tushanshu_logs | Phantom faces at the window, phantom shadows on the floor

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Phantom faces at the window, phantom shadows on the floor

Characters: (CLOSED) Skulduggery Pleasant, Erskine Ravel, Anton Shudder, and the fourth-wall Dead Men.
Date: April 15-30.
Location: Throughout Keeliai, but mostly in Erskine's new Earth Sector shelter.
Situation: The Dead Men haven't created something lasting together in a very long time. It's led to some spectacularly stupid decisions. This? This is their chance to fix things.
Warnings/Rating: Intimacy / non-serious flirting between grown men, some jokes of a sexual nature, massive spoilers for the entire Skulduggery Pleasant series (but notably the last two books), mentions of murder and betrayal, gratuitous amounts of violence and punching in response to said mentions of murder and betrayal (the Dead Men actually communicate by punching each other in the face). Also, broship. Lots of broship.

With Erskine and Skulduggery's relationship somehow even more strained than it was before Skulduggery vanished for a month, and Erskine growing maybe a little too dependent on Anton while living at the Hotel, the Dreaming's been getting a lot of wishes -- subconscious or otherwise -- for the arrival of very specific people.

They arrive on the 15th, scattered around the turtle. Over the day, they find each other, two or three at a time. There are hugs. There are punches. And when they all come together, they spend most of the following two weeks helping Erskine build and prepare a shelter for the kedan -- in between needing subtle reminders that the point of the reunion is to forgive each other.

Or, if not forgive, at least accept each other, flaws and all.

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So a very nice young woman escorts Ghastly to the Hotel, which is-- well. It's the Midnight Hotel. Ghastly stands outside it for several minutes. It's obvious that the architecture doesn't fit with what's around it: there's no way this is a building constructed here which coincidentally resembles the Midnight Hotel he knows so well.

But its proprietor...

Ghastly's hand comes up, almost against his will, to touch the scar at his throat that he really could come to hate. Maybe, if he's here, then there's a chance.

His shoulders are a little hunched. Consciously, he drops them, and drops his hand, and he opens the door and heads into the Hotel, hoping. Looking for a familiar tall shape, and not knowing if he'll find it.

"There's been rumours," Muf had told Anton an hour ago. "New people of yours, in the city, like last year. Might be they've been drawn in by the weird explosion."

"Update me when you've more information," Anton had asked at the time.

He should have known better. Muf had a slightly larrikinesque streak wherein he took Anton's requests facetiously literally. Anton didn't mind, so he didn't bother to censor himself in those requests, but it meant that he had only as many drips and drabs of information as Muf deigned to give him until Muf decided he had enough to make it worth his boss's while.

Which meant that Anton wasn't quite in the know, but was enough in the know to be counting linens and making a shopping list.

"Welcome to the Midnight Hotel," he said without looking up from his desk. He was on the wrong side of it, leaning over the low barrier to make an upside-down note on the ledger. "Please take a seat; I will be with you shortly."

Gone were the days when he'd immediately look up. Too many kedan around, laughing and talking and being social, even in the lobby. If anything was untoward, their reaction would tell him all he needed to know.

Edited (added a sentence) 2016-04-16 05:20 (UTC)

Anton.

Ghastly had to remember the last time he'd seen Anton, in terrible, full-colour glory, and he shuddered at the recollection. But Anton was here, somehow, alive and standing and in one piece--

His breath caught, and his balance wavered for a moment, and then he was crossing the lobby with great strides, completely ignoring Anton's directive to take a seat. Hang it all, Anton's note-taking could wait.

Ghastly reached the front desk, realized belatedly that perhaps he should say something as a warning, settled for "Anton," and, judging that enough to be getting on with, pulled Anton into a possibly too-tight embrace.

One of the kedan tenses just within Anton's peripheral vision, and that makes Anton straighten up, start to turn with his hand loose but angled, prepared to use the heel of his palm against an oncoming face.

Then he hears the breathless half-sob of his name, and does the unthinkable--he freezes. There's no resistance as he's pulled in, except for Ghastly's voice ringing in his ears and the sudden pound of heartbeat. Anton can't be sure whether his shortness of breath is due to the squeeze Ghastly's putting into his ribs, or something else.

"Bespoke," Anton murmurs, and his voice comes out astoundingly steady. His hands came up, and ordinarily they might have shoved away, denied the embrace; on this occasion they fall on Ghastly's shoulders, and pull him in to return the hug.

He doesn't say anything. He almost doesn't want to know why Ghastly would react with such an instant need for contact with the Dead Man least inclined toward contact. (He knows. He just doesn't want to think about it.)

Ghastly is aware of Anton's general attitudes toward contact; he's never been among those of them most inclined to hugging. Right now, though, he's just glad Anton's making an exception. Ghastly is absolutely not clinging.

He's quiet for a while, just as Anton is, taking his time at appreciating the fact that Anton is alive and here and has he mentioned alive yet? That part's very important. Finally, though, reluctant, Ghastly stands back, holding Anton at arm's length and looking him over seriously.

He is at an utter loss for words. Where would he even start? 'Hi, Anton, do you happen to remember dying recently, because I do and it was actually very terrible?'

But Anton didn't push him away. Anton, in fact, seemed more or less okay with being hugged. That says something, too, even if Ghastly can't quite put together what. Except that Anton missed him just as much, or that Anton understood why he might need that contact. Or possibly both.

His head hurts a little.

"...It's good to see you," he settles on. A beat. Ghastly scrambles for something else, comes up with, "...I'm told you adopted. She seems nice."

Edited (a thought.) 2016-04-16 09:26 (UTC)

Anton doesn't pull back so much as let Ghastly put the distance between them, looking back with an air of patient longsuffering--like he usually did, when one or another of the Dead Men demanded tactile attention.

But his gaze gets drawn to a new scar, one he knows that Ghastly doesn't have--but he knows at once where it came from, because that there is the remnant of a killing blow. It's an unexpectedly thin line, nothing like the scars on Ghastly's head and face, and for all that the more obvious in contrast. Anton's face blanks, heartbeats before Ghastly gropes for something to talk about.

Despite everything it startles a laugh out of Anton, the part about adopting. "Yes. She's a hellhound. She's older than she looks, but--emotionally immature. Ghastly--"

Anton only realises his hand has moved off Ghastly's shoulder when he reaches out to touch that scar, and then stops, his fingers curling in before making contact. Quietly he says: "Ghastly, Erskine is here. In Keeliai."

"Isn't that all of us?" Ghastly asks dryly, more than willing to focus on that instead of the way Anton's face goes blank. "Except-- the hellhound bit. She's a hellhound? How does that work?" She looked pretty human at the time.

That seems like a great conversational thread to take, but--

Erskine. Ghastly freezes, stone-still, as Anton reaches for the scar at his throat. That gesture says a thousand things. Anton knows. Anton knows what happened, and he knows what Erskine did. Ghastly's grip tightens on Anton's shoulders, and he has to force himself to let go, step back, even though his legs are abruptly unsteady.

Erskine's here.

"Where is he," Ghastly says, leaden. He doesn't even know what he's going to do when he finds Erskine, but he has to find him first.

There were reasons Anton is known as the most humourless of the Dead Men. Part of it is that most people don't know when he's joking. Part of it is that, when he feels the need, he goes straight to the heart of whatever horrible matters were relevant.

"Does it matter?" he asks quietly. "What would you do, even if he were right here?"

He isn't right here. He's gone out on one of his 'secret' errands. Anton's grateful for that, right now. He isn't sure Ghastly would remember the Hotel's rules. He adds, "I don't remember, for the record. I've been told--but I'm from an earlier time."

As if it might make it better, if Anton doesn't remember, having Erskine around.

Edited 2016-04-17 09:02 (UTC)

Ghastly doesn't know. All the things he has been pointedly ignoring for the last few hours are creeping up on him all at once. Anton, alive and well, is a relief almost crippling in its intensity, but Erskine is here. His murderer is here. And Anton is apparently absolutely fine with that?

He can't say it's a bad thing that Anton doesn't remember being murdered. Ghastly could do without that memory himself.

"But you know," Ghastly says, a little helplessly. No part of this makes sense. "Anton, he-- I watched you die."

"So did he," Anton answers, very simply, his hands returning to Ghastly's shoulders even though Ghastly had stepped away. Distance wouldn't help this. Perspective might.

Ghastly flinches, going very abruptly stiff under Anton's hands, and it's only the fact that the person he's angry with isn't here that keeps him otherwise motionless. He remembers--

He remembers his last sight, golden eyes brimming with tears, and he remembers Anton's head turned away, and he remembers I am sorry, my friend. He isn't sure he remembers how to breathe.

"He had you killed," Ghastly says. It's louder than he intends, and he remembers at the last minute there are people in the lobby, that maybe he shouldn't be having this -- argument? Discussion? Breakdown? -- here. Too late. "He shoved a knife into my throat, and he said he was sorry, and sorry would be not having murdered us." Because no, he can't understand it, has no idea what could have made any of them turn on the others, and Ghastly would have died before betraying any of them.

He is, he realizes belatedly, weeping.

Without thinking, for once without obfuscating or pretending, Anton steps forward and pulls Ghastly into a hug, and holds him tight.

"There wouldn't have been a need for sorry, if he hadn't," he points out, and then realises that possibly isn't helpful. Anton exhales slowly, to let the heat of the gist bypass him, to focus on the quiver in Ghastly's shoulders. Anton closes his eyes and rests his head on Ghastly's shoulder, though is a bit of a hunch for him.

"Ghastly--"

With Erskine and Skulduggery, Anton had used Vile as the comparison. He couldn't do that here. Ghastly didn't know--Anton hoped Ghastly didn't know. But he might have to find out. Damn. Damn, damn, damn.

"He was in love with Hopeless," Anton says instead, because he doesn't know what else to say. "He was in love with Hopeless and then Hopeless was gone, and he blamed himself, and he was too ashamed to come to us for help. So he wanted to make a world where sorcerers didn't have to hide anymore, where they didn't have to be ashamed. He just ... couldn't escape the war. He couldn't see a way around it that didn't involve subterfuge and violence. So he was willing to sacrifice us ... and himself ... to get it done."

Anton's logic is not at all what Ghastly wants right now, but he will take the hug. Especially knowing how uncommon it is, for Anton to actually initiate a hug.

It takes most of the wind out of his sails, leaves it so he can only hold on to Anton like trying to weather a storm, fingers curled, face buried in Anton's shoulder.

The explanation does not help. Ghastly shakes his head, not even able to find the words for it at first. It's the most boneheadedly stupid thing he's heard, and this coming from a man who's best friends with Skulduggery Pleasant, but there's-- some terrible, backwards sort of sense buried under it. "Too ashamed," he says. "We all loved Hopeless, no one would have--" He knows, of course, that there is a difference in the way Erskine loved Hopeless, but they would have understood.

It's a twist of the knife -- ha -- to think that sacrificing them is how Erskine chose to remember Hopeless. It's a little harder to hate Erskine, knowing this, but the betrayal still burns deep. "That doesn't make it better," he says, helpless, and not a little bit lost.

"I know," Anton says, quiet but heavy, not releasing his grip or flinching at the tightness of Ghastly's. "He knows." Erskine's logic is twisted, but it's there--somewhere. No less there than Skulduggery's was when he left.

Anton makes a note to himself to make sure no one else mentions that detail. Skulduggery certainly won't. Erskine ... Anton isn't sure.

"But taking revenge on Erskine won't make it better either."

That, at least, Ghastly can admit to himself. Revenge, seriously hurting Erskine, he can tell will probably only leave the taste of ash in his mouth. He sees Erskine's eyes filled with tears again, and it just turns his stomach, doesn't bring any satisfaction. But he doesn't know, either, what he'll do when he sees Erskine, because he is still on many levels furious.

"How?" Ghastly manages to ask, after some few shuddering breaths. "How can you possibly be so at peace with this?" Anton knows everything, apparently. Maybe it's just not remembering his own death that does the trick, because that's a memory Ghastly will have difficulty shaking any time soon.

It's a question that makes Anton's breath catch, forces him to exhale slowly, because it's a question that agrees with the gist's propensity to latch onto any reason to be angry. How can he be, indeed?

"Because he's my brother," Anton answers, "and I love him." He exhales again, slowly, and adds the part that he hasn't told Erskine, in case Erskine uses it to dismiss Anton's faith in him. "Because I depend on you, on all of you, on what we've stood for and what we've endured, as a reason not to fall."

Erskine hadn't been there, that day when Vile took him and Rover and Hopeless. He hadn't seen Anton almost lose control, need to be held back. Ghastly had. As Anton recalled, he'd fractured one or two bones which didn't belong to him, trying to get loose.

He's my brother, and I love him. Anton is making it very difficult to hold on to the anger that Ghastly wants to, and as a consequence what's being left behind is pure and simple hurt. The sort Ghastly has very successfully not been thinking about for the past few hours.

"That's what makes it so painful," Ghastly says, barely more than a whisper. It would have been one thing, to be killed by an enemy. Expected, if still full of the same regrets. But knowing that some part of Erskine could look back on everything they'd been through together and still sink his knife in Ghastly's back-- even knowing that it was done, however twistedly, as some testament to the ones they'd lost-- it hurts like nothing else.

Anton is pointing out, not particularly subtly, that it hurt Erskine to do it, too, that he was so far gone he thought he had no other choice. Ghastly recoils from that idea, but he can't entirely let it go, either. And Anton really does believe the best of Erskine is still there. Maybe he has to, to manage the gist, and maybe in however long he's been here Anton has found the Dead Man in Erskine again.

I am sorry, my friend. Ghastly is not at all prepared to see mercy in that memory, but-- maybe there was.

"I know." Anton does. He's much better at handling painful emotions that most people, even the Dead Men, for obvious reasons. Better even than most other gist-users, given his age. That doesn't change, even knowing he's going to die at the hands of a brother.

There's more Anton should say, about what happens to Erskine after, about the pain he's endured--arguably as bad as what he would have put himself through. But not yet; now should be a few moments to calm a little further, to stop being so desperate.

Anton squeezes Ghastly's shoulders. "Let me get you some water." Even Elementals have trouble summoning water in situations like this. "Then maybe some tea. Then we can talk properly, and more privately."

He starts to pull back, but gingerly, only as fast as Ghastly allows.

Ghastly holds on to Anton a little longer, just for the sheer reassurance of having the friend he most recently saw in pieces back and whole again. However, Anton has a point about more privately. Before much longer Ghastly sighs, and lets Anton step back, and he drops his hands to his sides, where they curl into loose fists.

"All right," he agrees. His mind's a turmoil, and he doubts he could manage water right now, but tea-- tea might be nice. As a starting point.

(Erskine is here, somewhere.)

"I'll... be here," he adds, which is not much, but about all the meaningful input he has to offer. He's becoming aware again of the others in the lobby, the kedan, and the fact that they are not unobserved.

He's sure today has the potential to get weirder.

Anton steps away, lingering just long enough to usher Ghastly to one of the chairs near the desk, a nice plush one not unlike the armchairs in Ghastly's shop. Understandably, Ghastly looks ashen; a glass of water will at least give him something to do with his hands, even if he doesn't drink it. Tea will take some time to make.

So Anton goes first to his office, intending to duck through into his private bathroom, where he keeps a spare glass he can fill from the sink there.

After Saracen and Erskine went back to the stable Saracen woke up in searching for the soul gem Saracen hopefully had -- which, as it turned out, he didn't -- they trudged back to the Hotel together, equal parts exhausted and disheartened and, oddly, light-hearted. In Saracen's case it was because for the first time in five years he hadn't been checking himself after every laugh, second-guessing whether he was allowed, reminded that there were once men he could banter with as easily as he drew breath. Yes, he was exhausted, and yes, he was sweaty and disheveled and had even more straw in his hair, but the shoulder he was leaning on -- it was a Dead Man's.

Somehow, after five years on his own, that nostalgia had become more important than almost anything else.

When they finally reached the Hotel, Saracen was the one to push the door open. He didn't hesitate; he'd been in here once already, after all, even if no one else remembered it. He spoke immediately in the general direction of the front desk without checking to make sure Anton was actually there. "Hello, we're back. I mean, I'm here. I don't have a soul gem, so you won't have to put up with me for -- Anton?"

And then he saw Ghastly, who perhaps should have been immediately obvious (except he wasn't supposed to be there, he was supposed to be dead), and Saracen froze.

"Uh," he managed eloquently.

It's incredibly disappointing to know that Saracen is one of the temporary Foreigners. It's good to see any of the Dead Men again (although admittedly some would be slightly more welcome than others) and particularly one that doesn't seem to have an interest in exacting revenge. Erskine is already sporting a bruise on his cheekbone from Saracen's punch, but since then the two of them have fallen into a somewhat amiable truce with each other and he likely won't even develop a black eye from the hit.

(In fact, the only reason he hasn't bothered to tell Saracen that he punches like a girl--meaning no offense to girls in general--is that he doesn't care to remind Saracen of why he'd punched him. It's hanging in the background anyway. No need to bring it to the forefront again.)

Erskine feels comfortable around Anton but there's always that debt lingering in the back of his mind. Skulduggery seems to be slowly thawing but that doesn't erase the fight from several months ago, or this new uneasiness that's come over them. With Saracen it's easier. It's almost friendly. Like maybe the last year has been worth something after all. He has straw in his hair and he's tired--it doesn't matter. They're leaning on each other and they're almost home.

The first thought through his mind at Saracen's query isn't what's wrong? What's happened to Anton? It's of course Saracen's been in here already and erased it. Always has to have the upper hand. Cheater. So when Erskine looks up toward the desk there's a half-smile on his face, before his gaze has a chance to settle on one of the Dead Men he's been vaguely dreading reuniting with for almost a year.

But what time is he from? Does he remember?

He stills, not quite frozen but visibly shaken. Anton is here, after all, and Anton is dead back home. It's possible. But Ghastly.... A quick glance at Saracen is equal parts accusing and pleading--did you know about this?--before Erskine looks back over at the tailor. He blinks as if to try to wake himself up, to dispel some illusion, and his mouth opens as if to say something but no sound emerges. There's a tightness in his chest he hasn't felt in weeks now, maybe months. Panic.

Ghastly lets Anton guide him to a chair. Sitting is good. He can handle sitting. Anton will come back in a moment, and then they can... discuss.

Coincidence -- and Saracen -- has other plans. Ghastly jerks his head up to focus on the familiar voice, eyes wide. "Saracen," he says, somewhere between relieved and shocked, and he stands to greet him.

Only then does he process who else has walked in the door. I am sorry, my friend echoes in his head like a distant bell, and Ghastly starts toward him without even a concrete plan, without anything in his mind but anger and the need to close the distance between them.

He discovers something on the way there: he doesn't want revenge. Not quite. Making Erskine hurt in exchange for the pain he's caused won't do anything. What he wants is to punch Erskine Ravel right in that very pretty, very stupid face, and possibly to beat some sense into him, because from Anton's half-there explanation Erskine could really use it, and frankly, so could Ghastly.

There's some vitally pressing reason why he shouldn't punch Erskine right now, but for the life of him Ghastly can't bring it to mind. Wounded fury wins out, and he pulls an arm back and swings.

Anton almost reached the bathroom when Saracen's voice came through the open office door. Almost. The surprise at hearing another Dead Man's voice made him stop, and then Saracen's words sank in.

We.

Oh, no.

Anton spun and ran for the door, and didn't pause at the sight of Ghastly back on his feet. Anton had longer legs, but Ghastly was already swinging; even still Anton managed to intercept the blow. Unfortunately, he missed Ghastly's wrist--bad angle--and intercepted it with his chest.

With a grunt which Anton staggered back into Erskine and Saracen, instinctively trying to suck in air and failing owing to having just been punched roughly in the lungs. He tried to talk, and resignedly coughed instead.

Just give him a moment, Ghastly. Then he'll punch you back. Hotel rules.

"No," Saracen said the moment he processed Erskine's accusing look. That was all he could really find the words for -- defending himself. How pathetic. But he hadn't known about this, and moreover he didn't want to know about this, because that would mean erasing some of the fragile amicable truce he and Erskine had. It would mean coming into the Hotel carefully and treating Ghastly like he was made of glass. It would mean --

Then Ghastly strode over and Saracen nearly jumped back out of habit. He physically jumped back out of arm's reach to stop himself from doing it, in fact. Anton was there, Anton was in the way. Erskine wasn't going to get hurt. Ghastly might, but somehow Saracen didn't see this unfolding any other way. He'd tried to change the Dead Men's path before, and it had always blown up in his face.

"Ghastly," he blurted, and then hesitated. Ghastly. The memory of the Sanctuary footage crossed his mind, and with a mental discipline borne of magic Saracen blocked it out. "I'm going to hug you," he informed the other man, "once I'm sure I'm not going to get punched for the trouble."

April 15 | Arrival | Hotel + Anton

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