#p: luc002

[aresmelaina]

starter for: @lucienmelaina

location: clinic

Coming back had been a blur. Ares wasn't sure how long he'd been lying outside of the farm, pressed up to Nicki, with Mike watching over them, but at some point the fighting had died down. The way back had been difficult, and at some point Ares hadn't felt much anymore, the cold or his feet or anything. The last thing he remembered was that they'd stumbled through the gates, and after that - nothing.

And then he was in a hospital bed. Ares groaned. His eyes felt crusted together, and like it took considerable effort to open them. For a moment, everything was pretty bright, and then his surroundings normalized. Alongside it came the pain. Dull and familiar by this point in his chest, a newer, sharper one in his back. It radiated when he shifted, trying to sit up a little to look around.

"Luc?" Ares blinked again. His voice sounded hoarse, like he hadn't used it for a while. It felt kind of weird, seeing his brother on a chair by his bedside when the last time Ares had seen him, it'd been the other way around. But hell, if Ares wasn't happy about it. "How... how long was I out? Shit..." Ares lowered himself back onto the bed, feeling too tired in the moment to properly get up. But he was here. Luc was here. He was back in Redwood. He couldn't help but smile as he closed his eyes again. "I'm back, Luc. I made it."

[isaacapatow]

@lucienmelaina * in the library

It had been a while, on both their sides; Ike hadn't had the wherewithal or the balls to go see Lucien when he'd heard the guy had been laid up with pneumonia, hardly in the headspace himself to want to weather the possibility of being ousted from the sickroom in disgrace. The bruise Lucien had socked into Ike's jaw was long since healed, but the sore feelings on both sides hadn't.

With the new head injury, though, and Ike's current state of being townbound, he figured there was no point in nursing hurt fee-fees. Plus before the clinic shitshow had gone down, his outing with Zack had proven fruitful. There wasn't any point in withholding from Lucien just because Ike was an asshole, certifiable.

He ventured into the library and called for Lucien, needlessly on Ike's part because it wasn't like he couldn't see a man who was six foot eleventy -- more to give Lucien a couple seconds' worth of forewarning. "Hey," Ike said, coming over. He couldn't exactly hide the cane he was carrying, so he didn't bother, but he said, "I heard you ain't been doing so good, compadre. That means your health's too compromised for you to swing on me again, right?"

[orioncarnell]

It could be tough - gauging what people meant from what they actually said. He'd been used to clear, straight orders that allowed no misinterpretation. His instincts were schooled enough to sense underlying danger in the way people talked, their body language, the subtle little movements no one would ever notice. His time in Redwood, especially with Isaac, had taught him a lot. Among them, how to sense sarcasm.

"You're angry." It was a simple statement. Orion didn't remove his hands from Lucien's back, kept them firmly pressed up against the other man's clothed skin as if waiting for the signal to push that likely wasn't going to come now. Recognizing that Lucien wasn't happy was easy - figuring out why would turn out to be harder. Though, considering how little they talked inside Redwood, it had likely to do with their time before.

"I would like to talk to you. I know I usually don't speak much, but I enjoy your company." That much was true. Luc seemed naturally calm and collected, not like someone who desperately needed to talk. The silences between them had been nice. Orion liked that. Though so far, the silences between them in the library hadn't felt comfortable - more like there was a tension there, one that Orion had simply chalked up to what Lucien had experienced before he'd come here, something that changed him. He hadn't even considered that there was a different issue.

"Why did you were bothering me?"

Orion was kneeling behind him before Lucien could even begin to protest, and there was a part of him that knew he had no right to. The man was being perfectly nice, offering to help him with his exercises, promising to be careful.

He felt his hand come to his back and he instinctively wanted to pull away, but moving from that position required too much effort. He just breathed instead, hoping his heartbeat couldn't be felt where Orion was touching him, and tried to keep up the appearance he had decided on ever since his old traveling buddy had shown up in Redwood.

Shown up and pretended that everything was okay between them. At first, Lucien considered the prospect that Orion didn't even remember him, feeling something between hurt and offended, but that wasn't the case. It was obvious he knew who he was, and even more obvious that he had nothing more than civil nods to offer- that, and physio help, it turned out.

"Avoiding you?" Luc repeated the words back at him, glad that the man was behind him and couldn't see the surprise in his face. "No, not really. You just didn't seem like you had much to say to me, so I figured I shouldn't bother you," he said, a burning tinge in his voice.

[isaacapatow]

@lucienmelaina * the mopey corner of the prom

"All right," Ike said. He hadn't bothered with any other sort of preamble, not even a few quips at Lucien's expense (or his own; Ike liked nothing better sometimes than to set himself up as an easy target and see what happened); just watched the librarian for a while, and then made a decision to interrupt his solitary time.

"C'mon," he continued. "You and me are going somewheres and you won't wanna miss it. We're gonna have to navigate a flight of stairs but it's not a bad one and I promise it'll be worth the climb." Ike nodded at Lucien's cane. "Good thing some motherfucker thought to bring you that back, huh."

He nodded in the direction of the nearby community centre. "Just as far as that."

[isaacapatow]

Lucien was right: Ike had barely touched him. On any level. He was about to snap back at the other man, well whose fault is that, but the truth of that statement was what stopped him. Technically, it had been Lucien, on behalf of Ares, on behalf of Mayra, so on and so forth. But both of those situations had been spurred on by Ike's own -- involvement, if not actions. There was always some other reason for Lucien to pull up the drawbridge and leave Ike charging back and forth outside the castle, stymied by the moat yet again.

He let go, intending to just leave as he washed his hands of it all (those Biblical analogies, they just keep oozing out to permeate the whole thing, didn't they? Funny, funny, it was all terribly fucking funny), but Lucien had other plans. Ike found himself trapped and manhandled, now, swung around with a startled sound and another huff of breath when Lucien shoved him up against the painting. The room took a breath too, in anticipation, a dozen guards watching with excited oil-paint leers to see what would happen.

"Don't," was what Ike intended to say, vague and unspecific, but Lucien kissed him first. Or was about to, anyhow; he drew it out, leaning in so Ike could spend that time having it driven home that Lucien was taller than him, could feel the lingering warmth of Lucien's lips against his, and could feel those teeth draw blood. Ike's eyes tightened at the corners but he didn't give any more than that, a click in his throat, maybe. Drawbridge creaking but not coming down.

He panted out a breath when Lucien pulled away and the pressure broke, startling enough that Ike moved his head like a startled fox when Lucien touched the stinging wound and dabbled in Ike's blood, collecting his paint from the palette to swoop it up. Rejecting martyrdom but claiming godhead. If Lucien had wanted him to, Ike probably would've dropped to his knees without protest, as thick in the fog of religious eroticism as if they were trapped in a censer, but Lucien moved away, drawbridge firmly shut.

Ike almost automatically followed that sign of the cross himself, long fingers twitching reflexively but not quite making it. He ended up with something else, ic xc just like in all the icons, held there frozen as he watched Lucien go.

.end

His back hit the wall, the wooden frame digging into his shoulder, and Lucien laughed. It was quick and absurd- Isaac's eyes were burning below him, his teeth gleaming in the moonlight, spitting out venom, searching for a wound to seep into. It was absurd, but none of this was making much sense anyway, so he might as well let go and enjoy the dance.

Because it was a dance between them, it had always been so. Swirling in circles, pushing and pulling, beautiful at times- there was no music but so many words, amicable melodies and hateful crescendos and one day it was going to end in applause or a broken leg. Another broken leg, anyway.

He could snap back at him. He could tell him to keep Mayra out of this, keep his brother out of this. Find the knife that killed the light in his eyes and twist it some more, let him know that true and unconditional love did not need bonding moments and clasped hands of solidarity, it could flourish just fine without his rotten roots damaging the ground. "Ruin?" he just asked instead, wondering what he was tasting in the air between them as he spoke. "You haven't ruined me, Isaac. You can't ruin something you have barely touched."

So it almost felt choreographed, when Ike let go, his poison spilled but his hands not letting Lucien fall until he had a grip on his cane. And with that cane he reached out, encircling the man's waist, grabbing the other end on the other side. He brought their bodies together again, the warmth not having yet escaped, and turned in place, all pain in his leg be damned, pushing Ike in the spot next to where his own sweat had probably left an invisible stain in the half-light. Right where Jesus was pleading for a lot of life and a little death.

Lucien leaned in, slow and tantalizing. He let their lips touch only for a long moment, his tongue running a trail over Ike's bottom lip, dry and chapped, making it easy to draw blood when he bit down on it. He pulled his upper body away, letting the air rush in between them, unaware of the last time either of them had breathed, but kept their legs locked together, his cane still wedged between the painting and Ike's body, as he brought his fingers to the crimson traces left on the mouth, smudging them over to the corner of the lips, up to the cheek. Tears made of blood, like Jesus behind him.

"...in the image of God He created him."

He drew his cane abruptly and stepped away, one, two, three paces towards the door. "Next time you want to hurt me, use my own vices. I have a lot, may God have mercy on my soul," he said sarcastically, smoothing down his newly wrinkled shirt with one hand, making the sign of the cross with the other, the fingers still stained with blood. "And I want my fucking book back."

[orioncarnell]

Orion made no attempt to not intently watch Lucien as the other man settled in his selected corner of the gym. It was a surprise to see him here - Orion couldn't recall encountering him here before. Most of their meetings in Redwood were contained to the library. "I see." The raider directed his gaze to the weights littering the floor, inquisitive as if he was seriously considering them.

However, he quickly turned his attention from the weights back to Lucien, the clearly more interesting thing in the room. "If you aren't lifting weights what are you doing here? I assume you are also not the type to go for the punching bags." It wasn't just an educated guess - back when he and Lucien had traveled together, Orion had done most of the fighting. The arrangement had worked out for them, they both hadn't died in each other's company after all.

But sometimes people changed. Especially when they were fighting for their life on the regular, and might need to defend themselves. Oron remained quiet for a moment, his gaze contemplative as he watched Lucien with interest. "Do you need any help with your workout? It's easier doing certain things together sometimes. And I am currently taking a break anyway." His body had cooled a little with the fresh breeze and water, but it wouldn't hurt resting his muscles some more. And he didn't mind helping out others when he could.

Just a few stretches, but he had to do them every day. That's what he and the people at the clinic had settled on, after it became evident that his leg was never going to heal completely and it was up to him to do his best to keep it as functional as possible.

He had grumpily agreed and that was how he had found out that the gym that supposedly lay in the back of the community center was not just a myth. Every day (or every second one, he was not a good patient), before dinner, he went there, spent a good fifteen minutes silently cursing the pain away, and exited all sweaty and breathless to get his reward food. It almost amused him to think that people who didn't know him may have actually believed he was working out.

Most evenings, he had company- it was the best time of day to use the gym, other than early morning. He would exchange polite smiles, pleasant conversations, moments of whining, anything to take his mind off the pain honestly.

But it was the first time he had this particular company. "Orion," he greeted with a nod, forcing his eyes to stay away from anything that wasn't his face. He walked to another part of the wall, far enough for it not to be awkward, but close enough to not seem as if he was avoiding the only other person in the room, propped his cane against the brick and slowly sank down, in a less than charming show of grace. "Oh, they're all yours. I would blame the leg, but I don't think I was ever able to lift those," he said, his heart already beating a little faster than usual.

[isaacapatow]

Ike was looking at that cane. He would've been lying if he tried to claim anything else; he was remembering that night by the junkyard, Lucien already half worn-out from the trek but still angry enough on baby brother's behalf to swing on Ike and tap him pretty good. That old cane wouldn't have reached. This new one would. It would be poetic, even -- Ike furnishing Lucien with a magnificent new cane that could be better used to clobber him with. If not poetic then at least funny. All of this, in its own grotesque, pointless way, was funny.

But Lucien's cane didn't leave the ground, didn't make some righteous arc through the air. you always fucking do this, Lucien swung with instead, and Ike felt a mindless pleasure roll through him, because that had implications, didn't it? That they'd known each other long enough, well enough, for Ike's chronically fuckhead behaviour to be decried with a you always.

"Told you I'm not hard to figure out--" Ike started, but Lucien was only just gaining momentum, taking Ike's earlier oblique words about Ares' damage and pinning it squarely to Ike's own church door. He kept his gaze on Lucien as the other man closed the space between them, surprising Ike again (he always fucking did this) as Lucien got closer and taller. He was just a writer and book-wrangler but there was something imposing about Lucien, physically and atmospherically. He was like some Poe short story housed in the body of a stunning, stunningly damaged man.

"Okay," Ike mumbled, not liking being looked down at, not liking the tiredness that followed each new critical flaw that Lucien pointed out. "Okay," and he meant to add on an enough, but Lucien wasn't done. And what he finished with, a challenge full-bodied and strong with a stone fruit aftertaste, made Ike's eyes open up again, his senses sharpened to a point so thin that it felt like it was humming through his back teeth.

Ike stepped forward. He stepped into Lucien and he kept going, one arm looping around the other man and the other grabbing up his cane, using it to keep Lucien pinned up close and tight as Ike barreled him against the wall. Against one of those sick, crazy, mouth-watering, head-screwing paintings. Lucien tall and gorgeous and sprawled next to a Christ who was weeping tears of blood to match the cascades of it down his contorted but still desirable body. Lucien covering up the leering twisted hateful guard.

"Or you know what you could do, Luce," Ike said, teeth snapping the words off as he used his body weight to keep Lucien pinned. "is you could ask Mayra about it. I've fucked her. I fucked her so good my dick scrambled up her god damn brains so now she thinks she's in love with me. Wouldn't that be a nice bonding moment for you two, something to join hands in solidarity about? All the trouble and hurt and weapons that I'm made of and how I use 'em to ruin people. Holiness conspicuously absent, amen."

He kept his weight against Lucien for a few moments longer, jaw working tightly, and then rocked back, making sure Lucien had a grip on his cane before letting go. "Do whatever you need to," Ike said, grimacing as he patted the palm of his hand to his forehead, then to the stitched-up top of his head. "Abstain, abjure, avoid. It's none of my business anyhow."

Of course Lucien wanted to know. It happened to him quite often, looking at people as if they were book characters, but it was hard to take off them author glasses once you've put them on. He tried to uncover secret motives, speculated about their inner workings, craved a reason behind their actions. And Ike would always be floating at the top of his list- he didn't give a shit about heroic deeds and tragic heroes on their way to redemption, just a glimpse at what made him tick, what put that light behind his eyes and why it flickered and disappeared with such ease.

Because he could pinpoint the exact moment that playful glimmer died and left two black holes behind. He almost felt the air around them get colder as he saw Ike swallow and he felt a shiver on the back of his neck, unsure of what his words had unleashed, waiting for the threat that hung in the air to take shape.

Lucien knew he should be angry, he could feel some fire burning within him but he couldn't distinguish the rage from the alcohol from the lust. There was a part of him that wanted to add to the bill, take a swing with that cane that had been the Holy Grail between them, see what damage it could cause.

But when he spoke, he was calm. Maybe the fucked up sacredness of the room was rubbing off on him, or maybe it was the opposite, an innate sadistic need not to offer the reaction he wanted and stand like the guards over Jesus, his apathy the whip against his blood-stained smile.

"You always fucking do this," he said, his voice steady, allowing himself even a bitter chuckle. "The moment things don't go your way, the claws are out, hungry for whatever flesh they can tear into. 'Moving on from one kind of hurt to the next instead of dealing with what's happening inside'? That's the tagline of your modus operandi." He closed the space between them again, wishing his limp didn't make him seem weak, knowing that weakness was far from the first thing that came to Ike's mind. "You hurt people to avoid being hurt, you find the holes the nails left behind and twist your knife into them." He covered enough distance to tower over him, looking down and holding his gaze, barely blinking.

"You, with all your quick wit and powerful words," his voice dropped to a whisper, breathed in the air between them. "And you choose to turn them into weapons, instead of telling me what you would do if you had me pinned against that painting. Shame."

[isaacapatow]

"I'll save my tell-all for Penthouse, if it's all the same to you." Ike gave Lucien a lazy smile, a lazier shrug. "Your writing's a little high-brow for my kind of story. My life goes better with a glossy centerfold spread when people need a break. You could hit up Davey boy or Ermano if you want something ..." Ike paused. "What's the book version of the Academy Award? I don't know. But a book-Oscar. Those guys would deliver, plenty of guts and glory and self-sacrifice for the good of others."

But once all that was out, the sort of relentless redirection that Ike employed without regret or care, it left behind a film of unease. He didn't want to sound dismissive of Lucien's actual offer, after all, his talent and his life's work and his bonafide interest. It took no small amount of cojones for Lucien to let people in Redwood read his own writing when he'd have to live cheek-by-jowl with them after and endure the sort of pestering that Ike was constantly plaguing him with, the is-this-a-true-story nagging all the time (it was roguishly charming when Ike did it, of course; probably less so from other people).

So: "I don't mind talking to you about it, if you really do wanna know. I'm just not used to that." He paused. "And it's not very comfortable stuff." Another pause. "For most people to hear about."

There, that was enough. Ike turned his attention back to the artwork, and the complex question that Lucien was challenging him with. Licking his teeth, he said, "It works as a pretty good stopgap coping mechanism, physical pain to distract from the emotional pain. But you're right. It's not exactly sustainable. And half the time people end up moving on from one kind of hurt to the next instead of dealing with what's happening inside." Ike gnawed on the inside of one cheek, dithering, the words on the tip of his tongue to stamp a name onto this theoretical conversation, to provide collateral and formulate a treatment plan, but he resisted. Swallowed it back down. There were promises on both sides to keep.

And well decided, too; Ike listened to Lucien renounce sainthood while standing in this musty circle of Christ lashed thirty-nine times fifty times over, the muddled light from the one fixture and the various ones outside dappling Lucien's strong-featured, melancholy-handsome face to match the sonorous words rejecting canonization. It was distressing but not enough to escape being arousing. When Lucien tipped Ike's chin up, it didn't seem out of place to this conversation in the slightest. Ike half expected to be fed a sliver of bread and sip of wine with it.

But it was a different sort of penance that followed. Ike stood planted where he was and watched Lucien move away as he cited Mayra's being in love as the reason they weren't going to be getting any closer. "Ah," Ike said, and got stuck there.

Girl-feelings, they were precious.

"Your brother clocked me too," Ike said instead, not moving. Everything he'd swallowed swirled back up, promises be damned. "Because he needs to be hurt, and he needs to bleed and be put on his knees and have somebody take away all of the shit that he can't think his way through, because at least when he's in physical pain that makes sense to him. And I stopped doing it for him so he socked me one. I should be sending your family a fucking bill for services rendered."

"You know how we writers are. We only do deep." He didn't know if it was denial or dishonesty or oblivion that was coloring Ike's words, wasn't sure if he would ever work out that riddle. He could go from hubris to self-deprecation in the same breath and Lucien didn't know which part lay closer to the truth, which one to the truth he had made himself believe.

But he wasn't going to question any of it. Instead he looked at him as the man looked at the painted blood and spoke of a past life that seemed so long ago but was part of the paint that made the work of a man that he now was. "You've never told me much about who you were before. Not that you have to," he shrugged, and he meant it. "But if you ever want a memoir written, I know a guy who would love to sit and listen."

Ike's fingers barely touched the canvas and for a moment he wondered what they would feel like on his skin. "I can't be the one to say if it's bad. But aren't the mind and body too intrinsically linked? Can you really degrade one while uplifting the other? God knows that when my body got fucked, and not in a good way, my head was never in the right place either." He makes two, three small circles with his cane, one end anchored in the wooden floor, trying to remember the emptiness of his hand before it, failing.

There it was. Lucien's gaze shifted between the metaphorical cross he was being nailed onto and Ike's eyes that were just as penetrating. He let him talk without a response, just a sad smile playing on his lips and a warmth building somewhere low with every word of his. "I'm not a saint, Isaac. Deification is buried somewhere far away, I've drowned it with my own two hands," his voice came out in a whisper, as he raised his free hand and ran a finger up the man's throat, gracefully tilting up his chin. "You've read the book."

He broke the spell with a step back, tugging his hand free and turning his back to him, walking to another painting close by, blood dripping from the corner of Christ's jaw, unclear if he was spitting it out or drinking it in. "I'm not fucking you because Mayra said she's in love with you. And screw all the angels and demons and whoever else made me want it this much, I'm not doing this to her."

[isaacapatow]

"...fuckin' hellfire, Luce."

Ike stared at his friend, trying to figure out the tone behind the words -- complimentary and vicious at the same time, somehow, casting each of the things that Ike considered a not-especially-noteworthy feature of his position as head raider into the realm of miracles and martyrdom. "It ain't that deep. I mean, this probably is--" he gestured at the art around them, splaying his fingers and wobbling them back and forth, "--but I'm not. I just get my job done."

He followed where Lucien was gesturing with more comparisons, Ike's gaze skating between the malicious sadistic pleasure of the guard and the tight yet strangely inviting suffering on Christ's face, and said, "You're right about the holiness, anyhow. That stuff's best left behind and that's what I did. Didn't have a scrap of it by the time I crossed the Hudson and settled down in New York."

Lifting his chin at the painting, Ike murmured, "Plenty of people get off on being treated like that. Without the whole complimentary Son of God thing, but, y'know." Ike's fingertip skated the air just over the bleeding wounds, circling, following the drips. "Is it so bad? If that's the choice you're making to settle things in your head. Mortification of the flesh to keep you together while you figure the rest out."

And Lucien might have a lick of it himself, given that he wasn't taking his hand back even with Ike's thumb pressing hard into the middle. Ike felt the small bones shifting under his fingertips on the other side and said, "So is that why you haven't let me take you to bed yet? Once I actually fuck you I'll lose what-all mystique I've got?" Ike gave a crooked grin, digging hard enough into Lucien's palm that his short nail hit skin. "What if I just pop your bubble right here? I'm easy, Luce. I'm so so easy, on just about every level of the word."

Ike leaned closer, switching his grip on Lucien's hand to clasp it instead, stroking the taller man's wrist with his thumb. "I could play holy for you if that's what gets your clockworks a-tickin'. You want absolution, Lucien? You need some kind of benediction, you want guidance in the name of the most high? I can do it. I was ordained to it before I lost my baby teeth."

"You think you're Judas?" Lucien scoffed, looking to the side over his shoulder where Ike was standing next to him in front of the beaten down Jesus. "You, who go out on raids to overflow our fishing nets, who bring back canes to heal the cripples, who would die for at least half the people in this town? Even now that you speak about yourself, your words reek of so much martyrdom that it would make the lord and savior jealous. Although that's probably not a thing he did, holiness and all."

He turned to face him for a second, sparing a small smile. "You're certainly missing most of the holiness," he commented with a shrug, because apart from the miracles he also remembered all the cutting words, the bruises he caused, the blood he had shed. "Plus, I'm pretty sure you would be into at least part of this, whatever it may be," he lifted his cane to point at the painting, the handle casting an even darker shadow over Christ's bare chest.

That's what Ike was in his head. Not Jesus or Judas, but some character in a book that his skills could never measure up to. The kind that made you hate him and made you love him and made you unable to predict his next move, but carried the feeling of having been written by some divine intervention you just had to follow, because somehow things would be explained at the end, or at least that's why you convinced yourself you were still reading.

It was his book he was talking about though, words Lucien had once written coming out of a different mouth with such ease, such intrigue. The same intrigue he looked at him with ever since he had read it. "You know I'm never telling you, right?" he said in a low voice, his thumb almost as cold as an iron nail in his palm. "Because if I lift that veil of mystery, you're either going to see a less interesting person or a less interesting writer on the other side, and I don't know which would hurt more."

[isaacapatow]

"I'm just sayin'. I used to be a reserve firefighter so I could do you that one, easy. More experience there than carrying brides." Ike favoured Lucien with a wide, loose grin. "And I was as hot as they came, you better believe it."

Ike couldn't help watching Lucien use the new cane, his already fluid and experienced wielding of it made even more so now that he had equipment that was suited to his height. It made a difference, even subtly, and Ike couldn't help the thrill of accomplishment that it gave him.

His notion of the kind of thing that Lucien might find diverting proved true as well, and fucked if that didn't get the endorphins rushing. The look on Lucien's haughty, handsome face as he surveyed the rough, unhung gallery of artwork and took in the subject material got an answering strum from Ike, coming out in a low chuckle.

"You know it's fiction if I'm the Jesus figure in it, all right." Ike strolled over, joining Lucien at a painting that was done mostly in shadow and dark strokes, the Christ figure in it being held up by one of the guards, all knowing, lusty smiles and bright crimson blood winding down torn, bare skin. "I think my natural place in any of these allegories would in the olive grove, kissing someone to betray them."

Ike nudged against Lucien, knuckling his hand into the other man's hip and saying, "Was that part in your book something that happened to you? After the church auction. With the roomful of disembodied pieces of crucifixes everywhere." He reached out to catch Lucien's free hand, turning it over palm-up so Ike could dig his thumb into the middle of it. "All the free-form stigmata to the highest bidder."

"Bride style, obviously. I appreciate the hot fireman stereotype as much as the next guy, but it's prom knight, Isaac, don't be a brute."

They walk side by side to the stairs and up, Lucien aware that Ike was deliberately falling into step with him, his gait quicker but still constrained even with the new cane. He had never really wondered what was behind those doors, writing them off as storage rooms the few times he had passed by them, his interest and adventurous spirit limiting itself to the ground level out of sheer necessity.

But that night he was intrigued, by the mystery of it all, the sneaking away, the lockpicking, the fact that Ike deemed this interesting enough to leave the dancefloor and lead him there. And when the dropcloths were unceremoniously discarded, the reason was obvious.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he said, his voice instinctively coming out in an almost-whisper, feeling as if he had snuck out of high school prom to sneak into the headmaster's office and could be caught any second, "no pun intended."

His jaw dropped open, his fingers gingerly running over one... art piece after the other, each more absurd than the previous one- the nice and proper voice inside him told him he shouldn't, but there was nothing nice and proper about what he was witnessing.

"The town has a blasphemous BDSM art museum and I'm just now learning about it?" he asks, glancing over his shoulder at Ike, unable to hold back a grin. "Or I guess I should be thankful to even be granted access to this. Unless you're trying to commission me for something, in which case if you wanted me to write you a story with you as Jesus in handcuffs, you should have just asked."

[isaacapatow]

"I already planned ahead for that. I ate my Wheaties this morning, Luce, don't you worry none -- you can even pick if I carry you fireman or bride style if it comes down to it."

They made their way upstairs, and Ike led the way to one of the closed rooms, jimmying the lock open. "It's not really a secret," he said, grunting in satisfaction as the tumblers clicked and he swung the door ajar so they could go in. "Everyone on the Council knows about it. I just don't have a key, Jemma keeps those." Ike's smile inched a little wider at the mention of her, intoning fondly as Lucien went past him, "...I could've stole it easy, but I figure that's asking for trouble. Presuming on our relationship and all that."

He made sure to shut the door behind them, then walked over to one of the walls. The whole room was lined along the walls with propped items that had been draped with various sheets and pieces of cloth, and Ike started taking them off carefully, though he wound the actual dropcloths haphazardly around his arm and over his shoulder.

"Turns out Jason Beckett who owned this place had some kind of a nose for art," Ike said. "And not ordinary art."

Every single piece, the paintings on the canvases and the few sculptures, was some depiction of Christ being flagellated. Ike paused in front of one where the Jesus figure was manacled and being mocked by one of his tormentors, their faces erotically close. "I dunno if he was religious, or weird, or somebody told him there was money in this," Ike said, "but I thought you'd appreciate seeing them. A whole gallery of ritualistic, fated, god-compelled torment."

It was nice to pretend that things were normal. With the music and the flowers and the put together suits, it did all feel quite ridiculous, but the good kind, the kind that almost made you forget what was happening outside the walls. Lucien had mingled and chatted and laughed and finished about three glasses of cider when some song from the early 20's came out of the speakers and all his friends ran to the dance floor.

And things weren't normal enough for him to dance, that ship had sailed long ago. He refused to find a chair, trying to nonchalantly lean on his new cane and watch people from a distance, the alcohol in his glass only slightly numbing his fear of missing out.

But he knew Ike had been watching him for a while, so that was going to lead to something, great or terrible only time would tell. Something more interesting than sulking in the corner, at least.

"Alright," he said with a straight face and finished the remnants of his drink as Ike finished his pitch. "Are you prepared to carry me like a damsel in distress if I turn out to be more useless than you thought?" he asked, but he was already gravitating towards the direction he had pointed to.

[aresmelaina]

Luc sobbed, the kind of sob that rocked your whole body, as if all the pent-up emotions inside of you suddenly found some way out. In that moment, Ares could do little more than give his brother's hand a weak squeeze. "Don't say sorry. You don't have to be. It's all... it's okay. Everything's okay, Luc."

Ares could feel his own blue eyes growing wet, though nothing spilled, the smile stayed on his lips while he kept quiet for a moment to gather himself properly. "Was I out for that long? Shit. I'm sorry." It'd explain why his body felt like some energy vampire had sucked everything out of him. His head still felt thick, as if someone had stuffed it full of wet cotton, making it hard to focus on much else than Luc right in front of him.

"I feel like somebody worked me over with a sledgehammer." The idea of Luc leaving seemed to darken Ares eyes with a soft anxiety.Ares still said it with a smile, a joke to lighten up the mood, though there wasn't much of a joke to it. "I'm fine. I'm okay, Luc. I don't need anything. Just... just stay here. Please." The raider closed his eyes for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts, anything of the emotions bouncing in his head. He was home, and Luc was there, and it would be okay. A thought worked it's way through his brain, to the forefront.

"Nicki- Is Nicki okay? She was with me when I-" Ares paused. He wasn't sure if Luc had been waiting for them at the gate. He couldn't remember much of it. Understandable, with the state he'd been in. "She's okay, right?"

He was sure that position was not working any wonders for his already aching body, but he didn't care. The moment they let him know that Ares was in the clinic, Lucien had stumbled into the room, dragged a chair next to his bed and claimed it as his new home, eating whatever some nurse or friend dropped off, sleeping in guilty ten minute intervals and then shooting right back up, worried he had missed something.

He hadn't. His brother had stayed asleep and barely moving for endless hours, occasionally groaning in his slumber, his face distorting with pain before drifting off again. Lucien had to remind himself that pain meant he was feeling and that meant he was alive, his brain still functional.

When he finally spoke, he thought he was hallucinating after all those hours awake. But the words kept coming and Ares opened his eyes, even managed a smile- and Lucien sobbed. He tried to muffle it in his palm to no avail, choked on the tears and wiped them on his sleeve, his other hand holding tight on his brother's hand.

"Sorry about that," he said, letting out a breathless laugh, "it's been a long few days. How are you feeling? Are you in pain? Do you want me to bring you anything?" the questions came out one after the other, their joined hands anchoring him in place to make him believe this was real.

[isaacapatow]

"Ahhhh, the pity vote. Where would I be without it." Ike clicked his tongue and tipped two fingers to his forehead when Lucien declared him fucked-over enough to not bother picking up the squabble, but he was, honestly, grateful. Lucien was looking ... well, he never looked bad -- he had the sort of saturnine handsomeness that absorbed the ongoing pain he likely felt -- but there was a paper-thinness to his skin that hadn't been there before. A look as if he'd been enclosed in a greenhouse to keep him breathing and warm. Ike was glad Lucien had been taken care of during his illness, if he had to be sick.

As for his own mishap -- he ran his hand lightly over his head, feeling the soft bristles and the slight prickle of the stitches -- and gave a long, throaty sound to demur about it. "You know how it is when you live a life of derring-do," Ike said, breezily. "I was breaking into -- get this -- a clinic with a pharmacy on a golf course. Well, practically on a golf course, it was a gated community that was designed around a golf course. So the rich fucks didn't have to commute too far home after shaking hands over sweetheart deals and sucking each other off in the sand traps."

Ike leaned his head back, watching closely as Lucien inspected the cane and he had something to keep nattering on about, which took any awkwardness out of the situation: "--the rich clinic wouldn't even let their own rich demographic inside, canya believe it? They were all parked up in the back, dead in their cars. But there were some employees inside who'd turned and one of 'em caught me off-guard and, whoop! Down I went." Lucien was turning the cane in his hands and Ike watched, greedy to see how the other man liked it, finishing without half-thinking, "...Doc Brandon soldered my head shut with a heated-up knife. Real action-movie stuff. Lowbrow for the masses. Lowbrow for my scalp hanging off, too. Ba-dum-pum."

God, Lucien looked good using that cane. It was like his whole body recalibrated itself, little jammed-up intersections of bone and muscle finding their way back to how they were meant to be. "There's no catch," Ike said. Then he came closer, dragging his fingers up the cane till his fingers touched Lucien's on the exquisitely shaped handle. Then he leaned in and kissed Lucien, bunching the fingers of his other hand in the other man's sweater to hold him there, heedless of the cough that had punctuated the air a moment ago.

"Maybe one catch," he mumbled. This close Lucien was warm, probably feverishly so, but Ike leaned eagerly into it to soak it up into his own perma-chilled bones. He didn't try to kiss Lucien again. The pity vote, after all, could only be presumed upon so far.

It really felt like not a day had passed, with Ike having found himself on one side of the front desk, going about some extravagant ramble and Lucien on the other, one part annoyed and many parts wondering about the alternate universe where the other man is the writer and he is making more money than he ever managed to.

It only feels like that though, because many days have passed, and Lucien has spent the majority of them inside four walls, waves of cough and fever alternating in making his body shake- he is sure the consequences of that are visible on him, just like the consequences of some other fight are visible on Ike, now that he can see him from up close. "Let's leave it aside then, it's not right to go against someone who's already stitched up." The truth was more complicated than that and it lay somewhere between his mental and physical exhaustion from his illness, his obliviousness of much of his brother's truth and, whether he liked it or not, some worry about the wound that decorated the almost shaved head in front of him. "Feel free to tell me what happened to you, though, you know a good story is the way to my heart."

He did his best to act calm and calculated, but his heart jumped like a kid on Christmas morning as he took the new cane in his hands. It actually felt new- sure, there were some scratches here and there if you looked close enough, some probably earned on the road from wherever the hell Ike had managed to find something like this all the way back to Redwood. But it was also far from just a walking stick- it was smooth and polished, someone having paid extra attention to every detail, a stark contrast to the one he had been using all these years. And it was tall. He put it down next to him, in the usual place, but not really, because this one he could actually hold to his side without leaning. It felt strange, but in a more than welcome way, and he could already feel some built-up tension leaving his fingers, his waist, his leg.

His own cough brought him back to reality, covering his mouth with his free elbow, before pushing his glasses up his nose and turning back to his visitor. "So I punch you in the face and this is what I get in return? What's the catch?"

[isaacapatow]

"Maybe I just wanted to go another round, slugger," Ike chortled, a wave of relief suffusing his chest and pushing out the tightness that had been there. Lucien was talking. Not running him out of the library with curses and perfectly reasonable anger. "You know I got me a case of chronic assoholia. It's non-curable. Not even treatable. They're holding a telethon for me but I'm just gonna blow the money on strippers and collector squishmallows."

Ike approached a little carefully nevertheless, mouth screwed penitently to one side, eyebrows pulled together. "We can talk about it if you want," he said, testing the waters, "what happened with your brother, or we can leave it aside. On account of you being riddled with Doc Holliday and me having just got scalped, and neither of us being in good enough health to have it out."

After all, Ares was still a raider. Willingly, happily, without any more beatings. Ike was still carrying on with the other stuff, the stuff that Ares seemed to need with a hunger that was faintly worrying but that Ike didn't have the time or the wherewithal to figure out just yet. The status quo was working; let it, for a while longer.

He put the cane he'd gotten from the VFW bar on the desk between them. It was tall, beautiful; handmade and polished. "I got one for you," Ike said, hopeful. "Like I said I would. I didn't forget."

It was the first day of the library operating again after he had indefinitely turned the door sign to 'closed' when his health had started deteriorating, and Lucien was already pretty much exhausted. Not a lot of people had dropped by, and most of them were just checking up on him, with the optional excuse of returning or looking for a book. Still, somewhere between being actually sociable for the first time in weeks and having to walk up and down the stairs two or three times, he was already wondering if he should just close early, make himself some tea and go back to the blanket that had been his shelter for the better part of a month.

That was until he heard the familiar raucousness of Ike's entrance, unexpected but surprisingly not unwelcome. Their last meeting had ended less than ideally, but somehow Luc felt too exhausted to even be mad at him. He almost -almost- smiled when he saw him approach, something tugging at his heart when he saw what he was carrying, a conversation from the same place but long ago replaying in his head.

"Isaac," he acknowledged, actually making the effort to stand up slowly, one hand on his old cane, the other using the desk in front of him for support. "It depends on how much of an asshole you are planning to be. Or are you just here to satisfy your insatiable need for literature?"