Fic: The Deadly Light 6/? (Watchmen)
Feb. 13th, 2011 04:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anactoriaTitle: The Deadly Light
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anactoria
Fandom: Watchmen
Characters/Pairing: Various, mostly Adrian/Dan
Rating: PG for this part, probably R-ish overall.
Summary: Lovecraft-inspired 1920s supernatural horror AU.
Notes: So, uh, only six months later than anticipated *shame*. Here's Chapter 6, in which our heroes take a break from mysterious interdimensional energies and creepy cultists to get very, very drunk. Now with 100% more flapper!Laurie!
As always, kindly beta-read byflyingrat42. Thank you! :)
Previous chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
"Ten weeks, you think?" Dan frowns. "She was tiny when we found her. I'm sure she shouldn't have gotten this big already."
"You're right, of course." Adrian smiles fondly at the rescued kitten -- if you can call her that, given that she's already the size of a fully-grown housecat -- who is currently pawing curiously through the stack of assorted papers she's just knocked off his desk. "I hadn't quite anticipated this. Though at least the kitchen staff won't have to worry about laying rat-traps for very much longer."
"You think it's something to do with--"
"The energy to which she was exposed in the warehouse? Oh, without a doubt. In addition to the accelerated growth rate, there's -- well, I'll show you. Here, Bubastis."
The kitten, predictably, doesn't respond, and Dan can't help smiling quietly at the ridiculous name -- even if it does fit the ambience of Adrian's home pretty well. The house is filled with bits and pieces of ancient worlds, artefacts that must be worth a fortune apiece -- more a three-dimensional encyclopaedia of world history than a place to live in -- but the kitten seems at home here, skittering and jumping around like it's her own personal playground, every bit as though she really is an ancient Egyptian feline goddess. A particularly small and capricious feline goddess, that is.
After a second, Adrian sighs and scoops her up onto his lap, where she immediately commences batting at his tie with a paw. He rakes a hand through her coat, fingers splayed, and Dan can see the faint purplish shimmer when her fur moves, as though another light is shining on it, a light that is coming from somewhere outside this room. Somewhere that he cannot see.
"That's amazing," he murmurs.
"Isn't it?" Adrian scratches the top of the kitten's head with his thumb, not looking at all perturbed by the proximity of those needle-sharp claws, or the fur that's all over his suit jacket. Over the past couple of weeks, he's come to display an almost paternal affection for the little (or not-so-little) creature; she seems able to do no wrong in his eyes.
Funny, really, considering he's barely even mentioned the Roche girl since they found her. Dan wonders if there's some kind of displacement going on.
"The family offered Kovacs a reward," he mentions, voice carefully casual. "He wouldn't take it, of course." Though Kovacs has seemed a little happier since they found the girl, a touch less sullen and tightly-wound. As though he's finally done something he can be proud of. "They're good people. No money, just ordinary, but-- decent, you know?"
"I'm afraid I haven't had the pleasure," Adrian says mildly. "Kovacs appears to have a much larger emotional stake in the affair than you or I. It would seem churlish to interfere."
For a moment, Dan thinks that maybe he's being reproved, but Adrian just carries on talking.
"Besides," he's saying, eyes modestly downcast, "I'm afraid I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to talk to a child. I was never very good with them, even when I was one myself."
Well, Dan sure as hell knows how that feels. (Being an awkward kid, that is -- now that he's living in the adult world, he's decided that children, more often than not, make a lot more sense than grown-ups.) He sees Adrian's faint, regretful smile and returns it, and tries not to examine too deeply the relief that he is feeling.
"By the way," Adrian adds, eyes widening, as though the thought has only just occurred to him, "I don't suppose the little girl has mentioned anything further about 'the festival'?"
"Not as far as I know. Why? You have any idea what it might mean?"
A shrug. "I'm not certain. No matter." Then Adrian's tone brightens. "The writer friend I mentioned to you is in town at the end of the month. He's something of an authority on religions predating the Judeo-Christian belief systems. Perhaps he'll be able to shed some light on the matter."
Dan nods. "Sounds interesting. Introduce me?"
"Naturally." Adrian smiles again. "Of course, by the time he arrives, it will be almost Hallowe'en. I think perhaps I'll have a party."
*
Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea, Dan thinks, as the swirling mass of bodies parts and closes ranks before his eyes for what feels like the hundredth time. He hasn't seen Adrian in an hour, and while he knows that cocktail parties are hardly Kovacs' scene (his friend being one of the few people who actually takes the liquor ban seriously) he'd be glad to have even a disapproving lecture to listen to right now. Sure, there are people here who he knows, but he's not much good at small-talk, and he feels lost among the twirling, fashionably-dressed crowd. He certainly doesn't feel like listening to Adrian's old college friends, who are frankly intimidating, posing like fin-de-siècle decadents, each one trying to be more loudly risqué than the next guy. When a new gap opens in the crowd and he spies Laurel and Osterman gazing dreamily at one another over the punchbowl, Dan decides it's high time he escaped for a little while.
Clutching his third (or maybe fourth?) glass of wine, he slips out through a side-door and up a flight of stairs, finding himself in one of the cool, darkened corridors on the first floor. This one leads to Adrian's study, he realizes after a moment, and the door is half open, allowing a warm patch of light to escape. And it isn't that he's rude enough to listen in intentionally, but he can't help overhearing a snatch or two of conversation as he makes his way towards the door.
One of the voices is Adrian's, and the other seems to belong to Martins, the writer, to whom he was briefly introduced earlier. Martins is surprisingly rotund and jovial, not at all the pale and bespectacled intellectual Dan had been expecting, with an apparently inexhaustible supply of stories set in the public houses of London -- and a similarly inexhaustible capacity for alcohol, knocking back glass after glass of the punch, a potent, sweet-smelling concoction apparently of his own devising.
"Well," Martins is saying, "As far as I know, the ban was removed in February. But frankly, the general opinion on the continent and at home is that they'll never get anywhere. Their theories are crackpot nonsense. Though of course, there are those in England who believe that a Hitler is just what our country needs." A quiet chuckle. "Some people will say anything for a little notoriety."
"Unfortunate," Adrian says, and there is a tightness in his voice that Dan has heard very rarely. "It's easy, it seems, for people to forget that... views of this type can have a very real effect upon the lives of those being denounced. Even when no-one else takes them seriously."
Dan doesn't have to see Adrian's face to know that he wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that tone, and the lightness with which Martins responds surprises him:
"Of course you're right, dear boy. It's far too easy for politics to become a kind of parlour-game, if you will. I forget that you have -- personal connections in Europe. You'll forgive an old man, I hope?"
A soft sigh. "Well, perhaps we should move on to matters of more immediate import?" Then, a touch more loudly: "Dan, you are welcome to join us in here, you know."
Dan feels his cheeks grow warm, though he probably should've expected to be discovered (even when he was a kid, Laurel always beat him at hide and seek.) But he pokes his head around the door and then lets himself into the study, taking a long glug of wine to hide his embarrassment.
"So," says Martins, "You wanted to pick my brains?"
"We could certainly use your expertise, yes." The beginning of a smile tugs at one corner of Adrian's mouth. Dan settles down in his chair, some of his discomfiture subsiding. "I'm familiar with your published work, of course. You talk about one of the major celebrations of the 'Old Religion' occurring around the winter solstice. I was wondering if you could give us any further details. Specifically-- " (And here his voice takes on an exaggerated tremble, as though in acknowledgement of the absurdity of the subject, discussed in the warm, lighted comfort of a rich man's study.) "I'm interested in the prevalence of sacrifice as a ritual practice."
"Sacrifice? Well now." Martins' eyebrows shoot up, and he looks immensely pleased. "I must have told you about the nasty business at the Bowl last year. Surely you don't want to hear that gruesome old tale again?" But the glitter in his eyes belies his words, and he leans back, glass in hand, apparently readying himself for a lengthy stint of storytelling.
Dan isn't exactly sure that he's in any state to absorb information right now, his head muzzy with warmth and wine and the lateness of the hour, but he figures that sitting here and listening is at least preferable to going back out into the party. So while Martins talks -- about missing local girls and buried bones, and mysterious noises in remote woods at night -- he lets the story wash over him, wondering instead of noting details as he should be doing, like a child listening at a campfire on the edge of sleep. As he listens, he finds himself watching Adrian's face, bright-eyed and golden in the lamplight, as though he might absorb some of that alertness just by looking.
After a moment, Adrian catches his eye. His expression is unfathomable, or perhaps meaningless. A lot of things about Adrian are still unfathomable, although they spend a lot of time together these days. (Perhaps too much time, Dan thinks, recalling the pointed remarks Kovacs has started to make whenever he shows up at Dan's rooms and finds Adrian drinking coffee in an armchair, or poking through the workshop with delighted curiosity.) Maybe there's some dark secret, some mysterious past life -- or maybe bright cheerfulness and intellectual puzzle-games really are all there is to him. Dan can't decide, and he can't decide whether that's incredibly frustrating, or comforting.
Adrian is still looking at him. Dan blinks and ducks his head. His glass is empty.
"It's as backward a village as you're likely to find anywhere, of course," Martins is saying, "and separating superstition from fact is nigh-impossible. But you might be interested to know that there was some immigration from the area over to your side of the Atlantic in the middle of the last century."
"Really?" Adrian says, and Dan dares to look up again, knowing he'll be looking at Martins.
"Really. Records indicate that a few of the settlers made their homes not too far from you. Arkham, I believe."
"That is interesting. Don't you think so, Dan?" Adrian is looking at him again, but this time there is the barest hint of a smile playing about his lips.
"Well... it should certainly give us something to look into."
"And something's always better than nothing, eh?" Martins leans forward, elbows on the desk, setting down his glass on the polished wood. "But tell me, Mr. Dreiberg. Adrian tells me you're a man of science, not a historian. What got you interested in the occult?"
Dan shrugs. "I don't know. It's just interesting, hearing about all these lost worlds," he offers.
Martins nods expectantly. Clearly that isn't going to suffice. Dan sighs inwardly. He isn't really sure that his conversational skills are up to explaining this, tonight.
"It's not so different, really, is it?" he says. "Those things that people discovered hundreds of years ago weren't magic, they just had a different way of... imagining things, I guess. Everything I find out, it just shows how little we know about everything, even everything that's happened on this one tiny little planet. It's like there's this whole, this sea of infinity out there, and I might just get to explore one little part of it in the time that I'm here. It's amazing."
He starts feeling like a fool before he's even finished talking, but Martins is smiling. "I see you have a little of the poet in you as well," he says.
Dan blinks. The thought has never seemed all that poetic to him, just true.
Across the table, Adrian is regarding him intently, with something that is not quite amusement. It's something different, something to which Dan cannot quite put a name. Unfathomable, again.
"Come on," Martins says, getting to his feet. He claps Dan heartily on the back. "I can see that both of you gentlemen are in need of a drink."
Dan manages a smile. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I think I am."
*
Martins' punch is as strong as it is sweet, a bitter tang of green tea in the aftertaste. Dan can't remember whether he's been sipping it slowly, or whether his glass just keeps getting topped up, but between the punch and the endlessly moving throng of people, the night is soon beginning to swirl and to soften around the edges. He watches Adrian make a circuit of the room, nodding and smiling at all the appropriate people at all the appropriate intervals, and then another. Then he decides that he needs to sit down.
The library will probably be deserted, he thinks, and it's one of the few rooms in Adrian's home that he can probably find his way to drunk. And he manages it easily enough, one hand tightly clutching his glass, the other steadying him along the corridor wall. Not that it's entirely necessary -- he thinks -- but better safe than in an undignified heap on the floor.
The door is closed, and the library mostly in darkness. There's just one single lamp burning at the far end of the room. Dan makes his way towards it cautiously, not quite sure why he's holding his breath.
It's Laurel. She's standing in the shadows, near the back wall, and she whirls around to face him when she hears his footsteps, her guilty expression giving way first to relief, and then to something less certain, more troubled. The beads on her dress make a noise like running water.
"Dan," she says, after a second. "Are you-- how are you?"
Dan swallows. "Good, thanks. I'm good." Gingerly, he places his glass down on the edge of the table. It wobbles a little.
When he looks back up, Laurel's smiling. "If I didn't know better," she says, mock-accusingly, "I'd say you'd been engaging in illicit drinking." But the smile is too sweet for her face, with none of the wickedness that means she's really happy, and the laughter in her voice sounds forced.
"Perish the thought," Dan says, spreading his hands in feigned surprise and not meeting her eyes. He looks at the wall instead. There's a slab of stone mounted there -- a healing stele, he remembers, one of the more valuable historical pieces Adrian picked up in Egypt. It's usually covered by a glass case. Right now, though, the case is lying in the middle of the table, its fasteners unpicked by Laurel's deft fingers.
Dan raises his eyebrows, the corner of his mouth twitching. "Looks like you've been engaged in some illicit activities of your very own."
Shrugging, Laurel turns back to the stele. "What's the point in just looking at things? I wanted to touch it. Think about it -- it's been buried under the ground for thousands of years, no-one to look at it. Well, no-one alive, anyway." She looks back over her shoulder with a grin, a sharp flash of white teeth. "D'you think there were mummies?" And for a second she isn't a soon-to-be-married woman any longer; she's the bright-eyed imp he met when he was twelve years old, and who he never could resist following into any kind of trouble, no matter how many cross words Kovacs had for him, or how many messes they ended up in.
His smile fades abruptly. "I guess so," he says, sagging back against the edge of the table. "Why do you ask? I mean, we aren't kids playing at being explorers any more."
Laurel sighs. "Dan," she says. She doesn't say anything else for a moment, just comes to perch beside him on the table, skirt fluttering around her knees as she crosses her legs. "Look. That doesn't mean we can't be-- oh, Jesus."
She plucks her cigarette holder out from behind her ear (never quite the lady, even now) and jams it between her lips, a gesture that, Dan knows, means she's trying to avoid saying something she'll regret. He waits while she scrabbles in her purse for a cigarette to put in it, lights it, and takes a long drag, the smoke twisting towards the high ceiling. Dan sees it and is reminded of ectoplasm, ghosts and echoes and might-have-beens. The familiar ache is dull in his chest. Maybe it's the drink.
A beat, and then Laurel is looking directly at him, a look that forces him to meet her eyes.
"I love Jon," she says.
And a month ago that would've been too much for Dan, he'd have made his excuses and left, but now he just stares at her dumbly.
"I can't help that. And if I could-- well." She shakes her head. "If I could, I wouldn't change it, because he loves me, and I'm happy. I know people think he's strange -- crazy, maybe -- and I couldn't give a damn. That has to mean something."
"...I suppose it does."
"Ah, Christ. Sorry. I'm meant to be making you feel better, and-- look. I don't want this to stop us being friends. Dan, you're the big brother I always wished I had. And I want the same for you. Someone who makes you happy. Someone who loves you. You deserve that."
Dan blinks, waving a hand to get the smoke out of his eyes. After a second, he gives her a small smile. "Uh, thanks, I think."
"You'll find her. I know you will." She bites her lip. "You know, as a matter of fact, I was starting to think that maybe you had. I know we haven't seen much of each other lately, but you've looked kind of... brighter than usual, most of the time. Except for tonight." A sly, sideways glance. "Nothing I should know about?"
"Huh? Oh, no." He laughs. "I haven't even had time to think about meeting anyone, lately. Adrian and I have been doing some, ah, some research. It's interesting. That's all."
At the mention of their host's name, Laurel cocks an eyebrow. "You oughta keep an eye on that one." She nudges him with her elbow. "You know what I think?"
"What do you think?"
"Guy that rich, not exactly bad looking, not even a sniff of a girlfriend? And all this ancient history stuff..." She waves her hand, indicating the interior of the library. "Well, you know what they say about the Greeks."
Dan feels a faint twisting in the pit of his stomach. For some reason, he isn't sure he wants to hear what Laurel is going to say next. It feels too much like standing at the edge of something.
"They say a lot of things about the Greeks," he says. "Half of them are probably baloney."
"Okay, okay." Laurel shrugs, apparently happy to drop the subject for the sake of peace. "Far be it from me to speak ill of the guy providing the liquor. He's less insufferable than Gardner, anyway."
Figuring that that's about the best he can hope for, Dan nods. Laurel hops down from the table, smiling.
"Well, I'm gonna cut out," she says. "It's getting a little late."
"You want me to call you a cab?"
"No need." She winks at him, twirling a car key on the tip of her finger. "I'm sneaking out the door while Mother's busy hunting for a man half her age to take advantage of. By the time she gets home, she'll be too far gone to notice I'm not there."
"Okay then." Dan pauses, then reaches across and squeezes her hand. "Drive careful, okay?"
"Sure. I'll see you. Don't be a stranger."
And then she's gone, heels clicking on the polished floor. Dan drains his glass in a single gulp.
He isn't sure how long after that it is until he finds his way back to the party, or how long it is after that that he ends up sprawled in an armchair with his head tipped back, occasionally opening his eyes to check whether or not the ceiling has stopped spinning yet. He's been there for a few minutes, or maybe an hour, when he feels a hand on his shoulder, and a solid presence that tells him someone is sitting on the arm of his chair.
"How are you feeling?" Adrian's voice asks him.
Dan opens his eyes and straightens his neck, and his glasses slide down off his nose. Adrian catches them, folds them up, and tucks them into his jacket pocket. Dan blinks.
"I'm okay," he manages, at length. "Just...blurry. And tired. Mostly blurry."
But even through the blur, and without his glasses, he can tell that the crowd is beginning to thin out. That's good. Perhaps soon he'll feel like he can breathe easily again.
Adrian gives his shoulder a comforting pat. "Don't feel bad," he says. "Martins tends to forget that not all of us share his iron constitution. You certainly aren't at fault."
"I...feel like kind of an idiot anyway," Dan admits, which is true, though it possibly has less to do with the punch than Adrian thinks. "I should probably be going." He takes a deep breath, preparing himself for the Herculean task of standing up, and trying not to wonder how in hell he's going to find his way home.
"Not at all." Adrian's thumb brushes across his shoulder once, the same movement he uses when stroking his cat. Dan looks at it. "I took the liberty of having a guest room made up for you. I hope you'll oblige me? I'd rest easier knowing you were here."
Relief sinks over Dan like a heavy blanket, and he sags back in the armchair. Then he realises that his head is resting against Adrian's side, and that he probably ought to move it.
Adrian's warm. He smells clean. Dan doesn't move.
"'M glad I know you," he hears his own voice saying. "You're kind." And as he says it, he realizes it's true. He is glad. It doesn't matter if Laurel laughs at him.
"So am I," Adrian tells him, after a short pause. "And thank you."
Dan looks up, and he's smiling. This time, Dan decides, it isn't meaningless. There's something in the smile. He doesn't know what. Something.
Chapter 7
Author:
anactoriaFandom: Watchmen
Characters/Pairing: Various, mostly Adrian/Dan
Rating: PG for this part, probably R-ish overall.
Summary: Lovecraft-inspired 1920s supernatural horror AU.
Notes: So, uh, only six months later than anticipated *shame*. Here's Chapter 6, in which our heroes take a break from mysterious interdimensional energies and creepy cultists to get very, very drunk. Now with 100% more flapper!Laurie!
As always, kindly beta-read by
flyingrat42. Thank you! :)Previous chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
"Ten weeks, you think?" Dan frowns. "She was tiny when we found her. I'm sure she shouldn't have gotten this big already."
"You're right, of course." Adrian smiles fondly at the rescued kitten -- if you can call her that, given that she's already the size of a fully-grown housecat -- who is currently pawing curiously through the stack of assorted papers she's just knocked off his desk. "I hadn't quite anticipated this. Though at least the kitchen staff won't have to worry about laying rat-traps for very much longer."
"You think it's something to do with--"
"The energy to which she was exposed in the warehouse? Oh, without a doubt. In addition to the accelerated growth rate, there's -- well, I'll show you. Here, Bubastis."
The kitten, predictably, doesn't respond, and Dan can't help smiling quietly at the ridiculous name -- even if it does fit the ambience of Adrian's home pretty well. The house is filled with bits and pieces of ancient worlds, artefacts that must be worth a fortune apiece -- more a three-dimensional encyclopaedia of world history than a place to live in -- but the kitten seems at home here, skittering and jumping around like it's her own personal playground, every bit as though she really is an ancient Egyptian feline goddess. A particularly small and capricious feline goddess, that is.
After a second, Adrian sighs and scoops her up onto his lap, where she immediately commences batting at his tie with a paw. He rakes a hand through her coat, fingers splayed, and Dan can see the faint purplish shimmer when her fur moves, as though another light is shining on it, a light that is coming from somewhere outside this room. Somewhere that he cannot see.
"That's amazing," he murmurs.
"Isn't it?" Adrian scratches the top of the kitten's head with his thumb, not looking at all perturbed by the proximity of those needle-sharp claws, or the fur that's all over his suit jacket. Over the past couple of weeks, he's come to display an almost paternal affection for the little (or not-so-little) creature; she seems able to do no wrong in his eyes.
Funny, really, considering he's barely even mentioned the Roche girl since they found her. Dan wonders if there's some kind of displacement going on.
"The family offered Kovacs a reward," he mentions, voice carefully casual. "He wouldn't take it, of course." Though Kovacs has seemed a little happier since they found the girl, a touch less sullen and tightly-wound. As though he's finally done something he can be proud of. "They're good people. No money, just ordinary, but-- decent, you know?"
"I'm afraid I haven't had the pleasure," Adrian says mildly. "Kovacs appears to have a much larger emotional stake in the affair than you or I. It would seem churlish to interfere."
For a moment, Dan thinks that maybe he's being reproved, but Adrian just carries on talking.
"Besides," he's saying, eyes modestly downcast, "I'm afraid I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to talk to a child. I was never very good with them, even when I was one myself."
Well, Dan sure as hell knows how that feels. (Being an awkward kid, that is -- now that he's living in the adult world, he's decided that children, more often than not, make a lot more sense than grown-ups.) He sees Adrian's faint, regretful smile and returns it, and tries not to examine too deeply the relief that he is feeling.
"By the way," Adrian adds, eyes widening, as though the thought has only just occurred to him, "I don't suppose the little girl has mentioned anything further about 'the festival'?"
"Not as far as I know. Why? You have any idea what it might mean?"
A shrug. "I'm not certain. No matter." Then Adrian's tone brightens. "The writer friend I mentioned to you is in town at the end of the month. He's something of an authority on religions predating the Judeo-Christian belief systems. Perhaps he'll be able to shed some light on the matter."
Dan nods. "Sounds interesting. Introduce me?"
"Naturally." Adrian smiles again. "Of course, by the time he arrives, it will be almost Hallowe'en. I think perhaps I'll have a party."
*
Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea, Dan thinks, as the swirling mass of bodies parts and closes ranks before his eyes for what feels like the hundredth time. He hasn't seen Adrian in an hour, and while he knows that cocktail parties are hardly Kovacs' scene (his friend being one of the few people who actually takes the liquor ban seriously) he'd be glad to have even a disapproving lecture to listen to right now. Sure, there are people here who he knows, but he's not much good at small-talk, and he feels lost among the twirling, fashionably-dressed crowd. He certainly doesn't feel like listening to Adrian's old college friends, who are frankly intimidating, posing like fin-de-siècle decadents, each one trying to be more loudly risqué than the next guy. When a new gap opens in the crowd and he spies Laurel and Osterman gazing dreamily at one another over the punchbowl, Dan decides it's high time he escaped for a little while.
Clutching his third (or maybe fourth?) glass of wine, he slips out through a side-door and up a flight of stairs, finding himself in one of the cool, darkened corridors on the first floor. This one leads to Adrian's study, he realizes after a moment, and the door is half open, allowing a warm patch of light to escape. And it isn't that he's rude enough to listen in intentionally, but he can't help overhearing a snatch or two of conversation as he makes his way towards the door.
One of the voices is Adrian's, and the other seems to belong to Martins, the writer, to whom he was briefly introduced earlier. Martins is surprisingly rotund and jovial, not at all the pale and bespectacled intellectual Dan had been expecting, with an apparently inexhaustible supply of stories set in the public houses of London -- and a similarly inexhaustible capacity for alcohol, knocking back glass after glass of the punch, a potent, sweet-smelling concoction apparently of his own devising.
"Well," Martins is saying, "As far as I know, the ban was removed in February. But frankly, the general opinion on the continent and at home is that they'll never get anywhere. Their theories are crackpot nonsense. Though of course, there are those in England who believe that a Hitler is just what our country needs." A quiet chuckle. "Some people will say anything for a little notoriety."
"Unfortunate," Adrian says, and there is a tightness in his voice that Dan has heard very rarely. "It's easy, it seems, for people to forget that... views of this type can have a very real effect upon the lives of those being denounced. Even when no-one else takes them seriously."
Dan doesn't have to see Adrian's face to know that he wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that tone, and the lightness with which Martins responds surprises him:
"Of course you're right, dear boy. It's far too easy for politics to become a kind of parlour-game, if you will. I forget that you have -- personal connections in Europe. You'll forgive an old man, I hope?"
A soft sigh. "Well, perhaps we should move on to matters of more immediate import?" Then, a touch more loudly: "Dan, you are welcome to join us in here, you know."
Dan feels his cheeks grow warm, though he probably should've expected to be discovered (even when he was a kid, Laurel always beat him at hide and seek.) But he pokes his head around the door and then lets himself into the study, taking a long glug of wine to hide his embarrassment.
"So," says Martins, "You wanted to pick my brains?"
"We could certainly use your expertise, yes." The beginning of a smile tugs at one corner of Adrian's mouth. Dan settles down in his chair, some of his discomfiture subsiding. "I'm familiar with your published work, of course. You talk about one of the major celebrations of the 'Old Religion' occurring around the winter solstice. I was wondering if you could give us any further details. Specifically-- " (And here his voice takes on an exaggerated tremble, as though in acknowledgement of the absurdity of the subject, discussed in the warm, lighted comfort of a rich man's study.) "I'm interested in the prevalence of sacrifice as a ritual practice."
"Sacrifice? Well now." Martins' eyebrows shoot up, and he looks immensely pleased. "I must have told you about the nasty business at the Bowl last year. Surely you don't want to hear that gruesome old tale again?" But the glitter in his eyes belies his words, and he leans back, glass in hand, apparently readying himself for a lengthy stint of storytelling.
Dan isn't exactly sure that he's in any state to absorb information right now, his head muzzy with warmth and wine and the lateness of the hour, but he figures that sitting here and listening is at least preferable to going back out into the party. So while Martins talks -- about missing local girls and buried bones, and mysterious noises in remote woods at night -- he lets the story wash over him, wondering instead of noting details as he should be doing, like a child listening at a campfire on the edge of sleep. As he listens, he finds himself watching Adrian's face, bright-eyed and golden in the lamplight, as though he might absorb some of that alertness just by looking.
After a moment, Adrian catches his eye. His expression is unfathomable, or perhaps meaningless. A lot of things about Adrian are still unfathomable, although they spend a lot of time together these days. (Perhaps too much time, Dan thinks, recalling the pointed remarks Kovacs has started to make whenever he shows up at Dan's rooms and finds Adrian drinking coffee in an armchair, or poking through the workshop with delighted curiosity.) Maybe there's some dark secret, some mysterious past life -- or maybe bright cheerfulness and intellectual puzzle-games really are all there is to him. Dan can't decide, and he can't decide whether that's incredibly frustrating, or comforting.
Adrian is still looking at him. Dan blinks and ducks his head. His glass is empty.
"It's as backward a village as you're likely to find anywhere, of course," Martins is saying, "and separating superstition from fact is nigh-impossible. But you might be interested to know that there was some immigration from the area over to your side of the Atlantic in the middle of the last century."
"Really?" Adrian says, and Dan dares to look up again, knowing he'll be looking at Martins.
"Really. Records indicate that a few of the settlers made their homes not too far from you. Arkham, I believe."
"That is interesting. Don't you think so, Dan?" Adrian is looking at him again, but this time there is the barest hint of a smile playing about his lips.
"Well... it should certainly give us something to look into."
"And something's always better than nothing, eh?" Martins leans forward, elbows on the desk, setting down his glass on the polished wood. "But tell me, Mr. Dreiberg. Adrian tells me you're a man of science, not a historian. What got you interested in the occult?"
Dan shrugs. "I don't know. It's just interesting, hearing about all these lost worlds," he offers.
Martins nods expectantly. Clearly that isn't going to suffice. Dan sighs inwardly. He isn't really sure that his conversational skills are up to explaining this, tonight.
"It's not so different, really, is it?" he says. "Those things that people discovered hundreds of years ago weren't magic, they just had a different way of... imagining things, I guess. Everything I find out, it just shows how little we know about everything, even everything that's happened on this one tiny little planet. It's like there's this whole, this sea of infinity out there, and I might just get to explore one little part of it in the time that I'm here. It's amazing."
He starts feeling like a fool before he's even finished talking, but Martins is smiling. "I see you have a little of the poet in you as well," he says.
Dan blinks. The thought has never seemed all that poetic to him, just true.
Across the table, Adrian is regarding him intently, with something that is not quite amusement. It's something different, something to which Dan cannot quite put a name. Unfathomable, again.
"Come on," Martins says, getting to his feet. He claps Dan heartily on the back. "I can see that both of you gentlemen are in need of a drink."
Dan manages a smile. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I think I am."
*
Martins' punch is as strong as it is sweet, a bitter tang of green tea in the aftertaste. Dan can't remember whether he's been sipping it slowly, or whether his glass just keeps getting topped up, but between the punch and the endlessly moving throng of people, the night is soon beginning to swirl and to soften around the edges. He watches Adrian make a circuit of the room, nodding and smiling at all the appropriate people at all the appropriate intervals, and then another. Then he decides that he needs to sit down.
The library will probably be deserted, he thinks, and it's one of the few rooms in Adrian's home that he can probably find his way to drunk. And he manages it easily enough, one hand tightly clutching his glass, the other steadying him along the corridor wall. Not that it's entirely necessary -- he thinks -- but better safe than in an undignified heap on the floor.
The door is closed, and the library mostly in darkness. There's just one single lamp burning at the far end of the room. Dan makes his way towards it cautiously, not quite sure why he's holding his breath.
It's Laurel. She's standing in the shadows, near the back wall, and she whirls around to face him when she hears his footsteps, her guilty expression giving way first to relief, and then to something less certain, more troubled. The beads on her dress make a noise like running water.
"Dan," she says, after a second. "Are you-- how are you?"
Dan swallows. "Good, thanks. I'm good." Gingerly, he places his glass down on the edge of the table. It wobbles a little.
When he looks back up, Laurel's smiling. "If I didn't know better," she says, mock-accusingly, "I'd say you'd been engaging in illicit drinking." But the smile is too sweet for her face, with none of the wickedness that means she's really happy, and the laughter in her voice sounds forced.
"Perish the thought," Dan says, spreading his hands in feigned surprise and not meeting her eyes. He looks at the wall instead. There's a slab of stone mounted there -- a healing stele, he remembers, one of the more valuable historical pieces Adrian picked up in Egypt. It's usually covered by a glass case. Right now, though, the case is lying in the middle of the table, its fasteners unpicked by Laurel's deft fingers.
Dan raises his eyebrows, the corner of his mouth twitching. "Looks like you've been engaged in some illicit activities of your very own."
Shrugging, Laurel turns back to the stele. "What's the point in just looking at things? I wanted to touch it. Think about it -- it's been buried under the ground for thousands of years, no-one to look at it. Well, no-one alive, anyway." She looks back over her shoulder with a grin, a sharp flash of white teeth. "D'you think there were mummies?" And for a second she isn't a soon-to-be-married woman any longer; she's the bright-eyed imp he met when he was twelve years old, and who he never could resist following into any kind of trouble, no matter how many cross words Kovacs had for him, or how many messes they ended up in.
His smile fades abruptly. "I guess so," he says, sagging back against the edge of the table. "Why do you ask? I mean, we aren't kids playing at being explorers any more."
Laurel sighs. "Dan," she says. She doesn't say anything else for a moment, just comes to perch beside him on the table, skirt fluttering around her knees as she crosses her legs. "Look. That doesn't mean we can't be-- oh, Jesus."
She plucks her cigarette holder out from behind her ear (never quite the lady, even now) and jams it between her lips, a gesture that, Dan knows, means she's trying to avoid saying something she'll regret. He waits while she scrabbles in her purse for a cigarette to put in it, lights it, and takes a long drag, the smoke twisting towards the high ceiling. Dan sees it and is reminded of ectoplasm, ghosts and echoes and might-have-beens. The familiar ache is dull in his chest. Maybe it's the drink.
A beat, and then Laurel is looking directly at him, a look that forces him to meet her eyes.
"I love Jon," she says.
And a month ago that would've been too much for Dan, he'd have made his excuses and left, but now he just stares at her dumbly.
"I can't help that. And if I could-- well." She shakes her head. "If I could, I wouldn't change it, because he loves me, and I'm happy. I know people think he's strange -- crazy, maybe -- and I couldn't give a damn. That has to mean something."
"...I suppose it does."
"Ah, Christ. Sorry. I'm meant to be making you feel better, and-- look. I don't want this to stop us being friends. Dan, you're the big brother I always wished I had. And I want the same for you. Someone who makes you happy. Someone who loves you. You deserve that."
Dan blinks, waving a hand to get the smoke out of his eyes. After a second, he gives her a small smile. "Uh, thanks, I think."
"You'll find her. I know you will." She bites her lip. "You know, as a matter of fact, I was starting to think that maybe you had. I know we haven't seen much of each other lately, but you've looked kind of... brighter than usual, most of the time. Except for tonight." A sly, sideways glance. "Nothing I should know about?"
"Huh? Oh, no." He laughs. "I haven't even had time to think about meeting anyone, lately. Adrian and I have been doing some, ah, some research. It's interesting. That's all."
At the mention of their host's name, Laurel cocks an eyebrow. "You oughta keep an eye on that one." She nudges him with her elbow. "You know what I think?"
"What do you think?"
"Guy that rich, not exactly bad looking, not even a sniff of a girlfriend? And all this ancient history stuff..." She waves her hand, indicating the interior of the library. "Well, you know what they say about the Greeks."
Dan feels a faint twisting in the pit of his stomach. For some reason, he isn't sure he wants to hear what Laurel is going to say next. It feels too much like standing at the edge of something.
"They say a lot of things about the Greeks," he says. "Half of them are probably baloney."
"Okay, okay." Laurel shrugs, apparently happy to drop the subject for the sake of peace. "Far be it from me to speak ill of the guy providing the liquor. He's less insufferable than Gardner, anyway."
Figuring that that's about the best he can hope for, Dan nods. Laurel hops down from the table, smiling.
"Well, I'm gonna cut out," she says. "It's getting a little late."
"You want me to call you a cab?"
"No need." She winks at him, twirling a car key on the tip of her finger. "I'm sneaking out the door while Mother's busy hunting for a man half her age to take advantage of. By the time she gets home, she'll be too far gone to notice I'm not there."
"Okay then." Dan pauses, then reaches across and squeezes her hand. "Drive careful, okay?"
"Sure. I'll see you. Don't be a stranger."
And then she's gone, heels clicking on the polished floor. Dan drains his glass in a single gulp.
He isn't sure how long after that it is until he finds his way back to the party, or how long it is after that that he ends up sprawled in an armchair with his head tipped back, occasionally opening his eyes to check whether or not the ceiling has stopped spinning yet. He's been there for a few minutes, or maybe an hour, when he feels a hand on his shoulder, and a solid presence that tells him someone is sitting on the arm of his chair.
"How are you feeling?" Adrian's voice asks him.
Dan opens his eyes and straightens his neck, and his glasses slide down off his nose. Adrian catches them, folds them up, and tucks them into his jacket pocket. Dan blinks.
"I'm okay," he manages, at length. "Just...blurry. And tired. Mostly blurry."
But even through the blur, and without his glasses, he can tell that the crowd is beginning to thin out. That's good. Perhaps soon he'll feel like he can breathe easily again.
Adrian gives his shoulder a comforting pat. "Don't feel bad," he says. "Martins tends to forget that not all of us share his iron constitution. You certainly aren't at fault."
"I...feel like kind of an idiot anyway," Dan admits, which is true, though it possibly has less to do with the punch than Adrian thinks. "I should probably be going." He takes a deep breath, preparing himself for the Herculean task of standing up, and trying not to wonder how in hell he's going to find his way home.
"Not at all." Adrian's thumb brushes across his shoulder once, the same movement he uses when stroking his cat. Dan looks at it. "I took the liberty of having a guest room made up for you. I hope you'll oblige me? I'd rest easier knowing you were here."
Relief sinks over Dan like a heavy blanket, and he sags back in the armchair. Then he realises that his head is resting against Adrian's side, and that he probably ought to move it.
Adrian's warm. He smells clean. Dan doesn't move.
"'M glad I know you," he hears his own voice saying. "You're kind." And as he says it, he realizes it's true. He is glad. It doesn't matter if Laurel laughs at him.
"So am I," Adrian tells him, after a short pause. "And thank you."
Dan looks up, and he's smiling. This time, Dan decides, it isn't meaningless. There's something in the smile. He doesn't know what. Something.
Chapter 7
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2011-02-13 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-14 12:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-14 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-20 08:24 am (UTC)Also, I love your descriptions of Laurel. They're so spot-on.
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Date: 2011-02-20 11:37 am (UTC)Seriously though, I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)
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Date: 2011-02-21 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-22 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 12:57 am (UTC)This is basically my favorite thing, with the general concept and your writing style and the dialog and Bubastis and everything, really. I read it before the long break, and stumbled on it again today. I am so, so excited to see a relatively recent update, as I was worried it was a permanently dead fic.
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Date: 2011-03-30 09:29 am (UTC)