Summary:Ambrose returns to inform Kent of a good many things, including the invisibility ring once more in his possession and precisely what happened that century and more ago in the tomb outside of Basra. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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The front door opens and closes with a quiet sound, swish, thunk. A sigh follows as Ambrose stoops to unlace his jackboots to better leave them by the door than track the spring moisture further into the house. In this habit, at least, he is tamed. Shrugging his field coat off, it reveals him in a thick cream-colored turtleneck in contrast to his dark fatigue pants; padded black socks enable him to make little sound as he crosses the expanse of the living room to enter the kitchen. On the way, the Jackal with moonsilvered-hair grabs up one of the folded blankets tossed over the back of the sitting couch to wrap around his shoulders in a draping of warmth.
Then follows the familiar cadence of tea making. The water runs at the sink, the kettle is set upon the range-top, and he can be heard to grumble to himself as he rustles for a loose-leaf satchet of blackcurrent in particular to put into the tea-egg set beside a mug pulled from the cupboard.
"If that little scamp thinks to fuss with the organization of my tea again, I will…tell her off."
Dog husband comes ambling up the stairs, ears perking as he sights Ambrose. Kent in human form is the essence of dignified reserve. Kent as a Daniff is sloppy, floppy, and transparent as glass when it comes to his feelings….and that big tail is wagging furiously as he clicks across the kitchen to shove his muzzle into his husband's crotch. Just another day in this weird household.
Shoving his muzzle there is likely worth the reaction. Having blindly offered one hand down for a sniffing while the other was occupied in clicking the tea-egg shut, Ambrose's eyes go wide and he makes a sound along the lines of:
"WHOO-FAH-HAH-WHAT — «Azizam»," as he rolls a step or two back off the subtle lift of canine nose. "Good ruddy lord, you dog." It's not really an insult when the object of the slur is, in fact, a dog. Squinting down at the floppy-mouthed Hound, he then reaches to smooth a palm along the dome of skull and down the neck before stooping to press a kiss between the dog's eyebrow-dots.
"Would you like some tea then? It seemed appropriate enough given the grey of the evening." A gesture towards the kitchen window showcasing this very cast of dusk-darkening cloud is languid and yet moreso: tired. The darkness beneath his coal-glowing pupils hasn't lightened much and the slump to his shoulders means the errand recently completed with Astryd and Fenris took more out of him than he expected.
His fur is silky and short. No undercoat - he'd need a dog coat to go comfortably out in a New York winter. Yes, he has a couple. And booties. (They match). Ambrose gets an enormous, ridiculous grin, another wag of his tail….and a big sloppy wet dog kiss.
Only then does he reply, sweetly, I'd love some tea. He steps back and rears up and up and up into his human self, a strange, blurring motion. The idiotic grin lingers a moment, before settling into his far more human expression.
Another half-step back allows Kent the room to return to his usual human guise and as he does, he'll see his other half using the wrapping of blanket about his own arm to wipe at his chin. Dog drool, blech! Still, Ambrose returns that ridiculous grin with a half-smile of his own, enough to flash teeth in fondness towards the other gentleman.
"The usual then, I suppose?" Even as he's asking, the Jackal is fetching another mug from the cabinet and reaching to pluck the favored tea from the wooden tea box. "And…I have news," the master-thief adds more soberly, glancing over from now pouring water over both tea-eggs.
There is nothing boring or bland about their domesticity. A little island in a sea of strange fates and weird history, the home they've made. Kent's expression is fond, in its restrained way, as he props himself against the counter. "The usual, yes," he confirms.
Then he asks, gently, "What news, my dear?" Ambrose is no better than his dog self at concealing emotion….and surely the news will not be good.
Before his other half, Ambrose has no reason to hide what concerns him. It shows in the knitting of his brow and his swallow to follow, in the way his glowing pupils fall to watch the steam rising from the tea. Within the fall of the blanket about his shoulders, his arm can be seen to move.
A hand appears, closed into a fist, and he holds it before himself at an angle to include Kent in the revelation of…nothing other than the ring of invisibility with its opaque stone inset flat and presence on his palm. It looks as it did when he lost it, gleaming and gold.
"I spoke with the Finder, she who enabled me to find this those months back, and she said it made its way back to me — that there was more to be done with it." His eyes rise to Kent's face. "That, and…there is a way to better combat what threatens us and our family, but…" Again, his throat works, and a minute tremble works its way through him.
"There is a cost and a place to return to that I have only walked in my nightmares," he finishes more raspily. Beneath his skin, dry as an adder's belly-scales on sand, the Bane lazily slides through his aura.
The warmth in his face dies slowly away….and for a moment, he's the cold-eyed young man sitting at the table in Shanghai. Beautiful linen suit, panama hat, and a heart of diamond glass, pitiless as a cobra. His gaze rests on the ring for a little silent while, and then he holds out a hand for it, for Ambrose to drop it in if he chooses.
"Of course," he says, voice a litle die-away. A glance for his own ring, gleaming like a drop of oil on his finger. "What did she say? And what cost?" He knows what he *doesn't* know - that even now there are dark places that Ambrose trod in their decades apart that he's never heard of.
Rotating his wrist sends the ring to slide at a speed to land with a gentle impact upon Kent's palm. It doesn't weigh much, feeling surprisingly light for the thickness of the band itself. It doesn't give off any odd nuance or cause a reaction; if anything, it seems innocent and innocuous as a windowpane.
His phone appears and as the tea steeps, Ambrose flicks through to the high-quality pictures he took of what appear to be ancient pages from an equally ancient tome, its writing Hieratic. The first showcases what appears to be a scarab with script beside it. "Firstly, that there is a way to defend ourselves. This creature here, this venerated insect, is to be combined as an element of a recipe including blood and sand. It allows a resistance to the powers of those creatures from the Void. We are in luck that the Asgardian Embassy has some from a…prior incident."
Then he flicks to the next picture and simply lays out the phone on the counter. It's the ring, a precise match for it, with more text beside it. Now Ambrose leans his palms on the counter, head somewhat hung. "The ring may be further empowered and…my curse may manipulate its basic ability, but…they must be…bonded in the place wherein I accrued my Fate."
The tomb where his humanity was lost.
Of course, he picks it, holds it up with a critical look. The silvery eyes narrow in contemplation. By the way they go clouded and vague, he's looking at it with sight beyond the ordinary. Then he lowers it, to peer at what Ambrose shows him on the phone.
His expression goes very grave indeed. "What do you mean?" As if he asked the question to provoke a different answer. Like he's hoping he doesn't comprehend. Wants very much, in fact, to not be right. Like a child turning its face away from an answer it doesn't want to hear.
Curling his fingers in makes the near-silent drag of nails on the countertop. Ambrose droops his head all the more, eyes scrunched shut as if he might also not see what the words are going to conjure up before his inner eye. A slow inhale and exhale before he tries, voice now noticeably hoarse.
"The…outside of Basra, twenty kilometers out…" Speech fails him. His lips twitch. Reaching for the steaming mug of blackcurrent tea, he risks a mouthful at risk of burning his tongue. He undoubtedly does by the slow hiss to leave his teeth after he swallows, but it grounds him in the now and the present. "The tomb."
His instant, knee-jerk reaction is a very childish impulse to cry 'No, you can't! I won't let you!' But it isn't up to him, is it? Not at all. Fate may have left them alone for a while….but she's never abandoned them. Not really. Not for long. Ambrose can see his throat work, see him literally swallow the words with a nearly audible gulp. Then he hangs his head for a moment, jaw tight. "There's no choice, is there?" he asks. It has that pleading note in it, for all his reserve….and the silvery eyes are brighter yet, with unshed tears.
"I do not know of another way at this moment," the Jackal hedges in a voice ironed as flat as he can manage; it still grits out of him, rasps for his burnt throat now. "But if it is something that spares our family further threat, I will not hesitate to step within, nightmares be damned."
Sleeking around in his aura yet, the Bane settles about his shoulders like a mink scarf, projecting a vague and indolent pleasure at the idea of returning to a familiar place.
"I know not what will happen, only that…that there are words I must speak in that place which will allow me to further protect us all." His phone screen has long since gone black, the page showcasing the ring and the instructions disappeared. He dares to look up and over at Kent, his own face eloquent of exhaustion. "My heart…please, do not…" Don't cry.
His expression is ridiculous. A hardened killer, lips pressed firmly together to keep them from trembling, eyes gone tight, almost suspicious, to keep the tears from falling. HE sniffs a few times, lifts his head - that trick where you tilt it at an angle to make sure that they won't slip free. "I'll go with you," he says. His tone brooks no denial. None at all.
Gently, he proffers the ring back.
Ambrose's own smiles wobbles around the corners. His gaze falls to the ring sitting so quietly in the middle of the Hound's palm. With fingers trembling slightly, he reaches and plucks up the golden circle to slip it away back into the pocket of his fatigue pants. Then, as his smile fractures into something more broken, his own eyes fill.
He steps hard into Kent and clings to him, fingertips digging into his shoulder and side. A quiet sob muffles into the other man's neck. I am so afraid, comes the admission in a small, tired mental voice — the whimper of a child in a dark room after waking up from a night terror.
There's that strength there, now as it was before, in Shanghai. Indomitable will, unafraid to defy gods or the fates. He wraps his arms around his husband, brings that dark head to his shoulder. It is frightening, he agrees. But I will not let anything happen to you. I will be with you. We will do this. You belong to me, and I will not let anything in this world or any other take you from me.
He smells of myrrh and incense, of sandalwood soap and tea and his own sweat. All of it that familiar melange….and for a blessing, untainted by the bitterness of drugs.
Perhaps the master-thief with his moonsilvered hair just needed to hear it said. Kent's words ring as true as they did that century ago, even more resonantly deep and strong for the lifetime spent in separation and in training alike. It doesn't stop Ambrose from his quiet sobbing, barely any sound or strength in it. Tears wet the skin he shoves his face against, seeking the comfort of a familiar pulse and scent he'd know above all others, even in a state of amnesia.
I know this well — nothing will part us, *nothing* — but I do not want to go back. I died there — my life died there and Oliver died there and Rupert died there and Georgie died there and — A harder sob leaves him and shakes his body still grasping Kent as if he were a spar of wood on the ocean's surface. The blanket half-falls from his shoulders unnoticed by him.
He's only ever known the immortal. Not the young, brash lieutenant….but the traces have always been there, haven't they? Like fossils by impression in the rock. Kent unashamedly nuzzles his face into his husband's hair, sighs. I know, it's frightening. Of course you don't want to return. But we will, and we will conquer. It will be hard, but we will win, he says, silently. The tea is neglected in favor of just holding him. Let us go down and lie in bed?
Reduced to sniffling and shuddering exhales, the Jackal nods against his husband's throat. The Bane seems to be cowed by the whole display, brought low into his bones like the embers of a fire by the proximity to Kent in subconscious habit and the mentalist's willpower alike.
He pulls away and grabs up the blanket to wipe at his face, his blue eyes all the brighter for the tears and the red rims of his lash-line. "Y-yes, m-may-maybe bed for a little bit. I am tired," he breathes. A hiccup and another dash across his cheek, his gaze now averted off to one side in old Victorian embarrassment at losing his steely spine. "I…I can do this, K-Kent, I can." It has the sound of a personal pep-talk. His throat works again as he looks up and meets those grey eyes he knows so well. "We can," he amends. "God…if I did not have you, I…" His shrug is small and yet expresses so much more wordlessly.
"I would be a monster and then a dead monster," Kent returns, that maddening serenity tempered by gentleness. "Come rest with me. I will hold you." Words spoken aloud….and it's clear he means more than a physical embrace. That mental bond, being a support in the way he can. "I know you can. You may not *need* me for this…..but do let me help. We'll give them *such* a surprise." There's a rich satisfaction in his voice, as he turns to lead Ambrose down to their bedroom.
A weak attempt at a smile flickers around the master-thief's lips as Kent speaks as a recognizable tone of envious composure. He goes, docile as a lamb, with the Hound's directing arm at the small of his back and the tea is left behind forgotten to cool, to be remembered later as an after-thought and groaned at.
Ambrose makes his way to the master bed still wrapped in his blanket. He remains within it and atop the covers as he lies down, half-curling automatically on himself like a salted slug. A last hard sniffle seems to be the point of better reeling in his own tattered dignity.
"It has been so long," he volunteers barely above a whisper. "Some selfish part of me wishes the tomb to be buried so deep as to not be found…"
But the Bane will unerringly know where it sat for millennia before rediscovery and its host knows this in his heart of hearts.
For once, Kent insists on being big spoon….and he gets into bed only after stripping down to his boxers. Like ordinary clothes wouldn't be right. He doesn't insist on the Jackal stripping, this is no prelude to lovemaking, not right off the bat. He just nuzzles in to that silvery hair, and sighs.
"I know," he says. "But…..stories like ours….one always returns. Returns to those points. I will go and go again to Shambhala, so long as this world endures and the Masters live. This…..your curse is a tool to end gods. It makes sense that titans would strive for it….and that we must fight to make our own way."
Kent's hand will find itself captured and brought up before his husband's lips; a kiss is pressed and held there with pressure as if Ambrose meant to tattoo the affection on his knuckles permanently. He then keeps the hand close to his face. His breath will be felt to cross over it even before he talks again.
"I have never fought gods like this," he replies, voice still dry and almost a whisper. "One god, yes, and a goddess so recently, but…" A shifting within his blanketing of covers above the blanket he stole from the couch is uncomfortable nerves still lingering. "You must know your own power, my heart? Your presence at the…the tomb may tip the very scales of Fate. I…you will keep me knowing myself, yes?" he asks so very quietly, his heart quailing at the idea of losing himself completely to the passionate starvation of the curse's influence.
For all the warmth and intimacy of their posture - this is their bed, so often imprinted by the weight of their bodies - in the kythe is that cool shadowy form. That obdurate will, the black hound.
"I will. You know my will. You know it's stronger than yours, even now. Anything foolish enough to contend with me for you will come to regret it. Regret it bitterly," He can't see their foes, not yet. But he knows himself, he knows what he is….and a century of a bond, of lives given and taken…it gives him that steely assurance. "I will be with you, you will be able to lean on me."
"I shall lean on you then, my heart," whispers the Jackal in the cool dimness of the downstairs master bedroom. His extremities are still chilled despite the blanket and the shiver to run through him is excess adrenaline burning out in his veins. Kent's hand is gripped harder in a passing spasm. "I wish there were a way to prepare you better for what you may see, but…even I know not what will come of returning to the place."
Across the flat star-bright waters of the kythe comes flickering visions of the tomb itself — snippets faster than the blink of an eye — filled with the nausea of repression being strained.
He's arrogant, this one. But he's not stupid, nor is he naive. There are powers abroad in the world great enough to annihilate them with a glance. So there are no blind assurances that they will conquer, not from Kent.
But nor is there any wavering from him. "I know it will be difficult," he says, as he cuddles up to his husband. "But show me as much as you can. I've never asked to pry into those memories because I know they're profoundly sensitive…..it seems like the time has come."
Ambrose shifts back harder against the bracing solidity and warmth of his other half. He can be heard to swallow and, again, quiver. But he then closes his eyes, the better to concentrate on very carefully pulling up these memories from the inky depths of repression — as delicately as one might remove a nuclear cell from its mooring.
At first, the waters of the kythe are still. Then, as if wiping to another time and place, they reflect Ambrose's own field of vision.
Dunes roll in golden waves against a sky searingly blue. It's hot; sweat trickles down his neck. Beneath him, his horse sidles in the grouping before the clay-brick tomb.
The Bane lifts its head from its resting place in Ambrose's bones, emitting a low crocodilian rumble.
He dismounts, knowing his men are beside him: young Rupert, middle son Georgie, James the squirrely, and Oliver on look-out, falcon at his glove as he laughs about having a sharp eye. The descent into the tomb is a slide down a slope; adrenaline wars with excitement — this place is *old* and full of mystery, much better than a routine patrol. Big stone doors, only opened after Rupert swore there was no curse upon opening them.
Ambrose shudders in the now, a single tear sliding from the corner of his eye to disappear along his temple and into the pillow.
He holds up a torch, James has the other, both provide some light. The glow sprawls over some architecture in the back, outlined by a moat of…silver liquid. What's that?
The vision fractures and Ambrose brings his hands to his face, shivering in earnest now.
Kent simply clings to Ambrose, wrapping arms and legs around him. Nuzzles against his nape, offers the warm huff of breath. He doesn't urge him to continue. Not yet. Take strength from me. There's that doggish growl at the back of his mental voice….and Ambrose can feel the solidity of his canine self. For all his slenderness as a man, he's a fighting Molosser as a dog, heavy of bone and indomitable….and loyal. All of that's there on offering, warming as liquor.
Still trembling, the Jackal nods. He doesn't remove his hands from his face; rather, he folds his fingers under to press them against his mouth, his eyes still scrunched tightly shut. What strength is on offer feels to blend into his back, into his spine and forward, into his heart and then up into his mind. The kythe's waters slow in their shimmering jumping as the Hound's influence helps his other half bring some semblance of composure back to the revelation.
Again, the waters flush with vivid memory.
What *is* that…? Only he walks forward to find the squat hut he now knows to be a burial cairn, its internal blackness unfathomably and velvety black. Why won't the torch light reach in? Something spooks the others. Air moving? Some sound. He turns from looking at his men to the burial hut again and there's some phosphorescent light within, a faint flicker. Or is it there at all? He can't tell.
Ambrose's teeth chatter, but he forges onwards.
James says something about wanting to leave. BOOM — the doors slam shut.
Now the vision becomes appropriately slurred and blurred by fear.
Someone's yelling — James has dropped the torch into the silvery moat — he's dropped his own torch, it's dark — red light on the walls, writing burning from within like fire — some electrical power rushes from within the hut to spear him and lift him — it's agony, self rearranging to fit what shouldn't fit in a forced braiding — is he going to die now? — he's dead, but people are screaming and pounding on the door — he's not dead, someone is touching him — Georgie's dead —he's killed Georgie, oh god, how — James tries to kill him — Rupert is shrieking and everything feels like it's too much, his skin hurts, he's thirsty — Oliver opens the door to grab Georgie's body — he leaves with Rupert after Oliver begs him to — stone shifting and rumbling — climbing up the slope of sand with his lizard brain praying he'll live — the tomb sinking like a gutted ship under the glaring heat of the sun — Rupert wailing —
Who's yelling? Ambrose doesn't understand who's yelling until he realizes his throat hurts more.
And his husband is trying to turn him, so they're face to face. Not to shut him up, but so he can breath Ambrose's breath. So he can bring the Jackal's face to the hollow where throat joins shoulder…make him inhale his own scent.
And in the kythe, he's like pouring sand on a fire. Muting and suppressing. "Breathe deeply," he says, before echoing that. Breathe deeply. You are here with me, now. I have you. Don't be afraid. I won't let go of you.
Away go the visions in another breaking of coherent memory-stream. The Bane rumbles in almost cat-like pleasure to see such a thing — to see its release and consequential manner of freedom taken like an eagle plucking a field mouse with envious, cold ease. Still, Kent's suppression also shushes the ancient malevolence into silence, coals gone low and glowing like the back of Ambrose's eyes.
Now facing Kent, he inhales stutteringly, knowing his face is wet and not caring. "I breathe, I breathe!" It almost sounds like an airless reminder to himself that he is alive and present, now and in Kent's arms — sandalwood and incense and rich myrrh and the salt of skin — it all anchors him. "I am sorry…! Sorry!" he gulps out.
For panicking, apparently.
For all that they were both raised within the iron strictures of their era's code for men….Kent discards it with ease. He's kissing his husband's face with almost maternal tenderness. "It's all right," he says. "Nothing to be sorry for, my dear. It's a frightening thing, even in memory. Thank you for being brave enough to show me. Deep breaths. Slow breaths."
Then, impishly, as if to divert some of that panic with humor…he licks Ambrose's nose.
Deep breaths — slow breaths — the master-thief tries and tries, plucky as he is in the end, and succeeds in somewhat putting the brakes on the rapid dancing of his heart off his ribcage. He pulls back from Kent's tuck of shoulder in order to fumble a wipe at his face with his enwrapping of blanket —
— only to be licked. "Oh — FWAUGH — KENT — " More rubbing at his nose and it jars Ambrose out of the panicking state well and truly. "Oh — fucking ruddy hell, must you — Gods be dah-hah-hah — " Now he's laughing, if weakly, coming to realize the ploy successfully pulled on him. His forehead thumps down against his husband's collarbones and he continues laughing helplessly. "You irregular bastard," he mumbles between chortles against the man's chest.
He is in the now — and everything is okay.