tushanshu_logs | what's a... door? [ closed ]

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what's a... door? [ closed ]

WHO Jacob Kane (Cain), Skulduggery Pleasant.
WHAT Just a friendly drop-by to see how the other is doing. Maybe get some info. In the name of friendship, clearly.
WHEN Sometime at the end of October, idek.
WHERE ME-1A.
WARNINGS N/A thus far.

Things were getting quiet again. Riva had gone back to Midii after staying with him for a while (which was weird, but not too weird on Cain's new scale of relative weirdness on the whole of being here, anyway), and that meant he was alone to himself. That was nothing new, but it was something he noticed after having lived with Riva a few days, and his brother, niece and their freeloader/house arrestees for a few months before that. It gave him time to think, gave him time to get settled back into his own skin.

What it really gave Cain time to do was realize what a fucked up situation he had been pulled into. Nothing was ever straight and narrow in life, but damn if this wasn't more crooked than usual. Giant, possessed continent turtles and fucked up clocks and psychic baby turtles and the lands between the realms of life, death and dreaming. None of it sat well with him, and he wasn't afraid to admit part of it was in fact due to him being an old man in soul who was damn well acquainted with how things were. Now they weren't. That was aggravating... and maybe a bit unnerving. Just what was the world's oldest man (back home, anyway) supposed to do about an invisible enemy? What did they expect him to do about a torn populace of newcomers? Stepping up and taking charge... he definitely could, and something might even come of it. The real question was: did he want to? Getting involved like that was going to bite him in the ass sooner rather than later.

Maybe he would just sit and stew for a while longer. His phone still had juice and that had music... Yeah, maybe he'd just put something on and see about getting some kind of research done. The network might not be safe to post on, but there wouldn't be harm in going back to see what kind of things had already been committed to the forums, right? You could learn a lot about a person from their social networking habits.

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If you could learn a lot about a person from their social networking habits, then Jacob Kane knew next to nothing about Skulduggery. The detective knew almost everything which occurred on the consoles, but he didn't post to the network very often, and whenever he did it was usually for business. Of course, a smart man would know that even a lack of information could be an important clue, and Skulduggery had certainly pegged Kane for being a smart man.

Which was why he decided not to knock on the suite door, and instead flew up past the windows until he discovered which one belonged to Kane's room. Once he'd discerned that, he knocked on the glass and gave a little wave.

What, exactly, Kane being a smart man had to do with Skulduggery's preference for windows over doors would have to remain a mystery.

By the time the rapping on the window interrupted his 'net diving, Cain had already made a bit of a swathe in the general posts. He wasn't up to combing each and every one of them yet, but even seeing the content and the general mood of recent times was a good place to start before he decided which posts were delving into. That, or if it would be worth it in order to hack inside and look for anything being hidden. Mental note made to start working on a way to crack things open, he paused in the process of speed-skimming and turned toward the window.

It was just another one of those things to go on the scale of relative weirdness, he supposed, when the undead skeleton was waiting outside of his second floor window and waving at him. Jauntily, he bet. There was no way anyone could pull that off and not be even a little bit of a shit over it, especially when you had no facial features to give you away. Jerking himself out of the momentary stillness he had lapsed into at the sight, Cain moved to open the window and lean his arm up against the frame.

"Don't tell me we're neighbors and you wanted to borrow a measuring cup," he greeted. It would just figure he was somehow living next door to Skulduggery Pleasant. Though, actually, Cain would admit he'd like that well enough. Skeleton had a good, rather visible head on his shoulders, after all. With a quick, confirming glance out the window he added, "Do all skeletons just randomly get the ability to break away from gravitational pulls like that or are you just special?"

Edited 2014-10-27 01:42 (UTC)

"As far as greetings go," said Skulduggery, an amused smile evident in his tone, "that one was certainly unique. We're not neighbours, and I'd prefer borrowing you over borrowing a measuring cup."

What would he need a measuring cup for, anyway? Baking? Baking what? What did people bake these days? Skulduggery vaguely remembered when 'baking' was used to imply 'making delicious pies' without question, but nowadays there were cakes, cookies, and even brownies. It was enough to drive a lesser man mad.

Although, come to think of it, there was that one time someone threw a measuring cup at his head in a grocery store. They made surprising versatile impulsive weapons.

"I'm just special," he confirmed with a nod. "Well, not in terms of magic. There are plenty of sorcerers where I come from. Not particularly in type of magic either, but as far as I know, I'm the only one who can fly. And, of course, I have the living skeleton thing going for me. Would you like to grab some lunch?"

Cain laughed at the invitation and leaned further on the frame. It was really a no-brained, going out with the magical skeleton who could fly that wanted to take him out for lunch that he presumably couldn't eat for... what, exactly? There was no way Cain wasn't suspicious about the offer, but he certainly hadn't gotten to where he was now by letting that control him. Not anymore. He was past the point of skittishness and had moved on into running toward the danger to try and get past it on the other side. That usually gave him an advantage... or ended him up in Texas or Alabama or wherever the fuck else.

"No sorcerers back home for me," Cain said to stall out his answer. "As long as you're paying, why not? Let's go get some lunch." He turned briefly to retrieve his jacket and double-check that his meager little pocketknife was still where he expected it to be before returning to the window. "Does that specialness extend to offering elevator rides to your guests?"

Ah. A non-magical world, then - or at least one without sorcerers. Another piece to add to the puzzle.

"Even if I were capable of eating," said Skulduggery, "and used my money for anything other than maintaining my car, I'd be a very rude man forcing a newcomer to pay for his own meal. I'm many things, but I'm not rude. Are you sure you don't want to use the stairs? I can wait."

It wasn't often Skulduggery came across anyone willing to use the window as an exit, after all. Even Valkyrie had objected to the idea in the beginning.

One that existed on magic but where magic was only usable via connection to another realm. It certainly was enough to make Cain a bit cranky about all the magic running rampant here in Keeliai, not that he was going to comment on it right away. Or ever, maybe. Who knew?

With a very plain look, Cain held out a hand and waggled his fingers. Don't deprive him of a new experience, Skulduggery, it had been nearly three-thousand years and this was something he had never imagined he would get to do. Who was he to say no or be talked out of that?

"You say you're not rude, but it looks like you're trying to get out of sharing your awesome exit. Come in the window, and you expect your guest to just walk down the stairs?" he asked, grin in place and hand not going anywhere.

"Technically," Skulduggery pointed out, "I'm the guest. This is your suite, after all."

But he relented, partly because it would be faster and partly because he was pleasantly surprised by Kane's reaction. He wasn't sure why, except that Kane was starting to sound remarkably like a male and grown-up version of Valkyrie Cain, and Skulduggery was powerless to resist under the best of circumstances. He couldn't let the slight pass without retaliation, however, and so when he held out his hand, all Kane experienced was a slight breeze which ruffled his hair.

"You'll need to kneel on the sill," Skulduggery said. "And hold your arms out. It works a bit differently when I'm lifting someone else."

"You're taking me out, which makes me the guest even in my own home," Cain said reasonably. He wasn't even going to fuss over calling the empty room in an empty building in an alternate world home. He'd had so many over the years that the idea of it had pretty much lost all meaning, even back before his brother's death.

The wind ruffling got him to tilt his head back just for a moment. It felt... well, like wind, even if it couldn't possibly be natural, and that was weird. That was magic. Somehow it felt more benevolent than he imagined it might. Skulduggery's instructions were followed without comment (he was the expert, after all). He knelt on the sill and held his arms out in front of him, then switched them out to his sides at Skulduggery's correction.

"All right. I'd say paint me like one of your French girls, but that's the wrong scene," Cain mumbled to himself. It wasn't that it felt silly (though it did), more that whatever way this was going to work sure was going to be interesting and he felt the need to comment in some way or another.

Skulduggery tilted his head. "We are on the ocean. It's not an entirely unfounded comparison. Now, in order for this to work, I need you to flap your arms like a bird."

The words were said with utter seriousness. Skulduggery had had a lot of practice with keeping a poker face, so to speak.

That poker face was probably helped a lot by the fact that Skulduggery only ever had a single face to use. Lack of skin and muscles to move them and all that. However, while Cain had many different faces, he had plenty of time to practice and perfect them all. He met Skulduggery's poker face with one of his own, standing and once again holding his hand out. He wasn't quite sure what, but something told him he was being played.

The poker face cracked into a rueful and censuring grin. "Nice," he said simply. "Just don't pay for lunch with monopoly money or then I might actually have my feelings hurt."

"Why would I pay for lunch with monopoly money?" Skulduggery folded his arms in midair, looking for all the world like a man standing and waiting, bored, for a bus. "Jump out the window. It's air manipulation; I'm going to catch you with the air. Though if you want to close your eyes and wish very hard, think happy thoughts, or flap your arms like a bird, I'm certainly not going to stop you."

"Not saying you will," Cain said as he easily took the hop as directed. The worst that could happen was that he fell and cracked some bones, which would hurt like a bitch but injury was never an actual consequence to Cain. When the air held him aloft, he grinned and straightened himself to make Skulduggery's posture. How cool. He continued, "But you seem like the kind of guy who has or plans to at some point. Maybe not Monopoly money. Then again the euro already looks like funny money, anyway."

Holding someone up in the air became much harder when they straightened up and provided only the bottoms of their feet for leverage, but Skulduggery managed it well enough. It meant having to solidify more than just the air beneath Kane's feet, which would have the less-than-ideal side effect of making Kane feel like he was being surrounded by heavy sludge, but there were always prices to pay for showing off. Skulduggery had to admit, he was reluctantly impressed Kane was capable of showing off so quickly.

"Ah, yes," said Skulduggery, his tone similar to the way someone might speak about an enemy by saying 'oh, him.' "The euro. Rest assured, I won't be using euros to pay for lunch."

He lowered both himself and Kane down to the ground almost exactly as if they were in an elevator, and the sensation for Kane would have been akin to slipping down a slide made of the same heavy sludge as before - gentle, but fundamentally creepy. When Skulduggery touched down, he released the air, and tried to ignore the exhaustion creeping into his bones. Flying was tiring enough on its own. Carrying someone else was a skill he'd only recently picked up.

"Any preferences?" he asked. "I'm afraid I only really know coffee shops."

Cain rolled a shoulder at the feeling of the air closing in around him. Just by virtue of putting the pieces together, he had an idea of what was being done and why and he did his best to keep from outwardly reacting. He was being closed in by air and that was more than a bit worrying and creepy, but thus far it was a safe environment and Cain was determined to look at the other, much more entertaining side of it instead. He was standing on air!

Once they were on the ground, he couldn't quite wipe the satisfaction off of his face, nor did he really bother trying. That had been cool and, as much as he was showing off, he wasn't going to hide that. There was no reason to pretend to be unmoved, and that likely said something about how well he had genuinely been able to adapt to everything else happening around him lately.

"There's this café on one of the better streets that doesn't mind us giving them our money if we sit in the blind spot," Cain said thoughtfully. "Heard there might be some gang movement around there lately but somehow I don't think that's a con to you."

Edited 2014-10-27 04:13 (UTC)

It was precisely Kane's unfettered reaction which made his banter not nearly as annoying as it might otherwise have been. Skulduggery had never seen anything wrong with enjoying oneself, so long as that enjoyment didn't include murder - or, when he was home and his position as a detective meant something, breaking the law. It was a bigger indication of character than almost anything else.

It was, in fact, a trait many long-lived sorcerers shared. There wasn't very much point in playing enjoyment games once you'd lived past a few centuries and realised just how much uninterrupted time you still had stretching out before you.

"I stole a shotgun from them once," Skulduggery replied by way of a roundabout confirmation. "Well, stole back. They weren't the rightful owners. Just because the gangs know me, however, doesn't mean they'll leave us alone, especially with the current atmosphere being what it is. They very wisely left a powerful friend of mine alone up until a week ago. A few of them tried to make a move on his Hotel. It didn't end well for them, but you have to give them points for bravery."

Until they made a move on Skulduggery, anyway. Then he'd only give them points for stupidity.

Cain took the conversation as cue and began to lead the way. It was curious how Skulduggery had come and sought him out but now seemed entirely willing to simply banter the time away. Perhaps he was waiting until they were in a more stable location to get to the point, or maybe Skulduggery made it a habit of introducing himself to all of the metaphorical neighbors. Cain hadn't had much of a chance to get a real bead on the skeleton man and he was annoyingly difficult to pin down without some of the usual tip-offs like facial expressions. Those always told a lot more about a person than they realized.

Either way, he wasn't too bothered. So what if the skeleton had magic and wanted him somewhere away from other foreigners for reasons unknown? No, really, so what? Cain was rather interested in what his intentions were, benign or otherwise, and that was most of the reason he had agreed in the first place. It would be a story to keep, at any rate.

"What hotel would that be?" he asked. He tilted his head in thought, then added, "We could probably take something to go if you think they might bug you."

"The Midnight Hotel," Skulduggery answered. "It was pulled here along with him. It's slightly off-kilter with this reality, which means its entrance opens into all five sectors of Keeliai. He uses it as neutral ground. It's very useful."

Skulduggery's tone was perfectly casual and, as Kane had already observed, there was very little in the way of mannerisms to give away what Skulduggery's objectives were. In reality, however, he didn't have any - or at least, none he was aware of, beyond wanting some interesting company. There was every chance Skulduggery had subconsciously worked something out and wanted to confront Kane over whatever it was he'd discovered.

That, and Kane was a puzzle. Skulduggery was never able to resist a puzzle.

He waved a nonchalant hand at Kane's suggestion. "I don't want them to think their intimidation tactics are working. That's only going to build up their confidence and encourage them to do more stupid things in the future."

"Somewhere that opens everywhere at once?" mused Cain. That sounded incredibly useful and he approved that it was being used as an appropriate form of middle ground. It would have been such a waste that a marvel like that would only be used for some kind of shortcut or... dare he say it, as a regular hotel. Whatever the case was, there was certainly a lot of opportunity in simply knowing such a place existed and Cain made note to himself to seek out the mysterious Midnight Hotel at some point and investigate on his own. "Sounds like those punks got what was coming to them if they tried messing with that."

Cain laughed and gave that point to Skulduggery. "Into the coliseum to face the lions, then. Thankfully with our clothes on, it's cold out today."

"Is it?" Skulduggery reached up to adjust his tie. "I hadn't noticed."

He was, after all, a skeleton.

It didn't take them long to reach the cafe Kane was referring to, and it didn't take a genius to notice the looks they received the moment they entered. Skulduggery scanned the kedan sitting at the tables, trying to see if he could pick out who might cause trouble, if any of them would. At least there didn't seem to be any gang kedan, but Skulduggery wouldn't put it past even the innocent civilians to kick up a fuss if they were motivated enough.

Either way, his state of existence seemed enough to deter the few who'd been studying Skulduggery and Kane for too long.

"We should be fine," he decided. "Rome and the Titanic in the same day? I'm almost impressed."

"Yeah, it's like I know a modicum of culture or something," Cain said distractedly. He was scanning the café for similar reasons, but also to look for the server that had been the most taken with him last time he had been there. It was tricky when kedan were shapeshifters, but he recognized the look when he locked eyes with him across the room. Silently tilting his head to the spot he had taken before, Cain received a nod and that was enough for him. As if nothing had happened, he made his way to the table behind one of the support beams that had been blended into the decor. It blocked pretty much every line of sight except for an angle to the bathroom hall and a few other tables, which made it not a very good strategic position, but it did make for a good hiding spot.

Cain sat down and waited. That kedan was still doing his job and would get to them when he had the time and not a moment sooner. Patience was not an issue. He motioned for Skulduggery to take a seat as well, then leaned back until his chair tipped and settled against corner behind him.

"Glad you got the references, though," he said with amusement. "So... earth, at least. 1997 or further. You get along well being a skeleton there?"

Skulduggery, as a general rule, wasn't very comfortable in positions where he couldn't see the entire room he was in. Feeling shifts in the air currents only went so far, particularly when those air currents were blocked by a wall. He had faith in his ability to defend himself if anything happened, however, and since Kane was the one who chose the table, the puzzling man must have had some faith in his own ability as well.

"Depends on the time of day," Skulduggery answered offhandedly. It had already occurred to him he hadn't met very many people in Keeliai who came from a version of Earth comparable to his own, which was why he'd made the comment in the first place. "2013, as a matter of fact."

It was a matter of confidence, practicality and a disregard for his own safety. Survival instincts only went so far when the matter of your survival had nothing to do with your own actions and everything to do with your body's stubborn refusal to stop surviving. That, and part of him had wanted to see if Skulduggery would react to such a poor position. He didn't seem like the type to react to much of anything thus far, but that wasn't going to stop him.

At the skeleton's answer, Cain gave a lazy grin. "Thirteen? You're a bit behind. Only a little, though. It's 2014 for me, almost into fifteen," he added. "How's that for a convenient coincidence? All the time in the world and we're barely a year apart."

At the first comment, Skulduggery nodded. "Or, if we were to look at it another way, you're a little too far ahead."

Perspective wasn't quite as important as people liked to believe, but it was always a good idea not to discount it entirely - particularly if it helped Skulduggery make a point.

He also wasn't sure how much of the coincidence was coincidence, given that he now had two people here who came from his own world. There were interesting patterns buried in the arrivals which Skulduggery hadn't had the time or patience to investigate, but some things were glaringly obvious. Things like people tending to arrive in groups. Things like people being able to understand one another's pasts. It was that thought which spurred his question, and Skulduggery asked it while leaning his bottom jaw on one hand to study Kane a little more closely. "You haven't run into anyone you recognise yet, have you?"

That position of Skulduggery's had Cain tilt his head just a bit in return. It was conversational, the skeleton's tone and pose, and it gave off a feeling just as much as any facial expression might have done. On the other hand, it was much more manipulable than subconscious expressions. It was an interesting point to say that Cain might have been ahead rather than Skulduggery was behind if only because everyone was behind where Cain was concerned. No one was ever going to catch up to him, so of course he was the one that was perfectly in place.

"No," he said simply and with obvious question. The idea of meeting someone he would know in a place as vast and foreign as this did not come out of nowhere. "I've barely been here any time at all. What would the chances be? Unless I've been missing something."

He didn't mention or show to his hesitation another thought that had struck him. Even if there had been someone Cain should have recognized within Keeliai, it was entirely possible they could be from so far into his past that he didn't even remember them anymore. Those sorts of ghosts weren't the type he was used to worrying about.

"You've barely been here any time at all," Skulduggery pointed out. "Of course you've been missing something."

There was nothing shameful about not knowing something if you couldn't possibly have known it, either through geographical isolation or simply a lack of time. Skulduggery was frequently exasperated by the ignorance of others, true, but he usually made a point of putting the blame where it was due. Willful ignorance was when he started losing respect for the person in question. From what he'd gleaned so far, Kane was far from the stubbornly ignorant type.

"People tend to arrive in groups," he explained. "If one person from a particular world appears, chances are very good someone else will follow. It may have something to do with certain realities being easier to access than others, but it also doesn't hold true across the board, so take it with a grain of salt."

Stubborn ignorance was far from how Cain operated. There was nothing to be had from hiding himself from the truth; peace of mind had stopped having the same comforting bliss as it had when he was younger. No, it was better to face things head-on and keep from getting himself further entangled in anything he didn't want merely for not knowing what he was doing.

"Of course," Cain said with a shake of his head. "So it's a crapshoot either way." Not that he had really pinned any hopes on anyone he knew arriving, but it would have been his luck. "What groups have you had so far?"

Skulduggery shrugged. "I don't know the names of specific worlds. I've simply seen too many reunions on the network for it to be a coincidence. I met a teenager the other day who discovered both his sister and a close friend were already here."

A pattern, albeit a meaningless one. Either's Skulduggery's earlier theory was correct, which rendered the entire point moot, or any deeper meaning was hidden to all but people incredibly adept at seeing meaningless patterns.

"It's equally interesting," Skulduggery added after a short pause, "that so many of us come from worlds capable of understanding one another. Even with the language barrier removed, constants we take for granted are holding true - death, birth, adolescence, emotion. When you consider the sheer amount of possible differences in an infinite number of universes, that becomes a pattern as well. Why, for example, aren't we meeting anyone from a world where two and two make five? It's a conundrum."

Their waiter interrupted the conversation by appearing. He gave Cain a pleasant smile and a there was a confused, somewhat resentful and also rather lingering look to his skeleton friend before he offered them a menu. Cain declined it and ordered with a charming grin, made a bit of small talk where he could, and let the waiter go when it was obvious he couldn't stay longer.

Cain tilted his head to Skulduggery. Even while he had been pseudo-flirting with their waiter, he had been thinking that over. "Perhaps we simply can't comprehend someone that comes from such a fundamentally-different place," he said. "Even if they were here, would we even be able to make sense of them? Would it be possible for them to be where their existence would be at odds with the reality they'd be in? Or maybe it has to do with the way that spell was set up, only works in the confines to what the caster can understand. Either way," he said after a moment. "That's a good point. There's a lot they aren't telling us or just don't understand themselves and I'd frankly be a bit worried about that if we knew which one it was."

Skulduggery was used to looks like that, even and especially from before coming to Keeliai. He returned it with an invisible smile, more for his own benefit than the waiter's, and let Kane hold the rest of the conversation until they were alone again.

"I doubt they understand it themselves," Skulduggery mused. "We'd be a far more organised army if they did. It's more likely due to fail-safes existing within the structure of the universes themselves."

He wouldn't deny there was a lot the Foreigners weren't being told, but he wasn't going to make the mistake of generalising that fact. Skulduggery could appreciate the courage stemming from desperate last-ditch efforts, having experienced that courage many times himself; but as far as he knew, he'd never been stupid about it. Evandau, at the risk of speaking ill of the dead, had been stupid about it.

"So coincidences are likely more just the laws of physics following an even more important set of universal constants," Cain summarized. That made enough sense for him that it didn't really bother too much that they weren't going to be seeing any mind-bending impossibilities in the near future. With everything else on their plate, they didn't need to borrow trouble until they'd cleared their first helping.

He added, "Smaller laws need not coincide." Because for one thing, an existence like Skulduggery's was entirely against everything he knew about the relationship between death and living and whatever you called the in between. Considering the state of his own soul in how Solomon Wreath apparently perceived it, the same could be said of himself to other universal laws, and wasn't that the kicker?

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