was i ever truly off my bullshit

[clockwerk]

[When Kirin Jindosh's house falls into the sea, he almost doesn't realize it's happening. No alarms have been activated, no sensors in his floors alert him to the presence of an intruder; even the mechanisms of his house are silent as the grave, on this completely ordinary day. Were there anything amiss in his house, he would know... and nothing appears to be wrong.

He hasn't eaten in two days. It's unimportant, but he's pushed his hunger to the point of distraction and now needs to put something in his body before he starts to slip in his work. It's this that gets him out of his lab and skulking directly down to the kitchens instead of waiting around for someone to bring him food in the dining area; the cooks aren't pleased to see him in their space (it isn't theirs), but they never are, and Jindosh can eat a pear in peace for five minutes thanks to their studiously avoiding his gaze.

His cooks are among the best of his staff, all things considered. But so it happens that he is not in the high, ocean-overlooking part of his home when it begins to fall. He feels a faint rumble beneath the floor and pauses, head tilted to listen. Somewhere, something creaks. And then something tears.

All at once his perfect home becomes a place of chaos: guards abandoning posts, staff and servants running in every direction, the clockworks not knowing what to do with themselves in the absence of an enemy to put down. Jindosh himself moves like a spectre, the shock of his home's demise too great to spur him into doing something like moving more quickly. Against all odds it's a maid (he knows her face, Maybe if he had a family, but that kind of thing doesn't even occur to him, his home remembers) who sees the master of the house staring dully out of a window as it splinters and does something about it, grabbing his hand and taking off at a run before he can find his voice to object.

The house crumbles. Glass shatters, wood splinters and stone all but dissolves as if it were never the marvel of engineering it was built to be. Metal screams and snaps as it bends in ways it was never intended to and Jindosh has no words for the feeling he experiences as his life's work, years of work and decades of research, slip into the sea like they were never there. How? he wonders. How, how, how? No answer comes to him; his greatest defeat is this, and though he can see no enemy that caused this, he knows: his house is flawless, and if it falls then his enemy has bested him without ever appearing before him.

A worthy opponent, despite the consequences.

Outside the carriage is somehow still working, but it throws itself off its track when a chunk of his waiting room wall lands on the station behind it. Jindosh and the maid are tossed limply into the grass, and the maid scrambles to her feet to continue running while Jindosh sits up to watch his house fall to rubble and dust. He thinks he can see his silvergraph lenses glinting in the afternoon sunlight as they fall, but perhaps he imagined it.

He's still sitting there watching when the dust has settled. When a dark-clothed figure covering her face stalks toward him, says nothing to him as he looks up into the eyes of his own destruction, the Empress, says nothing as she tosses the cracked shell of a clockwork soldier's head into his lap and walks away.

He's still sitting there when the sun begins to set, on the hill, on everything. She may as well have just killed him, he thinks as he finally rises to go pick through his own rubble. It would have been more merciful than this.]

Comments

[howlarious]

[Some tension he didn't realize he'd been carrying ebbs away when he sees the surprise - he might have been a little paranoid that Jindosh had come to his own conclusions and wanted to get his hands on what secrets he still kept before he abandoned ship. The more he thinks about it, the more ridiculous it is now. As clever as Jindosh is, he'd have been much more obvious if that were his goal, with his great fascination with the Void.

He wrings his hands when he laughs, but his shoulders are more relaxed. A part of him still aches at the idea of the fourth floor being empty, but not nearly as much with this out there.]

No, no, but it'll be the secret menu. Things Only Kirin Jindosh Eats. On the house, of course.

[clockwerk]

[Maybe he should be offended at this baby menu... but he's not, it's great, give him nothing but pudding.]

Ah, so you'll be paying me in pudding for my services with your weapons and my Clockworks? Very interesting.

[Fascinating... Here Jindosh is already thinking about the sheer amount of time he'll be spending on carriage rides pretty soon, since he will have to come back and deal with these weapons and tend to his metal children and so on... It's doable.]

Tell me, then— why are we up here when we could be drinking wine in my new apartment?

[howlarious]

[Oh, the answer to that is easy. I didn't plan on telling you tonight, or this week, or ever and Mindy would do it for me, he should say. Instead he takes a sip of his wine, brows raising like the answer is obvious.]

I didn't think you'd want to go today, what with your little project, and the pudding, and... y'know. [he lies, lyingly] If you want to go now...

[clockwerk]

[Jesus Paolo you have legs, you too can walk to a carriage station and visit him in the apartment you decided to give him!! Jindosh raises an eyebrow in turn, like, obviously he wants to go now.]

Wasn't it you who said I should have a quieter place to think? I'll do my thinking after I've finished your wine.

[It's drinking in the apartment time, let's go, he wants to go!!]

[howlarious]

[No, clearly he can never go up there without an explicit invitation? He hardly ever intrudes on Jindosh working on the fourth floor, so making a whole trip out of going to see him is asking so much of his old nerves.] Didn't anybody tell you about travelling after sundown? You can run into some unsavory figures.

[He shoots him a tired, but faintly amused look before he stands and takes the bottle. The sun's long since gone down, but it isn't an unpleasant trip - there isn't many people out, and when there are, they recognize the two enough to know not to disturb them. And the further their journey gets from the Dust District, the easier it is to appreciate the night sky. Paolo seems to have an affinity for pointing out shapes in them, because he spends half the carriage ride avoiding serious conversation with how he used to name them when he was a boy.]

It's different now, they uh... they already have names when they come to me. [But, ah, they're arriving, pointless deflecting over. Take the very nice keyring he's pulling, this is Jindosh's now.] Here, the gate key, and the house... the saloon, but I don't think I want you showing up after closing.

[clockwerk]

[Know that Jindosh gives him a look for that unsavory figures crack, considering they personally are the most unsavory people in town who aren't literally siphoning other people's blood into their bodies, and Paolo should stick to murder over jokes. This guy.

The chatter about stars is just that - chatter, obvious as Paolo has been teetering on the edge of something since he brought up the apartment in the first place. Jindosh doesn't interrupt him to press; it will come out sooner or later, he's sure. Give him his beautiful keys.]

Why, what after-closing secrets are you going to hide from me now? [He's spent a lot of hours in the torture basement, why does he have to abide by closing time!! Mean. Come upstairs with him.] Next you'll want me to send word ahead of time.

[howlarious]

I don't want to drag my ass out of bed to feed you. That's my secret. [He can see it now: Jindosh getting his famed four hours of sleep and coming over when Paolo's maybe had an hour. He won't allow that? Come get him before he tries to sleep.] Maybe I should make you write letters... Make a reservation.

[He's right behind him though, calm down. He doesn't really know why he's here again, since he's the one that came and threw out things Jindosh would think are useless. And add more butterflies. And birds. He did a lot, don't look into it-] I wouldn't keep secrets from you, anyway.

[clockwerk]

Besides all this. [He gestures around mildly, like, the whole apartment he didn't know about until an hour ago? That was a secret. There are so many nice birds here, and everything...

Well it's time to sit and drink, so here he goes. Look around? No, it's adequate, he wants to finish alcohol time now.]

I'll have the Clockworks run messages back and forth. [They don't have hands... the neighbors will especially love to see them running around.] ...Is there a spare key?

[howlarious]

[Yeah, nice, sit back and enjoy this couch. It’s more comfortable than the one Paolo’s been having him “sleep” on, but he tries not to think about that as he sits back and hands over the bottle.]

But then I’d still have to hear your voice. [He smirks, crossing one leg over the other. Misunderstanding the question, he replies:] No, I wouldn’t leave a spare so some idiot can come interrupt you. Give me more credit than that.

[clockwerk]

[Is this man real... Jindosh drinks straight from the bottle as he just looks at him, wondering if Paolo is really especially dense, or if he's just inflated his opinion of him unduly before now. Surely he shouldn't have to ask... He doesn't think he's ever actually asked another person to keep him company besides Sokolov, and that was a very particular context that probably does not apply here, anyway.

So what the fuck, Paolo.]

I thought you might take time to come and have a drink with me here, every now and then. [Gaze........ come on, little guy.] Unless you aim to keep me locked up here in my tower until something breaks you cannot fix.

[ha.......humor]

[howlarious]

[Oh. Well, this isn't one of his proudest moments already, but not really getting that right away really takes the cake. He swallows, looking back down at his hands with a faint flush creeping up his face. Words, he knows how to use them-]

I mean- yeah, I can... I can... make the time, I guess. I just uh... I didn't think you'd... [God, he's so dumb? He can't shuffle off to his own space here, give him a minute to deal with it. He eventually taps his good fingers to his temple, to emphasize his point.] I'm not the easiest guy to bounce ideas off of, so I'm kinda... useless here, you know.

[clockwerk]

Thankfully most of my ideas are fine without anyone's help.

[It's dawning on him here that he's going to have to do this stupid, stupid thing all on his own, as Paolo is apparently too dim to put two and two together. He sits back a little, considering him, casually ruminating over his personal choices... god.]

All of the time I do not reserve for my work I spend on you, already.

[sooo]

[howlarious]

But that's still to further your work. Those wheels are always turning, you're always thinking of how to...

[Get something out of him? No, actually, Jindosh's never asked for anything but what's already his. It's Paolo that asks, makes plans to use. He's known that for awhile now and ignored it, so it's not really fair that he's tried to pull that excuse.

Jindosh putting his hands on him at every opportunity doesn't do anything to further his work - Paolo just doesn't want to accept it because he doesn't know what to do with it.]

... I don't get why you'd like someone like me, Kirin.

[clockwerk]

[Yes, that's him, Kirin Jindosh the schemer. He thinks he's pretty straightforward when he makes demands for things, actually - Paolo is the one who's planting these ideas of Jindosh's abundant secret machinations for whatever reason. At least that one he figures out for himself.

Now then... the other thing.]

Neither do I. And therein lies the great mystery itself. [He smirks, like this is very funny, but really it's only amusing to him... He can't itemize a list of logical reasons for this; the heart, of all things, is the one puzzle he cannot solve (besides the Void but never mind that now).

This is not very romantic, but whatever, no expected romance out of him.] Yet I do, and here we are.

[howlarious]

[Smirk away, but you still like a huge idiot... Paolo probably should be disappointed in an answer like that, but he smiles despite himself. A vague answer from Kirin Jindosh is still more of an answer than anyone else has gotten out of him, and there's some pride to be had in that.]

Yet here we are. [He shifts to face him more, then holds his hand out expectantly for the bottle.] I'll get the spare. Then we can drink, and we can talk, or drink and talk, or... neither of those things. Whatever you want.

[clockwerk]

[He said! He likes him! He really said that!! That's not vague, don't be picky. Jindosh isn't sure what to do with this, himself - only that he's not very satisfied by Paolo just making faces at him and listing things to do or not do. But he says whatever Jindosh wants, and what Jindosh wants right now is some certainty that his very legitimate proclamation is not in error.

Or more simply: He hands over the bottle and in doing so pushes Paolo's arm down with it, getting that out of his way as he leans the rest of the way in close and kisses him.

Is that too vague!!!!]

[howlarious]

[Unexpected, but exactly what Paolo needed to get it through his thick skull. He tenses initially, spending a few seconds sitting stupidly while he's probably gone red up to his ears, but he carefully lowers the bottle to some table so he can safely lean into the kiss. He places one hand at Jindosh's collar to keep him still - like he'd pull away after all this, please - and the other over the infuriating fabric around his neck to brush his thumb over the skin it doesn't cover.

His proclamation isn't in erorr - kissing Paolo is a very good decision, because Paolo kisses like he knows he wasted his time and he wants to make up for it. He takes a minute, bordering another half before he finally separates himself, and when he does he has a stupid smile across his face like it was his idea in the first place.]

Aren't I glad I ran into you.

[clockwerk]

[Paolo is dreadful and Jindosh takes it all back. No, now that Paolo finally has his act together, this is going the way it probably should have weeks ago if they were at all competent. Jindosh kisses like he's proving a point, probably the point that he's always right, and he lingers close to Paolo when they break apart.

Hmm. Yes, that's more like it.]

You're insufferable. And remarkably slow on the uptake. [But he will reach up and run his fingers through Paolo's hair, so he's not entirely rude.] You did not need to furnish an entire apartment to get my attention, Paolo.

[loser......]