multiversallogs | it's all right, ain't no God in my eye

Entry tags:

it's all right, ain't no God in my eye

Who: Wolfgang and Xas
What: Xas a roof is not a bed. Get a job.
Where: Chimer
When: Late Ged, before Samsdream, evening
Warnings: idk will update if needed

Among the other nasty surprises brought on by the siege, Wolfgang was rather put out to discover the Badside inn he had been staying in since his eviction from Bonetown had been partially blown up. The partial bit had, in fact, been the side he had been staying in. He'd lost all his things. It wasn't as disheartening as it should have been, but maybe he was just too exhausted from the last couple of weeks to have any spare emotion left over for this. He felt a tinge of frustration, that was all. He owned nothing that couldn't be replaced, anyway.

But that left him with a more pressing concern -- namely, where he was going to sleep. His friend Kahnde -- the one who kept trussing him up and dragging him around to parties thrown by Baedal's new money eccentrics, as well as the one who kept him in supply with the medications Wolfgang desperately needed -- offered him a place to stay and he couldn't turn him down. It makes him uncomfortable to stay there when he knows he's sort of leading the xenian man on -- but Kahnde also took the siege extremely poorly as several of his friends had died rather gruesome deaths. Wolfgang came out here partially as a babysitter. He's a bit worried about Kahnde doing something drastic.

The townhouse in the urban half of Chimer is a large property considering it's inhabited by only one person. The architecture is typical Baedalite weirdness, a mish-mash of various time periods, and the whole thing is painted an unfortunate shade of puce. It's got a flat roof upon which are mounted several solar panels for power, two balconies, and a superfluous amount of windows that at least offer a fantastic view of the beach.

He sleeps an awful lot, which means the hours he's awake tend to be ... odd. He sleeps very deeply these days, waking only if he's touched or if one of his dreams ends, and the latest one -- a very strange one that only further blurs the line between reality and fantasy for him -- lets him go just when everyone else is starting to go to bed. Well, fantastic. He's rubbing the sleep from his eyes when he hears it -- the distinct sound of something in the walls. No, not in them: on them. Something's climbing up the side of the house, towards the roof.

The fuck.

He freezes for a moment, then decides the last thing they need is a burglar or giant rat or something. Whatever it is, he can handle it, he's pretty sure, which is why he comes out on the balcony alone, his hair sticking out in every direction like he stuck his finger in a socket, as he looks up for the source of that sound.

It only occurs to him after he gets out there that whatever is out there could very well be a leftover monster. Oh. Well. Oops?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The sound of the door makes Xas freeze where he's crouched on the roof, pouring water from a flask into a potted plant. It's not thriving the way Xas hoped it would; he tried adjusting the amount of light it received, and now the amount of water. He's trying to do it once a week. He got distracted yesterday and forgot to come, so maybe he was too eager tonight. He could have waited an hour or two to make sure everyone was really asleep.

He briefly considers running. He could handle the fall back to the ground or the leap to a neighboring building. But everything he owns - the plant, an empty glass bottle, a change of clothes, a few books - is here, tucked behind a thin chimney, and he couldn't take it with him if he fled. The bottle would break, at the very least, and that's the thing he's least willing to risk. He doesn't trust Baedal's gods enough to believe that it's really one of the bottles he passed back and forth with Sobran beneath their tree, but it's close. It smelled like wine when it arrived.

So he'll take his chances with whoever is on the balcony. Smile disarmingly and be polite. It might work. He tips the rest of the water into the pot, then straightens up and walks closer to the edge with as much dignity as he can muster in sock feet. His boots, given their tendency to thud, are still on the ground. Some good that did.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" he asks, screwing the cap back on the flask and peering down - and then he's startled, because the person on the balcony is two wings and a hair brushing short of resembling a few of Xas's siblings. He forgets his disarming smile.

To be fair, Wolfgang is still disarmed, although that may have more to do with the fact that some random guy is just apparently hanging out on the roof. On the other hand, thank God it's not a mutant rat. He really didn't feel like having to kill another one; he gets enough of that in the sewers. (Ugh.) And he doesn't appear to be harming anything, he's just... there.

Baedal, what the fuck.

"No," he says, blinking blearily up at him and feeling a bit foggy still. ... This is weird. He's pretty sure Kahnde would have mentioned someone on the roof if he knew about it. Actually he's pretty sure this wouldn't be happening at all if his friend knew; he might be flighty and eccentric and excitable but he'd never banish anyone outside when there's plenty of room inside, and it's early enough in the year here for the weather to have a bit of a bite to it at night. Not to mention if it should rain.

"What are you doing?" He sounds confused but not angry.

"Watering my plant," Xas says. He knows that sounds ridiculous, but also innocuous, he hopes. Anyway, it's true.

He crouches down again, sitting on his heels, to close some of the distance between them. He's not trusting enough to put himself within arm's reach, since the monsters. Maybe since Conrad, actually, and the carefree smile he gave Xas just before pushing him out of the plane. He doesn't know how to judge who can hurt him anymore, or who might try.

But closer, even in the low light, the man - woman - whichever, Xas decides, uninterested in assuming either - is less unsettling, more pallid than pearly, imperfect in little ways Xas's God would never tolerate. He relaxes some and cants his head to one side. "I thought everyone would be asleep," he says. "And I thought - is this your room? It's been empty."

He means to apologize, but even to his own ears, he sounds a bit more like he's demanding an explanation. He offers a belated smile to try to make up for it.

"Um. No, this is -- my friend's house..." Wolfgang sort of trails off when it occurs to him that apparently someone has been looking in to it oh fuck. He's just. Going to make sure the curtains are closed from now on.

"Why do you have a plant on Kahnde's roof?" Belatedly it occurs to him that that might actually make sense -- a lot of people were displaced during the monster attacks when their homes or inns were damaged or flattened, and not everyone has the money for someplace else to stay. The city's been pretty good about providing temporary accommodations for people, but there are a lot of reasons people might choose to abstain from that -- the same reasons that might make it safer to stay off the street itself and therefore away from attracting the Militia's attention.

Maybe he's just paranoid, though.

He runs a hand through his hair, stopping halfway when it gets caught in it. "I mean, does he know you're up there?"

Xas has the decency to look sheepish while he shakes his head. "He didn't seem to be using it," he says, and then all the shame melts off and is replaced by enthusiasm: "But he should, you know. You can see half of the cinema screen from up here."

So he'd rather not leave, if he can avoid it. Someone told him they were going to start showing films soon, and he should have about… two shekels, maybe. He had more than a mark a few days ago, but that was before he decided to see a play and bought an enchantingly boisterous drunk a few additional drinks in Griss Twist.

"Do you think he would mind? Kahnde," Xas clarifies needlessly, just to get his mouth around the name. He likes it. He likes this one's accent, too; he doesn't try very hard to place it, because the chances here are good as not that it's from a place he's never heard of, but it's familiar enough to sound comfortable. "What's your name?"

"Uhh..." Wolfgang pulls a bit of a face, expression shifting as he weighs his answer. Would he mind? Probably, yeah, he'd mind, especially if this guy is apparently looking in his windows. "Well, I won't tell him." It's not like it's his house, anyway. He's too tired to bother trying to read his thoughts, but he's pretty sure that Xas isn't planning on coming down and robbing them in the middle of the night. He just... needs a place to put his plant. Okay. There is a joke to be made there.

(Who would want any of this stuff anyway, it makes his head hurt to look at this decorating scheme.)

"Wolfgang." That is quite a German name with a very not-German accent. "Who are you?" He pauses briefly before he adds, "Isn't it cold up there?" Of course, he always thinks Baedal is freezing... because it is, they had snow and everything this winter for like, an entire day, that means it's practically Antarctica.

Edited 2012-04-02 02:07 (UTC)

Xas has to think about it for a moment, cheek turned into the breeze, but then he says, "A little." It's easy for him to ignore: it stings, but it doesn't burn, as if there's a buffer between his skin and the rest of the world. He doesn't have any natural instincts telling him to escape it. "Are you cold? Are you German?"

Xas hopes so, even if the accent makes it unlikely. He could have relocated. He might still speak the language. Xas misses it almost as much as he misses Burgundian.

"I was in the German military once," he says, because he knows people get dodgy if they're asked too many questions and never offered anything in return, and then remembers the earlier question, too. "I'm Xas."

"No -- well, somewhere back there, I guess. My grandparents were? Well... are, they aren't. Like. Dead." Oh, wait, is he going there, because talking about home in personal terms like that -- his family, his friends -- is what inspires that ache in his chest, the enduring homesickness he felt years before he ever came to Baedal.

So, no, not going there.

He frowns for a moment. He is awfully tall, but he's still getting a crick in his neck looking up at him from down here, and also it's a little awkward. He's got no idea what time it is, and even if this part of Chimer is fairly urban, he doesn't want to be disturbing anyone else. So he holds up a finger like, one second. "Wait."

Wolfgang disappears back through the balcony door, stops briefly to get some things, and then walks quietly down the hall and upstairs through the attic and up through the roof access door from there. He threw a jacket on on his way up here, but it hangs off him like it was meant for someone much broader, and he's carrying a quilt and a sweater roughly the same size, both of which he offers to Xas. "Here, it's probably going to just get colder."

He has tired, sad eyes, but so does the rest of the city lately.

Xas opens his mouth to protest, but he he registers Wolfgang's expression first and remembers how, when he was first learning to live on the ground, he was able to temper his insatiable sadness by looking after someone else, and all right. Okay. He doesn't need to be warmer, but he isn't opposed to the idea, either.

"Thank you," he says, taking both and stepping backward, toward his collection of personal items, to put the quilt down between his plant and his folded stack of clothing: his leather jacket is on the bottom, barely visible beneath canvas coveralls, his spare shirt and pants, and a pair of flight goggles. Xas is grateful for that. He'll give the quilt and sweater back before he leaves, whether Wolfgang asks him to or not, but he doesn't want to make a point of how unnecessary they are.

He waits until his head is emerging from the sweater's neck hole to say anything else. "Where are you from? Your accent - I like it." It's not what he should say. He should be making insincere demands that Wolfgang to to bed, or at least that he let Xas stop bothering him. But he's never let manners get in the way of interesting company.

"Tel Aviv." He pauses and his expression contorts towards something unsure but resigned, then... "Israel," he clarifies, as if he expects him not to know -- because most of the time people here just look at him blankly. It sort of disturbs him how many people here have never heard of it when they also come from alternate Earths. He's not actually sure if that says more about American schooling, or if it just doesn't exist there.

He puts his hands in the pockets of his jacket and rocks back on his heels, hoping it's dark enough that he doesn't look as awkward as he feels. (Extremely unlikely.) "Ah, thank you, though. You're German?" Well, if he was in the military... that would make sense. His accent doesn't sound much like it to Wolfgang, but he's a terrible judge there.

"Oh, no," Xas says, peering at Wolfgang through the dark and holding back a barrage of his own questions: is he uncomfortable, is he always awake at this hour, has Israel always been around in his world or did the Zionists succeed? He refocuses and shrugs. "I was just there when the war started."

Back home, this is when he would say that he doesn't care for politics and just swore allegiance to the first country willing to let him fly, which is mostly true, and that he's actually from France, which is mostly false. It's a lie he's told a few times in Baedal, too. But in the meantime he's met a few creatures much more impressive than himself, and it's rained monsters that almost succeeded in putting the fear of God back into him, and Wolfgang has loaned him a sweater.

So, "I'm not really anything. I'm not human," he says, then smiles, feeling at once embarrassed and pleased with himself for saying it aloud. "Do you want to sit down?"

Wolfgang engages in a quick internal debate -- does he want to know? No. Should he ask? Probably. Is it possible the war he's referring to could be one he's never heard of? Sure. Baedal's weird like that and just because something happens one way somewhere doesn't make it universally (multiversally?) true. So he does ask, voice cautious, "Which one?"

With any luck he won't have to squirm out of another super uncomfortable conversation about a time in history he is really not equipped to discuss with people who may not know what it is.

"Oh." Baedal's anti-xenian problem wasn't eradicated with the deaths of most or all of the Candlelighters, but like most of the recent cohort, it's never been an issue for Wolfgang. It's startling sometimes, especially when they look otherwise human, but that's all. "Well, fair enough, then."

Glancing around and considering his options, he eventually decides to perch on the edge. Heights don't seem to bother him much. (Ha ha... ha... ha.)

"The war to end all wars," Xas says, as much sardonic as wistful. He never really believed it - he's been watching people for too long - but it was still easy to get caught up in feeling like it would last. He's picked up enough bits and pieces of information in Baedal to know it probably didn't, if his world's history mirrors most of the humans'. Eventually he'll have the heart to open a book about it.

He smiles at his own feet while Wolfgang sits. He can't be entirely pleased about being kidnapped into Baedal, but parts of it are good. This is good. He can tell the truth without it becoming an incident.

He stoops to pick up the quilt again and clarifies, "The Great War. 1914. I think most people here are from - further ahead than I am, or else somewhere entirely different." He prefers the latter. He sits a companionable distance away and peers over at Wolfgang, eyes bright. "Has Israel always been a country, where you're from?"

Oh, that's... that's good, this could have gotten very uncomfortable very fast. Wolfgang visibly relaxes -- he always looks a little tense so it's more a matter of degree there -- and puts forth the effort it takes to smile. His eye contact is a little sporadic, which seems more like shyness than anything else.

"Mm, not for a long time. It was declared an independent state in 1948... it's 2011 where I'm from." So from the future, yes, sorry. "It's a lot of Americans and British from the same year in the most recent cohort, I think -- only a couple before or from after. I wonder if that's coincidence or design." Do they come in batches? It's obvious that the Earthian-to-alien ratio is clearly skewed in one direction and it's unlikely there's a cohort with a majority population of aliens, but do they then tend to be generally sorted by nationality or time period? Is he thinking too much into it? Yes.

Edited 2012-04-02 22:17 (UTC)

So his accent is Hebrew, Xas decides. That would explain the not-quite familiarity, and it makes sense. He hasn't heard spoken Hebrew in centuries, but he read about the revival efforts - discounted them, at first, because it'd never been done before, but people consistently surprise him.

Then Xas looks away, because the bitterness seeping onto his face isn't for Wolfgang, and Xas doesn't want to make him tense again. "Collectors like to specialize," he says. Baedal has done nothing but confirm Xas's worst idea of his own god, filling heaven with specimens, polished and pressed, of beings he didn't create. Lucifer would be... not pleased. But satisfied, maybe, and however nice it would be to have a familiar face around, Xas is glad he isn't here. He doesn't deserve the vindication.

Xas huffs, like he can breathe the thought out of his head, and offers Wolfgang the quilt back - in case he's cold, without any meat on his bones - plus a smile that's only angry at its farthest edges.

"Or maybe the climate was ideal for a decade. Made you all ripen."

Wolfgang looks rueful when he accepts the quilt because, yeah, he's cold, not being dressed for the weather -- or for being seen period. He pretty much never looks like this and sort of wishes he'd thought to stop and at least brush his hair; he likes to pretend otherwise (oh, what? no, I just rolled out of bed looking like this...) but he's a little vain. It bothers him when he doesn't look perfect.

Wolfgang chokes and then shudders. "Well, that's a disturbing thought, thank you." As if the very idea of Baedal isn't disturbing enough. Monster rains, nightmare fog, creepy gods. "But, um, that's terrible to bring up, I'm sorry. Would you like to talk about something else?" Reminding people that they live in a prison -- and a near dystopia at that, he still flinches when people approach him from the wrong direction and starts to sweat whenever he sees uniformed Militia agents -- is, to his mind, a jerk move.

Edited 2012-04-03 05:43 (UTC)

"No, I don't mind," Xas says. "You're the one entertaining me. We can talk about whatever you like."

Or Wolfgang can stop entertaining him, but Xas isn't going to be the one to suggest it. He has nowhere to be. He never really does. He leaves when people ask him to. Still, he looks at his wrist, where there isn't a watch anymore - and even when there was a watch, he was never very good at winding it - and then up at the sky, which doesn't tell him anything but dark.

The street is quiet, though. There aren't any lights on in the house across the row. "Are you always up this late?"

"Um... well -- no, yeah. I work nights pretty often, so." That's true, actually, and it's nice to be able to have an answer without revealing too much TMI about his health that also isn't a lie. It's easy to feel guilty about how many little white lies he tells throughout the day that are utterly pointless, since nobody in Baedal really cares about his real name or where he's from or what he used to do or the fact that he's apparently some kind of fucking wizard or something, fuck. "Not today, though."

There are a lot of places in Baedal open twenty-four hours -- not just in places like Mafaton, but all over; it's not just cruorvores who are nocturnal. It's a short train ride away to something to do instead of sitting around bored all night on his day off. There's more options than finding a bar and getting wasted, too, which, while always tempting, is probably something he needs to cut back on. He'll stay here for a while instead.

"What about you? Night owl?"

"Yes," Xas says thoughtlessly, like he always has. It's easier for him to go along with people's explanations for him than to come up with his own. His friends at home told him he was French, then Texan, an epileptic, eccentric and religious, and he said yes, of course.

It takes him a second to remember where he is.

"I don't sleep," he amends, "unless I want to. I don't have to. But I won't be up here all night, don't worry." He came for the plant and to pick up one of his books, that's all. And he won't be back for a while after he leaves. Another week, most likely. He peers at Wolfgang, who looks like he needs to sleep, whatever he says, and maybe to have some soup or something stronger. Maybe he was injured in the crisis. Lost someone. Both. "Are you staying with your friend for long?"

"Oh... that's -- actually that sounds pretty convenient. I'm a little jealous." Tucking his legs up to his chest, he folds his arms over his knees and rests his chin there. He sort of wants to ask what he is if not human, but feels that would be awfully rude.

"Oh, no," he says, too quickly, then winces because of the way that makes it sound, even though the man in question isn't even here to hear it. "No, I mean -- um, he's awfully nice but he's a little... intense." In that he intensely wants to bang him, yes. Wolfgang's not stupid, and taking advantage of that probably makes him a jerk, but oh, well. He calls him his "friend" really because there isn't a word for 'person I am amicable with even though we both know we're using each other'. At least, not in any of the languages he speaks. "Just until I find someplace else."

Xas makes a faint disagreeable noise and pushes at one of his books with his socked foot. He doesn't think Wolfgang should be jealous, but he isn't going to try to tell him so. People always want something. It's what makes them so clever, Xas thinks. It's why they invented telescopes and gunpowder and airplanes while he and his kind were flapping around and quarreling with one another.

"I could point you to some lovely rooftops," he offers, eyebrows raising. "Was it the - ?" He fills the pause with a vague gesture, not really sure what to call the recent influx of terrors. It seems like the sort of thing that needs a proper name, with capital letters.

"Ah, that's all right." His smile in response to that is fleeting but genuine, without the strain of the effort it usually takes him.

"The monster flood?" he supplies, his tone dry -- people are calling it a lot of things, some more euphemistic than others. He'll be interested to hear what the official name for it is. "Yes, um -- the inn I was staying in... half of it blew up, the other half, uh... I'm not sure what they were but it got, like..." He raises his arms enough to gesture as he speaks, pantomiming lifting something box-shaped and moving it away. "Pulled apart, I guess? By something?"

So the last couple of weeks super sucked! It's all right talking about things that he only indirectly experienced, at least -- and where no one was actually hurt.

The smile makes Xas look proud, for a moment - satisfied and a little surprised, like he's inadvertently discovered a solution and the problem it solves in the same thought.

But the feeling doesn't last. Imagining a shadowy something large enough to pull a building apart kills it pretty quickly. He doesn't know what happens to the dead here. He slips off the ledge to sit with his back against it, feathers compressing under his shirt; unlike the rest of it, the vacuity at his back is an uneasiness he can ease.

He pulls his plant closer with a foot and rubs a waxy leaf between his thumb and forefinger, like that's the reason he moved. "I'm sorry," he says, and then assumes: "It's good you weren't there."

"I wish I was. I could have helped."

Because apparently everything else he did wasn't enough? In fairness it's more that it's extremely upsetting to know how powerful the residents of this city are -- how powerful the gods are supposed to be, or how they claim to be, anyway -- and still witness that much destruction. So many dead, so many lives disrupted.

It's pretty inspiring in terms of helplessness, knowing that people who can rearrange reality on a whim (that's not him it's not like that none of it is real) can't do more than put a figurative band-aid on the problem. And that it, or something like it, is probably going to happen again in a couple months, like it always does here.

Fuck this city.

Wolfgang shakes his head and shrugs, his expression self-deprecating. Oh, well. "But ah, if wishes were fishes, blah blah."

He hasn't heard that before. If wishes were horses, the English said, and this probably means the same thing, only it rhymes. Xas likes it better, he decides. Sometime he'll ask someone for the second half.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking of that," he says to Wolfgang, twisting his head around so he can see him. He doesn't look like he'd be much help against monsters, but Xas should know better than to assume, by now. He's learning.

And anyway, even if there was nothing he could do, he understands the desire to have been there. Even if it was old age and inevitability.

He hesitates, weighing his desire to ask against his desire not to bring up anything potentially painful; it only takes a moment for the former to win out. "What do people think happens when they die here?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject