Who: WJH, PXW, and Seph When: Now Where: Around What: A three act play: "Ah, Don't experiment on children in my basement, Hi" Warnings: Grossery and gore (maybe), questionable experimentation, PTSD, emotional abuse
[ They tell him about the Cwyld, and while he would not claim to understand everything so patiently explained to him, there is one thing he knows: that the Doctor would find it fascinating and want to study it. Some unnatural rot creeping across an entirely new world filled with the kind of fantastic biology he specialized in? It's almost too obvious that he's tempted to doubt.
But it's easy enough to resolve, isn't it? He asks, and the witches tell him about the sullen man who arrived before him. They don't know where he's gone from here, but he assuredly was here making a fuss in his usual form and fashion. They show him the magitechnical device, and help him to put through the call to the fussy and sullen PXW.
Will Henry's sepia-toned face peers into the face of the mirror with obvious curiosity. ]
Doctor Warthrop. I'm here, I'm at the Coven's castle.
[The man in the mirror is thin, an undoubtedly sallow quality of his face behind the sharp lines of his beard only just forgiven by the the gloss of the picture. But the eyes, dark and sharp and bright, are right. There can be no doubt that PXW is indeed Doctor Pellinore Warthrop.
The image of the Doctor leans very close. Maybe this is what things under a microscope feel like with his narrow face drawn so near, his intent eye fixed through a lens.
Eventually, he straightens.]
So it seems. [It is not a particularly warm welcome.] I will give you the address. See that you are delivered here at once, Will Henry.
[ Nothing about this surprises Will Henry. It's utterly business as usual and he just nods, ]
I'm on my way, sir.
[ The final piece of help he asks from the Coven's castle is to write down directions to the address. And then he's gone, bypassing the helpful welcoming committee that is trying to show everyone where the government housing is for the Mirrorbound. No one really even has much of a chance to notice him at all before he's nowhere to be seen. By now, he has some practice learning his way around an unfamiliar town, and after picking up into a trot the final stretch, he's found the door.
There's something fragile about all of it, like he could knock and some strange creature might stare back at him uncomprehendingly. ]
[It takes some time for any knock to find an answer. The house is quiet; the house is still; the house looks nothing at all like the one they know in New Jerusalem. There is foot traffic in the road before it. The little side garden appears to have no trash barrels for burning at all.
And yet, the man who does eventually answer the door is indeed Pellinore Warthrop. There he is, the Doctor himself, framed by the open door - tall and dark and somehow possessing so much space despite how thin he's drawn, and his assessment of the boy on the step is quite cool. Every line of his face is arrested and inscrutable behind the dark thatch of his beard the wasted appearance of his cheek. He has not been eating. He has not been sleeping.
(What that means, as Will Henry must know, is that he has been working.)]
Well don't just stand there gasping like a stranded fish, [he says at last, stepping aside to allow the boy's passage into the foyer beyond.] Come inside, Will Henry.
[ What if it had been half so easy to find Warthrop from New York. What if his nightmare fueled run through the streets had simply led him to a door and his knock had produced the one who abandoned him.
The boy remains uncertain about this new string of events. Is he going to go inside and find some other assistant sitting there? Oh, this is the feral child you mentioned. As though Warthrop would ever mention him to anyone, when not forced to by his presence. The wave of doubt is dizzying, but Will Henry comes inside. ]
I apologize for disturbing you from your work.
[ Expect nothing, and maybe you will receive it. Nothing new. Nothing changed. Just let him slide back quietly where he belongs. ]
[Someone else might have said 'Please, it's hardly your fault' or maybe 'It isn't an interruption in the slightest,' but those people are not Pellinore Warthrop.
Will Henry steps inside and, as many before this one have and many likely will, the door is closed behind him. The foyer of the house beyond is nearly bare save for the perfunctory presence of a coat hangar and umbrella bin. There is almost nothing hooked carefully across the baulustrade of the narrow stairwell and the stack of newspapers just there by the doorway to what must be a hardly used parlor might almost be called modest. It's a far cry from the grime and clutter infested house on Harrington Lane.
[ There are so many new variables in this question. Will Henry doesn't even know where to begin, but the pressure that he should know what is expected of him at every moment is still crushing. Don't be witless, Will Henry. Mistrust hits him with a snap, and he asks the question with a wary look in his eyes, ]
Are you asking me why I came to you.
[ Is the new assistant scribbling notes in the basement? No, Warthrop would never answer the door himself if there was someone else to do it. Maybe he just thinks he doesn't need one anymore, or maybe he sees a new world with new rules as a chance to rip the albatross from around his neck--
[ When he's first told to go upstairs, Will Henry only sets his shoulders and glowers warily at Sephiroth. He doesn't know who the other man is, and doesn't trust him to be left alone down here with the Doctor. What if something happened? It takes Warthrop getting snappy with him that the boy's expression finally twitches and he slinks dejectedly up the the stairs to let the adults have it out. ]
[Isn't it amazing how a few weeks at the hands of someone who has chosen to put his talents into being resourceful for once can transform a room? When last they'd stood here together, the basement had been a hollow shell of a space - fit for little more than turnips, onions, and forgotten bits of broken furniture. And though Warthrop has put no effort whatsoever into the upkeep of the rest of the house, evidently the basement is different. It's dirt floor has been leveled, its rafters and walls and stairs swept of cobwebs. A series of shelves have been installed - already slowly becoming filled with a series of books and more than a few things in small glass containers -, and two tables long tables have somehow contrived to make their way down into this place.
One, the one in which the Doctor and his under sized ward had been discovered stationed at, is clearly a workspace. A logbook is open, a slide under the lens of a microscope waiting to be looked at, and a vial of the boy's blood (and all the accoutrement of drawing it) set casually aside.
The other table is clearly for something else. It lies under a sheet, the ridges and dimension of the thing beneath clearly suggesting a corpse.
—But of course, that is neither here nor there. Where he sits at the first table, Warthrop sets aside the pen with which he had been taking notes.]
Now. Is there a particular reason you felt compelled to interrupt my work? An emergency, perhaps? Some pressing need for my attention? Out with it, man.
[He expects the space of a scientist to reflect their enthusiasm for the work, the rule often being that the more misguided this fervor is, the more sprawling their territory becomes. Warthrop is no exception to this rule, so it is not surprising to see what the basement has transmogrified into these past few weeks.
Researchers and their ilk all share the same order in their disorder. Always a line of something organized from a distance (books, glass jars), notes being scribbled, bodily fluids in small vials awaiting examination. The indignity at a supposed interruption, too, he remembers well from his own experiences. Such is clearly directed at him now, despite the cold line of his features matching his tone.]
Since when are wayward children a part of your on-going research?
[Whomst was that child, and more importantly, is there a reason for the poking and prodding directed to his person? Their “out of sight, out of mind” arrangement might have worked thus far, but there is a level of discomfort that needles under the skin of even a man like Sephiroth.]
Edited (sometimes I edit things hours later like an insane person ) 2020-04-08 02:53 (UTC)
[That knowing sound is so readily employed, a practically habitual expression in place of things like 'How gratifying it is to so consistently know better.']
I see where you've gone wrong. I am not studying just any wayward child who has happened to wander across my path - though it should be noted that there may be useful information to be gleaned from observing the progress of mutation within adolescents. No, you'll be relieved to know that this particular idle youth and I have been acquainted for some time.
[If that is meant to reassure him — or at least make him nod understandingly and take his leave — the explanation does not have the intended effect. And that hardly accounts for the admission that extracting data from random children yields useful data, either, a statement that truly does remind him too much of Hojo and his ilk.
Never a particularly fond association to curate in the moment.]
Who is he, then?
[He would rather like to hear how association justifies what he walked into.]
[ Having been ejected from the Doctor's side, Will Henry doesn't really know what to do with himself. If this were the house in New Jerusalem he likely would have gone up to his little attic loft room and waited out the day alone. There's nowhere for him to go here.
He wanders around aimlessly, pacing a meaningless circuit with his hands in his pockets like an animal in a cage. ]
[His confrontation with Warthrop was likely some degree of unkind from both sides, but it is over now. Sephiroth no longer lingers in the basement, having had his fill of the environment, and his ascent up the stairs, back into the main living area of the house, puts him right in the path of the young boy he had ordered out of Warthrop's space just minutes before.
Even in the presence of children, there is nothing particularly warm in his countenance. He has no experience making himself appear more approachable even in a casual setting; for all his burgeoning concern, the boy is still a stranger, and Sephiroth a stranger to him. A moment of silence passes, considering him with a steady look, and he speaks as Will Henry draws closer.]
[ He stares up at the man. He has never seen a person like Sephiroth before, and he does not like that. He has an internal catalog for the kinds of men there are, the dangers they pose. He doesn't know what this is, and he carefully shuts down in front of it; pulling into himself. ]
He doesn't hurt me. I'm his apprentice.
[ Maybe. The point is that the boy is doubling down on the side of the Doctor. He has defined himself according to the laws of Warthopian Gravity, and he's not about to say otherwise. His look is both defiant and sullen. ]
[Likely the long black feathers in his hair — looking as if they decidedly do not belong in the silver — in tandem with the pointed ears does not help with his overall strange appearance. Some might say he is rather suited to the slow transformation into a harpy; as though his baseline state is best described as unnatural to start. (These people are surely wrong.)
Of course, this only works to make him even more unapproachable than what his personality already dictates. Will Henry might be closing himself off, but Sephiroth is never open to begin with.
Which makes the articulation of his discontent rather... difficult.]
There’s usually a difference between an apprentice and a subject. You looked like one more than the other.
[And maybe that would be easier, simpler, but while Sephiroth agreed to potentially problematic testing on monster corpses and maybe even a people-corpse or two, it's distinctly different when he wanders into the basement to see Will Henry the focus of that same scientific curiosity and disregard.]
[And that's truth. Will Henry being attached to the man in the basement -- in some form or fashion -- guarantees that Sephiroth cannot simply toss either of them out onto the street on a whim.
[ Will Henry's expression darkens, like he might really pick a fight about being asked to introduce himself. But he won't, he doesn't have enough information yet to determine if he should show his real face. It's much easier when people believe he's just Warthrop's small, pitiful assistant. Easier to get them to lean close and pat him on the shoulder. Easier to put a knife in their back. ]
My name is Will Henry.
[ The better question: ]
Who are you?
[ What are you doing with my Doctor in your basement. ]
[Already, he can tell this Will Henry is a stubborn sort. There’s something taciturn about him, like he’s hiding away whatever is being stung together in his mind. In that way, he’s reminded of himself at a similar age.]
My name is Sephiroth.
[No surname. There, was that exchange so hard?]
What was he testing you for?
[We’re back on the subject of a certain doctor now.]
[ Warthrop would lambaste him if he spoke out of turn about any of their business. He happens to know from valuable experience(s) on the matter. This underfed little teenage boy sets his shoulders, bristling at Sephiroth like his determination will have any meaning to the man. ]
[It has meaning, certainly. It means that this conversation is likely dead in the water already, given the unfortunate state of their exchanged first impressions. But it isn't terribly affecting to him.]
If it's going to be a regular occurrence, I would like to know.
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WJH & PXW
But it's easy enough to resolve, isn't it? He asks, and the witches tell him about the sullen man who arrived before him. They don't know where he's gone from here, but he assuredly was here making a fuss in his usual form and fashion. They show him the magitechnical device, and help him to put through the call to the fussy and sullen PXW.
Will Henry's sepia-toned face peers into the face of the mirror with obvious curiosity. ]
Doctor Warthrop. I'm here, I'm at the Coven's castle.
no subject
The image of the Doctor leans very close. Maybe this is what things under a microscope feel like with his narrow face drawn so near, his intent eye fixed through a lens.
Eventually, he straightens.]
So it seems. [It is not a particularly warm welcome.] I will give you the address. See that you are delivered here at once, Will Henry.
no subject
I'm on my way, sir.
[ The final piece of help he asks from the Coven's castle is to write down directions to the address. And then he's gone, bypassing the helpful welcoming committee that is trying to show everyone where the government housing is for the Mirrorbound. No one really even has much of a chance to notice him at all before he's nowhere to be seen. By now, he has some practice learning his way around an unfamiliar town, and after picking up into a trot the final stretch, he's found the door.
There's something fragile about all of it, like he could knock and some strange creature might stare back at him uncomprehendingly. ]
no subject
And yet, the man who does eventually answer the door is indeed Pellinore Warthrop. There he is, the Doctor himself, framed by the open door - tall and dark and somehow possessing so much space despite how thin he's drawn, and his assessment of the boy on the step is quite cool. Every line of his face is arrested and inscrutable behind the dark thatch of his beard the wasted appearance of his cheek. He has not been eating. He has not been sleeping.
(What that means, as Will Henry must know, is that he has been working.)]
Well don't just stand there gasping like a stranded fish, [he says at last, stepping aside to allow the boy's passage into the foyer beyond.] Come inside, Will Henry.
no subject
The boy remains uncertain about this new string of events. Is he going to go inside and find some other assistant sitting there? Oh, this is the feral child you mentioned. As though Warthrop would ever mention him to anyone, when not forced to by his presence. The wave of doubt is dizzying, but Will Henry comes inside. ]
I apologize for disturbing you from your work.
[ Expect nothing, and maybe you will receive it. Nothing new. Nothing changed. Just let him slide back quietly where he belongs. ]
no subject
[Someone else might have said 'Please, it's hardly your fault' or maybe 'It isn't an interruption in the slightest,' but those people are not Pellinore Warthrop.
Will Henry steps inside and, as many before this one have and many likely will, the door is closed behind him. The foyer of the house beyond is nearly bare save for the perfunctory presence of a coat hangar and umbrella bin. There is almost nothing hooked carefully across the baulustrade of the narrow stairwell and the stack of newspapers just there by the doorway to what must be a hardly used parlor might almost be called modest. It's a far cry from the grime and clutter infested house on Harrington Lane.
Clearly, the Doctor hasn't been here long.
The Doctor regards him expectantly.]
Well?
no subject
Are you asking me why I came to you.
[ Is the new assistant scribbling notes in the basement? No, Warthrop would never answer the door himself if there was someone else to do it. Maybe he just thinks he doesn't need one anymore, or maybe he sees a new world with new rules as a chance to rip the albatross from around his neck--
You wish I hadn't come here. ]
PXW & SEPH
no subject
One, the one in which the Doctor and his under sized ward had been discovered stationed at, is clearly a workspace. A logbook is open, a slide under the lens of a microscope waiting to be looked at, and a vial of the boy's blood (and all the accoutrement of drawing it) set casually aside.
The other table is clearly for something else. It lies under a sheet, the ridges and dimension of the thing beneath clearly suggesting a corpse.
—But of course, that is neither here nor there. Where he sits at the first table, Warthrop sets aside the pen with which he had been taking notes.]
Now. Is there a particular reason you felt compelled to interrupt my work? An emergency, perhaps? Some pressing need for my attention? Out with it, man.
no subject
Researchers and their ilk all share the same order in their disorder. Always a line of something organized from a distance (books, glass jars), notes being scribbled, bodily fluids in small vials awaiting examination. The indignity at a supposed interruption, too, he remembers well from his own experiences. Such is clearly directed at him now, despite the cold line of his features matching his tone.]
Since when are wayward children a part of your on-going research?
[Whomst was that child, and more importantly, is there a reason for the poking and prodding directed to his person? Their “out of sight, out of mind” arrangement might have worked thus far, but there is a level of discomfort that needles under the skin of even a man like Sephiroth.]
no subject
[That knowing sound is so readily employed, a practically habitual expression in place of things like 'How gratifying it is to so consistently know better.']
I see where you've gone wrong. I am not studying just any wayward child who has happened to wander across my path - though it should be noted that there may be useful information to be gleaned from observing the progress of mutation within adolescents. No, you'll be relieved to know that this particular idle youth and I have been acquainted for some time.
no subject
Never a particularly fond association to curate in the moment.]
Who is he, then?
[He would rather like to hear how association justifies what he walked into.]
SEPH & WJH
He wanders around aimlessly, pacing a meaningless circuit with his hands in his pockets like an animal in a cage. ]
no subject
Even in the presence of children, there is nothing particularly warm in his countenance. He has no experience making himself appear more approachable even in a casual setting; for all his burgeoning concern, the boy is still a stranger, and Sephiroth a stranger to him. A moment of silence passes, considering him with a steady look, and he speaks as Will Henry draws closer.]
Are you hurt?
[That seems like a good starting point.]
no subject
He doesn't hurt me. I'm his apprentice.
[ Maybe. The point is that the boy is doubling down on the side of the Doctor. He has defined himself according to the laws of Warthopian Gravity, and he's not about to say otherwise. His look is both defiant and sullen. ]
no subject
Of course, this only works to make him even more unapproachable than what his personality already dictates. Will Henry might be closing himself off, but Sephiroth is never open to begin with.
Which makes the articulation of his discontent rather... difficult.]
There’s usually a difference between an apprentice and a subject. You looked like one more than the other.
no subject
[ This is the sagest advice that Will Henry has ever given anyone. Don't look into the eye of madness at the bottom of the pit. ]
no subject
It wasn't a part of our arrangement.
[So. No.]
What's your name?
no subject
[ Really, the best possible scenario in Will Henry's mind. They'd leave this man behind and he wouldn't be a threat anymore.
He, stubbornly, does not give his name. ]
no subject
[And that's truth. Will Henry being attached to the man in the basement -- in some form or fashion -- guarantees that Sephiroth cannot simply toss either of them out onto the street on a whim.
Also. Stubbornly requests that name again.]
I asked what's your name.
no subject
My name is Will Henry.
[ The better question: ]
Who are you?
[ What are you doing with my Doctor in your basement. ]
no subject
My name is Sephiroth.
[No surname. There, was that exchange so hard?]
What was he testing you for?
[We’re back on the subject of a certain doctor now.]
no subject
[ Warthrop would lambaste him if he spoke out of turn about any of their business. He happens to know from valuable experience(s) on the matter. This underfed little teenage boy sets his shoulders, bristling at Sephiroth like his determination will have any meaning to the man. ]
no subject
If it's going to be a regular occurrence, I would like to know.
no subject
[ This is a reiteration of 'nunya'. ]