Home is where the Hearts are

[spysinspades]

[The Green.

After so long, so much work returning to the Deck, he hated the very land for a moment.

It had landed him in the Green. Alone, in public view, in midday, amid a swath of empty grass. It was one last petty cruelty, he thought, for the Deck to display his shame in full public view. Even the very earth of his home betrayed him like this.

David had meant to sneak in, silent as a shadow, coming through the woods.To wander halls of all four castles, to be the ghost from people's nightmares brought to life. An avenging shade to feast on their guilt. These people, who didn't even have the decency to let him die with honor and instead left him to slowly rot as a vegetable in a hospital bed.

But no. He washed his hands of that. He would... not forgive. It was too big to forgive. He would accept the reality of his situation.

He returned because there was no where else he could imagine going, and because he would make them look him in the face - his pale, gaunt face - and understand that there were consequences to the choices the made.

They should have killed him.

He wished he thought that in anger.]

Fuck.

[Walking was really his only option here, leaving him wide open to anyone catching him out.]

Comments

[cipherspeak]

And that was, of course, how Elisha found them: his cat purring on the stoop of Hadyn's apartment - something that had his eyes flashing briefly towards the window - and David crouched next to him.

He cleared his throat.

"Hello, David. This is a surprise."

Spoiler alert: only the fact that he's outside Hadyn's apartment is the surprise.

[spysinspades]

David doesn't believe there was an surprise for a second.

Don't think he doesn't know where a great many of his spies probably went.

"I thought I'd drop by for a visit. Tis the season." Instead of standing, David stayed close to the ground, fingers moving over Q's ears.

At least he wasn't dirty anymore.

[cipherspeak]

Not nearly as many as David might think - truthfully, Elisha had only managed to scrape off a few stragglers to add to his own network. The majority had gone to Julien, and to Katya, and of course...a great many to Victor.

Elisha's network was still mainly the network he'd built, and Andrew's spies that David had trained (and Elisha had retrained.)

"Is it?" His eyebrows raised up. "I always thought the season normally fell in December, not March."

[spysinspades]

"Does it?" David pretended confusion, head tilting to one side thoughtfully. "Is it March already?"

It's entirely possible that he had no idea what time of year it was, if he'd been adhering to at least one of his lies.

Probably. "How sad. I missed Christmas."

[cipherspeak]

"St. Patrick's Day is on Sunday, I believe." Not that Elisha was either Irish or Catholic, and thus would probably just be weathering the end of Eileen's grounding.

"Eileen missed you," he says, though, lightly. "She was upset." When David had disappeared, and Elisha was not cruel or callous enough to ruin the rest of her childhood by pointing out David was likely dead.

Wise, apparently, since he wasn't.

[spysinspades]

"Oh joy, green beer." Because David did so enjoy drinking to excess.

Eileen had missed him. Getting the message again didn't make him feel any better about it. "I'm sorry to have upset her."

There was really nothing that could be done about it now. There were too many 'if only's in his life to waste the one time-machine trip he might get.

Deciding it was worth the question, even if it gave away his hand, David rocked back on his heels and looked Elisha in the face. "What did you tell her?"

He wasn't King anymore, and he didn't have to pretend for any of them. At this point, it was only pride and habit that kept him as he was.

[cipherspeak]

"I told her you'd gone away for a while." He sinks his hands into his pockets, watching David steadily. "There wasn't much else I could tell her, since there wasn't anything else I knew."

Certainly he'd had his guesses, of course; he'd been one who'd assumed that David had been killed. But that wasn't something you told a twelve year old. Or a thirteen year old.

"She's a teenager now, you know." God help them.

[spysinspades]

Thirteen...

Eyes closed over the pain of it before he stretched and stood, using a goodbye to the cat as an excuse to look away from the Club until he was on his feet again.

"I know." He'd had plans for that. He was going to try and make it special... he'd bought a gift. Never wrapped, never sent. "They grow up so fast."

Elisha would probably already know a little bit about what had happened to him, so he doesn't bother with a lie. Instead, Elisha would just have to listen to him tell the truth. It would be a strange turn of events.

"This is the only home I've ever know, you know." He'd be surprised if Elisha cared, but it was only an intro to what was really important. "There would have been nowhere else for me to go, after waking up. They should have killed me."

The Club King would have killed him. It would have been the intelligent choice, and a mercy.

[cipherspeak]

Honesty. That was something Elisha had never really felt like he'd gotten from David when he was King - and to be fair David had never truly gotten it from him - and he was silent for a moment.

He would have killed David. That much was certainly true.

"I do not know who was behind your disappearance," he finally says. "Whoever it was has managed to keep it very quiet." Which didn't really limit the candidates; Spades weren't known for talking out of turn.

[spysinspades]

"My-" He pauses, rewinds, corrects himself. "The Spades have even been circumspect. I think I'd be disappointed if they hadn't managed to keep quite."

He had his suspicions and his instincts. NO real proof yet, though. And no plan to confront the parties when he had it.

No. If he took revenge - which he wasn't sure he would - it would be a quieter kind of damage. Meant just for him.

Brushing his hands off, David pushed that false, flashy smile he was spending so much time perfecting today. "I like your cat. He reminds me to go find Adele. Good day, your majesty."