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It's safe to say Mr. Black deems that problem dealt with, a matter whose entry in the ledgers he can safely draw a line through and dismiss from his mind. Dead is dead, and running water has a way of defusing magic and blurring trails. So whatever his concerns, he no longer numbers Ambrose among them.
So when Ambrose makes his way back to Shanghai for the third time, he'll find Ying Ko has used the intervening time to climb further up the ladder in the Underworld. Oh, he's still not the absolute head, the ultimate kingpin. But he's cemented his hold on certain trades - drug and gunrunning, with a little side in prostitution. It may perhaps amuse Ambrose to find that he's given up any overt trade in artifacts, nor does he seem to be in the market for any such himself.
In the neighborhood of alleyways, certain professions cluster, and nearly all of one particular lilong is devoted to the red lantern district, houses of ill-repute. One of the few that is not one such is a house sandwiched between two houses-turned-into-brothels….and it's there that Mister Black has gone to ground, of a rainy evening. The master bedroom is a dark chamber, its balcony opening on the courtyard below….and it's warm enough out the panel doors to it are open, giving a view to the room beyond, for any who should be gazing from the rooftops. There's little light, though, within….and it comes only from the candle-like flame of a little glass and enamel lamp set on a tray. It illuminates not the room at large, though, but only the confines of one of those enormous, elaborate wooden canopy beds, nearly a room within its own right. Fabulously carved and painted, though the bedding and hangings are not the usual lucky vermilion, but a deep ocean blue. It's there that the object of Ambrose's quest reclines, staring vaguely out at the rain falling, a pipe held loosely in one nerveless hand. EVen the scent of rain on stone and tile can't compete with the thick sweetness of opium smoke.
*
|ROLL| Ambrose +rolls 1d20 for: 19
*
No one would assail this safehouse, not while Ying Ko is within. Darzee the Tailorbird sung his woeful song with good cause after the mongoose went into the dusky hole. It's about as foolhardy as chasing a cobra into its lair — no one comes out alive.
No one wise, that is.
And definitely someone nursing a grudge with the sun-travel's count of a year and a day waited.
The weather is in his favor. The little rhythm of falling raindrops is not only cooling, but provides ample cover for sound. Quickly, he streams across the roof of the building across the way. The gloom is his ally and token aid. He pauses in the lee of the taller building, beneath the internal glow of a curtained window. Someone within laughs and conversation flows. The glow blinds the wandering eye to who lingers beneath, attention unerringly on the opened panel doors.
A graceful and life-energy bolstered leap across the dividing street below carries him to the roof nextdoor to the smaller house. A scarper across it and then down a nearby drain-pipe he slides. His landing on the roof is nearly soundless — still, he pauses to see if alarm is roused. None comes. All too easy now to drop soundlessly to the balcony off to one side and crouch to peer in.
His heart races; again, the phantom taste of blood coats his tongue, but he knows it's merely adrenaline and high emotions. He can be patient more yet. Even as he steps in, rolling feet upon the fine flooring, he's sticking to the shadows within the room. A silent inhale brings him the telltale scent of opium and his eyes narrow. Tsk. He wears not what he was seen in. No, Ambrose wears black silk, vest and pants alike, sporting an oily sheen from the rainfall. About his face but for his eyes, the black fringed headscarf. At his waist…both service revolvers, a homage to his past he simply can't let set free. His Oriental slippered approach is presumed to be unnoticed, given the angle, and he slips into the dark space to take up…a chair, of all things.
*
His face is blank as paper, gaze glassy, the pupils dialled down to pinspots. He's still staring out at the rain, the halos it makes around the glow of windowsand lanterns opposite…and as Ambrose comes in to the bed's alcove, says, with a vague irritation and accentless Shanghainese, "Leave me, I will call for you when I want you." He's apparently assumed the silent presence is a hovering servant, waiting on his master's whim.
*
The small decorative light casts its faint glow about the alcove of the ostentatious bed. It catches now upon fine golden brocade hemming on Ambrose's silk clothing. The vest gapes, revealing skin sun-kissed by his time away from Shanghai. Light winks from the silver coin on its leather thong, still present after all this time. The length of headscarf about the bottom half is his face is untucked, all the better to let out a silent sigh. His eyes drag along the drugged-out form of the man who neatly erased him from the annals of the city for a year and a day.
"«Might I suggest that you call upon no one,»" he replies softly in fluent Persian, a taunt to the mind for someone under the lethe of opium.
*
That has Black reorienting from his contemplation of the rain. But there's still no shock, no surprise….let alone any attempt to go for a weapon or call for help. He regards Ambrose with a faint puzzlement, brow furrowing just a little, stares at him for a while as the rain patters on the roof. "You look better than you usually do," he informs Ambrose, in English. "It's enough to make me think that burning joss does work." He punctuates that with a little smile, bemused.
*
Ambrose returns the smile with utter lack of amusement in his eyes. The lamplight barely reveals his features, but memory will fill in the hollows of cheeks and hooded eyes easily enough; in the golden glow, his eyes are almost oceanic.
"You are a shining example, as always, of what comes of climbing the social ladder in this city. How convenient, that you have the time now to smoke as you please." His voice is low and almost toneless. "Still…overweaned, as you were a year and a day ago." He reaches up with a weaponless hand and pulls aside the black silk of the vest. There on his chest, in a lighter star-pucker of scarred flesh, lies the proof that this is most definitely the man seen along line of sight from hundreds of yards away. "This was your trigger-finger, I presume."
*
Kent's clad only in a rumpled white dress shirt, loose black silk pyjama pants, barefoot - lying atop the ocean blue bedding, rather than under it. "Of course," he says, still puzzled, vague. "You know that." It hasn't sunk in yet, that he's dealing with a flesh and blood man, not an apparition. His smile wavers, softens. "Good. You are not in pain anymore, then." As if time and offerings had soothed the spirit before him, no longer a vision of blood and river water come to accuse him.
*
The confirmation of who pulled the rifle's trigger is neither soothing or infuriating, given his little change in expression.
"No…" and it sounds as if Ambrose has come to the realization that Ying Ko is either not taking him seriously in the least or is so very stoned out of his gourd that he thinks he's an apparation — likely the latter, given the man's steer of conversation.
"No, I am not," he confirms quietly. "It took the lives of an entire poor fisherman's family to reverse the internal damage. The youngest was eight. I buried them all in their garden." He takes no delight in informing Lamont of this. If anything, he ages in his eyes briefly before they sharpen again. "No. I'm here to haunt you…to your grave."
*
Puzzled again, by his expression. Gears are still slipping. Black's still peering at him….and he sighs at that. "You're talking a lot more than usual," he informs the accursed. "Very well." And he simply closes his eyes, and burrows a little more into the pillows. He'll have to sleep this one off, it seems, it's more stubborn than usual.
*
"…more than usual," Ambrose repeats under his breath, brows quirked. What in God's name is this drug doing to this man's brain? It's probably eating holes in it, like the mysterious malady afflicted on those who cannibalize their tribe-mates. A mercy killing would be the best solution present, even if Black doesn't deserve it. The decision springs from the young man's belief that he still has a soul, in the end, to keep as spotless as he can manage.
Out of someplace near his belt comes an aikuchi, short and sharp enough to sever bamboo cleanly in half. Lamplight winks from it. The man in his black silks rises noiselessly and steps into the arbor of the bed-box proper. He leans in. The flat of the knife gently tucks against the underside of Lamont's jaw and even as the Jackal presses the cool of the blade to the man's skin, he quotes in an almost lyrical murmur,
"If I don't break his back at the first jump, he can still fight — and if he fights, oh Rikki…"
*
The feel of cold steel is enough to bring him out of it, at least a little. His body tenses, and the gray eyes open and roll to fix on Ambrose, pupils still tight. But he doesn't move, doesn't dare even swallow. "You're alive," he whispers, in evident shock. IT's a stupid thing to say. But he's hardly firing on all cylinders. Not even attempting to fight, or move away. No begging for his life. Not yet.
*
Apparently not the type to smile when vouchsafing another man's pulse by lieu of his steadiest hand alone, Ambrose simply looks down upon the drugged man.
"You seem surprised at this," he deadpans nearly sotto-voce. No need to speak loudly and alert the staff, after all, and not at this close distance. "What, am I not hallucination enough for you?"
*
"I've dreamed of you all this year," he says, voice gone small. "I thought I'd killed you. But here you are." Wonder in his tone….not even horror or fear. The opium's a wonderful cushion against the terror of death. And perhaps all those hallucinations had prepared him, in some strange way.
*
"You did kill me," Ambrose suddenly hisses, leaning close to the other man's face. The edge of the blade begins to dance on the cusp of breaking the skin beneath it. "I spent God only knows how many days in darkness before waking up in my own damn sepulcher! Does it comfort you knowing that? Knowing that your dreams came to fruition after all?" His hand trembles for a second in high emotion before stilling again. "Dreamed hard enough to bring back the dead?" His tone goes tight and mocking.
*
There's that emptiness in his face, wild and strange. It changes it, erasing the lines - he's a youth again, for a moment. "No one dreams that hard, I've tried," he tells Ambrose, earnestly. "You are a hungry ghost, in a body, somehow. Now I'm another one that you'll devour." The scent of the smoke is heavy on him, that close, over cologne and talc and sweat. It's a warm night, after all.
*
The opium smoke is thick and dark and the hindbrain remembers the sweetness clinging to the back of his throat now that he's inhaled so close. Swallowing hard, Ambrose retreats by leaning back. He's absolutely torn between a mortifying amount of pity for the guileless display and a sudden spike of acidic anger.
"You've tried. How quaint." The knife is pulled away, blade warmed by the skin, and his palm blurs in the near-darkness. SLAP, it cracks hard across Lamont's face, and then he gathers up a handful of the loose dress-shirt. "I. Am. HUMAN," he snaps, volume suddenly surging. "I am not a goddamn ghost!"
*
This should be when he fights, struggles, tries for the knife - that instant when the knife is not against his skin. But there's no will to for it, even when he's struck. Limp, he rolls with the blow, but not enough - the trickle of blood from his lip is oily and dark in the lamplight. Still in Ambrose's grip. "A human who can't be killed," he says, and his voice is infinitely tired. He doesn't touch the split lip, simply looking up at Ambrose with something like patience.
*
"Not by a man like you," he grinds out before releasing his handhold on the white shirt. It's a shove to push the Shadow back down into his pile of pillows and then there's Ambrose stride him. His knees attempt to pin the other man's limbs to the beddings. The aikuchi flies back to where it rested against the underside of jaw and Ambrose instead grips at a hank of dark, mussed hair.
"These days, they call me Mao You. Do you know why?" He doesn't let his captive answer. "Because I hate snakes — and Mephistopheles could wear you around about his neck like the bloody Queen wore her furs. Give me one good reason, you slippery bastard, that I should let you slide away to the shadows again."
*
He is pinned, his breath shallow, his pulse jumping in the hollow under his throat….and he's still not struggling. The gray eyes are fixed on Ambrose's face, not calm, but steady.
He says, finally, after a long pause, "I don't have one."
*
Ambrose is breathing hard himself and the air saws between his clenched teeth in the silence that follows. Outside, the pitter-patter of the rain continues upon the balcony and beyond at a steady pace. It is monsoon season after all, when the pregnant clouds open up for hours if not days on end.
The press of the aikuchi's edge finally breaks skin at Lamont's neck. It's shallow, hardly anything more than a papercut, and the Jackal's eyes flick to the sight of fresh blood inking along the metal. A rabid, spittle-flecking curse and he's off the other man. Down the bed he goes and out into the alcove. He kicks violently at one of the chairs; it goes flying away across the room and tumbles to collide against one of the walls.
"That's not good enough!!!" His shout is pure, undiluted frustration, and the knife flies thrown from his hand. It thuds into the wooden frame behind Lamont's head and vibrates before stilling again. "Where is the honor — you - you have no honor!!! You lie there, in a goddamn stupor, and allow this?! NO!" The lamplight glitters in his eyes. "I will find you again, and when I do, we will settle affairs like real men," he snarls.
*
That makes Lamont sit up, slowly, heedless of the blood trickling down his throat. "Like what?" he asks, softly. "Like a duel? Ambrose, to what end? If you're going to do this, do this. You know what I am, you said it yourself. Don't draw it out. My affairs are in order, as much as they ever can be."
He leaves the knife where it is, quivering in the dark wood, and gets out of the bed. Heavily, like a man fighting against gravity. "If you want to fight, we'll fight. Or if you want to draw it out for the sake of avenging the dead and their suffering…." He shrugs, wearily. "Whatever's happened to you, you can't die permanently. I can. I can't win against you. Just…." He sways. "Don't hurt my servants. Let them go. They….that's all."
*
His entire stance is live-wire alertness now that Lamont is on his feet. Ambrose dares a step backwards now that the chair isn't in his pathway anymore. His expression is one of enraged offense, seen before when he was bound to the metal bedframe a year or so back. The lamplight gains momentary strenght in oil before dying down again, but not before glinting again off the silver coin at his throat and the metal grips of his guns.
"I'm not going to hurt your servants. They know no better," he replies, jaw almost locked. "You ask what end. To what end." Was that…his voice breaking slightly? "All I need to do is return the artifacts to their origins. I don't want to hurt anyone doing it. My very existence kills people!" Now his tone is strung tight. "And you, from your bloody thorny throne of self-importance, you SHOT ME like some trophy buck!" He swallows down the taste of bile, but not before spitting off to one side, heedless of the finery within the alcove. "There is no avenging the dead. They don't give a damn."
*
"I did," Lamont concedes, without hesitation. He stands across from Ambrose, blinking at him, a little owlish. "I thought that would be the end of you, the end of your interfering with my life and business. Though for what it's worth, I don't trade in any such things any more. Not after you. I'm not sure who does now….John Li, I think." He sighs, swallows, flinches a little as the motion irritates the wound. He's let it run, and there's a scarlet streak down his throat, a spreading stain on the white cotton of the shirt.
"But if you're going to kill me, then kill me. Be quick or take your time, the servants know not to come in here until late tomorrow morning. My death won't cure you, though. I don't know of anyone who can. If I were more clever, I'd say that I know someone who does, some lost bit of lore, but I don't." He spreads his hands. "Why lie?"
*
Ambrose's eyes fall to the man's neck and to the bright color visible now closer to the lamplight. He looks back to the man, but doesn't retreat further in the alcove. Apparently, an arm's length is enough space when one's incensed.
"Yes, why lie." The words are bitten out. "I know that you know nothing. Keep your false condolences to yourself." His voice falls out and he just stares now. Paralysis brought on by indecision? Mayhaps.
"…why would you leave the trade on account of me? I am nothing to you but a target and a stumbling block." He gestures in a cutting horizontal line in front of himself, almost close enough to cuff Lamont in the chest.
*
"I don't really know," he says, sitting down on the edge of the bed, looking up, propping his spine against the wooden wall that separates bed proper from the alcove. "It no longer seemed worth it. And it made the point that so often there's much tangled up in it…..old magic, curses, things unforeseen." He finally dabs at his neck with a fingertip, glances at the stain, then unbuttons first his cuff, then the placket of the shirt….and bundles it up to apply pressure to the wound. No staining the silk bedding or hangings. He's pale from the throat down, with silvery scars visible here and there. Blade and bullet, including the one on the shoulder that has to be a remnant of that encounter.
*
"Faugh." It's a near-silent sound of dissent at the sight of the wound care and Ambrose leaves the alcove entirely. Bared skin is skin in danger of a mere brush and lost life-energy. Out of immediate reach of the lamplight's small thrown circle, he's a figure nearly entirely inked out by the poor lighting of the rest of the room. Black hides him well in this instance. He can be tracked by the outline of his lean form against the contrast of the open balcony doors.
"…not worth it." His musing can be barely heard over the fall of the rain. "I won't see you again then, in my wanderings." The statement has the nuances of asking after a confirmation of sorts. The faint gleam from eyes proves that he's watching Lamont closely still.
*
He gets up to go into the little bathroom off to the side. The light comes on - in there, there's electric light, at least - and the door's left open, so Ambrose can see he's neither signalling for help nor retrieving a weapon; the gleaming straight razor is left folded on the shelf. Then the sound of running water….he returns after a little with the equivalent of a band-aid stuck to his throat. "I don't know, I can't promise that," he says, quietly. "Who knows what the future holds?"
*
Another sliding side-step or two moves him closer to the open doors of the balcony. He watches the other man's movements in suspicious silence. He notes no sudden motions or grabbing of a weapon, improvised or not. By the time Lamont emerges again, Ambrose is over by the frame of the balcony's portal and lingering likely out of a sense of misplaced propriety.
"Indeed, no one can predict it," he replies, his voice equally subdued. Then, another sound: it's not quite a laugh heard from the young man, but it is fairly miserable. "You said yourself that you intend to no longer stick your nose into my trade. I suspect that my druthers have no bearing on our paths crossing again. You've fingers in many other pies, sirrah." Now he simply sounds tired, as if the snarled revenge-fueled ball of intent has gone to ashes in his chest.
"Don't look for me. Don't send men…you'll get them back dead on your stoop. Don't meddle in my affairs. Stick to your drugs and prostitution and slow blackening of your soul. If you need to find me, for whatever…goddamn reason… I'll find you." His outline can be seen to reach about his neck. The excess length of headscarf is taken up and he tucks it onto place once more, preparing to leave the opium-scented retreat.
*
He actually chuckles, softly, coming in to the dimness of the room, illuminated only a little by the light from the bathroom and the lamp still burning in the alcove of the bed. "I've no desire to interfere with you. But I can tell you….your quest will not bring you peace, or a cure. You'd be better off searching for something to help you control it." Kent takes a deep breath. "Why this change of heart? You came hot-foot to kill me, and…." He gestures at himself. Still very much alive.
*
The rain continues to fall. Ambrose pauses now beneath the eaves of the balcony. Behind in, sheeting streams puddle and then flow again down from the constructed platform.
"You have no idea what will come of my efforts. You're not prescient. No one is." The wane light from outside catches at the coin resting on his chest, visible between the parting of vest. "I found a way to control it…or at least manage it, in my time away." By the bitterness of his explanation, he's still not happy for the necessity of a year and a day away from Shanghai. So many antiques missed! "That's why you're not lying on the bed, an unfortunate victim of an opium overdose."
The rhythm of the falling rain takes over his silence. He's thinking, apparently. Eventually, with time, Lamont gets his answer: "Because it is not honorable. Killing a man in a stupor. They should see their death coming with clear eyes, all the better to prepare for it and accept it."
*
"Honorable," he mouths back, almost silently. "Well. You can wait a bit, I'll sober up," Kent offers. Is he mad? So careless of his life, as if he can't resist pushing the issue to some sort of resolution tonight. There's a distinct gleam in his eyes.
*
Ambrose is definitely at least half a step out into the pouring rain when he hears that particular response. He freezes, then turns on his heel, and stares from where he stands, heedless of the pattering water on his head and shoulder.
"…are you mocking me?" His voice is ragged and papery-thin for needing to keep the burbling outrage from erupting and completely blowing his cover here at the bolthole. "Are you out of your mind?!" His hands fly wide for a second in a flabbergasted gesture. "No, you are. I am not falling for whatever idiotic scheme you've concocted." He points another accusatory finger. "No. You sober up and you enjoy that scar, because that's how I'm haunting you now, Ying Ko. Every single time you look in a mirror, you'll see it — and you'll remember that I spared your slovenly life instead of filleting you like a catfish."
*
"No, I'm not mocking you," he returns, patiently, standing calmly barefoot in the dim room. "I'm asking if you're putting this off and going to kill me later. That's my question - your intentions." Like he's not sure if Ambrose is asking him out on a date. "I already have a scar from you, anyway." He taps the bullet scar on his shoulder with a fingertip. "And I've been dreaming of you at least once a week since I killed you. 's why I thought you were just another apparition."
*
"You're desperately making me want to rethink my decision right now," Ambrose admits with no delight given the timbre of his growl. "I intend to do whatever I want, whenever I want, circumstances be damned. And fine, another scar," he 'allows' with a faint scoff. "But one more damning. Collars won't hide that one. The god…has bled." In this, he can take some delight.
He takes a step out into the rain entirely now. In the gloom, details are more visible now than before, when he was beneath the eaves. When he looks back at Lamont again, brows gathered in a frown, the silvering of the raindrops can be seen to melt into the black silk and darken it further. "I hope whatever dreams you had haunted you as well."
*
He doesn't follow. Not a step further. "I'm no god," he says, softly. "And you've no idea. Even you're not the worst of my nightmares, Ambrose Atherton."
A beat, and he says, with the faintest mocking edge, "Au revoir."
*
|ROLL| Ambrose +rolls 1d20 for: 11
*
The young man in his headscarf and soaked silks raised a hand in a sloppy salute. His cold smile is all in the eyes.
"If I've left you gasping in the night, I can count myself content. Bon courage, faux-god. I suggest your straight razor be your excuse if someone asks you of your neck out of pity — a shaky hand is the least embarrassing of potential answers." With that, he steps up to the balcony's railing and crouches, limbs coiling in readiment. It's clear that he intends to leap upon the roof and disappear into the night.
*
At that, Lamont laughs. "Generally I prefer to leave someone gasping by far more pleasant means," he retorts, eyes alight. "But I don't imagine your skills lie in that direction. And yes, I shall use my razor as my excuse."
*
He's beginning extension when the insinuation inserts itself into his attention as rudely as a fire axe into a door. A graceful shift in weight saves Ambrose from both fumbling visibly as well as falling to a painful landing in the courtyard below and then he's back to crouching in the rain, glaring daggers into the shadowy interior of the abode.
"…you haven't the slightest of what I can accomplish. Do not speak of what you do not know," the man in soaked silks counters in warning tone.
*
"Can you even touch someone, with that curse? Let alone hold it together long enough to take a lover?" Genuinely curious, by his tone. "That makes it all the worse, doesn't it, if you can't." Inserting the barbs, one by one, careful as a banderillero with a bloodied fighting bull.
*
The Jackal goes exceptionally still. One might wonder if he's a novel statue set for decorative purposes on the balcony's railing. Rain drips from the brim-like roll of his headscarf.
"…do not speak of what you do not know," he repeats in less-controlled modulation. Movement begins as he seems to be gathering up the shreds of his patience and setting once more for the energy-boosted arc up to the rooftop. Slippered feet rotate to balance gracefully on the painted length of wood and one hand extend off to an angle behind him, all the better to counter any water-aided lack of friction on the beam.
He can be the magnanimous one here. He knows it's needling. He has the honor. Gotta keep the honor intact. Gotta keep his temper in check. Gotta…
*
"…..I'm right, aren't I," It's not really a question. But some of that needling tone has left. "I'm sorry," he adds, more softly yet. "That's a curse indeed. No companion, all those years…."
*
"Yes. Yes, you're right, you bastard." The answer flies back into the bedroom through the falling rain. "Decades of no companionship and here you are, lord of the night-walkers. I hope you get a disease." Ambrose seems sincere in this wish, at least.
*
"I'm not a whore myself," Black points out, musingly. Then he asks, with an odd note come into his voice again, "Can you control it with willpower? Conscious effort? If you can, I might be able to help you." …..what precisely is he offering.
*
"What — "
Ambrose has to get down from his perch because it's apparently too much to process the implications and balance on ones toes at the same time. He pulls down the length of headscarf like as not to better breathe and it reveals his mouth, dropped open enough to reveal bottom teeth. A scoff.
"I can control it, yes," — this has the insistence of rattled nerves. "What in the hell are you asking after? I can kill you from here, man." He points at the wetted balcony below his feet.
*
The gray stare that meets that look is surprisingly guileless. "I know," he says. "Of course you can. I'm trying to buy you off, quite bluntly. Again. Because I can bolster your willpower, if you let me. Leave you longer before it takes you. Offer you a chance to rest without fear of it slipping control."
*
"…you cannot…?"
Within the denial is all the twisted brambling of broken faith and a frail hope that beats with nearly-broken wings and sings its whispery song. Ambrose stands up completely now, seemingly stunned by the offering put forth to him and heedless of how the rain runs down the back of his neck. Good God. After the years of enforced celebacy…is it…? Possible?
*
"I bet I can," the sorcerer states, firmly. "Willpower and its use are my specialty. You've only seen me use it for brute force, but I can be more subtle….or more helpful." He lifts his hands. "I don't know about actual sex right off the bat….and I'd have to be with you either during or right before. But …..well, forgive me, but how much time does the average man really need?" A dry note there.
*
Ambrose visibly flinches and shuts his mouth solidly. His expression goes withdrawn and defensive yet again; the stray curs on the street probably eye Lamont as he walks by with more faith.
"I believe I'll have to refuse your largesse yet again," he replies faintly, "because, frankly, I trust that logic about as much as I trust John Li to talk levelly with me." Which is apparently a very small amount. "I haven't seen an ounce of subtlety out of you since I sat down at the goddamn table."
*
His expression goes sphinxish, his spine straightening just a fraction. Lips pursing, like he's biting back a joke. "We've only ever been at daggers drawn, you and me." His mouth pulls to one side, despite his best efforts. Not quite making it to a smirk. "I'd say I'm willing to bet my life on it, but…..I don't think the direct test would appeal to you." He looks Ambrose over frankly. "You don't seem like someone who likes men that way."
*
"I said decades." He did, and there's so much more implied in the terse reminder, but how to explain? It's an opening to confession, but as he stands in the rain, Ambrose still weighs his chances against being taken for a fool. "It's brilliant bait to dangle…" That is a step towards the darkness before he pauses again. "…and you would be betting your life regardless of the approach. Simply buying me off, is it…?"
*
Black inclines his head, in acknowledgement. No mockery, no slyness. "It's what I have," he says, lapsing back into that calm again. No overt pity, either. "It's a risk, but…..so's my life. Has been since before the war. This is the one thing you can't buy or trade for, isn't it?" The gray-eyed man lays a hand over his heart, fingers splayed. "You've got too many scruples to murder someone for mere enjoyment, that's clear. I don't want you haunting me. Either I have something you might want, and that's enough reason to leave me be…..or I die in the attempt, and that's what you came here for, anyhow."
*
The admission seems the hardest thing for Ambrose to say yet. It's barely loud enough to be heard above the rain.
"This is the one thing I can't buy or trade for, yes." His echoed words fall like petals. He wipes a hand across one side of his face to remove the rain from it before scowling at Lamont inside, barely visibly in the darkness but for the lamplight. "How. How does it work?"
What can he get at this distance, where it's all too easy to lunge backwards and then to flight?
*
"Since it's an act of conscious will….let me strengthen yours. Think of a father teaching his child to steer a sailboat by holding the tiller - the child's still guiding, but he has his father's strength to hold things steady. I would not be in control, you would." He's pale, and his throat works. It's a risk on so many levels….. Shahrazad's gamble, that he can entertain this visitor well enough to buy his life. "You wouldn't have to think of it, after the first moment. You could do what you like." What a test - letting Ambrose loose on him, while he holds that balance. A better death than a knife to the throat if he loses, at least.
*
Even as Ambrose listens, he travels cautiously beneath the shade of the awning. Now he's close enough that the farthest-reaching glow of lamplight hits him and his coin. His face is slightly averted, as an animal might cock its head to better hear an unknown, but his eyes rest on Lamont.
"And why should I linger any longer than necessary after this strengthening? If I can place a palm upon your arm and find that the curse has lost its sting, nothing binds me here. Nothing," he repeats with steely insistence.
*
"I don't know how long it would last," he allows. "You would know better than I. I don't think it would be permanent." A glance past Ambrose at the street beyond the courtyar. "Gods know there are women enough for sale in this alley. But no, I swear I will attempt no compulsion, no binding of your will to mine. This is coin in trade, not a trap."
*
The lift of his lip in a small snarl is semi-visible. Not a trap, puh. The young man remains where he is, dripping a small puddle onto the floor.
"Swear on the thing you claim most holy in your life — swear that it's a matter of trade and not of anything else. Otherwise, I would not wager your life in this."
*
"I swear on the grave of my mother that it is a trade," The gray-eyed man's voice is utterly flat, insistent….and he shivers once, despite the warmth of the evening.
*
Oof. That is a heavy thing to swear on. Ambrose can be seen to tally the chances in his mind and then…comes the nod.
"No one swears on that lightly," he hedges. "So be it. Your strengthening in return for…what, my distance? Done." Another step into the bedroom and a hand reaches up to pull the rain-wetted headscarf back. Lightly-wetted hair is dark and drawn to pointed tips in places, mussed by the wrapping. "How is it done?" By the subtle tuck of his chin and chary behavior, he's still very much ready to lash out at Lamont.
*
"Come, sit, please." He retrieves the chair Ambrose kicked earlier, replaces it in the warm alcove of that absurd bed. And then he seats himself in its mate, where they'll be facing each other. "It's easier if I can touch you - hand to hand should be enough." There are goosebumps on the march over his skin.
*
Soundlessly, the brunet pads over to the enclosed bed. Flicking aside the curtains with fingers, he steps into the alcove and then seats himself. His spine is uncomfortably straight and by the close lamplight, his fingers can be seen to clench and then relax.
"You're either very brave or very stupid," Ambrose comments softly even as he reaches out a hand, palm up, and then rests his back knuckles upon the table. Already an intensity has gathered around his body, close to his skin, and can be seen in the glint of his eyes.
*
There's a faint flash of a smile, despite the strain in his face. "Both," he agrees, as he lays his own hand gently, palm to palm over Ambrose's. It isn't the one with the ring - he's reserving that power for himself, for now.
Then there's contact, and it's nothing like that crushing force of will that comes with his commands. Altogether more yielding - it comes with the sense of someone fitting his will entirely to Ambrose's, bolstering the strain of fighting off that curse. An imposed restraint, like a corset bolstering posture. Behind it, the accursed can dimly feel some of Kent's own emotions, soft as breath over skin. Fear, patience, curiosity….and that stretched thrill of daring. This is dangerous….and danger feels amazing. And an unease of exposure, for it is an intimacy of a kind….while the link lasts, it'd be all too easy for Ambrose to seize control, in his own way.
*
Lamont can likely feel the aborted knee-jerk reaction of long-practiced retreat; beneath his palm, Ambrose's hand scoots back a centimeter before he wills it to stay. The other man has chosen to touch him, it is beyond him if…
His eyes remain focused on the Shadow's other hand and they lid as if he's trying to see what he's feeling. The encircling of will is far kinder than the barked commands of cold intent he has seen, warmer and comforting in a way. It's like…a weight lifted from his shoulders. He swallows, hard, and then slowly begins to move his fingers. Like a flower closing petals for the night, he eventually wraps them entirely about Lamont's skin. He doesn't know what to make of the alien feelings kept at a fuzzy distance, but his own are brittle and bright as ancient glass: fear as well, of causing harm; disbelief, the numbing counterpart to a tremulous joy that presses against his composure like a river behind a dam. He frowns. There's the sense of double-checking, triple-checking, and then four times over checking where the current of the Bane runs.
It runs at lowest wattage, almost as if soothed by a lullaby — present but uninclined to lash out.
His gaze rises to the Shadow's face. The oceanic-blues glisten even as he stares, mouth hanging open wordlessly.
*
The gray eyes have gone cloudy, vague. Too inward turned, mentally, to track what he sees before him. Busy preserving that balance, marshalling his feelings into a calm that'll let him hold things still for some real duration. "'s working," It's a whisper. "Good. If you want to sleep while I do this, I think I could hold it for a few hours…" That sense of surrender only increases, far more passive then his usual exertions of strength. Like a man yielding to a burden he has to carry for a while.
*
"…I — " He has to try again. Frog in his throat, excuse him. He's absolutely not being strangled by his emotions. Along the mental link, breathless disbelief continues to crackle like pop-rocks. Ambrose marshals himself and his mouth moves as he tries to make the words come out of his mind. There's a simple answer, but this is…witchcraft. That is his skin on another living being's skin without feeling the Bane's fangs sink in and begin to siphon off the life-energy. That's the simplicity of human contact without the heart-wrench of worry.
"I don't sleep. Haven't since I was cursed." He wants to look up at the other man's face again, but apparently, the clavicle is a safer viewpoint. "The Bane doesn't allow it. I think it has something to do with the life absorbed."
*
"I'm sorry," Lamont's voice is distant, and his lids have fallen to veil his eyes. He sounds like an oracle in a trance. There's that bulletwound tucked beneath the clavicle, a little puckered circle, a reminder of past encounters.
It is utter sorcery weaving this momentary bond between them. His smile goes dreamy, pleased. "Working," he says again. "Not sure it would."
*
"I'm sorry too. I miss sleeping." Ambrose replies in a near whisper even as his eyes linger on the scar. That was his doing. He acknowledges it without hesitation upon sight. That was the heat of battle; this is something else entirely.
His grip on Lamont's wrist doesn't shift. If anything, he's silently terrified that jostling it will bring down this moment woven of fragile lamplight and castles upon clouds. "I wasn't sure either," he admits in a true whisper this time. "I never thought I'd find…that I would continue living on and never…" His throat goes too tight for further speech.
*
"It feels strange, to hold and not force," he confesses, dreamily. The drug is fading, a little, but it's still a help, in its weird way. "You're not hurting me," he assures Ambrose, in that dry whisper. "Not taking. See?" Meant to reassure.
*
"I see," say Ambrose in voice gone paper thin. He doesn't trust it further and falls into silence. The lamplight wavers as it does with the influx of rain-scented air and dapples the interior of the alcove. It dances across the Shadow's face, set in concentration, and across the Jackal's face, where he apparently can't decide how he feels about things. It's all bottled up but for where the glistening dares to gather at the outer corners of his eyes.
"Here, let me go," he finally says, words rough. "I need to see if it lingers." Time to face reality. The harshness of his eternal sentencing is a familiar bulwark compared to this impossible place of contentment.
*
IT's as gentle as he can make it, this detaching. That presence stealing away like smoke rising on still air. His hand releases its grip, falls to his lap. Only slowly does he open his eyes, and there's another shiver.
*
Across the table, Ambrose allows his own lids to fall shut, all the better to mark what he's learning to recognize within his mind. It's like the evaporation of water from skin, but lighter still, the mentally-ticklish separation of the willing. Like someone untying the lacings of the corset, he feels the support fall away to the floor as ash as the Bane rouses from its momentary stupor. It slips along beneath his skin and he recognizes the low-level buzz of reaching pins-and-needles, already aimed at the Shadow. His hand flies away back across the table as if burned.
"Son of a bitch," he spits even as he jerks to his feet almost fast enough to upend the table. The chair falls backwards and he stumbles away out into the room proper, expression gone haunted and pale.
*
"That's one thing I've been called, yes," Lamont acknowledges, with neither hesitation nor shame. There's no gleam of amusement in the sea-gray eyes, as he gazes at Ambrose. Still sitting calmly in his chair, looking at his countryman with that sphinx's cool. "It did work, though. You see." He inclines his head.
*
"Don't," he pleads, as if the circumstances of provider verses gain are too much for his frazzled brain to handle. He continues moving towards the balcony, on the retreat with ears pinned and tail tucked. Instead of the self-composed control, he weaves as if almost drunk. "Please, don't." Ambrose's voice is clogged with the sour taste of shock.
*
Puzzlement's clear in that bird-like cock of his head. "What's wrong? Did it make you sick?" he asks. But he doesn't rise, let alone advance. The last thing he wants is for Ambrose to feel he'sbeen backed into a corner.
*
"Too much — too much at once." There's little logic to be found in his responses. His voice is barely audible. "You — that it had to be you!" He makes it to the doorframe and leans heavily against it, head bowed and arms wrapped tightly around himself. His entire frame shivers. The Bane hasn't yet reached to Lamont just yet, but it's a creeping miasm expanding rapidly out from the young man, what with his emotions suddenly out of control as a nuclear reactor might overheat.
*
Black's not unaware of the irony - the one person he can touch is someone he despises. His lips thin out, brow furrowing in worry. "Is there something that could help you? Medicine, quiet…." He's got very little direct experience with curses, and this one's a doozy.
*
Ambrose has the wherewithal to look back over his shoulder towards the bedset, to where Lamont sits in the lamp-lit interior of the bedset. His expression hasn't lost the gaunt hollows that possess it.
"I'm going to drink myself blind. Don't look for me. Don't hunt. Don't you dare think to command me. Just…don't." A great idea, that. Let's get the host of the Bane so staggeringly intoxicated that he has literally no conceptualization of control over his curse. This can only end well.
*
"……will you lose control over it if you do?" Not quite pleading, not yet. The last thing he wants is to provoke Ambrose into making things worse. "Please, don't," His throat works, jaw tight. What has he unleashed?
*
"I don't care." It has the tone of numb truth. The maelstrom of personal discoveries overshadows the need to vouchsafe others around him. "I don't care," he repeats, as if it's necessary to excuse his stance on current affairs. "Don't you care. Don't. You don't. I can't trust you at all," and he laughs, the sound brittle and broken.
*
"I can't do anything to you, not permanently," His voice is low, soft. "There's nothing I can say. You know what I am." He sounds almost humble, strangely enough. At least Ambrose hasn't unleashed the curse, or come after him with the knife still in the bed.
*
Ambrose's voice becomes more fractured yet. "Yes, I do. You're a ne'er-do-well…and a cold-hearted bastard, and — and — " A blur of an arm must be a dismissive wave of his hand. "No more. None. That's it." He swipes at his face in passing. "You get your distance, Mister Black. You get it in spades," he insists. "If I see you again…"
He has no plan yet, that's clear by how the thought dead-ends as unfinished railroad. The motions of bundling up his face once more behind the anonymity of the headscarf are uncoordinated.
*
Oh, this is worse. There's no move to stop Ambrose, or to command him. That expression of worry fades, leaving his face grim and set. Merely watching Ambrose go - it's like watching a typhoon come over the horizon, knowing there's nowhere to run for shelter.
*
And off the thunderstorm rolls, in the form of a young man in rain-soaked silks that cling as he steps up to the railing of the balcony and vaults from it. Ambrose disappears into the night and leaves behind him a wake of shadow and possibly the wonderment at how many bottles of sake it may take to drown what fresh sorrows are unearthed.
*