✳ 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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action.

[stabilimentum]

Mm.

[But Claude sets down the spoon decisively--for the first time in months, he isn't hungry. The hunger is still there, believe it or not, omnipresent per usual; he can feel it growling. It's just very distant from him--from his mind. It's very dull and distant, so far away that it might as well belong to someone else. When it bites into him, protesting, he doesn't care. He doesn't feel like eating.

This must be depression. What a mess.]

Among other things, Rabbit, I'm not sure of what "myself" entails anymore.

[He looks at Rabbit, finally, allowing only brief eye contact, and then deflects away to the jewelry. Aside from the hair comb, there is one other piece that he might've given Hannah: a bracelet of thin gold chains and tiny seashell charms. He thinks about throwing it out to sea.

Then, abruptly, he begins to tremble all over, from the tips of his hair and on down to his fingers. His teeth ache and and ache and ache from clenching them too hard.]

You are one of the few to want to share tea with me. [Without being coerced, that is. Manipulated. It's reason enough for Claude to pick up his teacup and take a sip, doing his best to enjoy this for at least being new. The tea sloshes because he's trembling so much, but he refuses to cry and there's bile to fight down.] That is something else worth my-- [Oh, his throat tightens up.] --gratitude.

action.

[killingame]

[ claude is shaking. he's shaking and rabbit isn't quite sure what to do with people when they're this-- depressed. jack had been one thing, because he'd been drunk, but how is he supposed to help claude when he's so screwed up, himself?

but ah, he knows what it's like to not know how to define yourself, suddenly.

he sets his own cup down, then reaches out with a hand, gently pushing claude's down before he spills it on himself. ]

Stop that. [ it's chiding, but surprisingly gentle. now, he knows isn't the time for defensiveness. ] .. You have a lot of things here to help you find a new definition for 'Claude Faustus'. I'll help if you like. I had to find a new meaning for 'White Rabbit' once, too. [ a pause, glancing away, fingers brushing against one of the half-finished pieces absently. ] .. It's not easy when you have to rebuild all the lines your world is drawn in, is it?

action.

[stabilimentum]

[The teacup returns safely to the table before too much tea can be spilled. There are droplets on his gloves now, tiny and discolored, interrupting satin perfection, and Claude stares at them and thinks, I don't know why it's this difficult. Hands trembling harder, he clenches them into fists and then says aloud,] It has never been this difficult.

[Because demons like him have to rebuild themselves and their world with every newly formed contract. They reach into their master's mind, sifting down to the subconscious, and find unspoken, even unknown desires to tailor fresh identities from. With Jim Macken, there was a childlike hope to find a prince charming; that's what Claude became. Claude made himself a gallant, gracious, unscripted, and somewhat smug prince charming that was going to save Jim Macken from his shitty life. As circumstances developed, as their contract filled in, the need for a servant with seriousness and propriety became more apparent--

He has been one hell of a butler, a scholar, an advisor, an apothecary; had more than a few stints as a detective. Below all the bullshit, though, underneath his disguises: he's just demon on a mission to acquire the Ultimate Flavor, so he can feel orgasmic bliss without needing Heaven.

Or, that's what he was. Now he has tea droplets on his gloves and no goals but to spend eternity with his master. As everything sinks in, he looks up at Rabbit and slides down in his seat.]

Please tell me your story.

[Perhaps he'll learn something, but probably not.]

action.

[killingame]

[ for a long moment, rabbit stares at him, really looking at him. pink eyes narrow slightly, thoughtful and perhaps a little critical, because wow, this is serious. claude is serious about this (not that he's never not serious, and maybe that's why rabbit gets along so well with him).

at last, though, he breathes out a sigh, folding his arms across the table and poking absently at his cup. ]

I doubt it's anything you haven't seen or read or heard of before. "There's nothing new under the sun," right? Especially in a place like this. [ his ears flick, flatten. ] My world was dying. Alice was gone. Everyone was gone.. except me. So it was change or die. Fix things and patch things up, or give in and be erased.

[ his head tilts slightly, expression taking on a faintly concerned note. ]

Claude. What's this really about? I mean, what brought this on? Your master? The woman who disappeared recently?