milliways_bar | (no subject)

Jim wanders by with a book under his arm, and a giant mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream in his hand. He hadn't been in the mood for it, but then someone started spraying autumn over the place, and he gave in to the urge.

He leans against the piano without checking if that's okay, listening with no tension in him, just enjoying the quality of Yrael's playing.

Yrael does have a way with music, imbuing the sound with the concept of autumn, the slow but inevitable death of the year. The summer's heat dissipates, the sun's light weakens, the shadows lengthen, the trees shed their leaves to conserve what energy they can, which then rustle in the chill wind like the sound of belabored breathing. The idea of autumn insinuates itself into the sound like a cat obliquely insinuates itself through a crowd of human feet and ankles - if one isn't paying attention, one might not notice until later finding the cat hair upon their trouser leg.

Or a mug of hot chocolate in their hand.

"I had heard you were no longer to be counted among the living," Yrael murmurs sometime later, as the melody drifts away into sound-muffling heaps of snow, driven by winds of the incoming winter's dire cold. "Are congratulations in order?"

It reminds him of Ireland. Mist over fields, endless expanses of fields, smoke from log fires and wet Dublin streets.

He doesn't feel much about it. It just is. He quite likes autumn, possibly because, like a lot of people, the time leading up to Christmas are the highlight of the year. Even he used to enjoy that, once.

Eh, these thoughts are boring. He spoons some cream and chocolate sprinkles into his mouth - easily the best bit of this drink - and grins at Yrael.

'You don't think I'd find myself dead by accident, do you?'

Please.

'So by all means, congratulate me if you like. It'll make a change from me doing it myself, or listening to people tell me I did the wrong thing.'

"There is satisfaction to be found in a plan well-executed, avoiding all potential accidents or unruly butterflies flapping their wings at the wrong moment," Yrael smiles back. "So I will congratulate you."

"Though I cannot help but be curious - why would anyone tell you you did the wrong thing?"

This is what he wanted.

'Thank you.'

He does not mention the severe lack of anything approaching nervousness about the whole thing. It was what he wanted.

He half-shrugs at the question.

'Small minds can't see the end of life as anything bu t a bad thing. And someone had the nerve to suggest Sherlock wasn't worth it.'

The bloody nerve.

Pale eyebrows quirk upwards.

"They were not involved; that is not their place to say."

'That particular person barely even knew him at the time, as well.'

He is properly offended by this. Or at least, seems to be. He doesn't give a toss about anyone else's opinion of his choices, but he does mind when someone puts Sherlock down.

'I expected better of her but people always disappoint, don't they?'

"If your expectations are low enough, very occasionally they might offer the delightful surprise of surpassing them," Yrael grins.

This is a 'yes.' Disappointment is built in, really, when dealing with living things.

'True. Outside of here, I never had any at all. Here-'

Eh.

'-I hoped there might be a higher percentage of people with wider horizons. I seem to have been wrong.'

It is a realisation that rather puts a damper on his afterlife. Or will, when he's not distracted enough to think about it properly.

Yrael tilts his head, shrugging slightly. "There are wider horizons, and then there are open horizons."

Even if they are not perfect, Yrael definitely has found a higher percentage of interesting and potentially useful people in Milliways than he had in the Old Kingdom. You find all too few free thinkers in a land whose foundation is built upon benevolent, ordered magic. Fewer still any free thinkers who can truly think past their own immediate, base desires for power and influence.

Jim thinks Yrael is the only other free thinker he's ever met, probably. Even Sherlock...well. Sherlock has the capacity. But he's afraid of it, and Jim would be angry about that except it does make him such fun to play with.

'Mmm.'

He thinks in silence for a minute, then sighs and shakes it off.

'Don't. You'll depress me. Though new people show up here often, so I suppose there's always the hope of a new playmate at any time.'

"That's the spirit," Yrael smiles. "There is hope for you yet. I have known some whose greatest works were done well after they were dead."

An eyebrow quirks up. That was very nearly insulting.

'Hope for me yet?'

It's a mild question, and he follows up with,

'Nothing will top what I did with Sherlock. I'm not even going to try.'

Though there's always the possibility of...well. He's not going to consider that.