milliways_bar | (no subject)

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.

He looks down at him, the emotions Lee was feeling easily known.

"I do not find it a pain in the ass, Lee. If I did, we would not be here."

"You say that a lot, Namo. Make him believe it."

Tugging on his end of the thread, Gorlim opens himself to Lee, and to Namo, selectively showing now only the extent of his love for his brother -- the hero-worship of an older sibling, the vaguely romantic physical aspect that is present but not a necessity, the simple, complete trust, and the need to guard that which he so loves from all harm, so that he in turn can be guarded by Lee -- his safe place, his brother, his gwador. As they touch, now, the color of his mind changes back to normal, looses its greenish-yellow fear and becomes tarnished silver reflecting a reddish hue, as if standing beside dusty crimson curtains. Rough, unpolished, cobwebs clinging -- this is the color of his very soul, the color of his Song.

It brings tears to his eyes, and he reaches up to wipe them away. Yes--yes, it's a very different thing to see something undoubtedly rather than merely to know it...to never be able to doubt again his brother's love for him, even when he's frightened and buried under worry and cynicism...

He hesitantly takes up his own end of the thread, and pauses. Until recently, he'd been afraid to let himself think of the nature of his own love for Gorlim. He hadn't let his mind go there, and when he had, it had frightened him...

No. He has nothing to hide from his brother. If Gorlim can show him the true nature of his love, so too can Lee.

He tugs gently on the thread and opens it slowly. The depth of his love, the constancy--the purity of it, the way it could have been anything, taken any form, would have been a love as deep and romantic as Namo's and Eilinel's had it not instead taken root in a fraternal bond as deep or deeper as any that might exist between blood brothers. How it had existed before he knew what to do with it, had had its stirrings before he and Gorlim could even speak to each other civilly, how even on that first night when they'd been drunk and slamming each other into walls, he had been somehow drawn, however slightly or confusedly.

He closes it, gently, heart pounding.

Beaming, Gorlim topples into his brother's arms, kisses his cheeks, laughs quietly, fidgets.

"I told you I meant it," he says. "Told you."

He looks up at Namo and tugges through their bond.

"Come. Be with us, too!"

There is a part of him that wishes to be petulant... but there is a greater part that wants to reassure Lee.

He does not use the tangible metaphors to express his. The Vala simply opens up his heart to both Men.

He compares his love to the light of the Lamps, the first light that illuminate Aman. It is new and bright and fiery; intense in its passion, consuming and binding in its need and desire. It is not a fire that consumes what is around it or a flame that flickers inconstantly.

It just is: steady and pure in its adoration and devotion.