snowblindrpg | [log] Tonight we light the fires, we call our ships to port [closed]

He'll need to say a little more than that because House is incapable of letting sleeping dogs lie a majority of the time. He starts peeling the orange and continues to eye Rhys like he's concerned the man is going to snap at him again. Maybe it would be better if he did. Maybe it would be better if he snapped and then took Wilson and Ecks away again. House can suffer whatever poison, talking of, coming from Hannibal. He doesn't particularly want the cannibalistic doctor putting a worm into anyone else's ear. It's bad enough with what he did to Will's psyche to make the guy a codependent wreck.

Rhys... seems like he might be vulnerable to manipulation, if only because he's generally at a low point. Not as low as when House had made an effort to manipulate him into fighting back, using anger as a whip to galvanize him to bettering his mental circumstances. But still low.

"Nothing makes me happy." That's only sort of a lie. "And the last argument we had was about you, not me. Try again. Whatever makes me complacent enough not to yell at you? Grow a backbone and shout back. Less yelling happens on my end. Or at least you can shut me up when you have the balls to punch me."

Rhys is okay with saying more, he's just trying to parse it out, decide how much is too much and what House actually wants to hear. The couple of weeks that he's been processing it all does help, but it's still poor dress rehearsal for actually being face to face again.

He gives a sour laugh, and shakes his head. "I should clock you. If I got it on camera, I'd make a fortune on pay-per-view."

House, you need to stop poking at the murderers, even the good-natured ones. Rhys told House some awful things, and it is lingering in the back of his head how much of that the older man is going to throw back in his face, but for now, it's not important. Going in clean is more critical, to the point where he's even given up on seeing his pills again in favor of a level fighting ground.

He continues, willing to accept the blow on the chin, as it were. "And yeah, it was. I was a shit, and like I said, I'm sorry. You're an asshole and you said some incredibly shitty things, but I started it. And I'm willing to say it, so I like to think that counts for something." He reaches into his pocket for something to do, pulls out his cardboard candy box with his carefully hoarded cigarettes in it. His security blanket. He takes one out, puts the rest back.

"I. Am severely fucked up. More than I realized." Out comes the lighter, old military steel of the type meant to survive a minor apocalypse. He lights up with the practiced care of a ritual, the way he always does. "Nothing's gonna change that, not after everything. But that's not your fault, not anyone's fault. I'm either going to keep going, or I'm not." He shrugs, takes the first drag of raw, scorching smoke. He seems calmer, though, spinning out thoughts that he's had plenty of nights to roll over and over.

"It's a shitty choice, but that's the options I've got." Which House had pointed out, however cruelly. He shrugs, as if to say 'there, that's it'.

Well... good. Rhys learned something. House still doesn't know what to really make of it. Rhys doesn't appear to be demanding anything from him in return for this mea culpa. It's confusing and unsettling. Is he holding back demands for an apology for a more opportune moment? He's already acknowledged that House was an ass, too. Is he expecting House to just return the favor out of some sense of social niceties?

This could also be Rhys just folding like a wet blanket and wanting to put to bed some hostility. House considers prodding deeper, but some of his experiences with Davesprite come into play.

"Sounds like you learned something, kid." Rhys isn't that much younger, but it's a way of distancing them. House is the grown-up, Rhys is the kid. And so the naughty boy came around to being reasonable. "All is forgiven. Go in peace to hate and avoid the robo-spider overlords."

What it really is, more than "folding", is Rhys finally understanding that House is House. The doctor is always going to play dirty, to protect his feelings by lashing out, to keep a protective distance.

Rhys has made a lot of bad judgments in his life. Looking to a self-absorbed sadomasochist like House for affection was just another in a long string of them. He's not walking away from the man, but when you play with fire? Wear an asbestos suit.

There's a story about that, the fox and the scorpion and all that bullshit. Rhys shouldn't be surprised he got bit.

He sighs, and decides to lay one more peace offering at House's feet anyway.

"For the record. I was never going to demand anything from you or push for anything." It seems funny and appropriate, that it was in the high school where this first all started. Did I hurt your feelings, Rhysie?

"All I really wanted was for That Night...just to know that it had been something good for a little while. That's all." One night of comfort, where for a little while he'd actually felt safe, walking up with a warm body around him instead of the cold memory of all the ones he'd lost.

That was all.

He shrugs, and takes about careful, measured drag. There's no current in his voice, no while of desperation or demand. Just quiet reflection. "Just so the record's straight. But yeah, were alright from here. At least, as okay as we get because if you piss me off again, I will punch you. And that includes bringing up Sunny again like an asshole. That was your one free pass."

Edited (Autocorrect hell) 2018-04-29 16:50 (UTC)

He could push back. House knows exactly where to poke right now to make it hurt with Rhys exposing that vulnerability. It would be easy. The guy is practically setting him up for it. They could put an end to their relationship completely. Tear it up, salt the earth, and never look back, like with Stephen. Rhys would just be another person House could use when it was convenient and that would be it.

'That Night wasn't real.' Just four words to slam the door in the other man's face.

But a part of House still craves connection with Rhys. He hates that he'd been a vulnerable child in front of the other man, but there had been a connection, a sense of camaraderie. And That Night in some alternate reality had been good. House burns bridges, it's just kind of his thing, but this one, rickety as it is, has its purposes. House still has something to get out of it. And he suspects Rhys will be a great deal less useful if he breaks the man again out of spite.

"It wasn't bad." House doesn't look at Rhys. That's all he's saying on the matter as he presses on. "Don't be a whiny dickweasel again, and I won't bring her up."

That night hasn't been real, but they still experienced it. They still remembered it. And as dreams went, it had been a pretty good one. That was all Rhys was asking, because of course it would be insane to build something on a hallucination.

Rhys snorts, but lets it go. "That's why you get a pass." As shitty and cruel as it had been, Rhys had needed a shock. Granted House had been trying to get him to hit him (the exact reason why Rhys hadn't: his anger was not to be indulged, not like that. Never like that), but the shock had been enough to start... Something, some kind of miserable but somehow productive introspection.

"...she deserved better. She always did, but she stuck around anyway. She was like that." The words surprise him, quietly added on to everything, before he catches himself with a sad, wistful shake of his head.

He hasn't deserved her, but she'd been the best thing he'd ever had, for a little while. His sugar-skull priestess, his goddess of the candles and sand and sea. Just thinking about her, he can almost smell the stinging bitterness of marigolds.

He takes another drag, concentrates on the burn before letting it out.

"Well, we got you your weirdo back. Apparently I missed a bit. The good news is, he's not murder-happy anymore, so there's that."

House doesn't know Sunny well enough to know what she might deserve. For all he knows, she could have been a hidden psychokiller, too, for all of Rhys' fond remembrances of her. He's not going to float that possibility for the moment. Better not to talk about past things. Certainly not that far past. It's his version of an olive branch to simply nod and move on.

On to what appears to be a conversation about Hannibal. "My weirdo? I think you're getting me and Graham Cracker mixed up, devil boy. Lecter's his weirdo. I'm just a naturalist studying the habits of the wild weirdo in its natural environment. I heard he did some offing, though, yeah. He get anyone in your group?" He eyes Rhys, looking for signs of a new injury now.

Rhys has to wonder sometimes if House has ever had anyone in his life like Sunny. She hadn't been perfect, far from it, but she had been special, and that was enough.

If anything, she'd been too gentle.

Rhys shrugs as the conversation turns, watching House curiously. He still hasn't quite unraveled the mystery of Will, and Hannibal may as well be another species from Rhys's point of view, and House's entanglement is something that both puzzles and worries him a bit.

Not that it's bad for House to have someone else to chew on, literally.

"It was three on one, so kind of a dogpile. A couple nicks and bruises, that's all." Rhys, for his part, is unmarked, and extends his arms to prove it. Hurray for knowng exactly the right way to body-check a psycho with a knife. "He got someone considering the blood on him, but he didn't have much to say about it." Rhys shakes his head.

There are all of three people who know about Stacy. Wilson had been there. Robo!Rhys had wandered in on a very unfortunate combo delusion/hallucination. Will had run into her in a dream. In none of these cases had House ever volunteered her existence. He doesn't plan to in the future, but there's always a chance. He's mentioned elsewhere about having an ex, but never in a pleasant context if Rhys had an inclination to go digging.

"Gray, Melborn, and Solomons, judging by the obits and and where he woke up." He's keeping light tabs on where Gabriel is, at least. "I'm sure Lecter's real upset about it, though." Mostly because he'd lost control, not because Hannibal cares about murdering people. "I don't make a habit of chatting with psychiatrists." It's not... entirely a lie. He banters far more with Will than he does with Hannibal.

House had offhandedly mentioned an ex, though Rhys hadn't gone digging. Which was only fair, because Rhys had mentioned at least three, two of which were dead and one of which hated him.

Hating him was better than dead, at least? And her hating him didn't keep him from writing her letters from this frozen hell, even if he knew she'd never get them.

"Shit. Busy boy." He looks thoughtful, then shrugs. "And I thought some of the other death prices were extreme. Usually the killing spree stuff is a special occasion." He glances at his smoke, getting woefully short already. Even having made as many cigarettes as he could at the grocery store, he's going to have to ration: the struggles of an addict.

"He was very apologetic, though? So there was that."

House shrugs. "I lost my sanity as a price once. I drank an entire bottle of absinthe, tried to empty an aquarium fish tank, and told people to go kill themselves for experiments. Got a guy killed doing an experiment in the morgue." His tone is entirely too neutral to be okay with all of this, but House breezes past it as quickly as he can. He's pretty sure Rhys was around for that nonsense, but it was a while ago and he can't remember for sure. He just knows Rhys wasn't one of the ones who died in the tablet experiment.

"You scared of the weirdo?" The fact that Rhys is even referring to Hannibal as a 'weirdo' is curious, in and of itself. 'Psycho' seems like it might be more appropriate for what the other man saw. But maybe he's seeing more than House gives him credit for? Predators sometimes have a way of being able to sense each other, he supposes, even if Rhys' predator is dormant and Hannibal has a nigh impenetrable mask.

Rhys frowns, thinking about that. He was only in the periphery at the time of the tablet experiments, and not directly affected. He can also read the reluctance to linger on it, in House's manner.

It doesn't actually improve his opinion. House is a nihilist, not exactly the model of care and concern. If his death price amplified his worst traits, then that doesn't really counter Rhys's thoughts about killing sprees as death prices.

Still, it was only an offhand thought, and Rhys lets it go for the moment in favor of what he can answer.

"Scared? No." He shrugs again, stabbing out the last of his smoke on the corner of a desk and rubbing the ashes between his fingertips. His predator is more than active enough here, watching from the background, but it's also dormant in the sense that it has none of its supernatural abilities to rely on. Anything that it sees and reacts to is based wholly on natural input, instinct and information perceived in the totally human methods.

Hannibal had been being good, mostly. Rhys's opinions on the man were based only on that, and whatever other prejudices he might have.

"He's just...I don't know. I get the feeling he sees a lot more than he lets on. And he's very European about everything." He's not sure how else to put it, and he inspects the gritty smudges between his fingers as he talks. If he's fidgeting, it's not a comfortable subject, but he's not overly stressed about it, either. Somewhere in the middle: yellow light, slow down, use caution. "I just don't like doctors, either, so I'm kind of coming in on a bias, but yeah. He's weird."

He looks up, then, and back at House with raised eyebrows. "Why? Should I be scared of him? I mean, aside from the whole knife murder thing?"

"He's a shrink. Of course you should be scared of him." This is walking the fine, fine line of outting Hannibal to someone it's potentially a bad idea to do that with. Rhys is close to people like Watson. Or at least he was close enough to go traveling with the guy. Enoch, too. Wilson. These are people who would feel obligated to crow just as soon as anything gets out about Hannibal's true nature.

But House still wants to protect Rhys to the extent that he can. Rhys, Ecks, Wilson... all the people here who don't know.

"Guy makes a living getting into people's heads and rattling around. I never trust therapists. There's always an angle they're going for." This has the value of being true and being non-specific to Hannibal, just the annoyed ramblings of a paranoid and very closed man. "Just don't start talking to him about mommy and daddy, and you'll probably be fine."

Rhys is also the type to actually weigh secrets against safety, coming from a worlddominated by dangerous knowledge. Given enough reason and reassurance, he might actually keep his silence.

Of course, he's also the type to kill Hannibal himself if there was a good enough reason. So keeping him in the dark might not be the worst idea, either. There's pros and cons to both.

He huffs a small laugh. "That's fair. The ones that enjoy the job are the ones to look out for." He thinks on it a moment longer.

"He seems like he's in his own little world anyway, and I sure as hell can't afford his office bill, so probably not an issue." He nods slightly. He feels like there might be more, but honestly? That's kind of enough on its own. He'll let it be, but stay watchful.

That's the most that House can hope for in this moment. Forewarned is forearmed, but there's only so much to be done. Rhys seems to have at least a handle on the fact that he should leave the guy alone. "Most of us are in our own little worlds. Makes it easier to deal with the fact this place is complete crap."

He'll offer his own peace-offering of sorts beyond that. "Graham and I are gonna set up a speedway down the hall if we ever find some hot wheels or box cars. You can help." What an honor, to be asked to join such an illustrious-

No. It's incredibly childish to want to waste time playing cars. But a man has to keep his sanity somehow.

The simple fact is, Rhys has lived his life dealing with monsters like Hannibal, and the revelation that a human can be a monster too is nothing new to him. Not when, as an empath, he's looked in the eyes of killers of all stripes and seen right now into the hollow. In a strange way, anything that makes this world more like his makes him a little more comfortable, no matter how terrible, just because it's something he knows.

Which is just more proof of what a mess the guy is, but at least when it comes to horrible things, he's skilled at dealing with them. Give him a serial killer or a shapeshifting lizard monster any day over the crushing emptiness of depression.

"Yeah, whatever lets us scrape out another day, right?" He rolls his shoulders. "I've started drawing again. Arts and crafts. Anything to keep my hands busy for a couple hours at night."

Hey, there's a lot of time to be wasted between lockdown and release, and everyone needs a hobby. Considering how trivial Rhys's hobbies are, racing cars? Totally legit.

"I used to know how to build racers out of rubber bands, dowels, and coffee cans," Rhys offers with a half-grin. "But if I can find some hot wheels, I'm definitely in. 68 Mustang, maybe." Even though he's not actually a car guy, he knows which ones he finds pretty.

And it does make him feel better, strangely. Even if it's silly. Even if it never actually happens. He's a grown man and he should be beyond petty jealousy, but finding a place here in Norfinbury has been hard, especially with his powers gone and his place as a healer less valuable with real doctors around.

Anything helps. Even the small, silly things.

"I think we all know how to make those racers. It's the dowels that're the problem." He has rubber bands. The coffee can might prove a challenge, as well. Particularly if they're looking to pick up at least two for a "real" race.

"I'm gonna have to request a '69 Corvette if we're getting choices here. Sky blue or cherry red. I can go both ways. I'm sure you get that." He winks at Rhys as he finishes peeling his orange and pops a slice of it into his mouth. House savors the burst of flavor, closing his eyes and sighing as he does so.

"But whatever works. It's the little things in life, these days."

"No kidding, now that I'm looking for them, pens and pencils are like fucking gold here. I found a ballpoint good enough to draw with and I'm holding onto it for dear life." He knows there's art places in town and he's tempted to find them, it just seems like a less vital use of his time at the moment. He has chalk and charcoal too, at least, and quite a few pages in the notebook he's got if he's frugal.

"Real classics, huh?" He watches House with the orange and it quiets something in him, a satisfaction he's been looking for. Peace? Kind of. Whatever it is, it's a good weight to have off his chest. "I always liked the old El Caminos, too. Spread a sleeping bag in the bed, sleep under the stars. " The corner of his mouth quirks.

"And definitely candy red. Not many other colors for a real classic to be." He knows shit about engines, but aesthetics? He can definitely do aesthetics.

House considers that first part and focuses on it. As much as he'd like to talk shop on cars, they're a far less achievable goal in this place. Unless they come across an auto-repair shop that the Admin hasn't completely gutted.

"What've you got to trade? I've got crayons and gel pens." Every artist needs some color!

Gel pens. Those would be perfect for Rhys's style, and he can't help the sudden surge of interest at the offer. He would offer...pretty much anything he has, for those, but he has to tamp down his excitement.

"I've got some cigarettes. Real ones, not tea. Coffee and tea. Umm..." He actually has to think, because he has a lot of things stashed away. "Condoms. Matches. An extra candle. I can also take commissions, if you want to see my work."

He's got the vodka, but he knows better than to offer it to someone on Vicodin. That one, he's keeping quiet for now.

"One cigarette per pen plus some coffee. I've got five pens." He pulls off his pack and unzips one of the pockets where he keeps his writing supplies. The gel pens he pulls out are a range of colors: blue, green, pink, orange, and red. The blue one is about half-used, but the others are mostly-intact.

"Take your pick, partner."

He knows better than to show too much excitement, but he has to restrain himself from jumping at the offer, which is much cheaper than he'd expected. His voice is casual, but his mind is already running with the idea of actually being able to draw for a little longer, add a little more to his work.

"That offer still stand if I want all of them?" He tilts his head in question, reaching for his bag.

[House wants cigarettes and coffee more than he wants gel pens he doesn't use much. It's Rhys' lucky day!]

I'm not giving you a bulk discount, kid. Take it or leave it.

Rhys definitely isn't arguing, especially when it's this much to his benefit. He gave House his One Chance Of Good Will, and now he's taking it with no regrets.

"Just making sure," he says, offhandedly. He reaches into his backpack and starts rummaging, carefully pulling out everything he needs to make the trade. Rhys is painfully meticulous, including storing his so-called trash for later, so the five cigarettes get sealed in an empty foil potato chip bag, and the coffee gets poured from the jar into a Ziploc cookie bag.

"Pleasure doing business." Rhys offers up the two packets when they're done. "If you find any plain white notepads, save 'em for me. I'll trade for those, too."

"Mm..." House pulls out one of the cigarettes and settles it between his lips before stowing the others. He doesn't have that godawful biting and tasting obsession anymore, but he's always had a minor oral fixation. The pill popping had fed that. It feels good to have a cigarette set there, even if it isn't lit.

He needs to go and find Hannibal. He gave the guy his matches a while back for his cooking endeavors. "I prefer Cubans, but beggars can't be choosers. I'll keep an eye out. You want anything else, or...?" Or can he leave. This actually went a lot better than he expected. Mainly because House had anticipated getting punched in the face.

[log] Tonight we light the fires, we call our ships to port [closed]

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cw: mentions of suicide

cw: mentions of suicide

cw: mentions of suicide

Re: cw: mentions of suicide

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