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 Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2023 9:01 pm
How long had it been since he'd been in front of this door? Weeks, maybe? Not since that attempt at an apology from Faustite and the little gift of cuff links. His suits for trips into the office sported them now, and even if it had been a while, things felt... easier now. A little less immediate. In no small part because the joy of having Rowan, or Aelius now, tended to erase the pain of his loss.
Fafnir knocked lightly with the backs of his knuckles before he opened the door. Faustite might not stand on ceremony, but it never felt right to just throw open the door and stride inside without some sort of warning to announce him. Behind him, a tiny wisp of light bobbed after, refusing all attempts by Fafnir to chase it off. Any time he came to the dark kingdom, it appeared, trailing along behind him and hovering near his shoulder when he was till. He still didn't know why it had latched on to him, but it seemed harmless enough. Hopefully Faustite wouldn't try to eat it or something. He was becoming a bit attached to it, never having had a pet beyond his horses.
Swinging the door open, he slipped inside, closing it quietly behind him.
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2023 6:48 pm
For once, Faustite was thankful that someone opted to knock. Judging by the time, it would've been Fafnir. The Super's aura permeating the area implied that he was right. And since Fafnir knocked, Faustite had the time to finish wrapping his right wrist.
He didn't know why his right arm was faring so much worse than his left. Was it because he'd been stabbed, so that somehow had an effect on the amount of blisters and cracks in his arm? Was it because his arm was constantly closer to the grate? Was it something else he hadn't considered? Faustite couldn't figure it out. Neither could anyone else. For now, he wanted to keep his slow decline for himself.
As soon as he was finished, Faustite was coughing heavily. Thick gouts of smoke erupted from between his fingers as he tried to smother it. He coughed until he gagged, until spit ran down onto his palm. And once he felt he'd recovered enough, that his raw throat wasn't going to burst apart in another fit of hacking coughs, he thought it time to let the boy in. Fafnir had been waiting long enough. Worse yet that Faustite wasn't able to explain the nature of the meeting over the tablet.
"Enter," he managed, voice raspy. Faustite tried to sit up, keep his back straight, his free arm in front of him as if he other arm hadn't just been stabbed and was simply missing in action. It didn't discount the boiling fissure that cracked open across his jaw, or the heat blisters that cropped up around his neck and hands.
Fafnir would notice. Faustite only hoped the boy had the decency to spare him from talking about it.
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Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2023 8:49 pm
The coughing fit took Fafnir aback as he stood outside the door and waited, listening to the rough, hacking coughs. It went on long enough to be concerning and the voice that bade him enter hardly sounded like Faustite. It hadn't been that long since they'd seen each other, but the changes wrought in that short a time stopped Fafnir in the doorway when he finally got a look at his general.
The room was wreathed in a haze and in the center of it sat Faustite, looking as though someone had set to him with a branding iron. After that momentary pause, the corrupt mentally shook himself and closed the door behind him, a frown creasing his forehead. The wisp that had been following managed to duck through behind and bobbed along behind him, moving between the trailing strands of his hair.
"You sound awful... should you be working?" Fafnir said as he crossed the room, choosing for this moment to drop some of his normal formality for something more genuine and laced with concern. If Faustite hadn't wanted to talk about his condition, perhaps he should have sent Albite or Jadarite in his place, because there was no way even Fafnir could ignore what he saw. So much of Fafnir's plans now rode on this general... if there was something wrong with him, as there clearly seemed to be, it was Fafnir's problem too.
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Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2023 6:04 am
Fafnir did not have the decency to spare him from talking about it.
"No one's telling me I can't work," Faustite answered, frowning. No one was telling him much of anything, but Fafnir didn't need to know that. Nor did Fafnir need to know that Bloodstone told him his human half wasn't good enough anymore. Or that Bloodstone ******** stabbed him because Bloodstone was a stupid b*****d who was bad at his job. Not that Fafnir would be oblivious to the sling, but —
Whatever. Faustite mentally wrote off this entire conversation.
"Sit." He gestured at one of the chairs before he half-smothered a couple coughs. "Need a favor, and you're the best pick for the job."
Of anyone, Fafnir was the one he most trusted to keep a tight lid on what was known and what needed to be found out. He had the social skills that Faustite lacked, the poker face that Albite couldn't manage, the calm that Heliodor didn't inherit. He could find what needed to be found in a more professional manner than any of them, save for maybe Jadarite, who could be his equal at that. But for all the feral bastards and motley chip-on-the-shoulders that comprised his team, Fafnir was absolutely the one to stand out for how polished and refined he was.
And Faustite needed that polish. Terribly.
"How good are you at spotting spies?"
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Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2023 8:56 pm
Fafnir frowned in return, but when Faustite commanded him to sit, he had a hard time refusing to do it. Eyebrow raised, he sank into the chair with a slow motion, attention on his general and every little wheeze and cough.
"You know I'm always up for any mission you have for me..." He began. The question, however, took him by surprise and now both eyebrows rose, clear surprise on his face. "I'm not sure about my faculty with spies. Spec Ops was never appealing to me. That's not to say I couldn't if I tried... but there would be a measure of research on my end to figure out what to look for. I am good at research, though I'm no Infos."
Faustite suspected a spy? How interesting. How would that even work? They had to be corrupted to be close enough to get any actually important information. Anyone corrupted was already predisposed to participating in Negaverse goals, even if they didn't particularly want to. Was this someone who'd become disillusioned? That was a dangerous game they played... with a general able to rip you out of any place you tried to hide without even knowing where you were, there was literally no way to escape from them. If someone suspected you, there was no way of escaping punishment. Even in all his dislike for being recruited, Fafnir had never considered working for the other side. The Negaverse had power the others could never match, and it was only a matter of time before they won this stupid war and claimed control of everything... why side with the losers?
"Are you wanting me to find one?" He asked, considering how he'd go about that. Faustite's condition was not entirely forgotten, but he let it lie, for now, determined to bring it up later.
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Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2023 9:43 am
Faustite nodded at Fafnir's declaration. Of course the boy was good at research — he'd had his hand in creating some identities from the ground up, which took ample research in its own right, let alone the projects he had been involved in while under Labyrinthite or Netherite. Of anyone on his team, Faustite was certain that Fafnir was the best pick for this.
Shifting in his chair, Faustite sat on his foot so he could lean further over his desk. Using the butt of his pen, Faustite dragged an open notebook between them. While he spoke, he wrote names down using the middle of the pen to keep his hand off the paper.
"Someone on the team's been leaking information. Know it's not you since we became aware of the leak before you joined the team, and you wouldn't have known what was leaked at the time that it happened. You know how to behave yourself, know how to wear a poker face, and know your way around social circles — of any of us, apart from perhaps Jadarite, you're best suited for keeping your ears open." He paused, as if he was going to cough, but one never came.
"Think you're the most personally motivated for it, too, since the ******** with your brother might've happened in front of that leak. If they get bold and start leaking more important information, then that puts both of you at risk." He sighed for that, smoke wending from his nose.
"Been doing what I can to eliminate people. Know that Jadarite's got a project she's presenting to the Sovereigns. If she gets her funding and her project's greenlit, she might be pulling members from the team to help. Want you to lend your support and keep your ears open. If she pulls help from our leak, then you might suss them out faster than I can."
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Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2023 7:53 pm
His assessment was true, of course, but it was no less flattering for that. Fafnir felt a smirk curling his lips, a hint of flirtation in his expression out of habit before he remembered his brother and it cooled. That was still a problem he needed to deal with... There was no way he was sticking his d**k in something that belonged to his brother, not without permission at the very least, and even then.
What a mess... It wasn't like he and Faustite had been anything in particular to each other, and he wasn't necessarily hard up for partners if he wanted them, but there was still a sense of loss, or disappointment. He'd enjoyed their time together. He'd liked being with someone he didn't have to hide Negaverse things from. Even if Aelius was okay with it, could he touch Faustite and not think of his brother?
Fafnir's wandering thoughts were shattered as Faustite went on and his focus narrowed sharply. His expression hardened as he sat up straighter. That was a very bad risk to have floating out in the aether right now. He'd just gotten his brother back. If anyone was threatening that... they were not going to live long to act on it. The whole team had been there in Jadarite's apartment. He ran through the names he knew, pairing it to faces and trying to remember if anything had looked any sort of way that might have been a clue... Cross referenced with other meetings the whole group had been part of. Any inconsistency in their manner?
"Do you have any suspicions of anyone? What brought the leak to your attention to start with?" He asked, trying to keep the tightness out of his voice.
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Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2023 5:46 pm
Watching Fafnir's expression warm had been its own excitement, and Faustite waited delightedly to see if that spark went anywhere. When it fizzled and died, however, the burning General was crestfallen. What happened to the boy whose pool he used to borrow? Had he burnt that bridge between them so thoroughly that Fafnir had to act like it never happened? If he dwelt on that thought, he was certain to be in tears before their meeting was done.
So he forced himself to adhere to the business at hand. He cast his thoughts back to the wedding, to the people present for it.
"Tama, Fulgurite, Albite, Celadonite," he'd begun slowly. "Heliodor, Alkmene, Lilith, Haymitch, Mizuki and Cryolite. Albite picked up on the leak." That did not exonerate the boy, however. What added to his case was his constant doting on Faustite and willingness to get married tin the first place, though he was still fraternizing with Nectaris. "Started working on a few of them. Been difficult to make progress, however." As one would expect.
As much as sleuthing out leaks was a shared responsibility between Information and Special Operations, it very much shared the skillset of Infiltration from what he had seen. Punishing a traitor was a much easier task than finding one, given how he lacked the impetus to carry out Schörl's interrogation strategies. Doing so would cause his entire team to walk out on him, he suspected. Better, then, to leave the finding to someone who was just as capable of putting on a duplicitous front.
"Tama lacks contacts for dispensing information. Celadonite sleeps too much during the winter months to have spent any time leaking, or to have come by any information worth leaking. And Albite is…" Faustite made a few revolutions with his index finger. "He'd have tripped over himself by now."
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Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2023 4:04 pm
Interesting that Albite, of all people, had discovered a leak. He would have to ask him about it, in as circumspect a way as he could manage. The list Faustite gave was not everyone on the team, but a good many of them. Helio and Albite he dismissed as having low likelihood. He found it hard to picture either of them leaking anything other than accidentally... certainly not maliciously.
Faustite marked two more as low threat, and he filed them away mentally as something to look at, but not for focus without more support. That left... Fulgurite, Alkmene, Lilith, Haymitch, Mizuki and Cryolite. Pulling out his tablet pen, he activated the screen and made notes on what he'd been told, and anything else Faustite gave him to work with. He'd have to work out a plan for hunting down information and assessing the names he had left. Following each of them was probably not possible without a greater group effort, and that would make it harder not to reveal the fact they knew there was a leak.
"Have you tried anything yet, to work out who it might be?" He asked, a finger tapping on the side of his tablet. Some of these he hadn't formally met, even, so they'd need to be approached carefully. Maybe that would even be a boon, since he could make introductions a cover for investigation. Getting enough trust to allow him to pry into their goings on was probably out of the question though. Would it be worth while to bring in any help on this? He'd have to consider it carefully. A big group would not be good, but maybe a small one...
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Posted: Tue May 16, 2023 8:01 am
Faustite nodded to Fafnir's question. "Tried feeding them some dummy information. Been trying to make contacts on the other side to see if anything gets out, but I'm not the best at it. Work's better suited for someone like you." Or Quartz, though Faustite hadn't seen that boy in years. Nor did he have reason to believe that Quartz would share his contacts with him. "Haven't heard anything circulate yet."
That they hadn't yet discovered the leak was leading Faustite to question if there was one, or if he was just monumentally stupid and sluggish about finding it. If he were to ask Schörl, the answer would be plain — Faustite was terribly inept and unworthy of his station — but what if this was all due to some ridiculous slip of the tongue, and they were now hunting ghosts? What if he was sending Fafnir on an impossible task? The doubts only compounded the more he considered them, so he tried to set them aside until Fafnir had ascertained all he could from their meeting.
"If you can't find the culprit, see to it that Jadarite is successful. Whatever you can do to help." The boy was moneyed, he had connections, and he never met a challenge he couldn't overcome, so Faustite expected his assistance would prove extremely worthwhile.
"And if you do find the mole, fetch me a pair of pliers and a bone saw."
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Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 12:35 pm
False info was a good way to go about it… he’d have to look deeper into that and see what rumors he could start. Finding people on the other side to fact check things might be harder… but he was charming and not aggressive. Surely he could manage it. It would be another good test of his skills, being so far out of his normal comfort zone.
He cringed inwardly a little at the implied torture, but he kept it from his face. There were some things that would just have to be done, and he could be thankful it wouldn’t have to be him doing it. Leave that to the others, the ones like Borax with the taste for it. He would do what he was good at.
“I’ll get started right away.” Fafnir said as he put his tablet away and rose. “And you should probably get some rest.” He put a big-brotherly concern into his voice, his frown genuine. There was only so much he could do for Faustite… he had to hope others would be more useful in this area.
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Posted: Wed May 24, 2023 6:31 pm
The reminder that he should rest was hard to take. Faustite felt like that was damn near all of what he was doing — lying in bed, napping at his desk, or coming home early from a patrol to sleep. It wasn't necessarily helping him, and the increased need for sleep left him more anxious and irritable than he was normally. But he had no sound reasoning for denying it — he had to keep being unproductive as the White Moon if he wanted to stay alive.
Chagrined for it, Faustite nodded at the suggestion. While he looked crestfallen for having to do it, the boy brooked no arguments. If nothing else, it warmed him to hear Fafnir concerning himself with his well-being. He could do that much for a boy.
"Thanks," he said at last. "Hope to hear good news soon." It was all they could do, on both fronts — hope.
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