multiversallogs | we can steal this car if your folks don't mind

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we can steal this car if your folks don't mind

Who: ~~Statler and Waldorf~~ Balthier and Martel.
What: Catching up, shooting the shit, talk of houses, etc and soforth. Life in Baedal.
Where: A cafe in Brock Marsh.
When: Some time after Balthier and Jack's recent log but before... now. THESE ARE NOT THE DROIDS YOU ARE LOOKING FOR
Notes: I got nothin'.
Warnings: Sarcasm?

On the third floor of a wide building there is cafe reached by a narrow winding set of stairs, whose insides are wooden with colored glass windows and lights, and that has a large semi-circle of an outdoor patio that sits atop whatever shop is below, looking out over the bustling district. Balthier, dressed a bit simpler than usual but no less unEarthly, lounges on a chair on said patio, people-watching. This, he thinks, feels a bit more familiar. (He's not sure he likes the thought. It's deceptive.) All traces of his injuries attained during his recent expedition are gone - there are some bits on his shoulder that scarred, left too long without healing, but his shirt's covering all of that - and he looks for all the world like he hasn't got a care in it.

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As civilized as ever, Martel joins him without bothering to announce himself; even if he weren't expected, he's sort of hard to miss when he isn't making a concerted effort otherwise. Presumably Balthier hasn't suffered such blows to the head as to fail to notice him coming.

"I see that went well," he says, blandly, as he sits with his tea. (He'll drink tea if he likes.)

Presumed right; he glances back at Martel as he seats himself, which counts as a greeting. For his part, he's got a glass pitcher of something deep red with fruit and what looks like flower petals and rock salt in it, which he is drinking out of a much smaller glass set next to it. He's got no idea what it's called, but it's not bad, and it's fairly weak. (Pirate livers. C'est la vie.)

"Did you get the cat?" Balthier wiggles the fingers of his right hand - didn't even lose any of his rings, the bastard.

"An angry little hairless thing, you'll like him extremely. I'd rather not keep him at the inn any longer than need be, though." He spares a glance for the rings, briefly, stretching his legs out in front of him and considering the motion of the world down below for now. "I hear you've had a windfall."

Oh, the drama. Balthier sighs in a grand expression that is extremely My life is so hard, because really, cats, why? but he doesn't offer any verbal commentary. (Not that he needs to.) He sips his drink and considers, before: "More like a bit of a toe-stub. Honest living pays quite terribly. I knew I didn't like it for a reason."

"Honesty is its own reward, or something." How very convincing, Martel, you upstanding moral gentleman, you. (He does not deign to dignify that sigh with acknowledgement, he is content that it happened. They are very good friends.) "I liked the money better when I was still a mercenary. If only I'd been able to keep more of it."

When he died, yes.

"Honesty doesn't fix my airship." Only slightly sulking, that, and it's mostly for show. If Martel expected depression or rage when his ill-advised adventure failed, then he hasn't been paying attention; Balthier is just better educated by now. There is a whole vast world of bad ideas out there, just waiting to be embarked upon.

"I imagine I'll have to pick something, here." ... Something as in somewhere to live, he means. His nomadic behavior at Bete Noire was out of anxiety and paranoia, and the influence of that city isn't gripping him, here, thank the gods. But he also refuses to stay at the Inn, or do something as mad as become Jack's life-in mistress. Shiva's tits, man.

Had Balthier foolishly voiced that thought, Martel would opine that surely the little prince could find someone prettier, but he's probably just envious of his friend's ability to pull off all that jewellery when his one ill-advised attempt at an earring mostly made him look like he was playing dress-up, badly.

(Krager felt that ill-advised burst of laughter for weeks after.)

Anna was holding onto something for him, for a living space or just a bolthole he might need one day; he misses her more than he cares to closely examine, and pushes the thought aside as something he can do no good for now. "I'm looking about here, at present," he says instead. "It'll be something like convenient."

For at least one of his jobs - and with Kalten, convenience of Sobek Croix is less of a worry than it might otherwise be. God bless him (any god), ill-advised namesake and all.

Brock Marsh is also pleasantly familiar, in that it's full of intellectual madmen.

(There *might be someone prettier out there, but would they put up with Jack? That's the kicker.)

Balthier sips his drink, reflecting on the different bits of Baedal he's seen - he doesn't want convenience, not really. He'll take the fog guild job, he knows, but he's going to carry on with his own priorities meanwhile, and - suddenly he sets his glass down and bends forward, hands over his face.

"Oh, gods, I'm going to have to ask you if you need a blasted roommate, aren't I."

* Might.

(Well, no one's putting up with Martel, have you any idea how long it's been.)

Sometimes, he can pretend that this is his new normalcy; he lies habitually with every introduction, but he leads a mostly quiet life, wryly aware that his conflicts began and ended with the Pandion Order and, accordingly, with his own death- he has no one left to fight but himself and he is so tired. There is no one here to remind him of his guilt and so he does it for them, hating his own reflection and pretending a steadiness that by his own recent admission he does not and cannot trust. It isn't his morals that concern him (he knows which way the compass points, he's never forgotten that) even as he recognizes the danger of both apathy and habit, but it is his mind that eroded in ways he isn't sure he even now fully understands. He carries the weight of his mistakes and it doesn't matter here in a way that does him no real favours.

It's disconcerting and a little depressing to realize that Balthier and some obnoxiously-named animals are all he has, so he says: "If it's ever you or the cat, you know where my loyalty will lie."

...he was never made to be alone.

All things considered, Martel's position is at least halfway successful; Balthier could be the sort of man who didn't recognize Martel for what he is, or worse, Balthier could be the sort of man who looked at Martel and asked. He has sight, yes, but he has a functioning mind, too, and he doesn't want Martel to ask him anything any more than Martel wants anything asked of him.

Understanding is far more profitable than honesty. Honesty, as far as Balthier is concerned, can go jump off a bridge. (He'll even sell it one, how's that for community service.)

"Just don't try and change me, darling."

Everyone has a history, some more bloodstained than others; Martel's lasting legacy to Elenia is war, pain and regret for a better man that never was. He will be remembered as the bastard he made himself into, so perhaps he can leave that man in history's pages and see if the other one is anywhere to be found here. Either way, some conversations are unnecessary in a way that defies explanation, and he's never going to be anything unrecognisable to his friend.

(It isn't that easy, of course, but he's making it up as he goes along regardless.)

"You make me look better as you are," he says, dryly, and did Balthier know that he's going to generously share his booze? He is, it's excessively kind of him.

The understanding is mutual, in its way.

Balthier, despite being a relatively cold-hearted criminal guilty of treason, patricide, and a slew of other joys, probably would care about Martel's past transgressions - the price of having (against all his best efforts) a conscience. But he doesn't care to know, and as such, their friendship carries on pleasantly with a warm, apathetic center, and all's the better.

He sighs, "At least the wards will be impressive." Between the two of them, intruders will be lucky they aren't lethal. Balthier arrests his booze back to refill is glass - yes yes he is a very generous thief, you love him for it.

After all those years he spent learning not to listen to his conscience (it's there, choked and fractured and ossified but there, another way in which he never forgets quite where he came from), retraining himself to respond to the thought 'that's a terrible thing to do' as something other than a suggestion is an ongoing and somewhat surreal process that he has no intention of discussing.

He can't avoid his past or his secrets forever, but Balthier - at least - doesn't have to be his confessor.

"A moat would likely be a little much," he sighs.

"I know where we can get some very deterring fish for it, if not." ... Balthier.

At least whatever he's drinking isn't offensive. Sigh. "I'm not one for solid homes and houses; I'm sure I could pick curtains, but if you wanted creative input..." He is not getting any, it seems. Besides 'Does it have a door?' (Pirates.)

With a loose one handed gesture- "I'm certain I can be sufficiently opinionated on the subject myself." They're not living in some glass-encased monstrosity and there will be rugs, that's a start. "But if you want to bring back friends from the fog, you're on your own."

"What about expensive things I shan't turn over to my employers?" Asked in a tone that's not serious - not because he doesn't plan on doing that (he does) but that he doesn't think Martel would, in any universe, actually give a damn.

"The wards will no doubt serve a dual purpose," Martel returns philosophically, a sort of verbal shrug that indicates precisely Balthier's thought. The new, improved and more ethical Martel is merely as law-abiding as it suits him to be.

"As I said." He raises his glass, lazy, saluting the spirit of theft and dishonesty, "It just doesn't pay."

Crime does, however. It pays very well - particularly when you're good at it. And Balthier is a veritable artist.

"So what are you pulling in your funds doing, if not mercenary work?"

Crime did pay exceptionally well, in Martel's experience.

He holds up two fingers. "Scholarly pursuits-" he's terribly dry about it, though in fairness 'working at Baedal's university' does seem to put 'living beside an alchemist' to shame in terms of being potentially unwise, "-and I've taken up training Hellsing's field agents."

Neither of which are much like mercenary work, but that isn't his only background and none of what he's doing now is unfamiliar.

"How very established of you." Personally, Balthier's just happy the bleed-through guild is properly staffed of madmen who went wide-eyed with intrigue at his talk of airships, all up for a good time with a bad idea, collectively held together with willpower and twine. It's familiar.

"I suppose we aught go hold a real estate agent at knifepoint, what say you?" He's probably being colorful, there.

They'll probably have to take out a loan, but given the fact that all of their more respectable connections are to city institutions of one form or another- that shouldn't be much of a problem. (Thinking along these lines, as necessary as it may be, makes his teeth itch; he briefly has the urge to rough up a politician on principle.)

Swallowing, he says over his glass, "How nostalgic of home. I suppose we ought, at that."

And, of course, they do. There's no use in wasting time, as it's not like either of them fancy spending more time at the Inn than necessary. (For Balthier's part, he doesn't mind staying with Jack, but he can't stand being beholden to one person - he knows Jack feels the same way, though, so it's fine.)

"When the hell did I get responsible enough to quality for a loan?" he complains, later. "I headed a suicide mission a week ago. What's wrong with this place?"

"Everyone on said suicide mission survived, with sanity more or less intact," Martel points out, mercilessly, as they walk. "And as a direct result, a Guild offered you placement."

He's still not sure how he became respectable - while simultaneously knowing exactly how and having been quietly masterminding it for the sake of leading a life less irritating - and as such is sidestepping it to take this opportunity to needle Balthier with reality.

"All that means is I'm terrible at suicide missions," he points out. "If I'd been any good, we'd all be dead." Look, that makes perfect sense, it's just terrible. At least, he reflects privately, he's getting a good look about town. He's already side-eyed an institution he'd like to come back to after hours.

"And you, too, you bastard. What were you even doing for those months in that hell hole? We've both hit our heads.." INJUSTICE, etc.

In retrospect, 'sod all' is what he was doing in said hell hole. Martel opts not to point that out.

"I was run through the chest," he says, mildly, "it does change a man's perspective."

...as true as that is, somehow it just sounds like a hideous joke coming out of his mouth. That was probably deliberate. (God forbid he just say something straightforward.)

Edited 2011-05-28 07:24 (UTC)

"Good for you, a ship the size of a city fell on me."

... Which is a bit more than he's ever, ever said about anything that went on back at home before, but then, it's not like Martel expected any misty-eyed sympathies or a hug. (And if he wanted either, Balthier would search him for witchcraft.)

"I feel positively unnatural. I'll have to see to a fighting ring or some other damn thing..."

If Balthier ever tries to hug him, Martel's going to knock him out and tie him up for safe-keeping (and to prevent him accidentally humiliating himself in public) while he goes to find out who's been arsing about with his head. Official word.

"I'm sure one can be found, if you're feeling choked by respectability." The superior tone of amusement is thoroughly false; he only plays at being without such complaints because it's more entertaining that way.

Edited 2011-05-28 08:17 (UTC)

And so they have an accord.

"Terribly." How could he live, without the drama? It's like Balthier would just wither away and die if he couldn't be over the top and needlessly theatrical, no matter how much easier it would make life for anyone else. (His pride would never permit for such a thing. Ease! Gods forbid.) "Oh."

The sudden tone change is so abrupt and smug-sounding it's a wonder he hasn't robbed somebody right then. Balthier spins about, walking backwards aside from Martel. "They've got chocobos here."

You know, those things that aren't horses.

"If you're having one, I'm hearing no more complaints about my horse." It's amazing how he doesn't so much as pause before delivering that, glancing at Balthier as he spins. "You're going to walk into someone."

No, he isn't.

"No, I'm not. And I shan't have one because I don't believe in keeping animals." So there. "I'd rather build a gate crystal. But they're here and it's both endlessly unnerving and satisfying, because they're so much more efficient."

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we can steal this car if your folks don't mind

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