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 Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2018 12:39 pm
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Introductions, he supposed, were strictly for people who never met before. For voices that never stalked away the night hours. "Heliodor," he said, voice sharp as his nails. "I have a job for you. Meet me in my office." The transmission cut away crisply.
Faustite sat firmly at the edge of his seat — a bench delicately wide, as if inviting company seldom had. It once accompanied a piano in its past life, long before it wound up in Negaverse annals, and sorely mismatched the desk to which it belonged. Black lacquer finish cracked and demure velvet upholstery rotted through the years, but the captain paid it no heed. Its decadence matched his growing familiarity, his familial relations. The bags of rot still coalesced in the back of his dreariest dreams, especially when Tibby paid his too-expensive visits in the night. The bench and the cat groaned the same tired notes when taxed.
Before him laid a crisp manila file, complete with paperclips warping the edges like too-tight bras on schoolgirls. It advertised all manner of information — name, age, sex, place of residence, parent names, citizenship, prior schools, immunizations (in which, Faustite found, Jack was behind on his tetanus shot), grades, attendance issues, behavioral notes, and even library late fees. Romano's files were robust with their minutiae, with their cleverly-hidden biases tucked away in dry, scientific linguistics. No passion existed between those simple vanilla bindings. No flesh was given to the bones of Jack Burnett.
Faustite slipped the photo ID copy from behind Jack's admission papers. Forced crisp and straight, the paper stood in his hand while dark eyes prowled for accuracy. He looked different now in ways that Faustite never did. The captain's mouth creased southward.
He laid the page flat but left the file open-faced and easy to read. Shoulders stood while the captain's spine relaxed into a forward lean, with arms braced against the desk and hands folded knuckle-black into one another. But Faustite was never a gargoyle — his body hummed with a certain restlessness, elbows shifting or feet tapping, while he waited on his subordinate.
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Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:13 pm
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Tucking the communicator away in his fuku, the corrupt spared a glance at the clock on the wall. Normally he'd be wittling his time away in negaspace working physically with someone else or running himself through a series of courses to work on his endurance. Today, he had been practicing his magic, trying to get a better grasp on it and understand new ways to utilize it within battle. The glowing, stationary spheres had seemed useless when he first began this training, but since then had found ways to make them an almost useful tool. So far though, he hadn't had much need for it in battle. Patrols had been quiet, and with another agent with him at all times it seemed to deter any wayward senshi or knights.
So, a break from playing with the glowing spheres of water was welcomed. Turning on a booted heel, he made his way through halls that had become the familiar. The route he took, one often walked, was well ingrained in him and before he knew it he stood at the precipice of his commanding officer's office. A quick, customary rap of knuckles on wood announced his presence before he slipped into the dark room, the door clicking shut behind him.
Long, purple hair, pulled tightly in a tail at the back of his head trailed behind him as he joined the Captain at the desk. The displayed folder demanding attention where it was positioned. Brows furrowed as Heliodor gave the documents a quick glance before looking to Faustite. "You needed me for something?" He questioned as he stood erect in front of the desk, ignoring any vessel that would allow him to rest in, even if only momentarily.
Eyes lept back to the folder where a picture of a young man was neatly displayed. It took a moment or two, but recognition finally lighted in golden orbs. This young man had been with Elex and I the night at the gardens.
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Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 6:33 pm
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"I need you to follow someone." Faustite pinched the corners of the open folder and turned it to face his subordinate. A nailed finger tapped twice on the photocopied identification card.
"Jack Burnett, alias Dark Mirror Super Sailor Sinope. He attends Romano's Constitutional Haven. Legal guardian is now Rhona Lee after the unfortunate passing of his parents." Faustite straightened in his seat as one leg crowned the other. Fingers interlaced like the ropes of a hammock or a noose. "I want you to follow him. Learn his routines. Learn his tendencies. And when you can predict where he'll be at any point in the week, I want you to return with your report.
"Is that clear?" Heliodor would not fit into Intelligence, he knew, but a rudimentary stakeout and stalking was GenOps material. He asked nothing of Heliodor to learn the core elements of Sinope, but to learn his routine. His tendencies toward the darker parts of the world where concealment allowed him to vent his sins. It was, perhaps, a two person job, but Faustite lacked the manpower to spare. Only a single subordinate remained in his oversight now.
Would Heliodor botch the job? Likely. But Faustite lacked the time to waste on following Sinope indefinitely. He looked on, expectant.
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Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 8:39 pm
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Faustite cocked a brow. He stood, then, and pushed his chair to the desk with the back of his heel. Long fingers measured their way around the desk, finding it wanting, as he began a slow and purposeful pace. Footfalls heralded the heartbeat of their conversation.
That Sinope contacted Heliodor was troublesome. No agent assigned to him made mention of any Dark mirror senshi accosting them; the meeting must have occurred before Heliodor tried suicide by knight. But even he made no mention of it until now — what was exchanged that was so important to mandate a secret? Or was Sinope's presence so minuscule that Heliodor thought nothing of it until now? "Why didn't you tell me before?" Hands found his back, knit tight and tense.
"What did he want?" Did he say anything of Elex, of Rowan, of the creature connecting them both? Faustite's pace quickened slightly. What did he tell you?
Reaching over his subordinate's shoulder, a length of coal-black hair reaching for Heliodor's crown, Faustite moved his teacup and absconded with a notebook. Groaning, the spirals guided the cover and Faustite flipped to a fresh sheet. Another lean produced a fountain pen that he tapped once, twice, before he was satisfied with its ink. He scrutinized it for stains, for blood or spit or saliva so easily blended into the reservoir. There was nothing.
He set both utensil and paper before his subordinate. "Write everything you can remember."
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Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 10:20 pm
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"For being insignificant, you remember a lot." Faustite leaned over Heliodor's shoulder, attention rapt like a schoolteacher over a problem student. He watched the way the head of the pen jittered, seismograph-light, hesitated, then began again. Up and down and around it bobbed, leaving behind the black blood of Heliodor's memory. A memory so empty now of the old and tired that he had room to memorize their conversation verbatim.
Or make it up. The captain straightened afterward with his neck muscles tight as a drumhead.
"Maybe he did set it up." You could have been his meat to tenderize. His false moon to look up into and lie. What would you do then? Try to die twice? The first was just an experience.
"He doesn't give answers. He lies." His hands left their brace at his back and came to rest on the top of Heliodor's chair, where blackened outfit met blackened wood. Blackened fingers rapped their steady melody into the old. "He speaks poison the way all men do when they have nothing to say. He'll spin you a pretty story at a cost you can't afford. Your bills have been adding up, haven't they?" Another rap. Heliodor's bemoaning lessened, he knew, but his condition seldom improved. Obedient he began to be, perhaps only half the word, but enough to cover his most basic costs of survival. Still, it wasn't living. Still, it wasn't promising.
Faustite spent his thoughts through his back in tortuous smoke. "He sold you a Negaverse officer's identity. He did it for his own enjoyment. His schadenfreude. Now you're a self rewritten from a lost first draft. But here he is, again, hanging around you like a tatty noose. Mulish, isn't he?"
Fingers found too-long hair roped into a ponytail. It poured its purple strands down his back like a stigmata, but the chair back trapped it to his black uniform. He thought, briefly, of Schörl's constant derision for the boy — for the red and purple of a hat lady's club. For the cleverly reversed role. He wrapped his fingers around the thick root of it all, where it was most manageable. "Sinope's voice is saltwater. You're parched — you'll always drink more of it. Then the word turns sour and you drop pointlessly dead.
"You're in charge of your mission. Drink saltwater if you want."
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Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 10:49 pm
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"It was an odd interaction so it stood out." He defended himself. "And, at the time I was still susceptible to wanting to know everything about what happened to me."
And still he continued on and Heliodor sat there and listened with rapt attention that he knew was expected of him. The words were absorbed carefully and calculated. What the half-youma was saying was certainly true. Sinope was the senshi of slyness. All of this certainly could be nothing more than a trick. A game to him. He certainly remembered the teen enjoying his games.
Fingers in his hair caused a small shiver to run down his spine. For a brief moment he expected those fingers to pull, directing attention upward to the dark orbs that was Faustite's gaze, but nothing more than a tight grip occurred.
What did he have to hide from Faustite at this point? Really, there was no point or need to hide things, it always ended poorly for him in the end. Plus...well, whatever they had going on between them he was enjoying it...to a point. When he isn't being as salty as the dead sea.
"I am not thirsty." He responded steadfastly. "Not for him. Not for his lies." He looked Faustite dead on, a determination building. "I've changed. I am not...I am not interested in the things I can't have anymore, but I can't help but want to learn about what brought me here." He held his hands out.
"So he sold out an agents identity. To me? Why? What was so important about it? Who was it?" He shrugged, casting his eyes away from Faustite finally. "I think they're reasonable questions to be asked even if they're unlikely to make any difference to who I am now. Perhaps there's a lesson to be learned in there somewhere." Perhaps I can find out what happened to Elex and why Sinope dodged that question with a cryptic answer.
"It's obvious though that interaction with Sinope is likely...not the smartest of plans. Observing from afar is likely my best choice of action." He tilted his head up as he had expected Faustite to do so when those bird-like fingers gripped his ever abundance of locks.
"Thank you for at least giving me a bit of information about how I came to be here. As small as it was, I at least now know there was more to it that some odd chance since you so expertly keep informing me how dreadful I am as an agent."
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Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 11:02 pm
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"If scat comes out, scat goes in." Faustite pushed upward on the hair to direct Heliodor's attention straight ahead. "Remember that next time you backtalk your superior." I know Tiberius wont't mind.
"Sinope is a jealous child. A boy given to his wants, just like you. He craves what you crave — love and attention. Unearned devotion. Those inalienable human rights to fawn over at night. He wants them like I want a new pair of shoes. It's a vapid lust. A pointless one. A consumptive one. I'd say the same for you." But for all of Aelius's pining for that special someone, for the touch ever stemming of dreams, of memories lost to the new him, he never once made the effort to find it. No Aelius Draysen existed on Tinder, on Grindr, on any social networking platform with half a promise of companionship. These wants were cast to the sea air with every expectation that the world provides.
"Hope in one hand and speak into the other." The mutter was lost, dreamlike, but Faustite snapped back to the present.
He tried — oh, how he tried — to plan his method of attack. Better that Heliodor stay out of contact with Jack's wagging tongue. Nothing of it held meaning anymore when his first draft was no more than a legend. An artist's pique lost to half-completion. But he fancied it still, half a year later, and Faustite knew that preoccupation would carry on indefinitely. A lifelong pursuit, as surely as he breathed. As surely as a corrupt's hair sat weighted in his fingers.
He could braid a noose from it, he knew.
For a time, Faustite was silent. He weighed the words on his tongue for how easily they damned. For how they shifted and spurned in the way that Schörl scourged him. They were the foot and Heliodor the shoe. He tried the fit. "That agent's name was Elex Yorke." The words formed a mirthless smile.
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Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 11:26 pm
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It was as if Helio was damned from the beginning and no matter how hard he tried, Faustite refused to see the work that was being put in to try and conform to what was expected of him. Had he not pushed past his pining for the expectation of love and comfort? Had he not thrown himself into studies that were to prepare him for his new life? Practice his magic? Learned how to fight? It was as if all the work, all the mental obstacles he had to overcome, meant nothing in the end as he was continued to be mocked and diminished as nothing more than a lovesick schoolboy.
He was so much more than that. Why were only his shortcoming acknowledged? At this point, he didn't expect praise but the constant mudslinging was....almost too much.
And yet he took hit. Face straightforward as his head was guided by his superior. Teeth gritted against words that remain unsaid. Words that would only be picked apart and thrown back at him. Twisted in ways he never meant them to be taken.
And then Faustite dared to toss him a bone. A small bone with the mearest bits of morsels still clinging to its surface.
"That agent's name was Elex Yorke."
Eyes widened.
Water sloshed against the boats and pier. Elex's back to him lit by a sole light from above.
The memory left the corrupt blinking, but he could make no sense of it. Instead, he returned to staring straight forward as he tried to compose himself. Swallowing hard he said, "I am here because I found out Elex's identity. He chose this for me..." But why have I not seen him? Heard of him since joining the negaverse? What happened to him? Those questions were the ones that bothered him the most, but did he dare ask? Did he dare give Faustite more ammunition against him? Something else to throw back in his face.
Funny how I have wanted to open up to him, Faustite, but his salty, bitter words make me hesitant to do so past what is expected of me now.
But curiosity was one of Heliodor's charming traits, or if one asked his superiors, one of his damning.
"What happened to Elex?"
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2018 12:02 am
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Black eyes fell silently on Heliodor's crown. You worship me. You curse me. I'm your angel and your devil, aren't I. Elex and Eion. Your two-faced god. Your saint of duplicity. I wonder — where will the truth lead you? When all I say is only so much glitter and dust, what charges would you levy against Faustite? Will your make your play with words, fists, blood?
Faustite released his hold on that too-brilliant sprig of hair. Even in the dim, waxy desk light populating the place, leaving them both to look like ruddy gawkers, Heliodor's hair looked out of place. It looked like a clown's wig at a funeral — garish and mocking. Imprecise. Ill-received. But Faustite left it where it was, hanging off the back of his head dully and purposelessly. He paced away from it, where it spilled out all over the floor like so much milk, and found his chair again. He sat as he looked on at a face framed with less hair, now, than the back of his head. Heliodor looked more respectable from the fore.
Again he folded one leg over the next, loosely. A hand found his knee as the perfect perch while the other thumbed the underside of the table. "I have a reason for being hard on you. For expecting only the best. It isn't Schörl, as much as she stands over me. It isn't that you're my first, though that's true too. Yours was a troublesome dowry. Your life was more expense than I wanted to pay." He looked to gold eyes keenly, peering past the vermeil for what still lingered there. However much of Rowan Cameron still rattling about, still clutching desperately to a life that was no longer his. It lay with Heliodor's lascivious obsession with the past, with all he used to be. He built a monument to it — worshipped it. He lay himself at its feet in so many different prayers that each lost purpose. Each ask was another unrequited ritual. His lifelong pursuit.
That last discovery, his magnum opus.
"I push you because Elex Yorke is dead."
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2018 12:44 am
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"Not a tear for your poor, dead lover." Faustite cocked his head to the side knowingly. Somewhere in there, enough of Rowan closed off and dried out that Aelius could barter a little strength. Not much, and perhaps with interest, but he managed enough to weather that blow. Or maybe uncertainty tempered him for those long months of absence — those days where no lover laid to comfort him.
The rest of Heliodor's questions came at length with his usual pushy bullishness. He looked most like a child this way, Faustite found. Even as his body language played the solemn adult, each question struck out like a kid's fists beating impotently on its parent. Like anything at all could give under those soft, supple hands. Born and bred under a well-to-do roof he was, even if he showed none of it now, but those mannerisms clung to him incessantly. Faustite wondered how many capitulated to those same petty demands, half for their own yearnings and half to endear themselves to him. The thought struck him as sour — as tasteless.
'A poor trade if your words and actions have much to say.'
Faustite only lofted brows as his gaze darted for his teacup. He seized it, looked inside, and found it as empty and wanting as his subordinate. He licked his lips before pursing them together.
"You ask the obvious." Faustite's sharp gaze found him again while black fingers crawled over his otherwise white teacup. "Think about it. Why wouldn't I tell you so early in your career." He stared hard, expectantly. He stared away the seconds as he poached gold eyes for a modicum of thought, of intelligence. He waited for some sign of intelligent life lest he find those sights false as pyrite. But, as always, Heliodor had more to ask.
'What was Elex to you?'
"You have a stakeout to plan. Don't dawdle." He set his teacup on his desk firmly, coining a resounding clack to end their meeting. Fingers once again retreated to their lace on his knee and Faustite impelled him with a crooked glance.
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