milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

There is an abandoned plate of cookies sitting on the table.

Next to it, are a pair of sunglasses that may look vaguely familiar.

Curled up on the booth seat, half-but-not-quite-asleep is Jack of the Frost. His eyes are open, half-lidded, and contemplative.

And he wants to talk to someone. Anyone. You? Come by! He needs help some conversation.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If he was, he's not now.

But there's a hand on his face and it's hot. The man called Belial by this thing - he laughs as his handprint is burnt into the pale face.

'You're a stupid thing Jack. Stupid.'

And, unclear, but there, a message across the top of his mind, riddled in shame and fear and pain.

While the body weeps, and struggles, and does it's very best to not be here because it hurts.

Jack's tears are ice on his skin, and steam on Belial's.

He laughs again and it echoes...

...and then the hand is gone, and he's on the other side of the booth, smoking calmly and behaving as if nothing had happened.

And Jack is wearing a pair of sunglasses, the ones he stole the evening before.

Satan looks amused.

His body crumples when released, sideways across the seat, and slow hands come up to paint a fine patina of frost across his face.

Then, after calm moments of ice and painting and changing burnt skin to white again, leaving a faint, almost chalky image of splayed fingers, then he opens his eyes, and blinks.

And giggles weakly, though there are still tears falling.

He watches, his face lazy and amused. It's quiet while the repair happens and he pays attention to what the creature is doing.

And he's searching for a way into that head, but all he sees is ice.

'Gifted, this time. You can keep them.'

"Why do you wear them?"

The lower part of his face, what's visible of it, contorts slightly while he trys to peer out through the dark.

"You look like a scavenger-bandit creater. With fur paintes as masks. Those that gnaw the dead. Is it intimidating to humans? To think of you as such?"

His hand is touching the left side of his face, the part where the palm had rested, with idle distraction and something of detachment.

He likes that they can't see his eyes. That they don't know where he's looking. That, sometimes, when there's something that preoccupies him, there's a light in his eyes that he doesn't want people to see.

'I hardly need that to intimidate them.'

The Devil is always behind something. In something. He doesn't bare himself openly, except when he chooses to.

'They suit me.'

There's a distracted hiss, because in a place below his eye the frost is too thin, so he concentrates for a moments and sighs as it's pulled back into place.

"You did not have to.

'What would I be, if I just did things I had to?' He spreads his hands in a gesture of feigned helplessness.

'I told you Jack. It's all about want. Everything is about want.'

The other half of his mouth quirks in a small smile.

"And you could not bring yourself to want to be friendly. Or become an artist and paint a self portrait. Or teach, read, make friends, have a child, two point five children a white picket fence and dog?"

And by the end of it his tone is mocking again, though more of the idea, not the possible subject.

He gets blinked at, though he wont be able to see due to the shades.

'No. You don't understand, you're not human.' Another cigarette appears from nowhere. 'And I do teach, at times. The other things have no interest for me. I am what people have made me.'

If you listen to some theories anyway. He finds them amusing.

'Just because I have hurt you, doesn't mean I will again. We'll see won't we?'

"You do not understand the concept of inevitability, I think."

His hand extends, just slightly, fingers spreading for a moment, a sharp jag of ice cutting across the other thing's cheek, bitter, and cold, and sharp.

And then he arches an eyebrow.

And waits with a smile.

He doesn't flinch, and for a moment, doesn't heal the wound. Then there's a slow slow smile, and the wound knits itself closed.

'You seek pain. Do you need it to prove that you're alive and aware?'

And he takes no retribution. Yet.

"I point out loopholes where I see them."

He watches the healing, avid attention in the eyes of a disinterested face.

"Now, the question is, how bound by habit do you find yourself?"

'It doesn't make you right, Jack.' He points it out casually and with no malice in his tone.

'What do you care how bound am I? I'm far more free than you.'

"That, I do not believe."

He sets his chin on his hand.

"From a purely academic stand point. We can both change. But you are bound by the moralistic expectations of your existance. None are placed on Nature. She is her own mistress. I am kind and cruel and sweet and wicked and innocent and jaded and anything else it should so strike me to be. And you are waiting for my guard to slip, perhaps?"

Satan laughs. 'I think that maybe you hide behind the innocence, because you seem a lot older all of a sudden.'

He still can't find a way into his mind and it's driving him crazy.

'I'm bound by nothing, because there's nothing humans won't attribute to me. I can be kind as I can be cruel - it's choice. And I can walk in the sun and you can't.'

He hisses the last two words like the serpent he really is, although that's buried too deep for it having any chance at showing itself.

And the air around Jack is a degree warmer. Just one degree. He may not even notice.

"One day, Belial."

He shrugs.

"I will take you dancing on the lake. And you will see that I need not walk by sun, because I fly by moonlight. Perhaps if you choose to be kind."

It's burried. But his eyes somehow impart the impression that he knows.

My second month of life. Both. Truthfully, dependant upon how and why you should decide to ask."

'Maybe I don't want to go dancing on the lake. Why would I? There's no soul to it. Or you, I think.'

You'll never be mine.

'I like it in here. There's more to see.'

Another degree higher. Done slowly.

He wonders if Frost can sweat.

It cannot.

It only sighs, and closes it's eyes, and sets it's chin on knees.

"I was not offering."

Not yet.

"And you are wrong. It is much better to be out, and to dance."

'You see my point though? I can go with you. You cannot come with me.'

This cigarette actually burns down because he feels like the motion of tapping the ash off.

'Different things for different creatures. Cold makes you strong. People are my entertainment. We are not the same.'

But both forever.

And Jack maybe even more than him.

"I am not truly a person."

Half lidded eyes watch the cigarette with a small smile.

"Though in a way, I can be. Cruel Thing calls me hers. But she lies very often, so this might be another. I think it might be more about sex but I am not very sure."

'You seem to have a preoccupation with the carnal. I like that.'

And the heat rises. Slowly. Always slowly.

'You are not a person at all. If you were I would have you by now, I think.'

"I do not understand it."

He sighs, and there are crystals in his breath.

"And it is frustrating. Because it sounds to be so stupid and still everyone chases and the silly thing kissed me..."

He looks almost ready to slip into sleep.

His voice is like caramel all of a sudden, it's low and soothing, the Irish lilt more pronounced.

'The only way to know is to try, is it not? People chase it for a reason...and it's good Jack...'

Another couple of degrees, gradually, as he watches and smiles and smokes slowly.

'...is it Jack?