LOG; it's always have and never hold; SIRIDEÁN + CIARÁN
Tonight in Berlin.
News travelled fast in Cork, even to those living well outside the city limits, trapped on a farm where phone lines worked on occasion. There was a connectivity that superceded technical limitations, and so his grandmam had briefly, ever so temporarily, apologized to her not-so-devoted grandson for his loss, asked him to express her sentiment to his friend, and demanded a foot rub.
And he had boarded the next available plane, luck happening to be on his side in that there happened to be a computer glitch, losing a first class passenger his accomodation and yielding it to Ciarán. His baggage tumbled first out of the chute, and he caught the second taxi cab.
With a last frosty look at the driver, whom really had not broken enough traffic laws nor taken his "Quickly" seriously enough, Ciarán climbed out of the torn leather seating, gathered his luggage, and strode to the door.
Fishing his key from his pocket, Ciarán let himself in.
Sirideán really wasn't expecting anyone to be over; he hadn't been checking the computer and he'd asked for some time to himself from his Order. His cousin was dead, in spite of his efforts and those of his team. Faith in his team was what Faramond might have had but Sirideán wasn't inclined to feel optimistic in the slightest. He had lost his eye, the Sigil, and most importantly, his cousin, who he had promised to protect.
Truthfully, he wasn't the brightest of guys, and somehow he had lived his twenty-two, nearing twenty-three, years of life mostly unaware of what real loss felt like. These two things combined meant that he had no idea of how to deal with grief other than through watching endless hours on the telly and sleeping. The latter of which he was doing right now. He didn't hear Ciarán let himself in; rather, he let out a rather loud snore and turned over in his bed.
His usual neuroticism would have demanded he unpack at once, putting everything in its proper place. Yet, for once, that niggling, pricking, finicky need fell quiet, snuffed by the pressure of his concern. Beneath his largely self-centered, often enourmously creepy obsession, lingered genuine affection for Sirideán - friendship and beyond, one of the only, if not the only person he'd managed to secure a real, human relationship with.
As such, he left his belongings at the door and began to search the apartment, first with general glances. Unable to predict precisely how Sirideán would handle his grief, Ciarán was forced to guess, and this was a logical beginning.
And an easy one. He stood in the doorway of Sirideán's bedroom for a long minute, wondering how to school his features, what to say. It probably wasn't polite to wake him up.
"Ey," he said, loudly. "Aren't ye going t' welcome me back?"
Sirideán was dreaming about those damned jellyfish bugs again-- sometimes they talked, sometimes they didn't, but they never sounded quite like that. Like... Ciarán. He rolled over in his sleep, twice, and fell off the bed. Jaysus.
His sympathy did not extend to typical displays from Sirideán; his worry did not expand to encompanse the usual. Ciarán rolled his eyes, with a smidgen of affection, and waited for the Irishman to get up.
When he got up he peered over the bed, poor depth perception still something he hadn't gotten used to, and saw.. a familiar pink cardigan.. a familiar pretty face..
"Ciarán?"
The confusion was evident in his tone, if not his expression.
At the sight of the eyepatch, Ciarán could not resist his frown, subconscious and automatic. That woman had done it to him - or the so-called war. He almost spared a moment to wonder at how Sirideán had actually managed to keep it from him - but he had done plenty of that while in Ireland.
"Aye," he responded, his tone casual, firm. "Me family heard about Noelle."
No point beating around the clovers, as they said.
"...Oh." Well, he couldn't have expected Ciarán to not know, after all. And he probably knew that the elevator wasn't true, as well.
He ran a hand through his hair awkwardly, and shrugged.
"...Yeah."
The subject had needed to be breached, but now that it had, he couldn't think of what to say. His utter and near absolute social failing left his mouth dry, and he didn't even feel quite as awkward, as uncomfortable with it as he knew he ought.
Staring at the patch, he ran his tongue over his lips, deliberately.
"Couldn't get the glue off?"
".... Lost me eye, to be honest." He cleared his throat after a long pause, and got back onto the bed, flopping face down. Sirideán mumbled something else unintelligible before forcing himself to get up, intending to walk past Ciarán into the kitchen. "Ye want something to eat or drink?"
After his flight, after his panic, he might have been a bit peckish. But that was hardly the point; it could wait. Eyes narrowing, he intended to intercept Sirideán, his arm jerking out, fingers closing hard around his wrist.
"Oh, is that all?" He asked, voice light, taut, straining with what he had suppressed, pretended not to know or care to know, for Sirideán's benefit. "Lost me eye, could happen to anyone. And she was stuck in an elevator for two months."
Knowing what he knew now, he could have shouted. Sirideán may have been too dumb, too good to have meant ill by it, but it was too much. The fight hadn't gone out of him, but his muscles went slack, his hold loosened.
"How long've ye been lying to me?" After Noelle, it wasn't the time. But he couldn't help it - Ciarán would always be selfish.
He felt a small tingle when Ciarán grabbed him, and Sirideán stopped, face turned from him.
"Since this stupid war started."
"Ye'd better tell me about it," he said, voice hard, leaving no room for objection.
And his fingers slipped from Sirideán's wrist; he turned, "I'll put the kettle on," moved.
When the tea was ready, the two were seated at the small kitchen table, Sirideán wondering how he'd explain everything. But Ciarán was giving him that look, and the tea was still too hot to drink, so he thought he should just.. blurt out whatever came to him.
"There are these Gates.. that these crazy people want opened. If you open them like zombies and dead people come out, they're like Jesus Gates. But Anti-Jesus. And then the rest of us want to keep them closed because.. because. Anyway, it's like.. jaysus, all this superstitious blarney, weird stuff keep on happening because of them. They picked me to help keep the Gates closed. Noelle, too."
Once he had started, he couldn't seem to stop.
"At first I thought, why the feck not, have me powers and all.. and to open the Gates, you need these keys, but they're people keys. Called Sigils. Was watchin' a wee boy so they wouldn't kill him, and then she attacked me and took out me eye. He's dead and so's Noelle because they kidnapped her and she killed herself."
Even having had the slight preparation of his network discussion with that woman, Ciarán felt ill-equipped for the totality of this. The immediate reflexes of disbelief and denial had to be rejected as swiftly, beat down by the reality of a mangled eye, of an empty coffin. But to be jolted from dull days tending to his grandmother, aware of but not involved in catastrophes slamming the world, then told this sort of mystical, supernatural war was raging and the most important person in his life had been in the thick of it, well.
And, of course, due to said person's eloquence, the technical details continued to escape him.
"Ah," he managed, eyes moving between the cloth over that eye and the steam rising from his cup. She killed herself?
Something like an apology somehow voiced itself as: "Seems as if your side is losing."
He offered a miserable nod at that, he didn't really want to think about any of this. But what else was there to think about?
"Yep."
Lifting his cup, he took a sip, his eyes never leaving some part of the other man's. The tea burned his tongue, and his throat as he swallowed it, expression unchanging.
"Well," he said, words coming slow, "Ye'd better not die. If ye're goin' to believe in all this, ye'd better not die - or get hurt again."
Rolling back his shoulders, he sat up a little straighter, fixing Sirideán in an unceasing stare.
"I'd" never survive it "never forgive ye."
News travelled fast in Cork, even to those living well outside the city limits, trapped on a farm where phone lines worked on occasion. There was a connectivity that superceded technical limitations, and so his grandmam had briefly, ever so temporarily, apologized to her not-so-devoted grandson for his loss, asked him to express her sentiment to his friend, and demanded a foot rub.
And he had boarded the next available plane, luck happening to be on his side in that there happened to be a computer glitch, losing a first class passenger his accomodation and yielding it to Ciarán. His baggage tumbled first out of the chute, and he caught the second taxi cab.
With a last frosty look at the driver, whom really had not broken enough traffic laws nor taken his "Quickly" seriously enough, Ciarán climbed out of the torn leather seating, gathered his luggage, and strode to the door.
Fishing his key from his pocket, Ciarán let himself in.
Sirideán really wasn't expecting anyone to be over; he hadn't been checking the computer and he'd asked for some time to himself from his Order. His cousin was dead, in spite of his efforts and those of his team. Faith in his team was what Faramond might have had but Sirideán wasn't inclined to feel optimistic in the slightest. He had lost his eye, the Sigil, and most importantly, his cousin, who he had promised to protect.
Truthfully, he wasn't the brightest of guys, and somehow he had lived his twenty-two, nearing twenty-three, years of life mostly unaware of what real loss felt like. These two things combined meant that he had no idea of how to deal with grief other than through watching endless hours on the telly and sleeping. The latter of which he was doing right now. He didn't hear Ciarán let himself in; rather, he let out a rather loud snore and turned over in his bed.
His usual neuroticism would have demanded he unpack at once, putting everything in its proper place. Yet, for once, that niggling, pricking, finicky need fell quiet, snuffed by the pressure of his concern. Beneath his largely self-centered, often enourmously creepy obsession, lingered genuine affection for Sirideán - friendship and beyond, one of the only, if not the only person he'd managed to secure a real, human relationship with.
As such, he left his belongings at the door and began to search the apartment, first with general glances. Unable to predict precisely how Sirideán would handle his grief, Ciarán was forced to guess, and this was a logical beginning.
And an easy one. He stood in the doorway of Sirideán's bedroom for a long minute, wondering how to school his features, what to say. It probably wasn't polite to wake him up.
"Ey," he said, loudly. "Aren't ye going t' welcome me back?"
Sirideán was dreaming about those damned jellyfish bugs again-- sometimes they talked, sometimes they didn't, but they never sounded quite like that. Like... Ciarán. He rolled over in his sleep, twice, and fell off the bed. Jaysus.
His sympathy did not extend to typical displays from Sirideán; his worry did not expand to encompanse the usual. Ciarán rolled his eyes, with a smidgen of affection, and waited for the Irishman to get up.
When he got up he peered over the bed, poor depth perception still something he hadn't gotten used to, and saw.. a familiar pink cardigan.. a familiar pretty face..
"Ciarán?"
The confusion was evident in his tone, if not his expression.
At the sight of the eyepatch, Ciarán could not resist his frown, subconscious and automatic. That woman had done it to him - or the so-called war. He almost spared a moment to wonder at how Sirideán had actually managed to keep it from him - but he had done plenty of that while in Ireland.
"Aye," he responded, his tone casual, firm. "Me family heard about Noelle."
No point beating around the clovers, as they said.
"...Oh." Well, he couldn't have expected Ciarán to not know, after all. And he probably knew that the elevator wasn't true, as well.
He ran a hand through his hair awkwardly, and shrugged.
"...Yeah."
The subject had needed to be breached, but now that it had, he couldn't think of what to say. His utter and near absolute social failing left his mouth dry, and he didn't even feel quite as awkward, as uncomfortable with it as he knew he ought.
Staring at the patch, he ran his tongue over his lips, deliberately.
"Couldn't get the glue off?"
".... Lost me eye, to be honest." He cleared his throat after a long pause, and got back onto the bed, flopping face down. Sirideán mumbled something else unintelligible before forcing himself to get up, intending to walk past Ciarán into the kitchen. "Ye want something to eat or drink?"
After his flight, after his panic, he might have been a bit peckish. But that was hardly the point; it could wait. Eyes narrowing, he intended to intercept Sirideán, his arm jerking out, fingers closing hard around his wrist.
"Oh, is that all?" He asked, voice light, taut, straining with what he had suppressed, pretended not to know or care to know, for Sirideán's benefit. "Lost me eye, could happen to anyone. And she was stuck in an elevator for two months."
Knowing what he knew now, he could have shouted. Sirideán may have been too dumb, too good to have meant ill by it, but it was too much. The fight hadn't gone out of him, but his muscles went slack, his hold loosened.
"How long've ye been lying to me?" After Noelle, it wasn't the time. But he couldn't help it - Ciarán would always be selfish.
He felt a small tingle when Ciarán grabbed him, and Sirideán stopped, face turned from him.
"Since this stupid war started."
"Ye'd better tell me about it," he said, voice hard, leaving no room for objection.
And his fingers slipped from Sirideán's wrist; he turned, "I'll put the kettle on," moved.
When the tea was ready, the two were seated at the small kitchen table, Sirideán wondering how he'd explain everything. But Ciarán was giving him that look, and the tea was still too hot to drink, so he thought he should just.. blurt out whatever came to him.
"There are these Gates.. that these crazy people want opened. If you open them like zombies and dead people come out, they're like Jesus Gates. But Anti-Jesus. And then the rest of us want to keep them closed because.. because. Anyway, it's like.. jaysus, all this superstitious blarney, weird stuff keep on happening because of them. They picked me to help keep the Gates closed. Noelle, too."
Once he had started, he couldn't seem to stop.
"At first I thought, why the feck not, have me powers and all.. and to open the Gates, you need these keys, but they're people keys. Called Sigils. Was watchin' a wee boy so they wouldn't kill him, and then she attacked me and took out me eye. He's dead and so's Noelle because they kidnapped her and she killed herself."
Even having had the slight preparation of his network discussion with that woman, Ciarán felt ill-equipped for the totality of this. The immediate reflexes of disbelief and denial had to be rejected as swiftly, beat down by the reality of a mangled eye, of an empty coffin. But to be jolted from dull days tending to his grandmother, aware of but not involved in catastrophes slamming the world, then told this sort of mystical, supernatural war was raging and the most important person in his life had been in the thick of it, well.
And, of course, due to said person's eloquence, the technical details continued to escape him.
"Ah," he managed, eyes moving between the cloth over that eye and the steam rising from his cup. She killed herself?
Something like an apology somehow voiced itself as: "Seems as if your side is losing."
He offered a miserable nod at that, he didn't really want to think about any of this. But what else was there to think about?
"Yep."
Lifting his cup, he took a sip, his eyes never leaving some part of the other man's. The tea burned his tongue, and his throat as he swallowed it, expression unchanging.
"Well," he said, words coming slow, "Ye'd better not die. If ye're goin' to believe in all this, ye'd better not die - or get hurt again."
Rolling back his shoulders, he sat up a little straighter, fixing Sirideán in an unceasing stare.
"I'd" never survive it "never forgive ye."