Open 'verse RP [Open -- Separate threads fine]

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He'd come home out of some weird need to find his roots, again. Or something. At the current moment he couldn't remember. Souvenir shops lined the streets he roamed too long ago. The house had burned over three centuries before and even the alleys were swept now. There had been nothing to bury, and no money for more than a mass grave had there been, so there were no markers, nothing to see, nothing to kneel at.

Wandering into the new St. Paul's, built after he left, after the fire that took them, he nonetheless felt something settle. He sat in a pew for hours, trying to remember what it had felt like when he came home, saw this, sat here the first time, a different man. Not Matthew. Not Takezo Kensei. Something else, someone else. A man without country, time, family.

For a time, he'd thought to find it again, but now the dream seemed farther away than it had even when trapped in that cell, and he was cold.

It was well after dusk when he left. He found a pub, a table in a corner, and with a wry smile that cursed all the years in between, he ordered a whiskey and asked the bartender to leave the bottle, working to bury himself in the one thing left that had any familiarity or link to the old.

Comments

[thisway-comes.livejournal.com]

"They should be thoroughly tortured in return for what they've done," the Rani said quietly. Anyone who'd known her in times past might have found that statement, that reaction to Adam's story at best surprising and at worst hypocritical, considering her own history, but she genuinely meant it.

"Did this last the entirety of your captivity?"

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Adam looked up a bit, surprised, then frowned. "I'd settle for them dead, though I suppose torture has its satisfaction."

He shrugged and drained his glass in one long gulp, the burn helping to steady him. "Yes. More or less. There would be months with nothing, then it would start again."

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"I fear I'm something of a vengeful sort at times," she said, reaching for the bottle. She refilled Adam's glass, and topped off her own. "Congenital condition. I despair for a cure."

The Rani sat back in her chair again, watching Adam. "Regardless. Even in a genuine scientific inquiry, once the questions have been satisfied, continued experimentation is just so much cruelty. It's needless. It shouldn't have continued."

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"Mmm. Something else we have in common," he murmured with a half smile.

"For genuine scientific inquiry, I would have given them what they needed," he said softly. "But what they wanted was not...They couldn't kill me, but they wanted me to suffer for my sins."

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She arched an eyebrow, watching him closely. "Is that so? Dear me, Adam. It's getting downright spooky, how alike you and I are..."

She sipped her whiskey, listening, her eyes tightening a bit. "I see. I'm rather not a fan of those who would decide the sins of others, and make them suffer for them as a result. And when I say I'm not a fan? I mean I want them wiped out."

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"It really is," he said, his smile turning a touch wry.

His head tilted, and the smile turned cold, eyes icy with something more than hate, betrayal and pain darkening it further. "That is generally my plan."

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She leaned forward, her eyes lit with interest and approval. "If I can help..."

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"To destroy them?" he asked, a touch surprised.

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"To help you exact your vengeance," she murmured around the lip of her glass. She took another sip and then set it down, the warmth of the alcohol coursing through her body.

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Adam smiled very slowly and set his glass down for just a moment. "I think I like the sound of that."

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She leaned forward a bit, rather a wicked smile turning her lips.

"I was hoping you would."

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"Thank you," he said, suddenly.

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The Rani blinked, shaking her head slightly in confusion.

"For...?"

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He reached out and lifted her hand to his lips. "For being willing to help."

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She smiled, nodding slightly, watching her hand as he raised it to his lips. "You're very welcome," she replied. She briefly extended her thumb and traced a bit of his jaw.

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He leaned into the touch lightly for a moment, then pulled back just a little. "I should be careful, as much as I'm drinking..."

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"As should I," she murmured ruefully. "I'm willing to wager I haven't your tolerance for the alcohol, either. And we've already established I'm a known bad influence..."

And yet she did not extricate her hand from his, and she in fact used her free hand to raise her glass to her lips again.

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Adam sighed a little and wrapped his fingers more firmly around hers.

"And I find temptation hard to resist, even when sober..."

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The Rani nodded knowingly, setting her glass down once more. "As do I," she replied, lacing her fingers through his. "As do I..."

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"Just that knowledge alone is temptation," he murmured, lifting her hand again and pressing a kiss to her fingertips.

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She closed her eyes for a moment, smiling. "I don't imagine any less temptation than what you're doing now..."

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"But we have willpower," he said softly, flicking the tip of his tongue lightly over the pad of one finger.

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She drew in a breath, a smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth.

"That we do," she murmured, the fingertips of her free hand trailing down her collar... before popping open the topmost button.

"...no matter how much we're tested, mmm?"

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His teeth captured her finger, scraping lightly over skin, before his tongue curled briefly around her. His eyes drifted to the shadows revealed as the light slid over newly revealed flesh.

"We're stronger than our baser urges."

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She drew in another breath, letting it out in a soft, heavy sigh, her eyes rising to meet his.

"I'd like to think so, yes," she murmured, gently withdrawing her finger from his mouth and tracing along his lower lip.