Phantom faces at the window, phantom shadows on the floor

[skeletonenigma]

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.

Comments

Any day after April 15 | Here We Are Again | All

[edgeoftheknife]

Erskine had been kicking the idea around for months. He'd been working with the kedan in his spare time--the homeless, the hungry, those in need of some kind of helping hand--and though it had seemed to help his own state of mind for a while, fill the emptiness, it wasn't enough. Cleaning the Hotel and serving a few bowls of soup, helping mend a broken window on a run-down house... they were ways to pass the time, and cleaning the Hotel was part of his debt to Anton, but at the end of the day he still found himself staring at the walls, wondering what came next.

Months ago Anton had asked him about Hopeless, about what Hopeless had suggested he do after the war. Hopeless had wanted him to help people. Somehow Erskine had always envisioned the mind-reader being there for it, if not directly then at least in the background, and what Erskine had actually gone on to do was destroy the Dead Men a century later.

But maybe... maybe there was something to that line of thinking after all.

The building he purchased in the Earth Sector had been a small textiles mill once, though when he first found it there was every indication that it hadn't been used, or even occupied, for several years. For all that it was remarkably intact, but it was going to need a lot of work to turn it into the kind of business he was intending. On his own, after his work at the Hotel, it was going to take ages to fix the place up. It was a project though. It was his.

Now that the rest of the Dead Men were here--now that Hopeless was here--Erskine wasn't sure if he was going to get any work done on the shelter at all. Maybe he could steal a few minutes here and there, unless the others decided they'd rather not have the traitor around. At least he could show Hopeless his idea.

He never quite intended the shelter to become a bonding experience for the eight of them, but their luck hadn't always been terrible either. There had been a time when being a Dead Man hadn't meant loss and regret.

[shopworn]

Somehow, incredibly, the shelter, Erskine's project, becomes something safe to do with himself. Ghastly lifts and carries and there is no small amount of hammering, and usually this means he is too tired to punch anyone.

Every day, the confused tangled ache of hurt and loss unties itself a little further.

It strikes him as odd when the others leave him and Erskine alone together, though Ghastly supposes that's because Hopeless won't be too far distant and will be able to step in if something goes horribly awry. Mostly he doesn't say anything about it, only keeps at the work. Work to help people, rather than fighting.

(Occasionally there is sewing instead, because he can and because some people need better clothing than they currently have.)

[skeletonenigma]

There are a few different times Skulduggery keeps Ghastly company while he's sewing. It's not constant, because as much as Skulduggery missed Ghastly he's self-aware enough to know when his presence hurts more than it helps. It's more time with his best friend than he expected, and Skulduggery's perfectly happy to take that time on Ghastly's terms.

When he's there, he talks. About Keeliai, mostly, stories of the other Foreigners and of Malicant's defeat (leaving out a few more salient details). He talks about the kedan and their culture, about Tavimbi and Hatal and their culture. Sometimes he's griping about the lack of official law enforcement making his job more difficult, and sometimes he's griping about only having one bulletproof suit.

At one point, after having talked at length, he pauses.

"If there's anything you'd like to know," he says, "I'll do my best to make it more palatable."

He's referring to what happened after Ghastly's death back home. Somehow, Skulduggery doesn't think he needs to specify.

[shopworn]

Every moment with Skulduggery is something impossibly snatched, something to be tucked away and treasured for that they will never quite have it again. And yet, at the same time, things are as they ever were: Ghastly and Skulduggery, picking up where they left off, sarcasm and tailory and everything in between. There is marginally less assumption that Skulduggery will need Ghastly to punch someone, but that's about it.

This particular pause, and what comes after, makes Ghastly hesitate a moment, the needle of the sewing machine hesitating in time with him. "I'm not sure," he says in a moment or two. "Do you think it will help?" Curiosity is a natural part of people, but in this case Ghastly isn't sure that what he learns won't just make everything worse.

[skeletonenigma]

There's another pause, this one shorter than the last, and then Skulduggery shrugs. "I don't think it'll hurt, but then again, I'm not the mind-reader. Maybe it depends on the questions you ask."

For Skulduggery's part, he's never seen knowledge to be a bad thing. An undesirable, unwelcome, or unhelpful thing, certainly, but not a bad thing. Of course, Skulduggery also tends to separate himself from 'other' people, which probably isn't very healthy.

[shopworn]

Don't ask anything he doesn't genuinely want answered. Right. Ghastly has to think about that a little longer, the work of the sewing a comforting underlying hum of business with his hands.

"All right," he says finally, sitting back and looking over at Skulduggery. "What happened to you? I got bits and pieces of it, and I probably don't want to know all of the details, but what happened to you--"

After I died. Ghastly does not actually finish the question, though he himself isn't sure if it's for Skul's sake or his.

[skeletonenigma]

-- except for that. That knowledge is a bad thing.

But Skulduggery extended the offer of answers, and he's not about to go back on that offer. So he just takes an unnecessary breath, his eyeless gaze on Ghastly's sewing.

"Erskine revealed his city," he says. "I helped defend it from Warlocks. After that, Darquesse rose. We beat her." A pause. "Well, we actually sent her into the dimension with the Faceless Ones, since she was pretty much unkillable, but it amounts to the same thing. The problem was no one saw fit to tell us activating the Accelerator also started a countdown to the end of the world, and the only way to stop that countdown was to offer it a willing soul. You can probably guess what happened after that."

[shopworn]

This is why he asked if it would be a good idea, Skulduggery. But the fact Skulduggery even has to take a breath says something, and so Ghastly braces himself, even though he was more or less braced already.

"You sent her to the Faceless Ones," Ghastly repeats, blankly. That's... one solution. If Darquesse was as bad as she seems to have been, then it follows that they'd have to resort to something drastic, and allowing unkillable horrors to deal with unkillable horror probably works, but it's still a bit horrifying.

Why would anyone have built that into the Accelerator. Ghastly shakes his head slowly, almost disbelieving the sheer volume of bad that happened after. "I can guess," he says quietly. "I... how many of us are left, Skulduggery?"

Not an answer he wants, but one he probably needs.

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery hesitates -- again. Yes, alright, on second thought, perhaps this was a bad direction to take the conversation in.

"I'm not sure," he answers. "At the time, I thought we all survived that final battle. I didn't have time to stop and check. From what I've heard here, though... Saracen, Erskine, and Valkyrie."

Dexter probably shouldn't come as a surprise. Even if he'd survived, he wouldn't have been a Dead Man anymore. But somehow, news of his death did come as a surprise, and hearing about other deaths from Saracen while here in Keeliai... occasionally Skulduggery wondered what China had done with the country when it was missing half its sorcerers.

[shopworn]

Saracen and Erskine. No wonder Saracen had hugged Ghastly as soon as he saw him. Ghastly closes his eyes for a moment, letting the weight of it sink in, letting his heart ache for those left behind.

They couldn't have lasted forever. All of them would have died eventually, after all. Probably even Skulduggery, someday. But it shouldn't have been like this, with Saracen alone and Erskine drowning in regret.

"Was there anything good about it?" he asks abruptly, focusing on Skulduggery again. "Or was it just-- war, all over again?"

[skeletonenigma]

"Well," Skulduggery says carefully, "it was a war that lasted for less than a year."

A record, where sorcerers were concerned. But since it was Ghastly and Anton's deaths which ended that war, Skulduggery hadn't been able to get too excited about it. Something good? China becoming Grand Mage probably doesn't qualify.

"Otherwise, no," he adds quietly. "No more than the little things. Getting back someone you thought was gone. Unexpected allies. Winning."

[shopworn]

A war lasting less than a year is actually kind of an upside, at least for the people left behind. War is a terrible, terrible thing, and the fewer people who have to make their way through one, the better.

Last time, Ghastly thinks morbidly, it took the deaths of two Dead Men before the war was finished. Why should this time have been any different?

Then he mentally shakes himself. "Sometimes," he says, "the little things are enough." But the smile he offers Skulduggery is a melancholy one. It's scant compensation for everything lost.

"Do you think the world will be all right? Ireland?" Ghastly has perilously little picture of the world after, only really the deaths.

18th or so;

[scryinghope]

Hopeless has Plans. One thing they've all known from the beginning is that most of them don't have much time here--that means they have to make the best of it. The shelter itself is a wonderful way to spend the time, and looking at Hopeless makes it seem as though nothing is wrong at all. He works while humming with languid contentment, delivering tools, food, and bandaids to various Dead Men around the place--when he isn't doing some smaller, or aesthetic tasks.

Hopeless isn't a builder; but he is, after a fashion, an artist. After a fashion, they're all artists. He does little engravings for the bedrooms, the kitchens, making signs--creating little touches to make the shelter a home once it's done.

Except for one day, when he appears beside Erskine to snag his sleeve and tug it. "Come with me," he says, smiling mysteriously.

He's had something delivered in what will be an antechamber linking the lobby and Erskine's room--somewhere private he can go, but which he can still guard the lobby if he doesn't want the door closed.

[edgeoftheknife]

As unbelievable as its been having everyone back, everyone alive and whole and together in the same place for the first time in a century, Erskine has found himself horribly distracted while they work on the shelter. He's not going to complain about the help--on the contrary, it's more than he could have hoped for. Except half the time while he's supposed to be working he's thinking about Hopeless instead. Idly watching the mind-reader work on his engravings. Wondering where he's gone when he's not in sight. Smiling like a fool every time he reappears. Half the time Erskine doesn't even realize he's doing it, and the other half he doesn't care. It's been too long. Surely he's allowed a little time to act like a fool, in between the pain and the mistrust from the others?

For once, on this occasion, he's actually managed to concentrate long enough to get some 'heavy lifting' done. His hands are raised in the air, guiding a support beam he's been levitating. Just as the beam slides down into place, fitted perfectly, he feels the tug on his sleeve and turns his gaze--and smiles as soon as he sees Hopeless.

The smile quickly turns into a puzzled little frown. Hopeless is smiling himself, and looking entirely too pleased for there to be something wrong. Which means he's plotting something.

He's only been in town for three days, how is he plotting something already?

Regardless, Erskine looks around the room one more time to make sure he's left everything in a state where it won't fall or collapse or hurt anything/anyone before nodding to the mind-reader and brushing his hands off on his work trousers. "I suppose I can take a break from making everyone else look bad for a minute or two."

[scryinghope]

"Don't be so sure," Hopeless said teasingly, and poked Erskine's stomach gently. "You've been letting yourself go. You might need to work harder, day-dreamer." He turned without waiting for the inevitable response. They had all 'let themselves go' in one way or another. Saracen's version was Hopeless's favourite.

"Of course I'm plotting something," he tossed over his shoulder as he walked away toward the little 'faery bower'. "How dare you doubt me."

Like the rest, he was in something more suitable for work-clothes, but he still managed to seem slight and reserved in them. Maybe it was the fact they were slightly rumpled, but not actively dirty like the others'.

[edgeoftheknife]

Erskine at least had the wherewithal to act outraged at the idea that he'd let himself go, although his idea of outrage was more a kind of weak indignation given that it was Hopeless. Given that just being around Hopeless left him a little dazed (in a good way). Even the vitriol from some of the others was easier to bear with Hopeless nearby.

"Day-dreamer." Erskine ducked his head, felt a slight flush creep across his cheeks. Of course Hopeless knew he'd been watching him. Mind-reader.

"Not doubt," he said quietly, trailing along after the other man, trying to erase the blush from his face as if there were something he could consciously do about it. He didn't blush. He never blushed. "Just awe. You've settled in nicely if you're already scheming."

[scryinghope]

Even if Erskine had tried to hide it, he would have failed. Most days, the way Erskine looked at Hopeless felt like a ray of sunshine. It always had, in some ways, but now it was with awareness. It was almost blinding, in its own way, and Hopeless hadn't meant to call attention to it. The fact that he had made Hopeless blush faintly as well, even as he glanced back to watch Erskine's. Erskine's blushes were far too rare not to take advantage of looking at them.

"You may or may not think that in a minute," Hopeless said, still smiling as he led Erskine into the 'bower', stopping at the door and motioning at his gift with a flourish. "Ta-da."

It was a loom, the full-sized sort--and not the mechanical kind. Larger than the journeyman's loom Erskine had lost so long ago, fit for anything up to good sizes; made of strong timber, with leather trappings and strings so glossy they shimmered. Hopeless had been at it already, because engraved in Irish on the timber, facing where Erskine would sit, was a blessing.

"May the blessing of the rain be on you—
the soft sweet rain.
May it fall upon your spirit
so that all the little flowers may spring up,
and shed their sweetness on the air.
May the blessing of the great rains be on you,
may they beat upon your spirit
and wash it fair and clean,
and leave there many a shining pool
where the blue of heaven shines,
and sometimes a star."

[edgeoftheknife]

He could feel Hopeless's eyes on him. Erskine looked up, still flushed, and smiled in an intentional effort to ease them both past that bit of awkwardness--although a second later he noticed the blush on Hopeless and the smile turned into one of genuine amusement. Hopeless was adorable when he blushed. Erskine had missed that.

...and maybe he needed to stop thinking about Hopeless being adorable, because it was only making things more awkward and making him blush harder. This was the opposite of helping. Thankfully a moment later his curiosity won out, wondering what Hopeless meant by that last bit, and the embarrassment receded in his mind to be replaced shortly by a kind of stunned wonder.

He froze in the doorway next to Hopeless. A loom. A good loom, not quite as large as the one the couple who'd adopted him had used in their trade, but large enough to make almost anything. Erskine hadn't used a loom in centuries but he'd been good at it once, had been an honest-to-God weaver before he'd been a mage or a soldier or anything else. He didn't know if he could do it anymore, although for the time being the surprise of the gift was more important than the practicality of it. Hopeless had done this for him. Hopeless had managed to sneak a piece of equipment larger than a man into the building as a surprise for him. Had left him a blessing, hand-carved. All this time and effort....

The smile that blossomed on Erskine's face this time wasn't quite amusement, and certainly wasn't just covering for a blush. He wasn't really sure what it was, just like he wasn't sure what kind of impulse led him to lean over, hands lifting to either side of Hopeless's face, and kiss him full on the lips. He'd think about it in a minute, no doubt.

[scryinghope]

Because there was no planning in Erskine's head, because the reaction was spontaneous, Hopeless had no time to prepare, no way to back off. Especially since he was so busy watching the blooming smile of joy on Erskine's face, one which wiped away the months of torture and guilt and made his features full again, instead of a shadow of himself.

So Hopeless wasn't prepared for the kiss.

But he kissed back, automatically but very gently, his hand lifting as if intending to catch Erskine's before the action fizzled. Instead his fingertips landed gently on Erskine's jaw. It was--nice wasn't the right word. Impassioned, and still lacking thought, and a mimicry of a number of fantasies Hopeless had spent several centuries very firmly shutting down.

Then Hopeless's brain caught up and he stepped back, blushing furiously and eyes not quite looking Erskine in the face again. "That wasn't--I admit--exactly the reaction I was, um, envisioning. But I'm glad you like it."

[edgeoftheknife]

There hadn't been any planning, and if Erskine had thought about it for even a few seconds he would have realized what a massively bad idea this was. He had no idea how Hopeless felt on the subject. What if he didn't return the sentiment? Then the two of them would spend the next few days, maybe a couple of weeks if they were lucky, skirting around each other and trying not to think about how awkward Erskine had made everything. Possibly the only few days Hopeless would get to experience in God only knew how long.

It was hard to think about all of that, though, when he felt like this. Really, truly happy. Better than he'd felt in a century. That feeling only multiplied when he kissed Hopeless and Hopeless... didn't pull away. If anything it felt like he was kissing Erskine back, and Erskine felt his heart flutter in his chest as if it might burst.

That feeling turned to a cold sort of dread, a hollow in the pit of his stomach, when Hopeless pulled away. Wouldn't look him in the eye. For a moment Erskine felt himself floundering, not understanding how everything had gone wrong so quickly. He--

He must have imagined it, Hopeless kissing him back. He blinked and took a step back as well, and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his work trousers, turning his gaze back to the loom.

"I'm sorry. Forget... that I did that. It's a beautiful loom. Thank you."

[scryinghope]

"Oh, Erskine." Hopeless shook his head with a wry smile and stepped forward again, wrapping one arm around Erskine's shoulders and using the other's fingers to brush Erskine's temple. That hand twined in Erskine's hair so his thumb could stay there, and he rested their foreheads together.

"I know you haven't noticed this," he whispered, "but I've been trying to say 'I love you' for centuries. Without actually ... saying it out loud." He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, shutting his eyes. He tried to imagine that kiss prolonged and it made his stomach flutter; tried to imagine going any further, and it made his chest tighten with panic.

"I just--there are certain, um, physical things I'm not in a position to do. There are things I need to work out before I can even begin to wrap my head around--those things--and ... there isn't time." His voice thickened. Rover had only been around for two weeks, last time. "There just isn't time. I'd need months. You're the one who's going to live past when we're gone. I'm not going to take away the time that you need recovering, for ... a bit of that kind of physicality. Not when I've already loved you without it."

[edgeoftheknife]

For centuries.

Hopeless already--

Hopeless loved him.

Instantly that fluttering in his chest returned, partly in reaction to that knowledge and partly due to Hopeless drawing close again, being in such close proximity to the person he loved, the person he'd finally realized he loved after centuries of apparent obliviousness. Even after he'd realized it a few months ago, he'd never dreamed that he'd be able to do anything about it. Never dreamed that Hopeless would be standing here, alive, saying those words. It was overwhelming but in the best possible way. Erskine's posture relaxed, that defensive stance he'd adopted melting away, and his hands withdrew from his pockets to wrap around Hopeless in a loose embrace.

"Physical--" The thought caught in his throat for a moment and then Erskine laughed quietly, the grin on his face suffused with a kind of wild joy. "I don't care," he replied, shaking his head slightly without dislodging Hopeless from resting against him. "I don't care about that. I... I have you back. You're here and you're real and you're alive and I love you." The words came tumbling out of his mouth almost too quickly. Erskine laughed again, a manic edge to his thoughts, too elated to care about something he'd never even really considered to begin with.

Erskine;

[vexingshieldbearer]

After Dexter's emotional fog had broken, he found it easier to actually ... be there. In the moment. With the rest of them. Easier to laugh. It felt like relief, to laugh. Felt like daggers too.

But it wasn't until Hopeless prodded him that Dexter actually considered trying to talk to any of the others, one-on-one. Letting the camaraderie seep in, turn from fragile and edged, to something smooth and more closely approaching what it should have been, had felt like enough of a gift (a bladed one) to work with. Building the shelter, laughing, scuffling, falling in each other's laps; all that was enough. Why couldn't they just stick with that?

Except ... there was the Erskine thing. There was always the Erskine thing. (Like there'd been the Vile thing.)

"Don't you think you should let him know what you've decided?"

"I really hate that you know what I've decided before I did. Also, I missed you."

Which was why Dexter was not paying complete and total attention as he nailed in a beam that Erskine was holding aloft with air, and his Roveresque stream of dialogue as to the angles and dimension of the room cut off with a yelp as hammer hit thumb.

[edgeoftheknife]

Erskine hadn't known how to behave around Dexter at first, short of quietly shying away from him as he'd been doing with Ghastly. It was true that Erskine hadn't plunged the knife into Dexter's back himself, at least by the point when he'd come to Keeliai--he didn't even know how Dexter had died, honestly--but he knew that it was his fault. The war, the state of the world when he'd left it... it was all his fault, more or less. Eight of the strongest, most talented sorcerers the world had produced, and Erskine was responsible for the deaths of all but three of them.

Even he himself was dead by his own hand, after a fashion, and would be in a very literal sense if he ever returned to their own world.

For someone who was deceptively gentle, Dexter had been particularly vitriolic after Ghastly and Anton's murders. Erskine couldn't blame him, but it left him at a loss as to how to occupy the same room with the energy thrower. Only the presence of the others saved the situation, Erskine suspected. So they found themselves working on the same section of the shelter, Erskine holding up a beam with a current of air magic while Dexter chattered to anyone who would listen. Erskine started at the sudden yelp and his magic slipped, dropping the unsecured half of the beam a good foot before he caught himself.

"All right up there?" he asked quietly, his hands moving in front of him as he manipulated the air.

[vexingshieldbearer]

The destabilising beam made Dexter wobble and fall flat on his ass, still gripping his hand. "I'm alive," he called back down, and only belatedly realised what he'd said. His chest wrenched and he sighed, and put his head in his hands. "This isn't working, is it?"

The banter. The chatter. Hopeless was right. Skulduggery had--done whatever he'd had to do. Dexter was pretty sure on what that was. Saracen had apparently had time to make his peace. Ghastly hadn't had to see the fallout of his death, and apparently that was helping. Anton wasn't even from he same time.

Rover and Hopeless ... well, they were Rover and Hopeless. The most loving and forgiving of the lot of them.

The only question-mark left, for Erskine, was Dexter.

He uncurled and picked up the hammer, and gave the nail a final savage blow, and then levered the beam properly into place so it locked in with the nails and wooden pegs that were to keep it wedged into place. "Done." Then he dropped the hammer and wriggled over to slide down the ladder. He wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do when he got down there; but at this point anything had to be better than this.