gasping, pleading, terrified waver out of his voice.
Mike let out a breathy chuckle, the wind slowly picking up around them. "A damn miracle." He said simply, despite the compulsion. "But I'll let you make an offer, if you're so desperate. Beg." He hummed coldly, stepping out of reach as Jon's stomach tugged at his insides again. He didn't have much time.
The nausea curdled inside him, not just from Mike's vertigo, but from the option he was given, the offer Mike demanded of him. He closed his eyes. The last time he was trapped between death and a desperate need to survive, he chose wrong. And he honestly didn't know what Mike could want from him, if Mike was truly an avatar worthy of his reputation. What could he possibly say that wouldn't be met with an airy, heartless laugh?
He looked up at Mike, met his eyes. Nikola had goaded him to curl into a ball and cry, Michael told him to scream loud enough for the Circus to hear, Trevor and Julia licked their lips and told him to run. Mike told him to beg for his life on his knees.
He was desperate and terrified, but he was also stubborn. "Just... just do your worst, Mike," he said, forcing himself to speak, despite the terror in his lungs. If Mike really did plan to send him to purgatory, he might have a chance to do something the next time he hit the ground...
Mike raised an eyebrow. "Hm. Boring... I suppose I wasn't expecting much, anyway." He chuckled, shaking his head. "Don't die on me too soon, would you?" He laughed as Jon fell upwards into the sky. Reality turned on its axis and he was plummeting again, wind whooshing around him, making him cold and nauseous. This time it took a few minutes for him to hit the roof again, and the impact was just as severe as last time. Mike looked over from the barrier he was balancing on. "Oh. You're back already?"
The impact forced a withered, scrabbling yell out of Jon. His body was screaming and it felt like something must have broken but he didn't really want to check to find out. His hands and arms were scraped though, stained to a grainy red from the clay tiles. He was so cold, so tired, so terrified.
He leaned up, as much as he could, finding Mike. And Jon bit his tongue, let the iron taste filling his lips shock him to distraction from the nausea still roiling in his stomach. Know him, See him, Jon commanded himself. He gasped, letting the Eye filter through his mind, directing its beam of knowledge towards Mike. And Jon commanded the craving power inside him to Look: What did it feel like to be eight years old, before the lightning, before Ex Altiora? Who was your friend, what were your games? What was childhood like to the boy you once were? He didn't Ask, he simply reached through Beholding and pulled as hard as he could.
He still didn't know what it felt like to be on the other end of the Eye's power, when it was fully directed at extracting knowledge from the unwilling. But he'd done it to Breekon, even if it drained him completely. But he was desperate, throwing open the floodwater of his mind, absorbing everything this man was unwilling to give him.
Mike froze up, a shaky breath escaping his mouth as his head exploded. Some things came to Jon silently, images, a reflection of a little blond boy grinning without a couple teeth in his mouth. Others were forced out of his mouth. "I was happy, my parents made time to take me out and spend time with me. We went to parks, and lakes, and forests- I used to have a friend, back when I was still a little kid. His name was Dominic Swain, and we would spend hours playing together outside…" He started reciting, like in a trance. More images flashed through Jon's mind, green fields, clear skies, an amusement park from a low perspective.
"Pirates, detectives, cowboys, pretty much whatever was interesting to us that week. Our houses were next to eachother, and behind them there was a large field that we liked to go to for play. We'd even play in winter, or in the rain-" Mike's voice briefly sounded strained. "I didn't like playing in the rain, and I don't think my parents were particularly fond of it either, but they weren't always around to put me back inside." The wind picked up around him, and that seemed to snap him out of it. He yelled in anger, jumping on top of Jon and pining him down as more images flooded his mind. As Mike's hands closed around his neck, and cold metal of a band around one of his fingers pressed into his skin, there was a faint noise of a latch opening somewhere on the roof. Mike didn't react, staring down right at Jon with his impossibly bright eyes. The left one kept twitching, seemingly more now that he was angry.
Jon felt his body strained, but emboldened, channeled and funneled into this single thing, this vessel for Knowing. He swallowed Mike's words and the pictures that came crashing through his head, absorbing it with a voracity that felt like pressure loss in an airplane.
The new information he was given almost distracted him from the reason he had asked Mike in the first place. He tried to pull himself away from being just the Eye and find himself again.
But suddenly, he felt something at his throat, and he couldn't breathe. Jon scrambled, instinct making him clutch hopelessly at the hands gripping him. Sheer terror broke him out of the drugging draw of the Eye, and he focused his eyes, meeting Mike's ferocious stare and cowering in the face of it.
But... something was wrong if Mike was resorting to such base physicality. His kills seemed to mostly be hands-off. He tried to figure out what to do with that, if he could do anything. But he couldn't speak if he couldn't breathe, and maybe that's what Mike wanted?
Jon tried desperately to stay conscious, but between being strangled and just being so goddamn terrified, he wasn't going to last long.
Thump, thump, thump, came the approaching, rushed footsteps from somewhere on the roof. Mike broke eye contact to look up, chuckling weakly. "Shit." He mumbled, just before he was yanked backwards by the collar. He released Jon as a tall, broad shouldered man with long locs pulled him up and off his victim, forcing him to stand away from Jon.
The argument that ensued was messy, and with the distance and the pain Jon could only pick up bits and pieces of it. From the new man with a suspiciously familiar voice he could catch phrases like "not again" and "he's not yours to take", while Mike spat out argumentation about "my business" and "he deserves it".
From his position he couldn't see very much, even as the stranger grabbed Mike again and pushed him towards the edge of the roof. He released him just close enough to fall, immediately running back to Jon once the other disappeared over the edge. He knelt down next to the injured man, black, tired eyes scanning over him rapidly and sweat beading on his dark skin. "Shit- I'm so sorry, Jon, I thought I'd get here on time." He said quietly, starting to gently inspect his injuries. "Did you break anything? Can you stand?"
Jon gulped air as he was abruptly released. His vision was swimming, his throat stinging from the pain of almost dying, his slight frame still exhausted from drinking in Mike's knowledge.
The argument in the distance relieved him greatly. Whatever Mike was up to meant more time for him to recover, maybe prepare to face whoever this new person was. He felt himself being talked about, from a voice he knew, somewhere deep in his bones. Where had he heard it? He tried to get up, to have some say in whatever was happening, but he was so tired, so spent. Arms still raw with a rash of blood and back aching.
But... Mike was gone now, and this new man approached him, kneeling over him and seeming to care. Jon kept his guard up.
"Not sure," Jon said, truthfully, for both questions. He pressed a bleeding hand to the roof, tried to lever himself up and hissed in a breath as his body fought the effort.
Something trickled into his mind, the awareness of a fellow Avatar... an aura of dreams and desolated islands and strangling vines and make a choice, Jon. Jon felt a chill run through him as he locked eyes with the man above him. "It's... it's you. You visited me. What do you want?"
"I want to clean up the mess Mike made." Oliver shrugged. "Mm, this would've been useful last time. I don't have much to tell you now, I'm afraid." He looked over the broken man under him, gently pressing his fingers to different points of his body to find any breaks. A thin, golden band around his ring finger caught the light, similar to the one Mike was wearing. He stopped over his ribs, his hand hovering over the right side. "Right here. Are you one of those avatars that heal on their own, or do you need a hospital?" He asked softly. He couldn't help but worry for the man, somehow more than when he last saw him.
Jon watched warily as the Avatar of Death touched him. He felt strangely helpless, unsure the motivation for this kindness, for the calm of Oliver's presence, for someone laying hands on him and not... leaving another mark. He wasn't sure he liked it, any of it––good, bad, whatever this was.
He felt the pain in his middle, now that the adrenaline was wearing off, and Jon winced. He honestly didn't know where his healing abilities ended, if broken bones were worse than stab wounds, or if he'd just exist in mangled pieces, just so long as he could serve the Eye...
"Hospitals are for people," Jon said, almost to himself. "I'll live," he sighed, and tried again to push himself up.
The glint of metal on Oliver's finger prompted something in his mind, a familiarity, and a simple fact pressed itself into Jon's mind. "I didn't know you had time for romance," he said, reaching for Oliver's hand. He didn't feel strong enough to get up on his own.
Oliver frowned at the wording, but nodded slowly. "If you're certain. Maybe we could get you downstairs... the couch is better for recovery than here. Mike shouldn't be back for a while." He said softly, taking Jon's hand and gently guiding him to sit up with his other arm. He glanced to the ring, chuckling quietly. "Oh, it just kind of happened to me... I'm grateful, really. It's a nice break from all the awfulness." He sighed, glancing to Jon's ribs worriedly. "Let's get you standing, yeah?"
Jon was grateful for Oliver's... gentleness. It was disturbing to think about, to imagine anything like what they were being capable of genuine kindness and still be... still serve the powers they did, still kill people. Maybe finding someone to care about, to distract you from it all... maybe that's how avatars like Oliver managed it. Maybe that's what love was for most people, something to distract you from the terror of truly knowing yourself.... Jon wouldn't know.
He pressed an arm to his side, feeling the pain burn as his body adjusted to this new position. He swallowed tightly. "Ah... unless you have a way down that doesn't involve throwing myself off the side... I don't have your partner's, um, talents for heights."
"I live here." Oliver hummed, glancing down. "He didn't take you to some random place to- yeah. We live in the penthouse." He gestured to a hatch a little ways away. "There's a few stairs down, so you'd need to walk a little, but then we'd be inside. Unless you'd like I try to carry you." He chuckled. He was hardly fragile looking, with wide shoulders and solid build.
A sharp knock comes from Jon's office door, followed by two equally impatient ones.
- @lightning-bastard
If it weren't for Jon's already scarred nerves, on top of his quite memorable history with spiders and doors and knocking, he might have been completely immune to the sudden, loud demands made on his office door. As it was, Jon felt the urge to smother his anxiety in something terse and frustrated.
❝ What do you want? People usually just barge right in. ❞
[ @lightning-bastard ]
Mike entered the office, looking much better than when Jon last saw him. Better of course meaning standing on his own, without a gaping head wound. Not dead. His hair was longer, but his eyes were bright as ever, pupils shrinking slightly when he laid them on Jon. He closed the door, kicking a chair under it as he quickly made his way towards the desk. "You asshole."
Jon's skin went cold as the realization sunk in that this man intended to trap him in his own office. It took him a second to realize who it was, but more than his face or his familiar voice, it was the sudden violent feeling of freefall that swept through Jon's body, and everything from that day came rushing back. Jon gripped his desk. "You came to finish the job?" he asked, wry and bitter.
Mike laughed quietly, looking absolutely delighted by Jon's panic. Still, under the amusement there was a deep anger. "Well, you almost did me in after I was gracious enough to let you leave, so I think that'd be more than fair." Up close, Jon could see a healed wound on his temple and the way the eye near it twitched oddly from time to time. The feeling of freefall let up for a short moment.
Jon had faced down so many things that seemed to enjoy his pain. Jude, Daisy, Michael, Nikola, even Elias... So many things that wanted to harm him because of things he did not intend. So here was another one, joining the collection. Back from the dead somehow to haunt him. "Unfortunately, things scarier than you have tried," he said, trying to shore himself in the moment of stability. Still clutching his desk, he stood, facing down the other man. "What happened to your eye?" he compelled, quickly, desperately.
A strong wave of vertigo hit Jon again, more powerful than before. Mike seemed to be trying to resist the compulsion, but it wasn't working. After a brief struggle, the answer escaped his mouth. "I got shot and it damaged the nerves." He spat out, groaning afterwards. "Oh my god, you just can't figure anything out, can you?! I have a lightning shaped scar because I was struck by lightning, I have a bullet wound and fucked up insides around it because your damn guard dog shot me, how hard is that to figure out?!" He yelled, frustrated. "You just need everything spelled out for you?" Wind seemed to be swirling around him, which definitely shouldn't be happening in a closed space.
Jon lurched forward, elbows hitting his desk and the threat of getting sick gripping his stomach. His mind raced with what he could do against Mike, besides keeping him talking. "Did you die when she shot you? Can you even die?" he shouted above the air building speed around them, throwing everything he had into the compulsion. Papers were crackling in a whirlwind around him, pens rolling off his desk and hitting the floor. Jon tried to breathe, found every intake panicked and shallow. He expected if Mike took him this time, he might never stop falling.
Mike took a shaky breath, again unable to resist. Unable to stop talking. "Yes." Despite the loud air around them, his quiet words were easy to hear. "Yes, I can die, I died and I was put in the domain of my patron's antithesis, and then I died again!" He laughed weakly, another wave of vertigo hitting Jon. "I had to dig myself out and go on a hunt again to return here. Now I need to take care of what's left. Question time is over." He laughed, louder this time. The wind descended upon Jon, and then he was falling, the office floor collapsing under him.
Jon felt a surge of uncontrollable panic consume him when he realized what was happening. He screamed but anything vocal from his throat was swallowed up in the careening endlessness of space and air below him. He couldn't breathe and his body stiffened, gripped with the terror of certain death. Why would Mike let him live after everything he'd just told him? It had been his own hands after all that buried Mike. And if Mike somehow thought Daisy was his responsibility too? Jon tried to close his eyes, tried to tell himself this was better, if he was honest with himself. If Mike killed him that would be okay. But he was still so desperately afraid, afraid that he'd never know the moment Mike would make him hit the ground.
Mike was falling too, but he didn't bother making himself known. He just reveled the pure fear he could fear coming from the man sharing the domain with him.
Eventually, it did stop. Jon crashed into the roof of a penthouse, pain radiating up his body from the contact with the roof tiles. He had the wind knocked out of him, though it seemed he was otherwise unharmed. Mike landed much more gracefully, coming over to look down at Jon.
The tiles of the roof sent a wave of sharp pain through Jon. It hurt, but no more than the explosion in the wax museum, no more than Jared pulling bone out through his skin, no more than Jude scalding him within a metre of his sanity. He wondered if this is what death felt like, when Mike delivered it. Georgie's words rolled through his head, "The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one..."
He tried his limbs though, found them capable of carrying his weight as he leaned up. They burned with pain but he wasn't sure if pain was something that meant he was still alive, or if that transcended death as well. It would be a pretty awful universe if the latter were the case. He found himself nearly laughing. He decided he was alive. What did he have to lose?
He felt Mike's shadow fall on him then and Jon forced himself up a little, bending his knees under him and gazing up at the man who now looked down on him.
"So you didn't you kill me?" he asked. Not compelling. Just a question.
Mike snorted. "That'd be a bit quick for you, wouldn't you say? Fall for a few seconds, land, die immediately? You don't deserve that." He said casually, his bright eyes glistening. "You deserve to suffer. To be thrown and hit the ground a thousand times before I decide I'm done with you." He sneered.
Jon felt his body freeze at the pure sadism in Mike's words. He didn't want to feel paralyzed again, didn't want Mike to get to him. He was pretty sure it would be impossible to lie to him though. He was scared, pure unadulterated fear, and his vision was already swimming with the thought of having to endure this over and over and over again.
He debated trying to offer Mike something, parry with something, anything.
"What would it take to keep me alive?" He did compel this time, but he couldn't keep the gasping, pleading, terrified waver out of his voice.
Mike let out a breathy chuckle, the wind slowly picking up around them. "A damn miracle." He said simply, despite the compulsion. "But I'll let you make an offer, if you're so desperate. Beg." He hummed coldly, stepping out of reach as Jon's stomach tugged at his insides again. He didn't have much time.
The nausea curdled inside him, not just from Mike's vertigo, but from the option he was given, the offer Mike demanded of him. He closed his eyes. The last time he was trapped between death and a desperate need to survive, he chose wrong. And he honestly didn't know what Mike could want from him, if Mike was truly an avatar worthy of his reputation. What could he possibly say that wouldn't be met with an airy, heartless laugh?
He looked up at Mike, met his eyes. Nikola had goaded him to curl into a ball and cry, Michael told him to scream loud enough for the Circus to hear, Trevor and Julia licked their lips and told him to run. Mike told him to beg for his life on his knees.
He was desperate and terrified, but he was also stubborn. "Just... just do your worst, Mike," he said, forcing himself to speak, despite the terror in his lungs. If Mike really did plan to send him to purgatory, he might have a chance to do something the next time he hit the ground...
Mike raised an eyebrow. "Hm. Boring... I suppose I wasn't expecting much, anyway." He chuckled, shaking his head. "Don't die on me too soon, would you?" He laughed as Jon fell upwards into the sky. Reality turned on its axis and he was plummeting again, wind whooshing around him, making him cold and nauseous. This time it took a few minutes for him to hit the roof again, and the impact was just as severe as last time. Mike looked over from the barrier he was balancing on. "Oh. You're back already?"
The impact forced a withered, scrabbling yell out of Jon. His body was screaming and it felt like something must have broken but he didn't really want to check to find out. His hands and arms were scraped though, stained to a grainy red from the clay tiles. He was so cold, so tired, so terrified.
He leaned up, as much as he could, finding Mike. And Jon bit his tongue, let the iron taste filling his lips shock him to distraction from the nausea still roiling in his stomach. Know him, See him, Jon commanded himself. He gasped, letting the Eye filter through his mind, directing its beam of knowledge towards Mike. And Jon commanded the craving power inside him to Look: What did it feel like to be eight years old, before the lightning, before Ex Altiora? Who was your friend, what were your games? What was childhood like to the boy you once were? He didn't Ask, he simply reached through Beholding and pulled as hard as he could.
He still didn't know what it felt like to be on the other end of the Eye's power, when it was fully directed at extracting knowledge from the unwilling. But he'd done it to Breekon, even if it drained him completely. But he was desperate, throwing open the floodwater of his mind, absorbing everything this man was unwilling to give him.
Mike froze up, a shaky breath escaping his mouth as his head exploded. Some things came to Jon silently, images, a reflection of a little blond boy grinning without a couple teeth in his mouth. Others were forced out of his mouth. "I was happy, my parents made time to take me out and spend time with me. We went to parks, and lakes, and forests- I used to have a friend, back when I was still a little kid. His name was Dominic Swain, and we would spend hours playing together outside…" He started reciting, like in a trance. More images flashed through Jon's mind, green fields, clear skies, an amusement park from a low perspective.
"Pirates, detectives, cowboys, pretty much whatever was interesting to us that week. Our houses were next to eachother, and behind them there was a large field that we liked to go to for play. We'd even play in winter, or in the rain-" Mike's voice briefly sounded strained. "I didn't like playing in the rain, and I don't think my parents were particularly fond of it either, but they weren't always around to put me back inside." The wind picked up around him, and that seemed to snap him out of it. He yelled in anger, jumping on top of Jon and pining him down as more images flooded his mind. As Mike's hands closed around his neck, and cold metal of a band around one of his fingers pressed into his skin, there was a faint noise of a latch opening somewhere on the roof. Mike didn't react, staring down right at Jon with his impossibly bright eyes. The left one kept twitching, seemingly more now that he was angry.
Jon felt his body strained, but emboldened, channeled and funneled into this single thing, this vessel for Knowing. He swallowed Mike's words and the pictures that came crashing through his head, absorbing it with a voracity that felt like pressure loss in an airplane.
The new information he was given almost distracted him from the reason he had asked Mike in the first place. He tried to pull himself away from being just the Eye and find himself again.
But suddenly, he felt something at his throat, and he couldn't breathe. Jon scrambled, instinct making him clutch hopelessly at the hands gripping him. Sheer terror broke him out of the drugging draw of the Eye, and he focused his eyes, meeting Mike's ferocious stare and cowering in the face of it.
But... something was wrong if Mike was resorting to such base physicality. His kills seemed to mostly be hands-off. He tried to figure out what to do with that, if he could do anything. But he couldn't speak if he couldn't breathe, and maybe that's what Mike wanted?
Jon tried desperately to stay conscious, but between being strangled and just being so goddamn terrified, he wasn't going to last long.
Thump, thump, thump, came the approaching, rushed footsteps from somewhere on the roof. Mike broke eye contact to look up, chuckling weakly. "Shit." He mumbled, just before he was yanked backwards by the collar. He released Jon as a tall, broad shouldered man with long locs pulled him up and off his victim, forcing him to stand away from Jon.
The argument that ensued was messy, and with the distance and the pain Jon could only pick up bits and pieces of it. From the new man with a suspiciously familiar voice he could catch phrases like "not again" and "he's not yours to take", while Mike spat out argumentation about "my business" and "he deserves it".
From his position he couldn't see very much, even as the stranger grabbed Mike again and pushed him towards the edge of the roof. He released him just close enough to fall, immediately running back to Jon once the other disappeared over the edge. He knelt down next to the injured man, black, tired eyes scanning over him rapidly and sweat beading on his dark skin. "Shit- I'm so sorry, Jon, I thought I'd get here on time." He said quietly, starting to gently inspect his injuries. "Did you break anything? Can you stand?"
Jon gulped air as he was abruptly released. His vision was swimming, his throat stinging from the pain of almost dying, his slight frame still exhausted from drinking in Mike's knowledge.
The argument in the distance relieved him greatly. Whatever Mike was up to meant more time for him to recover, maybe prepare to face whoever this new person was. He felt himself being talked about, from a voice he knew, somewhere deep in his bones. Where had he heard it? He tried to get up, to have some say in whatever was happening, but he was so tired, so spent. Arms still raw with a rash of blood and back aching.
But... Mike was gone now, and this new man approached him, kneeling over him and seeming to care. Jon kept his guard up.
"Not sure," Jon said, truthfully, for both questions. He pressed a bleeding hand to the roof, tried to lever himself up and hissed in a breath as his body fought the effort.
Something trickled into his mind, the awareness of a fellow Avatar... an aura of dreams and desolated islands and strangling vines and make a choice, Jon. Jon felt a chill run through him as he locked eyes with the man above him. "It's... it's you. You visited me. What do you want?"
"I want to clean up the mess Mike made." Oliver shrugged. "Mm, this would've been useful last time. I don't have much to tell you now, I'm afraid." He looked over the broken man under him, gently pressing his fingers to different points of his body to find any breaks. A thin, golden band around his ring finger caught the light, similar to the one Mike was wearing. He stopped over his ribs, his hand hovering over the right side. "Right here. Are you one of those avatars that heal on their own, or do you need a hospital?" He asked softly. He couldn't help but worry for the man, somehow more than when he last saw him.
Jon watched warily as the Avatar of Death touched him. He felt strangely helpless, unsure the motivation for this kindness, for the calm of Oliver's presence, for someone laying hands on him and not... leaving another mark. He wasn't sure he liked it, any of it––good, bad, whatever this was.
He felt the pain in his middle, now that the adrenaline was wearing off, and Jon winced. He honestly didn't know where his healing abilities ended, if broken bones were worse than stab wounds, or if he'd just exist in mangled pieces, just so long as he could serve the Eye...
"Hospitals are for people," Jon said, almost to himself. "I'll live," he sighed, and tried again to push himself up.
The glint of metal on Oliver's finger prompted something in his mind, a familiarity, and a simple fact pressed itself into Jon's mind. "I didn't know you had time for romance," he said, reaching for Oliver's hand. He didn't feel strong enough to get up on his own.
Oliver frowned at the wording, but nodded slowly. "If you're certain. Maybe we could get you downstairs... the couch is better for recovery than here. Mike shouldn't be back for a while." He said softly, taking Jon's hand and gently guiding him to sit up with his other arm. He glanced to the ring, chuckling quietly. "Oh, it just kind of happened to me... I'm grateful, really. It's a nice break from all the awfulness." He sighed, glancing to Jon's ribs worriedly. "Let's get you standing, yeah?"
A sharp knock comes from Jon's office door, followed by two equally impatient ones.
- @lightning-bastard
If it weren't for Jon's already scarred nerves, on top of his quite memorable history with spiders and doors and knocking, he might have been completely immune to the sudden, loud demands made on his office door. As it was, Jon felt the urge to smother his anxiety in something terse and frustrated.
❝ What do you want? People usually just barge right in. ❞
[ @lightning-bastard ]
Mike entered the office, looking much better than when Jon last saw him. Better of course meaning standing on his own, without a gaping head wound. Not dead. His hair was longer, but his eyes were bright as ever, pupils shrinking slightly when he laid them on Jon. He closed the door, kicking a chair under it as he quickly made his way towards the desk. "You asshole."
Jon's skin went cold as the realization sunk in that this man intended to trap him in his own office. It took him a second to realize who it was, but more than his face or his familiar voice, it was the sudden violent feeling of freefall that swept through Jon's body, and everything from that day came rushing back. Jon gripped his desk. "You came to finish the job?" he asked, wry and bitter.
Mike laughed quietly, looking absolutely delighted by Jon's panic. Still, under the amusement there was a deep anger. "Well, you almost did me in after I was gracious enough to let you leave, so I think that'd be more than fair." Up close, Jon could see a healed wound on his temple and the way the eye near it twitched oddly from time to time. The feeling of freefall let up for a short moment.
Jon had faced down so many things that seemed to enjoy his pain. Jude, Daisy, Michael, Nikola, even Elias... So many things that wanted to harm him because of things he did not intend. So here was another one, joining the collection. Back from the dead somehow to haunt him. "Unfortunately, things scarier than you have tried," he said, trying to shore himself in the moment of stability. Still clutching his desk, he stood, facing down the other man. "What happened to your eye?" he compelled, quickly, desperately.
A strong wave of vertigo hit Jon again, more powerful than before. Mike seemed to be trying to resist the compulsion, but it wasn't working. After a brief struggle, the answer escaped his mouth. "I got shot and it damaged the nerves." He spat out, groaning afterwards. "Oh my god, you just can't figure anything out, can you?! I have a lightning shaped scar because I was struck by lightning, I have a bullet wound and fucked up insides around it because your damn guard dog shot me, how hard is that to figure out?!" He yelled, frustrated. "You just need everything spelled out for you?" Wind seemed to be swirling around him, which definitely shouldn't be happening in a closed space.
Jon lurched forward, elbows hitting his desk and the threat of getting sick gripping his stomach. His mind raced with what he could do against Mike, besides keeping him talking. "Did you die when she shot you? Can you even die?" he shouted above the air building speed around them, throwing everything he had into the compulsion. Papers were crackling in a whirlwind around him, pens rolling off his desk and hitting the floor. Jon tried to breathe, found every intake panicked and shallow. He expected if Mike took him this time, he might never stop falling.
Mike took a shaky breath, again unable to resist. Unable to stop talking. "Yes." Despite the loud air around them, his quiet words were easy to hear. "Yes, I can die, I died and I was put in the domain of my patron's antithesis, and then I died again!" He laughed weakly, another wave of vertigo hitting Jon. "I had to dig myself out and go on a hunt again to return here. Now I need to take care of what's left. Question time is over." He laughed, louder this time. The wind descended upon Jon, and then he was falling, the office floor collapsing under him.
Jon felt a surge of uncontrollable panic consume him when he realized what was happening. He screamed but anything vocal from his throat was swallowed up in the careening endlessness of space and air below him. He couldn't breathe and his body stiffened, gripped with the terror of certain death. Why would Mike let him live after everything he'd just told him? It had been his own hands after all that buried Mike. And if Mike somehow thought Daisy was his responsibility too? Jon tried to close his eyes, tried to tell himself this was better, if he was honest with himself. If Mike killed him that would be okay. But he was still so desperately afraid, afraid that he'd never know the moment Mike would make him hit the ground.
Mike was falling too, but he didn't bother making himself known. He just reveled the pure fear he could fear coming from the man sharing the domain with him.
Eventually, it did stop. Jon crashed into the roof of a penthouse, pain radiating up his body from the contact with the roof tiles. He had the wind knocked out of him, though it seemed he was otherwise unharmed. Mike landed much more gracefully, coming over to look down at Jon.
The tiles of the roof sent a wave of sharp pain through Jon. It hurt, but no more than the explosion in the wax museum, no more than Jared pulling bone out through his skin, no more than Jude scalding him within a metre of his sanity. He wondered if this is what death felt like, when Mike delivered it. Georgie's words rolled through his head, "The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one..."
He tried his limbs though, found them capable of carrying his weight as he leaned up. They burned with pain but he wasn't sure if pain was something that meant he was still alive, or if that transcended death as well. It would be a pretty awful universe if the latter were the case. He found himself nearly laughing. He decided he was alive. What did he have to lose?
He felt Mike's shadow fall on him then and Jon forced himself up a little, bending his knees under him and gazing up at the man who now looked down on him.
"So you didn't you kill me?" he asked. Not compelling. Just a question.
Mike snorted. "That'd be a bit quick for you, wouldn't you say? Fall for a few seconds, land, die immediately? You don't deserve that." He said casually, his bright eyes glistening. "You deserve to suffer. To be thrown and hit the ground a thousand times before I decide I'm done with you." He sneered.
Jon felt his body freeze at the pure sadism in Mike's words. He didn't want to feel paralyzed again, didn't want Mike to get to him. He was pretty sure it would be impossible to lie to him though. He was scared, pure unadulterated fear, and his vision was already swimming with the thought of having to endure this over and over and over again.
He debated trying to offer Mike something, parry with something, anything.
"What would it take to keep me alive?" He did compel this time, but he couldn't keep the gasping, pleading, terrified waver out of his voice.
Mike let out a breathy chuckle, the wind slowly picking up around them. "A damn miracle." He said simply, despite the compulsion. "But I'll let you make an offer, if you're so desperate. Beg." He hummed coldly, stepping out of reach as Jon's stomach tugged at his insides again. He didn't have much time.
The nausea curdled inside him, not just from Mike's vertigo, but from the option he was given, the offer Mike demanded of him. He closed his eyes. The last time he was trapped between death and a desperate need to survive, he chose wrong. And he honestly didn't know what Mike could want from him, if Mike was truly an avatar worthy of his reputation. What could he possibly say that wouldn't be met with an airy, heartless laugh?
He looked up at Mike, met his eyes. Nikola had goaded him to curl into a ball and cry, Michael told him to scream loud enough for the Circus to hear, Trevor and Julia licked their lips and told him to run. Mike told him to beg for his life on his knees.
He was desperate and terrified, but he was also stubborn. "Just... just do your worst, Mike," he said, forcing himself to speak, despite the terror in his lungs. If Mike really did plan to send him to purgatory, he might have a chance to do something the next time he hit the ground...
Mike raised an eyebrow. "Hm. Boring... I suppose I wasn't expecting much, anyway." He chuckled, shaking his head. "Don't die on me too soon, would you?" He laughed as Jon fell upwards into the sky. Reality turned on its axis and he was plummeting again, wind whooshing around him, making him cold and nauseous. This time it took a few minutes for him to hit the roof again, and the impact was just as severe as last time. Mike looked over from the barrier he was balancing on. "Oh. You're back already?"
The impact forced a withered, scrabbling yell out of Jon. His body was screaming and it felt like something must have broken but he didn't really want to check to find out. His hands and arms were scraped though, stained to a grainy red from the clay tiles. He was so cold, so tired, so terrified.
He leaned up, as much as he could, finding Mike. And Jon bit his tongue, let the iron taste filling his lips shock him to distraction from the nausea still roiling in his stomach. Know him, See him, Jon commanded himself. He gasped, letting the Eye filter through his mind, directing its beam of knowledge towards Mike. And Jon commanded the craving power inside him to Look: What did it feel like to be eight years old, before the lightning, before Ex Altiora? Who was your friend, what were your games? What was childhood like to the boy you once were? He didn't Ask, he simply reached through Beholding and pulled as hard as he could.
He still didn't know what it felt like to be on the other end of the Eye's power, when it was fully directed at extracting knowledge from the unwilling. But he'd done it to Breekon, even if it drained him completely. But he was desperate, throwing open the floodwater of his mind, absorbing everything this man was unwilling to give him.
Mike froze up, a shaky breath escaping his mouth as his head exploded. Some things came to Jon silently, images, a reflection of a little blond boy grinning without a couple teeth in his mouth. Others were forced out of his mouth. "I was happy, my parents made time to take me out and spend time with me. We went to parks, and lakes, and forests- I used to have a friend, back when I was still a little kid. His name was Dominic Swain, and we would spend hours playing together outside…" He started reciting, like in a trance. More images flashed through Jon's mind, green fields, clear skies, an amusement park from a low perspective.
"Pirates, detectives, cowboys, pretty much whatever was interesting to us that week. Our houses were next to eachother, and behind them there was a large field that we liked to go to for play. We'd even play in winter, or in the rain-" Mike's voice briefly sounded strained. "I didn't like playing in the rain, and I don't think my parents were particularly fond of it either, but they weren't always around to put me back inside." The wind picked up around him, and that seemed to snap him out of it. He yelled in anger, jumping on top of Jon and pining him down as more images flooded his mind. As Mike's hands closed around his neck, and cold metal of a band around one of his fingers pressed into his skin, there was a faint noise of a latch opening somewhere on the roof. Mike didn't react, staring down right at Jon with his impossibly bright eyes. The left one kept twitching, seemingly more now that he was angry.
Jon felt his body strained, but emboldened, channeled and funneled into this single thing, this vessel for Knowing. He swallowed Mike's words and the pictures that came crashing through his head, absorbing it with a voracity that felt like pressure loss in an airplane.
The new information he was given almost distracted him from the reason he had asked Mike in the first place. He tried to pull himself away from being just the Eye and find himself again.
But suddenly, he felt something at his throat, and he couldn't breathe. Jon scrambled, instinct making him clutch hopelessly at the hands gripping him. Sheer terror broke him out of the drugging draw of the Eye, and he focused his eyes, meeting Mike's ferocious stare and cowering in the face of it.
But... something was wrong if Mike was resorting to such base physicality. His kills seemed to mostly be hands-off. He tried to figure out what to do with that, if he could do anything. But he couldn't speak if he couldn't breathe, and maybe that's what Mike wanted?
Jon tried desperately to stay conscious, but between being strangled and just being so goddamn terrified, he wasn't going to last long.
Thump, thump, thump, came the approaching, rushed footsteps from somewhere on the roof. Mike broke eye contact to look up, chuckling weakly. "Shit." He mumbled, just before he was yanked backwards by the collar. He released Jon as a tall, broad shouldered man with long locs pulled him up and off his victim, forcing him to stand away from Jon.
The argument that ensued was messy, and with the distance and the pain Jon could only pick up bits and pieces of it. From the new man with a suspiciously familiar voice he could catch phrases like "not again" and "he's not yours to take", while Mike spat out argumentation about "my business" and "he deserves it".
From his position he couldn't see very much, even as the stranger grabbed Mike again and pushed him towards the edge of the roof. He released him just close enough to fall, immediately running back to Jon once the other disappeared over the edge. He knelt down next to the injured man, black, tired eyes scanning over him rapidly and sweat beading on his dark skin. "Shit- I'm so sorry, Jon, I thought I'd get here on time." He said quietly, starting to gently inspect his injuries. "Did you break anything? Can you stand?"
Jon gulped air as he was abruptly released. His vision was swimming, his throat stinging from the pain of almost dying, his slight frame still exhausted from drinking in Mike's knowledge.
The argument in the distance relieved him greatly. Whatever Mike was up to meant more time for him to recover, maybe prepare to face whoever this new person was. He felt himself being talked about, from a voice he knew, somewhere deep in his bones. Where had he heard it? He tried to get up, to have some say in whatever was happening, but he was so tired, so spent. Arms still raw with a rash of blood and back aching.
But... Mike was gone now, and this new man approached him, kneeling over him and seeming to care. Jon kept his guard up.
"Not sure," Jon said, truthfully, for both questions. He pressed a bleeding hand to the roof, tried to lever himself up and hissed in a breath as his body fought the effort.
Something trickled into his mind, the awareness of a fellow Avatar... an aura of dreams and desolated islands and strangling vines and make a choice, Jon. Jon felt a chill run through him as he locked eyes with the man above him. "It's... it's you. You visited me. What do you want?"
"I want to clean up the mess Mike made." Oliver shrugged. "Mm, this would've been useful last time. I don't have much to tell you now, I'm afraid." He looked over the broken man under him, gently pressing his fingers to different points of his body to find any breaks. A thin, golden band around his ring finger caught the light, similar to the one Mike was wearing. He stopped over his ribs, his hand hovering over the right side. "Right here. Are you one of those avatars that heal on their own, or do you need a hospital?" He asked softly. He couldn't help but worry for the man, somehow more than when he last saw him.
Send 🧪 for my muse to take a truth serum and have to answer any question honestly from your muse.
Specify for multi muse blogs.
Gerry comes walking in from the front room, entirely unannounced and definitely not let in. He leans against the doorframe and smiles softly. “I'm here.”
- @londonslocalbookburner
Oliver startles a little, turning around to look at Gerry. He smiles softly, motioning him close to pull him into a brief hug. "Hey. The charcuterie board's in the living room, come on." He leads him to the couch. The coffee table holds the aforementioned board, as well as two fancy glasses and a bottle of Madeira wine.
He follows Oliver, eyes soft. He studies the spread before squeezing his hand with a smile. “Looks good, love.”
The board is assembled nicely, with a few meats, crackers, cheese, grapes and sliced strawberries. "I just wanted to do something nice. I haven't seen you in a while..." He sits down.
He sits down next to him, jacket ending up draped over the arm of the couch. “I know...I'm sorry about that, by the way. Life got...weird. Weirder than usual.”
"It's alright. I'm glad you're here now." Oliver smiles softly, opening the wine to pour them both some. "Wanna talk about it?"
Gerry shrugs, leaning back a little. “I would, if I knew exactly what happened. I was there and then I wasn't–but then I was back before I was gone again. It was weird.”
"Huh." Oliver leans back too, habding Gerry one of the wine glasses and grabbing himself a cracker. "I suppose that's just reality, when you deal with the supernatural every day..."
“True. But I'm used to the weird being something that doesn't cause memory gaps. Not even the Spiral really does that to me. Thank you.” He takes the wine glass and some strawberries, popping them in his mouth.
"Yeah, I suppose..." Oliver sighs. "Mike's mentioned missing some memories, but it's hard to tell how much of that was the Spiral and how much is him being like, 40 now." He hums.
“Could be both. Age is a bitch but so are the lasting effects.” He hummed.
Oliver chuckles. "True." He nods, getting himself a green grape. "Mike's been talking about taking you out of the country for a week."
“Oh?” He takes a sip of the wine, head tilting. “Sounds nice.”
"You're one lucky bastard." Oliver chuckles. "He'll probably take you to Iceland. A week of hot springs and pretty sights."
“Oh...that sounds heavenly.” He chuckled.
"You could use the break?" Oliver asks, picking up some cheese and smoked meat to chew on.
“Yeah, I could.” He nods, taking some of the meat as well. “It'd be nice to just relax.”
"I... should probably warn you." Oliver sighs. "Mike can get a little weird when he's out somewhere spacious for too long."
“Weird how?”
"He..." Oliver chews on his words, trying to find the best way to put it. "He has a second form. Massive storm, barely looks human. He stays like that for hours if he has space for it."
Gerry's eyebrows shoot up and he goes quiet for a minute. He seems to be contemplating that before nodding. “Well, I look forward to seeing it.”
"It's both beautiful and scary." Oliver sighs. "He can't speak, but he might pick you up."
Gerry comes walking in from the front room, entirely unannounced and definitely not let in. He leans against the doorframe and smiles softly. “I'm here.”
- @londonslocalbookburner
Oliver startles a little, turning around to look at Gerry. He smiles softly, motioning him close to pull him into a brief hug. "Hey. The charcuterie board's in the living room, come on." He leads him to the couch. The coffee table holds the aforementioned board, as well as two fancy glasses and a bottle of Madeira wine.
He follows Oliver, eyes soft. He studies the spread before squeezing his hand with a smile. “Looks good, love.”
The board is assembled nicely, with a few meats, crackers, cheese, grapes and sliced strawberries. "I just wanted to do something nice. I haven't seen you in a while..." He sits down.
He sits down next to him, jacket ending up draped over the arm of the couch. “I know...I'm sorry about that, by the way. Life got...weird. Weirder than usual.”
"It's alright. I'm glad you're here now." Oliver smiles softly, opening the wine to pour them both some. "Wanna talk about it?"
Gerry shrugs, leaning back a little. “I would, if I knew exactly what happened. I was there and then I wasn't–but then I was back before I was gone again. It was weird.”
"Huh." Oliver leans back too, habding Gerry one of the wine glasses and grabbing himself a cracker. "I suppose that's just reality, when you deal with the supernatural every day..."
“True. But I'm used to the weird being something that doesn't cause memory gaps. Not even the Spiral really does that to me. Thank you.” He takes the wine glass and some strawberries, popping them in his mouth.
"Yeah, I suppose..." Oliver sighs. "Mike's mentioned missing some memories, but it's hard to tell how much of that was the Spiral and how much is him being like, 40 now." He hums.
“Could be both. Age is a bitch but so are the lasting effects.” He hummed.
Oliver chuckles. "True." He nods, getting himself a green grape. "Mike's been talking about taking you out of the country for a week."
“Oh?” He takes a sip of the wine, head tilting. “Sounds nice.”
"You're one lucky bastard." Oliver chuckles. "He'll probably take you to Iceland. A week of hot springs and pretty sights."
“Oh...that sounds heavenly.” He chuckled.
"You could use the break?" Oliver asks, picking up some cheese and smoked meat to chew on.
“Yeah, I could.” He nods, taking some of the meat as well. “It'd be nice to just relax.”
"I... should probably warn you." Oliver sighs. "Mike can get a little weird when he's out somewhere spacious for too long."
“Weird how?”
"He..." Oliver chews on his words, trying to find the best way to put it. "He has a second form. Massive storm, barely looks human. He stays like that for hours if he has space for it."
Gerry comes walking in from the front room, entirely unannounced and definitely not let in. He leans against the doorframe and smiles softly. “I'm here.”
- @londonslocalbookburner
Oliver startles a little, turning around to look at Gerry. He smiles softly, motioning him close to pull him into a brief hug. "Hey. The charcuterie board's in the living room, come on." He leads him to the couch. The coffee table holds the aforementioned board, as well as two fancy glasses and a bottle of Madeira wine.
He follows Oliver, eyes soft. He studies the spread before squeezing his hand with a smile. “Looks good, love.”
The board is assembled nicely, with a few meats, crackers, cheese, grapes and sliced strawberries. "I just wanted to do something nice. I haven't seen you in a while..." He sits down.
He sits down next to him, jacket ending up draped over the arm of the couch. “I know...I'm sorry about that, by the way. Life got...weird. Weirder than usual.”
"It's alright. I'm glad you're here now." Oliver smiles softly, opening the wine to pour them both some. "Wanna talk about it?"
Gerry shrugs, leaning back a little. “I would, if I knew exactly what happened. I was there and then I wasn't–but then I was back before I was gone again. It was weird.”
"Huh." Oliver leans back too, habding Gerry one of the wine glasses and grabbing himself a cracker. "I suppose that's just reality, when you deal with the supernatural every day..."
“True. But I'm used to the weird being something that doesn't cause memory gaps. Not even the Spiral really does that to me. Thank you.” He takes the wine glass and some strawberries, popping them in his mouth.
"Yeah, I suppose..." Oliver sighs. "Mike's mentioned missing some memories, but it's hard to tell how much of that was the Spiral and how much is him being like, 40 now." He hums.
“Could be both. Age is a bitch but so are the lasting effects.” He hummed.
Oliver chuckles. "True." He nods, getting himself a green grape. "Mike's been talking about taking you out of the country for a week."
“Oh?” He takes a sip of the wine, head tilting. “Sounds nice.”
"You're one lucky bastard." Oliver chuckles. "He'll probably take you to Iceland. A week of hot springs and pretty sights."
“Oh...that sounds heavenly.” He chuckled.
"You could use the break?" Oliver asks, picking up some cheese and smoked meat to chew on.
“Yeah, I could.” He nods, taking some of the meat as well. “It'd be nice to just relax.”
"I... should probably warn you." Oliver sighs. "Mike can get a little weird when he's out somewhere spacious for too long."
Gerry comes walking in from the front room, entirely unannounced and definitely not let in. He leans against the doorframe and smiles softly. “I'm here.”
- @londonslocalbookburner
Oliver startles a little, turning around to look at Gerry. He smiles softly, motioning him close to pull him into a brief hug. "Hey. The charcuterie board's in the living room, come on." He leads him to the couch. The coffee table holds the aforementioned board, as well as two fancy glasses and a bottle of Madeira wine.
He follows Oliver, eyes soft. He studies the spread before squeezing his hand with a smile. “Looks good, love.”
The board is assembled nicely, with a few meats, crackers, cheese, grapes and sliced strawberries. "I just wanted to do something nice. I haven't seen you in a while..." He sits down.
He sits down next to him, jacket ending up draped over the arm of the couch. “I know...I'm sorry about that, by the way. Life got...weird. Weirder than usual.”
"It's alright. I'm glad you're here now." Oliver smiles softly, opening the wine to pour them both some. "Wanna talk about it?"
Gerry shrugs, leaning back a little. “I would, if I knew exactly what happened. I was there and then I wasn't–but then I was back before I was gone again. It was weird.”
"Huh." Oliver leans back too, habding Gerry one of the wine glasses and grabbing himself a cracker. "I suppose that's just reality, when you deal with the supernatural every day..."
“True. But I'm used to the weird being something that doesn't cause memory gaps. Not even the Spiral really does that to me. Thank you.” He takes the wine glass and some strawberries, popping them in his mouth.
"Yeah, I suppose..." Oliver sighs. "Mike's mentioned missing some memories, but it's hard to tell how much of that was the Spiral and how much is him being like, 40 now." He hums.
“Could be both. Age is a bitch but so are the lasting effects.” He hummed.
Oliver chuckles. "True." He nods, getting himself a green grape. "Mike's been talking about taking you out of the country for a week."
“Oh?” He takes a sip of the wine, head tilting. “Sounds nice.”
"You're one lucky bastard." Oliver chuckles. "He'll probably take you to Iceland. A week of hot springs and pretty sights."
“Oh...that sounds heavenly.” He chuckled.
"You could use the break?" Oliver asks, picking up some cheese and smoked meat to chew on.
Gerry comes walking in from the front room, entirely unannounced and definitely not let in. He leans against the doorframe and smiles softly. “I'm here.”
- @londonslocalbookburner
Oliver startles a little, turning around to look at Gerry. He smiles softly, motioning him close to pull him into a brief hug. "Hey. The charcuterie board's in the living room, come on." He leads him to the couch. The coffee table holds the aforementioned board, as well as two fancy glasses and a bottle of Madeira wine.
He follows Oliver, eyes soft. He studies the spread before squeezing his hand with a smile. “Looks good, love.”
The board is assembled nicely, with a few meats, crackers, cheese, grapes and sliced strawberries. "I just wanted to do something nice. I haven't seen you in a while..." He sits down.
He sits down next to him, jacket ending up draped over the arm of the couch. “I know...I'm sorry about that, by the way. Life got...weird. Weirder than usual.”
"It's alright. I'm glad you're here now." Oliver smiles softly, opening the wine to pour them both some. "Wanna talk about it?"
Gerry shrugs, leaning back a little. “I would, if I knew exactly what happened. I was there and then I wasn't–but then I was back before I was gone again. It was weird.”
"Huh." Oliver leans back too, habding Gerry one of the wine glasses and grabbing himself a cracker. "I suppose that's just reality, when you deal with the supernatural every day..."
“True. But I'm used to the weird being something that doesn't cause memory gaps. Not even the Spiral really does that to me. Thank you.” He takes the wine glass and some strawberries, popping them in his mouth.
"Yeah, I suppose..." Oliver sighs. "Mike's mentioned missing some memories, but it's hard to tell how much of that was the Spiral and how much is him being like, 40 now." He hums.
“Could be both. Age is a bitch but so are the lasting effects.” He hummed.
Oliver chuckles. "True." He nods, getting himself a green grape. "Mike's been talking about taking you out of the country for a week."
“Oh?” He takes a sip of the wine, head tilting. “Sounds nice.”
"You're one lucky bastard." Oliver chuckles. "He'll probably take you to Iceland. A week of hot springs and pretty sights."
Gerry comes walking in from the front room, entirely unannounced and definitely not let in. He leans against the doorframe and smiles softly. “I'm here.”
- @londonslocalbookburner
Oliver startles a little, turning around to look at Gerry. He smiles softly, motioning him close to pull him into a brief hug. "Hey. The charcuterie board's in the living room, come on." He leads him to the couch. The coffee table holds the aforementioned board, as well as two fancy glasses and a bottle of Madeira wine.
He follows Oliver, eyes soft. He studies the spread before squeezing his hand with a smile. “Looks good, love.”
The board is assembled nicely, with a few meats, crackers, cheese, grapes and sliced strawberries. "I just wanted to do something nice. I haven't seen you in a while..." He sits down.
He sits down next to him, jacket ending up draped over the arm of the couch. “I know...I'm sorry about that, by the way. Life got...weird. Weirder than usual.”
"It's alright. I'm glad you're here now." Oliver smiles softly, opening the wine to pour them both some. "Wanna talk about it?"
Gerry shrugs, leaning back a little. “I would, if I knew exactly what happened. I was there and then I wasn't–but then I was back before I was gone again. It was weird.”
"Huh." Oliver leans back too, habding Gerry one of the wine glasses and grabbing himself a cracker. "I suppose that's just reality, when you deal with the supernatural every day..."
“True. But I'm used to the weird being something that doesn't cause memory gaps. Not even the Spiral really does that to me. Thank you.” He takes the wine glass and some strawberries, popping them in his mouth.
"Yeah, I suppose..." Oliver sighs. "Mike's mentioned missing some memories, but it's hard to tell how much of that was the Spiral and how much is him being like, 40 now." He hums.
“Could be both. Age is a bitch but so are the lasting effects.” He hummed.
Oliver chuckles. "True." He nods, getting himself a green grape. "Mike's been talking about taking you out of the country for a week."
Gerry comes walking in from the front room, entirely unannounced and definitely not let in. He leans against the doorframe and smiles softly. “I'm here.”
- @londonslocalbookburner
Oliver startles a little, turning around to look at Gerry. He smiles softly, motioning him close to pull him into a brief hug. "Hey. The charcuterie board's in the living room, come on." He leads him to the couch. The coffee table holds the aforementioned board, as well as two fancy glasses and a bottle of Madeira wine.
He follows Oliver, eyes soft. He studies the spread before squeezing his hand with a smile. “Looks good, love.”
The board is assembled nicely, with a few meats, crackers, cheese, grapes and sliced strawberries. "I just wanted to do something nice. I haven't seen you in a while..." He sits down.
He sits down next to him, jacket ending up draped over the arm of the couch. “I know...I'm sorry about that, by the way. Life got...weird. Weirder than usual.”
"It's alright. I'm glad you're here now." Oliver smiles softly, opening the wine to pour them both some. "Wanna talk about it?"
Gerry shrugs, leaning back a little. “I would, if I knew exactly what happened. I was there and then I wasn't–but then I was back before I was gone again. It was weird.”
"Huh." Oliver leans back too, habding Gerry one of the wine glasses and grabbing himself a cracker. "I suppose that's just reality, when you deal with the supernatural every day..."
“True. But I'm used to the weird being something that doesn't cause memory gaps. Not even the Spiral really does that to me. Thank you.” He takes the wine glass and some strawberries, popping them in his mouth.
"Yeah, I suppose..." Oliver sighs. "Mike's mentioned missing some memories, but it's hard to tell how much of that was the Spiral and how much is him being like, 40 now." He hums.
Gerry comes walking in from the front room, entirely unannounced and definitely not let in. He leans against the doorframe and smiles softly. “I'm here.”
- @londonslocalbookburner
Oliver startles a little, turning around to look at Gerry. He smiles softly, motioning him close to pull him into a brief hug. "Hey. The charcuterie board's in the living room, come on." He leads him to the couch. The coffee table holds the aforementioned board, as well as two fancy glasses and a bottle of Madeira wine.
He follows Oliver, eyes soft. He studies the spread before squeezing his hand with a smile. “Looks good, love.”
The board is assembled nicely, with a few meats, crackers, cheese, grapes and sliced strawberries. "I just wanted to do something nice. I haven't seen you in a while..." He sits down.
He sits down next to him, jacket ending up draped over the arm of the couch. “I know...I'm sorry about that, by the way. Life got...weird. Weirder than usual.”
"It's alright. I'm glad you're here now." Oliver smiles softly, opening the wine to pour them both some. "Wanna talk about it?"
Gerry shrugs, leaning back a little. “I would, if I knew exactly what happened. I was there and then I wasn't–but then I was back before I was gone again. It was weird.”
"Huh." Oliver leans back too, habding Gerry one of the wine glasses and grabbing himself a cracker. "I suppose that's just reality, when you deal with the supernatural every day..."
Gerry comes walking in from the front room, entirely unannounced and definitely not let in. He leans against the doorframe and smiles softly. “I'm here.”
- @londonslocalbookburner
Oliver startles a little, turning around to look at Gerry. He smiles softly, motioning him close to pull him into a brief hug. "Hey. The charcuterie board's in the living room, come on." He leads him to the couch. The coffee table holds the aforementioned board, as well as two fancy glasses and a bottle of Madeira wine.
He follows Oliver, eyes soft. He studies the spread before squeezing his hand with a smile. “Looks good, love.”
The board is assembled nicely, with a few meats, crackers, cheese, grapes and sliced strawberries. "I just wanted to do something nice. I haven't seen you in a while..." He sits down.
He sits down next to him, jacket ending up draped over the arm of the couch. “I know...I'm sorry about that, by the way. Life got...weird. Weirder than usual.”
"It's alright. I'm glad you're here now." Oliver smiles softly, opening the wine to pour them both some. "Wanna talk about it?"
Gerry comes walking in from the front room, entirely unannounced and definitely not let in. He leans against the doorframe and smiles softly. “I'm here.”
- @londonslocalbookburner
Oliver startles a little, turning around to look at Gerry. He smiles softly, motioning him close to pull him into a brief hug. "Hey. The charcuterie board's in the living room, come on." He leads him to the couch. The coffee table holds the aforementioned board, as well as two fancy glasses and a bottle of Madeira wine.
He follows Oliver, eyes soft. He studies the spread before squeezing his hand with a smile. “Looks good, love.”
The board is assembled nicely, with a few meats, crackers, cheese, grapes and sliced strawberries. "I just wanted to do something nice. I haven't seen you in a while..." He sits down.
Gerry comes walking in from the front room, entirely unannounced and definitely not let in. He leans against the doorframe and smiles softly. “I'm here.”
- @londonslocalbookburner
Oliver startles a little, turning around to look at Gerry. He smiles softly, motioning him close to pull him into a brief hug. "Hey. The charcuterie board's in the living room, come on." He leads him to the couch. The coffee table holds the aforementioned board, as well as two fancy glasses and a bottle of Madeira wine.
