multiversallogs | do they cease to exist when you stop being missed

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do they cease to exist when you stop being missed

Who: Jack and Balthier
What: Some fussing and recuperating. Also, dinner.
Where: Jack's ridiculous apartment in West Gidd.
When: ~~Tuesday~~ Misdi evening.
Warnings: Food details, otherwise nothing much.

Despite what he said in his text, it might be better if Balthier doesn't hurry over. The contents of Jack's fridge being well above your usual bachelor fodder of condiments and old bread (he is, after all, a bachelor raised to ridiculous culinary standards), what he throws together is somewhat involved, including not only both meat and vegetables but actual herbs and spices. A little pepper the steaks, parsley and tarragon with the root vegetables, and he refrains from glazing anything out of vague recollection of the other man's tastes.

The activity helps him process – which is what he calls it in his mind, not think or feel, like he's some kind of machine that should be able to take the lingering echos of so many souls lost under his command (and more, closer to him) and arrive at a neat, clean explanation for why he's been so irritated at the thought of losing anyone else.

But he didn't lose anyone, this time. He has to remind himself of that, and there'd be relief in the thought if he was willing to acknowledge having anything to be relived over, which naturally he isn't. Instead, he's chopping too many carrots and cussing at the stove and will generally feel a lot better when he can actually see his friend in one piece.

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Balthier is, in general, not the sort to do something like 'hurry' on the word of another - even a friend - but perhaps there's some roundabout fortune in the fact that even if he wanted to, it's just not going to happen. He spends most of the day speaking with the woman whose boat he borrowed, detailing his adventures and picking her brain about the guild that's now eying the lot of them. It pays off in the form of her daughter offering him a ride on her enormous red yak (which wears bells and ribbons and does anything in the world for cherries), because all present agreed quite readily with the notion that taking the Militia-observed train sporting his particular injuries might be unduly suspicious.

He's already known to the door-person, so besides whatever protocol the other man has for being informed about visitors, the first sign of Balthier is his light-knuckled knock at the front door. The sight of him, when discovered, is slightly off from normal: someone's lent him an undershirt, through which the bandages that span over his left shoulder, chest, and upper arm are plainly visible. He's wearing a black formal shirt over it, though only his right arm is actually in the sleeve, and his left is tucked against his side, the shirt itself being used as a sort of casual sling.

When Jack opens the door, he still has spatula in hand and a towel over his shoulder, but he stops to see the other man. For a moment, his expression betrays him – that's no small amount of bandages, which means no small amount of injury, even if Balthier is up and walking around – but he covers it with the smallest genuine smile. That's when the relief sets in. "You made it."

"Come in, come in." He gestures with the spatula, holding the door open with his foot and reaching to Balthier's good shoulder in a sweeping gesture, the kind that could have conceivably ended in a hug if the other man's injuries didn't make that a poor idea (and if Jack wasn't...Jack), but it at least serves to guide him in. "You'll ruin that shirt, you know. What did you do to yourself?"

"I did indeed." His smile is as rakish as always, though notably subdued - he's tired. Understandably so, yes, but it's unusual all the same. He steps inside and touches Jack's elbow with his free arm, a minute gesture of returned affection.

"I was mauled," he tells him, and sounds so damned chipper about it he might as well be telling a joke. It gets better: "By a sort of enormous eel-like creature with steering fins and needle teeth and rings of eyes. And lots of tiny arms. I believe I heard one of my compatriots refer to them as 'demented flesh-eating sea millipedes'- What are you doing with that?" The spatula, he means, is this getting kinky already?

"Sea–" Enjoy that face, Balthier. He didn't especially want to imagine what a flesh-eating sea millipede might like, but too late now. "Next time you get one of these brilliant ideas, remind me to knock you over the head instead."

"And what do you think, I'm fixing you something. How do you take your meat, by the way? –That's not an innuendo, there's a steak over there I'm going to have to flip eventually." 'Over there' not being more than a few feet, actually, the apartment's layout being fairly open.

There might be a returning quip concerning his brilliant ideas, but it never makes it past the inception stages. Balthier raises his eyebrows in an expression that's a bit more genuine than he usually exhibits, looking over in the direction of the kitchen. Jack had said he'd fix something, but Balthier had with complete honesty only anticipated maybe one of those curious Earth sandwich things; not for any critique of Jack's affection, but because it's late, it's abrupt, and he's appearing injured and exhausted on his doorstep, already having imposed on his hospitality quite a lot.

"Dead," he begins, because it's actually a concern in Ivalice, but then amends: "Rare, I suppose, or whatever's the tradition with what you're cooking." A beat. "You're cooking for me?" It's not shock in that This is suddenly weird way, but more in the sense that Balthier seems almost charmed. This isn't really something that's done, where he's from; food is communal, if it isn't cooked by an innkeeper or, if you grew up in a certain fashion, a servant. There are no grocery stores in the land of dragons and airships. It's actually quite intimate, though he knows from experience in other Earth-styled cities that it's probably not the case, for Jack.

Still.

"For both of us, technically." That he compulsively pokes a hole in that bubble speaks to the little bit of intimacy that does exist in food preparation for Jack. It's a more normative gesture in his society than Balthier's, certainly, but his life hasn't been normal; he's had an army of chefs at his beck and call since he was old enough to eat solid food. Jack has never needed to cook, doing so has simply been a matter of pride and, perhaps more importantly, connection with his father. (Cooking steaks at midnight was the last meal he shared with the man, in fact. He'd forgotten. He seems heavier for a moment, but it passes.)

"Don't expect a feast, I just pulled a few things out of the fridge." Heading back toward the kitchen, he gestures to the bar-style seats perpendicular to the stove. "Come, sit while I finish, you look like you're about to fall over."

Balthier, of course, takes in that response and smiles slowly. Someone more of an asshole might have contributed a little obnoxious sing-song You liiiike meee or something equally terrible, but he just raises his undamaged hand in a permissive, lazy implication of a bow. "And indeed I am about to fall over, alas."

... Something he's exhausted enough to admit, and he goes and sits, carefully. "Hopefully by tomorrow morning I'll be sorted enough in my head to heal myself. Magic went utterly awry and using it on the trip back seemed like tempting particularly cranky fate." And he's been too out of it since to be able to bother with it.

Jack give him a look and then kindly pretends he didn't see that smile, lest he actually have to banish the pirate to the couch. Excuse him while he tends to this steak; never mind how it probably didn't need anything done to it at all.

He does, however, raise a little eyebrow at 'heal' – even if he knows Balthier is capable of it, magic is still an oddity to him. "Where were you when I mangled my shoulder twice over?" Presumably Balthier has seen the bullet holes, there. "Do you want some wine in the mean time, or are you already full-up on painkillers?"

Kindly indeed; Jack will survive well-intentioned teasing, he is sure. Many royals more entwined with egotism have suffered far worse, and Balthier is capable of gentle application. (Silence, peanut gallery.)

"In a world where antibiotics don't exist," he drawls, because comparisons have been drawn before. Evolution does funny things. On topic: "And that would be lovely; I don't trust your medication, clever as it may be." ... So, no, he hasn't had shit for his injuries, is what he's saying.

... Sir. "The strong stuff, then," he decides. "Don't worry, I'm not going to experiment with your tolerance for narcotics tonight, entertaining as that might prove for me."

Finding a bottle of red, something like the Baedal equivalent of a Syrah, he fills Balthier a generous glass and circles around to place it in front of the man, a hand resting against his back while he does so, briefly. ('Touchy-feely' is never exactly an accurate way to describe Jack, but thoughtless casual contact is a habit of his that seems distinctly amplified tonight.)

"Do that and I'll cast a Float spell on you, see how thrilling you find losing your footing, princeling." He sounds fond. When Jack lays his hand on him for that moment, he doesn't react out of the ordinary, though he notes it. Regardless of his not-teasing earlier, Balthier knows full well that this is a friendly sort of affection. (Somehow that's worse. He can't begrudge that.)

Balthier lets the wine breathe for a moment, and metal clinks on glass when he picks it up - what a bastard, he didn't even lose any of his rings while getting mauled - and breathes it in for a moment.

A groan. "One of these days I'm going to spontaneously develop magical powers of my own, and then you'll be screwed." Which is to say, until then Balthier is always going to win the playful threat game.

Truth be told, if Balthier weren't somewhat hideously injured, Jack would be treating him to a lot more than wine and dinner. Entertainment, company, whatever pleasures his heart desires. It's something he's always felt compelled to do for his men, not just for his own sake (though it is for his own sake, too, an opportunity to lose himself in hedonism and live vicariously through their ability to appreciate it), but also because they deserved it, maybe even needed it in a quiet, desperate way after finding themselves inches from death, just to remember they're alive again. Balthier isn't one of his men, hierarchy has no place between them, but the sentiment is very much the same.

But, a steak dinner will just have to suffice. Food done, he sweeps everything onto plates and brings it around for both of them. "You know, I didn't choose this to be cruel, but conveniently..." It suits his teasing purposes. "Do you have a spell for cutting your meat one-handed, or shall I handle that more mundanely?"

"My magic doesn't work that way," he says, but demonstratively wiggles the fingers of his left hand. "It's just my shoulder." Which actually means it's just his entire arm, considering how muscles work, and all, but Balthier's threshold for pain and discomfort is alarmingly high.

"Why, did you overcook this so badly it's turned to rubber, or somesuch?" Teasing purposes indeed.

Jack rolls his eyes at that – he knows what it feels like trying to use the rest of your arm in that condition, sir – but he leaves the pirate his silverware, if that's what he wants. At least holding a fork isn't much exertion.

"Just eat it," he grumbles affectionately, stabbing one of his own carrots with a fork. "See if I ever cook for you again."

Nor is cutting things one-handed - see, his request for something cooked rare was quite clever of him. It's much softer this way, unless Jack botched the meal (which we assume not, and that it is cooked beautifully, good sir). As always, Balthier's table manners are impeccable, even injured, with an easy, refined grace that suggests it's something long-ingrained, and not merely a pirate pretending to have gravity.

Belatedly - or perhaps deliberately casually - Balthier sets aside his fork after having cut a little triangle of his food and picks up his wine glass, raising it slightly in Jack's direction. "Thank you."

Jack notices, more so right now because there's such quiet between them, because he's already studying the other man for signs of discomfort or just to remind himself through those little details that Balthier is here now, safe. The little toast makes him smile, but he waves a hand at it, dismissive. (Distracted.)

"You know, you have better manners than my father," he muses, eyebrows knit like he's particularly fixed on the thought. "Which would be meaningless if the man had always been king, but he was born the son of a mule breeder and had to learn late."

Balthier doesn't strike him as someone who learned late.

"A mule breeder," Balthier echoes, sounding partly incredulous and partly thoughtful. He keeps his eyes on his food as he says it, casual, presumably in the interests of not accidentally making some hideous mess with his delicate one-handed work. "I've not heard stories of such likeness except in fables. Ivalician hume blood is strong; you hardly ever get inbred royals, these days."

Thus eliminating the need for bringing in unrelated individuals with proper-functioning minds? Perhaps. Balthier reckons it'll dilute in a thousand years or so - but that's utterly unrelated, and his mind is merely wandering, spiraling, considering. (He knows an awful lot about royals.)

"I learned when I was a boy," he says, and does look up at Jack, now. "Younger than that, really. When I was an impressionable lump. I don't suppose you'd believe it to be the habit of an eccentric parent." In all the months of their intimacy, Jack has never asked. Balthier is impressed at his restraint, and unsurprised at the inevitable.

There would be a disparaging comment here about how he can't help it his God prefers farm boys to royalty, but he doesn't want to derail this, for once. He hadn't asked because they haven't asked anything of each other – for all their banter, the closeness between them has been left unspoken, without obligation to have (let alone share) any manner of subtler emotion, and Jack has appreciated that comfortable silence enough that even now, he's loathe to disturb it. But everything is closer to the surface tonight, and he has wondered.

"Not unless said eccentric parent was of a particular class themselves, no." Good breeding doesn't come from nowhere. It's said gently, but his eyes don't falter from his friend's, even as he reaches absently for his own wine.

The smile Balthier gives him is kind, but also sad, and without the veneer of his usual facade. It's utterly unlike him, and somehow seems a hundred times more real than any other moment he's ever shared with Jack. He seems profoundly tired, with eyes that speak of eons, even with how strangely young he seems when he's quiet.

"Long ago, I killed a young man in the Imperial city. All his sins and virtues, the whole of his history, were left up there in that golden palace. It doesn't matter that his grave is empty; no one is ever going to look. He isn't ever coming back. Not even the gods can resurrect the dead if they've no will to return to their lives."

Silence, then, as he breaks in his story to continue eating, just for a moment. "It's a facade, you see," and he picks up his wine glass, looking at Jack again. "An outlaw with manners. It's theater. People are charmed and entranced by the romanticism of it, this pirate who could be an actor. And with how damn good at either I am - what's the difference?"

It is so utterly different from how he knows the other man, and yet it doesn't shock him. Watching, listening to his friend's words, so many small truths hidden between layers of fiction, gives shape and substance to what he'd had only inklings of before. It fits. It feels right. The knowledge that Balthier has constructed such an elaborate facade seems no more unnatural than the fact that he'd done so himself.

"No difference at all, to them." But to him? His gaze is soft, knowing. Yet, it isn't the same. Jack's masks are meant to hide, to repress. What Balthier describes seems a clean break from the past. Real change.

"I knew I liked you for a reason," he says after a beat, words that could be cynical but in this moment are sincere. Almost envious. "Not for what you left, but that you left it."

"Don't mistake me for royalty," he says, and now he's wearing a faint smile that's more wry than anything. "I'm sure that I could have been, had I fought for it in the senate. But I've always preferred the beasts in the wild to those particular monsters."

How annoyed must his superiors have been, when he left - every time Balthier has lent his insight to Jack's political notions, it's been with a keen eye. Effortless, almost. (Then again, that could easily be why he so badly wanted to run from it.)

Jack has shared what he has of his politics with Balthier because of that aptitude, and has himself considered – fleetingly, but still considered – how the pirate could be of more use to him in an official capacity. He can imagine how irritating it would be to be denied that insight altogether.

"And yet you keep company with one of the worst." Monsters, that is, and yes he means himself, if the cynicism in his voice is any indication. (He has no illusions about his own righteousness, only his ability to do good despite it.) He swirls his wine in his glass. "You don't miss it? The lures of power and influence never tempt you?"

His expression turns a little more sad - like colors fading in the sunset, just another subtle hint, here and there. Not for himself, or for Jack. Some great thing beyond the both of them.

"Am I so powerless?" He's not a politician; he'll never again be a Judge, and he'd rather send himself to his own, true death than ever act as even a shade of one. He has no country and no home and a price on his head... and it is beautiful. Balthier has no need of Imperial power and influence. If he wants either, all he has to do is walk out on his stage. He turns it on and off at will, and he lives his life without chains - without so much as a string.

Balthier takes another swallow of his wine and then reaches out, his fingertips brushing Jack's elbow, connective, maybe a little wistful. There's something hollow behind his eyes. "That you think of yourself as such," and he drops his hands, goes back to his dinner, "Gives me hope for your world."

Jack tilts his head, but nods, as if agreeing up to a point. "A different kind of power," murmured. It's a difficult thing to acknowledge, that Balthier could shed the binds that Jack has come to know like a second skin, and without cost, without sacrificing the right to shape the world around him. But it is different. The power Jack amasses so desperately is constant and steady as he can make it. It doesn't matter that he can't turn it off because he wouldn't, because he doesn't know what he'd be without it.

(Happier, maybe.)

The touch, however, that gives him pause – the words that follow, more so, but his smile flinches and twists like it can't settle on an expression. His teeth digging into his lip, shaking his head, "You'll doom them all, treating me like that." Like what, Jack, nicely?

Rather than specify, he downs what's left in his glass and pushes off from the counter, his dinner left half finished. Not going anywhere in particular, just– look, he can't just sit here and feel.

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do they cease to exist when you stop being missed

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