stormbelow | 一期一会 » MEETING ONCE IN A LIFETIME

Arashi waves a hand in Martin's direction with an annoyed look, obviously wondering the same thing.

Harvestman stares at nothing for a moment. Then he pulls out a chair, sits down heavily, and stares at the wall. "I need to talk to you about M - Brisbane."

Gabriel starts. "You didn't talk to him, did you?" He glances at Arashi as if seeking confirmation, then sighs. "Harvestman..."

"That's not it."

"Uh..." Martín's eyes darts between the figures in the room. "If this is about the way he treats you, uh, we know, man. I mean - Monty told us he saw him hurt you, you know? He told me, he told Meireya, we all kinda know. I thought that's why..."

Gabriel shoots the young vampire a warning look, cutting him off. "You shouldn't be around him, Harvestman. You know that."

"No." Harvestman buries his face in his hands. "He does this - this thing. He controls people. I didn't tell you 'cause he told me not to say anything and I was... I was scared. But he - he does this thing and people do what he wants, and it's fucked."

Gabriel's eyes narrow, and he glances at Arashi again - for clarification, maybe, since Harvestman wasn't making sense.

Sighing with muted frustration, Arashi folds his arms, frowning at Gabriel.

"Apparently, Brisbane isn't just manipulative -- he can psychically control people into doing what he wants. Including harming themselves or others, usually to the point where they don't even realize he's doing it." He nods in Harvestman's direction. "Harvestman has seen it happen."

He pushes away from the wall, then, approaches Harvestman's chair and leans one hand on the back of it, eyes still narrowed. "He said it doesn't work on dead things. But Dallas, among others, obviously isn't that."

Gabriel's well-maintained mask shatters. Incredulously, he looks at Harvestman. “You've got to be fucking with me.”

Harvestman just shakes his head.

“That's crazy. That's flat-out evil. I know you two have your problems, but you know what you're accusing them of. Jesus Christ.” Gabriel stands up, shaking his head. “I'll think about the Dallas thing, but this? This is fucked up, Harvestman. You can't go around pulling this shit. C'mon, Marty.”

Martín doesn't move.

That's a little more than he's prepared to handle in sullen silence, and Arashi is in front of Gabriel in an instant, eyes flashing, and he only keeps his fangs hidden because he knows they're significantly less threatening given who else is currently in the room with him. It's not as though he needs them to be furious.

"Sit the fuck back down. Do you really think he would lie to you about something like this? To you. Are you his friend or not?"

Gabriel had been... well, himself moments before. Confronted by Arashi, he becomes all Hunter, hands where he can reach his weapon, stance ready for a fight. "Don't you threaten me. This is bullshit, we're leaving."

Harvestman twists halfway out of his seat, torn between putting himself between the two or deciding if that was just going to make it worse. Martín solves the problem for him, slamming his fist on the table hard enough to dent it.

"Ay dios mio, Everybody sit down and shut up! Harvestman wouldn't bring us here just to bullshit us, eh? Calm down, Gabe. Just 'cause you don't notice don't mean we didn't."

Gabriel steps back, forcibly relaxing his stance. His focus shifts from the stricken face of Harvestman to the angry one of Martín. "What?"

"You think a guy who beats his boyfriend won't hurt other people? You're smarter than that. We're all smarter than that. Meireya and me, when Monty told us he saw the boss hurt him, hurt him, you know - " Obviously reluctant to describe it, Martín curls his fingers into claws and pressed them against his neck. "He didn't do that 'cause he had to, he did that to intimidate the last guy Harvestman was with. That ain't right, you know? So we pay attention."

"Monty didn't tell me - "

"Monty told you last. You're his second, he didn't know. And we learn things, alright? People do things for Brisbane, things they don't do for anybody else. He gets people to listen. It's unnatural, alright? I used to be a magic user, Meireya still is, we can tell."

Gabriel rubs his forehead, looking pained.

Arashi withdraws to Harvestman's side again, but anger is still burning in his eyes; he isn't looking for a reason to get in Gabriel's face, despite all of his annoyance about what happened earlier, but he's not about to let Gabriel call Harvestman a liar and walk out on him.

At least, whatever mysterious reason there is for this Martín person to be here, he's turning out to be very helpful. So Arashi goes silent and once again curls his fingers into the back of Harvestman's chair, just in case he needs to crush something that doesn't belong to someone else in the room.

Silence reigns while Harvestman stares at his hands, Martín glaring at Gabriel while the Hunter seems to be trying to figure out what to do.

"I saw him kill a guy," Harvestman says finally, his voice steady. "His old partner, London." Gabriel starts - the name is obviously familiar. "Told him to kill himself, and the guy did. Just like that. Didn't know he was doing it. Brisbane said he - said he's always been able to do it. He's hidden it, nobody knows. He's losing control, Gabriel, he's getting - he's getting angrier. People are gonna get hurt."

Gabriel sighs, shoulders sagging. "You brought Martín because he has no powers over the dead?"

Harvestman nods.

"Who told you he had no power over the dead?"

"I..." The room, somehow, seems smaller. "He did," Harvestman whispers. "He told me."

Martín mutters something in Spanish. The anger returns to Gabriel's face, but after a moment of searching, it fades. He sighs again. "And you believed him. Christ, you're right. This is fucked."

The sound of ancient wood splintering is just enough to distract Arashi from sudden shock to make him release his grip on the kindling that was once the back of Harvestman's chair. His eyes are wide with a sort of angry disbelief, but it's not just at Harvestman -- it's at himself too, for not thinking to ask that exact same question.

Of course Brisbane told him that. Of course. Arashi had simply taken for granted that Harvestman knew these things for proven fact.

He doesn't say anything. Martín and Gabriel have handled that well enough; Arashi just purses his lips shut and tightens his jaw, and delicately picks a few stray pieces of wood out of his hand.

Harvestman leaps from the chair at the sound, only stopping when he twists around and realizes it's just Arashi. He can't get any paler, but he looks sick. Slowly he wraps his arms around his chest and holds them tight, gaze flickering at the other two.

"This changes a lot," Gabriel says finally. He too had to visibly relax after Arashi destroyed the chair. "And it's going to take priority. I can't - we can't let this keep happening, not if I want to keep the people in my network safe."

"Dude." Martín gestures toward Harvestman, shaking his head.

"...Okay. We should go." Gabriel looks up at Arashi. "I need to take care of this now, if I want to keep my people safe. Can you lead us out of here?"

By way of a response, Arashi goes to the door of the dining room, shuts it, takes a few seconds to twist his skeleton key in the lock, and then opens it again to let them head on through to the nexus on the other side of it. He doesn't even think about it. His mind is very much elsewhere, and whatever they're going to do, he's obviously not going to be a part of it.

And neither is Harvestman, who has already done what he needed to do. Arashi simply gestures through the door for Gabriel and Martín to leave when they please, frowning at nothing -- maybe at the chair splinters, because they're annoying him.

Quietly, they both leave, although Martín touches Harvestman on the arm and slips something into his hand before he follows Gabriel out. Without looking at it, Harvestman sits back down on the ruined chair, head sinking into his hands.

Neither of them look back as the door closes behind them.

For a little while, Arashi doesn't move, just thinking. He keeps coming back to the Brisbane thing, the part about his powers over the undead, whether or not they exist, how they currently have no way of knowing. On the one hand, he's so angry -- not at any one person, just generally pissed off -- that no one thought of this sooner. He's furious that they don't know, and that the advantage that they may have had before, might just be complete bullshit now.

And then there's a very, very small part of him that actually sort of hopes that Brisbane does have those powers, and that it would explain Harvestman's feelings for him, because in some ways that would just be so much better than the thought that Harvestman genuinely cares so much about someone who treats him like this--

--except that there's really nothing better about any of this and Arashi knows that.

Eventually he does move, and it's to circle around the chair and crouch down in front of Harvestman, folding his arms across the vampire's knees and tilting his head carefully up at him.

"You did it."

He stares at Arashi, uncomprehending. He feels like he should be crying, but everything's dry. "Did what?"

"You told Gabriel about Brisbane, you got it out there." He doesn't mention the undead thing, because Harvestman is probably already shaken up enough by that. "That was a big deal."

This doesn't register. His eyes are unfocused and glassy. "You could've gotten hurt. He could have hurt you."

"John. Hey." He reaches up, pats Harvestman's cheek and cups his face. "Don't worry about 'could have'. You did the right thing. Now Gabriel and... whoever else is going to be involved can figure out how to handle this."

Harvestman curls his hand around Arashi's, but the glassy look doesn't go away. "I'm a fucking curse."

"You're not a curse." If Harvestman were anyone else, that would have come out with a lot more venom and profanity, but his tone remains patient and firm. "People aren't curses. I grew up in the 17th century and even I think that's bullshit."

He mostly says it to try and coax anything out of Harvestman that isn't that dead-eyed look, but it's hard to back it up with a smile. He just gives Harvestman's hand a squeeze.

"Want to head home?"

There's a spark flaring in Harvestman's eyes that indicates he's fully prepared to argue, but it dies before he tries. He shakes his head instead, the glassy look fading, but not completely.

"No. It feels like being in a cage sometimes."

Arashi has several things he could say to that, but none of them are particularly nice so he doesn't. He purses his lips, glancing around the room.

"Do you want to sit quietly in here for a while?"

Harvestman knits his fingers together with Arashi's and squeezes back, gently. "Can we go outside?"

"Sure."

He stands up, tugging Harvestman's hand to bring him along as well. Arashi leads the way back upstairs and out of the rest house into the cool night air.

This particular safe zone is well off the beaten path; there's nothing around them but woods, and visible in the distance are the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada. Through the trees, the lights of a town are visible down in the valley, but they're far off, and there appears to be no easy path to reach it (at least, not for humans). Arashi doesn't say anything, just brings Harvestman to the edge of the wooden porch, their hands still clasped.

It's been a long time since he's been out of a city, excluding Arashi's isolated home. It was dangerous; no buildings to take cover in, much less food to choose from. In his world, it was also a place to encounter supernatural beings less inclined toward cities - those less likely to take kindly to his unnatural self intruding, no matter how unnatural they may be themselves.

He breathes in deeply, sighs, and rests his head against Arashi's shoulder. "Sorry. I know you don't like talking 'bout it."

Arashi bears no particular attachment to this rest house or this area; he'd only wanted someplace where they would all be the least likely to run into anyone else. Not that he was especially worried, but when bringing a Hunter across worlds, it was better to be safe than sorry. He just stands at Harvestman's side and stares distractedly down at the lights far below them, until Harvestman's words make him blink out of it, wondering how they came back around to him already. "Talking about what?"

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