superposition | (Redshift) Home for the Holidays

For another moment, Carlisle can't help but continue to stare at the portrait; he used to see it every day, work at the desk beneath it on his sermons, nap on the couch on the far side of the room with his back turned to it. It loomed over him for years, reminding him of those he'd lost, those whose shoes he was expected to fill. He hasn't seen it in what feels like an age, and yet, it stares back at him just as he remembers it. He's taken aback more than he thought he would be upon seeing their faces again. Despite their warm expressions, he feels his uncles' judgment; he certainly feels his father's, the guilt hitting him as though his father were there before him, disapproving of what happened to their legacy, to Bear Den, and to Carlisle himself.

The silence lasts longer than is comfortable, and Carlisle opens his mouth to banish it, only to hold his tongue as Qubit steps forward. His companion leans on the frame of the door as though drawn toward the painting, and the clergyman's eyes hit the floor in turn, his nerves getting the better of him as his mind turns over what could be going on in Qubit's mind at that very moment. He's just now getting to put faces to the names he's heard so much about, seeing as close to the flesh as he ever will the giants within whose shadows Carlisle was constantly, eternally trapped. Is he finally coming to understand what heroes they were, and how the Longinmouth heir himself could never compare? Or is he fixated on the younger version of Carlisle in the painting, an individual still so full of promise, value, and life?

And is Qubit thinking what a travesty it is that none of that remains in the Revenant he is now?

Carlisle clears his throat reflexively; though he truly hasn't anything to say, he tries not to linger on those poisonous thoughts any longer than he has to. "My, ah. Uncles." He says that as though its an introduction; it may as well be. "And my father. And me, obviously."

It's not until Carlisle breaks the silence that Qubit notices it was there. Self-conscious, he stands up from the doorframe, reflexively straightening his lapels.

"I guessed as much," he says with a nod. But his eyes go right back to the painting, and after a second's deliberation he decides to voice what he was actually thinking. "It just occurred to me, uh..." - he gestures vaguely between it and Carlisle - "this is the first I've really seen of your face."

He's seen hints, of course, mainly in the form of x-ray images from their sleep experiment a while back. Attenuated bones, the dim suggestion of voids in the ghostly surrounding tissue - nothing concrete, though.

But even then, that's only what Carlisle looks like. This is his face. There's a big difference.

"... oh."

Carlisle hadn't even considered that, though the less thinking he does regarding his face (and what's left of it) these days, the better. His own gaze returns to the painting, his eyes meeting those of his former self.

"Well, I hope it's everything you imagined. Admittedly, I forget sometimes how red my hair once was."

Qubit glances between Carlisle and his portrait a couple of times, applying a palette swap to his mental model; up until now, his hair had sort of defaulted to "sandy blond" in Qubit's head, for whatever reason.

"Not precisely what I'd pictured, but it suits you," he says. "How old are you in that one?"

He indicates the painting once more with his head, but otherwise it seems he's ready to move on from it, stepping away from the doorframe at last.

Carlisle looks up at the painting one last time before turning from it, stepping back into the hallway to continue the tour.

"Halfway to fifteen, as I recall," he replies. "It was commissioned shortly before my father met his end."

He takes only a quick glance into the dining room as they pass by the door. The table in the center of the room is the sort one would use to host a whole family at a gathering, with chairs lining its long sides, the runner on its surface embroidered with more bear iconography; however, he remembers it only seating the immediate family at one end, and that was on the rare occasion they ate in there rather than at the smaller table in the kitchen. The days of the Longinmouth estate having enough members to fill that table were long gone. At least the tall windows on the far wall, ones with more stained glass depicting strange creatures (a bear, a long creature akin to a weasel, and a winged bird of some sort), were lovely, even in this recreation of his home.

He paused to give Qubit a moment to enjoy the room himself before moving on, feeling the need to elaborate more on his answer. "I'd nearly died earlier that year, and we had not yet realized that in my survival, I was cursed. My uncles thought it pertinent to have a portrait of all of us painted after the incident, should the worst come to pass for any one of us. We hadn't one where we were all together. Unfortunately, this became the only portrait like that."

Qubit only pokes his head into the dining room, finding it about the same as when he built it. Privately, he wonders if there were ever enough Longinmouths to fill it. To him, it more evokes the image of young Carlisle seated at one end of the table, his father at the other, half a mile away. He reserves comment, however, apart from offering a brief "Sorry to hear that" regarding Kevin's death. Truthfully, he knows next to nothing concrete about the man - but as with any unobservable void, there's a lot to be inferred from how he affected those around him.

Carlisle's affliction, on the other hand, he knows much more about. The correlation with near-death experiences, the slow turn to undeath, the scarring, the "black bile," the heavy social stigma it incurred... But one thing he doesn't know is how it happened. Carlisle's never volunteered that information, and given how traumatic it must have been, Qubit hasn't wanted to pry.

He now knows when it happened. (That young? He was just a kid.) From the sound of it, Carlisle's uncles reacted to their only nephew's near brush with death in about the way you'd expect: by making an effort to cherish him and build positive memories, because you never know how long you'll have one another. But Qubit doesn't miss whose idea the group portrait was... or, more importantly, whose it wasn't.

He isn't sure whether he should ask this, but the question's burning a hole in his pocket, and he can hardly stop himself.

"...What did your father think?"

"He—"

Carlisle stops, trying to think of how to phrase his answer. He initially went for immediate honesty, comfortable sharing such information with Qubit; however, there is a part of him who prefers to never even consider what his father may have thought, no matter how said thoughts utterly shaped him from a young age, haunting him even now. His father has been dead for nearly a hundred years at this point; perhaps, he considers, it would be best if he talked about him - about Kevin Longinmouth.

He pauses in the long hall, idly looking over one of the paintings. It depicts three individuals fighting a two-headed, serpentine beast, every one of them a more intimidating figure than Carlisle could ever hope to be.

"He thought me unfit to carry our legacy," he replies, his tone even, matter-of-fact, emotionally distant. "Perhaps, before the incident, he believed I could be shaped into someone worthy of such a task. When I failed my Hunt, he had no reason to delude himself any longer."

Edited 2023-05-17 20:07 (UTC)

Qubit stops when Carlisle does, and for a split second he thinks he's overstepped - Was that too personal? He opens his mouth to backpedal, but then gets a better read on his friend's expression - not upset, merely thinking - and shuts it.

It doesn't really come as a surprise. Qubit's long had the feeling that Carlisle and Kevin didn't get on; this just confirms it. The reason tracks, too. Carlisle never runs out of praise for his uncles, how caring and supportive they were - but none of that lessened the burden he felt from his family legacy, and simple process of elimination could tell you who was applying all that pressure.

"Your Hunt?" Qubit repeats, sensing the capital "H". Given that it's the Incident (capital "I") that nearly got Carlisle killed, he can take a wild guess where this is going, but...

"A tradition here," Carlisle explains, correcting, "er, or in the real Bear Den, rather." For a moment, the house around him seemed real enough to make him forget it was just a recreation, a facsimile. "Upon coming of age, one must journey — alone — into the wilds of the valley, tracking their way to a particular den to retrieve a token that proves their success. Usually, there is no actual hunting involved. It's only on rare occasion that something has decided to move into the den."

And if there's anything to be said about Carlisle, it's that he was unlucky even before he was cursed. His brow tightens.

"My father seemed so worried at first. Genuinely concerned in a way that was unfamiliar. He was the one who went looking for a healer, someone capable of..." He fumbles for a proper description. "... Piecing me back together."

Edited 2023-05-18 21:29 (UTC)

Qubit grimaces in sympathy; that's evocative even without 100% of the grisly details. (Dismemberment? No - he once said the scarring was abdominal. Evisceration, then?) The important takeaway is, whatever Carlisle had found in that den, it literally tore him apart.

"Well, considering you'd just been mauled by a wild animal, I should hope he was concerned." You know, like any halfway-decent father would be. It's odd that he didn't stay with his son in that time - anyone could have gone for the healer, he doubts it had to be Kevin specifically - but maybe he was the sort of person who couldn't stand to sit still during a crisis. That's a feeling Qubit certainly knows.

Carlisle hmms in reply, nodding. Qubit is right, of course — as he so often is — but old habits die hard as the clergyman continues, his expression sober, reserved. He tries to keep his emotions from his voice, as though it would help mitigate how he feels — how he has felt for years and years and years. Perhaps he'd have been better off if he had learned to express his frustration in a healthy way rather than always worrying what others — like his father, and the townsfolk, and everyone who ever heard of the Longinmouths — thought of him.

"He was distant after that, more so than before. Not just to me, but- but to all of us. When that portrait was painted, it was one of the last times he and my uncles were in a room together without argument. I think..."

He trails off with a quiet sigh. "I think he was more concerned for me as the heir of the bloodline, rather than as his son."

Qubit doesn't reply right away, turning over the words in his mind. It's odd, he thinks to himself, how frank and dispassionate Carlisle sounds about this... or perhaps numb is a better word. These are old wounds now, after all, ones that have had ample time to heal - although, knowing Carlisle, it's more likely he just got used to them.

How must it have felt to be him back then? Trying to recover from life-altering wounds, only to have his father openly reject him? And then having to watch, powerless, as his family - the core of his world - started to disintegrate before his eyes? It makes his chest tighten to imagine it. What is it called, again? That worst, most bleak and desperate feeling, trying to cling to hope, but slowly coming to understand that nothing will ever be the same again ...

... (and it's all your fault.)

He doesn't reply right away, but when he does, it's unusually subdued - brows drawn together, a frown that deepens the lines in his face.

"... And you blamed yourself, didn't you?" A question he already knows the answer to. Another pause. "I'm sorry."

Though he has long stopped looking at it, Carlisle's gaze remains locked on the painting; he closes his eyes, giving the slightest of shrugs. "Well," he starts softly, "spare no sympathy, as the saying goes." He realizes almost immediately that Qubit might not be familiar with an idiom of his world, and continues after a brief pause. "Spare no sympathy for those already dead, as they have no time for their own consequences. Though I suppose that's not been entirely true for me, now has it?"

He says the full saying so smoothly, his observation after presented with an air of levity. Maybe it's because it's been so long since his death, or that he's just so used to stifling how he truly feels about his lineage and his affliction, but he manages to keep the emotion from his voice, the waver from his tone. Better to not let his congregation, or his family, or Qubit see him that way, to know how much of his own loathing and bitterness he buried in his own heart as the years passed. His congregation might have suspected. His uncles knew, but were never sure of how to address it - and then they were gone.

But Qubit knows. He has known for some time, and what's more, he understands. When Carlisle finally manages to glance Qubit's way, he's taken aback by his companion's solemn expression, his own brows over his glowing eyes knitting together in silent surprise, then concern. "I appreciate your sympathy, Mister Qubit, but... you need not apologize. What pain I felt then over my father's words seems so distant now, and inconsequential compared to... well."

He gestures toward himself.

He's right that Qubit's unfamiliar with the adage, although he can sort of appreciate the black humor in it. Don't feel sorry for the dead; they're not the ones who have to clean up their mess. Cynical, pragmatic - attitudes you often see in cultures from very cold places. (It's context, anyway.)

Still, Qubit nods, resting his hands in his pockets. "Fair enough," he says. If Carlisle wouldn't rather go dredging up childhood trauma right now, far be it from him to force the issue. "Sympathy'll be here if you should need it, though."

With that, he'll gesture in the direction they were walking, and resume if there's no objection, returning his hands to his pockets. "Still," he adds after a moment, with a wry glance, "there ought to be a few pleasant memories around here, too, I hope?" This grand thoughtful gift of his isn't just a huge bummer, right?

Carlisle smiles behind his mask, grateful to leave the memories of his tenuous relationship with his father behind for the moment, and finally continues down the hallway. The end of the corridor bends in one direction toward another wing of the estate, while a door in the corner leads into what appears to be a kitchen with a dining nook.

"Down that way is the eastern wing," Carlisle explains briefly before stepping into the door in the corner. "And the kitchen, obviously."

There's a well-worn table on the far wall near a door to the outside, one with polished seats and a smooth, wooden top the color of warm honey. The door looks like it leads outside, with a path to the nearby conservatory just visible through the snowy haze. The kitchen itself isn't nearly as remarkable as the rest of the manor: metal pans and colored jars of otherworldly ingredients hang from metal hooks on the walls above the stonework countertop, with cabinetry all around and shelves built into the bricks near the window. Beyond the glass is more of the outside, though it's hard to tell what features of the estate it might overlook on a clear day. While most of the dinnerware is closed within the cabinets above and below the counter, there is an ornate tea set pushed along the back wall. The single cup on the tray matches the teapot, featuring gold filigree flowers around painted, ursine accents.

"I'll have you know I wasn't a bad cook, once," he admits. "Though I'm willing to bet most of what I cooked would've had your tongue curling."

Qubit follows him into the kitchen, mildly amused at being given the guided tour as if he didn't just get done building the place. (He does not remind Carlisle of this.)

It's a very different atmosphere in here compared to the cavernous dining hall. It's smaller, but cozy, rustic - it feels actually lived-in, unlike most of the house. There's even a fire in the hearth already, as if Carlisle had only stepped out of the room for a moment.

Qubit wanders the room, casually eyeing the ingredients along the wall, some familiar, some strange. But his eyes soon land on the tea set again - an oddity here, to be sure. The estate has its share of expensive-looking furnishings, of course, but very few of them live in the kitchen. The pots and pans, while sturdy, are very much unembellished, whereas the tea set just screams "Rococo."

(Or is it "Baroque?" Whatever, it's one of those old French art movements. They all look alike to him.)

At the mention of cooking, though, he perks up, the tea set practically forgotten.

"Oh?"

In all the time they've known each other, Qubit and Carlisle have never really talked about food. Not to say it's never come up, but Qubit's done his best to sidestep it when it does. It'd feel awkward at best, maybe even cruel, like discussing a painting gallery with someone who's just gone blind.

But now that Carlisle's brought it up, it's different. Qubit's interest is immediately obvious - the eager glint in his eye is the same one you'd normally see when he's talking about SCIENCE.

"You might be surprised," he says, leaning on the counter with one hand. "I'm nothing if not an adventurous eater."

(Redshift) Home for the Holidays

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