[ Of any other, Gaelio could better believe accident. McGillis was, is a man of deliberate motion; if he could plan each breath he would and mete it out exacting. His masks so convincing because of the intricate detail, the smallest brushes painting the finest lines. What he knows of McGillis makes comprehension more difficult, and his determination to comprehend makes the allure of self-deception a prohibition.
Would that he could believe that the movement of those fingers had been involuntary, a reflex prompted by the force in Gaelio's clutching hand. If not that, then a result of the severity of his retreat, fingers only seeming to move through his own motion. But the lie in that rings clear. He would need first jumble the order, twist time, one a heady sequence of swimming beats before another.
Twice, now, Gaelio has felt McGillis's fingers curl against his hand.
Better that he could peel back the glove and the skin with it, shave off what lingers.
It feels impossibly long, the space between Gaelio's demand and McGillis's voice. The space between his hand's retraction, and the gradual fist that must remember, must coax itself to pull back. Left hanging, a suspension that spoke incompletion, needing a last unknowable something from Gaelio -- and Gaelio would, in this as well, through plain ignorance be unable to provide. Everything of him calculated, so what meaning in that, in his touch?
He watches fist brace against chest, and arms mirror, and is spared from wondering at that, too, by speech. Gaelio lifts his chin, his eyes, narrowed in premature defense.
Another correction hatches on his tongue, squirms raw like maggots, that he had not been trying to change history. That he had been forced to give up on sweeping things when the metal choked as surely as his tears. That he'd pledged himself to Rustal's narrow line only to thieve from McGillis his dirtied rerouting.
But it would be a petty, semantic thing. To change the course of history or to keep it, or less with the purpose of keeping it, but that a byproduct of his more insular ends. Though he has easily seen destiny in their collision, Gaelio less readily sees himself as a man that would affect the world, except through McGillis. Regardless, affecting the path, and Gaelio had said he would hear him.
How easily these words roll off McGillis's tongue, though strangely quickened at first. His dreams that were only deception, reaching for a galaxy and consuming lives with brutish indifference. Of course this would appeal to him. Fate and vastness, and magnanimously permitting meaning in the placement of a man he'd once discarded. Gaelio's fingers tighten on his arms through it, his teeth again grinding, the impulse to step forward and strike heady, blinding --
tempered.
He cannot shake it off so easily. As loath as he is to hear sense in this man's words, as much as it must be a betrayal of Carta, of Ein, and of his core precepts finally made solid and braced on his shoulders, as much as he would distrust it. As much as he feels the warring within him, between what should have been crushed and what rallies, frenzies, against it. Between how easy it had always been to hear him and follow, and revulsion that any part of him would still hear and sway.
As much as, as loath as, but the timing of it. The incredible timing.
After two years, after wavering and wavering and a hundred agonies, he had firmed his resolve and fixed his crosshairs immovably on McGillis. Deny, kill, and live as Gaelio Bauduin, dog to Rustal Elion, for that alone. His purpose, his drive, deny, kill, understand, and let them rest in peace. That tremendous, definitional step.
Only, within the span of a few hours, he had woken here, indeed, forced into a standstill for how twisted and shallow would be the meaning of exacting it here. Right or wrong, he cares less for the well-being of their world than he does for their current understanding.
Is it possible we're meant to understand something in this world before we'll be able to return to our own?
That question of before, now rephrased, but his struggle keeps the same -- Gaelio's interest is only in understanding McGillis, and being understood in turn. If McGillis speculates true, then it may be one of two: that he will come to see beyond their fractured divide, or that their understanding of one another might be better effectuated here.
Off the battlefield, away from the machines of legend, from Ein's guidance and company, without denial, without bloodshed.
But he must kill him, for Carta, for Ein.
But as soon as he had decided that, without doubt, they were stolen from the only method through which it could be respectably done.
If the letter spoke true. If Qri truly was essential to every universe and world. If they could truly read meaning in their selection, and only theirs -- and as McGillis could eviscerate him so easily, yet again, what purpose in lying, in feigning this, in using him, in manipulation?
god, it's provocative.
Dangerous.
He can feel it. Feel the beginnings of exposure on his face, creasing in his brow, bright and soft and bleeding in his eyes, in the contortions of jaw and mouth. ]
It might mean nothing.
[ Disgusting, how little it sounds as though he believes it, a frantic last attempt at resistance.
And with McGillis, it never means nothing.
Not for Gaelio. He'd thought, having no alternative but to believe, that for McGillis, it had been only that.
How cruel now, to offer this, as though they could be everything. When it cannot be true. When he still must kill him. ]
It might be lies, she might be a parasite, nothing of fate or well-being, nothing about our world.
[ Or it might all be true. That missing step... Gaelio swallows, forcing himself to some semblance of task, of order, of what grandiose conceptualizing would become in concrete practice. ]
...even if it isn't, what do you propose? You began by noting our impossibility. We might not be able to avoid each other, but do you expect me to seek your company? I won't follow you again. I won't let you use me again. I don't know that you're capable of working with someone, instead of using them.
[ Relationships reduced to utility may have been the norm within Gjallarhorn, but Gaelio had believed and took solace in exceptions. In Carta, who had no use for him, but kept close and imperious. In Ein, what he'd wanted for them, until the man took that blow, until they became all symbiotic, disfigured use. In McGillis, especially McGillis, in the dream that by standing at his side, he and they would be more. Fooled into believing he so stood, that fool had been killed by it, his cherished havens stolen. Not again. ]
why is this so loonggg????
Would that he could believe that the movement of those fingers had been involuntary, a reflex prompted by the force in Gaelio's clutching hand. If not that, then a result of the severity of his retreat, fingers only seeming to move through his own motion. But the lie in that rings clear. He would need first jumble the order, twist time, one a heady sequence of swimming beats before another.
Twice, now, Gaelio has felt McGillis's fingers curl against his hand.
Better that he could peel back the glove and the skin with it, shave off what lingers.
It feels impossibly long, the space between Gaelio's demand and McGillis's voice. The space between his hand's retraction, and the gradual fist that must remember, must coax itself to pull back. Left hanging, a suspension that spoke incompletion, needing a last unknowable something from Gaelio -- and Gaelio would, in this as well, through plain ignorance be unable to provide. Everything of him calculated, so what meaning in that, in his touch?
He watches fist brace against chest, and arms mirror, and is spared from wondering at that, too, by speech. Gaelio lifts his chin, his eyes, narrowed in premature defense.
Another correction hatches on his tongue, squirms raw like maggots, that he had not been trying to change history. That he had been forced to give up on sweeping things when the metal choked as surely as his tears. That he'd pledged himself to Rustal's narrow line only to thieve from McGillis his dirtied rerouting.
But it would be a petty, semantic thing. To change the course of history or to keep it, or less with the purpose of keeping it, but that a byproduct of his more insular ends. Though he has easily seen destiny in their collision, Gaelio less readily sees himself as a man that would affect the world, except through McGillis. Regardless, affecting the path, and Gaelio had said he would hear him.
How easily these words roll off McGillis's tongue, though strangely quickened at first. His dreams that were only deception, reaching for a galaxy and consuming lives with brutish indifference. Of course this would appeal to him. Fate and vastness, and magnanimously permitting meaning in the placement of a man he'd once discarded. Gaelio's fingers tighten on his arms through it, his teeth again grinding, the impulse to step forward and strike heady, blinding --
tempered.
He cannot shake it off so easily. As loath as he is to hear sense in this man's words, as much as it must be a betrayal of Carta, of Ein, and of his core precepts finally made solid and braced on his shoulders, as much as he would distrust it. As much as he feels the warring within him, between what should have been crushed and what rallies, frenzies, against it. Between how easy it had always been to hear him and follow, and revulsion that any part of him would still hear and sway.
As much as, as loath as, but the timing of it. The incredible timing.
After two years, after wavering and wavering and a hundred agonies, he had firmed his resolve and fixed his crosshairs immovably on McGillis. Deny, kill, and live as Gaelio Bauduin, dog to Rustal Elion, for that alone. His purpose, his drive, deny, kill, understand, and let them rest in peace. That tremendous, definitional step.
Only, within the span of a few hours, he had woken here, indeed, forced into a standstill for how twisted and shallow would be the meaning of exacting it here. Right or wrong, he cares less for the well-being of their world than he does for their current understanding.
Is it possible we're meant to understand something in this world before we'll be able to return to our own?
That question of before, now rephrased, but his struggle keeps the same -- Gaelio's interest is only in understanding McGillis, and being understood in turn. If McGillis speculates true, then it may be one of two: that he will come to see beyond their fractured divide, or that their understanding of one another might be better effectuated here.
Off the battlefield, away from the machines of legend, from Ein's guidance and company, without denial, without bloodshed.
But he must kill him, for Carta, for Ein.
But as soon as he had decided that, without doubt, they were stolen from the only method through which it could be respectably done.
If the letter spoke true. If Qri truly was essential to every universe and world. If they could truly read meaning in their selection, and only theirs -- and as McGillis could eviscerate him so easily, yet again, what purpose in lying, in feigning this, in using him, in manipulation?
god, it's provocative.
Dangerous.
He can feel it. Feel the beginnings of exposure on his face, creasing in his brow, bright and soft and bleeding in his eyes, in the contortions of jaw and mouth. ]
It might mean nothing.
[ Disgusting, how little it sounds as though he believes it, a frantic last attempt at resistance.
And with McGillis, it never means nothing.
Not for Gaelio. He'd thought, having no alternative but to believe, that for McGillis, it had been only that.
How cruel now, to offer this, as though they could be everything. When it cannot be true. When he still must kill him. ]
It might be lies, she might be a parasite, nothing of fate or well-being, nothing about our world.
[ Or it might all be true. That missing step... Gaelio swallows, forcing himself to some semblance of task, of order, of what grandiose conceptualizing would become in concrete practice. ]
...even if it isn't, what do you propose? You began by noting our impossibility. We might not be able to avoid each other, but do you expect me to seek your company? I won't follow you again. I won't let you use me again. I don't know that you're capable of working with someone, instead of using them.
[ Relationships reduced to utility may have been the norm within Gjallarhorn, but Gaelio had believed and took solace in exceptions. In Carta, who had no use for him, but kept close and imperious. In Ein, what he'd wanted for them, until the man took that blow, until they became all symbiotic
, disfigureduse. In McGillis, especially McGillis, in the dream that by standing at his side, he and they would be more. Fooled into believing he so stood, that fool had been killed by it, his cherished havens stolen. Not again. ]