milliways_bar | (no subject)

Gorlim thinks about it more, and waves his hand.

"Namo, wait. You can't keep your mind in Lee's to go to Aman, it would drive him mad as it did you, surely?"

He looks at Lee. "You're in quite a mood tonight, you know that? No one here is rejecting you or trying to insult you. We want you, in our lives, in our hearts, as part of all we are. Look, I know Mercutio's been a bastard to you, but we're not. We can't take his place, brother, but trust us to want you. More than anything. And stop trying to convince yourself we don't."

Ailbhe, at this point, decides to saunter over and hop into Lee's lap.

He smells like her brother.

He cuddles the cat instinctively, as angry as he is.

"You couldn't be more apathetic about it if you tried. Don't bullshit me. And you--" He rounds on Namo, the impact of Gorlim's words hitting him for the first time.

"You want to use me to protect you when you go back to your Halls? Is that it? That's why you were asking? That's why you brought it up? Of course, you sounded about as enthusiastic as Gorlim did when you mentioned the kind of bond you have with him, but when it's useful to you, when I can be a fucking human shield for you, now you're both all excited about it?"

He shakes his head. "Is that what you mean about giving something in return? Fucking liar. Gorlim didn't want me involved until you suggested that. And if that's what you want from me, fuck that shit. I would do it in addition to having a bond like you guys have. But you wouldn't want me contaminating that. The very idea is turning you both fucking green."

He finds something within him to keep from snapping in response. With Gorlim so close, and not growing angry himself, and his own love for Lee hot in his breast, he lets the harsh words roll off of him.

Give the Vala a cookie for that.

"Lee," he says calmly, gently. "My mind would not sit in yours. You would come with me to my Halls. You would be by my side. It would protect my mind, it would protect yours. And the thought just came to me when I was thinking of a the deeper types of bonds that could exist. I asked you weeks ago about the bond, lover -- and I asked you again before now, too. It was never my intent to only use you.

"You are not contaminating anything. You are adding to something already intimate and wonderful. You do not wish for the deeper bond? Then there is no reason to try for it. I will create exactly what is shared with Gorlim, show you how to sever it, and we can go on in that fashion. I just want to have you in here," he says, pointing to his temple. "It does not matter how or what I receive in return. I want to be able to call to you when I hurt or to tell you I love you without words, show you my heart -- I want Gorlim to be able to do those same things with you."

He lets out a long breath.

"We just want you."

"Right, what he said. More or less. Now don't say a damn thing, hang on."

Gorlim slips out of his seat, scuttles to the bar, and returns with a bowl of something approximately resembling macaroni and cheese and a mug of hot cider. "You fucking eat something before we go any further with this, and the Vala and I will bugger off and leave you to talk with the cat until you're ready to talk to us and not yell, all right? Either way, we're dropping the subject now and not bringing it back up until you finish that food."

If Namo's words hadn't snapped him out of it already, that would have. My god, what the fuck am I doing?

He accepts the food silently, without complaint at being treated like a child. Penance, really. If he acts like a child, he should damn well expect to be treated like one.

Not like he can force anything down his throat right now. Not if he tried.

Of course it wasn't his intent to use you. You fucking know him better than that. And when would Gorlim ever do that to you? Ever?

He sets the food down and rests his head in his hand, rubbing his eyes, ashamed of himself to the point of mortification.

"God, I'm sorry." And he knows that if he has to say that any more it'll cease to mean anything.

He looks up at Namo, swallowing hard. "Tell me how the protective bond would work. If it would be certain to work."

Námo glances to Gorlim, but he eventually turn his eyes to Lee.

His tone is quiet.

"It would be a more... permanent bond."

He glances back to Gorlim.

"While I have the ability to control my mind completely -- this is not something that has ever been done. Giving such control of my own mind over to someone else. I do not know if it could be broken, when it could be broken... and I do not know if it would truly protect me."

Gorlim slides off his chair and next to Lee. He puts an arm around his shoulders and pushes the bowl towards him.

"I thought," he says quietly, "we weren't talking about it."

Through the bond, there is a clear, unmistakable ripple of fear and dislike for the direction this is taking. Unable to be broken? Relinquishing mental control? Without knowing if it would help anything at all anyway? No. He would NEVER allow that. They'd find another way and wait for Namo's son to grow to be a Maia, if that's what it took, but he'd not allow them to gamble with their three souls that way, nor push him away by making the two of them into a single being. He loved them both the way they were.

He pushes the bowl quietly and apologetically back at Gorlim, stomach churning.

Never been tested. Can't ever be broken. Might not even do anything...

...god, oh god, what if it backfired?

...giving over control of his mind? He's a god, a fucking immortal creator of a world, I'm just some Canuck with an average IQ...

"Jesus." His voice trembles.

The sentiment through the bond, the general feel he gets from Lee, and Námo makes his own decision. Biting back any hurt or disappointment, he smiles at them both from his side of the table.

Over, what seems to him, a very big chasm.

"Nevermind," he says, the ease in his tone forced. "I should not have asked after it. Do not worry. If you wish to share the bond with us, I can do that easily enough."

"The same as we have, Namo and I," Gorlim says firmly. "Nothing more. Nothing different. Just this, just us. You'll be able to break it any time you like, close off as much as you'd desire to except -- in my case, it's knowing when my demons find me. In yours, Lee, we could well do the same, though your demons be not mine. And you'd know, too, so you could find me, or I could find you. But not this nonsense of making your minds one. I'll not have that, now, Namo, much as I love you, Lee isn't a Vala. Nor am I. Right?" He kisses his fingers and reaches to touch Namo's hand with them, giving him an apologetic smile as he pulls Lee close, guides his head to lean on his shoulder.

"Do you feel ill, brother?" he asks then, gently.

What he feels, above all, is like a disappointment.

He knows too well that he's let Namo down. And he knows why Gorlim's set against it.

"There are some humans who could do it," he says haltingly. "Some people have exceptional minds. Chloe O'Brien, she could do it. I--I can't. I'm not exceptional by any human standards, and an ordinary human couldn't do it. I don't...I don't have that kind of mental power. I'm sorry, for god's sake..."

Can't even fucking do this much right...can't possibly help either of them.

Námo has pride.

A lot of it.

And it is that pride that allows him not to beg, not to convince, not to lie. But he also has a sense of wounded feelings, and when Gorlim reaches for his hand, it is conveniently in his lap -- away from them.

"Do not worry about it," he tells Lee. "Gorlim makes these decisions well. It matters little one way or the other what bond we share."

He does not meet either sets of eyes, and he slams down on the bond, closing Gorlim out of his mind.

"I need to go." The Vala begins to slide out of the booth. He had to get away. And now.

Gorlim catches Namo by the sleeve.

"You are staying right here," he orders. "And you are going to stop being huffy just because something doesn't work out just the way you think it ought to. That is what toddlers do, not gods." Yes, he IS scolding, and will keep doing so until Namo proves he's worth being spoken to another way. "And you'll not try to hide from me or run away to sulk. You doing that makes US feel like we've done something horribly wrong by refusing to let you play with us like toys. We're fragile, Namo, and I'm sorry you can't accept that but you're going to have to LEARN. Now."

He turns to Lee. "As for you. What if we joined with you, mind to mind, heart to heart, just for a little while, to show you how it is,k to teach you how it works, and I would swear to break it off afterward on my own. No deeper than I am, be bonded with me, too, and a bond just like mine that I know how to cut. Would you agree to that?"

His head is in his hands. He doesn't want to try it, doesn't even want to look up. It's so obviously not what Namo wants, and of so little consequence...

Everything he said earlier. He didn't mean it. This is what he wants, and this is what you're humanly incapable of giving...

'Matters little one way or the other what bond we share?'

He closes his eyes, hurt beyond what he can verbally express.

"If I could do it, Namo, I would. Jesus christ..."

He still doesn't look up. "Try it, Gorlim. Whatever you want."

He sits as instructed.

"If it is what we wish, it can be done," he says with that same steady levelness of tone. "I would not wish to break anyone or anything."

He looks at Lee.

"Is it what you want, Lee?"

He looks at Lee, long and hard. To violate the sacred boundaries of another person's mind is something... utterly inconceivable to him, a crime beyond any crime humanity is capable of. It had been done to him, more than once. It had been used to control him. But this magic was one he could control -- this magic alone. This is a bond he could and WOULD sever if even once given a reason to do so. This is something he could force if he had to, in the strength he possessed while the Wraith was sleeping.

He takes Lee's hands, pulls them from his eyes, kisses the fingers, forces Lee to look at him, staring with a silent promise.

I love you. I want you. More than anything. I want you to be part of us. I will not let this harm you. I will keep you safe. I will show you how you are loved.

A single command, murmured to the Vala without meeting his eyes --

"Do it."

He trusts Gorlim not to hurt him, trusts his brother with his soul. He isn't doing this for Namo right now. He can't grant what the Vala is asking of him, and he loathes himself for it. But he can grant this, to Gorlim, and he wants it. Needs to see what it is, what it's like, what it can do.

"Do it."

There is a quiet sigh from the Vala.

He had never taken orders from anyone before while in his right mind.

Things could be easier with touch, but Námo is not stupid -- he is outside this. He is a means to an end.

His eyes grow darker, cold-fire flickering in their depths as he draws his power up, opens his bond with Gorlim a bit more to allow the Man into his mind, and draws both their minds towards Lee's. It is more draining than it needs to be, a little more difficult, but he fights through the fatigue and brushes against Lee's mind one: one warning.

And then he pushes, entering the man's mind, his dreamscape, dragging Gorlim with him.

He doesn't make a sound, though inwardly he's gasping at the unfamiliar shock of it.

His dreamscape isn't one he sees all that often himself--he doesn't often dream, and since his death, when he does, the dreams tend to be nightmares.

But there's nothing inherently nightmarish about where they find themselves. They're wandering the streets of an utterly silent city, each sign labeled neatly in English and French, the streets and buildings dingy but clean of litter and debris. The passersby don't speak, and the cars make only the softest of sounds as they drive past. A cat curls around a lamppost, a child reads a book on a stoop, and nobody gives them so much as a glance. Lee sits quietly down at a table outside a darkened coffee shop and thinks, looking up at Namo and Gorlim.

Each mind creates its own enviroment.

He looks around at the various ghosts that wandered. He preferred the rain of Gorlim's mind.

"Lee," he greets. "Your mind is crowded."

There is a word for what Gorlim's reaction to this setting is.

The word is: terrified.

He has never seen cars before. Or very large buildings so close together. Or so MANY people wearing these kinds of clothes, or so very, very few trees!!

Or cars. Did we mention cars?

The cars scare the SHITE out of him. He stands stock-still and STARES at them with wide eyes until it hits him that they are, after all, only ghosts, and dreams cannot actually kill you. And then curiousity trumps his fear.

He wanders over towards Lee.

"Hello, you," he says nervously. "Are you sure you want to do this? Only for a minute, all right? We'll agree on one thing to show you. Just love. We'll just show you our love this way. all right? Then everyone can stop doubting."

He takes Gorlim's hand, almost afraid to talk, to disturb the quiet of the city.

"You look scared," he says, with a faint smile. "Don't be. My mind isn't that perverse or frightening."

He looks around, feeling a strong, strong, unwelcome wave of homesickness--but it passes, and he feels at peace. God, it feels good to be back in a city again, with things he recognizes. Even if none of it's real.

"What do you want to show me?" He feels like he can take it. Anything they want to show him. He's at home, in his element.

Gorlim puts his arms around Lee's shoulders, overwhelmed by the strangeness of this place.

"To show you how much we love you. But I don't know how to make the bond, only how to break it. Namo, will you do it now?"

A quick glance to Gorlim, and another small sigh.

"Of course."

He recalls the metaphor and words he had used with Gorlim, and he does the same now.

He conjures a long piece of thin mithril thread.

"Everything of the mind is merely the exertion of one's will," he explains with the same exact words, taking Lee's wrist in his hands. "We are not truly here, in this odd building in a world we know nothing of. We are in the bar, sitting in a booth. But that fact does not change the reality of this moment."

He binds Lee's wrist with one end of the thread.

"This mithril thread is the manifestation of what binds us, the connection that will be left between us when our minds separate from one another. This will remain here, Lee, connecting us."

The Vala then uses the middle portion to bind his own wrist, followed by the tying of the unused end to Gorlim's wrist. And then... something between the minds of the Men and the mind of the Vala snaps into place. Lee now knows Námo's general mood, though it is carefully guarded -- sadness, worry, anger -- and the colour of the god's thoughts -- cool blue swirled with lavender -- and can feel the steady pulse of life in his mind.

He is also aware of Gorlim's general mood of frightened curiousity, quiet shock -- and the colour of his gwador's mind -- greenish yellow.

"Should you desire to severe this thread, use these--" and he conjures sheers, the blades glittering in the light. Again, they are metaphorical, but within Lee's mind, Námo plants the knowledge of how to cut the connection between them, and even how to retie the dangling ends to once more find the Vala and Man.

He lifts his eyes to Lee's.

"Do you understand all I have shown you?"

He nods, solemnly.

He's still hurt, still stung, still feeling inadequate and disappointing and used and unwanted by the Vala. He's grateful for the explanation, and yet he hasn't learned enough about concealing his thoughts to keep that out yet.

"Do you have to act like you find it such a pain in the ass?" he whispers, looking up at him.