milliways_bar | (no subject)

"There was sleep, I take it?"

Raven perches on a seat across the table from Holmes, head tilted.

Perches is the defining word, of course, because Raven so rarely seems to settle, his head tilted just now and just so, like the bird he is. Holmes slants him a smile, folding the page and tucking it away, setting the pen aside as well. "There was a great deal of it," he replies, faintly wry. "All in all rather helpful."

There would be more of it, no doubt, when he returned to London, 1889. No complaints on his part about that, for once.

"I can well imagine, I think."

A pause.

"So. Shall I try my hand at chess, then?"

Holmes shrugs one edged shoulder, nonchalant, and positions the board between them with one hand. "If you like," he says with a slightly wider curve of his lips, using the same hand to open the box. It is hardly an expensive set, but a workable one nevertheless, painted white and black with a few minor repairs here and there. "I did make the initial offer, after all."

He pauses, arching an eyebrow at Raven. "White or black?"

Raven blinks. Given what he is, the choice amuses him.

"White, I think. For beginnings."

Why April had hesitated, she couldn't have said. Yet she had skulked beside the bar for awhile, watching them and determining whether it would be appropriate to go over.

But since when did April worry about being appropriate? Hang appropriate.

Margarita in hand, she strode over and took a seat between them without invitation, peering at the board as if it were remotely interesting to her. "I never learned," she said, offhand, and took a sip of her drink.

Holmes hesitated as well, more from surprise than any particular unease at the sight of her. They had parted well enough, after all. The truth stood between them...but she could not help what she was, and what she did not feel. God, but he despised losing, nevertheless.

"You will have an education, then," he said, quirking his lips in her direction, eyes warming for just an instant. He pushed the box toward Raven, silently urging him to set up the white pieces on his side of the board. "Perhaps you merely want the beginning advance," he smirked at Raven.

Raven smiles, slightly.

"In truth, I had forgotten about that. There is a story in it, which I will tell sometime, perhaps."

He blinks, and sets up his pieces.

"Hello, April. I do not know how instructive this game will be. I am very bad."

He blinks.

"At chess."

"In general, I think," April replied with a smirk. For reasons she didn't fathom, Raven was a comfort to her. She was exceedingly glad he was there. His presence would hopely help assuage any awkwardness that might have otherwise arisen between herself and Holmes.

"Sorry I didn't leave a note," she said quietly, turning to fully look at Holmes for the first time since she'd sat down. "I was afraid to let the door close again."

That made for an awkward moment on Holmes' part at least, but he covered it by drinking from his glass, waving one dismissive hand and beginning to place his own pieces on the board.

"I did deduce the reason for your sudden absence quickly enough," he said, a little wry. "No signs of a struggle, after all." Perhaps he had checked among his underhanded connections to make absolutely certain, but no one need hear that.

Raven might snort, very quietly, and then he moves on of his pawns.

The choice appears arbitrary.

"You two are very interesting people, I think. Confused, but interesting."

He is still looking at the chessboard.

"Confused?" April looked over to Raven again, her brow furrowing. She'd rather thought she was less confused now, and that was the entire problem.

Snorting in return, Holmes eyed Raven a moment, then moved one of his own pawns, the movement carefully but briefly considered. "Ignore him. He takes delight in being obtuse, of course."

Raven smiles, wickedly.

"The suggestion that I am predictable is, perhaps, poorly considered. Now I am obliged to be more difficult, I think."

He moves another pawn, almost at random.

"No, no. I'd like a straight answer. Well, as straight as you can give an answer." He'd piqued her curiosity, now. "Seriously, what did you mean by confused? Confused as in, all humans are confused, or something more specific."

Holmes' eyes had gone a bit heavy-lidded, considering Raven's strategy--or lack thereof--with some great interest. His gaze did clear a moment at April's question, and he arched an eyebrow at Raven as well.

"Do answer," he said with a narrow smile, "I should like to hear it. But really, Miss O'Neil, it can surely be neither clear nor concise."

Raven quirks a smile.

"There is a point at which I cease to be helpful, and leave it up to individuals to determine their futures. I think, upon consideration, that this is one such point."

And on the chessboard, a black piece disappears.

The corners of April's mouth turned down. "How can you say something like that and not give an explanation?" she asked, mildly frustrated. "It's not like I'm going to automatically take your advice, you know. But I am interested in what you have to say." More than she was likely to admit, as a matter of fact. "I think we all know what you're talking about, so just come out with it already."

"Miss--"

He meant to either reassure or settle her in some capacity, but instead he paused, eyes narrowing sharply at the board, and gave Raven a pointed glance, raising one hand. "What exactly have you done with my..." Thought abruptly caught up to speech. Four dimensions. "In the regular three, I believe I said," Holmes stated, severe.

Raven looks, perhaps, a little sheepish.

"I said I would try, I think. And I have done nothing."

A pause, and he tilts his head.

"The 'me' of perhaps twenty minutes from now, however, is apparently not so circumspect."

He moves a knight, in three dimensional space.

Still looking at the board, he speaks.

"Do we all know what I am speaking of? It is not a certainty. Humans rarely look at themselves well, instead defending themselves with justifications and rationalizations, which are all very neat and pretty types of lies. They cover what is. It is comfortable, and safe, and I am neither. And I think, unless I am mistaken, the two of you have enough difficulties raised without me adding to them. And so I shall not speak."

He looks at April, then, eyes dark and intent and older than galaxies.

"You know your own heart and mind best. We have already spoken of it. The rest of your life? That is yours to live. All humans are confused, and must muddle about on their own. Otherwise it is me playing them to my own tune, a thing I have said I will not do."

Not again, at any rate.

"I'm not rationalizing anything," April replied, suddenly insensed. "That was what I was doing before, and that was the entire problem, and yes I do think we all know what you're talking about." From its place against her thigh, her right hand curled into a fist once and then opened again. "You say that you're worried about your advice being less help and more hinderance, but you started to give it in the first place, so don't hand me that line of bullshit, Raven."

"That is enough, I think," Holmes snapped, ire equally aroused by the two of them. Discomfort shadowed his own gaze, and he had the particularly unpleasant feeling that April had not intention of sparing his own feelings on this matter--in the sense that he would far rather not acknowledge any feelings whatsoever. "You are speaking at cross purposes. And entirely without regard for our surroundings."

Scowling, he moved his knight, working with determination on the problem of simultaneously playing against Raven in time as well as space.

You have an idea of yourself.
It is a kind of building.
Raven is still studying April.
This building stands on the sound
of your heart-beat,
the imaginary width
of rhythm.
"It is not quite enough, I do not think. You rationalize everything, April. It is how you wake up in the morning, it is how you go to sleep at night--it is in everything that you do. It is so for all mortals, to some degree, but your skill is really quite impressive. Were it not so sad I would envy it."
All night
it stands there.
On a sound,
an imaginary width.
He calmly moves another pawn, placing it deliberately in a new position.
It is fortunate, really--
really, the only fortunate thing--
that there is no one in the building.
"And now I am done, Holmes."

He blinks, once.

"Your move, I believe."

Whether he is talking to Holmes or April is, perhaps, unclear.

The fact that April hesitated at all was a sign that Raven's words had hit their mark. She sat, staring back at him, wide eyed and with a building fury that was tempered only by the fact that she understood that what he had said was true.

"And what do you know about being human, huh?" she asked, bitter and so unlike herself if only because she was stung. She was normally one of the last people who would be a specieist. "What do you know about being me, huh?" Her hands were placed palms-down on the tabletop and she pushed herself from her seat. "I'll tell you what: Nothing."

She needed to hit something that wasn't him. Or cry. Or both. But it was a bad idea to do either in the middle of the bar. What she wanted most was to go up to the roof and see him, but perhaps Raven's words had served their purpose well enough after all, as she resisted the impulse. Her primary reason for going would be to find a measure of reassurance. Instead she turned and stalked off towards the stairs, leaving her glass because she feared her hands were shaking too much to hold it steady.

"Well, excellent. Everyone is quite done, then," muttered Holmes, altogether sourly. He might quite well have not been present, and spared himself a particularly unpleasant bit of conversation.

Moving his one remaining bishop, he neatly removed one of Raven's knights from the board, then sighed. "You are right enough about us both," he said at length, looking levelly into Raven's eyes. "But arguing will serve no purpose at all."

"No, it will not."

And Raven, still cool and very calm, tips his king over.

"I cede this game to you, I think."

And he watches Holmes, eyes sharp and dark and harsh.

Holmes gritted his teeth, eyes flashing for just a moment in frustration. "No," he snapped. "We shall call it unfinished, if anything at all, and we shall make another attempt." Being given a victory was far worse than losing entirely.

"God." He sat back, running a hand through his hair.

Raven smiles, and there are knives in it.

"And still you have not seen me at my worst."

His eyes are very black--all the light is gone.

Holmes gave him a silently bladed glance in reply, leaning closer, hands resting against the tabletop. "Perhaps you would like to show me now," he sighed, sardonic but careful. "And save yourself time?" A quietly calculated risk, but then, he has only previously seen hints of that darkness in Raven's eyes.

Raven tilts his head, and blinks.
I will turn on nothing.
Between one breath and the next, the world burns.
I will take my walk in the fire.
Again.
I will sing the song I hear
coming from the fire where I walk.
And again.
I will not look into the fire.
And again.
I will stay in my room,
singing a song I can barely remember.
Made anew and destroyed by the same hand, in an almost endless cycle. Hundreds upon thousands of them go up in flames.
I will turn into the fire.
And through it all, Raven laughs—high and wild and desperate.
I will sing a song I can barely remember.
This is how it always ends.
I will bury my room in my bed
and carry my bed into the fire.
In fire.
I will not hear the song at all.
The only difference this time is the hand.
There will be my voice,
just my voice,
And then he dies.
and words that could never have been
in the song
And it is quiet.
Never again
Raven learns.

Holmes is mortal, but his mind is a maze. It began simply, and he built into it and through it, genius turned inward to twist upon turn upon tangle, outward chaos but based on order deep, deep within. He might recognize himself in the impossibly complicated simplicity of a Mandelbrot fractal.

This is inhuman and harsh, and powerful enough that even the darkest corners built by thought and careful logic cannot protect him. He could scream, he could shatter, and in such a moment of breaking control, he could commit the sort of murder of which he has always feared himself capable. Senseless and brutal, restoring power with the price of blood.

The noose tightens; he cannot draw breath. Raven's madness sings to his own, all cacophony, promising complete and sweet surrender. The destructive half of his nature twists in on itself, and barely resists.

But his mind is not weak, after all. The strands of his madness strike like fissures through crystal, flawed but still capable, still geometrically sound.

His pattern does not change, but it adjusts. It expands, adapts, and twists in and out along its own edges, making the new tears that Raven's Power has inflicted into a part of its own rhythms. In this moment, his mind shows a beauty beyond any aesthetics, mathematical but human at the heart.

Passion, and survival, and skill.

Outside the battle of nature to nature, he has surged forward, upsetting the chess board. His fingers have wrapped tight enough around Raven's throat to cut off breath in anyone else.

"Goddamn you," he hisses, eyes as ferociously bright as Raven's are black. "I did not say that you could change me."

Raven laughs.

"Oh, Holmes. To think that I ask for permission."

"You should," he snarls. "You should beg for forgiveness. Repaying my trust like that."

His fingers tighten again, and just as abruptly he realizes what he is doing, willing and wanting to hurt. He snaps himself back, chess pieces clattering against the floor. The last time his hands had trembled anything near so badly, he had faced a subtly horrible death in the house of Grimesby Roylott. Serpents in the dark.

"Damn you," he growls again.

Raven merely looks at him, head tilted.

"You asked, and I answered."

A breath.

"I told you before--you can see the world as I do, but it will change you, and it will hurt."

He is still quiet, and watchful.

"I gave you fair warning, and you chose. I can ask no forgiveness for what I am."
Change is a difficult thing to love.

Holmes makes a low sound of disgust in his throat, from the reasoning as much as his reaction to it, and turns on his heel. He strides with great purpose toward the stairs, to the company of something far better than brandy and far more agreeable than Raven, and forgets the chess set entirely. Priorities, after all.

Raven has his own priorities.

They do not, however, prevent him from gathering Holmes' chess set, and leaving it with Bar.

The black king, however, has been replaced by one of Raven's feathers.

There is a new weight in Raven's pocket.