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Doors Verse ([info]doorsverse) wrote in [info]doorslogs,
@ 2013-10-18 21:51:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:plot: halloween

Who: Everyone!
What: The Halloween plot
Where: Passages → The RMS Mauretania
Notes: This is a group log, so anything goes as far as adult content. Please provide locations and warnings, whenever appropriate, in subject lines. Characters may only be in one place at a time, not in multiple threads simultaneously, and you must post using the “doorsween” anon account. This post is anonymous; no names, accents, or defining fonts, please. Lastly, comment with "dibs" on threads you intend to hit, and feel free to exit your characters from threads at any time.



The Mauritania is a ghost ship.

Launched in 1938, it's been decades since she sailed the oceans, and yet the doors of Passages open onto the night-darkened deck of a ship that is barely afloat. She tilts, she lurches, and she is cobweb-lined from her deserted bridge to her silent deck. There is no land to be sighted from any railing, and no light save that from the stars overhead. The promenade winds around the upper level in ominous silence, and haunting music can be heard beyond the doors that lead into the ship's interior.

Promenade; Elevator: It's a curious thing, this ghost ship's elevator. Opulent and splendid, it takes up the entire center of the grand entrance, and it is meant to carry passengers down into the belly of the ship. But it doesn't work just right. Sometimes, the elevator drops impossible lengths. Sometimes, the elevator stops altogether for hours at a time. Yet somehow it's always empty and awaiting new passengers.

First Class; Baths: The upper-level, with its height and distance from the ocean, feels safe and bright. Classical music can be heard in these halls, though there is no orchestra and the ballroom is ominously dark. Laughter leads passengers to the one mostly-lit area in first class, where a swimming bath leads to smaller, more private Turkish bath. The lights here are quiet, flickering and barely there, and shadows dance elusively in the depths of the pool, while ghostly laughter can be heard in the private bath stalls.

Second Class; Theater: Down a level, the second-class floor is louder than the elite first-class floor. Here the air is thick with cigar smoke, and glasses can be heard clinking from the open doors to the smoking room. But it's the theater that draws passengers on this floor. It is cramped and entirely dark, save for the monochrome film on the screen, hauntingly devoid of sound, where a collection of terrifying collages and darkly sexual imagery fill the screen.

Third Class; Dining: Claustrophobic stairs lead down to the narrow passages of the cramped third-class rooms, where the air is heavy and thick, and where the lights flicker and cast the hall into windowless darkness. Here, the ghostly gears of the engine room can be heard sputtering dangerously, and the sensation of the ship's tilting is most pronounced. At the end of the hall, the dining area gives the illusion of windows where none exist. Chairs are pushed aside to allow for dancing to soulful and intimate music, while ocean water teases shoes and heels.



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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-25 03:09 am UTC (link)
"Why should you hide it?" Some things were better left unsaid, kept as secrets, but so far as he was concerned she merely had an opinion and had every right to feel however she liked. The assassin shrugged. Did he like the attention? Part of him said yes, and part of him said no. It was a struggle to choose between the two. "Not as much as you might think," he said, falling back on flippant humor in the face of uncertainty. That was better kept hidden.

He noticed the coldness of her skin and the trembling of her fingers, but he gave no outward sign of it. Either she pretended to ignore or was truly blind, but either way, he felt as though calling attention to it would do no more than upset her and he didn't wish to do such a thing. His gaze was drawn upward when her fingers touched his cheek, and the longing in her voice captivated him, a moment stretched out to feel so much longer, before the spell was broken and he blinked. "Of course. What woman would mind such a man?" He smiled, but his mind still lingered over her words. "Being genuine comes with vulnerability, no? Casanova never worries about giving too much of himself, of being hurt in return." His tone might have been casual, but his curiosity went deeper, someplace beyond this, where intimacy terrified him in a way that had nothing to do with inexperience.

Nothing was a pretty lie, but the assassin didn't push or prod or pry. He wanted to, because her refusal to tell him what was wrong reminded him of someone else, someone similar, whose stubborn independence often frustrated him to no end. "Illness cannot be cured if it is kept hidden," he pointed out. "Not to say that you are, that is," he added, a smooth sidestep of implying as much. "I could find her," he said of the woman, "if she wished to be found." Whether that was true or not was difficult to discern. The number of people he missed was few, yet he felt those absences more strongly than he would had there been dozens upon dozens he longed for. "Any point? No. But such is life. Love is not always returned, and those whom we miss do not always miss us in return." He said it as simple fact, though there was something like regret woven in the words.

He laughed at that. "What if we like the taste and have no desire for a new bone?" She might not believe it was possible, but he knew it was. "No, not so," he said of preferring to be out liberating the ship, with a shake of his head. "Good company is difficult to find, and I would rather be nowhere else aside from here." The assassin's demeanor changed at the mention of friends and family, and his expression sobered. "I do not have many friends, and my family is not here, no." He paused, looking down at his hands. "My father did, when he was alive. Now he is dead."

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-25 03:44 am UTC (link)
"Habit." She was in the habit of hiding things, and she was in the habit of only letting what she wanted to show. She put on her persona like she put on a Max Factor blush in the mornings. It was the way of the screen, to be something you weren't. Louis B Mayer wouldn't have hired a little girl from nowhere special. He wanted a platinum starlet with deep eyes and a smile like bedroom promises. "In my world, you have to hide the real things," she said with too much experience. "In return, I get stoles and pearls and a handsome man's arm to hold onto in the evenings." Most of that rang true. Maybe the bit about the arm to hold onto wasn't true of her life off this liner, but it should have been. "Why don't you like the attention? Does it make you uncomfortable?" If there was one thing she'd never been, it was uncomfortable in the spotlight. She'd been born for center stage.

Blindness was a cultivated art. She couldn't afford to be sick, and so she wouldn't be. It was a small thing. It would pass. It wasn't even real, and somehow she knew that in the aching pit below her navel. She would much rather focus on his statement about vulnerability, because that spoke to something deeper inside her than the phantom ache that didn't physically belong to her at all. "Being genuine is nothing but vulnerability," she agreed. "Women love Casanova because they think they'll be the one to make him fall. He'll fall in love with them, or so they think. There's nothing worse than a rake, bello." She sounded like sage knowledge inside the body of someone too young to be sagacious. "I want someone who isn't scared to adore me. I want to be first, and not just because I have nice legs and don't wear undergarments." There was tease in her words, but there was truth as well. "Does being vulnerable frighten you?" she asked. "It frightens most men of my acquaintance. But I prefer fear to disinterest. Nothing stings like disinterest," she said with a candor that felt foreign on her tongue, but not in her mind.

"Money can't cure every ill," she pointed out in return. She didn't point out again that it was nothing, because nothing was becoming harder to believe as the night wore on. Her arms felt cold, and her legs felt weak, and that sickly sweet scent on her breath had wormed its way into her pores. "There's always dying for love, remember?" she asked him, and there was something new and somber in the words, some knowing that hadn't been there before. The change of subject that followed was welcome, and she grasped it eagerly. "Why wouldn't she want to be found by the likes of you?" That love was not always returned was a truth she knew well. "Have you ever told someone you missed them, or do you expect them to know without you telling them?" she asked with curiosity.

"Are you going to convince me that men are as a loyal as lapdogs?" The question came with a smile and a laugh. "What does that make women, I wonder?" She was almost sorry she'd asked about his family, and she lamented the loss of his easy laughter. "I'm sorry. I don't have any family," she explained, though that was wrong. She had a mother, but she didn't take the words back. The world blurred, but she kept that to herself too.

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-25 05:05 pm UTC (link)
It didn't seem right to him, that this woman should be forced to hide what was real in exchange for material goods and a companion. But if he thought hard enough the assassin could almost recall a similar world, a glittering, shining bubble of flimsiness and falsehoods. It was too bright for him. He shied a way from such things. "I do know that habits can be difficult to break," he said, and that rang true here and beyond. "I've learned to tolerate attention, but I-- yes, I suppose it does make me uncomfortable. It's tiring." Being under constant scrutiny came easily for some, but he found more often than not it required pretense and maintaining a facade always took its toll sooner or later.

He didn't do well with vulnerability. Not now, not then; it prickled uneasily along his spine and made him crave safety behind walls no one could penetrate unless he gave permission. Pretense was tiring, yes, but it was safe. In lieu of that there was isolation, which required little effort to maintain once it was established. "No," he agreed quietly. "A man who leaves broken hearts in his wake without care is not fit for love." That wasn't him. Maybe it should have been, but that guise was one which would not fit even if he tried to wear it; no, that wasn't him. "You deserve a man like that, who will place you above all else and love more than just what he sees." Such men were rare, but they existed. His father, he thought, was one. Even as a child he'd looked upon his parents and known. This woman seemed kind enough, and why should she not deserve happiness? "I should say that real men are never frightened," he laughed. "Vulnerability is dangerous. I think men like me are too suspicious to be vulnerable easily." Again, her opinion on disinterest reminded him of someone else, and oddly enough, he felt defensive despite the fact that she hadn't specifically called him disinterested. "What if what you perceive to be disinterest is merely a man who hasn't quite mastered the art of expressing emotion?" An innocent enough question indeed. "Are words enough then?"

There was no way in which he could argue, because she was right; money could only do so much. "It's better than nothing," he said, though there was no real belief in that statement, and he shook his head at the thought of dying for love as though to rid himself of it. "I haven't forgotten, but better to live for it than to die. In death, love is only pain." Memories were never enough. Nothing was ever enough, because nothing could replace a physical being, nothing could replicate their voice, their touch, the way their eyes crinkled up or the curl of their lips in a smile. Remembering only made the absence ache more. "Perhaps I'm not the man she wants any longer, or perhaps I'm not enough," he shrugged. The assassin didn't want to talk about the woman who muddied his mind and became entangled in what was real and what was not. "I don't expect them to know," he responded carefully. "Assuming never turns out well. It is easier to tell some than to tell others." Yes, that sounded right.

"Some can be," he quipped. "And that would make women the ones who hold the leash and draw them back time and time again." He looked up when she apologized, managing a small smile, though she had nothing to be sorry for. "Thank you. My father was a good man." A pause, and he frowned. Everyone had family at one time or another. "They've gone, your family?"

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-25 06:26 pm UTC (link)
"I'm not hiding anything tonight," she reminded him. The sickly sweetness that was chasing her into the grave wasn't something she knew to lie about, and she was being forthcoming about everything else. Ordinarily, she was praised for her candor and her boldness. She was outspoken in a world where women were meant to be beautiful and silent. All of that wasn't the same as being open, no matter what angle the shot was filmed from. But tonight she wasn't hiding behind anything, not even the sweet silken dress that fell along the leg she tucked beneath her. There was skin and childishness and something sultry in the movement of her body, but it was all intrinsic. She was making no attempt to seduce the man in red and white, though her smile said she'd considered it. "Habits can be difficult to acquire," she added. Her habits had been learned lessons, and she'd learned them with alacrity. "And I think you're either born for the spotlight, or you're born for the shadows." There was warmth in her voice. "Were you born for shadows? Do you not get lonely there?" She knew a thing or two about loneliness. Her life was about admiration at a distance, and it didn't lend itself to closeness.

She laughed a little, the sound bringing a wheeze to her chest that lasted hardly long enough to taint the air between them. "I don't think broken hearts can always be helped," she said, defending those poor Lotharios that shined so brightly on the screen. "We're meant to want them, those men. From the time we're little girls, we're taught to think the rich man in the tuxedo handsome. We're raised on Prince Charming and his perfect smile. We're not taught to look for what's beneath." She had never known parents who loved one another. She'd known the wealthy and beautiful people from afar, and she'd believed they loved each other once; she knew better now. "Are little boys not taught to rescue the beautiful princess? Who rescues the homely girl in the corner?" She motioned to herself with a long sweep of pale hand that seemed almost too much weight to lift. "I wasn't born looking like this. I was made into what you see before you. An American sex symbol."

His defense of disinterested men surprised her greatly. "Mastering the art of emotion doesn't matter. Action," she reminded him, "is what matters. Words are only words. In the end, they don't matter. Is it mastery of emotion that concerns you, or is it the potential vulnerability that comes with it?" It wasn't a fair question, not from her. In another time, she wouldn't have put her feelings anywhere that anyone could see. "What makes it easier to tell some and not others? Is it certainty? If you're sure the emotion will be accepted, it's easier to share." Her hand slid along her abdomen, along yards of white, and she winced once again. "You've reached a crossroads, my new friend, either you tell and avoid assumptions, but risk pain. Or you say nothing, and nothing will ever come of it."

After one final press to her body, she stretched her arm out to him once more, though the effort was more evident this time. Her pallor was ever increasing, and her breathing was become shallower and deeper, as if sleep encroached. "Women hold no leashes, and neither do men, bello. There will always be risk associated with love." She danced her fingertips along the back of his hand. "This is all that matters. You remember this when I'm gone, and you'll have them all eating out of your hand," she teased, preferring that topic to the one of her family.

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-26 01:36 am UTC (link)
"And I am glad for it," the assassin said, and the sentiment was genuine. He hid so much, so often, as did those around him, and while this was merely a temporary reprieve it was still a welcome change from the usual. Somehow his words flowed easier with this stranger, or maybe it was the setting, the oddity of being aboard a ghost ship when he could not remember intending such a trip. Tonight he too could have played the role of seducer, and with another he might have, but this woman was different. He liked talking to her, strange as that might be. Usually he was no great lover of conversation. Her mention of shadows sent a prickle of familiarity along his spine, and for a brief, blazing moment he felt like himself. Not an assassin, not a foreigner who killed for the common good and held fast to his loyalty, but himself. "Yes," he said. "I believe I was. It merely took extreme circumstances for me to realize it." The words felt right on his tongue, even as that moment of self-realization faded, ebbing away, and he slipped back into a role which was not entirely his own. "Loneliness becomes familiar after a time. It ceases to matter." Until you were reminded of what it was like to not be lonely; then, to return to that life, was all the more painful.

"Perhaps little girls should be taught otherwise, to lessen the number of broken hearts suffered," he suggested, though he knew nothing of little girls or raising them to believe anything at all. He had never raised a child, the assassin, and he doubted he ever would. "Is it learned, then, to look for what's beneath?" A sort of trial and error process, in a manner of speaking. But little boys, as he had once been one himself, he knew a bit more about. "My mother, she taught me to be a gentleman to all," he said with a fond smile. "You would have liked her. All who met her did. She was very beautiful too." His voice turned wistful for a moment, and his gaze went hazy before he shook himself free of the past and focused on the present instead. "Is this what you wanted, or was it chosen for you?"

Words did not matter, the woman said, but actions too could be meaningless, meant for pleasure and nothing else, and it was no clearer to him now than it had been before. "Both," he said thoughtfully. "For mastery comes with vulnerability, does it not?" He nodded, then, when she asked if it was certainty which made it easier; it was. With certainty there was less risk of pain, of rejection. Concern entered his gaze once more when she winced, though it was better hidden this time, less likely to be commented upon. "I have said nothing for a very long time," he sighed. "Perhaps it's time I tried a different approach." Easier said than done, but there was no particular hurry to act here.

For him, too, family was a sensitive topic, and so he refrained from asking further. Instead he let her trail her fingers over the back of his hand before taking hers in his and bringing it to his lips in an echo of their introduction. "Gone where, bella? We may be here an eternity, you and I."

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-26 02:06 am UTC (link)
"Honesty is more valuable than any bauble," she said, that particular truth foreign to the life she normally lead. "Honesty when freely given," she corrected, because she knew violence happened beyond the safety of a Hollywood soundstage. Honesty could be dragged out of a person in terrible ways, and she shuddered to think of it. Young though she was, she did not have any of the naivete natural to her few years. "Trusting someone enough to be honest with them, that's the hardest of riches to acquire. That is life's great secret," she said, imparting a wisdom beyond her years. It was a truth she knew well, and she was not often honest. Tonight was different, and something about this man made him different. "Extreme circumstances are rarely good," she said in invitation. He could tell her of those circumstances, should he wish to; she would carry his secret to the grave much sooner than she realized. "Loneliness never ceases to matter," she added with a slight and guarded lean toward him. "It only becomes easier to ignore." She would have touched him then, but the movement was beginning to wear on her, and even she could not deny it.

"Think you that we can change the world?" she asked when he suggested little girls be taught otherwise. She didn't think it possible. She had not memory of being taught anything, and yet she had learned the lesson as well as anyone. "Your mother did a fine job. You've been very gentlemanly this evening. I will share a secret with you, shall I? I like gentlemen better than rakes." Her smile was sympathetic when she continued. It was genuine sympathy, not the exaggerated thing that looked like sympathy when captured on film, and not that awkward and uncomfortable sympathy that came with not knowing what to say. "Has she been gone long, your mother?" Ah, but the question about whether her life was what she had chosen, that was a complicated one, and she took a moment to collect her thoughts. "I chose this, but I did not choose the path that led me here. I only chose what to do once I'd arrived."

"Living comes with vulnerability," she countered. "You're a brave man. You fight for a cause, and I wager that you risk your life for it. Risking your heart is harder, but I hope it can be just as fulfilling." She grinned. "But what do I know? I just wished to be loved without limits, but I am not. I am honest when I say I would exchange all the diamonds I own for love, but I do not pretend that it would be anything like the storybooks." The words belonged to the dying woman on the chair, and they belonged to the woman she normally was. Unsaid things finally being given voice, and she didn't see the harm in it here.

She watched as he brought her hand to her lips, though her increasingly blurred vision was making it harder to make out his features. "I hope you don't think it impertinent of me to ask, but would you move your chair closer?" she asked, and then she laughed a carefree laugh that was weak for all its lack of concern. "You would be content to leave everything behind for a life spent on this ship? I do not think so, bello. Eventually, you would leave me here and find your way." She did not speak of watery graves, because weakness made focusing on such things harder. Perhaps that was a blessing.

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-26 03:18 am UTC (link)
He liked that. Despite honesty not being his strong suit, not in matters of the heart, it was a truth he could not deny and she spoke the words like they mattered. "Forced honesty is never the same," he agreed. "It lacks the same worth. There is no trust involved." Honesty and trust, two of his weak points. The latter was especially troublesome. "Has anyone ever told you how wise you are, bella? You should come to Italy with me--" Never mind that his home wasn't across the sea, and it wasn't anywhere beautiful where the corrupt could be so easily defeated. "And teach the men there what you know." It was a teasing thing, nothing that would ever truly come to fruition, though sometimes he wished his life were so easily dictated. Those he trusted were very few, and his trust, difficult to gain, was easily lost. As for extreme circumstances, he merely sighed. "No, they are not, but in them we do, sometimes, discover who we really are." There was much to be learned in the shadows, if one was suited for them. He gave a slight smile when she said loneliness never ceased to matter, though he said nothing. Perhaps she was right, and it only seemed to lack importance, but the sentiment remained the same.

"We might," he said, a lean forward and a shrug of his shoulder. "My mother would like to hear it. And your secret, I will take it to my grave." He brought two fingers to his lips in a gesture of his promise, and if there was one thing which remained true across the board it was that he was a man of his word. Speaking of his mother was, like his father, painful, but he had fond memories of his parents and the ache of their loss was bittersweet. "Sometimes, it feels as though it has only been a day. Other times, it feels like an eternity. I worry that I might forget, but then I remember, and I know such a thing would never be possible." Her answer was not clear, but little here was, and he appreciated the honesty (or what he perceived to be such) in her response regardless.

Her words brought forth honest laughter. "Ah, yes. I would rather risk my life in battle than risk my heart in love," he declared. "There are all kinds of bravery, I suppose." No, love was never like the tales written in books, even he knew that. But real love was better than any story one could tell. "You know a great deal," he insisted. "And you only wish for what you deserve."

He obliged her request without question, sliding his chair across the floor until his knees were mere inches from hers and he leaned forward still, the weakness in her laugh troubling him. "You know me well, even after such a short time. But what would you do?"

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-26 03:57 am UTC (link)
"It could be said that forced honesty is not honesty at all. That honesty must be freely given," she said, unknowingly mirroring his thoughts. "Am I wise?" she asked, her smile full of secrets not yet shared. "I'm known for many things, but wisdom does not number among them. I'm known for being sensual, for being unconventional, for being impulsive. I'm known for not wearing anything beneath my clothing, and I'm known for being far too blatant in my sexuality. I don't think anyone has ever called me wise," she assured him. "It sounds dull, doesn't it?" But her smile said she didn't think it dull at all, and that she liked the fact that he noticed she was more than a pretty face. "It can be a curse at times, creating too perfect a facade. What good is a facade if you forget what's really beneath it?" She laughed at the idea of teaching Italian men anything at all. "Will you force the men in Italy to listen to me?" she joked, her expression sobering as the subject changed to self-discovery. "Do extreme circumstances teach us who we are, or do they mold us into something different?" she asked.

"You will not forget your parents. A man like you, he doesn't forget." It was a grand statement, but she felt certain in making it. She had always heeded her instincts more than logic, and she had never allowed anything else to dictate her actions. At times, it was a folly, but she didn't think she was wrong about the man across from her. "You inspire confidences," she told him. All of it could be blamed on the ship, and she felt certain some would try to do precisely that in the harsh light of day; she felt differently. "And I thank you for safeguarding my small secret unto death."

"Winning a battle will not bring you the kind of pleasure that finding someone to take your loneliness away will," she said, and she raised a hand, slow and lethargic before he could argue. "You can win your battles. I will not take them from you. I only mean that battles are won or lost, and they are done. Someone who truly cares about you will be there before a battle and once it is done. Which is more valuable?" The topic of deserving love, that was one that she found more complicated than wars she knew nothing of. "It is possible I am not destined for what I deserve. Perhaps I am destined for furs and diamonds, admirers and flashing bulbs. Again, here we must differ in our beliefs about fate."

She waited until he had scraped his chair across the floor, and she settled a tired hand upon his knee. "I would have you do what you would do. It isn't for me to decide your actions. I am not your lover, bello. I will not consider your departure a slight. Though I will lament your absence." She raised her hand to his cheek, her fingers degrees colder than they had been the last time they touched his skin. "To remember," she explained, her gaze less crisply focused now that things were more badly blurred.

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-27 02:04 am UTC (link)
"You may be those things, but you are wise, too," he told her. "There are things we are known for and things we are not, but we are all more than what others know of us, are we not?" What people did not know about him could fill the pages of many books, after all, and he suspected the same was true for her. The world looked at her and saw a pretty face, which she was, but there was more to her than vapid beauty. "Wisdom is never dull, and those who say it is are those who lack it," he said with a smile. The assassin had crafted his facade well, and he knew the dangers of losing oneself in the pretense and forgetting the truth. "It is a balance, I think, which is difficult to maintain." Though some could. He laughed, good humor returned for a moment, when she asked if he would force Italian men to listen to her. "I would," he vowed, before a more sobering topic followed suit. "The answer to that, I think, is a matter of opinion."

They were the words of a stranger, her assurances that he would remember his parents, but he held it close regardless. For tonight, at least, he believed it was true. "Do I?" he asked of inspiring confidences, but it was more of a rhetorical question than one he expected an answer to. "Di niente. Secrets, when entrusted, are meant to be safeguarded," he said simply. He held his own secrets close and to entrust them to another was the greatest act of trust; a betrayal would cut deep, and he would never do such a thing to another.

He was a man who fought each battle as though it was his last, who bore his scars proudly, who lamented each loss as though every one was his own personal failure. Pleasure was different when blood was spilled and lives lost or saved, but he had more control over that, at least. "I don't know," he admitted, of which was more valuable. "Someone who truly cares, who is there before and after, will they be content to stand aside while I fight? Should they not be first, and the battle second? I am not sure I can be that man." Which, he thought, might be why the woman was gone in the first place.

No, she was not his lover. She was not the woman he thought of, who he might have lost, and he was not a man who could love her as she wished to be loved. But the assassin could feel the weariness in her touch, the cold, too, and he raised his gaze to meet hers. "To remember," he echoed, and in very belated acquiesce to her earlier request in the elevator he leaned forward, all but rising from his chair, and kissed her.

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-27 05:06 am UTC (link)
"You assume there is more to everyone than what you see," she countered. "Not everyone is gifted with your depth. I have known many men, and most would not have sat here talking to me about things for this long, not without a goal that involved pillows and a very soft surface. Is there more to those men than the conquest? Or are they simply what you see?" Tellingly, she didn't disagree with his observation; she simply didn't address it. His comment about wisdom earned him a laugh, and her platinum blonde curls danced with her mirth. "Ah, I think you are wrong, bello. The happiest people are those who are not wise. What does wisdom bring us? Knowledge is suffering. Better to smile and laugh and hope you come to believe your own lies." It was a jaded view, but it fit her as well as her dress. Her youth had not been a kind one, and she had never had the luxury of dreaming.

But he did inspire confidences, and she inclined her head when he asked for verification of that fact. "Si." Her expression had gone serious for that response, because he deserved the seriousness. But the severity melted somewhat with his statement about secrets. "Secrets are shared for a reason. I shared mine with you because I thought you would listen. That you would keep them close is a kindness. I am certain that I will not speak the words again, not once we are away from here," she said, motioning to indicate the ship and their surrounding, the increasingly pervasive sweetness of decay accompanying the gesture. "It was nice to have confessed," she added, favoring him with a smile that could light up a screen.

She was unsurprised that he was uncertain about which kind of woman to value most. Without his saying, she had already realized that this man was no womanizer. His mother had raised a gentleman, he said, but she suspected it went beyond that. "Why must they stand by? Better said, why do you consider it standing by? Is being there for you, before and after, not its own brand of aid?" she asked. "There must be some strength to be found in knowing someone waits for you, in knowing someone shares your burdens." She had no burdens of her own, none beyond the growing weight of her limbs and the blurriness of her vision. Even away from here, she sensed she felt unnecessary in a way that made little sense to a life lived in the spotlight. But even the best parts were only parts. This man, he had significance in more relevant ways. "If you love, is the one you love not always first? Even if the battle comes, as it sometimes must, must it be a competition between them?"

Nephritis made a living from kisses that looked beautiful. Like all her other pretenses, kissing was something that could either appear beautiful, or if could truly be a thing of beauty. The two things were not the same, regardless of what the audience believed. When he kissed her, she returned the kiss with one that would not make the audience swoon. Her other hand was just as heavy and cold as she lifted it to his cheek, and her fingers were nearly imperceptible against the curve of his jaw. The kiss was slow and thorough, knowing, but not rushed, and she smiled once it was done, her hands sliding down along his arms. "Will you bring diamonds to my grave?" she teased, funerary breath mingling with his, because she understood now. How could she not?

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-27 09:59 pm UTC (link)
Here was a topic he could speak on earnestly, with conviction, as the lines between the assassin he was now and the being he was beyond the confines of the ship were less defined, more blurred. "I believe there is," he said. "I believe everyone has potential. There is the surface, and there is that which lies beneath. Some keep it buried and refuse to unearth it, others do not. But it's there." That was his opinion, at least. It was one forged over time, and he had his doubts, but if there was one thing he refused to lose it was his faith, for without it he was fighting for nothing. "Ah, you believe ignorance is bliss, as they say?" He could understand wishing to find happiness in lies, but that was not the path he chose. The truth was difficult. The truth carved scars into his skin and weighed him down. But, at least, he lived his life in clarity, never willfully blind. "Is it true happiness, though, if it is based upon lies?"

He inclined his head with a small smile. "I am better at listening than I am speaking beyond this place, but here or there, I keep secrets well." There were few he confided in, and fewer still that he would consider betraying one's confidence to. Only in the most dire of circumstances, usually. "Confessions free of us the weight a secret carries," he said. "It can be a relief, to lighten our load, yet some of us become too accustomed to carrying it to part with it easily." The assassin had grown familiar with his own burden to bear, and freedom always came with a price.

"I do not," he said, after a moment's thought to untangle his thoughts. "She does. She believes my duty comes first, and she comes after. In her eyes, I expect her to wait." It wasn't quite right, the way he was wording it, but the meaning behind the words was true enough. "My burdens are not easily shared, and I believe that yes, it must be a competition, in her eyes." Perhaps it was unfair to her, this mystery woman, but he believed it to be true.

Being well versed in kisses were part of his facade, but he was no inexperienced schoolboy. He covered her hand with his, an unthinking gesture, as though he could somehow transfer his warmth to her, and he savored it in the way of those who wished to remember did, a memory imprinted upon his lips and his mind. There was a hint of sadness in his expression as the assassin looked at her, though he tried, for her sake, to smile. "I will bring whatever you wish, bella."

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-27 10:39 pm UTC (link)
"You think better of people than I do," she said without shame. She wasn't a pessimist. She wanted to believe the best of people; she'd wanted that since she was a child. But time had taught her that more people turned a blind than otherwise. "I know everyone has potential, but many people can't summon it. If there's no one there to unearth it, and someone does monstrous things, then what good are those things beneath the surface? If someone's been so twisted by life that no one can reach that potential at all anymore, what of them?" She tilted her head in acquiescence. "But if the argument is that everyone begins with something innately good, then I can see your point. I agree with it. Monsters aren't born monsters," she said with empathy. "There are things I would rather not know. Aren't there things it would make you happier not to know? Who are we to decide what true happiness is? Are we happy?"

Secrets were a part of the trade. No one walked onto a set and created a starlet without secrets. The studio lied about her hair, calling her a towheaded child that had always been white blonde. Everything from there down to her shoes was one kind of lie or another. She was a secret in her chair, breathing the same air as him and pretending the reaper wasn't tapping her on the shoulder with his rawboned fingers. "I never say anything that anyone likes," she admitted of conversations had beyond this chair. "That doesn't keep me from saying things. Does it keep you from saying things?" asked him, her smile a cue that she already knew the response to her own question.

"Causes and people aren't the same. You can let family, lovers and friends come first, and that doesn't mean you have to give up your beliefs. It only means you need to consider the flesh and blood people closest to you as carefully as you consider missions. Do you think it's a competition?" she asked with sadness. "I was married at sixteen," she explained, though that only pertained to the girl in the chair, and not to anything beyond this ship. "It's lonely, bello, to lie down beside someone who has something in his life that he treasures more than you."

She recognized the sadness in his expression. She realized that he had known for longer than she had, but what point was there in discussing things that could not change? This was only meant to be an evening. It couldn't exist beyond that, which they both knew. She sat back in her chair with a heavy exhale of taint. "Now, bello, you will honor my request and go. Memories are better when they're beautiful." She pulled her hand from beneath his, and she held it out for him to kiss. "A domani," she added, knowing with perfect clarity that she would not be seeing him tomorrow.

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Re: second floor ; smoking
[info]doorsween
2013-10-28 02:59 pm UTC (link)
"I did not always," the assassin admitted, for there was a time when he had seen nothing but corruption when he looked upon the world and its people, and he had known only pain and loss. It had taken years for him to recover the hope he'd lost when his heart was torn from his chest, and maintaining it, keeping that flame lit and burning, was no easy task. "Once, bella, I had no faith. There was nothing worth fighting for and no one worth saving. It was no simple task to get from there," he gestured to his right, "to here." And he gestured to himself, then. "Those things beneath the surface keep us human, no matter what we've done. Even monsters have a sliver of humanity within them. I like to believe there is always hope," he said with an almost self-deprecating laugh, "but I acknowledge reality, and I know that some cannot be reached." When all was said and done, he was a realist. He did not live in a fantasy world where evil was only a tale told to children and good always prevailed. "There are, yes, but I would be a different man if I did not know them." He paused, the hint of a frown flitting over his features before he pushed it away. "Are we happy?" He echoed her question back at her. "Perhaps some of us are not meant to be."

That made him laugh. He had lost count of the number of people he had angered, offended, or otherwise left disgruntled with his words, but it made him no more inclined to hold his tongue. Men like him were rarely silenced. "No. I speak the truth, and I speak my mind, and I will continue to do so regardless of whether they like it or not." There was no bitterness in his tone, nothing vindictive. It was simple fact, though he thought there were some with whom he might have tried, at least, to soften the blow.

He shook his head. "I do not wish it to be one, no," he said. That might not have answered whether or not it was, that balance between his loved ones and his duty, but he was loathe to lose either, though he had carried the latter with him for much longer. He thought of the woman he vaguely remembered, and he thought of her loneliness, of him causing it, and there was something like discomfort in the slope of his shoulders; he didn't want to dwell on such things. If he failed to put her first it was not intentional, but did that matter? Would she care? He doubted it would be so.

To the assassin Death might have been an old friend, but beneath that facade was one who denied it, who would fight until his last breath to thwart it, and leaving her to be taken by that which had taken his parents was no easy feat. Yet he managed to rise, finding his feet as he looked upon her, and when she held out her hand he brought it to his lips, a last farewell which lingered. "A domani, bella," he echoed, a sad smile upon his features as he let her fingers slip from his. "I will remember." A promise before he left her, before Death claimed what he had waited for.

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