} one more look at the ghost

[vorbarra]

WHO: Gregor and various.
WHERE: Probably primarily DC7.
WHEN: Throughout May.
WHAT: May catch all!
WARNINGS: Definitely read Gregor's general content warnings for the thread with Miles, and possibly Cordelia.

Comments

"Sasaki"

[vorbarra]

[ Gregor makes some effort to dress professionally today, but he's been enjoying the casual, relaxed atmosphere of life here and so on him that just means a black button-up with his jeans. He opens the door to DC7 when he hears him knock, and is a tall, lean, well-composed form with a certain air of gravitas despite himself. ]

Mr. Sasaki. Thank you for coming.

[dualismum]

[ Sasaki wore much more adult clothes than Kaneki did, and it'll be no different this time; straight pants and jacket, also a long coat. And look, he even combed his hair properly. He too is rather well-composed and elegant which, not only is how he usually carries himself, but also perfect for an interview.

But admitedly, this will be the first time Sasaki ever got interviewed for a job application. ]

Mr. Vorbarra, it's a pleasure to meet you. [ Sasaki smiles, ready to shake the man's hand, but also ready to nod his head in a respectful little bow ]

[vorbarra]

And you.

[ By now Gregor has adjusted to the hand-shaking convention (Emperors do not make physical contact so cavalierly, so it hadn't occurred to him at first) and his grip is loose and unprepossessing.

Miles isn't far off, just in another room, and is a buzzing presence in Gregor's head, fairly hopping with nerves and energy. Fortunately, Gregor is used to tolerating this, and it doesn't impact him outwardly at all; he leads Sasaki into the kitchen-slash-dining room, where he has coffee set out with a small carafe of milk and sugar packets.

He takes a seat in the far chair at the table, gesturing to the one across. ]

May I ask what lead you to apply? So far we've mostly grown through personal invitation.

[dualismum]

[ Sasaki follows, his eyes looking around for a moment before they fall on the chair. he will take his seat with a pleasant smile, humming a bit as he thinks about his response ]

Honestly, I just arrived; but I think joining an imPort business would benefit me better as I am one. Plus, I think this fits my skills better than the job the government has given me.

[ a beat, before he adds with an apologetic smile ] I'm quite glad to be a Police Officer and to be of use! But I can be of use even more.

[vorbarra]

[ The house looks fairly nondescript in the main living spaces, all of the oddities tucked away in other rooms and the shared areas generally orderly. ]

They must think highly of you to give you an official posting, even so. That seems uncommon. But I can't say I disagree. If for no other reason, it's disingenuous for me to pledge loyalty to a foreign government, and so for Miles and myself registration became undesirable.

DC7

[komarran]

[ He's gotten up earlier than usual with one mission in mind. He's noticed a trend in the household, beyond the Emperor being the primary person in charge of household chores. Every morning the man gets up, commandeers the kitchen, and makes breakfast, presumably for the whole household though Duv has not yet tested whether or not this includes him.

The tone set upon his arrival has him wary of his relationships with the Vor, particularly with their lack of memory of him. Which is what brings him to the kitchen early in the morning. He's hoping that he can beat out the Emperor this time, make a quick breakfast, and head out the door for another day of research.

Except he's having trouble locating everything he purchased the previous day in the kitchen and is cursing mildly as he relocates his shuffled ingredients. He'd have to find a better system for this if he's going to continue cooking for himself in a house with this many living there and visitors wandering through.

His prep for a simple breakfast risotto takes longer than he intends as his focus is diverted between the starting steps and ensuring he has everything. Miles, he'll blame Miles. Even if the man had nothing to do with it. ]

[vorbarra]

[ Gregor doesn't get up insanely early, but he does get up fairly early. Years and years of habit will do that. Summers off is not a phenomenon Gregor had ever experienced even as a teenager in school, so his internal clock wakes him up pretty mercilessly every day around the same time, and by 0800 he's down the stairs.

He stops short in the doorway for a moment, pleasantly surprised, before he continues into the kitchen, heading for the coffee machine. ]

Good morning, Captain. I don't normally see you this early.

[komarran]

[ ...So much for beating the Emperor to the kitchen. He nods politely as he subtly watches where the other man is moving. Maybe if the Emperor is going for coffee, he doesn't intend to take over the kitchen from Duv. ]

Sire. I thought I'd eat in this morning instead of outsourcing my meal on the way to the library.

[vorbarra]

[ Well, he did beat him here. Step one is definitely coffee, which he goes about collecting with practiced ease. ]

I hope I don't chase you out normally, [ he says, uncannily astute as ever. ] You needn't give me my space or anything absurd like that. I'm afraid I'm just getting used to having the freedom to make my own coffee.

[komarran]

[ So the man had noticed. He shrugs as he focuses on his cooking. ]

I've adjusted my schedule, [ he admits. Breakfast a little later than usual the days he's determined to claim the kitchen after the initial flurry. ] It hasn't been an issue. I noticed you'd taken to cooking in the mornings as well.

Kareen

[vorbarra]

[ The next morning Gregor is much better equipped to face his mother without flying apart at the seams due to his own self-centered angst. He's expended some of that at Miles, who had been as comforting and tolerant as Gregor would've expected, and so he's ready to approach her as she deserves to be approached by her son, who she'd sacrificed so much for: with a minimum of shadows plaguing his mind.

Gregor is by habit up early, too many years of morning ImpSec briefings compelling him downstairs and with coffee made before anyone else. He'll be there when she ventures out into the kitchen eventually, with both tea and coffee ready, the only sign of his nerves. Gregor had had a pang of sorrow at the realization that he has no idea which one his mother prefers-- but, for the first time, he can find out. It sends a greedy, incredulous happiness through him in distant echo. All those useless details people knew about their loved ones, that he'd never known about her...

He doesn't fidget. He has on a dove grey button-up and black trousers, not wanting to appear too casual in front of his mother, who he's sure has been trapped in as much formality throughout his life as he has. Likely worse, without the Vorkosigans. Gregor sits at the table and nurses his coffee (milk, no sugar) as he looks contemplatively out the window and waits, occasionally touching Miles's sleeping mind with his own, a gentle presence that he keeps directed to pleasant dreams rather than anything darker. ]

[watch_me_burn]

[Kareen rises from her restless sleep with less grace than her son, unused to this bed, this room, this world as she is. But complain she does not, instead setting about to readying herself as if she weren't in a foreign dimension.

As she showers she discovers she dislikes the skin she's in, but puts it out of her mind quickly. Today is not one to spend dawdling, fussing over her past transgressions. She dons more of Cordelia's borrowed clothing, lamenting only the lack of a higher collar for the blouse. When she bought her own clothing she would surely remedy that. Otherwise the somewhat loose-fitting outfit is comfortable in subdued blues and beige. She only hesitates when it comes to borrowing Cordelia's make-up, but that isn't a fight her sensibilities will let her win. On it goes, coating her face neatly and without much accent save for the light blush on her cheeks.

At last, she heads down to the kitchen, her hands clasped in front of her as if she were walking in some formal procession despite her bare feet. The tension in her body was not going to dissipate all that quickly. She needed more time and yet...

There before her sat her son. Gregor. For a moment she doesn't breathe, and then she exhales slowly, softly closing the distance between them.]

Good morning, Gregor. [Instinctively she reaches out and brushes fingers through his hair, just as she might have were he still a child. He voice is soft, almost disbelieving.] Are you feeling well today?

[vorbarra]

[ Gregor's not sure what he's expecting his mother to look like with a restless night's sleep behind him-- yesterday had been too much of a rush to process trivial things like that, past the enormity of her presence-- but she certainly doesn't look, in effect, anything like her formal portraits or vid appearances. Much like himself, he realizes, having been told himself that on vid he just looks stuffed.

Kareen Vorbarra in the light of morning, in borrowed clothes and borrowed makeup, is as immaculately put together in composure as he ever is, but with a softness to her that burrows through to his heart immediately, knowing it's only for him.

He reaches up to take her hand, but not to reject it; merely to clasp it once, a more intimate form of greeting than really necessary. He can't quite find a smile for her; he's similarly disbelieving. ]

Trying to convince myself I'm not hallucinating, but yes. Mother... [ He manages not to fumble the word, but has to swallow, hard, around the syllables. Wondering what balance to strike between inviting and Imperial, before Gregor sours completely, all at once, on the idea of being Imperial with his mother.

Self-deprecatingly, ] Would you join me? Coffee or tea? I made both in a fit of nerves.

[watch_me_burn]

[When he takes her hand Kareen hesitates only in surprise, then squeezes his with gentle pressure from her dainty fingers. A bubble of a laugh flutters from her, finding her own thoughts spoken back to her.]

For me it is like a dream to see you again. [It didn't matter that he wasn't that same tiny child she had been separated from back home. He was still her son, and for a while she thought him dead. Being with him again in any capacity was a blessing. Something she didn't deserve.

She gave his hand another squeeze, trying to impart a little strength after such a confession.] Tea would be lovely. With a little sugar, please, dear.

[And with that she took a seat at the table in one graceful, fluid motion. He seemed to want to take care of her and in this she would let him, especially if it helped calm those nerves he spoke of.]

What are your plans for today, if I may ask?

[vorbarra]

[ She laughed. So many of his nascent fears wash away, swept clean by the moving tide with that sound. It's so easy to get caught up in the darkness in his imagination... too easy to forget the flip side of this, and all the potential this has for him.

It provokes a shy wisp of a smile from him, glancing down at the table in a gesture probably not unlike one she's seen from him before as a four year old.

With his hand released, Gregor reaches out, after a moment of recovery, to pour her tea, plain black breakfast tea with one spoonful of sugar. He leaves the spoon in the mug and slides it over to her before responding, trying not to fumble again, but clearly relaxing bit by bit with how he's letting himself appear openly shy. ]

Whatever they were yesterday, consider them erased. I've nothing on my agenda but getting you settled in. It's remarkably easy for me to do that here-- clear my schedule at short notice. [ A light, rueful note, carefully placed, Gregor tentatively feeling his way into who he is around his mother. He doesn't want to affect a persona around her, and yet... He doesn't know who to be, as a son. What the shape of that role is. It seems intrinsically vastly different from who he is with Cordelia, or, God forbid, Aral. ]

Miles

[vorbarra]

[ The night his mother had arrived had been a whirlwind for Gregor. He can ultimately only be abstractly grateful that he has no telepathic link to her, for all the added complication that would arise. He's having a hard enough time keeping his own thoughts straight, much less trying to keep them composed while teaching her how to manage it, and feeling her mind, something he's simultaneously hungry for and afraid of...

It's all a muddle for him still, and he's pushed it down firmly, gotten through getting her settled in, explaining some basic facts of life here to her-- the political situation, the war, the Dendarii, a sketch of Gregor's life and how he occupies his time, which he renders quietly and without either apology or pride-- and through dinner, with all of the Vorkosigans. Which had gone off surprisingly smoothly, with only some expected moments of profound awkwardness. But in the end they are all drawn to each other too strongly to let anything fall apart into disaster.

That's how Gregor ends up sitting in his room at the end of the day, on the edge of his bed with his fingers laced loosely between his knees, head bowed, hair hiding his face. There's a distant sense like a pot with the lid kept on it too long about to boil over.

After a long minute of contending with this and seeing the inevitability of his dismantling, he remembers the mutual not-a-promise he'd made with Miles (he's not sure what to call it-- their accord?) and scratches tentatively at the link between them. Miles? he asks, whisper soft, Gregor finding it no easier to ask for help than he ever had before. I'm sorry, you... are in no way obligated to deal with me like this... He drifts over a muted sense of that about-to-boil-over pot, words fumbling. But if you'd like to sneak in, you would be well received.

It's only when Gregor's truly out of sorts that he reverts to this more formal wording with Miles of all people. ]

[dendarii]

[ The response from Miles in return is a profound sense of release. He'd been quiet all during the proceedings, sorting things out in his own head but keeping it gently partitioned away from Gregor. A thin screen that hardly hides what he's doing, but does provide some sense of keeping everything tucked away in its own spot. Miles, too, has the comparatively simpler (even easier) mental journey to make. It isn't his dead parent who's shown up to complicate matters. While feeling entirely unsuited for Gregor in Kareen's eyes is no pleasant thought, he can deal with it. Gregor's feelings haven't changed.

Still. Relief. Pressure relieved, of Miles trying to work up a non-codependent way to ask Gregor if he wouldn't mind Miles trying to sneak over for the night. (If he can at least have the nights with Gregor, he's decided, he will happily face any level of secrecy during the day.) Of course, he says, the response nearly instant. Then, a bit embarrassed: I admit I was trying to think of a good way to do it. Still thinking about how, in fact, but he's got one idea that will almost certainly work. ]

[vorbarra]

[ Oh. Good. Right, of course Miles would be twisting himself up with pent up energy, needing some outlet. That's who he is. Gregor has just totally lost the plot tonight, hasn't he? He knows it's understandable, but he still... isn't used to it. Doesn't like it.

Gregor has never had to learn how to accept his own discomfort and limitations. That would require acknowledging them.

Some relief echoes back, laced with guilt, Gregor not totally used to having someone he does feel it's acceptable to lean on. You could always, er, fit under the door, he suggests tentatively. But I'm not sure I'll be in the right state to help you up. ]

[dendarii]

[ It's a sad commentary on this whole state of affairs that that thought doesn't bother Miles much. When planning his approach, he'd sort of been relying on the thought that Gregor could pull him right back up again. But confronted with the possibility of that not being possible ... Being with Gregor is vastly more important. Hell, if it means that there's no way Kareen will see him even if she does walk in, he might even keep it on purpose.

That last thought decides him. Give me a few minutes, he says, already stepping out of his own room and closing the door behind him. (If he were really ambitious he could lock the door and slip out under his own door, but after eying the length of the hallway between them decides not to try it tonight.) He reaches out ahead of time for that boiling pot sensation, to soothe what he can before he's even in the room. He's here mentally, dammit, and always will be. It's only the physical they have to jump through hoops for right now.

A quick look around once he gets to Gregor's door - no one to see where he's going, good - and then there's the telltale sensation of his power uncoiling. Awkward as it always is, Miles still not entirely comfortable with what little height he has evaporating into nothing at all, it nonetheless makes it easy to slip under Gregor's with no telltale sound of the latch opening and closing. Then, once he's clear of the door, he focuses on trying to undo it. There's the trickier task. Immediately, he runs into the same smooth, glassy barrier that had plagued him in the caves with Kel. A hint of annoyance (though not alarm) disturbs the link as he presses against, not recognizing it as the side effect of Gregor's oath. I'm here, he says, sitting awkwardly in a hip-high patch of carpeting, still pushing mentally. ]

[vorbarra]

[ He'd said he's not sure, not that he thinks he couldn't, and upon seeing Miles's ant-sized form hobbling through the tufts of carpeting he abruptly is positive he has to at least try.

He shifts down from the bed onto his knees in front of Miles, enough space between them that if he suddenly shoots upward they won't knock into each other. He's mindful not to speak verbally, afraid of the volume differential. Just hold onto me, perhaps? Mentally? Like me giving you a hand up rather than dragging you bodily.

He extends a tendril of his fervent desire to have Miles here, warm, pressed against him, something to grasp onto that is solid and real and comforting... ]

Cordelia

[vorbarra]

[ Gregor asks Cordelia to speak with him through the simple expedient of knocking gently on the window of her mental presence in his mind.

Do you have a moment?

It's obviously not a positive conversation he intends to have, roiling, complicated eddies of emotion swirling through him, if well constrained. ]

[keep_nothing]

[ She'd been wondering when or if he'd want to talk to her since Kareen came. Expecting it, really, but she didn't want to push herself onto him until he was ready. Hell, she didn't want to push onto anyone until she was ready, her own emotions in flux on the matter as well. (Only Aral has really been subjected to those emotions thus far, and twice over recently now. Poor man.)

So she centers herself in the face of that small flair of minor panic at Gregor's readiness when her own still seems so far away. It's a few beats before she actually cracks that window open a little wider to answer him with a question, You someplace quiet where we can talk? ]

[vorbarra]

[ Admittedly, Gregor has not fully adjusted to this version of Cordelia. He will probably forever think of her as indomitable, completely in control, poised, practically all-knowing. Perfect isn't a word he'd use-- he knows her too well, too personally, with too few illusions between them-- but self-assured, yes, to the last hard-bitten nail.

He unconsciously expects much the same of her at this age, without quite realizing there's a profound difference, and she'll have her own feelings to sort through. He's usually much better at that sort of consideration, but Gregor is so awhirl with his own feelings that he hasn't yet caught up to anyone else's. Not even Miles's, fully.

We can use my room. Miles is out right now. ]

[keep_nothing]

[ I'll head up in a moment, she sends back, closing the window again before she realizes the guilt she'd been feeling since Kareen's arrival was not solely reserved for the Princess. That dark, roiling emotion had crept up on her whenever she thought of Gregor as well.

Thankfully, the full realization happens after the link between them has mostly closed once more, keeping that black feeling to herself and away from him. But it takes her several moments to fight it back down, longer than she'd like. She runs a hand through her hair while taking a deep breath, fingers tugging on the strands briefly as if she could pull calmness from somewhere in the depths of herself, wishing it could bubble up to the surface on demand. It doesn't work though; she'll have to fake that part for Gregor.

Dallying long enough, she kicks herself into motion and heads up the stairs, knocking lightly on his door. ]

[vorbarra]

[ He opens the door for her, still lost in his own head, trying to keep his own composure. It's grown strained lately, not necessarily all from roiling moroseness; seeing his mother is its own kind of joy, no two ways about that, but even that piece of it is emotionally wearing on him, leaving him drained.

Gregor ushers Cordelia in quietly, feeling the unspoken tension at the elephant in the room. He tries to find some way to break it. ]

I keep reminding myself that it's not actually a bad thing that she's here.