(closed RP for Henry Winter and Stephen Maturin)

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen had rather wanted to talk with Henry Winter at length, if for no other reason than to cement his hopeful deduction that Henry's recent wedding had well and truly laid to rest the remnants of old animosity concerning the woman who was now Mrs. Winter. Unfortunately, there had simply been no time for conversation. Stephen had brought little Rose Casson to the wedding, which meant he'd been kept busy with such important activities as eating icing with his fingers; and Henry had been kept busy with other matters (the brief abortive dust-up with Bunny had not escaped Stephen's watchful eye, though his primary concern had been to keep Rose away from whatever might happen). Then the bride and groom had gone off on some trip somewhere, or some such thing. Even if they had not, Stephen would not have dreamed of inquiring after either of them. He knew very well what it was to desire absolute peace, absolute and complete absence of any interruption.

As it happened, he did not see Winter again until an odd chance meeting out on the windswept grounds. Stephen was scouting out potential locations for test explosions of anti-clown ordnance. Henry, immaculately dressed in suit and somber black overcoat, appeared to be pushing a very large weird chunk of stone in a wheelbarrow.

Comments

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

As for the past hoboness, Stephen chalked that up to a predictable combination of drunken excess and the dizzying effect of beauty. Henry of all people should understand what effect Camilla could have on a person.

The sensory amplification that Susan's experiments sought to confer, though -- that was something Stephen indeed deemed far from horrible. It was something he expected anyone would want, something he himself still wanted, a craving only a series of past lessons in addiction could keep at bay.

"Maddening, yes, but wonderful, did you not find?"

[h-m-winter.livejournal.com]

Henry thought about this a moment. "At the time, very wonderful," he said, his eyes unfocusing for a moment as his mind threw up all sorts of fascinating images--the glint of starlight on the sea, the amazing softness of sand under his feet, the sweetness of Camilla's hair. "Unlike anything I've even imagined. I think it's how the gods must have felt, whenever they visited the earth. Even now, knowing what it did to us--how terrible it was, afterward--part of me would like to try it again. My rational mind might know better, but some deeper, more primal part of me craves it."

He shook his head, resting a hand on Xipe Totec's head. "And the dangerous thing about Susan is that I think she would give it again, if any of us asked. I'm certain she won't give it to anybody else, but I'm not so sure she understands either the nature of addiction, or just how very alien her senses truly are to the rest of us."

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

What Henry described sounded similar to Stephen's own experience, up to a point. He would not have called the aftermath terrible; a letdown perhaps, in the way that coming down from any stimulant could be; and his curiosity must surely have shown in the angle of his head, the arch of his brow, though he prudently refrained from direct inquiry.

"I think she might," said Stephen. "God help me if I should ask her. What she could make of me then I should not like to contemplate."

A pause, then a query he did think it relatively safe to pose:

"What did Camilla think of it?"

[h-m-winter.livejournal.com]

Henry could see Stephen's curiosity, and the man's words piqued his own--that was rather an odd thing to say. From what he'd seen of Susan, she had no desire to make anyone into anything. He said so, too. "I don't think Susan would really try to turn anyone into something they're not. She's odd, but she does have scruples, in her way." Like himself and Camilla, they might be decidedly strange scruples, but they were scruples nonetheless. He had no way of knowing that any desire she might have had in that direction was turned in onto herself, though given her curiosity about gardening, etc. it wouldn't have been hard to guess.

He didn't answer the question for a moment. "What she feels about it now, I can't say," he said. "I think that for the most part her reaction was the same as mine--it was beautiful, at the time, but she seemed just as disturbed as I, when it wore off. I don't think any part of her craves a repeat." Camilla was much too tranquil for that sort of thing; also, unlike him, she had no native personal inhibitions. She chose to abstain from certain actions, whereas Henry was in many ways very repressed, determination to do whatever he wanted notwithstanding.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

"On the contrary," Stephen said, "I do not think that particular potion can make anyone into something they are not; rather, I think it may very well have the potential to enhance the very worst in them, the worst of what is already in them. I say this while taking pains not to conflate the experience with what else might have been at work on All Hallows'. To be dazzled by a deluge of sensory input, to have one's reason drowned out, can hardly be salutary to the soul, if indulged habitually. I am quite certain Susan intended nothing but good in developing the stuff, and it would be to such benevolent intent that you or I must appeal were we to request another opportunity for testing it. Yet the saying goes that the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Stephen had thought about it, of course. He knew precisely how he would frame the request. It would be all to do with science, and objectivity. It would be a clever and convincing lie -- if he resorted to such a request. He had made up his mind he would not.

"Why should Camilla be unmoved by that which tempts us?" he wondered, as much to himself as to Henry.

[h-m-winter.livejournal.com]

Henry thought about this. The potion had done nothing that had particularly enhanced his or Camilla's more undesirable traits; it had simply enhanced everything, leading them to complete, wild abandon. He knew, however, that such a result was not guaranteed--the bacchanal had taught him that. It was simply fortunate that no one else had been around, although in truth the potion had not been exactly like the bacchanal; his memories of that were fragmentary at best, while he could recall every detail of what had gone on while he was under the potion's influence.

"Camilla does not crave," he said aloud, answering Stephen's question rather than speculating on the potion itself. "Not in the way most people do. There are things she wants, some of them quite strongly, but I think that for her, one experience with that would be enough." The similarities to the bacchanal would almost certainly sway her more than it was swaying him; she knew it would be a terrible idea and didn't want it.

"I once wanted, very badly, to lose all control," he added, half to himself. "Just to see what it was like to know complete abandon. As you say, it really can't be healthy, but that doesn't stop the primitive self wanting it. Did you go outside at all, while you had those senses? The night is beautiful in a way I had never imagined; there was nothing to cloud my mind, to distract me from the present moment. Once the fear and discomfort brought by its departure had passed, I felt for the next day like I had been taken away from impossibly clear air, and shut up in a stale, dusty box. I think the real price of such a thing is having to give it back."

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

"We did not go outside," said Stephen. "We stayed indoors." After Susan had taken her Dreamless Sleep Potion, Stephen had not wanted to leave her alone.

Henry's words, though, made him wish he had gone outside, to look through telescopes, and hear the sounds of night birds, and -- oh, any number of things.

He was quiet, then.

[h-m-winter.livejournal.com]

Ah. Right. Henry could be tactless, but usually it was intentional, and it had not been in this instance.

"It really is unfortunate," he said at last, "that such senses surely are so very bad for us. Susan did us no favors, though she wanted to, and thought she was. For most people even a taste of that could be addictive, common sense notwithstanding. Camilla and I were fortunate, in that we didn't run across any people, anything that could have caused harm. On the grounds at least no one can die, but I'm not sure I like to think of what could happen to a person so...so blissed-out, to use the hippie term...on that potion." If he told himself that, it helped ease that want, but it couldn't banish it entirely; it was an irrational want, and though it was very minor, it was all the more noticeable for that. "Perhaps it might be better that you didn't go outside, especially that night. God knows what might have happened."

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Astonishingly, Stephen began to laugh -- that creaking, disagreeable laugh of his, the one he could not repress when genuinely and thoroughly tickled by some remark.

"What might have happened?" He coughed with the last of the laughter. "We intended to conquer Europe, as I remember. Shaun would have assisted with a cricket bat. One hopes we would not have made it off school grounds."

He coughed again, and wiped his eyes.

"Sweet Mother of God, it beggars the imagination."

[h-m-winter.livejournal.com]

Henry looked at him, initially in disbelief, and laughed himself. "Conquer Europe? Between the three of you, I really would fear for the world."

He wasn't really joking, either; there were quite a few people here who could have done some really terrible things, had they gone off-grounds that night. "You and Susan and Shaun with his cricket bat. "And what would you have done with it, or did you even plan that far?"

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

It was Stephen's assumption, and hope, that Henry could not know precisely what sorts of damage Stephen himself could have done.

Meanwhile, he himself could have no notion what kind of experience Henry spoke from ...

"I believe we must all have had different intentions. Shaun, for example, would have liked to keep this part of the world safe from zombies," he said, sobering a little. "I do not know whether he had been endowed by Susan with the sort of sensory powers you and I had been speaking about, or whether it was merely the unrelated enchantment operative on a broader scale; whatever the case, I expect his ability to tell the difference between zombie and innocent bystander may have been somewhat impaired. Myself, I have been known to harbor certain political allegiances, particularly in my youth." He made it sound like a harmless throwback to 19th-century enthusiasms (which, in a sense, it was).

"Surely Camilla at least could have posed no one any danger?" Henry was physically imposing enough that he could do some damage.

[h-m-winter.livejournal.com]

Henry had only met Shaun once, and that without the cricket bat, but even one meeting was enough that he could picture it. A little too well. He really had no idea just what Stephen was capable of (aside from very good aim), but still the thought of the three of them loose upon the world--even if only two of them had the heightened senses--was slightly...twitchy.

His expression went neutral. "In her own way, she's very dangerous," he said, thinking of the ravine, of her going with him to check Bunny's dying pulse. "All the more so because no one would suspect it of her."

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen thought of Diana's entanglements in American espionage, her unfortunate link with Louisa Wogan; he thought, too, of that night in Boston, her fierce proud face, her slender white fingers wrapped around the pistol he'd brought her. Now I need not be afraid, she'd said.

"Those are the most dangerous sort," he agreed gravely.

[h-m-winter.livejournal.com]

Henry wondered from what experience Stephen spoke. Perhaps this woman he had spent so long pursuing had been like Camilla in more ways that one. It would...explain a few things, really.

"They have an advantage, in a way," he said thoughtfully. "Those who can lull everyone into a false sense of security. Ryder, now--this serial-killing demon--clearly thought Camilla was completely defenseless when he first met her. I was watching when he learned otherwise; it was a very small thing, a small moment, but his surprise was obvious. He didn't look at either myself or Susan that way--only Camilla. Something about her suggests a certain helplessness, I suppose, at least to people who don't know her."

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

For one, it explained Stephen's absolute incredulity and surprise at Henry's matrimonial coup. Diana could show touching proof of loyalty, in her own way, but she was more hunter than prey, and would not allow herself to be caught, or to stay caught for long when it did suit her to settle down a while.

On a different note altogether, Stephen found it promising that Henry should, in his diffident way, be so forthcoming in conversation as this -- and concerning such a subject, concerning this subject in particular. The wedding invitation in itself could have meant any number of things, from the most blatant to more subtle gradations of communication. It could have been the baldest territoriality, the logical extension of Henry's remark to Stephen once: Camilla was spoken for (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1376759.html?thread=70002679#t70002679), he'd said, cold and taut, and what was a marriage but the underscoring of that claim? Thus the invitation meant little to Stephen by way of settling old scores, particularly since it had been extended by Henry rather than Camilla. It could have been a pointed message. Their conversation now sent a different message. Whatever ill will Henry might have borne, it had passed away, Stephen thought.

This made him happy. He had disliked and regretted extremely the entire mess some while back.

"It is like unto a sort of protective camouflage," he mused now, "as some lizards have." What? Comparing Diana to a lizard was an extreme compliment both to the lizard and to Diana! "Or like the flowers of some plants, which are exceedingly beautiful, yet protected by truly vicious thorns."

Which brought Stephen around to wondering what it was that Xipe Totec was going to be blessing. "Did you have in mind to plant flowering things, or edible? My particular friend Jack Aubrey used to have a cabbage garden, and to wax approaching poetic on the subject."

[h-m-winter.livejournal.com]

For Henry's part, everything was not so much forgiven as erased. All accounts balanced, all debts cancelled. He really had liked Stephen, before everything, and though that couldn't be the same, at least they could be friendly--as friendly as Henry ever was, anyway.

"It really is," he said. "Those who appear harmless can often do more damage than those who don't." It was one of the huge differences between Camilla and Susan, really--Camilla was able to inspire all sorts of strange confidences from people; inspire them to tell far more than they would probably like. She was beguiling, whereas Susan had all the subtlety of a brick. Also like a brick, she was much better at smashing than anything else.

He shook his head, looking at Xipe Totec again. "Roses," he said. "I grew roses, before. I think I'd like a garden again." A pause, and he laughed quietly. "Susan said she'd help me, if I'd let her. I think that would not end well, personally."

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

"It would not end well for the poor roses, sure," agreed Stephen wryly.

The gleam of a scythe in his mind's eye gave him a momentary chill, dampening his amusement.

"Would you like a hand with that lump of heathen nonsense, or shall I leave you to it?"

[h-m-winter.livejournal.com]

"I really don't understand how the grass doesn't die under her feet," he said, eying the barren beds. "And...hmm. If you'll help me get it out of the barrow, I think I can handle it."

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Though shorter and slighter of build than Henry, Stephen nonetheless could be of some use in wrangling the unwieldy Xipe Totec. He supported the thing's shoulders while Henry did the heavy lifting, and between them they deposited the statue atop the chosen mound without damage to Xipe Totec or to themselves. Stephen stepped back to survey the effect.

"May your roses thrive," he said solemnly.

If the rosebushes grew enough, when the time came, their growth might occlude that hideous statue.