The Holiday from Hell

[scotch_egg]

Who: Alec, Anthony, Ellie and Fell
What: Going on a house sitting holiday to terrifying jolly old England.
When: 09/20-09/30
Where: Across the Pond.



Alec squinted at the house as it rose on the horizon. He was tired and jet lagged from the plane. Tired and sore from the long ride over bumpy roads in a small cab, crowded against one window by Ellie who was smushed in the middle with Anthony on the other side. Fell, being the guest, took up the front seat and was probably cramping Anthony's legs all to pieces with how much room he left which Alec felt strangely justified in.

Anyway, that house held memories, both good and bad and, mostly terrifying, but he was oddly looking forward to it. After all, everything was a little bit frightening until you knew its secrets.


---
Info on Abaddon House and the environs

Comments

[serpentinthegarden]

"Tch."

The syllables were hissed as that had to have been one of the softest things he had ever heard Alec say. It was touching and brought a sort of warm glow to his chest that definitely had nothing to do with being a demon and this was best acknowledged by sending a small shower of ocean droplets splashing Alec's way.

"I will! So long as you're around to make sure I don't give into the darkside."

[scotch_egg]

As if he would ever. It wasn't in Anthony. He was too soft. Even if he was a brat by spraying him with water.

"Everything has it's time, you know? That's just the way life goes." Which he knows Anthony won't accept but it is what it is.

"Anyway, that's what Fell is for, him being an angel and all."

[serpentinthegarden]

"Time..."

The word was an obstacle.

"There are moments when I feel like it's nothing. Like if I concentrated really hard I might be able to stop it."

His gaze stared out into the vast blank ocean with it's lapping waves but nothing ever slowed or stopped. Enemy time kept marching on.

"Anyway I gave Fell the tool to stop me if it came down to that... Why are you so convinced you have to die now? You could die in ten, twenty, forty more years with any luck! Why does it have to be now?"

[scotch_egg]

"Brat. Time is there for a reason. If it weren't the world would be overrun. And maybe I do have that kind of time, aye. Maybe I'll outlive you." What a terrifying prospect.

"But the end will come when it comes and there's no stopping it, just accept it."

[serpentinthegarden]

Terrifying? He smiled at that idea. Alec outliving him! It would be better than all this death talk!

"Kind of unfair, isn't it? Bring together a group of people who need each other and then slowly rip them away from each other? I don't see why it needs to be that way... Not if God built everything. Couldn't She just design an infinite world? Put everyone back into the garden only without the clearly marked, obvious trap, and the weird obsession with people not knowing what good and evil is? Makes you wonder what its really all about."

[scotch_egg]

Oh, so they were onto theology now? It was fitting, he supposed, and he was surprised Anthony was so willing to talk about this-- to listen to what he had to say. He was willing to indulge in it. He didn't have much to think about God. He... or She or they were somewhere far away and largely unconcerned with human affairs.

"Choice. What we do for good or ill. Humans learn and grow from choice and wasn't it the tree of Knowledge? The tree of knowing your options, of choosing bad ones. Choice is how we reshape the world and make it interesting." For better and for worse.

[serpentinthegarden]

The line of inquiry didn't seem strange or out of the blue to Anthony but then he had been thinking about this for a while, a few months or several millennia depending on how you looked at it, and he valued Alec's opinions even if they didn't always agree.

"But why design a creature without freedom of choice to begin with? She didn't do that to any of the others. The lion never woke up one day with a serpent whispering in his ear, 'oh hey, you better go and eat that forbidden giraffe in the center of the garden. It'll be great, promise'. You know sometimes I wonder if there is a plan at all or if God's just winging it."

[scotch_egg]

"Who knows? Who can really say. And in the end, what does it matter? What is is." There are other things to worry about than the great mysteries of the universe that weren't going to be solved anyway. That was the point of mysteries.

[serpentinthegarden]

He frowned at what Alec had said and then at the waves that rushed in to lap around his feet. It seemed like he had heard that before.

"At least you didn't say it was ineffable."

[scotch_egg]

"Maybe it is." As soon as the water surges he's on his feet, backing up a few steps. It's a childish fear he knows, but it's lodged in him somewhere, swept out, drowning, unable to move or breathe.

"I'm going in." He swallowed, rubbed his arms. "Be careful, Anty."

[serpentinthegarden]

"Yeah."

He would be careful. Anthony's hand lifted in silent goodbye and he stood up himself and began the slog back out to his bucket of sea life on the rock.

"I'll save you a crab."

[scotch_egg]

"I hate seafood." Anything that lived in the water just made him feel slightly ill. The onlyt thing he barely tolerated was fish and chips but really only for the chips.

Not that he could have that anyway.

"Just come back in one piece."