we hope your rules and wisdom choke you

[obscuronoctis]

For all the reflection and mental anguish, there is little thought to score his pace now. He's been in The Voltaic before, though just the lobby. It's massive, and deceptively winding like casino-resorts are wont to be - beautiful, but he only spent a handful of minutes seated in the lobby's upscale lounge. He should have stayed put

Comments

[alwaysturning]

He may be waiting for a while

[obscuronoctis]

Of course Ducard knows someone is waiting for him - but does he know who?

It doesn't matter. Not yet - not quite. He's got another second before he does realize, if he hasn't already - then what? What words or more weighted things than that will they exchange? He should feel some kind of anticipation, anxiety - instead there is a void, something that eats all light and emotion, just where he's carved it.

He says nothing, elbows on knees, hands clasped, looking up at him in the cracked-dark with just his eyes.

[alwaysturning]

Another second, yes, while his eyes adjust. Perhaps several, until the shape on the bed becomes more than just a shape. He may not have realized it; he may be waiting for a sign. Or he knows, he knew immediately, and he wasn't prepared for it. No matter the reason, that is quite the expression he's wearing-however vague it may be, now that his face is all planes and hollows in the darkness. Presently, his hand lifts to the wall, his fingers find the switch, and there is light again. Just one, behind him, by the door. That soft, benign, comfortable hotel yellow.

A long, long pause stretches between them, impossibly heavy.

Finally, he settles on the easiest and, conveniently, most accurate word:

"Interesting."

[obscuronoctis]

Is Ducard just as he remembers him, at first a tower, then something electrified; burned from the inside out, carrying a charred heart? Or is he different - has too much time passed for even his memory (clouded, compromised) to have kept the detail? Bruce is different - another man carved out from what walked down off that mountain. He could be a year older or twenty - the lines beneath his eyes haven't caught up to the extra fathoms inside of them.

The silence is meditation, purgatory.

Finally he moves: barely, raising his head to match his gaze.

Interesting indeed.

[alwaysturning]

Having seen this face nearly every day for a number of years, knowing its surface as well as the meaning of all its subtleties, the difference between then and now is clear at little more than a glance. This is and is not the same man. Nexus being what it is, it could be someone else entirely-but then he wouldn't be here, in the room, waiting for him like this

[obscuronoctis]

There is nothing to do in this unearthly place besides stalk circles around each other, 'protected' by inexplicable whimsy. Whatever they'd call it - never a dance - it's boiled down to a game; the expanse before them is littered with traps and they have only chess pieces to navigate it. Ducard breaks formation first.

His voice kindles the emotion (brittle, blood under a burn) his face didn't, and Bruce would have let out a breath if he was the sort to have stopped breathing in anticipation. The expression he wears is faint and short-lived, just a fraction of a second, a splinter of I don't know what I'm doing here and it's gone, leaving him as ever (--now), as if carved from living stone

[alwaysturning]

Ducard is reading, of course-always reading-and that glimmer of something is interesting, too. For now, probably only for now, he sets it aside.

"I trust you're aware of the anti-violence field," he says, and through the smooth knife-edge of his voice it becomes a warning-or, perhaps, a test. He's been told that the field will hold up under any circumstance, but that doesn't mean he'll trust it to do so.

(He might have cracked a smile at the mental image of that, by the way, had it actually occurred to his imagination. Under wildly different circumstances, perhaps.)

[obscuronoctis]

"It's on the brochure." His voice is even softer in contrast, a murmur. His passive remark suggests he hasn't seen it in action, but to think Bruce Wayne wouldn't experiment out of thoroughness, even curiosity, would be ignorant. Ducard is no such thing.

Then again, maybe it isn't passive. Maybe it's dismissive. Maybe he doesn't think he has a damned thing to be afraid of - or maybe he just doesn't care.

[alwaysturning]

Passive or dismissive, it doesn't matter; at the moment, he finds both unpalatable. For him it's been just two weeks since the last time they encountered each other, after all, and we all know how that ended. That sort of thing tends to leave a sour taste in one's mouth.
On the other hand, Ducard doesn't look any worse for wear-he's been rejuvenated since, actually, but the signs of that are not at all apparent. Not while he's just standing here, anyway.

"You didn't infiltrate this hotel room to sit on my bed and make small talk." A question that isn't a question, or a statement of mild incredulity? Maybe both! Maybe he's calling Bruce an idiot in the most roundabout way possible, who knows for sure.

[obscuronoctis]

He experiences a sudden, uncomfortable-awkward urge to grouchily object to the word infiltrate; it's not his fault Ducard is hanging out in a room any idiot (he caught that, shut up) could get into in a moment. Hotels are death traps dressed up like a vacation, a security and privacy nightmare-

And just like that, with a sentence, he's got this thread of childish petulance creeping through him. Ducard makes it so easy. Even now.

"How long has it been?"

Aha.

[alwaysturning]

"Weeks." He turns his head slightly just as he says this, already moving forward in his thoughts before the word has even formed on his lips. "But not for you."

Years, he thinks, but does not say it. It's not that he's not confident in his assumptions, the gears are just rolling along without pause. (Plus, he enjoys it when people draw their own implications from his brevity.)

[obscuronoctis]

"No," he says, and it's an agreement, not a denial. "Not for me."

Years is right. Not many, not in the way (men like him) most people would qualify time - but every day is a lifetime for the Batman, and he's nearing the four year mark since the flames on Wayne Manor died down.

It is, as ever, the mileage.

Bruce watches him in a way that's both hyper-aware and remotely skeptical, like he's still not sure that this isn't some elaborate trick. Ducard has always managed to surprise him by degrees, but he's not sure what to expect, here - so he expects nothing, and just watches.

[alwaysturning]

That's very helpful of Bruce, breaking into his room-basically his house, at this point-apparently just to observe him like he's on the world's worst-camouflaged safari. Completely helpful and not weird at all. But oh well, turnabout is fair play, and it doesn't shake the foundations of Ducard's world, or anything. He has been through far more disturbing events within the past couple of weeks. The first day alone was a ridiculous horror, never mind the rest of it

[obscuronoctis]

Unlike the moment just before, he doesn't react, even inside. That almost-eerie calm has shaken off the layover nerves of being intimidated like the student he once was and left him as this strange being, this grown man who looks out at his former teacher with something that's not quite expectation.

And then - something familiar, a slight tilt of his head, his gaze flickers away. Not shying away, not faltering as such, but a maskless tell of honesty. "I wanted to see if it was really you."

[alwaysturning]

He's poured little more than a mouthful into the glass, just enough to quench, and the way he consumes it-one fluid, unhurried motion, one clean swallow-suggests that he wishes it were something else. He sets it down carefully, watching it until it touches the low counter with a quiet bump.

"Word travels quickly here, doesn't it." One long hand curls around the counter's edge, and he turns. "How long have you been watching?"

[obscuronoctis]

For half a heartbeat he feels guilty for putting this austere man off-balance, but it comes up bitter. Whatever debt he owed Ducard - even if it was only lingering respect - has crumbled away with the rest of his ash-stained lies. And yet there is no true escape: the remnants, soot hiding stubbornly in the corners of his insides, haunt him still.

He seems to find something curious for a glimmer of a moment and moves his posture again, minuscule. "Not long."