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Lindon is at his apartment. Lamont has a skittish houseguest and Lindon is too tall. Always looming. So he's in Queens sorting books. It doesn't take a genius to put together why the houseguest is skittish and kvetching to make himself feel better (not to mention to feel some sense of control over what's happening to him). Puck is with him, because he's too big and looks at the guest strangely. Puck is batting around a stuffed cat toy while Lindon sits cross-legged on the floor, skimming a book of poetry in sanskrit.
Elmo knocks, leaning his forehead on the doorjamb. Looking up at Lindon, his expression is troubled. "Hey, handsome," he says, quietly. When he comes in he just hugs the heck out of Lindon and hangs on.
Lindon ushers Elmo inside and closes the door, swift to do so. Then he takes Elmo in his arms and says, "Hey, there." He hugs him close and murmurs against his hair, "Hey." Those long arms give good hugs, wrapped around Elmo securely, enveloping him. "What's the matter, sweetheart?" he murmurs. Puck meanwhile stops playing and gives the couple an askance look.
Elmo presses his face against Lindon's chest, not answering for a few moments. When he pulls back, he's a little rumpled, almost teary. "This Hargrove guy. Nazis. Mutant haters. I dunno, everything?" He sees Puck giving him sass, and sticks his tongue out at the giant kitten.
The kitten pointedly starts grooming a paw, so that when Lindon glances over, his brow furrows in faint confusion. The little fluffy bastard pulled the old innocence trick and it worked. But Elmo is rumpled, and he needs love, so Lindon gathers him close again, producing a handkerchief for him. "It's a hard time to be alive right now," he says quietly. "But we're going to be okay."
Elmo wipes his eyes with the hanky, even though he is not crying, not even a little bit. That's not happening. "I saw Mr. Cohen with Lamont and that other guy, John what's his name. Constantinople or something. He's been through so much and now this putz gotta hunt him down and—I dunno what exactly he wants to do to him, but I know Lamont don't want to let it happen." He looks up at Lindon, eyelashes spiky. "He was tortured during the war, he lost his entire family, and now this? Why can't they leave him alone?"
"John Constantine?" Lindon supplies, unhable to help himself. He purses his lips, then presses a kiss to Elmo's forehead. "We'll keep him safe," he says. "That's the important thing." No need to tell Elmo oh, hey, Hargrove wants to have him sacrificed slowly. Instead, he says, "We're going to get this guy. The best mystical minds in the world are on it."
"Yeah, him. Real sketchy lookin' guy, got a bunch of tattoos? British? That one time I kinda threatened to light him up." Elmo hitches a shoulder. What can you do? Some sketchy lookin' guy shows up out of nowhere and your boyfriend was just attacked by a kidnapper, are you gonna /not/ threaten him? "I dunno anythin' about that stuff. I believe you, just, wow would I feel better if I knew anything about it."
Lindon draws Elmo toward the kitchen, the better for Lindon to pour him some tea. Tea fixes things, he's convinced. "What do you want to know?" he asks. He's not going to treat Elmo like a child, here. He's seen some shit. He's in it. "I'll tell you what I know."
Elmo obediently sits and lets himself be fussed over. Normally he hates this kind of emotional display, a habit from too many years of bullies. But Lindon he can trust. Lindon would never hurt anyone. Lindon was once a bullied skinny kid himself. "Hell, I dunno," he sighs, propping his head with his elbow on the table. "Like, Lamont said the guy wants to use Mr. Cohen to make a robot army, kinda. How's that supposed to work?" His dark eyes follow Lindon as the other man moves around the kitchen.
Lindon serves Elmo tea the way he likes it with a couple cookies on a plate, and he pours some tea for himself. Then he sits beside Elmo, harmless as a lamb. He regards Elmo for a moment. It's not information he would glibly volunteer, but since Elmo asked… Lindon bows his head, clearing his throat as he says quietly, "Hargrove gains power through the death of the practitioners he steals from. The practitioner is, ah, sacrificed in his name. The power transfers."
Elmo picks up the tea, more as something to fiddle with than to drink. He frowns, working it through. The language of mystics is unfamiliar to him. "So, if he kills Mr. Cohen, he can get his power." Something dawns, and he looks at Lindon, alarmed. "If he kills /you/, too! He'd get what you have. Oy Gevalt, Lindele…" He sets down the tea so he can grab Lindon's hand, instead. "And you know everything there is to know."
Lindon takes Elmo's hand. Swallowing, he nods, then says, "They're keeping me safe. But yes, I'm working from home now because they don't want to risk me going to the office. This apartment is warded against scrying. Fortunately, I don't think Hargrove knows yet that I'm not a book." He smiles a little. "I'm still in cognito."
"I dunno who this Hargrove guy is. But I hate him." Elmo presses Lindon's hand against his lips. "I didn't even know Mr. Cohen could do anything like that, yannow? He kept it under wraps for a long, long time. He's got secrets. Everybody who was in Europe during the war does." Everybody Jewish, he means, of his parents' generation and older. "He ain't hurtin' nobody, so why should anyone care?" The injustice of Lindon and Mr. Cohen's position is biting him fiercely.
Lindon smiles softly as his hand is pressed to Elmo's lips, though there remains concern in his eyes. With more grief than ire, he says, "Hargrove considered people like Mr. Cohen and I acceptable losses on his way to a greater goal. He wants mastery over the Earth, so that from here he can explore other dimensions. To do that, he needs power. How can one life let alone dozens, hundreds, compare to such a calling? All he cares for the fact we're not hurting anyone is that we'll probably fall easily."
"It's a stupid calling," Elmo mutters savagely. "You'd think he could go on a world cruise or something instead." He kisses Lindon's knuckles. "I know I ain't the biggest fish in the pond, what with not bein' a wizard, but I'm gonna do everything I can to protect you, too." He grimaces. "Mr. Cohen tried to tell me I shouldn't be fighting. I know he worries. Just, I got to. What else can I do?" It's rhetorical; he knows he can't do anything other than fight.
"Maybe he just doesn't want harm to come to you," Lindon says. "I know I don't, but I also know you're tougher than you look, and you've got aces up your sleeve. Just remember: a mystic's heart still runs on electricity." He strokes Elmo's hair with his free hand. "There are other ways to fight, though. Information is power, and someone like you won't be noticed as much; your power isn't mystical in nature. It's not a bad thing, to be underestimated."
Elmo closes his eyes a moment, just feeling Lindon's hand on his hair. To him, it's a roar of sensation, telling him Lindon is here and safe. "Good point," he says quietly. Even mystics are made of meat. He's never killed anyone, but he knows it'd be easy, with his power. He thinks about that, and Hargrove, and Mr. Cohen, while holding Lindon's hand. "Hey, Mr. Cohen said someone was tryin' to buy his toys for distribution. You know everything, right?"
Lindon makes a so-so waggleof his hand. "I have access to just about everything. Sometimes I have to meditate on it to find the answer. Some of the more esoteric stuff can take some deep digging." He leaves his tea for now in favor of continuing to hold Elmo's hand.
"I don't want you to hurt yourself," Elmo says, anxiously. "I just thought maybe…eh, it's probably nothing. Don't want you digging around in your head for nothin'." Realizing he's keeping Lindon from tea, he lets him go. Lindon needs tea!
Lindon shakes his head and says, "I won't hurt myself." When his hand is released, he takes up his tea. It's an automatic gesture, and perhaps proof he does need the stuff. "Why don't you ask, and if I need to dig, we can discuss it? I don't hurt myself unless I have a vision, and those I can't control anyway."
Elmo takes a deep breath, bracing. "Okay." He pulls his notepad out of an inner jacket pocket, flipping through it. Ideas he had, notes on how to take care of a seizure patient, reminders to himself to look things up—here it is. "Said the guy got pissed off when he said no. Hank Sterling from Coney Distribution."
"That was an attempt by Hargrove," Lindon says without even taking the time to bat an eyelash. He sips his tea. Meanwhile Puck is sprawled out on the floor sound asleep.
Elmo flicks a look at Lindon. "Well that didn't take ya long. Guess it wasn't that esoteric." He pulls a face, a pained grimace. "God I'm glad we got him out of there and Lamont's keepin' him. I know he don't like it, but." Tucking the notepad away, he adds, softer, "Told him I'd keep an eye on his shop. He told me it's mine if he doesn't make it."
Lindon says with a small smile, "Yeah, it was deduction. Hank Sterling is Hayden Spurling, a man who works for Hargrove. It follows a common pattern of false names having some similarity to the real one, in this case the initials and closeness in sound between 'Sterling' and 'Spurling.' Which could still be coincidence, but coney is another name for hare. The name Hargrove means 'the forest of hares.' Your friend dodged a bullet."
Elmo gives Lindon a funny look. "What, so, Coney Island means island of bunnies?" It's not really what he wants to say, but it's the first out the door. "Okay, you just…deduced that? You didn't even think about it."
Lindon laughs quietly and says, "Yeah, I guess it does." He takes another sip of tea. "These things just come to me," he says. "Sometimes I get these premonitious, only they're not, they're just my brain working faster than my conscious mind can keep up with."
Elmo sighs, as if Lindon having a supercomputer brain is a tragic burden on him, and rests his head on Lindon's shoulder. "Good lookin' and brainy." He's quiet for a minute, brooding. "I am /not/ gonna let 'em get you," he mutters. "Not you, not Alex Cohen."
Lindon grins and rests his head against Elmo's. "And still really bad at figuring out people," he says. He slips an arm around Elmo's shoulders. "We're going to get out of this," he tells him quietly. "He's not the first madman who tried to overthrow the natural order. Besides, if here were so tough, he wouldn't be hiding."
"Maybe he's just ugly," Elmo says. He presses himself against Lindon's side, pulling his coat tight.
"And vain," Lindon agrees." He draws Elmo closer and laces both arms around him. "Though it's more likely he's not prepared for his big debut. If he's going to go up against the Sorcerer Supreme, he has one shot. He won't show his face until he has to."
Elmo is happy to be close and snuggled. He's having an excessive amount of emotions lately, lots of which are about Lindon. "Yeah, I guess that's true. Hey, you said you weren't good at figuring people out," he teases, and kisses him.