"She tried to escape her own series of rituals. With her- dear friend."
She's everything to me, Pratibha had said. And, well, Luis is familiar enough with all kinds of underground scenes to guess without her saying it. But, despite Leon not reacting poorly to Luis' irresistible charm (or, not reacting poorly to the part that could be construed as flirting - Leon had reacted plenty badly to other things about Luis that he hadn't found out til later was also because Leon knew about the Umbrella in the room), it's not his relationship to reveal even if Leon's feelings on same-sex relationships had somehow come up in conversation.
...All that to say, that fraction of a second pause did some heavy lifting.
"If we have another ritual, I intend to ask her how."
Not being a man of subtlety as he is, any implication to that weighty pause or to Luis's choice of words goes absolutely flying over Leon's head, whether fortunately or unfortunately. Regardless, it's not necessarily the most important part here, and he nods in understanding of the rest of it, at least.
"Right. It's hard to read her profile, but from what I could tell it ends with something like 'I just wanted us to be okay, let us out' or something like that. Looks like that didn't exactly go as planned." He sighs, staring out the kitchen window at the starlit prairie that wasn't there yesterday. "That's probably a good plan. If there's another ritual. Wouldn't want to wind up with another escape attempt where someone just winds up taking her place as the maitre d'. Who knows what would happen to her?"
Or to the rest of them, for that matter. Sounds like a vicious cycle if there ever was one.
"Well, there's that," Luis says. "And besides, when the stakes are this high, we don't have the luxury of repeating, ah, failed experiments."
No offense, Pratibha.
"I'm not sure that the bond goes so far that the house could or would 'punish' her directly to keep us in line, but, well. If we starve the house, then she will get weaker, too."
Like the first ritual, where they could hardly keep her awake.
Leon just nods, solemnly. He gets it. If they can avoid following in her footsteps here, they should.
He breathes out, slowly.
"So no matter what happens, someone dies. Or maybe Pratibha doesn't die, but I don't really want to think about what happens if the house starts to get too desperate." Kind of brings to mind the way a body starts to cannibalize itself when it gets into the deep stages of starvation. Nonessentials go first. "So what do we do? Ideally we could sever the connection safely somehow and get us all out of here, but I'm not good enough at Catholicism to be an exorcist, and I doubt you are either."
Luis huffs a laugh at that, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Do you know, I think my grandfather hoped the padre could convince me to become a priest," he says lightly. "To him, that was the place my mind would be wasted the least."
Luis sighs.
"Maybe he was right. But what a loss to the ladies of the world that would have been, eh?"
Leon snorts, trying to picture Luis in a clerical collar and failing.
"Would've been a different world for sure," he says. "So that plan's out, unless any of the others have been holding out on us when it comes to the ability to banish demons and ghosts."
Shaking his head, he lets his shoulders sag slightly with exhaustion - a narrow but noticeable deviation from his usual military-perfect posture.
"This is almost making me miss when most of my problems were the kind you could just shoot or stab until they went away. At least that was simpler."
“Maybe, but do you think Pratibha would give me a rocket launcher if I asked?”
He’s got a weirdly successful track record with finding those in the eleventh hour. Anyway, the concern isn’t wholly lost on him, and he straightens up again as soon as he hears it, nodding resolutely.
“Yeah. We should probably head in for the night. Rock-Paper-Scissors for who gets the floor this time?”
"Ay, can't you be too tired to do the sleep kickboxing for one night and we can share? The bed is a double," he points out. "It should be big enough for two."
"If I figure out a level of tired where I don't do that other than 'dead', I'll let you know. Until then we take turns. Come on, we can keep arguing about this on the way over."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nothingbadeverhappensto) wrote2025-05-01 11:19 am
cw: vague early aughts homophobia
She's everything to me, Pratibha had said. And, well, Luis is familiar enough with all kinds of underground scenes to guess without her saying it. But, despite Leon not reacting poorly to Luis' irresistible charm (or, not reacting poorly to the part that could be construed as flirting - Leon had reacted plenty badly to other things about Luis that he hadn't found out til later was also because Leon knew about the Umbrella in the room), it's not his relationship to reveal even if Leon's feelings on same-sex relationships had somehow come up in conversation.
...All that to say, that fraction of a second pause did some heavy lifting.
"If we have another ritual, I intend to ask her how."
no subject
"Right. It's hard to read her profile, but from what I could tell it ends with something like 'I just wanted us to be okay, let us out' or something like that. Looks like that didn't exactly go as planned." He sighs, staring out the kitchen window at the starlit prairie that wasn't there yesterday. "That's probably a good plan. If there's another ritual. Wouldn't want to wind up with another escape attempt where someone just winds up taking her place as the maitre d'. Who knows what would happen to her?"
Or to the rest of them, for that matter. Sounds like a vicious cycle if there ever was one.
no subject
No offense, Pratibha.
"I'm not sure that the bond goes so far that the house could or would 'punish' her directly to keep us in line, but, well. If we starve the house, then she will get weaker, too."
Like the first ritual, where they could hardly keep her awake.
no subject
He breathes out, slowly.
"So no matter what happens, someone dies. Or maybe Pratibha doesn't die, but I don't really want to think about what happens if the house starts to get too desperate." Kind of brings to mind the way a body starts to cannibalize itself when it gets into the deep stages of starvation. Nonessentials go first. "So what do we do? Ideally we could sever the connection safely somehow and get us all out of here, but I'm not good enough at Catholicism to be an exorcist, and I doubt you are either."
no subject
"Do you know, I think my grandfather hoped the padre could convince me to become a priest," he says lightly. "To him, that was the place my mind would be wasted the least."
Luis sighs.
"Maybe he was right. But what a loss to the ladies of the world that would have been, eh?"
no subject
"Would've been a different world for sure," he says. "So that plan's out, unless any of the others have been holding out on us when it comes to the ability to banish demons and ghosts."
Shaking his head, he lets his shoulders sag slightly with exhaustion - a narrow but noticeable deviation from his usual military-perfect posture.
"This is almost making me miss when most of my problems were the kind you could just shoot or stab until they went away. At least that was simpler."
no subject
It's a joke, but there's a small amount of worry in his eyes as he notices the way Leon's posture drops.
"...It's getting pretty late, eh?"
no subject
He’s got a weirdly successful track record with finding those in the eleventh hour. Anyway, the concern isn’t wholly lost on him, and he straightens up again as soon as he hears it, nodding resolutely.
“Yeah. We should probably head in for the night. Rock-Paper-Scissors for who gets the floor this time?”
no subject
"Ay, can't you be too tired to do the sleep kickboxing for one night and we can share? The bed is a double," he points out. "It should be big enough for two."
no subject
"If I figure out a level of tired where I don't do that other than 'dead', I'll let you know. Until then we take turns. Come on, we can keep arguing about this on the way over."
no subject