According to the history books, the philosopher Diogenes asked Antisthenes, a student of Socrates, to mentor him. Antisthenes ignored him and denied him despite his efforts, even going so far as to beat him away with his stick when he persisted. To this, Diogenes responded, "Strike, for you will find no wood hard enough to keep me away from you, so long as I think you've something to say."
This was a tale that had always wholly reminded Jem of his parabatai - whether it was the self-righteous arrogance of Diogenes, or the sheer irritating persistence displayed, he’d never been sure. And William had always good-naturedly accepted any comparisons to Diogenes, perhaps because each was as philosophical, as knowing, and as degenerate as the other.
But there was something wrong with William, today. He’d grown used to his parabatai’s fickle flights of foulness and fancy alike, but there was something of a distracted, inconsiderate fever to him -- something Jem had instantly picked up on. His insults had grown more pointed and exact, more venomous, more heartless-- in a way that seemed extortionate, even for him.
Try as he might, he hadn’t been able to coax his soul brother into a more placated state, nor had he been able to decipher what, exactly, was causing this raincloud over his head. His temper had gotten only worse over the course of the day, so much so that Jem, who usually respected his friend’s privacy in not disrupting his night-time wanders, had instead followed him out of the Institute that evening. He’d kept close but silent, without his cane and with a hat rather than his usual bareheaded fashion as so not to draw so much attention to himself.
He’d gone with every intent of not interrupting, of not interfering with any part of the other boy’s plans -- all he’d wanted to do was to protect his parabatai and soothe his own conscience and worry. What kind of parabatai would he have been if he’d just allowed him to go off on his own in his foul state, after all... ?
Jem had continued to trail the teen down Fleet Street and all along the pavements, keeping the Thames on his right; it was late enough, cold enough, that the general flurry of horse-and-carriages had ceased, meaning the two of them were only accompanied by the occasional passing cart; it gave the situation the isolation that he couldn’t help but feel it would need. He pictured Will lashing out at every gentleman they passed, equipped not with glowing seraph blade but with sharp wit and toxic tongue - but no, even Jem knew that was an exaggeration. He only lashed out at those who tried to care for him, not at the passing glances of strangers. And, indeed, he’d kept to himself the entire journey, clearly too distracted by whatever was going on in his own head to realise Jem’s presence behind him.
The two must have walked a mile or more like that, in complete silence, William lost in his thoughts and James caught in his espionage; the latter was beginning to feel a little bewildered by the entire scenario, and was considering heading back just as Will changed directions abruptly and began to head up the side lanes towards Whitechapel.
Any number of excuses swam through Jem’s mind suddenly: his parabatai had thought Jem was running out of yin fen and was travelling with the intent to buy some more for him; he’d some errands to run, and this was one of the few pure reasons why a man might go to Whitechapel after dark; this was a part of Will’s regular route, and it wouldn’t be worth overthinking the boy’s actions or unreasonably demonising him... but none of them worked, and Jem felt his heart sink as his eyes (almost pure silver, flecked only with the smallest dots of black) took in the location of every brothel and every ifrit den he knew lay along that road.
However, it wasn't until Will made to approach one of the ifrit dens, raising his hand to the knocker, that Jem shot out an arm to stop him; grabbing his parabatai by the wrist, the taller of the two spun around in shock, blue-violet eyes brightening and then darkening in equal measure as he took in the presence of his parabatai.
“James--” Will had begun, in a tone that seemed both stern and wheedling - but the silver-haired boy had cut him off right away with an uncharacteristically dark look and a firm--
Jem had never had much of a temper, and on practically any occasion he was willing to begrudge and forgive his parabatai anything at all-- but his fear, his insecurities, and his own thickly-covered self-loathing came to the forefront all at once as his other arm shot out to grab the black-haired boy by both his wrists. Tugging him towards him, he kept his gaze steady, though his heart was thudding in his throat.
“You should know-- that is to say, you ought to know what this means to me, William. I can’t allow you to do this-- I’m taking you back with me.”
He thought of Diogenes and Antisthenes, and he thought of the day the boys had both met - still children then, Jem had been the Diogenes, insisting the other boy train with him, because he’d wanted a companionship in the boy - and he thought of every time since, how he’d defended his best friend regardless of what he’d said or done, because Will could find no wood hard enough to keep him away from him, so long as Jem felt he still had something worth caring for in there somewhere.
Not allowing the Herondale boy to get a word in edgeways, Jem had simply begun to drag him back with him, slender fingers betraying a grip like iron around his wrists and the cuffs of his shirtsleeves, allowing himself to breathe again only once the two were away from Whitechapel and safely on the other side of the pavement to the Thames. His parabatai had complained, naturally, but something in him was grateful, Jem suspected; enough dry responses were knocking a little of the bitterhead out of him, enough that he hoped they’d be able to talk responsibly once they were back at the institute.
Perhaps being a Diogenes was not such a bad thing, after all.
Ferdinand, the king’s son, with hair up-staring,--then like reeds, not hair,-- was the first man that leap'd; cried, 'Hell is empty. And all the devils are here.’
If he’d lived elsewhere, he might have been called a damoiseau, a male damsel -- a boy not yet old enough to be dubbed a knight. How old was he again? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember many things, not when his mind raced like lightning. Lightning, lightning, jugful after jugful of pure white liquid fire tipples down and is gone - but that wasn’t right, was it? Those words were new, not yet born to the heads or tongues of mortals, and he was not yet old enough to live through the words of humans-not-yet-concepts.
But he’d lived for so long, he’d known fire. London had burned up, from the bakery to the bridges, Pudding Lane to Paddington-- in his mind, the church there had been in a different place, and it’d burned. He’d never seen London never travelled there, but he’d been there to watch it burn two hundred years ago.
He was so young, and so old, all at the same time, and it was all so deliciously contradictory-
“Jian! --Jian, wo ai ni--”
He didn’t know where the voice was coming from. His body felt weightless like a sack of bricks; his eyes were one place, his fingers and toes another and his soul still further away. He’d not known his body to disconnect itself before like a cheaply-made doll -- perhaps this was what happened when you grew up, your joints popping out to elongate themselves like noodles or chewing taffy between one’s teeth. Feel so sweet- sometimes he’d taste fire, a burning sickly-sweetness like toffee-vomit that made his body scream in agony and ecstasy all at the same time. The lines between the two were blurring. Blurred lines, smudged, ruined like the carpets beneath his feet--
For a fleeting moment, he could see ornate walls and a fireplace through his marble-eyes, something that seemed right and yet wrong, perhaps from the splatters of red across the wallpaper. Was that meant to be there?
He wasn’t sure what was happening, but he’d tried to jerk his head to see more-- but his muscles were liquid, surely made of the missing oil from the cogs in his clockwork jaw, and he found himself stuck.
In his line of sight for barely a moment before it all went black was an enamel box on the mantlepiece though he could barely think of his own name (surely it began with a J, that sounded right, though something wasn’t connecting in his head, the wires were all tangled in the roots of the knotweed planted in his brain) he knew that the box was holy somehow, rooted to the gods, and parts of him were in equal disgust and reverence, this strange hysteria driving him to painful religious desperation.
Filicide was the murder of one’s own child. But what was the term for the murder of someone else’s? There was a connection to be made here, but his mind was long beyond rationality-- but no, he had it! The voice was coming from the goddess, the goddess on the box, Kwan Yin, who would relieve him of his suffering, gather his pain in her arms, place him in a manger, proclaim him- no, that wasn’t.. but was anything right? Was anything right, here? All that was right was the woman’s voice, Kwan Yin’s voice, the voice of God, coming to save him from London’s flames inside his eyelids.
But he waited, he waited, and the goddess never spoke again; his mind whirred on, undeterred, while his feet melted into the earth below him, and his fingers tried to drip the demons from his veins to no avail.
Hell was empty, and all the demons were in him.
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