[Midnight Hotel] Fourth-wall catch-all; 15-30 April 2016

[gistful]

Characters: Anyone, everyone.
Date: 15-30th April, 2016 (2017 in-game).
Location: The Midnight Hotel.
Situation: It’s the fourth-wall event and there’s a sudden influx of patrons! Feel free to use this post for anything that happens within the Midnight Hotel during the two weeks of the fourth-wall event, using the subject header to label specific rooms or for specific people. Regulars should feel free to continue using the non-fourth-wall Hotel post for pre-fourth-wall threads! See also the OOC note at the bottom.
Warnings/Rating: Mark your threads if content warnings become applicable, please!

Once more, it seems, the Dreaming has seen fit to lure in temporary residents. Luckily, the Hotel and its kedanese staff have done this before -- even accounting for the fact that it isn't exactly usual. If this goes on, they may start to predict the event!

It takes a day or so to sort things out, but once sorted the Hotel breaks out the same sleeping-bags as they had last time, and set aside as many areas of the common-room and even the lobby as sleeping areas. Any spare bed-rooms are also filled to the brim, though there aren't many of those these days.

The Hotel, like some of the other buildings around Keeliai, displays some occasional damage of the explosion-that-wasn't; in fact, seems to show it more obviously than most other places. Mostly it's cracks in frames or the smell of smoke in random areas, or some loose shingles; the worst that happens is the plumbing may be a bit unreliable until the wards can right themselves.

As before, Mr Shudder lets Foreigners without a soul-gem stay for free, as long as they follow the rules--which they are told upon entry. (Most notably, that's the 'no violence' rule.) Luckily, the new walk-in restaurant function means there's plenty to eat for everyone, and the cooking staff are on overtime this fortnight to make sure everyone is provided for.

Strangely, Mr Shudder himself is scarce for these two weeks. He does drop by in the evenings to make sure things are progressing well, but if anyone asks all he'll say is that some old friends have arrived and he and Erskine are helping them out elsewhere in the city. Anton will be around if anything untoward happens--but for the most part management is performed either by Anton's kedanese staff, or by Klaus von Reinherz.


[ooc: The Midnight Hotel’s status page is available here, with the rules at the top and ongoing status at the bottom. PLEASE PM ME IF YOUR CHARACTER WILL PERFORM A VIOLENT ACT. The Hotel is a neutral-zone and the proprietor is very strict as to acts of violence, and it will receive a response.

It will not be necessary for fourth-wall characters to officially check into the Hotel during the event.]

Comments

[scryinghope]

That image made Hopeless flinch, his fists gripping the back of Ghastly's shirt. Almost worse was the natural progression--the secondhand pain, Erskine's guilt-stricken golden eyes--Hopeless took a deep breath and counted to ten, and then let it out again, shakily. It took effort to look into Erskine's eyes, he first time he'd witnessed that in Ghastly's head. Hopeless had managed it.

It was going to take effort again, he could tell. But it had to be managed. The memory couldn't be let to keep hold.

Ghastly had been raised in a loving family, had never wanted for help despite his looks. He had been taught to be honourable, learned to be steadfast, hadn't been tortured and broken. He'd never been in a position to learn to hate himself to the point where asking for help was unbearable. It was difficult to understand that kind of feeling, and the depths of it. Difficult to explain, too.

Another breath, and then Hopeless pulled back, using his sleeve to wipe off his face and his we eyes. "We don't have the time to waste," he said, voice a bit wobbly. "Nor does he." He mustered a smile. "So I'd better stop crying all over you so we can get on with it, shouldn't I?"

[shopworn]

"I'm sorry," he said again at that flinch, helpless, all the old tricks for keeping his thoughts on track gone unpracticed and dull in the century and more since Hopeless' death. No one else should have had to experience Ghastly's death, either. How much else had they lost, and not even realized it?

When Hopeless pulled back Ghastly left his hands on his shoulders for a moment, studying his friend somberly. "I suppose we don't," he said, equal measures wry and resigned. "All the same, if you need to..."

Hopeless did know where to find him, if weeping on shoulders turned out to be necessary. The offer was open, and would stay that way.

This was, Ghastly considered, about as ready as he was ever going to get to talk to Erskine.

[scryinghope]

"Thank you," Hopeless said softly, holding Ghastly's gaze, fingers loose around Ghastly's wrist. Meritorious had been the first one to know his magic, but Ghastly and Skulduggery had been the first Hopeless had told himself, willingly. It had taken Ghastly longer than Skulduggery to adjust the thought, being sorcerer-born; yet in his own way Ghastly had accepted it better. Skulduggery had never stopped asking questions. Ghastly had simply accepted.

That sort of gentle acceptance and willingness to listen was what Hopeless tried to offer to others. Sometimes, he needed someone to give it to him.

Hopeless shifted his hand so he could take Ghastly's, and turned with a gentle tug. "Come on; he's at the shelter still. The lead-up is the worst part. If all goes well, everything is downhill from there."

Catharsis. There was catharsis in hugs.

[shopworn]

Oh, they were going right now.

It followed, of course, given the discussion they'd just had about urgency; but all the same Ghastly was a little startled when Hopeless tugged at him. "My sewing," he protested, and paused just long enough to fold up the waistcoat properly, such that the pins and needle still in it wouldn't be at risk of falling out or poking anyone.

He left it in the basket beside the chair, and then allowed Hopeless to pull him away from the Hotel.

The lead-up was the worst part, Hopeless said. He wasn't wrong about that, either. Ghastly was a quiet turmoil all the way to the shelter.

[scryinghope]

Hopeless waited patiently when Ghastly pulled away, smiling slightly at the fussiness. Ghastly wasn't precisely a fussy man, unless one saw him with his sewing. It was a subtlety in him, that he was so gentle at heart.

He didn't feel the need to drag Ghastly by the hand the whole way to the shelter, but as they came to the door he put a hand on Ghastly's shoulder. "He's in the antechamber," Hopeless said quietly. "I'll come in with you, at first, but I'm not there to mediate unless I absolutely have to. You're leading. You're in control."

Hopeless turned Ghastly to him, to catch his gaze. "My suggestion is not to hesitate, not to think, before you go in," he said. "If you need to marshal yourself, do it now." He smiled. "So I can prod you out of it."

Then he gave Ghastly a little push, not to force him into the shelter but to indicate that from here on--it was Ghastly driving events. What happened depended on Ghastly finding the will to surmount that first, terribly difficult step. Good thing Hopeless had faith in that. "Go. Distribute."

[shopworn]

"Distribute what," Ghastly protested, but it was half-hearted at best. Hugs, he assumed Hopeless meant.

Hugs for Erskine. Right.

He stood at the door a little while longer, hand hovering at the door. They'd all been angry with each other before, of course, at one time or another, for one reason or another. That was the beauty of their brotherhood: that they were all still friends, at the end of the day, tighter-knit for what had passed between them and around them.

Did that still hold, now?

Ghastly really shouldn't stop and think about it too long, as Hopeless had said. He took a deep breath and opened the door, striding through more hesitantly than he would have liked. "Erskine?"

[edgeoftheknife]

Erskine was, in fact, in the antechamber, and had been for some time. He wasn't really doing much; they were all taking a break from the renovations for a while and Hopeless had disappeared at some point, which left Erskine adrift and floating between his new bedroom and the room next to it that housed his new loom. He wasn't even doing anything with the loom currently, unless sitting at it and running his fingers over the engravings counted as "doing something."

He did remember how to use the machine, dimly, although time and pain had worn away the edges of those memories like a stone in a river. That left him hesitant to start, even though trying might bring more of those memories back. He'd been a bit of a perfectionist when he'd been a weaver all those years ago. Trying all these years later seemed an impossibly daunting first step.

The placement of his bedroom and the antechamber meant that Erskine could hear right away when the door to the shelter opened. He didn't think much of it at first; the Dead Men had been in and out of the building all day. It was only when he heard his name that he started, rose from the seat at the loom and went to the doorway connecting his rooms and the lobby beyond.

Ghastly. Ghastly specifically addressing him. Had the tailor done that even once since that first day in the Hotel? Erskine didn't think so, and he wasn't sure what to make of it now, so he kept to the doorway for the moment. His gaze, while it fell close enough to Ghastly to be of use, never quite reached the other man's face.

"Yes?"

[shopworn]

And there, quite abruptly, was Erskine. Erskine, who couldn't quite look at him; Erskine, who had murdered him.

That mental refrain, Ghastly thought with some annoyance, was getting rather old. He only had so long here, in this city -- alive -- and there was only so much idiocy he was willing to take, from the other Dead Men or indeed from himself. But--

Then what?

He stood, frozen, for a little longer, until he heard a footstep from behind, brought back to mind Hopeless and the conversation they had only just gotten done having. And he thought, too, of the first time he'd seen Erskine in this world, of the shadow that was of the brother he'd known, and before Ghastly had really consciously thought through what he was doing he was moving toward Erskine, intent in his stride.

It involves hugs, Hopeless had said. Fine, then. Ghastly reached Erskine and, without any particular ceremony or grace or in fact any warning at all, pulled him into a tight embrace.

Ghastly found he was trembling, faint but present, and he couldn't quite say why.

HUGE, HUGE SPOILERS FOR THE SP SERIES

[edgeoftheknife]

Ghastly wasn't speaking. That... couldn't be a good sign. Not that Erskine could really think of anything involving Ghastly that he would take as a good sign. There was too much anger and hurt between them. Betrayal. The loss of that easy friendship they'd had, even through most of the time they'd served on the Council together. Things hadn't been perfect toward the end--Erskine had recalled more than once that conversation they'd had about Nye, about having to do things that would make people hate them--but they'd still been friends. Even if Erskine had known the whole while that he was betraying him. Betraying all of them.

And then Ghastly was moving, still without speaking. Moving with purpose, toward Erskine.

Erskine closed his eyes. The last time they'd been in this position, the only thing that had saved him from a trip to a healer had been Anton. Anton wasn't here. Erskine didn't move, however; if Ghastly needed to hit him, to make himself feel better, Erskine owed him at least that much. Owed him so much more, really, but maybe this would at least be a start.

He told himself he wouldn't flinch when Ghastly got close enough; he might be a shadow of the man he used to be but he was still a Dead Man, as far as he knew. The hug was so utterly unexpected, though, that when Erskine felt the arms wrap around him he couldn't help but jerk in Ghastly's embrace.

What--?

A hug. It didn't make any sense. Erskine stood frozen, unable to hug Ghastly back just yet, still trying to decide if he was hallucinating this or not. Victims didn't hug their murderers. Not that they usually got the chance.

[shopworn]

Hugs had been achieved. Sort of. For a given value of hugs which included Erskine stiff as a board in Ghastly's arms, and apparently deeply confused. Still, it was a start, or something like it.

Now what?

Ghastly had not thought far beyond this, and the simple act of a hug itself did not appear to be doing the trick. For goodness' sake, Erskine had flinched when Ghastly embraced him.

In all fairness, the last time Ghastly had come at Erskine with such rapidity and purpose, Anton had gotten punched, and Erskine nearly had. But there was no satisfaction in it, no salving of the hurt, and Ghastly was still faintly trembling. He drew his breath in slowly, and sighed softly in the moment after. "Erskine," he said, carefully. "I'm not going to hurt you."

[edgeoftheknife]

The hug... kept going. If this were anyone but Ghastly, Erskine would be wondering what the catch was, when the other shoe would drop. Suspecting that the moment he dropped his guard and tried to hug back he would find out it had been some kind of trap or trick. Knowing the way those last few days had gone, after the-- after everything, Erskine wouldn't put that sort of thing past Dexter. Even Saracen, although this version of Saracen seemed to have outgrown most of his immediate hostility.

But with Ghastly, even though the idea that it might be a trap occurred, Erskine immediately set the idea aside. Ghastly wasn't that kind of person. He could be just as cunning and clever as the rest of the Dead Men, of course, but he wasn't an inherently duplicitous person. He was straightforward, uncomplicated. If it were a trick it would be because someone else put him up to it, or set him up as well.

All of this ran through Erskine's head in a matter of seconds, during which time he remained rigid and frozen in Ghastly's arms. When he finally began to relax he blinked rapidly and slowly moved his arms up to put them around the other man, although he didn't lean into the hug just yet.

"Why?" The voice that responded was small, and choked, and completely baffled.

[shopworn]

'Hopeless said so' was not the best answer in this situation. Nor was it truly the only reason.

There was silence for a moment, while Ghastly strung his words together into something that resembled coherence, and focused on the feeling of simply-- holding Erskine. He could manage this.

"It won't do anything," Ghastly said finally. "Least of all help. Hurting you won't change anything, it'll just make both of us feel worse." Ghastly and Anton would still be dead. Erskine would still be a shadow of what he once was. The relationship between them would be just as jagged and fractured, and any satisfaction he would get from punching Erskine would fade rapidly. "So I'm not going to. All right?"

[edgeoftheknife]

God, Erskine had missed Ghastly.

He'd missed the others as well, of course--Hopeless was something else altogether and had been for a century--but it struck Erskine as the other man hugged him just how much he'd missed him. He'd missed that easy camaraderie they'd had in the Sanctuary. Missed being around someone so purely, simply good, no matter how much it hurt to do so, made Erskine loathe his own reflection by comparison. How funny, he thought, that the 'ugly' one could be such a good man inside and he, Erskine, could be so ugly.

One more of life's little bitter ironies, he supposed.

"All right," he said at last. He stood like that for another handful of heartbeats, his arms around Ghastly but still a bit in shock, before finally caving. His head bowed, his face tucked against Ghastly's shoulder and his eyes shut tight.

"I'm so sorry." The words were small and quiet and in no way reflected the force of the grief behind them.

[shopworn]

"I know." That had, Ghastly reflected, maybe been unworthy of him. There was a vast contrast between I am sorry, my friend and this, Erskine turning his face into Ghastly's shoulder like Ghastly could block out the world. Here, in this moment, Ghastly didn't doubt it at all, despite everything that had come first.

Sorry didn't make him less dead. But here, and now, in this little time they had, it salved something, maybe.

He sighed, and one hand came up to mess Erskine's hair. "I know," he repeated, gentler this time. "I don't understand, and I think you're an idiot, but--"

Erskine hadn't deserved what happened to him, either. This wasn't how things should be. But it was what they had.

"...I don't hate you."

[edgeoftheknife]

Erskine had never sought, nor even hoped for, forgiveness. What he'd done was beyond forgiveness, no matter that Anton had seemed to think otherwise. No matter that Hopeless still had faith in him. He'd simply never considered that Dexter or Saracen or especially Ghastly would be able to look past what he'd done. No one who'd been there, who'd lived through that time, would be willing to forgive that.

To that end, anyone without context might not see the words 'I don't hate you' as anything to write home about. To Erskine even that little bit was more than he'd expected of Ghastly. He managed not to flinch again when he felt Ghastly move, and the hand messing his hair actually drew something like a smile even though it was lost against Ghastly's shoulder.

Was there anything he could possibly say that might help the situation, help clear up why he'd done what he'd done? Erskine didn't think so--I was tortured and I was in love with Hopeless and I lost the only thing keeping me anchored didn't seem incredibly appropriate in the face of the brother he'd murdered. He absolutely owed Ghastly any explanations he could give, but... maybe he'd wait until they were asked for, specifically.

Instead he breathed a little huff of a laugh against the fabric of Ghastly's suit jacket. "I'll take it," he said, his voice rusty. "And I suppose I deserve that 'idiot' bit." He snaked one hand up between them to grind the heel of his palm against his eyes, brushing away whatever wetness had managed to form there, before attempting to pull back and away from Ghastly. "Anton does seem to delight in reminding me of it."

[shopworn]

You were right, Ghastly thought, very loudly, as he was assuming Hopeless was still within mindshot of them. It was a resigned, but appreciative sort of thought. With that handled he turned his mind back to Erskine, and pretended he didn't see Erskine brushing the wetness from his eyes.

He almost didn't let Erskine go. It was easier than he'd thought it would be, hugging him, and some part of Ghastly didn't want to lose that. But he did let Erskine draw back after a moment, though he left his hands on Erskine's shoulders and studied, really simply looked at Erskine, trying to erase that death-cloaked memory of his face in favor of something better.

What a sight they must make.

"He'll have to remind you of it for me, too," Ghastly said finally, opting for something lighter. At least for the moment. It would take far longer than they had for things to truly be all right. But he didn't hate Erskine, and both of them had that solidly, and everything else would follow, wouldn't it? "Erskine, I--"

But he found he didn't know what to say. What could he say, here? Hopeless had said starting would be the difficult part, but he'd neglected to mention that the rest of it would also probably be incredibly awkward.

[edgeoftheknife]

What a sight indeed. Erskine still struggled to look Ghastly in the face, especially so close and feeling Ghastly's eyes on him, but he managed not to pull himself out of that grasp right away. He settled for focusing somewhere around the area of Ghastly's lapel, breathing slow and even and standing, resigned, under that gaze. Resigned but not as anxious as he'd been. Almost at peace--almost. Anton had forgiven him. Hopeless believed there was still a good man in him, somewhere. Ghastly didn't hate him.

Yes, he would take this. Even this little bit was so much more than he'd had.

"Don't worry," he said with something approaching a wry smile, picking up the slack when Ghastly faltered for something to say. "You'll have a few more days to say it, at least. Toss it randomly into conversations. 'Erskine, hand me that hammer would you, you idiot?'"

He looked up, finally, meeting Ghastly's gaze with a tentative smile. Was he allowed to smile? "Come on, before things get too soppy and you start confessing your repressed feelings for me. Let's get some tea or something."

[shopworn]

Better the smile, than the alternative. Ghastly tried something roughly equivalent, found he remembered what it felt like to smile at Erskine, even if only tentatively. "I'm sure I'll find some time to work it in," he said. "Maybe I can borrow Anton's tablet and record it, just in case."

He thought about the offer of tea for a moment. There was a reflexive urge to joke, dusty but apparently still in working order for all that it hurt a little when the joints screeched. (Ghastly had lost the metaphor a little, but the point stood.) "Ravel," he said finally, dry, "you're far too pretty for me. Try to contain your disappointment."

Possibly they should talk more seriously. Ghastly couldn't quite bring himself to raise the topic. Tea and awkward joking it was, then.

[edgeoftheknife]

It wasn't the most clever of comebacks, nor certainly the most original (seriously, like he'd never heard that one before), but the simple fact that Ghastly was willing to try to joke was the important part. The vast majority of the Dead Men used humor to hide their pain, which admittedly wasn't healthy, but when a Dead Man wasn't even capable of joking it was a bad, bad sign. Erskine's smile settled a little more comfortably on his face at that, and he shrugged lightly.

"That's alright, I--"

And then he paused, noticeably, because no iteration of any joke he could think of in this situation was safe in any way. Certainly nothing that sprang right to mind. The only possibly safe retort might be something about Hopeless taking pity on him, and Erskine wasn't sure he wanted to disturb that lovely little bright spot in his life just yet.

He shook his head, just slightly. The smile had faded but hadn't disappeared completely. "Come on, let's hit the kitchen. Anton's got some new teas in there, I think." Erskine moved one foot to take a step toward the kitchen, slowly, waiting to see if Ghastly was going to let him go.


((continued here))