[Semi-Closed Post: Aornis Is a Real Headache]

[timebethine]

Somewhere around midnight, a migraine descended on Laertes like a thunderhead, and he still hasn't come out from beneath its anvil. He's spent most of the day hiding in bed with the curtains drawn, feeling as though he's about to be sick--and that feeling's only grown worse as the sun has drifted sluggishly to a low apex in the sky.

It isn't until mid-afternoon that he feels well enough to make progress on all his plans. He needs to speak to SecUnit about its drones, to Dionysus about whether Avernus (that is her name, isn't it?) is a goddess, and to Nightingale about whether he can offer magical support in case their confrontation goes sour. He needs to talk with Claudius about what to say when he does speak to her.

So it is that he starts making his rounds through the mansion and its grounds, seeking out friends old and new, clinging grimly to the thermos of coffee that smells sickeningly strong but also helps drive back the pain. His face is wan, his eyes shadowed. He would rather be doing anything but this.

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[wickedwit]

As it happens, Claudius is seeking out Laertes, too. “Laertes,” he says when he sees him in the hallway, with a brisk-business-like clap of hands, “just the man I wanted to see —“ But he stops short when he sees the haggard look in Laertes’s eyes. More soft, he says, “How dost thou?”

[timebethine]

"Ill," says Laertes tersely. "But let that pass. I would speak with thee. Could we repair to--" the smells in the laboratory will absolutely be too much for him "--thy rooms?"

[wickedwit]

“Ay, come, come.” He offers Laertes a hand, already second-guessing his resolve with Laertes appearing as a haint loosed from the grave to speak of portents. You knew what to do in the first place, a voice tells him. Asmodean owes you a favor. Use it, don’t trouble Sagramore’s husband when he has troubles enough. Neither needs to see your hand in this, and no one will thank you, anyway.

[timebethine]

Laertes frees a hand from the coffee thermos to press Claudius's hand. "My thanks," he says, and lets himself be led. It's easier, to bob along behind Claudius like a boat tugged on a merciful tide.

[rememberettersberg]

Nightmares are nothing new to Nightingale, but this morning had brought new and interesting torments. He sits, grimly, in the cafe, picking at the curling crust of a stale sandwich.

He's wearing his WWII uniform, rendered exactly as he remembers it moments before the medics cut it off him. It was the only thing in his wardrobe when he awoke and the only outfit the mansion seemed inclined to provide.

[timebethine]

"Sir," says Laertes, shuffling in to sit alongside Nightingale at the table. He doesn't meet Nightingale's eyes; his own vision pains him less when he looks down, away from any source of light. "You look new-risen from a sepulcher."

[wickedwit]

Leading Laertes back to his room, he can’t help feeling like he’s done before, like the days are repeating and the only thing that’s changed is the man at the end of his hand. He doesn’t think twice, this time. This room isn’t a place he needs to hide anymore — or if it is, they can hide there together. He opens the door and ushers Laertes inside. “Take a seat,” he says. “Or lie down. Whatever thou wouldst.”

[timebethine]

Laertes considers dignity for the briefest of moments, then sets his coffee aside and curls up like a shrimp on the bed. "What didst thou want?" he asks. He's fairly sure Claudius had said he was looking for Laertes--but it feels as though someone's boring a hole the size of a broom handle behind his left eye, and he can't quite make himself remember.

[wickedwit]

Several lies present themselves. If he wanted to draw on the happiest thing in his life, he could say something about wedding announcements, ask about his and Enjolras’s printing press — but that seems a violation, for reasons Claudius can’t place. He can’t use his betrothal as a cover. He needn’t get into it at all, only wave his hand, say it was a trifling thing, and they can talk about it all later. He can deflect. Instead, he says, “To speak with thee on Sagramore.”

[timebethine]

"Ay, say on," says Laertes. There's a deep, brewing dread in him--Claudius is at his most brisk when something upsets him--but he can't quite wrap words around that understanding.

[rememberettersberg]

"And you look fit to lie down in one," he replies with considerable concern. "Are you well enough to be up and about?"

[timebethine]

Laertes musters a smile. "This is the best I've felt thus far today. I was hoping I'd find you--I was seeking a lesson, and advice. But perhaps I'm in more fit shape for the advice than the lesson."

[wickedwit]

Claudius kneels by the bedside, rather than hover above him. He wants to be humble. "I believe Sagramore is doing harm to himself. I say this not to stir discontent in thee, or drive thee toward an end of my choosing. I speak to thee as a man who loves him, whose sentiments have mirrored mine. And if there is no counsel in that, at least there may be fellowship. Wilt thou hear me?"

[timebethine]

Laertes uncurls. His eyes focus on Claudius's. (Everything feels too bright.) "Ay. Is it drink again? Or some new harm?"

[wickedwit]

"The drink is how he bears with it, and that in turn does harm to him." It feels like a betrayal, unclasping Sagramore's secrets, when Sagramore lay in this bed not long ago and trusted Claudius to touch his hair and care for him. "He told me he was doing penance. Hearing confession of another man's crimes, a man whom he still loves. His penance is for that love. I said to him without some end, reconciliation with God or reconciliation among men, penance is only torture. That was my aim, the night I confessed to thee my sin -- to do harm myself, to ruin all my relationships, because that was my desert. I had no hope of reconciling, but thought to drive thee from me. But if thou cam'st to me again and again, to hear more and more of my sins, hating all that thou didst hear, hating thyself when thou couldst not kill thy regard for me ... it would be torture to us both, in time. And so it is with Sagramore. He believes, too, this is his desert, for the love he bears this man."

[timebethine]

Laertes frowns. The pressure of sickness in his throat threatens to overwhelm him--it feels as though the floor has collapsed beneath him, and he's falling. "He told me that these meetings were remembrances," he says. "That ... that they were speaking of the lives and works of those musicians. Ensuring that their voices lived on. I offered to learn their songs, as well, and he was quick enough to bring me music--"

And then he had told Laertes of how Gaheris had butchered his mother while she lay abed with Lamorak, and spoken of all the men he'd killed and forgotten.

"--he asks Asmodean to tell him of what he did to them," Laertes realizes.

[vineleaves]

Dionysus has retreated to his room, so should Laertes come knocking he will find Dionysus sitting at a small table off to the side. The room is well on its way to being what someone might describe as 'maximalist' style, though Dionysus hasn't yet been at the mansion long enough to have accumulated quite enough things for that. Cushions, fabrics hanging from the walls, a growing collection of plays he 'borrowed' from the library, some candles, and a few other odds and ends all over the place.

There's a few bowls sitting on the table, each overflowing with grapes. Some are significantly tastier looking than others. There's also a few bottles of wine. Dionysus himself looks a little like he has just come back from a lengthy hike or some other medium-strenuous activity. He's not exactly dripping with sweat or anything, but he's a little dewey.

[timebethine]

Upon getting a glimpse of Dionysus, Laertes immediately regrets summoning his strength for the occasion. "Forgive me. I can return another time," he offers. "You look ... strained."

[vineleaves]

"Oh, no, I'm fine!" He's all smiles. Outwardly, anyway. Is he internally freaking the hell out over the thought he might be losing control of his powers and the house might run out of food? Maybe. "Come on in, sit down! How're you doing?" He motions to a second chair at his table.

[timebethine]

By now, Laertes is feeling a little more steady--the pain has shifted from piercing to grinding, which might as well be the same thing as no pain at all--and he takes a seat. "I had hoped to speak with you on a matter of potential danger," he says. "Are you able to recognize other gods, through sight or some other, inward sense?"

[wickedwit]

Ah. Claudius weaves that information in with what he knows, what he's been told and what he's surmised -- about Asmodean under all his names, his ambitions for immortality, his ambitions for his art. And with what he knows of Sagramore, too. "They likely began as remembrances. His intention was compassion, for these musicians and their memories, for the man he loves. But to me he only spoke of crimes.” There’s a flickering ember of the fury he felt, but it’s cooled. He can touch it now, examine it, but he still mislikes it. He can’t possibly know, he tells himself. He never told Sagramore the whole sordid story. It isn’t that his pain means less than that of people in the past. Because that was the pain of innocents.

[timebethine]

"What can be done?" asks Laertes, looking away. His fingertips trace the stitches on the blankets. He feels very far away from himself, as though the self observing is many years older or many countries distant. "He hates for me to aid him, or even to worry for him, when he hurts himself. It isn't pride--nor even fully shame, although shame hath its part. He does not think himself deserving of aid. He does not think help is possible. I know not what to do, except to stay at his side."

[vineleaves]

Dionysus sits up straight. Congratulations, Laertes, you have his full, undivided attention. "You're scaring me now. What's going on?"

[timebethine]

"There is a woman here--you might have seen her at Enjolras's meeting," he says. "Blonde of hair and fair of face; dressed well, with a singular self-possession and poise. Do you recall such a woman?"

[wickedwit]

"All his life, help has been impossible for him,” Claudius says. He puts the ember down before it can begin to burn again. “He had an illness none could cure. The ones who claimed that they could cure him only caused him further misery. They treated him less like a child than a broken clock, still a-repairing, ever out of frame, its only value how it was meant to work, and never how it does. When he's offered aid, he must feel like someone's come again to fix him, and will put him aside in frustration when they see he can't be fixed. I understand it. But I do not like it." He sighs. "Hast thou had this argument with him before?"