David Xanatos (selfmade_man) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2020-09-04 18:58:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, david xanatos, nathaniel (john mandrake) |
WHO: Xanatos and Nathaniel
WHAT: Showing items
WHERE: Nathaniel’s apartment
WHEN: 3 August
RATING: Low
STATUS: Complete upon posting
After John’s revelation that he was seeing Raven, Nathaniel had made a few decisions. The first was that he would attempt magic and, lo and behold, it had worked. It was nothing like some might read in books about the usual witches and wizards. No, this magic was controlled differently and there were no little parlor tricks involved.
The second decision was that he was better off not pursuing romantic relationships. They were a waste of time and a waste of the heart; Nathaniel’s energy was better spent elsewhere.
The third was to open up with Xanatos. Both men were attracted to the same thing, but Nathaniel wasn’t sure what that thing was. What he did know was that it felt right to share more with Xanatos. He’d put on some tea and was waiting for his boss to arrive. Before Xanatos could knock, Nathaniel pulled the door open and pushed his glasses further up his nose.
“Come on in,” he said, opening the door wider.
***
If Xanatos was surprised when the door swung open before he could knock, he didn’t show it. Instead, he just gave Nathaniel a small smirk, and let his right hand fall back to his side as he stepped into Nathaniel’s office, his left resting casually in his pants pocket. “Careful, I would almost think you were waiting for me,” he said, his voice like silk.
***
“Perish the thought,” Nathaniel replied, lacking any silk, but not lacking in confidence. He closed the door after Xanatos and locked it, indicating that this was a delicate discussion to be having; usually, Nathaniel kept his door unlocked unless he was asleep.
“Do you want a drink?” he asked. “I have some white wine and some tequila.” Nothing in between. To Nathaniel’s credit, he always mixed his own tequila with something else.
***
“Wine will be fine,” Xanatos said. He generally didn’t indulge in harder liquor, except for the occasional glass of fine whiskey. He suspected that Nathaniel couldn’t afford the quality of tequila he’d drink if he were to indulge - it certainly wouldn’t be of a quality that you’d dilute it with anything else - but even if he could afford it, Xanatos preferred to keep a clear head in unfamiliar settings.
He looked around Nathaniel’s apartment, taking in every detail, even the most trivial. It was important to Xanatos to be well aware of his surroundings at all times. He had a security team, but that was mostly for appearances - he was confident in his abilities to protect himself, most of the time.
***
Most of Nathaniel’s scientific inventory had been brought to the lab, but he’d accumulated more to replace it in his apartment. There were notes organized in notebooks; a few video cassettes had been stacked up beside his television, atop a VCR/DVD player combo; books he was studying were placed neatly on shelves. No decorations or family photos hung on the walls. Nothing that spoke of any life outside of his work. On top of his coffee table was his drawings and notes on Bartimaeus. When John had been over before, Nathaniel made sure that it was all hidden away. For Xanatos, he kept it in open view.
Nathaniel poured a couple glasses of wine for the both of them.
“Make yourself at home,” he offered, gesturing with one of the glasses as he came in to join Xanatos.
***
Xanatos wondered if Nathaniel truly did lack any sort of social life outside of work, or if he was simply not the type to display it - or, more worrying, if he specifically hid it away from Xanatos. Men who didn’t were often more… flexible in their way of thinking, which was something he’d always appreciated. Sometimes, like with his lead geneticist at Gen-U-Tech - the shadow company that Xanatos Enterprises had no official ties to, though they owned the company - there was a very good reason for their lack of a social life. Xanatos couldn’t spend more than an hour with Sevarius without wanting to take a shower; the man was twisted even by Xanatos’ admittedly low standards, even if he did do some of the best work that Xanatos had seen.
Nathaniel was not cut from the same cloth as Sevarius though. It was harder to get a read on him, but he thought Nathaniel’s mould was closer to Xanatos’s than it wasn’t - he hoped so, at least. A man who was driven by ambition above all else was a man Xanatos could work with. A man who was driven by compassion or pride was easy to manipulate.
He looked for a seat, and not finding one that would give him a power position in the room, he settled for the couch, crossing one leg over the other as he took his seat. He took the proffered wine with a smile and a thank you. “So, Nathaniel, what was it you wanted to show me?”
***
Nathaniel joined Xanatos on the sofa, on the other side, mirroring the man’s posture without realizing it. He pushed his glasses further up on his nose and gave his hair a brush away from his forehead. If he looked nervous, it was because he was nervous.
“I have not wanted to discuss my Dreams with anyone,” he admitted. They didn’t really discuss each other’s Dreams, but he was sure Xanatos had been Dreaming and he wanted to ask about it later. For now, he thought Xanatos might be interested to hear about Nathaniel’s Dreams. Maybe.
“Whenever I look on the net, I see a lot of people who enjoy discussing their Dreams with each other and it’s hard to tell if it’s driven by their desire for support from others or if it’s driven by the desire to feel special or even the desire for pity,” he went on as his reasons for not wanting to join in a lot of the discussions. “This is a couple of exceptions.” Like the Captain, who was wonderful and genuine. “So I want you to know I don’t expect support, pity, and I don’t consider myself special in any way.”
Then he leaned forward and took the clicker from the coffee table and hit ‘Play’. On the television, he was shown sleeping, but he was speaking in a deep, rich, chocolate tone, laughing at himself and calling himself a stupid boy. Around him was smoke and some fire works. All for show, of course.
***
"Most people seek a connection of some kind," Xanatos said dismissively. He wasn't necessarily one of them. His dreams were his private domain, and the secrets they contained were his own. If he chose to release the tech from them into the wider world, he would increase his billions. If he chose to use the technology or magic from them for himself… well, there would be nothing linking him to it.
Frankly, he welcomed everyone's habit of oversharing on the Net. Much of it was worthless and not worth his time. Other times, he discovered demigods, or young magic users who lacked control and could be easy to manipulate. He'd received a grimorum from his dreams, too, though he lacked whatever it was that allowed people in his dream to control the forces of the occult.
"I promise not to pity you, though I can't do the same for the rest."
And then the video played. Xanatos leaned an elbow on the armrest of the couch, resting his head on his fist, his knuckles covering his mouth.
"This is you, doing all this?" he asked, gesturing toward the television with his free hand.
***
Nathaniel shook his head.
“Not me,” he assured, then shut the tape off. “It’s a demon. I don’t let him possess me so I don’t know why he’s speaking through me in Dreams, but I’m guessing these Dreams can work much the same as normal ones.” He shifted to look at Xanatos and continue to clarify. “When we have our normal dreams, we take on whatever characters are in them when we talk in our sleep. That’s a different science, though.”
With a slightly nervous motion, Nathaniel motioned to the stack of notebooks and drawings. “I don’t want my Dreams spoken about on the bloody Network,” he stated, less than impressed by those very oversharing ways of the Dreamers on the net. “But I can’t help but always take notes, it’s just my way.”
Finally, Nathaniel reached behind his own neck and unsnapped a clasp, then pulled the amulet out from underneath his shirt. It was old, perhaps ancient. The chain itself was solid, heavy gold and had been forged in the shape of a chain of mustangs, all endlessly chasing each other. The gem itself was a polished, pure emerald. The entire thing was worth millions upon millions, if not a billion, at least.
***
Xanatos frowned at Nathaniel’s explanation - he hoped he didn’t speak aloud during his Dreams. He generally slept alone, but the idea of knowledge from his dreams - whether it be something he himself said, or something that issued from Demona, Goliath, Owen or the Detective’s lips - leaking into the real world without his knowledge was not a thought he relished. Maybe he should hook up a camera to be sure of it. An analogue camera, of course; he didn’t trust anything digital to not find its way onto the internet.
Xanatos looked nearly hungrily toward the notes, but his attention was almost immediately grabbed by the amulet. It was beautiful - there was no other word for it - regardless of its worth.
“May I?” Xanatos asked, reaching for it, stopping just shy of touching it without Nathaniel’s permission. Snatching magical artifacts from their owners’ grasp, with no knowledge of said artifact or any preparations against magic - was a recipe for disaster. Besides, he respected Nathaniel enough to not steal from him.
***
“You may,” Nathaniel handed it over with perfect trust. It was a big thing to do, to hand over such a powerful instrument, especially without knowing what it could do just yet. The amulet remained dormant in Xanatos’ hands.
“I need it safe,” he told Xanatos. “I’m sure more Dreams will reveal more about it, but I don’t know yet what it’s capable of. I know that it’s coveted and that the….person I charged with getting it for me really wanted nothing to do with it.” But Bartimaeus hadn’t had a choice. Clever and rude though Bartimaeus was, the demon was still Nathaniel’s slave.
***
“I’d be happy to store it in my private gallery, if you would like,” Xanatos said, turning the amulet over in his hand, not taking his eyes from it has he traced every detail. The gallery was in his home, and displayed a number of ancient, reputed-to-be-magical artifacts from throughout the world, which Xanatos had been collecting in his travels. “I would call the security state of the art, but many of the protocols I have in place haven’t not yet seen the light of day.” And likely wouldn’t, given that some of them were a touch on the lethal side. Besides, if Xanatos Enterprises were to release the technologies, it simply meant that some enterprising thief would figure out how to break it.
People had a much harder time breaking security they’d never seen before.
“What does it do?” Xanatos asked, finally looking up from the amulet and back at Nathaniel.
***
“All I know right now is that it can protect its Master,” Nathaniel answered. “That is, whoever has possession of it. Against what, I couldn’t say and I don’t know anything further than that at the moment.”
More Dreams would tell him and, if he were honest, he was anxious to find out. For now, though, he just wanted to be sure he wouldn’t do anything stupid with it.
***
Xanatos turned the amulet over in his hand one more time, before, reluctantly, offering it back to Nathaniel. “I suppose we could run some tests at some point, if you’d wish.” He’d rather not put himself in danger, but testing it with Nathaniel might yield some interesting results. “Do you know if one needs magic of their own in order to use it?”
***
“One does,” Nathaniel assured.
If Xanatos had any designs on trying things out himself, he’d find simply a very expensive piece of jewelry in his arsenal. Nathaniel had been wearing it, but it had not activated, moreso because Nathaniel had no clue where to even begin with it, but he was sure it would begin with a demon.
“Do you have Dreams, David?” he asked.
***
“Too bad,” Xanatos said, wishing, not for the first time, that such a thing wasn’t out of his grasp.
“I do,” he answered. “Actually, I have received a book that I’d like you to take a look at at some point.” The Grimorum from his dreams was filled with spells and magic which Xanatos could read, but that was completely useless to him without someone with their own magic. He could read them, of course - the spells of his dreams were only Latin - but that didn’t mean he could cast them.
***
“Is it?” Nathaniel asked, but it was rhetorical. To him, magic wasn’t all it was cracked up to be and who wanted to be yet another braggy magic user on the Net? It reminded Nathaniel of bad characterizations in comic books and novels.
Then, after a beat and with keen interest, Nathaniel asked, “What sort of book?”
***
“The Grimorum Arcanorum. It’s the most comprehensive spellbook in my dream world. It’s said even Merlin has contributed to it. I’m hoping that you’d like to take a look at it; perhaps try some of the spells.”
***
That wasn’t quite what Nathaniel was expecting.
To try to reel himself in from that information, he removed his glasses and wiped them idly on the hem of his shirt. Though magic wasn’t exactly Nathaniel’s idea of a good time, that there existed a book potentially written by a legendary figurehead that could contain certain information about the world in general, sparked his interest.
“I’d be happy to have a look at it,” he said.
***
“Perfect,” Xanatos said, his lips curling. “You’re welcome to come to my home at any time to look at it,” he said. Provided, of course, Xanatos was available at the time, but there was very little Xanatos wouldn’t postpone to see if the magic in the Grimorum would work in this world as well.
“I hope you’d likewise be willing to let me have a look at your notes and journals,” he said, gesturing toward the pile that Nathaniel had referenced earlier. “Your dreamworld sounds fascinating.”
***
That was why his notes thus far were here.
Without much hesitation, Nathaniel took up the filled notebook which had his drawings tucked into the pages and handed them over. They weren’t safe here, Nathaniel already knew that. If someone from his Dreams came, they would want them and Xanatos could keep them locked away with the amulet.
“I’ll give you more as I Dream more,” he promised. “You’re the only one I will tell about them.” Because Xanatos was, oddly enough, the only person here he trusted.
***
Xanatos idly flipped through the first notebook, briefly skimming the content before closing it. He wouldn’t be so rude as to read them here in Nathaniel’s presence. He would have to read them before bed, which was when he did most of non-work related reading.
“I won’t betray your confidence,” Xanatos vowed, and he meant to be true to his word. He didn’t give his loyalty lightly, but once someone hand it, they wouldn’t lose it unless they betrayed him first.
***