but you didn't have to cut me off

[skeletonenigma]

Characters: Skulduggery Pleasant skeletonenigma and Solomon Wreath peacefullywreathed
Date: After this network thread, around the beginning of the second week of August
Location: The common room of their suite, HUO-WEI in the Fire District
Situation: This animosity has got to stop. People are going to get hurt. Also, Skulduggery has a theory.
Warnings/Rating: Spoilers for the sixth book onwards, references to death and pre-canon torture, and a side helping of unintended emotional manipulation. Shouldn't be any present-day violence, though.


The rest of the day passed by agonisingly slowly. Time wasn't meant to pass slowly in the middle of a war. Even during the few brief rests Skulduggery enjoyed during the war with Mevolent, there was always something going on, something to pay attention to or something to plan. Here, the time passed slowly, and it passed quietly. It was enough to drive him mad.

He was the first one in the common room - not that that was a surprise - and he was early. Being early was a surprise. Skulduggery wasn't used to being early, but it was difficult not to be when the meeting place was the living room of one's own dwelling. There wasn't anything to read, and there wasn't anything to listen to, so he resorted to a very light meditation to pass the time. He refused to admit, even to himself, that a second and more important reason for the meditation might have been to calm himself down.

Comments

[peacefullywreathed]

In contrast, Solomon was late. It was difficult not to second-guess himself about agreeing to speak to Skulduggery and equally easy to find things for him to do in his room. He'd finished copying the research he and Frank had done while in the Dreaming, but now he had to apply it to the research he was doing for Bakura, and that was while still missing one of the appropriate elements.

Eventually, he realised he'd run out of tea and looked at the clock, and realised it was past time for him to meet Skulduggery. With a sigh Solomon rose, took his mug and went downstairs.

[skeletonenigma]

It was the noise which dragged Skulduggery back to awareness. One of the benefits of meditation over sleep was the convenience of it; he could choose when to 'wake up,' and he woke up immediately. There was none of the grogginess, none of the confusion, no reason to take a few seconds before speaking.

Skulduggery took a few seconds before speaking anyway.

"How are you?" he eventually asked. As far as icebreakers went, it wasn't exactly original, but some clichés were time-honoured for a reason.

[peacefullywreathed]

"Thirsty," Solomon said, deadpan, and went into the kitchen to make himself another cup of tea. He called out, "I would offer you some tea, but I think that's rather superfluous, don't you?"

He didn't stick around for an answer, but five minutes later he came back out with a cup of steaming too and, in a very dignified fashion, took a seat across from Skulduggery. And then sat there, watching him and sipping his tea. He wasn't particularly inclined to make this easy for the skeleton, no matter how much he wanted answers to some questions.

[skeletonenigma]

Wonderful weather we're having, isn't it? Skulduggery almost asked. Intriguing, how things were suddenly much harder to say once he was emotionally invested. It was a frequent and very annoying effect Solomon Wreath seemed to have on him.

Eventually he sighed and sat forward. Slipping back into meditation wasn't a valid concern, but it made for a convenient excuse.

"How much of our partnership do you remember?" he asked, starting off with something he'd always suspected but wanted to take the opportunity to confirm. "From before your Surge?"

[peacefullywreathed]

Well, he certainly didn't begin with the easy questions, Solomon thought bitterly. "I don't know," he said, honestly but impassively. "Up until your little ... interruption a month ago, I would have said I remembered everything--or at least everything I needed to remember."

But now he wasn't so sure. He just wasn't sure what to do with it. What did he do if his memories had been tampered with? It would mean he'd based four hundred years worth of life on a faulty past. What he was meant to do with that? He couldn't change who he was, and yet who he was had been based upon facts that were wrong.

So he'd avoided the issue, avoided the memories starting to poke at his consciousness. Until the knowledge-gate. Until that little piece of information he hadn't expected and certainly hadn't wanted. And all of a sudden, Solomon needed the answer.

"Were you really off for a month organising a surprise party for my nineteenth?" he demanded.

[skeletonenigma]

It was difficult to surprise Skulduggery. That managed it. That managed it badly enough to make the detective's skull jerk, even more noticeable for how still the rest of his skeletal frame usually was.

"That's what you want to know?" he asked incredulously. "You've been avoiding me for the last month, and actively avoiding the areas I'm in ever since we docked on the mainland, because of a birthday party I may or may not have planned over three centuries ago?"

It was the sort of dilemma Skulduggery might have expected from the teenage Wreath he remembered, still fumbling to find his place in the world and what he could do once he discovered it. That was why Wreath's ultimate reaction was so puzzling. It certainly wasn't the sort of dilemma Skulduggery could imagine Wreath having now, and for prolonged periods of time to boot.

"Yes," he answered belatedly, but without the courtesy of elaborating. "Did one of the gates see fit to tell you that?"

[peacefullywreathed]

"Yes," said Solomon shortly. His brow was furrowed. Yes. Yes?! "It took you a whole month to plan a birthday party, and that's why you weren't in Dublin to notice that I'd been kidnapped and tortured by a sadist?"

His words came out scathing. He couldn't help it. He had spent three weeks starving to death in a cellar, starving so badly that he had rescued himself using the power of his own impending death, because Skulduggery had gone overboard in the details of arranging a birthday party?

Arranging his birthday party?

Solomon had no words to reply to that. He stared at the wall, and took a mouthful of scalding tea, and was glad of the pain against the numbness of shock.

[skeletonenigma]

A sadist. That had been Wreath's sentiment back then, as well. Skulduggery had tried asking back then, and gotten the same sort of curt replies for his trouble. Eventually, he stopped pursuing it. With Wreath so eminently shut down, there hadn't been a point to finding out who the so-called 'sadist' was.

Now, suddenly, it mattered more than almost anything else.

"The sadist," he said after a short silence. "What do you remember about him?"

[peacefullywreathed]

For a moment Solomon was inclined not to answer. What was the point of it? That situation had told him all he needed to know, and giving Skulduggery more information only ever enabled him to manipulate people further.

And yet it hadn't given Solomon all he needed to know. It hadn't, and the urge to dismiss the question, the strength of that urge, wasn't like him. Solomon asked questions. Not always, true, but usually. Why would he deny that one so vehemently? Even the questions he didn't ask, he recognised as questions. Why not the same of that one? That one, of all others?

Why that one, unless he'd been conditioned into dismissing it to begin with?

"I don't know his name," Solomon said instead, but stiffly, and still not looking in Skulduggery's direction. "He said it was Dillon, but it wasn't. I remember trying to use it against him. He claimed to be your brother."

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery's instinctive response was to ask why on Earth Wreath hadn't mentioned that at the time - why he thought being kidnapped and tortured by Skulduggery's own brother wasn't information relevant to the both of them. Under the circumstances, however, Skulduggery didn't need to ask. He knew, immediately, which brother Wreath was talking about. And he knew why Wreath dismissed the option of coming clean every time it came up.

He took an unnecessary breath and released it slowly. "His name was Lugan. He had the power to subtly affect memories. Powerful magic for a sorcerer who knows what they're doing, but he was born and raised mortal - he had no idea. It was relatively harmless in the short-term, or if you knew what he was capable of. In the long-term, he could erase... well. Almost anything."

Lugan had erased Skulduggery's memories of Wreath. Even after Skulduggery realised what Lugan was and dealt with him, he hadn't known just how much he was forgetting. It took centuries, a chance encounter, and a considerable amount of anger before he regained those memories again.

[peacefullywreathed]

It took a moment or so for Solomon to realise his cup was empty. He stared down at it for a moment and then rose suddenly and went into the kitchen for a bottle of hard whiskey given to him by a kedan who wanted to know how a member of her family had died. It wasn't a particularly good bottle, certainly not of the standard Solomon preferred, but right now, he didn't particularly care.

He brought it into the living-room, poured himself a glass, downed the glass and poured himself another.

So the part about being Skulduggery's brother had been true. Solomon had never quite decided whether or not he believed it, and in the long rung it had never really mattered. The fact was that his captor had spoken with too much angry bitterness to have been lying about his accusations, and the longer Solomon spent chained and starving in that dirty cellar, the more it seemed time had proven him right: Skulduggery used those he saw fit, manipulated them until they didn't even known it had happened, humiliated them for his own benefit and then discarded them when he had no more use.

Solomon threw back the second glass and then set it down. He hadn't had dinner, yet. He wanted to be drunk for this conversation, and he couldn't afford to be. Skulduggery hadn't remembered him, after they'd parted ways. Solomon had protected Nefarian Serpine from him, and Skulduggery had acted as though he'd never seen him before in his life.

"You're telling me," he said very carefully, "that your brother is the reason you didn't remember me, that day in the Midwest? That he is the reason I, apparently, don't remember things about our association which I should?" Solomon gazed down at the whiskey, decided to hell with it, and poured himself another glass. "There's one flaw in you assertion. What possible reason could he have had to kidnap me?"

[skeletonenigma]

In Skulduggery's experience - experience very far-gone, to be fair, but experience nonetheless - being drunk never actually helped. It seemed to, but the fix it provided was only temporary, like a band-aid which hid a wound without healing it. Once you woke up in the morning, you had nothing to show for the attempt but a pounding headache and the added bonus of shame at whatever your drunken actions had been.

Far be it from Skulduggery to remind Wreath of any of that, however.

"Yes," he said simply. It was a surprisingly simple answer to such a complicated question. The next question was even simpler, and yet the answer was complicated enough to make the detective pause.

"Because," Skulduggery eventually said, "he was jealous."

[peacefullywreathed]

Solomon laughed and it came out sudden and sharp. "Jealous. Of me?" He laughed again, and drank the third glass, and put it down with a deep, not quite steady breath. "He had nothing over which to be jealous," he said calmly, "and any idiot could look at me and tell you that."

Waif, half-trained, mortal-born. He'd never quite been accepted in the Temple, used and appreciated and disdained because of what he could offer--even more than most. The Temple didn't particularly like acolytes who came in from the outside, even those of use.

The time he didn't spend at the Temple he'd spent trailing after Skulduggery like a little lost puppy. It was ... pathetic, really. Even more so that once Skulduggery had come back into his life, Solomon had found himself falling into old patterns.

I never really did know who I was, he thought bitterly. He hadn't even been able to be a proper Necromancer.

before the Evandau thing, after the Raine thing

[peacefullywreathed]

After having tended to Hayley, Solomon came home to, unexpectedly, a new bottle of whiskey in his cupboard in the kitchen. There was only one person from whom it could have come, and typically it was a good bottle; certainly a better bottle than the one Solomon had been gifted and only half drunk.

Solomon stared at it for a moment, then calmly went about making himself dinner. Skulduggery had said that there was no need for Solomon to decide how he felt or how he wanted, or even that he had to change anything as yet. Raine had told him he had plenty of time to figure it out. Both of them were right, though Solomon wasn't going to admit that to the skeleton's face. It was just that, with the way Skulduggery had stormed out, Solomon hadn't expected such an olive-branch. He wasn't fond of Skulduggery surprising him. It made it difficult to find him as annoying as Solomon felt he still should. It made it difficult to want to hold things against him.

Solomon finished dinner, cleaned up the plates, put them away and then took the bottle and moved upstairs, his sleeves still rolled up and hands still damp from the washing-up. It wasn't a conscious decision, but it wasn't completely a subconscious one, either; it was more the feeling that there was still a conversation to finish, and Skulduggery had indicated he'd like to do so. After Solomon's conversation with Raine, he felt less inclined to reject the idea out of turn. He didn't like leaving things undone. It was so ... messy.

So he went to Skulduggery's room and knocked on the door, the whiskey and a glass in his hand. Just because he was willing to accept an olive-branch didn't mean he wouldn't need to drink a good portion of it before the conversation was properly finished.

so many things

[skeletonenigma]

One of the most useful things about meditation was the ability to choose when to regain conscious awareness again. Skulduggery barely remembered what it felt like to sleep, but he distinctly remembered a lack of choice in when to wake up. Maybe he'd been a heavy sleeper. Either way, it was nice to know that becoming aware of the room again could only mean that someone had knocked at his door.

He wouldn't have been here, had it not been for the annoying need to recharge these soul lanterns.

"Come in," he called out. It was probably Wreath. Unless Wreath had opened the front door for someone else, of course, but Skulduggery couldn't imagine who else might want to speak to him badly enough to circumvent the consoles.

[peacefullywreathed]

"Someone left this in the kitchen," Solomon said dryly as he entered, "and I'm starting to think someone is trying to poison me. Or possibly giving me a hint." Skulduggery's room was clean, almost stark; of course, being a skeleton he didn't need much in the way of personal possessions, unless one counted his suits and hats and car.

Solomon put the glass down on the desk, but hefted the bottle. "Should I open it now, or wait until we're shouting at one another again?"

[skeletonenigma]

"I don't recall any shouting," Skulduggery said. He hadn't moved from his cross-legged position on the small sofa. Apart from a short tilt of his head, you wouldn't have thought he'd come out of his meditation at all. "I remember you raising your voice slightly, and then I remember walking out before you could embarrass either of us further. I don't think I even slammed the door."

All of which was true, if one ignored that it was also a vast understatement.

Skulduggery gave a single shrug of his shoulders. "It's up to you."

[peacefullywreathed]

"So very helpful of you," Solomon muttered, using a shadow to uncork the bottle without much of a pop and pouring himself a glass. He left the bottle where it was and went to sit on the other side of the room, so at least if he was tempted by the thought of more he'd have to consider getting up to have it--not that he intended to drink the first glass at speed.

"Well?" he asked as he sat on the unused bed. "What did you want to talk about this time?" Yes, his voice was noticeably sardonic.

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery's head turned a fraction, as though he was watching Wreath out of the corners of his eyes. "I'm not the one who knocked on the door," he said, amused. "I was perfectly happy meditating."

Then, after a moment, the detective shifted forward and sat up properly. "Since I have you, however, there was something I wanted to ask. Bakura seems to believe that a single event led to his rather jaded attitude. What has he told you about that?"

[peacefullywreathed]

"You bought me a bottle of whiskey," Solomon pointed out. Skulduggery could pretend all he liked that there was no correlation, because on the surface there didn't seem to be; but that was only true if one didn't know him very well. Skulduggery gave peace offerings when he wanted something and knew better than to ask outright.

But at that, Solomon could only laugh. He wasn't surprised by the fact that Skulduggery wanted to know; more than he actually thought he could get an answer. "Really. Firstly, that's none of your business. Secondly, I didn't give you details when I was drunk. Why do you think I'd gossip when I'm not?"

[skeletonenigma]

It was exactly the reaction Skulduggery was expecting. Exactly the sort of honour-bound loyalty Wreath had in spades, and was able to ignore if the moral implications became too inconvenient. It was all Skulduggery could do not to laugh in return, and even then, he couldn't quite supress a chuckle.

"You're right," he eventually said. "I didn't give him the opportunity to forgive his murderer. I had a coffee with him recently in order to apologise for that. We got to talking, and he mentioned something called Kul Elna."

Skulduggery tilted his head, watching Wreath's reaction as much as waiting for a response. "Kul Elna happened, he said, and because of it, ma'at is broken and an unspecified group of people are in trouble. He told me to ask you for the details. Talking about it didn't make him happy."

[peacefullywreathed]

That reaction was, first and foremost, surprise and a touch of incredulity. Skulduggery Pleasant admitting he was wrong based on what someone else had said? Skulduggery Pleasant taking measures to rectify his mistake? For a moment Solomon was almost certain this was a trick, but the mention of Kul Elna put paid to that.

Almost. Solomon had seen it happen, too many times, when Skulduggery would come out with something he couldn't possibly have known, and yet somehow managed to work out. But even this was stretching the bounds of credulity; Bakura and Solomon were the only ones here who knew that name, and Solomon hadn't gotten so drunk as to forget what they'd discussed that night. He'd made no mention of it.

It wasn't like Skulduggery to try and sabotage relationships in such covert way, either, so eventually Solomon spoke. "You got to talking." There were still shades of incredulity there. He shook his head and sat back against the wall, cupping the glass in his hands. "Kul Elna is, was, the name of Bakura's village. The pharaoh had the residents murdered and their selves used to forge seven magical items which grant the users access to the khajbit. Bakura was the only survivor of a massacre wrought by those meant to protect the victims."

[skeletonenigma]

A single event, then. Skulduggery's guess hadn't been too far off the mark. He generally tried not to waste his time with sympathy, as sympathy was so seldom useful; but even he could afford a moment of silence at the news.

"That's unfortunate," he said at last. "But it's not the full story. A thousand years is plenty enough time to put such a massacre behind you and move on. Staying as angry as Bakura has for that long? Something's pushing him. A reminder, a man - maybe one of those seven items. I felt something when he got angry, and from the looks of it, so did almost everyone in that café."

Skulduggery didn't mention that whatever he felt might have had something to do with the deaths of the village residents. Wreath would know the implication, and Skulduggery didn't particularly want to think about it.

[peacefullywreathed]

Solomon got the implication. And he could elaborate on it. "The ghosts of his murdered kin," he said simply. "All ninety-nine of them, though they're not much more than one homogenous mass anymore. I walked into them the day we first met them. I saw their fate. At first I thought they were simply tied to Bakura's Item, given they were used to forge it--now I know it's him to which they're bound."

There would have been more interference from the Ring when he managed to summon Amanhef if they were linked through that alone. And Bakura had all but stated it, now.

"It's worse than simply witnessing their murder," Solomon continued. "The Egyptian view of the state of self isn't to far off the mark, Skulduggery. We're not one single whole; we're a sum of parts. Name, body, energy, spirit, shadow, heart. When someone dies they're supposed to go into the lifestream. In Bakura's universe, apparently they do get judged by Ma'at and sent into the afterlife. Bakura's kin never got that chance. By being forged in the Items as they were, their selves were sundered and cast adrift. There isn't enough left of them to go into the lifestream and the afterlife. They're ... remnants."

It wasn't an allusion he particularly liked to make, but there were certain similarities there. The ghosts were too bound to Bakura to actively go out and possess people--but Solomon already knew that they could, even if the possession worked differently.

[skeletonenigma]

So, to put it simply, Bakura was a man constantly haunted by ninety-nine Remnants, all carrying thousands of years worth of unresolved fury regarding an injustice which would never end. That was a sure-fire way of sending someone round the bend.

It also explained why Bakura was so fixated on the idea of proper justice where Gene was concerned. Underestimating that had been Skulduggery's mistake.

"Why are they bound to him?" he asked, head tilted to the side. He still hadn't moved from his spot on the couch. "Guilt, or something a little more complicated? Was there a time when he could have saved them, or a time when he actually tried?"