[PRP] somebody told me (liam & jeremiah)

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah disliked meeting at someone's office, especially when it was related to business, but he did not quite feel comfortable enough to reach out and making a personal contact like had previously done with Renard (a meeting at the museum restaurant).

Still he felt awkward almost, a breath let out, as he knocked on the door to Liam's office. It might have been because he now understood things that he should have sooner.

5ilverah

i'll return this title to somebody told me later

edit: i changed it back, lawl.

 

[Silverah]

"Come in," Liam called, his voice muffled by the wood, and the door swung open, as if propelled by magic. Seated at his desk, Liam had his hand raised as though he had just finished a beckoning gesture, lending credence to the idea that he'd used spellwork just now.

The office was tiny - perhaps ten feet on a side, the entire back wall taken up by a bookshelf that stretched from floor to ceiling and was stacked two-deep in places. The wall to the right of the door overlooked a courtyard covered in a pristine layer of snow. The left wall was occupied by a pair of diplomas and a collection of photographs: Liam and Renard. Liam and Vivien. Liam and Steve Jobs. And others, people of less note.

"Can I help you, detective?" asked Liam.

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah caught the gesture, just barely as he came into the office, and it made him tilt his head just slightly in curiousity. Mostly because aside from what talents he had, he had not been able to do magic of that kind at all.

Not within Ashdown.

"Not detective today," Jeremiah replied, eyes looking towards the photographs briefly and wondering if Liam had found differences as he had, "as it's a more a social visit than work related. If you've the time?"

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam switched gears easily. "In that case," he said, indicating a small bar cart parked beneath the window, loaded with a decanter of some kind of liquor and a stack of clean glasses, hardly well-stocked. "Can I offer you a drink? It's whiskey. I think. A good year. I think."

Something his previous iteration had left for him. An unintended gift.

He leaned around the desk and poured one drink, then held it out to Jeremiah.

"It's five o'clock somewhere."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah's lips quirked upwards, a small hint of a smile. "Somewhere, yes, and farbeit of me to turn down whiskey. Thank you." Especially from a good year, no less. He reached forward and took the glass before seating himself.

It was cradled in his hands once he sat, not drank yet, as he looked to Liam. The drink might end up needed, who knew. "I actually came to apologize about my being dense the last time we spoke."

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam nodded, poured himself a glass, and settled back into his chair. "The last time?" he asked, and then nodded. "At the ball."

He took a sip of whiskey.

"You sound like you've come to a realization," he said, "but I'm afraid I'm not a mind-reader."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Yes, at the ball." Jeremiah swirled the liquid in the glass before he took a sip himself. An appreciative noise and small nod was made.

"I did," he agreed, "and looking back I was caught up in other things, not letting myself think of the obvious. I was a teenager in the eighties, played at being an adult for part of the nineties." A huff escaped; this version of him at least had been.The glass was cradled once more between both of his hands as he looked at Liam.

"So I apologize for not realizing then as I understand now what you meant." All of our friends were dying, he remembered Liam saying. Things that hadn't clicked into place before had done so.

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam nodded, glass raised part-way. "It happens every time," he said. "We've looked for ways to change it, ways to avoid it - it's too big for us to solve. We're just two people."

"But we're not bad people," he added, emphatic. "I hope that's clear to you now."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"To be entirely frank, I haven't necessarily thought you were bad people for a while." Jeremiah had a tendency, without realizing it, to roll a glass in between his hands before taking a drink. "... and given the shift in reality, the way magic is treated in regards to being tied to healing and medicine, things make even more sense."

His eyes glanced towards the window, outside into the courtyard, before his attention flicked back. "It must be beyond frustrating sometimes to see things play out again and again and remember each time."

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam leaned back in his chair, his eyes drifting shut for a moment. "You can't even imagine," he said softly.

And then his eyes snapped open. His demeanor changed quickly - he was suddenly energized. He put the glass down on the desk and leaned forward, resting his weight on his elbow.

He could even be described as a little bit conspiratorial.

"The cage's remaking was only a stop-gap," he said. "It must be opened before it resets, or I fear any progress that has been made by its existence will be lost."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah blinked at the sudden shift in demeanor, leaning as Liam did. "The creation of the new sigil." The cage remaking and then, because he had said it, Jeremiah had to ask. "The reset. Do you know when that happens?

"Admittedly, I want it to end. The cycles, the resets, but my knowledge is limited even if it's something I'm currently pursuing. If the cage is opened, the resets stop?" He assumed they would, that they were a construct of the cage, but again, he did not know for sure.

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

"In the old cage," said Liam, "it was in the waning days of 2017. If that's still the case - and I have no reason to believe it isn't - then we are very short on time. I'm not going to treat matters lightly on the chance that things won't reset - better safe than sorry."

"The resets are a function of the cage," he confirmed, and took a sip of his drink. "If the cage is opened, then all of us walk free into the morning, live out our lives, and the universe is able to resume its natural course."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"We are short on time then," Jeremiah agreed. Come the fall months then, the entire world could reset again. "I wouldn't either, this is serious, but working towards no reset ..." He let out a breath, eyes closing momentarily before they opened again.

"Natural course being that year continues on?" Fingers tapped against the side of the glass. "Yet if that's the case, how do we open the cage? If there's a method for creation of it, then there must be a method of taking it back, of opening it."

Silverah

 

[Silverah]

Liam shrugged. "Well," he said, "I couldn't break the previous cage, or else I would have. I mean - I tried. Killing the principals would have broken a weaker cage, but only destabilized it. I'd rather not go through with that again."

Better to not state his intention to commit any more murders in front of a cop.

"A cage of this strength can only be opened by the same principals who created it," he explained. "But they built a key into the sigil, so... I'm hopeful that they can be persuaded. That opening it was their intention all along."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

It was what he thought then, that it was heavily tied with the three that made up the cage now. "It seems incredibly dangerous to let things get like that again. Just because how strong this new cage is." There had been lights in the ocean, earthquakes, gaping rifts in the forest and that cage had been not nearly as strong, he assumed.

"A chance to be free." Jeremiah tilted his head. "... but if that's the case, would that mean that somewhere there might just be a key that would open the cage?" It wouldn't even necessarily be a key but as that was what was opened, a choice to open it, then it made sense.

Silverah