Love the Laptop
I really love my laptop. I love how portable it is, even though I complain about how long it takes to turn on and off. (I think I've got too much crap on it. Or maybe just too many programs running as it starts up, but I can't figure out which of the H_KEY/CU or H_KEY/LM programs it's okay to delete, so I can't tell Reg Cleaner to go "Nope, not that one." *Huffs.* I am so woefully technologically inept. It's very sad.) Anyway, getting back on track... I love my laptop. I brought it with me to campus, and correspondingly got to work on NaNoWriMo in the Picnic Day office while I was waiting for my meeting with the SPAC Adviser (although really, I probably should have been using that time to prep for my meeting. Whoopsies.) and also during my volunteer shift at the Craft Center.
*Sighs.* I have this shift with a horribly annoying girl. She bugs the hell out of me. She's pretty much bi-everything. Biracial, like me, bisexual, which I'm not but can understand and support, and also bipolar.
*Considers.* Okay, maybe not so much bipolar so much as a raving psycho, but whatever. It sounded good, you know? Because she so is. If you mention Oreos (you know, the cookies?) in her presence she automatically jumps on you for being a racist and hating the term. (Okay, I get that she's had some trouble, but seriously. Do you see me flipping out over the term white-washed? I think not.) If you have an opinion she doesn't agree with (which would be all of them, in my case) she flips out and rants at you.
Case in point. I was having some issues with the computer while I was looking up the class availability for a customer. I joked that the computer (which is just stone aged) could tell I was a PC person and was doing it to spite me. (The computers at the Craft Centers are Macs. Not much of a fan, but I can deal.) The customer grinned at the joke, and goes, "I'm a Mac user."
To which annoying girl promptly decides to start shit. Mostly by ranting at the customer about how Macs are stupid computers and the keyboard functions are stupid and on and on and on, until I finally do the "bitch, please" smile and go "----? The nice gentleman wants to sign up for a class. Sir? Did you want to take the one that we're offering this Saturday?"
The abrupt silence was almost intolerably gratifying. I shouldn't have been nearly so pleased by that. Even though I was perfectly polite and was using the chirpy-customer-service-voice, my behavior could be classified as rude. Kinda showing her up in front of a customer. Which isn't really good work-place behavior.
But you know what? It was fun.
I'd do it again, too. And probably will, given that she's not going to become any less of a raving psycho. Oh well. It takes all kinds of people to build a world. Some of them just really piss me off. I'm okay with that. The world does not revolve around me. (Although, damn it, there are days when I think it ought to. That'd be kinda neat.)
Anyway... The point was, I got writing done today. So I'm posting the next segment.
And! I got this package notification today. It says it's from Japan. ^_^ I'm wondering if it's whatever Saint-kun sent me (he didn't tell me, the punk. What is with you people and surprising me? I hate surprises. Half the time I suspect you refuse to tell me because you find the hate-surprises-rant amusing) or the order I haven't gotten yet. I strongly suspect it's the former though. Yay! I can't wait to go pick it up. This is just spiffy.
Now, on to the post. Accompanying it is, of course, my wallpaper for today.
http://www.deviantart.com/view/11084727/
This works for Brother's Keeper and Chiaroscuro, I just realized. (You know, 'cause the Haellasians have hellfire eyes. *Happy dances.* If I ever get a chance to do some real work on Chiaroscuro, I'm so using this as my background for awhile.)
All heaven in the midnight of the sun,
A serpent fiddled in the shaping-time.
~John Donne, excerpted from Incarnate Devil
Title: Brothers Keeper, Part Four
Rating: PG
Genre: Wholeheartedly blasphemous, sadly, though I do mean it with all due respect.
Word count: 1814
Total word count so far: 9201
Author's notes that most likely no one will read: I never did mention that "Priore" is a bastardization of the Latin term for 'ancestor' and a plethora of other things that pretty much boils down to something else coming before what's current. Because looking up the Latin word for 'elder' proved ... seriously problematic. Oh. And I want to re-write Greg's bedtime story so badly it hurts, but...
A week passed like that. In the morning, Riordan dragged Greg out of bed. Occasionally forcefully, though he’d given that up after Tuesday, when Riordan’s attempts to physically dump Greg out of bed had resulted in an impromptu sparring match during which someone (Greg still wasn’t sure who) had put a hole in the wall. After that, Riordan stuck to threatening him with cold water. (That policy was actually implemented Thursday. Wednesday, Greg had decided he didn’t want to move and in doing so had discovered that Riordan didn’t make idle threats.) But after Greg had been forcibly dragged out of bed, they went through the Breakfast Ritual.
Truth be told, Greg enjoyed the Breakfast Ritual, though he would have willingly undergone torture than admitted it. He made suggestions, Riordan ignored them. Greg attempted to implement his suggestions anyway, Riordan smacked his hand away with a spatula or other handy kitchen utensil. Greg stole and consumed Riordan’s coffee by way of retaliation, and Riordan threatened to withhold breakfast. Greg poured Riordan a new cup of coffee, and Riordan set a big plate of whatever breakfast was in front of him. Greg insulted Riordan’s cooking, Riordan gave him seconds. It was routine. It was nice. There weren’t any commands, and Greg could almost (just not quite) pretend that he was free, and that he was here by choice.
Such thoughts were dangerous. Greg didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be home, in his own little hovel of an apartment, with his own things, and the people (the friends) whose lives he’d disappeared from.
Still. When Riordan wasn’t being a complete jackass, it was almost nice. A mini vacation, where no one wanted him to help them, or wanted anything from him. (He still wasn’t entirely convinced that Riordan wasn’t going to demand payment from him at some point. But mentioning it - well, okay, informing Riordan that personal touching or fucking was absolutely not happening - had earned him a dry, measuring look and the comment “I really don’t understand where your obsession with me raping you is coming from.” After he got done turning three different shades of red and gaping at Riordan like a fish, Greg had let the subject drop. He was still suspicious, though.)
They had been to the gym twice, and Riordan had finished the tour. There was no room Greg was forbidden to enter except one. It belonged to the apartments other occupant, the owner of the bipolar chocolates. Greg thought the other person might be Riordan’s niece, Sophia, because Castor had mentioned her. He hadn’t met Sophia yet, or even seen so much as a picture of her around the apartment. Sophia, he had been informed, was visiting a friend and would be back in a week or so. Prying for more information had resulted in Riordan pinning Greg and not letting go for a good ten minutes. It hadn’t been fun.
The routine was deceptively pleasant. Greg told himself he was only biding his time, that he was waiting until he knew more about Riordan’s weaknesses before striking, but he wasn’t sure how true that was anymore. Was he learning to like his gilded cage?
Those kinds of thoughts kept Greg up at night. He examined the silver band on his ring finger. It looked so… incongruous. So ordinary. Like any other ring. Like he could just slip it off, any time he wanted. (He couldn’t, though. He’d tried. Priore Tobias had spoken truly - only Riordan could remove the ring that held him captive.)
His Binding Ring served as his reminder, though. His gilded cage might be pleasant, but it was still a cage.
“Can’t sleep?” Riordan asked.
Greg started. Riordan loomed in his doorway, a sinister dark shape in black pajamas. “God, make some noise next time, why don’t you?”
“Sorry,” Riordan replied, though he didn’t sound it. He padded into Greg’s room without permission and set a mug of hot cocoa on his nightstand. “This always helps Sophia sleep,” he said, volunteering a bit of information about his niece for the first time ever. “Well, this and a story.”
“How old is your niece, anyway?” Greg asked, as Riordan settled himself on the floor and leaned against Greg’s bed. Castor always referred to her as “little Sophia,” but that didn’t really give him much of a frame of reference. He picked up the mug and sipped tentatively at the cocoa. It was rich and velvety - he could see how this would put someone to sleep. It was the epitome of comfort food.
“Sixteen,” Riordan said, his tone faintly rueful.
That was a year younger than Greg himself. “That’s a little old for stories, don’t you think?”
“Hah. I tell good stories,” Riordan said. Jet-black eyes still glittered in the room’s dim light. “Want to hear one?”
“…Sure.”
“Once upon a time, there were two brothers. The elder was called Cain, the younger Abel.” Greg started slightly and Riordan pinned him in place with a glance. “The story goes that Abel loved his brother as brother’s do, but Cain wasn’t as fond of Abel. The fact of the matter is that Cain was a bit jealous of Abel. No matter what he did or how hard he worked, it always seemed like what he did would never equal to what Abel could do. Everybody favored Abel. Their parents, the younger siblings to come after them, even God Himself thought Abel was a great guy. Until one day the hurt and the frustration and the jealousy overcomes Cain’s common sense and he decides that maybe if he kills Abel, his turn in the spotlight will come.
“So the first murder was committed. Some say that Abel saw it coming, but this isn’t his story. Cain buries Abel in the ground and plants a thorn bush over the grave to mark it and his guilt. He’s horrified by what he’s done, by everything he’s ever done right down to how he never really seemed to love Abel as much as Abel loved him. But that doesn’t stop him from letting the hurt and the jealousy take over again when God asks, ‘Where is Abel thy brother?’ You might say it’s the last straw. It’s always about Abel. Even after the guy is dead, it’s still about him. So Cain does something real stupid, and he says, ‘I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?’
“Except you can’t pull that kind of stunt with God. God heard Abel crying out for vengeance, and for Abel’s sake he punished Cain. He takes away Cain’s green thumb - because Cain was a farmer - and says that the Earth will no longer produce for him. He’ll be doomed to wander forever, since there won’t be any place for someone like him. Cain repents and says that this punishment is too much. He’s been cast from his home and from the sight of God, and that his other brothers will kill him.
“You’d think by now that Cain would have the sense to keep his mouth shut, but he didn’t. So God thought about it for a moment and came up with a much more fitting punishment for Cain. He touches the first murderer on the forehead and marks him, so that none may kill him. And he says, ‘Now thou art thy brother’s keeper, and none will kill thee.’” Riordan looked at Greg with interest. “Do you know what the mark God left on Cain was?”
Greg didn’t say anything.
“God opened Cain’s third eye. He made Cain the first psychic, and told him to go forth and defend man. And, just in case Cain ever let his jealousy overcome him again, God made sure Cain would have to help other people. He put a spiritual bundle of thorns on Cain’s back like Cain had planted the bush over Abel, so that whenever people cried out for him to help them, the thorns would sting him until he did.
“The story doesn’t end there, of course. They never do. See, the thing is, Cain was good at being a big brother. At looking out for people. He probably didn’t have much of a happy life, but a guy with a wife and a bunch of kids was probably close enough to content.
“Or maybe he would have been if he hadn’t noticed his firstborn son bore the exact same marks he did. The Thorn Scars. So did his second son, and his daughter. All of his children had the Scars. And continue to.
“Blood, as they say, will tell. And in our case, blood doesn’t just tell - it screams. It lectures. It compels. But it also means that we will never forget what God wants us to do. We might not be perfect older siblings or parents, or even much of a family at all, but helping humanity is what we were born to do.”
Greg waited for Riordan to continue his story/lecture, but he seemed to be finished. Neither of them spoke for a moment after that. For a moment, Greg was afraid to speak into the dark - that story always made him feel small and subdued - but then he managed to clear his throat and say, “That’s stupid. Helping other people only gets you hurt.”
“Do you really believe that?” asked Riordan.
“I’m your slave, aren’t I? Some reward.”
“It’s not about the reward, Grigori -”
“I know. I get it. Believe me, I get it.” Greg turned away to face the wall. “Leave me alone, please.”
“Alright.” There was the soft rustle of clothing as Riordan stood. A gentle hand landed awkwardly on Greg’s shoulder and squeezed briefly.
Why offer comfort? Greg wondered. Why bother at all?
Riordan picked up his cocoa cup and left quietly, shutting the door behind him.
Greg buried his face in his pillow and blinked back tears. For a moment it had almost like having Adam sit with him…
He closed his eyes but didn’t sleep. For once, he beat Riordan out of bed and stumbled blearily into the kitchen in search of coffee. He’d just finished setting up the coffee and was rummaging through the fridge for edible breakfast foods when he heard the front door to Riordan’s apartment open and close.
“Oy, bastard,” he grumbled. “My cooking isn’t that -” He stopped abruptly.
There was a girl standing deer-in-the-headlights frozen in the foyer. She was probably the prettiest girl Greg had ever seen, with wavy, shoulder-length reddish-brown hair and extraordinary blue eyes. This was the other presence he’d occasionally sensed, Riordan’s niece, the often mentioned but absent Sophia.
He met her pretty, pretty eyes and knew her. “Fucking hell,” he managed. “It’s you.”
It was the girl from the fire. The girl he’d tried to save. The girl he’d been made a slave because of.
Suddenly, a whole lot of everything made sense.
*Sighs.* I have this shift with a horribly annoying girl. She bugs the hell out of me. She's pretty much bi-everything. Biracial, like me, bisexual, which I'm not but can understand and support, and also bipolar.
*Considers.* Okay, maybe not so much bipolar so much as a raving psycho, but whatever. It sounded good, you know? Because she so is. If you mention Oreos (you know, the cookies?) in her presence she automatically jumps on you for being a racist and hating the term. (Okay, I get that she's had some trouble, but seriously. Do you see me flipping out over the term white-washed? I think not.) If you have an opinion she doesn't agree with (which would be all of them, in my case) she flips out and rants at you.
Case in point. I was having some issues with the computer while I was looking up the class availability for a customer. I joked that the computer (which is just stone aged) could tell I was a PC person and was doing it to spite me. (The computers at the Craft Centers are Macs. Not much of a fan, but I can deal.) The customer grinned at the joke, and goes, "I'm a Mac user."
To which annoying girl promptly decides to start shit. Mostly by ranting at the customer about how Macs are stupid computers and the keyboard functions are stupid and on and on and on, until I finally do the "bitch, please" smile and go "----? The nice gentleman wants to sign up for a class. Sir? Did you want to take the one that we're offering this Saturday?"
The abrupt silence was almost intolerably gratifying. I shouldn't have been nearly so pleased by that. Even though I was perfectly polite and was using the chirpy-customer-service-voice, my behavior could be classified as rude. Kinda showing her up in front of a customer. Which isn't really good work-place behavior.
But you know what? It was fun.
I'd do it again, too. And probably will, given that she's not going to become any less of a raving psycho. Oh well. It takes all kinds of people to build a world. Some of them just really piss me off. I'm okay with that. The world does not revolve around me. (Although, damn it, there are days when I think it ought to. That'd be kinda neat.)
Anyway... The point was, I got writing done today. So I'm posting the next segment.
And! I got this package notification today. It says it's from Japan. ^_^ I'm wondering if it's whatever Saint-kun sent me (he didn't tell me, the punk. What is with you people and surprising me? I hate surprises. Half the time I suspect you refuse to tell me because you find the hate-surprises-rant amusing) or the order I haven't gotten yet. I strongly suspect it's the former though. Yay! I can't wait to go pick it up. This is just spiffy.
Now, on to the post. Accompanying it is, of course, my wallpaper for today.
http://www.deviantart.com/view/11084727/
This works for Brother's Keeper and Chiaroscuro, I just realized. (You know, 'cause the Haellasians have hellfire eyes. *Happy dances.* If I ever get a chance to do some real work on Chiaroscuro, I'm so using this as my background for awhile.)
All heaven in the midnight of the sun,
A serpent fiddled in the shaping-time.
~John Donne, excerpted from Incarnate Devil
Title: Brothers Keeper, Part Four
Rating: PG
Genre: Wholeheartedly blasphemous, sadly, though I do mean it with all due respect.
Word count: 1814
Total word count so far: 9201
Author's notes that most likely no one will read: I never did mention that "Priore" is a bastardization of the Latin term for 'ancestor' and a plethora of other things that pretty much boils down to something else coming before what's current. Because looking up the Latin word for 'elder' proved ... seriously problematic. Oh. And I want to re-write Greg's bedtime story so badly it hurts, but...
A week passed like that. In the morning, Riordan dragged Greg out of bed. Occasionally forcefully, though he’d given that up after Tuesday, when Riordan’s attempts to physically dump Greg out of bed had resulted in an impromptu sparring match during which someone (Greg still wasn’t sure who) had put a hole in the wall. After that, Riordan stuck to threatening him with cold water. (That policy was actually implemented Thursday. Wednesday, Greg had decided he didn’t want to move and in doing so had discovered that Riordan didn’t make idle threats.) But after Greg had been forcibly dragged out of bed, they went through the Breakfast Ritual.
Truth be told, Greg enjoyed the Breakfast Ritual, though he would have willingly undergone torture than admitted it. He made suggestions, Riordan ignored them. Greg attempted to implement his suggestions anyway, Riordan smacked his hand away with a spatula or other handy kitchen utensil. Greg stole and consumed Riordan’s coffee by way of retaliation, and Riordan threatened to withhold breakfast. Greg poured Riordan a new cup of coffee, and Riordan set a big plate of whatever breakfast was in front of him. Greg insulted Riordan’s cooking, Riordan gave him seconds. It was routine. It was nice. There weren’t any commands, and Greg could almost (just not quite) pretend that he was free, and that he was here by choice.
Such thoughts were dangerous. Greg didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be home, in his own little hovel of an apartment, with his own things, and the people (the friends) whose lives he’d disappeared from.
Still. When Riordan wasn’t being a complete jackass, it was almost nice. A mini vacation, where no one wanted him to help them, or wanted anything from him. (He still wasn’t entirely convinced that Riordan wasn’t going to demand payment from him at some point. But mentioning it - well, okay, informing Riordan that personal touching or fucking was absolutely not happening - had earned him a dry, measuring look and the comment “I really don’t understand where your obsession with me raping you is coming from.” After he got done turning three different shades of red and gaping at Riordan like a fish, Greg had let the subject drop. He was still suspicious, though.)
They had been to the gym twice, and Riordan had finished the tour. There was no room Greg was forbidden to enter except one. It belonged to the apartments other occupant, the owner of the bipolar chocolates. Greg thought the other person might be Riordan’s niece, Sophia, because Castor had mentioned her. He hadn’t met Sophia yet, or even seen so much as a picture of her around the apartment. Sophia, he had been informed, was visiting a friend and would be back in a week or so. Prying for more information had resulted in Riordan pinning Greg and not letting go for a good ten minutes. It hadn’t been fun.
The routine was deceptively pleasant. Greg told himself he was only biding his time, that he was waiting until he knew more about Riordan’s weaknesses before striking, but he wasn’t sure how true that was anymore. Was he learning to like his gilded cage?
Those kinds of thoughts kept Greg up at night. He examined the silver band on his ring finger. It looked so… incongruous. So ordinary. Like any other ring. Like he could just slip it off, any time he wanted. (He couldn’t, though. He’d tried. Priore Tobias had spoken truly - only Riordan could remove the ring that held him captive.)
His Binding Ring served as his reminder, though. His gilded cage might be pleasant, but it was still a cage.
“Can’t sleep?” Riordan asked.
Greg started. Riordan loomed in his doorway, a sinister dark shape in black pajamas. “God, make some noise next time, why don’t you?”
“Sorry,” Riordan replied, though he didn’t sound it. He padded into Greg’s room without permission and set a mug of hot cocoa on his nightstand. “This always helps Sophia sleep,” he said, volunteering a bit of information about his niece for the first time ever. “Well, this and a story.”
“How old is your niece, anyway?” Greg asked, as Riordan settled himself on the floor and leaned against Greg’s bed. Castor always referred to her as “little Sophia,” but that didn’t really give him much of a frame of reference. He picked up the mug and sipped tentatively at the cocoa. It was rich and velvety - he could see how this would put someone to sleep. It was the epitome of comfort food.
“Sixteen,” Riordan said, his tone faintly rueful.
That was a year younger than Greg himself. “That’s a little old for stories, don’t you think?”
“Hah. I tell good stories,” Riordan said. Jet-black eyes still glittered in the room’s dim light. “Want to hear one?”
“…Sure.”
“Once upon a time, there were two brothers. The elder was called Cain, the younger Abel.” Greg started slightly and Riordan pinned him in place with a glance. “The story goes that Abel loved his brother as brother’s do, but Cain wasn’t as fond of Abel. The fact of the matter is that Cain was a bit jealous of Abel. No matter what he did or how hard he worked, it always seemed like what he did would never equal to what Abel could do. Everybody favored Abel. Their parents, the younger siblings to come after them, even God Himself thought Abel was a great guy. Until one day the hurt and the frustration and the jealousy overcomes Cain’s common sense and he decides that maybe if he kills Abel, his turn in the spotlight will come.
“So the first murder was committed. Some say that Abel saw it coming, but this isn’t his story. Cain buries Abel in the ground and plants a thorn bush over the grave to mark it and his guilt. He’s horrified by what he’s done, by everything he’s ever done right down to how he never really seemed to love Abel as much as Abel loved him. But that doesn’t stop him from letting the hurt and the jealousy take over again when God asks, ‘Where is Abel thy brother?’ You might say it’s the last straw. It’s always about Abel. Even after the guy is dead, it’s still about him. So Cain does something real stupid, and he says, ‘I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?’
“Except you can’t pull that kind of stunt with God. God heard Abel crying out for vengeance, and for Abel’s sake he punished Cain. He takes away Cain’s green thumb - because Cain was a farmer - and says that the Earth will no longer produce for him. He’ll be doomed to wander forever, since there won’t be any place for someone like him. Cain repents and says that this punishment is too much. He’s been cast from his home and from the sight of God, and that his other brothers will kill him.
“You’d think by now that Cain would have the sense to keep his mouth shut, but he didn’t. So God thought about it for a moment and came up with a much more fitting punishment for Cain. He touches the first murderer on the forehead and marks him, so that none may kill him. And he says, ‘Now thou art thy brother’s keeper, and none will kill thee.’” Riordan looked at Greg with interest. “Do you know what the mark God left on Cain was?”
Greg didn’t say anything.
“God opened Cain’s third eye. He made Cain the first psychic, and told him to go forth and defend man. And, just in case Cain ever let his jealousy overcome him again, God made sure Cain would have to help other people. He put a spiritual bundle of thorns on Cain’s back like Cain had planted the bush over Abel, so that whenever people cried out for him to help them, the thorns would sting him until he did.
“The story doesn’t end there, of course. They never do. See, the thing is, Cain was good at being a big brother. At looking out for people. He probably didn’t have much of a happy life, but a guy with a wife and a bunch of kids was probably close enough to content.
“Or maybe he would have been if he hadn’t noticed his firstborn son bore the exact same marks he did. The Thorn Scars. So did his second son, and his daughter. All of his children had the Scars. And continue to.
“Blood, as they say, will tell. And in our case, blood doesn’t just tell - it screams. It lectures. It compels. But it also means that we will never forget what God wants us to do. We might not be perfect older siblings or parents, or even much of a family at all, but helping humanity is what we were born to do.”
Greg waited for Riordan to continue his story/lecture, but he seemed to be finished. Neither of them spoke for a moment after that. For a moment, Greg was afraid to speak into the dark - that story always made him feel small and subdued - but then he managed to clear his throat and say, “That’s stupid. Helping other people only gets you hurt.”
“Do you really believe that?” asked Riordan.
“I’m your slave, aren’t I? Some reward.”
“It’s not about the reward, Grigori -”
“I know. I get it. Believe me, I get it.” Greg turned away to face the wall. “Leave me alone, please.”
“Alright.” There was the soft rustle of clothing as Riordan stood. A gentle hand landed awkwardly on Greg’s shoulder and squeezed briefly.
Why offer comfort? Greg wondered. Why bother at all?
Riordan picked up his cocoa cup and left quietly, shutting the door behind him.
Greg buried his face in his pillow and blinked back tears. For a moment it had almost like having Adam sit with him…
He closed his eyes but didn’t sleep. For once, he beat Riordan out of bed and stumbled blearily into the kitchen in search of coffee. He’d just finished setting up the coffee and was rummaging through the fridge for edible breakfast foods when he heard the front door to Riordan’s apartment open and close.
“Oy, bastard,” he grumbled. “My cooking isn’t that -” He stopped abruptly.
There was a girl standing deer-in-the-headlights frozen in the foyer. She was probably the prettiest girl Greg had ever seen, with wavy, shoulder-length reddish-brown hair and extraordinary blue eyes. This was the other presence he’d occasionally sensed, Riordan’s niece, the often mentioned but absent Sophia.
He met her pretty, pretty eyes and knew her. “Fucking hell,” he managed. “It’s you.”
It was the girl from the fire. The girl he’d tried to save. The girl he’d been made a slave because of.
Suddenly, a whole lot of everything made sense.