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Jul. 11th, 2021 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iniquiticitybeau + essek revealing secrets, POV reversal of a previous prompt: https://aboxthecolourofheartache.tumblr.com/post/655925554515771392/moar-box-ficlets-yes-please-for-your
She places herself in the doorframe so Essek can't make a bad excuse and slip off, as he's done a couple of times before. This is important, after all. She can't just let Essek escape without being sure that Yasha has all the information that she needs. It's not that she doesn't like Essek, per se, or really that she likes him - a decade of being on the run has definitely given him back some of the Shadowhand edge he lost while he was moping about realizing just how shitty it is to be a war criminal. It is in a weird way comforting; she doesn't have to pretend to be nice to him, and he doesn't take it personally.
"So, what have you been up to?" She asks. It's not really as much as she expects an update on whatever hidey-hole he's found now, more that seems like a perfectly suitable opening salvo. Let him decide how much he does or doesn't want to share. It's not really why she's here, but there's no reason not to see what bonus tidbits she can get along the way.
Essek smiles at her, unfriendly but familiar. "I have been a very good little wanted criminal," he says, and it's annoyingly submissive. She's almost certain he's doing it just to upset her. He probably likes it too, that they don't have to be friends. "My guard is up, and my nose is down."
Fine then. She can play that game. She strides into the little office, filling as much space as she can, and props her hip on the desk. Just to upset him, she wrinkles her nose and says, "Gross."
It's delightfully clear - and always has been - that the Nein's tendency for innuendo is one of his least favorite things about them.
"When did you get in?" she asks, next. He's not obligated, and quite frankly she doesn't really care, about whatever adventures he's going on these days. She has more important things to worry about. It's probably worth it to trade in a barb or two to at least make something like an attempt to seem polite. She doesn't not like him, after all.
"Very early this morning. Caleb could tell you the exact time."
-- Okay. So she can't help it, this time. "Gross," she says again, and this time he makes the right choice, inasmuch as there is right choice, to pretend she didn't say anything.
"If you are looking for him, he is at one of the student coffeehouses. An advisory meeting, I believe. He likes to keep his office hours public and witnessed." A smile that maybe Essek isn't actually curating slides into his face. It's how she can tell that Essek would drop everything for Caleb, if he needed to. He sort of did, already, and he'd do it again.
Caleb, Beau thinks, fond and exasperated. She matches his smile. "Yeah. Not to mention feeling that caffeine habit of his. That man lives on coffee, tea, and take-out." The smile stays, maybe widens a bit, thinking about Yasha at home. She's been experimenting with some wildly tall pancake. Beau has even several failures and they were all extremely delicious.
"Yes, well. He chose a less domestic partner." That's putting it lightly, Beau thinks, but what else really is there to say about it. Then Essek gathers himself and looks at her, "Yasha is well? Have you thought more about adoption?"
In that moment her fun little chess game with Essek is gone, and her exasperated fondness for Caleb is gone, and her meandering wondering about either man's adventures is gone. The only thing that's at the top of her mind is the names and descriptions of some good choices Fjord suggested. A nervous churn twists her stomach up and down. "Yeah, actually," she says, and adding on the excitement of adopting is seeing Fjord and Jester, who is certainly unbelievably pregnant right now, "We’re gonna head to Port Damali for a few months to meet the kids. Fjord says they’re excited, but we’re not gonna, like, just bring home a kid at random. We want to make sure they think it’s a good fit, too.”
"Beauregard," Essek smiles, and it's a genuine smile, much closer to a Caleb smile than the unfriendly welcome, "My sincere congratulations. You and Yasha will be exemplary mothers."
"Oh my god," Beau replies, and somehow the word yanks her out of the happy daydream and back into Kamordah. She shakes it off, feeling the grimace on her face, "I'm not going to be anyone's mother. I'm gonna be mom."
"Hmm, I'm not sure I understand the distinction, but I respect the vehemence. And Yasha? Will she not be a 'mother' either?"
It's a patently weird thing to say. Even Fjord, who didn't have any parents to speak of, knows the difference. Even Caleb, who - well, anyway. It's times like this when she realizes that as much as Essek is in her life now, she's not sure she'll really ever understand him, and he doesn't make much of an effort to help her. She tries to imagine a much younger Essek and his mother - the leader of their Den, he said, a long time ago. Even though Thoreau was a jackass and a bigwig, he was dad anyway. She shelves this puzzling line of thought in favor of a much lighter answer. "She's gonna let the kid decide, but she's hoping for Mama or Mum."
Essek thinks about this for a moment. Beau thinks about explaining the distinction in the moment of quiet and then decides against it. Explaining the mother-child connection to Essek feels a little vulnerable to her at this moment. "Luc calls Veth 'Mama,' correct?"
"Luc's like thirteen," Beau says, "Veth is 'mooooooom' now." Essek is doing the research scholar thing on her and this conversation, which she doesn't love. She mentally flips back through the conversation and picks up a dropped thread instead. "Wait. You never answered my first question."
Essek smiles at her, clearly seeing that she's gone back to another subject. He's polite enough to follow the trail. "Truthfully, I am doing very little. I have not been able to stay anywhere long enough to establish a routine, let alone make progress on my studies.”
Well, if he's not going to provide anything useful or interesting, she doesn't see much of a reason to be polite when the pun immediately comes to mind. "Well, you know what they say. 'A war crime is a lifetime commitment.'"
"How quaint," Essek said. He at least has the sense to be a little irritated.
She's on a little roll now. Feels good. "What, do you think ‘Treason’s more than just for Midwinter; it’s for life’ sounds better?”
"No," Essek says, and Beau squelches the laugh. She doesn't get as much of an opportunity to make people make that face at her anymore. She can't exactly go punning at Yudala.
Feeling satisfied, she returns to the whole reason that she's here at all. "Is soup really your favorite food?"
Essek blinks at her, not quite following, but trained enough in talking to her that he's not completely lost. “I believe I missed a key transition in our conversation. I was going to suggest ‘Apostasy is a choice, but Excommunication is forever.' However, it seems you have moved on to… soup?”
It's actually the best one, but she's here on behalf of Yasha now, which means no more sidetracking. She sighs, partly because she doesn't like being outpunned and partly because it would be nice if he was following closer. “Yasha wants you and Caleb to come to dinner tonight. She asked me to find out if soup’s still your favorite.”
"I still enjoy soup, yes."
"Cool."
She does think about leaving, but the whole mom thing niggles at her. Essek doesn't seem interested in carrying on the conversation, at least. For a second she just puts him aside as a person and tries to link together the Essek information she knows.
There's a link. There's a link between soup and his weird thing about 'mother.' She can see it clear as day.
She says, "Jester asked you that in Aeor."
He tilts her head at her, sensing the change in the conversation. He's sitting back in the chair, his hands folded in his lap. "That is true," he says, apparently content to let her pursue the lead.
“She asked you what your favorite food was, and you said no one ever asked you that before.”
Your mom, she thinks, in her head, would ask you what your favorite food was. But maybe your mother wouldn't. And if you didn't even know what a mom was ---
"Yes, that was my response," Essek says. Naturally Essek doesn't know where the fuck she's going with this because she's accidentally discovered a new layer of fucked up in his personality that he doesn't know is bad. So he's just letting her carry on until he figures out what the hell she's talking about. Which, on one hand, it's nice to occasionally be given space to get out your whole hypothesis. But on the other hand, it's because the dude is even more fucked up by his parents by she was. At least she knows it.
"Was that true?" She asks, at the end of this realization.
Essek still doesn't know what she is talking about. "That was.... truly my response," he says, baffled.
"No, like ---" She has to confirm this hypothesis. Or hopefully not confirm it. She runs her finger over the recently shaved hair of her undercut. She's cutting it more now. Yasha likes it really short. "Was that really the first time someone asked you what your favorite food is?"
Gods above, he still does not realize what she is talking about. "My memory... is not as exact as Caleb's." He's backing up, metaphorically. Retreating.
How is possible, she wonders, Caleb, Prince Trauma himself, could find her, Queen Trauma, and not satisfied with how screwed up Beau was, had to find Emperor Trauma over here, and fall in love with him.
"That's not what I'm asking," she says, abandoning the interrogation out of pity, "Was it a... ploy or something?"
"A ploy for what?" Essek replies. He is evidently confused. Gods, Beau thinks, again.
"I dunno," she says, not even sure how to explore this topic in a sideways manner, "For sympathy?"
"Sympathy." Essek is blinking furiously, his hands spread wide in the cross-cultural body language of a shrug.
"You don't think it's weird, do you," she says, and tries to sort out in her head exactly how close she wants to get saying _how is it possible no one, not even your mother, who you weren't even aware that moms existed, asked you what your favorite food is, no wonder you're a complete mess_. She scratches through the undercut again and wishes Yasha was here, if only to be kind and soft and tender at Essek. Fuck, Yasha's such a winner. She decides for the old projection approach. " Fuck. Okay. When I was growing up, my favorite food was risotto. My mom wasn’t great, but she had the cooks make it a couple times a month and sometimes when my dad was being, like, shittier than usual.”
"I am unfamiliar with the dish," Essek says.
"Fucking hell, Essek," she says, and thinks in sequence about picking up and shaking him, pushing the various papers off the desk, throwing one of Caleb's desk trinkets at his head, or leaving immediately to start meditating to permit her the ability to be drunk. She doesn't do any of these things. She counts to ten instead. Dairon would be proud.
Essek has retreated as far as he can go without actually getting out of his chair. His arms are crossed across his black vest, and his mouth is pressed together in a thin little frown, eyebrows furrowed. They're all just so fucked up, she thinks. She in no way is denying how fucked up she is. But man, every layer she peels back on Essek Theylss is just more fucked than the last one.
"So," she begins again, deciding on a new approach, “You were one hundred-and-twenty-some years old before anyone asked you about your favorite food.”
"To the best of my knowledge, that is correct," Essek says, looking a little more settled with this territory. That's good, at least, Beau thinks. "It was never...." There's a pause, and she has no idea what he's going to say. "Relevant. It was never relevant."
It could be worse, but it's definitely not great that it confirms her hypothesis. Even without her parents, there were plenty of partners and friends. A twist of pity stirs in her stomach, which she keeps from her face. Essek has really fucked up. But gods, she thinks. At least Tori made her risotto for her birthday one year.
"Do you really think I'm going to be a good mom?" she asks. There's the terrifying fear, lurking at the corner of her consciousness, that her kid will be like her. They won't be like Essek, she thinks. She's going to ask what their favorite food is. Someone like Essek would know. She knows, after all, what shitty parenting is. She's the walking definition of what to avoid.
"I think you will be a good moth---" Essek stops himself. "I think you will be a good mom, Beauregard." She likes his confidence.
"Okay," she says, "Thanks."
There's a pause where Essek is clearly preparing to say something. She's ready for anything at this point. “I have developed a fondness for that chickpea spread while traveling.”
Beau can't help but smile. Bastard, she thinks, but with fondness this time. You can be so fucked up but figure it out eventually. It can, as Essek phrased it in his Essek way, become relevant. "Oh?"
"It seemed relevant," Essek says, because of course he does, and shrugs, oh-so-casual. Bastard, she thinks again.
She pushes off the desk and heads towards the door. It's an inconvenience, for sure. She was hoping not to run any more errands and now this asshole has, possibly only for the point of inconviencing her, has just throw one in her lap. “Ugh!" she says, Now I’ve gotta go buy some fuckin’ chickpeas. I know Yasha doesn’t have any in the kitchen, and she’ll want to make you some hummus or whatever.”
“Please tell Yasha that ‘or whatever’ is fine! I will be on time with Caleb!” comes Essek's voice behind her, even though she's pretty sure they both know that there will be hummus along with soup for dinner.
"Cool! Whatever!" she replies, with a wave.
She places herself in the doorframe so Essek can't make a bad excuse and slip off, as he's done a couple of times before. This is important, after all. She can't just let Essek escape without being sure that Yasha has all the information that she needs. It's not that she doesn't like Essek, per se, or really that she likes him - a decade of being on the run has definitely given him back some of the Shadowhand edge he lost while he was moping about realizing just how shitty it is to be a war criminal. It is in a weird way comforting; she doesn't have to pretend to be nice to him, and he doesn't take it personally.
"So, what have you been up to?" She asks. It's not really as much as she expects an update on whatever hidey-hole he's found now, more that seems like a perfectly suitable opening salvo. Let him decide how much he does or doesn't want to share. It's not really why she's here, but there's no reason not to see what bonus tidbits she can get along the way.
Essek smiles at her, unfriendly but familiar. "I have been a very good little wanted criminal," he says, and it's annoyingly submissive. She's almost certain he's doing it just to upset her. He probably likes it too, that they don't have to be friends. "My guard is up, and my nose is down."
Fine then. She can play that game. She strides into the little office, filling as much space as she can, and props her hip on the desk. Just to upset him, she wrinkles her nose and says, "Gross."
It's delightfully clear - and always has been - that the Nein's tendency for innuendo is one of his least favorite things about them.
"When did you get in?" she asks, next. He's not obligated, and quite frankly she doesn't really care, about whatever adventures he's going on these days. She has more important things to worry about. It's probably worth it to trade in a barb or two to at least make something like an attempt to seem polite. She doesn't not like him, after all.
"Very early this morning. Caleb could tell you the exact time."
-- Okay. So she can't help it, this time. "Gross," she says again, and this time he makes the right choice, inasmuch as there is right choice, to pretend she didn't say anything.
"If you are looking for him, he is at one of the student coffeehouses. An advisory meeting, I believe. He likes to keep his office hours public and witnessed." A smile that maybe Essek isn't actually curating slides into his face. It's how she can tell that Essek would drop everything for Caleb, if he needed to. He sort of did, already, and he'd do it again.
Caleb, Beau thinks, fond and exasperated. She matches his smile. "Yeah. Not to mention feeling that caffeine habit of his. That man lives on coffee, tea, and take-out." The smile stays, maybe widens a bit, thinking about Yasha at home. She's been experimenting with some wildly tall pancake. Beau has even several failures and they were all extremely delicious.
"Yes, well. He chose a less domestic partner." That's putting it lightly, Beau thinks, but what else really is there to say about it. Then Essek gathers himself and looks at her, "Yasha is well? Have you thought more about adoption?"
In that moment her fun little chess game with Essek is gone, and her exasperated fondness for Caleb is gone, and her meandering wondering about either man's adventures is gone. The only thing that's at the top of her mind is the names and descriptions of some good choices Fjord suggested. A nervous churn twists her stomach up and down. "Yeah, actually," she says, and adding on the excitement of adopting is seeing Fjord and Jester, who is certainly unbelievably pregnant right now, "We’re gonna head to Port Damali for a few months to meet the kids. Fjord says they’re excited, but we’re not gonna, like, just bring home a kid at random. We want to make sure they think it’s a good fit, too.”
"Beauregard," Essek smiles, and it's a genuine smile, much closer to a Caleb smile than the unfriendly welcome, "My sincere congratulations. You and Yasha will be exemplary mothers."
"Oh my god," Beau replies, and somehow the word yanks her out of the happy daydream and back into Kamordah. She shakes it off, feeling the grimace on her face, "I'm not going to be anyone's mother. I'm gonna be mom."
"Hmm, I'm not sure I understand the distinction, but I respect the vehemence. And Yasha? Will she not be a 'mother' either?"
It's a patently weird thing to say. Even Fjord, who didn't have any parents to speak of, knows the difference. Even Caleb, who - well, anyway. It's times like this when she realizes that as much as Essek is in her life now, she's not sure she'll really ever understand him, and he doesn't make much of an effort to help her. She tries to imagine a much younger Essek and his mother - the leader of their Den, he said, a long time ago. Even though Thoreau was a jackass and a bigwig, he was dad anyway. She shelves this puzzling line of thought in favor of a much lighter answer. "She's gonna let the kid decide, but she's hoping for Mama or Mum."
Essek thinks about this for a moment. Beau thinks about explaining the distinction in the moment of quiet and then decides against it. Explaining the mother-child connection to Essek feels a little vulnerable to her at this moment. "Luc calls Veth 'Mama,' correct?"
"Luc's like thirteen," Beau says, "Veth is 'mooooooom' now." Essek is doing the research scholar thing on her and this conversation, which she doesn't love. She mentally flips back through the conversation and picks up a dropped thread instead. "Wait. You never answered my first question."
Essek smiles at her, clearly seeing that she's gone back to another subject. He's polite enough to follow the trail. "Truthfully, I am doing very little. I have not been able to stay anywhere long enough to establish a routine, let alone make progress on my studies.”
Well, if he's not going to provide anything useful or interesting, she doesn't see much of a reason to be polite when the pun immediately comes to mind. "Well, you know what they say. 'A war crime is a lifetime commitment.'"
"How quaint," Essek said. He at least has the sense to be a little irritated.
She's on a little roll now. Feels good. "What, do you think ‘Treason’s more than just for Midwinter; it’s for life’ sounds better?”
"No," Essek says, and Beau squelches the laugh. She doesn't get as much of an opportunity to make people make that face at her anymore. She can't exactly go punning at Yudala.
Feeling satisfied, she returns to the whole reason that she's here at all. "Is soup really your favorite food?"
Essek blinks at her, not quite following, but trained enough in talking to her that he's not completely lost. “I believe I missed a key transition in our conversation. I was going to suggest ‘Apostasy is a choice, but Excommunication is forever.' However, it seems you have moved on to… soup?”
It's actually the best one, but she's here on behalf of Yasha now, which means no more sidetracking. She sighs, partly because she doesn't like being outpunned and partly because it would be nice if he was following closer. “Yasha wants you and Caleb to come to dinner tonight. She asked me to find out if soup’s still your favorite.”
"I still enjoy soup, yes."
"Cool."
She does think about leaving, but the whole mom thing niggles at her. Essek doesn't seem interested in carrying on the conversation, at least. For a second she just puts him aside as a person and tries to link together the Essek information she knows.
There's a link. There's a link between soup and his weird thing about 'mother.' She can see it clear as day.
She says, "Jester asked you that in Aeor."
He tilts her head at her, sensing the change in the conversation. He's sitting back in the chair, his hands folded in his lap. "That is true," he says, apparently content to let her pursue the lead.
“She asked you what your favorite food was, and you said no one ever asked you that before.”
Your mom, she thinks, in her head, would ask you what your favorite food was. But maybe your mother wouldn't. And if you didn't even know what a mom was ---
"Yes, that was my response," Essek says. Naturally Essek doesn't know where the fuck she's going with this because she's accidentally discovered a new layer of fucked up in his personality that he doesn't know is bad. So he's just letting her carry on until he figures out what the hell she's talking about. Which, on one hand, it's nice to occasionally be given space to get out your whole hypothesis. But on the other hand, it's because the dude is even more fucked up by his parents by she was. At least she knows it.
"Was that true?" She asks, at the end of this realization.
Essek still doesn't know what she is talking about. "That was.... truly my response," he says, baffled.
"No, like ---" She has to confirm this hypothesis. Or hopefully not confirm it. She runs her finger over the recently shaved hair of her undercut. She's cutting it more now. Yasha likes it really short. "Was that really the first time someone asked you what your favorite food is?"
Gods above, he still does not realize what she is talking about. "My memory... is not as exact as Caleb's." He's backing up, metaphorically. Retreating.
How is possible, she wonders, Caleb, Prince Trauma himself, could find her, Queen Trauma, and not satisfied with how screwed up Beau was, had to find Emperor Trauma over here, and fall in love with him.
"That's not what I'm asking," she says, abandoning the interrogation out of pity, "Was it a... ploy or something?"
"A ploy for what?" Essek replies. He is evidently confused. Gods, Beau thinks, again.
"I dunno," she says, not even sure how to explore this topic in a sideways manner, "For sympathy?"
"Sympathy." Essek is blinking furiously, his hands spread wide in the cross-cultural body language of a shrug.
"You don't think it's weird, do you," she says, and tries to sort out in her head exactly how close she wants to get saying _how is it possible no one, not even your mother, who you weren't even aware that moms existed, asked you what your favorite food is, no wonder you're a complete mess_. She scratches through the undercut again and wishes Yasha was here, if only to be kind and soft and tender at Essek. Fuck, Yasha's such a winner. She decides for the old projection approach. " Fuck. Okay. When I was growing up, my favorite food was risotto. My mom wasn’t great, but she had the cooks make it a couple times a month and sometimes when my dad was being, like, shittier than usual.”
"I am unfamiliar with the dish," Essek says.
"Fucking hell, Essek," she says, and thinks in sequence about picking up and shaking him, pushing the various papers off the desk, throwing one of Caleb's desk trinkets at his head, or leaving immediately to start meditating to permit her the ability to be drunk. She doesn't do any of these things. She counts to ten instead. Dairon would be proud.
Essek has retreated as far as he can go without actually getting out of his chair. His arms are crossed across his black vest, and his mouth is pressed together in a thin little frown, eyebrows furrowed. They're all just so fucked up, she thinks. She in no way is denying how fucked up she is. But man, every layer she peels back on Essek Theylss is just more fucked than the last one.
"So," she begins again, deciding on a new approach, “You were one hundred-and-twenty-some years old before anyone asked you about your favorite food.”
"To the best of my knowledge, that is correct," Essek says, looking a little more settled with this territory. That's good, at least, Beau thinks. "It was never...." There's a pause, and she has no idea what he's going to say. "Relevant. It was never relevant."
It could be worse, but it's definitely not great that it confirms her hypothesis. Even without her parents, there were plenty of partners and friends. A twist of pity stirs in her stomach, which she keeps from her face. Essek has really fucked up. But gods, she thinks. At least Tori made her risotto for her birthday one year.
"Do you really think I'm going to be a good mom?" she asks. There's the terrifying fear, lurking at the corner of her consciousness, that her kid will be like her. They won't be like Essek, she thinks. She's going to ask what their favorite food is. Someone like Essek would know. She knows, after all, what shitty parenting is. She's the walking definition of what to avoid.
"I think you will be a good moth---" Essek stops himself. "I think you will be a good mom, Beauregard." She likes his confidence.
"Okay," she says, "Thanks."
There's a pause where Essek is clearly preparing to say something. She's ready for anything at this point. “I have developed a fondness for that chickpea spread while traveling.”
Beau can't help but smile. Bastard, she thinks, but with fondness this time. You can be so fucked up but figure it out eventually. It can, as Essek phrased it in his Essek way, become relevant. "Oh?"
"It seemed relevant," Essek says, because of course he does, and shrugs, oh-so-casual. Bastard, she thinks again.
She pushes off the desk and heads towards the door. It's an inconvenience, for sure. She was hoping not to run any more errands and now this asshole has, possibly only for the point of inconviencing her, has just throw one in her lap. “Ugh!" she says, Now I’ve gotta go buy some fuckin’ chickpeas. I know Yasha doesn’t have any in the kitchen, and she’ll want to make you some hummus or whatever.”
“Please tell Yasha that ‘or whatever’ is fine! I will be on time with Caleb!” comes Essek's voice behind her, even though she's pretty sure they both know that there will be hummus along with soup for dinner.
"Cool! Whatever!" she replies, with a wave.