houseofcards_rp | Home is where the Hearts are

[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.]

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Oh, well. He should feel better about the smile. He should feel better about the recognition. He should feel better about the confirmation that it's really, truly David.

Funny that he doesn't.

He'll try to smile, though the corner of his lip doesn't get much of the way above its usual place. "What exactly should I expect, sir? Given that I don't believe any of us expected to see you again?"

Should he, really? A rabid, wounded dog was so much more dangerous than his healthy counterpart.

David's memory - and the collectedness he planned to behave with later - shouldn't fool anyone. He was dangerous, broken, and a little bit more mad than when he'd left.

"I couldn't possibly know, my dear." David's smile was sharp and not-quite-right around the corners... he would have to work on that, in private. "I can't control your speculations."

He'd been raised mostly to nigh-worship his Face Cards. That hadn't fully sunk in, much like the rest of the Chives teachings. He treated Clive mostly with irreverence and Katya and Michael with something approaching respect mixed with amusement. Looking at David now, however, it might just be that the worship had been tied more to the people than their stations.

And like everything else, he decides, he should make his own mind about it. So he crooks an eyebrow, turns his head as if the twist of his neck will lend a better perspective. "So if I were to, say, speculate that you'd been off bending the ears of presidents and prime ministers?"

It seems about as logical as anything else. (Which is to say, not at all.)

"I would say Mr. Cameron is a lovely man and his wife is an awful cook," David lied with a twinkle that was almost real. One more story in the works, yes? One more little bit of mischief.

This was a harmless - maybe, fairly - confusion he'd cooked up before arriving. Why not take all the stories people gave him.

No reason to malign names when he had no proof. No reason to destabilize the Spades, even if he hated them. He could cover his bitterness, weakness, illness - he'd cover it all was amusement and bad jokes.

It really was very unsettling. Amusing, ultimately, but unsettling.

"I suspect I shall be watching the news of Britain with interest, then." He slipped his hands into his pockets, trying feign casualness. "This is where I enquire how you're taking the changes, I think, but you seem awfully accustommed to it already."

"Oh, do. So much hard work should never go ignored."

He was taking the changes very badly, to be honest. At the moment, at least. Dirty, weak, exhausted. It was really all very disconcerting and covered by the aspects of himself that had always worked. Sheer force of will and pride.

"You're free to inquire about anything you wish, of course." And David was free to blatantly refuse to answer any and all questions he had no answer to.

Where to start with. Where to begin.

"Then... mm... perhaps what you intend now, sir Lackarank. Haunt about? Choose another Suit, or none?"

He somehow doubts David is about to get back into the ladder of Spades.

"That would be telling," David smirks around his exhausting.

Because he has no idea. He'd come back. He'd arrived. And... that was as far as his specific plans got him.

David was home. Now he needed to figure out what that had seemed so overwhelmingly important.

"Or you don't have a plan." Which he is just fine with. Some of the best plans were made flying by the seat of one's pants.

Hopefully David would plan faster than anyone else with the same method.

Quick planning. It's a skill set.

"One can't stop others from speculating." David smiled a sharp little smile instead of protesting one way or the other. Let them come to their own conclusions. And maybe he could escape with that, by giving a tiny bobbing bow and turning to leave.

"Certainly not," he said agreeably, nodding his head as he watched David go. It was disloyal to salute him, even flippantly, as he went. Rap liked Clive too much to even risk it when no one was apparently watching, even David himself.

Didn't mean his fingers didn't twitch, though.

Home is where the Hearts are

\o/

:D

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