✳ 004 ✳ [video] // [action] for Phancyhive residents.

[stabilimentum]

[The view isn't from directly overhead, but it's almost there and it's steady, displaying a mahogany table top and a pair of white-gloved hands busily manipulating crochet needles. Mingled with and leading away from the needles is a line of gold wire, gleaming in the light--it's being pulled into looped stitches like regular yarn would be. Off to

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voice.

[masterbaiting]

[Alois isn't showing his face, out of spite, out of jealousy (he knows that isn't for him). However, Claude may be aware or come to be aware of the fact that Alois isn't alone: one of Claude's macaws is in a distant sitting room with him. Alois kind of wants to step on it.]

If you ask people that, they might ask it back to you.

[His threat is thinly veiled, though he won't say it outright: I want to know first.]

video.

[stabilimentum]

You are the first to ask me that, master. [Because Claude doesn't need to hear the question to know that it's being asked. Even now, disconsolate, dwelling too much, he knows exactly what it is Alois Trancy wants from him. There are certain things Claude can't find the words for, however. He'll answer as best he can, and ask for forgiveness later.

The past week and some days have been quiet in general. He spent much of his free time in a much smaller body, keeping his feelings downsized and unnoticeable. Grief doesn't amount to much when it's contained inside eight legs and eight eyes.

Tilting his head, he can hear the bird in the background--there's the distinct scrabble of its claws over flooring.]

My identity.

[It could have been his glasses, or his pocket watch, or even Alois, although that soul is indebted to him rather than wholly owned.

The sum total of all these things: Claude Faustus.]

voice.

[masterbaiting]

[Although he mightn't fully realize it, there's a part of Alois that very much wanted for Claude's answer to be You. He would have felt sick, he would have been angry- but it not being that way seems empty. He doesn't recognize this as his motivation, but it's why he's spiteful when he says: ]

Who's to say that's even yours?

[And he wants to turn his NV upside down, too, so as not to see Claude, or the room Claude's in, or the lovely things his hands have been working with.]

voice. (private.)

[stabilimentum]

[No matter the answer, one of them was going to be emptied out by it. If Claude had elected instead to say You, then he would've felt emptier than he already does--

because You would refer to Alois Trancy's soul and eating that soul is the last thing Claude wants to do, ever, on a long list of nevers, given how the mere idea of loneliness forever makes him want to cry. And that's why the video abruptly goes dark.

His demonic hunger hasn't diminished at all, unfortunately; it's sharper and angrier after this week. He wants to greedily devour his master to the end, but he knows that he won't. Their contract is never, ever going to be completed. Such an understanding hurts much more than his grief--they'll never be made one, they're going to be apart forever. All he wants is his precious human, but Claude can't eat his cake and have it too.

He's silent for so long, it might be enraging. When he speaks, the NV's settings have changed, making this private, since he doubts he could deal with speaking to Alois in person.]That is

voice. (private.)

[masterbaiting]

[It makes Alois angrier, though that's irrational. It's good, in a way, of course; there's a haughtiness brought on by what Claude says, a feeling of That's right, it's me, it's only me, Claude. But it also makes him jealous, and he blurts out why: ]

Was she important to you?

[Of course she was, you thought it all along, you already knew she was nothing but a needy, greedy whore and if she was trying to lead Luca away and if she'd already had him anyway then of course she'd do the same to Claude and it's all her fault and it's all Claude's fault, I hate them both. He doesn't hate them both. Even, with Hannah, he hates the idea of her more than he hates what she actually is-

And he won't acknowledge that this is because he doesn't know what she actually is. There's been too much manipulative dishonesty for him to be sure of that.

He wants Claude to come kneel in front of him, or to come pick him up, and he wants to make this fucking bird screech because it's Claude's and Alois didn't give it to him so what right does it have to be

voice. (private.)

[stabilimentum]

[Claude looks down at the table--at the scratches and stains in the wood. They tell a whole story of the table's ownership, going as far back as the tree it was built from. Wistfully, he touches one of the more eye-catching blemishes and has to wonder if, when anyone looks at him, it's possible to see his entire life story, too. Lingering in his eyes, is there any hint of the bitter whore from Carthage that he tore limb from limb because he was starving? What about Jean-Andoche Junot, the brilliant but mad battle tactician--does that man dwell in the curve of Claude's hands? Those hands spread out more and more, following along the wood's surface, studying geometric patterns and speckled places. It's like reading a storybook written by nature

reaction.

[masterbaiting]

[It should be easier, after hearing as much, to hate Hannah even more. Shouldn't it? Alois asks himself, and is furious regardless. He's mad, he's so fucking- upset, so unreasonably jealous. It's like Hannah could take any of them away from Alois if she wanted to (and why wouldn't she want that? who wouldn't want to steal away such a good boy as Luca, or someone so grand as Claude?).

-But apparently she gave, instead.

If Alois does hate Hannah right now, it's because Claude's hung up on him. That doesn't make sense, but it's easy to make it her fault. Everything is easier when it's Hannah's fault. So, 'nirvana' - that can be her fault, too. Elsewhere, the place Alois thinks he might be dreaming of sometimes, that's all Hannah's fault. A perfect section of blame, just for her