How lucky for you. He does not say. It doesn't even show on his face. Instead, he nods.
"Nonsense, you're hardly carrying it on your own, now, are you?" he says cheerfully before he sighs and moves to open the door. Oh, he can sense what's out there, like heavy steps on a metal floor. He knows the difference. It's just...
It is what it is. Such is life.
"Say whatever you need to say. And of course, if you care to give confession, you know my hours in the chapel."
That's very clearly a joke but also... sort of not. Sometimes, it's hard to tell with him.
"Uh, I guess so, but again, the psychological torture part is a big no no, and I should fess up in case someone sleuths it out instead. I have a hard enough time convincing people I'm not secretly some kind of murderer or what ever because I got pulled here in the first place, though I guess if I confess some people might not believe it was an accident...Fuck man, why does doing the right thing have to suck so much?"
Hanna follows after him, still a little unsure whether or not it really would be fine if he was walking with him. What was the radius on that anyways? Like, shoulder to shoulder? Or ten feet behind?
"I don't have to like, hold your hand or what ever to make sure I don't get sucked back in to hell do I?"
That phrase: 'why does doing the right thing have to suck so much'. It hits something in him, and a little crackle in the facade finally hits the surface. He pauses for a moment, and it's obvious that he's thinking of something, considering something, but it's not something for the moment. No, some of the haste has started to hit him.
"No, though we may travel through the Otherworld, nothing will give you trouble as long as you are with me. Consider me your faithful shepherd, hmm?"
"That's a relief..." He sucks in a breath, having tried not to think about it, but he doesn't know if David's body would still be down there. The shifting nature of the 'Otherworld' as he called it made it rather unclear.
"My friend helped me get out earlier. I couldn't exactly carry him out when the fuckin' things chasing me weren't going to stop just because he went down. They were pretty singularly focused..." Which was incredibly familiar and terrible and another thing he really didn't want to think about. All that curly red hair really wasn't subtle at all.
"You've seen a lot of people hurt around you, then?" He asks absently as they walk. "Been the reason why people got hurt despite your best intentions..."
The hallway is definitely a part of the Otherworld, but it does seem to be... empty. The sounds are dim.
For a moment Hanna worries that he's not just talking about the past week. It's...always kind of been like that. No matter how hard he tried, ever since the accident, like a fucking curse. The best intentions could kill someone, or try to.
"Something like that...and I can't exactly do much to help either. I have no offense, most of the shit that might help that I do have access to barely works. I don't even have my hammer, like...who takes away a guy's hammer? It's not even that dangerous, just like one of those little dinky ones." Complaining at least distracts him from the guilt, but barely. It's still spooky in here, but it's much better now that he can't hear screaming off in the distance.
"So, what's supposed to happen to the people who do survive the gauntlet of their own sin or what ever? What's God or the Order supposed to do for them?"
Oh, he was talking about in general. He knows how this place works. He'll let Hanna take the question how he wants, however. He's not going to be difficult right now.
He looks over to Hanna at the question, however.
"Do you want my answer or the 'traditional' answer?"
This place was a little too good at telling truths he never wanted to tell. Not wanting to really get into all that, he latches onto his subject change, "well, yours is more important to me. You have your head on straight." Or at least he feels like he does despite...everything.
Sticking around to keep a bunch of religious zealots from summoning this and what ever else is pretty great in his opinion. And if it could be summoned? Why wouldn't you believe in the existence of it? Most people didn't have the luxury of believing in a god they could actually see.
The elevator. He doesn't have any concerns about the safety of it. He hits the button.
"Those beings and powers exist. I believe in them, because I believe the evidence of my own eyes, and I know the power of them for the same reason. My worship is... for the same reason any reasonable person pays taxes. But I don't think there's any great wisdom to be found in pain. Pain is just pain. People do what they must to avoid it. Adding nobility to that suffering is a coping mechanism, a child's need for understanding in a confusing universe."
Hanna had definitely been avoiding the lift, but he trusts Vincent even if he doesn't know him all that well. He has no real reason not to, and really, what choices does he have for anything else right now?
He listens, and can't help but agree. If you could see it, it existed. Most people didn't see what he could, or pretended they didn't, and what good did that do them when they walk straight into danger they refuse to see? He didn't blame them for it, sometimes he didn't want to be in the know, and the moment he had been inducted into the supernatural bad been a turning point away from normal. He didn't want people to suffer like he had, so he tried to prevent it. "Mm. I think that's pretty reasonable. There are better ways to learn than pain, really. Especially if the lesson can kill you. What's the point?"
And when the door opens, Hanna doesn't even wait, slipping right into the small space, as unbothered as he can be with the weight of guilt and exhaustion. He'd already said he'd be fine, and Hanna is nothing if entirely too trusting when not doing so would earn him nothing at all.
He steps in and presses the buttons for the top floor before answering.
"You were asking how close you needed to be to avoid harm. I didn't want you thinking the elevator would just drop out from under you without me. It's not going to happen."
His eyes get wide a moment as he looks at the floor he's standing on, "Oh. Yeah, I guess I wasn't expecting the tower of terror, but maybe I should be more cautious." He laughs nervously before squinting at him when Vincent grins at him, "Okay, so either you're fucking with me for fun, which fair, I deserve it, I have proved I'm an idiot, or you're actually serious."
And in that case, he's going to stand awfully close because falling to his death right about now sounded like not the right course of action. "If I get sucked into a void or what ever I'm grabbing your arm whether you'd help pull me out of not." He returns, his own smile rather pathetic, what with the terrible guilt and the extended magic use taxing his whole everything. Kind of felt like standing on the edge of organ failure as his lungs labored to breathe.
That will earn him probably the first genuine laugh Hanna's heard from him.
"A joke, only. I wouldn't play games with your safety like that. Especially given how important you will be to getting this solved, which, I believe we all want, no?"
The elevator moves and up they're going. Like any normal elevator. Everything is behaving normally for him.
His smile falters a little at that, not that he didn't like making people laugh, but it was that next part. Magic like this shit usually had a cost. It's why he'd forced himself to run after David had died instead of trying to do something, anything to the parent trap that was following him in the Otherworld. He isn't going to pussy foot around the fact that he's pretty sure he's not going to be around until after Nico figures out he's dead. God...poor kid.
"Y-yeah, exactly. It's the end goal we all want and I'm here for it, every step of the way."
He waits until the doors are open and they've stepped out on deck before he looks to Hanna. There's a long, probing look made all the more unsettling by his mismatched eyes, before he lets out a soft huff and shakes his head.
"Of course. You know what will be required, don't you? I was going to wait to tell you but I should have realized: some things are fairly universal."
Hanna steps out, still fairly close as he rubs at one of his arms, nodding slowly.
"I kind of figured, yeah. That's why I came and got you, if it needed more than just the magic being severed, you could help out. You don't have to get your hands dirty though, really. I can...I can do it myself." If he did, then maybe he really could keep Vincent out of it, just say he'd fixed it all, and that'd be the end, he didn't have to get tangled in it.
"As loathe as I am to get my hands dirty," he says with a quick, tight grin at Hanna, and oh, Hanna has no idea how loathe he is to get his hands dirty, "now is not the time for experimentation." Now that the Otherworld has fully manifested, it won't get worse until this is undone. And who knows what else might rear it's ugly head if he lets it keep going?
He shakes his head. No. Heather has not conveniently shown up to do his dirty work again and while he could go get Jacob, he's not sure Hanna would agree as readily to another person in on their little 'clean up' job. And it hadn't exactly gone swimmingly the last time.
"I'll kill you when the time comes. Suicide can interact... strangely with this ritual. As you might expect."
His mouth draws a harsh line, uncomfortable with the idea that he is essentially making him do this. That...that didn't feel great. "I'll owe you big time for this. You need anything, I'm your man. Well, within reason. I wasn't joking when I said I try not to hurt people." This was entirely fucked up and he was to blame and it frustrated him knowing he was right, if Vincent knew how to stop it, messing with the algorithm that worked shouldn't be an option right now.
"I'll give you some tips, I'm...I've got some weak points, make sure it's not so messy. Though if you do get blood on your shirt, Ulla is super great about getting that out of clothes if you ask nicely." He tries for another smile, gently patting his arm, his nice suit definitely worth preserving instead of Hanna's own bloodied sweater, the dried blood he'd been coughing into his arm stiff and scratchy against his inner elbow, "Don't want to ruin your nice duds."
He glances down at the hand on his arm and he doesn't jerk away or smile. He happens to think that knowing how to dismantle Hanna, however he might mean, is payment enough for the difficulty, at least given what Hanna knows. Hanna doesn't know and doesn't need to know about his protection, about the limit on it: that he cannot be harmed as long as he doesn't raise his hand to anyone else.
Well. Perhaps a sacrifice or two would appease his God.
...he breathes out slow.
"We can work that all out afterwards, no?"
It's one thing to rake the rube over the coals, use his frantic desperation to draw out all manner of promises, but Hanna's already offering big. One does not push here, even if there is the chance such a promise will dry up after the crisis is over.
"Now, we're going to have to go into the Fog for a moment. Stay close. I have to collect a few things."
It's a shift between one step and the next, between the world as it's become and something just as dark but foggy and isolated. Paradoxically, Vincent is there, visible, even in the fog... but he's headed straight for the gardens. He doesn't want to be here long.
"Sure." He pulls his arm back and shoves his hands in his pockets, sucking in as deep a breath as his body will allow and nods, ready for a jaunt into the fog.
He isn't sure if Vincent knows, but what he's offering is certainly more than he might, it's one of those things that currently, only his physician back home is aware of. It makes him miss Worth, which is super weird, seeing as he's a big asshole, but he doesn't let his thoughts distract him as he follows behind.
It's strange being in the fog and seeing someone else though, and he's close enough behind that if Vincent stopped, he'd run right into him. He's not scared, just tired, and disappointed with himself as he moves along. What a fucking consequence for being bored.
Vincent leads the way until the plants, the green, is visible through the fog. He's heading for a few flowers that aren't in the normal version of this garden. No, if it was this simple to get White Claudia, Vincent wouldn't have mentioned it to anyone. As it is, he's going to gather more than he needs, and at least one from the roots up.
No need to miss an opportunity.
Then-
"I should be able to use parts of the raw flower with the right adjustments. I hardly think you're in the mood to wait for distillation."
Hanna curiously watches him, wondering at the flowers he picks. He'd used similar things to fix charms, magical items back home, but his magic or magic repair wasn't really ritualistic like he's assuming Vincent's will be. Now is not the time for a biology lesson unfortunately, so he keeps his questions to himself.
"Well, I mean, if distillation took like. Thirty minutes, sure but I'm thinking it's more like a few weeks at least, yeah?"
"Sixth floor. Right next to Stolas's ridiculously gaudy door. I kept having these nightmares that he'd just come bursting in and yelling at me. Dude is kind of intimidating when he isnt being dainty." He says having heard and not seen his terrifying form manifesting for those few moments of that one fight he'd had with Blitz, but still. Demon prince was probably going to add him to some kind of shit list after this and he wasn't excited for it.
Which is a subtle little judgment on Stolas. In a way, Hanna has done him the favor of making a point to Mr. Demon Prince. He doubts Stolas will realize but amazing what his order's sigil has wrought.
Not to be focused on for the moment.
"Yes."
And in the next step, they're out of the fog as he heads back for the elevator.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: Audio
"Nonsense, you're hardly carrying it on your own, now, are you?" he says cheerfully before he sighs and moves to open the door. Oh, he can sense what's out there, like heavy steps on a metal floor. He knows the difference. It's just...
It is what it is. Such is life.
"Say whatever you need to say. And of course, if you care to give confession, you know my hours in the chapel."
That's very clearly a joke but also... sort of not. Sometimes, it's hard to tell with him.
Re: Audio
Hanna follows after him, still a little unsure whether or not it really would be fine if he was walking with him. What was the radius on that anyways? Like, shoulder to shoulder? Or ten feet behind?
"I don't have to like, hold your hand or what ever to make sure I don't get sucked back in to hell do I?"
Re: Audio
"No, though we may travel through the Otherworld, nothing will give you trouble as long as you are with me. Consider me your faithful shepherd, hmm?"
Re: Audio
"My friend helped me get out earlier. I couldn't exactly carry him out when the fuckin' things chasing me weren't going to stop just because he went down. They were pretty singularly focused..." Which was incredibly familiar and terrible and another thing he really didn't want to think about. All that curly red hair really wasn't subtle at all.
Re: Audio
The hallway is definitely a part of the Otherworld, but it does seem to be... empty. The sounds are dim.
Re: Audio
"Something like that...and I can't exactly do much to help either. I have no offense, most of the shit that might help that I do have access to barely works. I don't even have my hammer, like...who takes away a guy's hammer? It's not even that dangerous, just like one of those little dinky ones." Complaining at least distracts him from the guilt, but barely. It's still spooky in here, but it's much better now that he can't hear screaming off in the distance.
"So, what's supposed to happen to the people who do survive the gauntlet of their own sin or what ever? What's God or the Order supposed to do for them?"
Re: Audio
He looks over to Hanna at the question, however.
"Do you want my answer or the 'traditional' answer?"
Re: Audio
Sticking around to keep a bunch of religious zealots from summoning this and what ever else is pretty great in his opinion. And if it could be summoned? Why wouldn't you believe in the existence of it? Most people didn't have the luxury of believing in a god they could actually see.
Re: Audio
The elevator. He doesn't have any concerns about the safety of it. He hits the button.
"Those beings and powers exist. I believe in them, because I believe the evidence of my own eyes, and I know the power of them for the same reason. My worship is... for the same reason any reasonable person pays taxes. But I don't think there's any great wisdom to be found in pain. Pain is just pain. People do what they must to avoid it. Adding nobility to that suffering is a coping mechanism, a child's need for understanding in a confusing universe."
Ding!
"...I'll go in first, if only to reassure you."
Re: Audio
He listens, and can't help but agree. If you could see it, it existed. Most people didn't see what he could, or pretended they didn't, and what good did that do them when they walk straight into danger they refuse to see? He didn't blame them for it, sometimes he didn't want to be in the know, and the moment he had been inducted into the supernatural bad been a turning point away from normal. He didn't want people to suffer like he had, so he tried to prevent it. "Mm. I think that's pretty reasonable. There are better ways to learn than pain, really. Especially if the lesson can kill you. What's the point?"
And when the door opens, Hanna doesn't even wait, slipping right into the small space, as unbothered as he can be with the weight of guilt and exhaustion. He'd already said he'd be fine, and Hanna is nothing if entirely too trusting when not doing so would earn him nothing at all.
"Who said anything about needing reassurance?"
Re: Audio
"You were asking how close you needed to be to avoid harm. I didn't want you thinking the elevator would just drop out from under you without me. It's not going to happen."
Then he turns back with a terrible sort of grin.
"Probably."
He is 100% being an asshole right now.
Re: Audio
And in that case, he's going to stand awfully close because falling to his death right about now sounded like not the right course of action. "If I get sucked into a void or what ever I'm grabbing your arm whether you'd help pull me out of not." He returns, his own smile rather pathetic, what with the terrible guilt and the extended magic use taxing his whole everything. Kind of felt like standing on the edge of organ failure as his lungs labored to breathe.
Re: Audio
"A joke, only. I wouldn't play games with your safety like that. Especially given how important you will be to getting this solved, which, I believe we all want, no?"
The elevator moves and up they're going. Like any normal elevator. Everything is behaving normally for him.
Re: Audio
"Y-yeah, exactly. It's the end goal we all want and I'm here for it, every step of the way."
Re: Audio
"Of course. You know what will be required, don't you? I was going to wait to tell you but I should have realized: some things are fairly universal."
Re: Audio
"I kind of figured, yeah. That's why I came and got you, if it needed more than just the magic being severed, you could help out. You don't have to get your hands dirty though, really. I can...I can do it myself." If he did, then maybe he really could keep Vincent out of it, just say he'd fixed it all, and that'd be the end, he didn't have to get tangled in it.
cw mention of self harm
He shakes his head. No. Heather has not conveniently shown up to do his dirty work again and while he could go get Jacob, he's not sure Hanna would agree as readily to another person in on their little 'clean up' job. And it hadn't exactly gone swimmingly the last time.
"I'll kill you when the time comes. Suicide can interact... strangely with this ritual. As you might expect."
Re: cw mention of self harm
"I'll give you some tips, I'm...I've got some weak points, make sure it's not so messy. Though if you do get blood on your shirt, Ulla is super great about getting that out of clothes if you ask nicely." He tries for another smile, gently patting his arm, his nice suit definitely worth preserving instead of Hanna's own bloodied sweater, the dried blood he'd been coughing into his arm stiff and scratchy against his inner elbow, "Don't want to ruin your nice duds."
no subject
Well. Perhaps a sacrifice or two would appease his God.
...he breathes out slow.
"We can work that all out afterwards, no?"
It's one thing to rake the rube over the coals, use his frantic desperation to draw out all manner of promises, but Hanna's already offering big. One does not push here, even if there is the chance such a promise will dry up after the crisis is over.
"Now, we're going to have to go into the Fog for a moment. Stay close. I have to collect a few things."
It's a shift between one step and the next, between the world as it's become and something just as dark but foggy and isolated. Paradoxically, Vincent is there, visible, even in the fog... but he's headed straight for the gardens. He doesn't want to be here long.
no subject
He isn't sure if Vincent knows, but what he's offering is certainly more than he might, it's one of those things that currently, only his physician back home is aware of. It makes him miss Worth, which is super weird, seeing as he's a big asshole, but he doesn't let his thoughts distract him as he follows behind.
It's strange being in the fog and seeing someone else though, and he's close enough behind that if Vincent stopped, he'd run right into him. He's not scared, just tired, and disappointed with himself as he moves along. What a fucking consequence for being bored.
no subject
No need to miss an opportunity.
Then-
"I should be able to use parts of the raw flower with the right adjustments. I hardly think you're in the mood to wait for distillation."
no subject
"Well, I mean, if distillation took like. Thirty minutes, sure but I'm thinking it's more like a few weeks at least, yeah?"
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And he tilts his head towards the elevator.
"Which floor are you on?"
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"You get everything you need?"
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Which is a subtle little judgment on Stolas. In a way, Hanna has done him the favor of making a point to Mr. Demon Prince. He doubts Stolas will realize but amazing what his order's sigil has wrought.
Not to be focused on for the moment.
"Yes."
And in the next step, they're out of the fog as he heads back for the elevator.
"It won't take long. It just... has to be done."
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