~ Tнє Pαяα∂σχ Hσυѕє ~ now back to regularly scheduled chaos

Part of the difference was definitely that Orpheus didn’t think of himself as an adult yet. Technically, he was one. He was old enough to get a job and travel on his own and join a band of heroes looking to restore one man’s right to the throne, but he wasn’t really an adult adult. He was only 19, after all, and Hermes was still there to look out for him whenever he needed him, so… he felt a lot closer to a kid than he did to an actual adult. Even if he were grown up, though, he wouldn’t have laughed at L. When adults laughed at you, you didn’t want to keep learning. It made something enjoyable into something shameful, and Orpheus never wanted to participate in anything like that.
“I can do that,” Orpheus nodded, beginning to play something slower and smoother, though still hopeful. The slow and smooth sound often lent themselves nicely to melancholy, but he didn’t feel that the tone was appropriate if L wanted to show some of what he could do. “Like this?” he asked, just for clarification. He tried to keep the rhythm as standard as possible. For counts per measure – hopefully, L could work with that.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he added after a long moment, offering L another smile. “But if you do want to, then I’m more than happy to watch. And to keep playing so you can dance as much as you want, alright?” He ignored the fact that his fingers were still raw. The salve the older L had given him was helping. He could play just a little bit longer to give smaller L some joy.

Nico lifted his gaze to Kelsier, wishing that his impossible world, the impossible tasks he found himself doing, were just a little bit easier. He wished he could do more than he already had, but… maybe there was a limit to how much a person could do. They had closed the Doors of Death, but there was still so much more to do. It would be selfish to rest now. It would be selfish to declare that he deserved to take care of himself. He wasn’t more important than every person at either camp. He wasn’t more important than the entire rest of the world.
“They didn’t avoid much,” Nico replied, shaking his head. “They… they were together, and they probably couldn’t see all of it, but… but they were there for longer…” he shuddered, one hand reaching out towards Kelsier. It stopped just a few inches away from the Mistborn, shaking a little as it stayed there. He just wanted the effects of it all to go away.
“I don’t know why I’m not over it,” he admitted, his voice tiny. “I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t care that they had it slightly easier. I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t be afraid anymore, I need to be alright enough to help!” Tears burned at his eyes again, and this time he didn’t try to stop them from falling. The hand resting near Kelsier balled into a fist, but it stayed steady. He wouldn’t be afraid. Maybe this time the need for companionship would win out over the fear. Maybe. Unless… unless Kelsier wasn’t okay with that. Nico swallowed, brows furrowing as he searched Kelsier’s gaze more intently. Was he upset with how close Nico had gotten? Nico didn’t want to ask.

Getting people to listen was difficult, even for adults. You had to find the right words, you had to make sure they meant something, and then maybe, just maybe, someone would listen. At least… that was Orpheus’ experience. He hadn’t been listened to when he’d tried to stand up for himself about the hours he spent playing. He had done that because he didn’t want L worrying about him. Perhaps… perhaps people took you more seriously when they weren’t trying to become king of an entire country. Orpheus genuinely didn’t know.
“Don’t make any disclaimers,” Orpheus murmured, his tone gentle, “You don’t need to apologize for not being the best dancer in the world. As long as you’re enjoying yourself, it doesn’t matter how good you are. You’ll get better the more you do it, and the more you enjoy it, the more you’ll want to do it.” At least… that was what Orpheus had done with music. Granted, he’d also had the god of music as his teacher, but… he supposed the basic principles still applied. He’d been a beginner once, too. And Apollo had told him not to apologize for it.
Orpheus kept the music going, watching his tempo, making sure it was right for the moves that L was trying to do.
It was probably more impressive to him than it would have been to someone who had seen ballet before, but Orpheus had nothing to compare it to. It took grace and strength and balance, and though L wasn’t perfect, he was very clearly quite skilled. He didn’t laugh. He just nodded appreciatively and kept playing.

Nico watched as Kelsier moved his hand, watched as it came closer to his own. It was an invitation of sorts, in Nico’s eyes. He hesitated for a very long moment, then gently pushed himself forward so his head was resting in Kelsier’s lap. The fear took hold first, screaming at him to get up, to move, that he was in danger. And then it faded, replaced by something much more fragile and much, much more human. Hope. Comfort. The need to be held by someone else, to have someone else near who cared, who couldn’t make things alright, but who was willing to try anyway.
The comment caught Nico by surprise. It felt like he had known Kelsier for much longer than he had. He cared too deeply – he’d met Kelsier after Tartarus, not before. It was odd to him, that most of his friends, the people he trusted more than anyone in any world, were people he had only known for less than two weeks.
“Seventeen days ago,” Nico murmured, turning his face away from Kelsier. “I… I was rescued seventeen days ago.” It felt like a long time to him. So much had happened both in his world and in the House… it felt like he should have been recovered already. It felt like he should have been okay enough to save his world, okay enough that he didn’t flinch away from his friends’ touches. He’d never liked being touched by more than a few select people, but… he’d never been terrified of it. Not like this. And he found himself just… wanting to recover. Somehow. He had no grasp of how unrealistic it was to expect recovery to happen in such a short period, especially not when he’d been pushing himself as hard as he had. There was no room to think about it. He had to save the world.

Kelsier | Living Room | strider

That wasn’t what Kelsier had expected. When Nico moved, surprise flickered across the Mistborn’s face, but he didn’t move away, didn’t even stiffen. It felt comfortable, if unexpected, having Nico so close. Close enough to signal more trust than Kel felt he deserved, really, but he wasn’t about to argue. Nico knew who he was. Nico knew him darkest sides, and somehow here he was putting himself in a position Kelsier knew was extremely difficult to do. He also knew it wasn’t about trust, not really, it was about the things Nico had gone through. Kel never took it personally when Nico needed space.
He felt he couldn’t help take this personally, though. He smiled, the expression gentle on his sharper features.
And froze a moment later.
“Seventeen days…?” He repeated, keeping his voice low. He didn’t want to do anything to make staying here harder. “Nico, you can’t possibly expect yourself to recover in seventeen days. You just can’t.”
He shook his head. How had he never even asked that? How had he not known?
He knew why. He would never be the one to just, being up Tartarus. What Nico had gone through haunted him more than enough already, Kelsier refused to make it worse,
Still...it meant he hadn’t had any idea how recent it had been. He’d just...assumed it was longer ago. Maybe a year.
“I wish it were easier.” He added quietly, letting his gaze rest on Nico. He wanted to brush his hair back, but he didn’t do it, not yet. Maybe if Nico didn’t move, he would.

If someone had asked Nico if he trusted Kelsier, he would have rolled his eyes and said ‘of course.’ He had been through enough with Kelsier that he thought he knew the Mistborn. He thought he could predict what he was likely to do, and even if he couldn’t… Kelsier had been given plenty of opportunities to hurt Nico. Plenty of opportunities where it wouldn’t only have been easy, it also would have been smarter to leave him behind to die.
Neither of them could erase the fact that Kelsier had killed him, once. It was less than two weeks ago for Nico, but it felt like an eternity ago. He had only killed Nico because they hadn’t known each other then. Laying here, laying with his head on Kelsier’s lap… it felt safe. As safe as being near someone ever felt, at least.
“Why not?” Nico mumbled, curling up a little tighter so his head didn’t move but his body was in a ball again. “Why can’t I expect that?” He knew he sounded like he was whining, but he didn’t care. He needed it all to go away, he needed… he needed one moment of peace…
Kelsier had sounded surprised by how recent it was. Nico supposed that made sense – they had never talked about it, and Hathsin was probably a long time before they had met.
“I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself,” Nico whispered, not bothering to wipe away the tear that fell this time. “I don’t… I don’t have time for any of this.” He let one hand move under Kelsier’s leg, clutching it like a pillow. He knew Kelsier couldn’t fix any of it, he knew it would be cruel to expect him to, but… he couldn’t be alone right now. And somehow, Kelsier was helping.

Kelsier | Living Room | strider

Kelsier trusted Nico. Of course he did. And Nico was right, he knew Kelsier, knew him better than a lot of people did. That was partially thanks to the House, of course, but not completely, because they had made their own choices. They had chosen to get to know each other, in spite of everything the House had put them through.
Even if Kelsier had made his own decision to kill in their first room. He couldn’t ever take that back. Well...at least Nico knew that side of him. He knew what he was getting into, getting closer with Kel.
“Because that’s not how it works,” he answered quietly, hating that he had to say it. He didn’t want to, he didn’t want to admit it, because it wasn’t fair. He knew how hard it was to recover, and he was an adult. How much harder was it for a kid?
Nico didn’t deserve anything that had happened to him. None of it. If Kelsier could have taken it all away, if he could have possibly taken some of the weight off...he would have. Without hesitation.
Hesitantly, he let his hand brush Nico’s hair back from his face, his touch gentle. He didn’t want to make Nico leave, but he also didn’t want to make him feel alone. Kel was there, he wasn’t leaving the kid alone, he wouldn’t.
“I know. But you might not have a choice.” He murmured. “It took me a long time to come close to healing from Hathsin, and I never will, fully. Things change you. But it’ll be okay. Alright? You’ll be okay. I have no doubt about that.”

Smol L | Living Room | strider

It hadn’t actually occurred to L to ask about the House, though he didn’t understand it. He didn’t know where he was, but he wasn’t as afraid as he might have been without someone nice there to play music for him, and show him how.
He hesitated, unsure what he wanted to do. He was too tired to keep dancing, he decided, and instead he looked up at Orpheus, eyes wide and searching.
“Do you know what’s over there?” He signed, pointing at the door to the hall. “I’ve never been here before. Or...I have, but it wasn’t here. I appeared in a room with a monster. But it was okay because a nice boy protected me.”
He nodded seriously. “I was going to escape but I disappeared again. And no one even realized I had been gone!”
That surprised him. People tended to notice when he wandered away, and then they told him to stay where they could see him, which was a stupid thing to say because how was he supposed to know where they could see? He wasn’t them.
“We could explore,” he suggested after a pause. It seemed like a good option.

Orpheus followed L’s gesture to the hall, the smile on his lips fading into something more serious.
“We call that the hallway,” he explained, his eyes moving back to meet L’s. “If you go through that door, there’s an endless hallway lined with lots and lots of doors. Each one leads somewhere different.” He didn’t know if that idea would frighten the boy or make him more excited to explore. Part of him hoped for the former. Yet… he knew L. Not as well as he might have liked, but he knew he was curious.
“I’m glad you had someone to protect you,” he added softly, finally getting to his feet. He wondered who the boy was. He wondered if it was someone he knew, or if it was someone that had his last blink long before Orpheus first blinked in. Timelines weren’t always easy to follow in the House. “Sometimes, in those rooms, there are monsters. Sometimes the rooms are nicer, though.”
Orpheus raised an eyebrow. Perhaps nobody had explained the House to L yet, after all. It seemed almost poetic, that Orpheus would be the first to explain it to L when L had been the one to explain it to him. It also felt very, very wrong.
“When you go back to your world,” he said, “It’s in the exact same second you left it. Nobody will have noticed that you left at all.”

Nico listened, not daring to interrupt. He didn’t care if the situations were analogous or not, he just knew that nobody was supposed to survive Hathsin, and nobody was supposed to survive Tartarus. The difference, Nico supposed, was that Kelsier had something to lose in Hathsin, and he had lost it. Nico had gone in with nothing to lose, and it was only by luck that he didn’t die. Luck and a stupid prophecy. As grateful as he was that the prophecy had helped the others find him… he found he didn’t like being part of one. He found that he didn’t like having his life dictated by some god he didn’t like anyway. Well… at least Apollo was better than his sister. But still.
“Sounds like Gemmel and Minos would get along,” Nico replied softly, though Gemmel didn’t sound nearly as malevolent as Minos had been. Just… perhaps rather insane.
What Kelsier had done after Hathsin sounded an awful lot like what Nico had done after Bianca had died. But he didn’t have any new powers to rely on this time. He didn’t have anything to distract him from what had happened, nothing to focus on and perfect. He had no way to get revenge against anyone, because he had ended up in Tartarus on accident. The giants who had imprisoned him? They were already taken care of.
No, the situations weren’t as similar as Nico wanted them to be. What Kelsier had done wouldn’t help him this time, no matter how much he wanted to just… be able to follow Kelsier’s lead. Making decisions by himself for what to do now… it was hard. He didn’t want to have to do it. For once in his life, he just wanted someone to tell him what he needed to do to feel better.
“I’m going to help stop the war,” he whispered, dark eyes meeting hazel. “I have to. I don’t… I don’t know how, but I’m going to.” He would discover how soon enough. It would be a decision Kelsier would disapprove of, but… what choice did Nico have? There were lives depending on him.
“It’s more than just a war,” he added after a moment. “There’s… there’s the war between demigods, and there’s the Earth rising. I don’t have time to wait for it to get easier.”

Should Orpheus tell him about the bad things? Or would it be better to just… tell him about the good things? Telling him just the good things seemed a little too much like lying to him for Orpheus’ comfort. And it might make L just a little bit too eager to jump into a room… no, he needed to tell him all of it.
“Lots of things,” he murmured, glancing at the hallway once more. “There are some really nice rooms – rooms that give you sweets, or ones that let you do things you wouldn’t normally be able to do. But there are some that are really bad… some that put you in a snowstorm that’s really hard to find your way out of…” he frowned slightly, looking over at L. “I was told by a friend of mine that it’s not always even. That sometimes the bad things outweigh the good, here. But don’t worry… I’m doing my best to make it a little bit more even.”
Would L believe him? Did he still want to try to explore? Orpheus searched his expression, hoping he wasn’t too freaked out by the idea of bad rooms.
“There’s a lot about this place that doesn’t make sense,” Orpheus added, shifting his instrument to his back. “Maybe one day you’ll be able to make it make sense.”

Smol L | Living Room | strider

L listened, his expression going more serious as Orpheus spoke. Bad things...he wasn’t overly surprised to hear it wasn’t all good. There had been a monster, after all, and he still didn’t think she’d been nice. Monsters were scary, end of story, as far as he was concerned.
“Which ones are good?” He asked, tilting his head to get the question across. The thing about sign language is how much it used your entire body, your expressions included. It was ironic that L as a child has learned to exaggerate his expressions to get his meaning across, and then unlearned all that to mask them as an adult.
Part of him still wanted to explore, but the presence of bad rooms made him wary. He waited for Orpheus to show him where the good ones were, so they didn’t have to worry about going in one by accident.
“It doesn’t make sense.” He agreed, shaking his head firmly. “At all. Time is not supposed to work like that. But I don’t mind. I’m good at figuring things out. People give me puzzles to solve sometimes, and then when I spy on them they talk about how well I did, so I know.”

In the grand scheme of things, the two of them had really not spoken all that much. A handful of blinks here and there, doing what they could to get to know each other on their own terms when the House had already forced so much… there was just so much he didn’t know about Kelsier. Yet… here he was, crying on his lap. Here he was, trusting him, which usually took… well, a long time.
He knew they needed to have a conversation. It wasn’t normal that someone started thinking of someone else as their dad after only meeting… what, six or seven times? If he really wanted to he could have thought through their blinks and figured it out, but he found he didn’t want to. He closed his eyes again, just listening to whatever it was that Kelsier had to say. Any advice was better than no advice at all, and not having to be alone… it was worth everything.
“Hm?” he leaned just a little closer in, lifting his head just a touch so he could hear Kelsier’s words a little bit better.
“I bet you could,” he whispered, allowing himself to relax once more. He hadn’t gotten very many chances to relax since Tartarus. He hadn’t really gotten any chances, if he were honest with himself. Other than what he had gotten in the House. He hadn’t been able to sleep much at all – every time he tried, his dreams were stained with nightmares. Maybe… maybe if he let himself rest here, he wouldn’t have any. Or… no, he probably shouldn’t sleep, but… he could rest.
“That’s why I’ve been grateful for it,” he murmured, opening his eyes just enough to see Kelsier’s face. “I’m sorry I can’t hate it,” he added, letting his eyes close one more time. He was just… gods he was tired.
“Your legs are gonna hurt if I stay like this,” he mumbled, but he didn’t move. He was moments away from falling asleep, but he didn’t want to admit it to himself. He’d fallen asleep with Kelsier there before… well… he’d passed out. There was a difference. “I should start… planning what to do when I get back…”

Kelsier | Living Room | strider

It was becoming increasingly obvious to Kelsier how much Nico needed sleep. When was the last time he’d actually slept? Or slept nightmare free?
The troubles of Kelsier’s own world felt so far away now. Nico needed him here, present, in this moment. He was used to feeling needed in a way, but at the same time, he wasn’t. He was a troublemaker, and not even Nico was aware that the Skaa dreaded his appearance. They didn’t like him anymore than the nobility did, really. He made their lives harder by trying to give them hope, and fight for them. Most of the time they wanted him to leave them alone.
He just didn’t listen. As was his specialty.
Nico was different. Nico didn’t need him and also dread him. Nico didn’t actually need him at all, Kel knew that, but the fact that he seemed to want to be close to him anyway? That was everything. The only thing better than being needed was being chosen, after all.
Kelsier was confident that Nico would fall asleep very soon as long as nothing disturbed him. I dare you to try it, House, he thought as fiercely as he could, eyes flicking to the ceiling for just a moment as he did.
He looked back down at Nico as the boy spoke, and he shook his head just a little, dismissing the apology.
“You don’t have to apologize for that.” He answered quietly. He didn’t yet know that Nico didn’t want him to destroy the place, but when he found out he would tell him not to apologize for that, either. “Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing you have to do right now, okay? Just close your eyes for now. I’m here.”
He smiled a little at the comment about his legs hurting. “I’ll burn pewter.” He assured Nico, keeping his voice low and soft, nothing too jarring. “I’m Mistborn. I can handle it.”
He shook his head again, slowly, almost brushing Nico’s hair back again but resisting the urge. He didn’t want to risk anything that might shake Nico back awake.
He didn’t say anything to the last part. Nico seemed about three seconds from falling asleep, and Kel trusted that not engaging him was the fastest way to get him there.