Everything Right is Wrong Again (Nel + Murdoch)

[Liminal]

90 Spring, 510 AV

It had been eight days since Nel had arrived in the Casino. They had been relatively quiet, all things considered. Neither the main floor of the Casino nor Nel's suite had any windows, so the passage of time was harder to measure than might have been guessed. But the scantily-clad barmaids and the too-smooth table game operators had been kind, and she had made several pleasant acquaintances.

It was one of those acquaintances, Tessie, who first greeted her on this particular morning. She was perhaps twenty-five, with long brown hair, and her shapely figure was barely covered by the skimpy outfit that formed the uniform for all female waitstaff. "Eh, Nel? Johnny says he'd like to talk to you today. Down in his office, you know?" There was an uncertainty in Tessie's eyes; she didn't really know what Johnny wanted with this Konti, but she knew an unpleasant situation when she saw one.

Nonetheless, when Nel appeared, Johnny didn't seem to be acting much different than usual. "Ah, glad you could join me, Miss Sayo. I'm expecting some company; perhaps you could wait with me?" He gestured to one of the chairs.

And then, remembering a lesson painfully learned, he added, "And...do try to wait quietly, won't you?"

*********

Outside the Casino, Gemmy briefly squeezed Murdoch's hand.

"Eh, good luck to you, Doc. I take it you ain't forgotten where Johnny's office is?"

And then she was gone, though her last gaze had a certain quality of...tenderness? The girl was difficult to read, that was for sure, but she did seem to have taken some interest in the welfare of her erstwhile traveling companion.

*********

The interior of the Casino was smoky and noisy. Some of the faces had changed, but it was essentially the same place that Murdoch would remember. Perhaps fortunately, no one seemed to recognize him. He'd changed a lot since the day he'd fled Sunberth.

The door to Johnny's office was still partway open, and as he approached, the unmistakeably genteel voice called out, "Come in, won't you?"

Johnny was behind his desk, but he rose to his feet when Murdoch entered. He was older than when they had last seen each other, obviously, but unusually for Sunberth, he seemed to be aging well. "Please, do have a seat."

With his left hand, he indicated the Konti. "I took the liberty of inviting Miss Sayo -- I understand that the two of you know each other?" Oh, he knew more than that, but that wasn't the way Tall Johnny played. Everything was wrapped in a veneer of genteel civility, as if the darkness of this town was nothing more than a subject for afternoon tea. In a way, it was more dangerous than the obvious roughness of the streets outside.

"I trust you had a safe journey? Gemmy does take care of people well, one of the reasons I asked her to bring you."

[Murdoch]

Doc had braced himself for all manner of madness inside the Casino - from a gang of ruffians there to make his last week alive as hellish as possible, to a quick knife in the ribs when he wasn't looking. He'd thought he'd prepared himself for all of it.

What he wasn't ready for was this.

Muddy eyes locked on Nel the moment he entered the room, and he didn't even hear Johnny's explanation of why she was there. All he saw was pale skin and bright blue eyes, and his heart twisted in his chest. He couldn't have said what was stronger - pleasure at seeing her, or horror that she was here, in this place.

He finally tore his eyes away and back to Johnny, and knew in an intellectual sort of way that if this exact scene had played out a few weeks ago, this would likely be the part where he launched himself across the desk at this man and tried to tear his face off with his bare hands. But a lot had changed since he'd shoved Nel Sayo out of his apartment. So instead he just glared at him with calm detachment, a promise somewhere deep in those hazel eyes, and turned his attention back to his former lover.

A few carefully measured steps brought him over to her, and he simply bent to pull her out of the chair and into his arms. He buried his face in her hair, every sense suddenly filled with the reality of her instead of simply being haunted by her memory, hands tightening around her waist as he practically lifted her off her feet. "I'm sorry," he whispered, barely loud enough for her to hear. But he owed her that, and much more, a hundred things he'd never be able to make up for, weaknesses that had been pulled out of his soul and shown to him without mercy.

Finally he lifted his head, peering at Johnny over her shoulder. "How long did you know I was in Syliras?" he asked.

[Nel Sayo]

Nel had been offering gambling advice to a table of card-players (she didn't gamble much herself, but you'd be surprised how often people want to talk about luck and the roll of the dice with a woman bearing the mark of Avalis) when Tessie found her. She just nodded and got to her feet, wandering down to Johnny's office on the same unhurried pace that she'd really gone anywhere since arriving. Whatever doom was going to befall her, she'd decided, no need to go running headlong into it. As soon as Johnny invited her to sit, she knew what was going to happen. The how and the why still eluded her, but she knew that Murdoch was going to walk through the door and that something awful was going to happen thereafter, to one or both of them, probably in some sort of meaningful order to give gravity to the situation and experience. So her heart sank into her toes and she didn't even feel like talking to Johnny; she just sat, in the indicated chair, and muttered, “Sure.” When Doc actually walked in, she didn't look up. She was too afraid of what she'd see, and the guilt of having been caught spiked a blush into her cheeks even as she stared at her toes. Would there be fury in his eyes? Or blame? Some combination of both? He'd told her to leave Syliras, but she hadn't. Because she hadn't known where else to go, and she hadn't been about to hide from some Fear of his that he couldn't even explain, not that Nel was the sort of person prone to hiding, anyway. If she couldn't kill it or hurt it, she ran the hell away from it. This had been different; there hadn't even been a chance to run. So she flinched when she felt his shadow spilling over her, like she expected him to grab her and throttle her. When he didn't, and his arms just came around her and he gathered her up out of the chair, she started in surprise. Her hands curled around his biceps when he whispered his apology, and then all she could really do was just hug him back, at once happy to see him and terrified of what might happen next. So when he redirected his voice to Tall Johnny, she just buried her face in his shoulder and said nothing.

[Liminal]

Johnny shrugged in response to Murdoch's question. "Oh, I've known you were in Syliras for years, but I didn't know where exactly until about two months ago. I haven't had a reason to make inquiries until recent circumstances compelled me to seek you out."

The smoothness in his tone was more than a little disconcerting. "Djelini wanted to bring you back for a visit, of course, but I didn't feel it was an appropriate use of our time. I suppose Gemmy told you that he's no longer with us? At any rate, I wanted to ask you a personal favor of sorts as a long-time associate of mine."

Associate. An interesting term for someone whose fiancee had been beaten and raped in the back room of your establishment and then hauled off to die. But Johnny spoke as if they had once been business acquaintances. The man's control over his language was maddening.

"You see, there are many among my regular customers who remember you well, and more to the point, remember that you once were among our best -- and most entertaining -- competitors in the cage. There has been great, great interest in bringing you back to test your skill against some of our better fighters since then. A challenge of champions, you might say. Interest means both publicity and money, of course, and it seems like quite a shame to let such an opportunity pass us by."

He nodded at Nel. "Your friend, who seems to have a special interest in your career, would naturally have an interest in viewing this next triumph, of course, and so I invited her to be the guest of honor. Naturally, I'm happy to put you up as well, free of charge. It's the least I can do for an old friend."

[Murdoch]

For a moment, Murdoch stared at Johnny, lips turned down just a hint at the corners as if he were concentrating. He'd never realized before now how careful Johnny was with his words - not just the precise, infuriating way he turned language into a weapon, but how deftly he used truth, much more efficiently than any lie he ever could have chosen. His palms itched, the way they did when he'd first tested the brand pressed into the back of his neck. There was only one blatant lie in Johnny's little speech that reverberated through his bones; the rest just barely skirted the truth, hinting at something bigger behind them, and that was what left his palms itching.

Nel had hidden against his shoulder, which was fine with him; long fingers threaded into her hair in a comforting gesture. "I hate to disagree with you, Johnny," he said, and his tone was surprisingly conversational considering what'd just been laid out before him, "but I'm afraid your memory ain't quite what you think. It was Rakess," he said, the name grating on his tongue, and only Nel would have been able to sense the shudder that passed through him when forced to say that name in this place. "Rakess was the fighter, not me. I was just your... what was it? Business associate. I took bets. No one cared to see my skinny ass step into the ring. So, since this is all just a big misunderstanding, I'd appreciate if you'd have Gemmy give us a guide back home and we'll be out of your hair," he said, and his smile was just as cold and fake as Johnny's.

Fat chance of that.

[Nel Sayo]

Nel, of course, really had no idea what they were talking about. She hadn't known Murdoch before Syliras and she certainly didn't know who Rakess was, but she could hear in Doc's voice and feel in his posture that it was someone important, and she only knew of one important person in all of Murdoch's life – his brother. She knew that Doc had done his fair share of cage-fighting at the Golden Dragon, too, that he fought to blow off steam and earn a few coins, but she didn't imagine that in Sunberth they were quite as...civilized...about it as they were in Syliras. She slid her arms about his waist and continued to hide against his shoulder, bright eyes watching Johnny around a few pale curls.

[Liminal]

A thin-lipped smile came to Johnny's face. "Ah, you misunderstand me, my friend. One of our best competitors, you were -- for what is the task of a bet-taker or a bookmaker other than competing against the wagering crowd themselves? In a sense, it's a more difficult challenge than that of the cage fighter, for he has only one opponent, while the bet-taker has many."

There was a dark twinkle in the man's eye. "And, as I said, many of our longest-standing customers remember losing a fair amount of coinage when you were working the fights. Having seen your skills outside the cage, they have more than a small interest in seeing what you can do inside it."

"Besides," he added with a shrug, "I have a surprisingly thorough report on your activities in Syliras, and I'm aware that, whatever deficiencies in physical combat you might have had as my youthful apprentice, you've more than made up for during your career since." He nodded to himself. "And I'm afraid Gemmy has other demands on her time, being an independent contractor rather than an employee, and so she'll be quite unable to guide you back. I don't think you'll be able to find a suitable replacement, either. She's one of a kind, you might say."

He didn't even allow himself a chuckle. "So, my friend, perhaps you understand my proposition better at this point? I should very much hate for there to be any confusion, either on your part, or on the part of your lovely companion."

[Murdoch]

"I understand perfectly," he said quietly. "You mean to put me in the cage, and have me fight as many people as it takes to kill me, and make as much gold off my blood as you can. And you mean for Nel to watch."

He stared at Johnny a moment, his muddy eyes hard and bright. And then he felt Nel's arms go around him, and he couldn't stop the sigh that hissed through his teeth. He looked down at the top of her pale head, and came to a decision. "I'll do it - if you swear to me, here and now, that when it's over you'll release Nel unharmed, and have Gemmy bring her wherever she wishes - and swear that you will never, ever bother her again." And he focused his Gnosis mark on the man before him, every muscle of his body tensed as he tried to sense whether or not Johnny's answer would be a lie or the truth.

[Nel Sayo]

Nel's fingers tightened a little where they twisted into Doc's shirt, but she didn't argue with him. She knew better than to argue with him in front of Johnny. They'd have the whole you're-not-sacrificing-yourself-for-me-you-freaking-idiot conversation later, once they were out of Johnny's office, and she'd had a few minutes to actually process the magnitude of petchery that was currently on-going. Resignation just wasn't her style.

[Liminal]

Now, Johnny did chuckle slightly. "Close, but with a few important differences. You see, I did tell Gemmy I didn't intend to kill you, and I can't very well go back on that. An odd girl, she is, the closest thing Sunberth has to untouchable. Not, mind you, because she's too skilled with a blade to combat, but because she's somehow managed to strike a positive relationship with everyone of consequence here. She doesn't ask enough questions -- a weakness of hers due to her tender years, I imagine -- but double-crossing her is, as they say, a poor business decision."

The tall man leaned back in his chair. "Should there be a point at which your physical skills seem to indicate that you may be unable to provide our customers with a suitable show, I have a contact interested in purchasing your contract. In all likelihood, much as I enjoy the pleasure of your company, I should allow you to pursue this other opportunity."

It was the nicest possible way to say that he intended to sell Murdoch into gladitorial-themed slavery. The man's infuriatingly calm demeanor remained absolutely unchanged. He knew perfectly well that he not only held all the cards, but had several more up his sleeve.

"However," he added, his tone shifting slightly towards the more serious, "should your visit here end with your exploring this new direction, I imagine Gemmy would be more than willing to escort your lovely friend anywhere she would wish to go, though she's always welcome here in this establishment. As I recall, being romantically linked to you, Murdoch, has been the source of some poor luck in the past, and I would hate for that to continue."

The words were deliberately hateful beneath the veneer of unpleasant civility, but there was nothing to indicate that Johnny wasn't being sincere. Once he had disposed of Murdoch, he had no use for Nel, and he wasn't a man inclined to waste effort.