[The nickname had slipped out inadvertently, not intended as a weapon. Kostos, true to form, turns it against him. Nikos, true to form, feels the pinch of anger in his chest, that he was outwitted, that he'd missed the opportunity for a strike. Always one step behind. Age five, age fifteen, age thirty, it doesn't matter. This pisses him off.]
Depends. Would you deign to say please? [He tips his head, expectant sarcasm.] I do feel honored that you're talking to me at all. It's so much more pleasant than chasing around a glimpse of you in profile from the other end of a long table in some shit Circle library. I used to pretend that was a game.
[--Which sounds more pathetic than it is. In truth, it made Nikos angry. Once Nikos told Marisol that she could befriend her reflection, and she'd spent the morning staring into a pool of water in the garden, talking to herself. She'd had fun with it. So it hadn't been satisfying, or as funny as he'd remembered it being, when it was a trick he and Kostos had played on Keto. And that's what visiting Kostos had felt like. Nikos at one end of a table and his brother at the other. And every time he moved, to try to get in Kostos' line of sight, Kostos would look away. Very grim, very blasé. Nikos left bitemarks on the windowsill of the carriage. He'd chew at it in frustration all the way home.]
Because I was an idiot. [If he says it first, no one can insult him.] Will you choke, if you say please? As long as you don't die, I can stand to watch you choke. A little.
[ At least Nikos doesn’t want him to die. That’s something. It’s not enough of something that Kostos doesn’t spend a few seconds glaring across the room at his brother, sullen focus unwavering even when the wisp drifts between them. But it is enough—not the fact that Nikos doesn’t want him to die, but the fact he said so, in the midst of all that—that he doesn’t turn and storm off to find something to kick and something different to drink.
Later he’ll think about the expanse of the table in the Circle, Nikos at nine, the space he and Keto left for him to occupy alone in that enormous house, and then he’ll probably open a bottle.
Now, he doesn’t choke. Quite. He grits his teeth, jaw flexing, and unfolds his arms, and looks at the bundle in his hands, and says it quickly: ]
Please.
[ The fabric of the universe doesn’t unravel. Kostos takes a breath and a half step forward, just one foot. ]
Nikos. Do whatever you want with it, I don’t— [ —care, but he does, intensely. ] No one else has the right.
[Like tricking Marisol, this please is dissatisfying. Or at least not as satisfying as Nikos would have wanted. His heartbeat is weirdly loud in his head, and he can feel his pulse in his fingertips, and he wants very badly to scratch at his right arm, that compulsive urge that he has never quite managed to put aside.
Instead he clenches his hands into fists. The deep-down feeling spirals on, in his chest. He glares at Kostos. Not at the bundle, or the wisp, or anything else in this stupid fucking room in stupid fucking Kirkwall.]
I didn't ask for it. [It comes out more sullen than earnest, stilted by how his jaw feels tight like a bear trap. But so what.] The-- right. I didn't ask.
[The responsibility. The obligation. It would all have been easier, maybe, if Nikos had grown up hating his brother, but he didn't. Couldn't. Fighting like wild dogs wasn't the same as hate.
He makes himself look, finally, at the bundle in Kostos' hands. A thing that could obliterate his brother.
Brusque, abrupt, wordless, he holds out his hand.]
He doesn't spend time deciding before pressing the wrapped phylactery into Nikos' hand, his own darting forward and back without hesitation or lingering. Possible eagerness to be rid of it and possible concern Nikos might change his mind if Kostos opens his mouth and says the wrong thing are equally plausible explanations, but for the record it's the latter slightly more than the former.
That taken care of, he returns to the problem of what he's supposed to say to that. ] I know, [ isn't enough. But I'm sorry is out of the question, when he's already spit out a please, no matter how true it is and has been for the majority of their lives. So is neither did I, because it doesn't matter what Kostos asked for anymore than it matters whether or not a man asked for the plague. It's still fucking shitty to ask someone healthy to come around to do the dishes.
And thank you is just stupid. The last time he said thank you to Nikos was at one of those long Circle tables, distantly, picking at the edges of paper around a gift he never opened, and not really to Nikos so much as the whole set of Averesches he was avoiding looking at. The first time might have been when he asked him to knock out his front baby teeth so they could keep pace, keep confusing the tutor, and then it was mainly for the fun of fumbling the th sound through his new gap. ]
—I owe you.
[ Also stupid, insufficient, doubtful Nikos will ever need anything from him enough to ask, but it's said, so that's that. To prove it—or to make an inadequate little step in that direction, at least—he gestures, and the wisp and its hum disappear, like a fistful of sediment released back into a river. ]
[The phylactery doesn't feel like anything. Almost weightless. Whatever Nikos expected, this isn't it. Was he making it bigger, weightier, because of the way Kostos was acting about it? Or because of what he knows of phylacteries?--societally, socially, religiously, out of hearsay and books alike, thanks to all those years of private education.
Nikos turns away and puts the wrapped package down on the table, next to his jug of wine. With his back to Kostos, he uses his index finger to push the phylactery closer to the stack of books, keeping it away from the edge. It still looks small and rather stupid.]
They make these too important. [--instead of saying anything about what he is or isn't owed.] Everyone. You, the Circles, the Templars. They make these too important. Just because a man has a weapon that could--level a city-- but no one makes a phylactery for a king to keep him in line. He has an army. He could do fucking anything. They don't care.
[He picks up his cup of wine and drains the last of it. Picks up the jug and pours out, again.]
It's red, [he says, to Kostos, without looking at him.] Almost fitting.
[Like blood. Get it? It's his turn to push something on Kostos. And he turns right around and does, with the jug still in his hand, without couching the offer with words. The cup of wine that he was just drinking from, and it was dirty when he started drinking from it, so it's doubly dirty now. He holds it out to his brother all the same.]
[ It isn't the same. But Kostos can't say that it isn't the same, because the reason why—if a king woke in the middle of the night and ordered his army to slaughter his family, they would send him back to bed—is, if not an open wound, at least a favored ankle, liable to twist again under pressure.
He can't say it, but his brow furrows and his head tilts in obvious disagreeableness, all before the dirty cup is offered, at which point the furrow deepens. He's put worse in this mouth, by far. But it feels like a detente, when they haven't discussed terms, and that's—
He takes the cup, but he tips it toward Nikos first, in warning. ]
Do not try to recruit me. [ Without much feeling. He doesn't think Nikos would; he isn't sure how much he would really object to the ideas Nikos and his friends advocate, anymore, if pressed past the point of disagreeing out of habit. ] But do keep comparing me to a king. I like that part.
[With an equal lack of feeling, Nikos advises,] Fuck off.
[Dirty cup is better than jug, which is what Nikos uses as his cup: a swig, directly from the mouth. There isn't much left to it, a knowledge that scratches at Nikos somewhere below even the prickly tense feeling under the scar and skin of his right arm.
He meets Kostos' eye anyways, his gaze even and unimpressed.]
I wouldn't want you anyways. Questionable loyalties and a fucking awful lot of debt.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2018-06-25 04:15 pm (UTC)Depends. Would you deign to say please? [He tips his head, expectant sarcasm.] I do feel honored that you're talking to me at all. It's so much more pleasant than chasing around a glimpse of you in profile from the other end of a long table in some shit Circle library. I used to pretend that was a game.
[--Which sounds more pathetic than it is. In truth, it made Nikos angry. Once Nikos told Marisol that she could befriend her reflection, and she'd spent the morning staring into a pool of water in the garden, talking to herself. She'd had fun with it. So it hadn't been satisfying, or as funny as he'd remembered it being, when it was a trick he and Kostos had played on Keto. And that's what visiting Kostos had felt like. Nikos at one end of a table and his brother at the other. And every time he moved, to try to get in Kostos' line of sight, Kostos would look away. Very grim, very blasé. Nikos left bitemarks on the windowsill of the carriage. He'd chew at it in frustration all the way home.]
Because I was an idiot. [If he says it first, no one can insult him.] Will you choke, if you say please? As long as you don't die, I can stand to watch you choke. A little.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-16 06:26 am (UTC)Later he’ll think about the expanse of the table in the Circle, Nikos at nine, the space he and Keto left for him to occupy alone in that enormous house, and then he’ll probably open a bottle.
Now, he doesn’t choke. Quite. He grits his teeth, jaw flexing, and unfolds his arms, and looks at the bundle in his hands, and says it quickly: ]
Please.
[ The fabric of the universe doesn’t unravel. Kostos takes a breath and a half step forward, just one foot. ]
Nikos. Do whatever you want with it, I don’t— [ —care, but he does, intensely. ] No one else has the right.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-19 04:45 pm (UTC)Instead he clenches his hands into fists. The deep-down feeling spirals on, in his chest. He glares at Kostos. Not at the bundle, or the wisp, or anything else in this stupid fucking room in stupid fucking Kirkwall.]
I didn't ask for it. [It comes out more sullen than earnest, stilted by how his jaw feels tight like a bear trap. But so what.] The-- right. I didn't ask.
[The responsibility. The obligation. It would all have been easier, maybe, if Nikos had grown up hating his brother, but he didn't. Couldn't. Fighting like wild dogs wasn't the same as hate.
He makes himself look, finally, at the bundle in Kostos' hands. A thing that could obliterate his brother.
Brusque, abrupt, wordless, he holds out his hand.]
no subject
Date: 2018-07-20 05:28 am (UTC)He doesn't spend time deciding before pressing the wrapped phylactery into Nikos' hand, his own darting forward and back without hesitation or lingering. Possible eagerness to be rid of it and possible concern Nikos might change his mind if Kostos opens his mouth and says the wrong thing are equally plausible explanations, but for the record it's the latter slightly more than the former.
That taken care of, he returns to the problem of what he's supposed to say to that. ] I know, [ isn't enough. But I'm sorry is out of the question, when he's already spit out a please, no matter how true it is and has been for the majority of their lives. So is neither did I, because it doesn't matter what Kostos asked for anymore than it matters whether or not a man asked for the plague. It's still fucking shitty to ask someone healthy to come around to do the dishes.
And thank you is just stupid. The last time he said thank you to Nikos was at one of those long Circle tables, distantly, picking at the edges of paper around a gift he never opened, and not really to Nikos so much as the whole set of Averesches he was avoiding looking at. The first time might have been when he asked him to knock out his front baby teeth so they could keep pace, keep confusing the tutor, and then it was mainly for the fun of fumbling the th sound through his new gap. ]
—I owe you.
[ Also stupid, insufficient, doubtful Nikos will ever need anything from him enough to ask, but it's said, so that's that. To prove it—or to make an inadequate little step in that direction, at least—he gestures, and the wisp and its hum disappear, like a fistful of sediment released back into a river. ]
no subject
Date: 2018-07-23 09:48 pm (UTC)Nikos turns away and puts the wrapped package down on the table, next to his jug of wine. With his back to Kostos, he uses his index finger to push the phylactery closer to the stack of books, keeping it away from the edge. It still looks small and rather stupid.]
They make these too important. [--instead of saying anything about what he is or isn't owed.] Everyone. You, the Circles, the Templars. They make these too important. Just because a man has a weapon that could--level a city-- but no one makes a phylactery for a king to keep him in line. He has an army. He could do fucking anything. They don't care.
[He picks up his cup of wine and drains the last of it. Picks up the jug and pours out, again.]
It's red, [he says, to Kostos, without looking at him.] Almost fitting.
[Like blood. Get it? It's his turn to push something on Kostos. And he turns right around and does, with the jug still in his hand, without couching the offer with words. The cup of wine that he was just drinking from, and it was dirty when he started drinking from it, so it's doubly dirty now. He holds it out to his brother all the same.]
no subject
Date: 2018-07-29 06:28 am (UTC)He can't say it, but his brow furrows and his head tilts in obvious disagreeableness, all before the dirty cup is offered, at which point the furrow deepens. He's put worse in this mouth, by far. But it feels like a detente, when they haven't discussed terms, and that's—
He takes the cup, but he tips it toward Nikos first, in warning. ]
Do not try to recruit me. [ Without much feeling. He doesn't think Nikos would; he isn't sure how much he would really object to the ideas Nikos and his friends advocate, anymore, if pressed past the point of disagreeing out of habit. ] But do keep comparing me to a king. I like that part.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-07 06:07 pm (UTC)[Dirty cup is better than jug, which is what Nikos uses as his cup: a swig, directly from the mouth. There isn't much left to it, a knowledge that scratches at Nikos somewhere below even the prickly tense feeling under the scar and skin of his right arm.
He meets Kostos' eye anyways, his gaze even and unimpressed.]
I wouldn't want you anyways. Questionable loyalties and a fucking awful lot of debt.