2017-05-09: Two, Burning
- Log: Two, Burning
- Cast: Kent Hauch, K.K.
- Where: Black Ties Hideout, Gentleman's Aisle, Adlehyde
- Date: May 9th, 2017
- Summary: One attempted to immolate his only vulnerability upon a pyre in the bowels of the earth. Another wished to see if the pyre still burned within one's chest. Sparks strike into the tinder. One refuses to gutter out, but his flame cannot yet burn another.
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
There's been an odd mood over the Gentleman's Aisle the past few days, and it's shown in the area's attendance. People don't like to attend fair games while the staff seems distracted and uninterested. The barkers out front, a handsome man and woman in matching smart black suits, are trying their absolute best to put on a sunny face, but the characteristic smoke of the Aisle seems darker, heavier.
It is particularly scant in the Aisle tonight, between the hour and the mood. Only a few Adlehyde residents are lingering, the games going their way as a kind of desperate attempt to reinvigorate the flow of low-key fleecing victims for the gang. Nobody around looks particularly important, even sitting at the bar.
An old drunk with wild hair is curled around a clay jug near a door half-hidden by the fancy arrow game, the Gentleman's Shoot. His smell makes sure none of the unknowing chattel get particularly curious about it.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Night time in the Gentleman's Aisle. The time where most of Adlehyde's respectable citizenry have the common sense of go back to their respectable places of residence to let those less respectable elements settle in. But today, even those seedier types in the stone-wrought city seem to circumvent the pall of the Aisle/ Something is different. Something is off. There's a smokey shadow to this place tonight that most seem wise enough to avoid.
Most. Not all.
It's hard to say when they arrive. Or even from where. In one moment, an old drunk clings to a clay jar like it was his lone life raft against the drowning fury of sobriety. The rare, stray residents of Adlehyde stride past, swiftly, as if fed up with the peculiar ambiance of the Aisle tonight. And in the next moment they pass by... and a shadow casts over that repugnantly-grumbling drunk.
They stare, with a faceless intensity is just as strange as their inexplicable appearance at the back of that stall where once was no one but that drunk: a figure, dressed in immaculately white armor from head to toe, the cloth of it not even so much as rustling with even the barest hint of movement. But that heavy stare is not focused on that drunk. It is not focused on those passerbys. It is not focused on the barkers, or the stall runners, or anyone else.
It is focused on that door.
One step, and with the resounding sound of metal heels on hard ground, the strange, white knight seems to have every intention of stepping past that drunk and pushing open that door with such resounding certainty one would think they had the natural born right to it and everything beyond it. No hesitation. No words spared. They just push in.
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
There is a general wave of concern as the proprietors of the Gentlemen's Aisle more or less become aware of the armored figure at once. The drunk doesn't seem to notice. He grunts, waves a hand as though to block light from his vision, and rolls over. His jug slips free and knocks once against the wall, twice as he fumbles after it to cradle it like an unknowable warmth.
As a result, when the man opens the door, some of the patchwork furniture, expensive and cheap alike, the Ties have salvaged from various heists has been pushed into a rough half-ring around the door. Men and women in various stages of finery are taking cover, the pilot lights of their cheap flamethrowers flickering save for one door guard shoving the barrel of a salvaged Gebler rifle through a scrap metal-fortified firing port.
Several large buckets of water hang above the doorway, in case what seems inevitable comes to pass. The only person not looking toward the door is a large man in a large chair staring into a dangerously roaring fireplace.
"What in fucknation's you about?" challenges the guard, a partial beastman whose bear blood gives him a large frame with equal parts fat and muscle along with his blunt nose, dark brown skin, and round animal ears. "Don't take a step or we'll fix to light you up!"
Poor word choice. Another of the Black Ties echoes, "Light him up!" and as a body the gang presses forward incrementally, preparing to fire.
"LEAVE OFF IT!"
The figure in front of the fire roars, and his voice impacts the Ties like a physical force. Pilot lights flicker as if extinguished by force of will.
"You heard the lads," Kent Hauch growls into the silence, not turning around. "The fookin' hell d'you want? Whoever you are, yer timin's shit, innit."
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Flamethrowers at the ready to lick fire at polished white armor. The barrel of a rifle from someplace even more dangerous than this no doubt pointed at something vital. And yet the armored figure seems to have absolutely no intention of halting their movements -- and despite their lack of any obvious weapons, the way they carry themselves with an absolute certainty makes it seem as if they will do nothing less than walk through -all- of them if necessary.
Except...
What in fucknation's you about?
... except for all the world, that question seems to draw the most and perhaps only response from the white knight. The figure pauses. Stares at the beastman. And their head slowly tilts, as if in a curious gesture that pits all the weight of their attention on the blunt-nosed rifleman. They turn on a heel to face him, specifically.
"You cannot."
That voice, tinny and neutral, rings out simply as the knight takes a lone step forward, heel crunching into ground upon their approach...
... only for that bellowing boom of a voice rings through to cut through the Black Ties like the sharpest knife. The armored figure's attention turns, towards that large man in front of the flames, raging too intensely than should be safe for any enclosed space. The man makes his remarks, and there is no hesitation in the armored figure's response. What do they want?
"To see." The figure's stance shifts, steady and sure as the tide to turn fully towards the man in the back -- as if all the rest had simply disappeared from their notice and concern.
"There is no other time that this moment could ever come to pass. I have come to this den of thieves to see you, Kent Hauch. To see the man who offered flesh and fury to the pyre."
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
The bearman does his best. A ride-or-die Black Tie and a Coat at that, he tries to swell intimidatingly toward the armored knight, thick neck swelling his collar and accompanying pastel blue bow-tie. He bears his teeth when he is turned toward.
Something gives when the intruder steps toward him. The gun's barrel rattles against the firing port and he stumbles back, the weapon scraping, still holding his intimidating mien even as the rest of his body language falls apart. Kent brings the tension... well, to a different focal point. The Black Ties are unsure of what to do.
"My den of bloody thieves," he mutters, lifting his right hand to his bald head, wiping the sheen of sweat. The damaged fingers shake slightly. The serious burns have been treated with medical care impossible to find anywhere outside the home of a simple country doctor, though they reserved the best of their techniques from a simple -Lamb-. He'll regain full control, full strength, nearly full feeling, but will be scarred forever with hands like gloves of ill-treated leather.
He uncrosses his right leg, his long boot clanging off Red River, sitting on the floor beside him. At the sound, a man in white abruptly emerges from a crook in what looked like a pile of tossed-aside chairs, setting a bowler hat onto his head. Fargo moves past K.K., glancing politely at him and saying, "Excuse me," as he does so, though a dwindling furnace heat is coming off his reddened skin. The drunk, suddenly steady on his feet, springs from his position to clap the Man in White on the shoulder and yelp in surprise.
The Black Ties follow him in varying shades of nervousness. The bearman looks studiously at his own feet. Kent and the figure are now alone.
The leader of the Black Ties stands up, shrugging out of his burned longcoat and leaving it on the back of his chair, fumbling his quivering fingers at the brass flame cuffs on his sleeves. A vein is standing out alongside one temple, branching across his head. He looks at the armored figure, takes a clear moment to process what he's seeing, and just shakes his head to himself. He's finding that less and less gives him any real pause.
"You," Kent says, "shouldn't know what you're bloody talking about." His teeth grate and clench. The veins extend slightly. He's a man who is only keeping from bursting in anger because he's been furious for days. It's become his new normal. "Don't think I'd've missed you in there, s'for certain. The other'n in there, the unknown, carried himself a bit too much like laundry."
He finally gets one cuff off and shoves it in a pocket. "You're well-starched, meanwhile."
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
"Your den of thieves," that tinny voice echoes back. It should be an affirmation, and indeed, there's no inquisitive inflection to it -- and yet somehow those words still seem to manage to question the validity of that statement entirely by stating it.
As the Man in White emerges from that surprisingly well-hidden location and subsequently passes by, though, the knight in white armor doesn't impede his progress -- nor any of the rest who walk past. They simply walk further in to the establishment as the Black Ties walk out, passing each other by as hands fold against one another at the knight's back with a slight, metallic ring of metal resounding off metal. Their attention does not seem to stray towards Fargo and the rest as they vacate, not even as that tragic drunk does something tragically inebriated -- but it's hard to say with a certainty, in the end.
"You are well-acquainted with flames," that metallic-muffled voice muses as Kent stands; it seems, for a moment, that the knight's gaze, unseen thought it is, focuses on Kent's scars. "... But the flame will always leave its mark. And all the deeper still the better one acquaints themself with it."
That expression -- it's one that is anger well-worn and comfortably settled into a quiet seethe. A simmering heat. It's hard to say whether it's Kent's words or Kent himself that makes for that second cant of the knight's head to the side, the stiffness of the motion perfectly timed to Kent's clever comments on the knight's wealth of starch.
"Well-starched," that neutral voice repeats, as if working the words in a wondering fashion.
Maybe they like it, considering they look all the more unbowed afterwards. Very well-starched.
"You speak to a certainty that is not there," the knight intones. "For if it did, you would not look as you do now. You say I should not know. And yet I do. What certainty must that leave, then?"
That helmeted head tilts, then, towards the fire -- the knight doesn't linger long on its own question, instead focusing on the roar of the flames. "You bear your scars well," the knight observes, appropos of seemingly nothing, as Kent Hauch's vein seems to just branch further with his simmered irritation. "Yet, so often it is the scars that bear the man." Another step, another. Those armored boots ring heavy against the ground, the fresh emptiness of the room making them ring out all the more clearly. "Which are you, Kent Hauch? The bearer, or the beared?"
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
Kent becomes frustrated with the second cufflink, wrapping his hand around it, still-hypersensitive nerves protesting against the brass points of the flame. "Said shouldn't," he responds, yanking with a rip of fabric, ruining the expensive sleeve casually. "Not don't." He shoves the icon into his pocket. He hooks his sleeves back, exposing the scars that continue about a third of the way up his forearm, and wipes his head again. His eyes are bloodshot with purplish bags, a sign he hasn't slept well - if at all - since the cave.
He grimaces. "Great. Fookin' great, first all that an' now you roll through talkin' like him after he's tied one on. Flowery bullshit. Weirdo questions. You don't axtually 'spect me to answer that one straight, do you?"
"Scars are symbols, innit. Signs'a when something didn't go your way-like, and reminders to not let it happen again." In just his shirt, with the fire behind him and the sweat clinging to his skin, another scar can barely be made out - one over his heart, a curling knot against flat muscle, wisps rising up toward his shoulders. He flexes his hands, squeezing them tight, a small amount of clear fluid and blood welling up in some of the cracks.
"These'ns are just echoes. Not like I was ever hidin', was I? A few bits of th' dramatic-like 'elp out in my line of work." He stops moving, still near his fire, standing across from the armored man. Unlike the bearman, the proximity of something he doesn't entirely understand isn't going to make Kent crack. He thrusts his chin out, frowning. "Rude to come into a man's home and not introduce yourself, humble though it might be."
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
You don't axtually 'spect me to answer that one straight, do you?
Silence is Kent's warm companion, his question lingering in the air, unanswered, until the moment he fills that silence again with his words. The knight just watches -- watches the heavy bags under Kent's eyes as he speaks without hesitation, watches the fresh fluids creep out through the cracks of his injuries with the defiant clench of hands.
"So they are your lessons," decides the armored knight without any real inflection of tone to give a hint as to their own thoughts on the matter -- like an impartial observer with the great convenience of watching something from afar. "Your badges." And with that? Their head just tilts, as if in a simple nod of recognition -- as if those words were enough of an offering in answer to their question. Their attention returns to Kent; standing across from the Black Tie's leader, that knight is not nearly as tall as Kent is, but still carries themself ineffably as their head tilts up towards the scarred man. "This is your home?" they wonder, that voice layered in careful consideration.
"So be it. Well met, Kent Hauch. Should you require a name, K.K. will suffice," they continue on, that tinny voice so very formal in stark defiance to the setting surrounding them, the pronunciation of that last name of Kent's just slightly different this time as if testing the difference. Their attention returns to the roar of the fireplace, quiet, thoughtful.
"You understand what it means to burn," they say, after a long moment. "I had to see for myself. The man who consumes without remorse. I have heard of you, Kent Hauch," just a little different this time, "and your Black Ties. You comport yourself like an inferno. It is commendable." A second of stark silence passes. "But there is still something holding you back. A chain that binds you tight. It is... interesting. Yet unfortunate."
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
Kent doesn't miss K.K. shifting the pronunciation of his self-applied name. A subtle hint that the knight that Kent has never seen before knows - and understands - a great deal more than, again, he should. A dangerous light creeps in behind Kent's eyes as he considers. The chair is between himself and Red River. Too heavy for him to bowl over - he'd have to hook around. Kick over the tank just right, fall on it, deploy the straps, roll back. The noise'll wake Ribaldy, who'll gear up and start bellowing, alerting Fargo and Samuelh outside at the bar. Parbody's out on the town, she'll see the flare.
Kent and all four of his Suits. Could they slag this guy? Probably. But they'd burn this building down doing it, probably light up most of the fairground. Blow the hideout, lose all the money stashed around in it, set back his takeover of the Adlehyde underworld by months, and piss off the people signing his checks.
He's smarter than he usually thinks he is. Kent weighs attacking and dismisses it before K.K. is finished talking. The light dims, retreats, like a waiting cinder sheltered in the bottom of the tinder. "You know what they say about home and the 'eart," he responds without much sincerity.
He forces his fists to unclench, fingers still faintly quivering. Better than he was the day after - hands shaking so violently he could barely feed himself. But he managed. He had to manage, lest someone start looking at his longcoat with consideration. He wipes his hand over his head again, no hat to fiddle with anymore.
"I'd wager you're either talkin' about my Ties," a pause, Kent waiting a moment, "or my sharp-dressed bosses." He grins. More accurately, shows his teeth. Well-kept, aside from an old broken canine. "If you think thass holding me back, maybe you don't have as good a read on me as you thought. A good bonfire takes time to build, innit? Needs plenty of wood stocked up. Needs the right wind. Needs time to catch." He spreads his arms. "This is all jus' the first shavins'. I don't well appreciate you layin' judgement on an early stage of the project."
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
If K.K. can tell the thoughts running through Kent's mind at that moment, that complex weighing of odds and consequences to reducing that white armor and whatever it contains into so much molten metal and ash, it never shows in their posture nor their body language. They stay even, firm, neutral -- yet the devil is in the details. It is a subtle thing, but a man like Kent Hauch could be able to tell the simple fact that the knight's guard hasn't lowered a single moment since they walked inside. Not quite defensive, not quite cautious -- but one ready to fight at a moment's notice.
But it never comes to that. At least, not yet. The knight never shifts, never even so much as looks in the direction of Kent's unusual ARM as if, perhaps, they had come to the same conclusion he comes to. No -- they just talk. Comfortably, but decisively, like someone who has deals in nothing less than absolutes. You know what they say about home and the heart. The knight's head dips noticeably as if to drop that faceless gaze towards the vague tremble of Kent's fingers.
"Yes," K.K. says simply, "I know what they say."
But Kent makes his theory known; and as he does, his newfound companion pivots sharply on their heel to face the leader of the Ties fully. Flame licks the air, reflecting off the pristine polish of white metal in a way that makes the knight's armor look aflame against the crackling churn of heat. "That is not your chain unless you allow it to be," says the knight simply. "One's allies are a source of strength, unless they understand not how to use them. Knowing one's place in this world provides perspective that most will never have... unless one finds themselves chafing against their lot like a mutt too wild to not strain the collar. No." The knight takes another step forward. "Your bonfire will burn with great intensity. Perhaps you will even find opportunity in what many will find to be only disaster."
Another step. Heavy. Inevitable. The knight stops, a few feet from Kent. Still showing no signs of hostility. But only speaking, with a voice that rings only of certainty. "You can burn so much more intensely yet. But they are not what hold you back, Kent Hauch." Another step. A hand reaches out. That voice picks up slightly, tinny and commanding. Fingers reach a sharply cold touch towards the gnarled scar on Kent's chest. "I know. I know what you offered to the pyre, even if it was not your intent. It was not your hat. It was not your flesh. What the pyre took from you was the thing that keeps you awake even now. The thing you roared to the flame."
JACK VANTABRACK IS DEAD!
"Uncertainty."
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
THE OTHERWORLDLY HOLLOW
Kent, both Hauch and not, is standing in two worlds. In one, he is feverish and muttering, glaring at a dark-haired Gebler officer poorly filling out a low ash grey top hat. A flaming pyre roils behind him.
In another, he is staring at a robust man with black hair shoved back with its own grease, a Day of Collapse flamethrower propped on his shoulder, swathed in charcoal black with an ash grey vest and hat, a thin cigarette dangling from his mouth, the smoke curling past his brim. Half of the apparition's face is gone in a white-hot glow, flowing molten to nowhere. The pilot light on the flamethrower is not a flame - it is a swirling ball of blue plasma, a beating heart cooking slowly within.
FOUR MILES FROM EL PAZZO
A younger Kent, not yet really Hauch, follows a robust man swathed in charcoal black with an ash grey vest and hat. They go into the scrap metal shack in the back of the hideout, the only building permitted to be inflammable. Kent is excitedly talking about the weapon he holds until he hears the bottles shattering outside, the flames bursting as the Ties attempt to clean up their own.
The man whirls, face cold as he stabs a Day of Collapse flamethrower out, but Kent had pressed too close in his enthusiasm. The pilot light smashes into his chest, burns through his vest and shirt, burns the flesh over his heart all the way to the muscle before a wash of blood extinguishes it. The man pulls the trigger, and nothing happens. There is, deep in his eyes, a feeling of relief as Kent, screaming in pain, fury, and betrayal, levers Red River at Jack's face and sprays him with white-hot stars.
THE OTHERWORLDLY HOLLOW
Kent, desperately Hauch, is dragging Kahm and Jack to the fire with inhuman strength. He doesn't notice the impossible woman refraining from interference, the impossible way she watches him. One face is furious and affronted at the treatment, the other looks at him with one eye with that same expression Kent saw for an instant. Relief. Sadness. A regret he could never comprehend. He flings that second face into the fire, along with the hat that signified a borrowed leadership, along with the hands that killed the only person whose life he truly cared about.
HERE. NOW.
Kent Hauch, absolutely Hauch's hand snaps up, grabbing at K.K.'s wrist before they can touch the scar, the sacred flame, the thing that has replaces his heart with a hunger that cannot becalled 'animal', for only a human wants to destroy for its own sake, and his own slake.
This is as much of a physical showdown as the two are going to have, as Kent attempts to pull the knight's hand away. "This is mine."
"Everything that was his is mine."
"Everything that he wanted is mine."
"Everything he was going to build. Is. Mine."
There were people that said Jack Vantabrack managed to stagger away through the hideout's burning wall. Others were certain he was trapped in a building as it burned to ash. Everyone agrees, though not when Kent is in earshot, that a body was never found.
Kent Hauch bares his teeth. "Thass your bloody certainty."
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Home is where the heart is.
And K.K.'s steel-wrapped fingers are stopped mere inches from the scar that has replaced Kent, simmeringly Hauch's own.
Like a burnt out husk, replaced with a beating core of ravenous flame.
There is no resistance to that powerful vice of a grasp, as if perhaps satisfied with what they have seen already. There is no need to touch -- not in the way that Kent seethes those words in a way that expresses the meaning behind that scar far more than even the sight of it could. Layers of history and conflicted impulses all rolled up into with each damningly certain proclamation. The knight's arm pulls away, far more physical strength behind the motion than should quite be possible that is only supplemented by the decisiveness of the motion.
Certainty.
"I am not the one that must be convinced."
The memory of those words, screamed at the pyre, devoured by a flame as ravenous as the one broiling at Kent's breast. The knight's faceless visage tilts, tongues of flame spilling their orange reflection against the smooth surface of that metal mask.
"I am not the one whose flame sputtered."
The knight takes a step backward, never quite turning away from Kent, even for a moment, even as they march backwards towards the ravenous roar of the fireplace.
"I am not the one who must come to the decision."
And it is only then that the white knight turns, presenting their back to Kent as they walk unflinching towards the flame.
"I wish to see the heights that you are capable of reaching... but you will never reach them as long as that question remains, Kent." Kent. "The question that lingers. The question that will unmake all you are and all you will build and all you could burn."
Against the flames, the shimmer of light is difficult to see as it engulfs the knight within its ephemeral glow.
Enveloping them until it snuffs out of existence and leaves nothing else but air. Nothing else but that fire.
"'Is Jack Vantabrack dead?'"
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
Kent Hauch is no stranger to staring into the flames. Again, ever since accepting the commission of the mysterious Gebler forces, his ideas of what can happen in this world have been increasingly broadened. That adaptability is the difference between Kent and Descartes - one man burned the moment he reached out of the Badlands, the other a hand on the torch. If Descartes recovers, he'll never be more than a three-town threat, while Kent considers burning out the underworld of Adlehyde to replace it with his own there merest kindling.
He watches until K.K. is simply gone, scowling, a vein slowly bulging on his other temple until it suddenly spreads, overtaking the network on the right side of his face, a sudden mass of swelling tension that wraps completely to the back of his skull.
Kent steps to the dense wooden chair he was sitting in, gripping the ornate back, blisters popping, leaving a smear of blood and fluid as he drags it around and with a single heave and a snarl hurls it into the fire. He watches as the varnish bubbles away with an acrid stink, as the wood cracks in the intense flame, smoke rolling upward. The Black Ties slowly begin to filter in, but they know better than to bother the boss. Fargo steps up beside him, takes a quiet glance at his face, and tilts his bowler forward as he watches the chair burn, unasking. The closest thing Kent has to a friend, he knows better than to try to say anything at all to quell his rage.
They stand there and watch the chair burn, Kent allowing his own wrath and uncertainty to pour into the flame as Fargo draws the heat into his own body, an odd kind of symbiosis.
Kent watches until his fingers stop quivering. That night, he finally gets some sleep. He'll need it for the jobs to come.