Quicklog: In Which Czci Is Very Drunk Indeed

[evilbeej]

It's a quarter to three. There's no one in the place except you and me, so set 'em up, Joe, I've got a story I think you should know--

Actually, it's half past last call, and the tiny little dive bar that Czcibor and Karl wound up in is all but deserted. It *is* a week night, after all. The bartender told them it was closing time about two minutes ago, and Czcibor's still in the process of peeling himself out of his chair.

A truly prodigious amount of alcohol has been imbibed this night, and the King of the Faeries is actually factually wasted. He has done his disbelieving oathmate proud. Too bad said oathmate's not a witness to the sorry-looking end result, who's having trouble getting his arm in the arm hole of his jacket.

And Karl....Karl is tougher than he might be, tougher than he looks. Not that that's all that hard, considering -how- he looks. But he is reeling drunk - counting Euro is *hard*, at the moment, as he painstakingly counts out the right number of bills and coins. He is wearily and surprisingly tunefully humming, "Waiting For the Miracle," and once the tip is taken care of, leans on his chair, waiting until Cz is becoated again to rise. "A cab, I think," he says. He's not slurring, exactly but his usually oh-so-precise German is worn around the edges, softened into something like dialect.
 
"A cab! A cab to where--?" Czcibor's accent is thick when he's bothering to speak German, at this point, yes. "Do konca swiata? (To the end of the world?) Do konca czasu? (To the end of time?) The driverless carriage, don't get in a driverless cab--" he laughs, dragging his hand down his face and then leaning in the door, then starting to fuss with the zipper of his jacket. He fails. Repeatedly. And starts laughing again. "Krol bez pojecia. (The King without a clue.) My face has no feeling, but then I remember! My face has no feeling. You will call it, Karl? The cab?"

"If I can remember the number," Karl says, tone rather plaintive, as he steps out into the cool night, and peers narrowly at his cellphone. "Which seems to be in doubt. We....maybe I'd better walk," he adds. "Walk some of this off. I can call a cab for you, if you want."
 
"I will walk with you!" decides the tin soldier, tone cheery. He claps Karl on the back, obviously having given up on his jacket zipper. "If terrible things come out of the shadows to eat your soul, I will be your bodyguard. Nie ma obawy! (No fear!) Unless, Pan Karl, you are afraid of *me*--" And here's where he slides an arm around Karl's shoulders and holds the near shoulder with his other hand, leaning his head in a little to speak very, very quietly next to Karl's ear. "You were, once. I remember. Do you?" And he doesn't smell of alcohol. He still smells unfairly of spring, and his touch is a gentle application of steel.

Karl smells of sandalwood and smoke and liquor. There's an obliging ripple of goosebumps at the feel of the faerie's breath on his ear. "I do," he admits, without any sign of shame, not turning to face Cz; the current King of the Changelings is presented with the unmarred side of his profile. "I am not now, though. Should I be?" His tone is his usual one of gentle inquiry, like he's quite prepared to yield Czcibor some fear, if it's going to be that kind of night.
 
"No." There's a smile in the changeling's voice, and he withdraws, his hand trailing off Karl's back instead of just dropping. And the air is thick and sweet, and sounds are flat, and ozone's heavy in the atmosphere. It's going to rain, it smells like it's going to rain, and it's warmer than it should be. Or maybe it's the alcohol. And then the Pole's voice; he's not looking at Karl, he's stepping ahead and sticking his hands in his jacket pockets. "Sandalwood," he says, then turns around, and he's reaching up and touching his lower lip, just for a moment. His voice gets a little dreamlike, distant and soft. "And tobacco. Pipe tobacco? Like the desk drawer in the study. With the boazeria z drewna (wood paneling), and the old carpet and the calendar from 1984-- it's raining outside and the sound of it's gentle and insistent, podobnie jak mruczenie kota w fotelu (purring like a cat in an armchair)..."

It's clearly with a tremendous effort of will that Kowal pulls himself from whatever reverie he was beginning to lose himself in, and when he does, it's equally clear that something tore off, left in that reverie. His eyes are glittering bright, unfocused, pointed at Karl. "You are not fair, Karl, at all. This is *my* season. Mine. And it distracts me. Is wrapped up in everything: what people want."

The flush can be excused as the result of all the liquor he's drunk - Karl is far gone, and regards Cz with intense vagueness for a long moment, the scar standing out like a brand. He blinks at him, slowly, and then admits, "I suppose that is what I smell like, at the moment, but Czcibor, I don't understand." It's likely the first time he's ever addressed the Changeling by his given name. "Have I done something wrong?" He's puzzled, cocking his head a little as he looks at the Pole - it gives him a momentarily griffinish look.
 
Again, the answer's a definite "No." But this time it's affectionate and has something raw and hurt behind it. And then he says it again, and the hurt's been replaced with a fierceness that Karl's never seen out of the faerie, and he steps closer to Karl again and takes the man's shoulders to say it. "No. What happens to us through the fault of Others is nothing we have done or left undone. And when we are free of Their hands, we are still not free of Their legacy. This, too, is not by our fault, is not our actions undoing us. Karl. I am /drunk/. I am drunk from what you -want-. I do not understand either." He lets go all at once this time, fingers splaying, coming away from Karl's arms; he takes two steps back, sudden and unsteady. "I have never felt more and less real."

There's that poised stillness in the German, as if he'd just stepped into a room with a beast whose tameness is very much up in the air. "I know there's more than mere liquor in this," he says, tentatively, gaze flickering along the street. "It's not so very far to where I live - shall I leave you here? Call you a cab in earnest?" The flush has deepened, leaving him looking almost feverish. It doesn't feel right - for all that he's neither lame nor halt, there's that sensation of hidden deformity from the ghoul. The faintest taint of the blood.
 
"No!" again, emphatic, and the faerie half-circles Karl, steps uncertain but light, oh, lighter than they should be for a man made of lead. He's regarding the German with those glittering blue eyes, color high in his own face; he puts a hand on Karl's arm, a staying gesture. "I should leave you alone; I think I see that in your face. I have made you nervous. I do not think I meant to." His words are careful, his grammar is careful, he's making an effort to focus through whatever's going on in his head. And still the air tastes sharp and sweet, still sounds are muffled, still the night presses close like a living thing. "Also, I am not a cab." The fingers of the hand on Karl's arm curl around it, again there's the impression of unbreakable solidity behind a light touch.

It's strange and heady and reminds him of nights in his youth in England, in late spring - the wee hours in Cambridge, when false dawn has begun to tint the eastern sky. "No, you needn't. I merely thought something about my presence disturbed you," he says, picking words with that typesetter's precision. "But we are both very drunk, and misunderstandings are easy." He turns his hand in Czibor's grip, slips it to make it a mutual clasping of wrists, and tugs him along. "This way."
 
"I *know* you, Karl von Steiger," Czcibor says, with a frank and open quality that's got nothing of tricks to it. "I know." And he falls silent, stumbling again, slightly; his hand tightens a little on Karl's wrist, then loosens again. He starts laughing, muffled, trying to keep it in, and fishes in his pocket with his free hand-- slides his cellphone open a second later and thumbs out a text which will probably be totally incomprehensible to whoever it's to. "I want--" he says absently, distracted by his impossible multitasking, "to fix the *world*, Karl. I want it to shine. I want to go home. I do not... think I can do both..."

"Yes, you do," Karl says, and his air is faintly rueful. "You do. And certainly not in one night. At the very least, you can go home." Though it promptly occurrs to him that it's not merely whatever apartment he generally sleeps in that Cz's referring to, and he looks somewhat abashed. "Tomorrow, after you've dealt with the hangover, you can fix the world." He tugs him along, impatiently, hand warm and callused on Cz's wrist.
 
"I will ask someone to magic my hangover away." The statement's grand, as Czci's sliding his phone shut and pocketing it; he waves the free hand around like he's already taking care of it, or like he's making a royal pronouncement. He ruins it by stumbling again at the next tug, and laughing at himself. As they're moving, the air's less thick, but no less sweet; there's a breeze, crisp and fresh, and a pattering begins as drops of a light, warm rain start to fall from the sky. "This way?" he asks, then, mildly. Just as they go along. "Your lady..." His phone buzzes a text.

Karl leads the way, like a child impatient on an outing. "I wish I could," he says, ruefully. "Yes. A few more...." They turn the corner, and down the block is visible the lion sign, swinging in the breeze - the gilding on the sun gleams in the light of the streetlights. The cafe is dark, as is the bookstore, of course - there are lights on above, in some of the apartments. "What about her?" he asks, softly, before being diverted by the text.
 
"Does she hate me? For making things so complicated." The changeling's steps slow even as the building's coming in sight; his blue eyes are unfocused, gazing vaguely in the direction of the lights on upstairs. And he pulls the phone out again, totally preoccupied; he looks at it for a while, still tugged along, before he can actually parse the message on it. And then he -does- parse it, and his breathing goes a little ragged. He looks at Karl, and it's an expression of burning curiosity and a little bit of fear. The air is singing with quiet energy around him, shot through with the gentle touch of a light spring shower and tasting of a sharp, magic solemnity, hyper-real.

The question seems to startle him, even as he pulls Czcibor past the great glass windows that front the cafe. "No. She doesn't hate you. You've never hurt her, never really interfered with her. She's absorbed in her own affairs. I keep emphasizing to Zephirine and her companions.....they really aren't interested in you and your kind, save as you cross what they see as their interests, or present a threat." He doesn't go in the usual doorway to the hallway up above. Rather, he passes under the swinging sign, and around the corner to the door into the bookstore, where he finally lets Czcibor's hand fall to fumble his key into the lock. It's darker here, though near enough to the alley's mouth for light to fall on the gilding on the door's window. He glances at Czcibor, notes that expression of fear and misunderstands it entirely. "Truly, neither she nor I is any threat to you. I promise."
 
A moment of bright clarity; the tin soldier lifts two fingers to Karl's lips, a flickeringly quick motion, and over the second half of the word 'promise' he says "Shh." And he leaves those fingers there for a second, his presence filling the doorway and his expression serious, grave. "Careful what you promise me, Karl." His hand moves down, fingers leaving ghost-trails of warmth on Karl's face. "I have no fear of you, or of her."

Karl accepts the rebuke with a faint inclination of his head, followed by a rueful grin. "Yes, you're right," he concedes, as the door swings in, and one hand gropes past the frame to find the switch by the door. It only turns on the one lamp, so the room is dimly lit. Their reflections swim indistinct in the obsidian mirror. "And good. Good."
 
Slipping in the door after Karl, the changeling's silent, smiling slightly; he closes his eyes for a second and leans against the inside wall next to it, just for a moment. And then his eyes open, fixed on that obsidian mirror-- its smoky darkness makes monochromes of them both, and uncertain, his gaze flickers to Karl again. The quiet dustiness of the place is there for a few seconds, still, after he comes in; after those seconds there's a flood of that electrical gravity, that overwhelming sense of green and new and bright. Czci lifts a hand almost lazily, only to gesture loosely in the air. "I want you to see me," he says.

"......in a way that I do not now?" Karl finishes, with that questioning lilt to his voice. He shuts the door behind him, but does not lock it. Nor does he turn to the green door that leads to the stairway up to the hall above. "How?" Curiosity, curiosity is one the the hooks Elsa has sunk in his lip, all apart from the addiction to blood. He assumes that expression of polite inquiry, brows lifted, eyes bright, like he's waiting for Czcibor to do a parlor trick.
 
"These careful promises, Karl," Czci says with a sudden, wolfish grin. He pushes himself off the wall, blue eyes indistinct in the semi-light, but still glittering with that strange, fevered energy nonetheless. A step closer to Karl, and in the stillness, the air's growing sweet again, heady. "Promise me to stay in for a day and a night. It should be easy. Hangover, yes? Promise me that and you can see. Break that promise and I will know."

It's odd, the scent of buds and leaves, the earth warming after the frost, in contrast to the pleasant dullness of paper and leather and incense. He inhales deeply. "I promise I will," he says, quickly, before Czcibor can hush him, or warn him, or amend it. "A day and a night. My apartment, or may I come down here, too?"
 
"You can come down here so long as your shop is closed, so long as the only people you see are your lady and her people," the faerie grants, tilting his head back very slightly, regarding Karl with a faint overtone of something like noblesse oblige. And there's that sense of something *enormous* backing up his words, enormous and ancient; and of that something taking notice of Karl. As that sensation creeps up, seizing Karl's heart for a half second, the humanity flakes away from him in fading tatters. There's the tin soldier the German's seen before, but in those jeans and that band shirt, here in his shop like he wasn't before. And bright new green leafy vines are curling from the floorboards to caress and twine around his feet and calves; bright vines curl around his hands; a crown of ivy and horn and polished smooth emerald rests on his head like it was made for it.

It strikes him dumb for a good dozen heartbeats. More. Like the reverence one should feel in a church, but so rarely does. Keen curiosity is replaced by dawning wonder - he laughs softly, incredulously, somewhat at his own temerity, even as he blinks at Czcibor. They are so very good at passing for human when they try, it is easy to forget. "Why do you show me this?" he asks, in a whisper.

"Because I'm a terrible human being," the King of the Faeries says, blank inhuman metal eyes crinkling up at the corners. He lifts a hand to Karl again, vine partly encircling it -- and if the German is any good at identifying plants, he'll be able to tell it's baby kudzu, leaves and shoots trailing off into nothingness before they grow large. The backs of two fingers touch the side of Karl's face, gentle, smooth room-temperature metal. The brightness, the *magic* he's full of right now, it's easier to see-- there's nothing tangible about it, but it's undeniably there. Might explain the erratic flickering of the Pole's aura, earlier. "And I wanted you to know what you wanted. And because, Karl, because I am so very drunk."

The chuckle's all but forced out of him, dry, amused, a little unwilling. "That's perfectly fine," he says, somewhat lamely. "I can still call a cab for you. Or, I have spare furnished rooms upstairs you can stay the night in, whichever you wish." He's flushed again, embarassed.
 
The changeling laughs, and it's warm and bright, and maybe it's amused a little bit at Karl's expense, but it's more likely he's laughing at himself. "The term is over," he says, grinning, and the hand on Karl's face turns, moving to direct the other man's chin, "the holidays have begun." And then he leans in to kiss him, the motion strangely tentative.

There's a hitch in his breath, not quite startlement, but he doesn't draw back, nor is he frozen into total immobility. Look, I didn't turn into a frog, or get dragged into faeryland myself. Much. He's very clearly not entirely certain how to respond, other than to lay a hand on Cz's arm, lightly.
 
And it's a strange thing, kissing a statue-- there's a metallic taste there, certainly, and there's the alcohol, finally, and the tin soldier's mouth is smooth and cool, but... somehow it's also like kissing a real person, because there's softness there too: metal that acts like skin. And Czci does know how to kiss, even if it's hesitant, exploratory. His hand lets go Karl's chin, rises to ghost up his face and lightly filter fingertips through his hair.

Shouldn't someone be turning into something, here? Karl into a faerie, Czcibor into a human, some spell should be broken. Some secret revealed, other than that Cz is a faerie in the figurative/pejorative sense of the word, not merely the literal. Or does it not work when it's a same sex kiss? It is completely surreal. There's the burn of liquor on his end, as well, feverish warmth. He doesn't draw away from it, though, nor flinch as Cz touches his face again. The hand that was on Czcibor's arm ends up curved around his ribs, under his jacket.

There's no transformation, there was only the shedding of a mask, and then the shedding of another-- one that, to all appearances, Kowal hadn't even realised was ever there. There is a slow building of intensity, though: from hesitant exploration to something insistent and almost demanding, like an old thing that's been roused from a deep slumber under a hill, gradually lumbering awake. The faerie's metal hand curves around the back of Karl's head, and it feels solid, unbreakable; those vines from the floorboards reach from the elemental's feet, ankles, and twine themselves around the German's knee, around his wrists.

It is almost a year to the day that Elsa claimed him with a kiss, pinned against the rainwashed stone and ironbound wood of the church door. He wore the bruise from the latch on his back for weeks after, most unlikely prince hard awoken. And perhaps he's gotten in the habit of believing six impossible things before breakfast since. He should be utterly terrified, knocking over antique volumes, denting the brass of the astrolabe as he tries to flee, extract himself from those tendrils. Karl, being Karl and thus stubbornly contrary, yields easily and with neither fear nor hesitation, fingers curling into the cloth of Czcibor's shirt, a childish and unthinking clutch. His breathing's a little ragged.

He should, but for one thing: he knows Czcibor Kowal better than he thinks. Plus, who can be scared of a dude in a Soul Asylum t-shirt? Really. Even if he's the goddamned Fairy King. The hand at the back of Karl's head was never tight, was never uncomfortable-- just solid; it slips back to the German's face, cupping the side of it, and Kowal pulls his head back, his own breathing hitching. The movement alone is enough to break the tendrils; as they break, they fade, unreal. He's close, and the air is still, holding its breath; his hand drops from Karl's cheek to his jaw, and then down again, coming to rest over the folklorist's hand clutching at his shirt. He holds the hand close to his chest, the t-shirt knit sliding almost frictionlessly over his metal skin beneath those hands.

Heartbeat. Strong and steady and quick, almost fluttering.

You're still alive in there. Karl doesn't say it aloud, all too aware of how fatuous that'd sound. He looks more than a little dazed, down at that leaden hand over his, blinking slow, teeth set in his lower lip. His usual iron good manners provide precisely no guidance on the etiquette here, so he thinks for a moment, gears visibly grinding, and then says, with dry, drawling good humor, "Your Majesty."

The words gain, in return, the slow curl of an incredibly amused smile, one that's sharing a very good joke indeed. "Pfalzgraf Wolfratshausen," he says, inclining his head very slightly before that smile blossoms into a wry grin. He lets his hand fall from the other man's, quite naturally taking a step back; he reaches up to smooth the shoulders of Karl's shirt, then drops both hands to hook carelessly in his jeans pockets. His poise is only very slightly ruined by what could very possibly have been a stumble in the process of moving his feet, there. "I am thinking, we should-- probably sleep. I am tonguetied trying to talk, and I am afraid of not talking." He sounds like he's putting the words together only with great effort. "With you. Right now. But I would like to kiss you again." A pause. "No. I think I would like you to kiss -me-. But probably not tonight. I should very much stop talking now."

"Then thou must hush," Karl agrees, languidly, laying his fingertips in turn on the Pole's lips, like a mother quieting her child. He has, however, dropped the formal 'you' he always uses, and taken up the familiar - there's also that broad dialect softening the edges of his accent. Perhaps an unwarranted assumption, but a familiarity he'll dare. "I agree. It is very late, very late, and sleep would be wise." His expression is faintly sad, though. "Some other day I will kiss thee. I promise."

"Promises, promises," Czcibor says, smiling again, catching at Karl's hand as it comes away from his lips. "Call me if you are awake and bored before your twenty-four hours are over." Because the faerie king has a cellphone, and Karl has the number. Soul Asylum t-shirt. Ivy and carved antler and emerald; twisting vines from floorboards. Blank inhuman metal eyes, fluttering human heartbeat. And Spring is sweet in the air, washing out the thickness of magic with a light, clean touch. He lets go Karl's hand and picks up his jacket, swinging it over his shoulder, and steps and opens the door with a flick of one hand. "Dobranoc, Karl. (Good night.)" And then he steps out and disappears into the warm rainy night.