[Atlas Caedmon]

As far as bad nights went, Atlas supposed he could say that he had had worse. There was the time in the summer between 6th and 7th year when, having presented his ultimatum regarding summer school to his Mum and winning he’d decided to hitch hike to Spain to see Jasper. He’d made it as far as a barn in France, wedged between a large semi-carnivorous pig and a post, with only a slightly less carnivorous farm hand sleeping in the loft above. Then there had been the time Helena had convinced him to spend a night out on the beach. At the time he’d been a rather heavy sleeper and between the rising tide, the jelly fish, and Helena’s ‘do it yourself’ attitude he’d very nearly ended up sleeping with the fishes. The nights since the attack had been almost as bad. Alternating between memories of what had happened and what his mind conjured on it’s own.

When he woke up Rudolph had found one of the blankets at the chest at the end of the bed and spread it over him. One of the skeletons fingers was caught in the yarn in Atlas’ line of vision. A bit of fumbling allowed him to get up, a shower, breakfast that he didn’t really feel at all like eating, dressing, just mechanical actions that eventually brought him to the breakfast table with Cal’s notes spread out in front of him. It hadn’t take long for him to find himself impressed, and then shocked and then elated. What he’d given the veela was horrible but stone dead brilliant. Things he wouldn’t have thought of, he was turning over one of the time differentials for a fourth time, again trying to disprove it when Rudolph’s disembodied hand hauled itself into he kitchen bearing a letter in Jasper’s careful exact handwriting.

He’d managed to wait fifteen of the instructed twenty minutes before gathering up the notes, and a few of his own and walking across the alley. After looking over some of the notes he wasn’t entirely sure if he’d be comfortable with magical transportation ever again. Jasper’s door was locked but that was always quick to get around. Letting himself in he looked first to the left then the right before carefully picking his way up the steps. Once he’d reached the top of the stairs Jasper’s remaining 3 minutes and 34 seconds were taken up deciding if he actually wanted to go in or not and if he did what he was going to say. Peaking around the door and into the hall he saw no one, pricking up his ears presented no sound, he stepped into the house and closed the door. Shrugging out of his coat and depositing it in one of Jasper's plush under used dining room chairs. Finally there was sound, a popping noise from a log bursting in the fireplace. Moving through the house, trying to step on floor boards he knew would creak as he went, he nudged the door to the study open. There was Jasper, sitting in one of the high backed chairs, cigarette dangling between his fingers. There was Calixtus, drawn up, fingers entwined, eyes moving to glance at Atlas.

“Is this a bad…” he glanced at Jasper for some sort of confirmation or permission to enter while staying in the threshold of the room.

[Jasper Christie]

Jasper heard Atlas come in long before he actually reached the study door. He felt oddly jittery, overstimulated and overtired, and it heightened his senses enough that he'd heard the door rattle in its frame downstairs as Atlas tripped the lock, the muffled footsteps on the back stairs, and then the obviously purposeful, slow and heavy steps over the boards in the hall.

Atlas' appearance brought a strange sort of relief that he'd never associated before with the overseeing of an encounter between his friend and Cal. But the presence of someone else in the room meant that Jasper would be mercifully relieved of the conversational burden. He smiled when Atlas finally peered in, looking tidy and as though he'd slept but not found it especially restful.

“Is this a bad…”

Atlas's eyes darted between them, obviously noting the uncomfortably distant chairs they'd chosen. The study was wide; if they'd been any further apart Jasper would have had to install phones to communicate between the two. He waved Atlas in with the hand not holding a cigarette. Jasper usually wasn't a morning smoker, but these seemed to be extenuating circumstances.

"Not at all, you're right on time." That wasn't distinctly true, Atlas was actually a few minutes early. But if the right time was 'time to let Jasper stop having to think of neutral things to say,' he'd done perfectly.

[Calixtus Ferox]

Cal had never anticipated that Atlas's presence would ever make him feel less guilty. In this situation, though--sunk to a nadir of guilt he couldn't escape by attempting to hide inside his own ribcage--any clarification was welcome. Atlas was a clarification. Cal shuffled himself upright and fumbled his fingers down along his thighs to his knees and said "Yes, right."

Then, with the other looking to him for guidance... or so he assumed. Perhaps he only felt that way. His own nervous energy had set the room pulsating. He needed coke. Doxy powder. Something. He couldn't ask Jasper for it, those tangles of guilt, they were all around Jasper, with Atlas somehow it was a matter of sensible debt and not some labyrinthine gentleman's code of honorless conduct.

"Have you looked at my notes?" His fingers drummed his kneecaps. It sent up prickles along the back of his neck. Shallah. He stopped.

"I just--I had thought--"

He clapped his palms to his knees and leaned forward firmly. Moral considerations. Undermining terrorists. What had he thought--something about the spell Shallah's Irishman had used on Atlas. What.

"Hoped that you might help."

[Atlas Caedmon]

Calixtus looked at him first and happily Atlas managed to not go with the sudden visceral urge to step back, or closer to Jasper, or possibly behind Jasper. He didn’t step back but when Cal moved, unfurling himself from the chair where he had crammed himself into an impossibly small and intricate ball of elbows, hands and knees, Atlas looked away. The movement brought his eyes inline with Jasper who was exhaling, motioning him further into the room.

Both he and Cal spoke at the same moment and that was a problem because now he didn’t know who to answer first, or where to sit, so he didn’t move, and didn’t say anything. Just glanced between the two of them. Jasper’s eyebrow arched at him, Cal’s eyes bore into him. He’d have to make some sort of decision soon, silence that dragged too long would just make everything that much worse. Finally Cal, who had somehow untangled himself from himself, piped up. The tone of his voice alternated like a spectrum being poorly loaded.

Have you looked at my notes?

Nothing, he just stood there. I just--- I had thought.... What? Atlas had sat at that table, wondering what Cal thought he could help with. He’d been very wrong about a great number of things. When he had first looked at the 4th Unforgivable, what he now knew to be Cal’s own spell craft, he hadn’t thought that there had been a finesse to it. Looking at the notes he’d recognized the artistry, the stream lined ways of doing things, few flaws, it was admirable, if horrific. Hoped that you might help.

“Yes.” The word came out too quick, he could tell by the way Jasper cocked his head to the side, slowing down the word and replaying it before moving again. “Umm...yes.” nodded, gulped, sat down on the floor. His right leg twinged painfully before sprawling out and away from the rest of his body. Some of the papers spilled out from his arms, he didn’t make to grab them, simply reached out and re-arranged them for better viewing. “I did read them...most of them. You’re stone dead brilliant....though I suppose you knew as much.”

“You’re flu network disruption set is particularly horrible.” He swallowed against the word but he could think of no other. His tone was more reverential than anything else. “I....want to help, I’m just not sure that I understand what it is you think I can do? There are a few protectorates that could be modified to alter the effects of the flu spell....when did you finish it and when does it go into effect. I don’t think we could call the whole thing off...as it were.”

"You want to fight them? Indirectly as it is...we'd have to tread very carefully."

[Jasper Christie]

Jasper wasn't at all ready for this. "You want to fight them?" No, no he did not want to fight "them" if 'them" included Shallah and whatever minions had played "pin the dilabo on Atlas" in the alley behind his house. In fact he hoped he would never see "them" again. This wasn't supposed to be a part of his life. He liked smoking and drinking and ordering in restaurants. In the past few weeks, he'd had more interaction with terrorists than he'd expected in about six lifetimes. And he'd ruined a suit in a desperate escape attempt when the moose went rogue.

"Listen," he stubbed out the cigarette and stood. "As fascinating as your plans for counterterrorism are, I've gotten about eight hours of sleep in the last seven days and my chief skills involve having suits properly tailored."

Honestly, he just needed to be somewhere that wasn't his house or the new shop or with Atlas or Cal or any of the other thousand crazy people he'd managed to surround himself with. He considered Scotland, but had a suspicion that Atlas would find him there if he disappeared for more than a few hours, which he had every intention of doing. He considered actually being proactive, stopping round to see Will and find out if he could blag a few of Cal's things from the flat as a peace offering, but Cal had thus far rejected any gesture that could be construed as kind. In the end, he sighed and decided there was only one real option here, unless he wanted to spend the next week holed up in the VIP at Boujis.

"I'm going--" to Helena's-- "out. For a while. Use the house whenever you need it but stay away from my closet. Cal if you want food or whatever just order it, God knows you can use the phone better than me. Atlas, if you lot need anything, send a note to the postbox at the new shop, I charmed it to reroute to me directly."

He made it to the door without succumbing to eye contact with either of them. For the best. He didn't want Cal's guilt or Atlas' confusion. In the doorway he paused to light another cigarette and addressed them both while looking firmly between them at the fireplace. This probably seemed cold, but f--k if he hadn't done everything he could for Cal lately and all he'd gotten back was poptart crumbs and a third degree burn.

"Good luck."

[Calixtus Ferox]

"I--I don't--"

Cal sat forward and realized his mouth was open. Jasper had disappeared, and dragged his attention in his wake. It scattered in a widening V, like a slipstream or the Fibonacci sequence. He had to pause for a moment to recollect himself. Why did this always happen?

He shook his head.

Atlas looked half-quizzical and half-knowing. Caedmon's fragments were stitched together by conspiracy theories. Cal's were not.

"Well," he said. He sketched toy battleships with his hands, collided them, and let go. "We can't do anything direct. I know how to unravel the floo spell, but we can't--we can't go at it that way. I don't know how familiar you are with the second Muggle World War, but when the Allies broke the German code, the Enigma, they still had to send pilots out to scout the base locations of which they were already aware. If the Ministry immediately turns up with the key to the Floo disruption before Sha--before she even uses it... you can see that's impossible. So I thought I would need another perspective, on all of these things. I can unravel what I've done but I can't do it the way someone else would."

He took a long, guilty breath and realized he'd dug one nail into the loose crease between thumb and forefinger. He let go and looked up.

"So. Most importantly we have to wait. In the meantime I do have some... some names, it may be possible to surveil..." Cal stopped himself. For just a moment, before he could read Atlas's expression, he felt some leftover clinging terror. Had he overlooked Atlas's anger? He couldn't tell. "If you're amenable."

[Atlas Caedmon]

Jasper was giving hasty instructions as he unfolded himself from his chair, stubbing out his cigarette, reaching into his pocket, presumably to check for a wand and wallet and it took Atlas a moment to process the words properly. Another moment to realize what Jasper was doing, namely leaving. He’d planned on having him there as some sort of intermediary, or at least a touchstone for a certain level of security but Jasper looked frayed around the edges, dimmer. Had Atlas been thinking correctly he very well could have guessed one of Jasper’s disappearing spells would be coming. It had happened before, things became too overwhelming or stressful and Jasper vanished, it wasn’t usually so inconvenient, he glanced over at Cal’s, his lips were moving like a fish taken out of water. Or frightening.

And then he was gone. Atlas let out the thread he didn’t know he’d been holding right as Cal managed to speak. I-- I don’t-- Atlas didn’t turn his head, watched Cal from the side, eyes slanted, alternating between the point Jasper had just disappeared from, to Cal, to Jasper’s vacant seat. Calixtus spoke too soon, before Atlas had fully processed the new scenario, moved the pieces around, constructed a new plan. Silly to think that Cal would wait.

What was being said made sense and he nodded along. Still not looking.

The words had stopped and Atlas looked up into the open air, finally at Calixtus who seemed to be occupied with untangling the knot of his own fingers.

So. Most importantly we have to wait. In the meantime I do have some...some names, it may be possible to surveil... And then he stopped again, his eyes suddenly darting over Atlas’ as if he was looking for something, or through it. The expression was one which could be approximated to fear, Atlas wondered what he had to be afraid of. Shuffling back Atlas drew a knee up to his chest, folding his arms over and in front of it before resting his head atop. The gesture was one he’d used with some of younger cousins, something that made him seem smaller, maybe less threatening, there was also a comfort in it. If you’re amenable.

“I’m familiar with the Enigma code, muggle schooling in the summer...and your point is well received and valid. If frustrating.” He paused to inch one of the sheets back out, traced some of the scrawls across them with his pointer finger. “I’d say my appearance here is a symbol of my commitment to the process.” It sounded like something you said to a therapist, his nose wriggled up at it. “You were saying, before you got” Paused to find the words. “Distracted. These name you mentioned.” Atlas had lingering hope that he didn’t look as uncomfortable and nervous as he felt, as he was sure his voice betrayed. “They would have been your accomplices in the group? How exactly would you suggest surveillance be conducted? The two of use aren’t enigmas to them, we’d be killed on sight. Or worse.”

“And.” An apology chocked in his throat and instead he let his head fall back against the chair Jasper had been occupying. Breathed, and shook his head. “So ideas?”

[Calixtus Ferox]

"Well." Cal had sunk backwards in his chair, sticking and unsticking the pads of his fingers from each other. It was so uncomfortable to be in a room with Atlas, let alone to look at him or share ideas. There was something of the hostile in sharing ideas, something that implied clash or combustion. He pressed his fingers together more tightly to dispel the tension, which didn't work, and moved on.

"I can give you the coordinates at which to place some tracking spells. I know it's hit-or-miss with things like that, but I've worked out a few permutations that might help. Of course it would be easier in physical proximity but you're right, it's not safe." He said 'you're right' very precisely, aware that he was trying to placate Atlas. Aware also that because it was Atlas the gesture was meaningless.

He crossed one leg over the other in the way Jasper did. His trousers were unrumpled. He swiped at them as if to straighten them, unaware of any practical effect the gesture might really have, then stopped.

"I trust you're familiar with the Laplace randomiser, it's what I would recommend in this case." A carryover from, of all things, agricultural magic in the late eighteenth century. But then that did mean no one thought of using it for surveillance. "Unless you have a better suggestion."

[Atlas Caedmon]

Cal was avoiding eye contact, even in a generalized sense. His eyes would float from the top of Atlas head to the bottom of his chin, but never lingered. Atlas had never placed much stock in eye contact anyway. Too many ways someone could lie even when they were looking at you, and from the time he was a child he’d found the action of being looked at and looking back as obtrusive. Offensive even, social nicety or not. What did people really think they were going to see? Apparently Cal thought he might see something and it was that possibility that kept his eyes on a never ending course around Atlas’ vicinity. His eyes were a startlingly pale blue, almost like the milky eyes of someone blind, Cal’s problem seemed to be that he saw too much.

There was probably some deeper irony, or at least poetics to be found in that thought but Atlas wasn’t left with much time to dwell. I can give you the coordinates at which to place some tracking spells. The methodology was a bit haphazard, cobbled together. Like placing plastic wind up teeth in random rooms hoping to have them snap shut on one particular person. Cal had to have realized that and indeed it appeared he had as he pressed onward. Atlas noted the way his voice sounded when he said the words ‘you’re right’ as if they were a gift, or more accurately an offering. He felt his brows dipping downward. Too much time spent around Jasper maybe, the man loved to be told he was right, it had an effect similar to the one the words ‘good job’ had on children or attention seeking dogs. Atlas for his part had never had much reason to be pleased with being told he was right because it was in no way a rare occurrence.

It looked as if Cal was making attempts to mold himself into the furniture, he seemed repulsed. Not that Atlas could blame him, he itched at his right arm uncomfortably, the skin there neither looked nor felt as it should, and likely never would again. It didn’t usually itch this way though. Stress most likely, anxiety.

I trust you're familiar with the Laplace randomizer, it's what I would recommend in this case. Unless you have a better suggestion.

“Umm…” His mind had called up the Laplace randomizer and several goats doing ballet, it took a moment to file those back into place. Another moment to make the connection between what they were planning and a modified version of the aforementioned spell set. “I” He held out the sound for a second looking at the mantel piece over Cal’s head. “Hadn’t ever actually considered that, but it’s not a terrible idea actually.” Muscles in his back were starting to lock up. “Would you mind if I moved to a chair?” Cal look surprised by the request. Unfurling himself Atlas took the few paces needed to get to the chair Jasper had occupied not too long ago, disdainfully he nudged the ashtray his friend had been using further away. “If we’re using Laplace are we planning to use randomized objects? Or would the trace be better served by being placed within specific objects. I don’t mean to sound racist but the tall Irish one smelled a bit like moonshine. So arranging spells on certain brands of say whiskey might be a good idea.”

“If you had DNA samples anywhere we might be able to use them to activate the trace when the sample comes into contact with the originator. I have some of the veela’s claws…I’ve been trying to work out some sort of protective use for them but nothing concrete. I could spare some for the cause.” The cause and the idea that the phrase seemed to embody caused Atlas to pause, suddenly worrisome. Not wanting to appear as if he was fidgeting Atlas simply shifted his weight to a more comfortable position. “Why did you turn yourself in, I mean rather, why are you doing this? My understanding is that terrorism is one of those lifetime careers.” Some of it would have been in the court transcripts, the ones Jasper thought he had hid so discreetly in his desk. While Atlas knew about them he hadn’t read them, doubted that he’d ever want to. It hadn’t mattered, but now, with the stakes decidedly higher he needed to know. “I don’t often work with people, I just want to have an understanding before I continue.”

[Calixtus Ferox]

"Not randomized objects." Cal scraped his knuckles across his chin, impatient and a little irritated. Irritated at his irritation. He didn't want to quarrel with Atlas. "Coordinates. If we lay the tracking spells along coordinates we can circumvent object-specific blocks, you see, so--" He sketched the elegant twirl of an antiderivative in the air and waved it away, which reminded him in his lizard-brain of smoking and he fumbled in his jacket pocket and came up with a packet of doxy cigarettes.

Which was strange, because Jasper had prepared this suit. The gesture twanged something sour inside of him, and he lit up to chase the taste away. Never mind, never mind played underneath the moving pictures of mathematics unspooling in his head.

Atlas continued, apparently able to brush off the slight or whatever it had been. To DNA samples.

"Too dangerous to obtain, I think. As... yes. I mean." That wasn't what Atlas had really wanted to ask. Cal sucked in smoke while Atlas shifted topics and shifted weight. He settled in his chair, askew, like a bag of old laundry. Mysterious, musty, full of things you'd rather not tip out. Atlas.

“Why did you turn yourself in, I mean rather, why are you doing this? My understanding is that terrorism is one of those lifetime careers.”

Cal tensed. Atlas had on his typically bland face, his eyes steady but somehow unfocused. Somehow dedicated to complete unawareness of the effect of his words. This wanton placidity and obliviousness piqued Cal. It piqued him even more because he knew he was prone to that state himself, that pale smooth-faced unconsciousness, as purposefully unthinking and internally teeming as yeast-ridden dough.

“I don’t often work with people, I just want to have an understanding before I continue.”

Cal sucked so hard on his cigarette he felt the heat of the tip scorch his lips. Then he plucked it out and, after searching helplessly for an ashtray, wet two fingers, snuffed it, and blinked at Atlas while holding the stubby black butt between two fingers. It was still warm, with spots of hot. "No," he said. Coldly. "I am not still working for Shallah. I told you before. I had a crisis of conscience. Or do you not understand that. Would you prefer interrogation? --Sorry. I understand your suspicion. If you are a qualified Legilimens I don't mind but please be f-cking straight with me. I should also prefer if this time you went a more direct route in your interrogation than last time. Thank you."

The remains of the cigarette were gray dust on his palm and the arm of the chair.

[Atlas Caedmon]

The skill that allowed a person to say just what was needed to be said to another was never one Atlas had excelled at. It was often the case that he passed insult or offense off to another person without having meant to. As a child he’d been alternatively confused and frustrated by his inability to learn better strategies. Eventually he had discontinued research into that area in place of others but at times like this, watching Cal bristle at the edges like a halloween cat, he considered taking it up again. The tip of the cigarette jumped as lips tensed, the bare red light illuminating Cal’s face from below like some kind of bland satan.

If Cal’s hope had been to frighten the effect was soon ruined as the fire curled down the blunt, reaching soft lips and cause Cal to break posture to pluck it from his lips. He might have recovered if he hadn’t begun to turn to and fro, searching for a place to dispose of the object. It was always that strange duality with him. No. Any comedy placed into the air by the previous flopping antics was discharged by the word which had ice the steel of complete conviction behind it.

I am not still working for Shallah. I told you before. I had a crisis of conscience. Or do you not understand that. Would you prefer interrogation? Cal hadn’t moved but the words pushed at Atlas as solid as any body. He hadn’t forgotten that explanation, or any of the conversation in that dingy muggle bar, he just hadn’t known what was truth and what might have been some attempt to placate Jasper, or Cal himself. Cal said sorry in the same way that bullies apologized to those they’d attacked. The words he choose were carefully selected for maximum effect, playing out like a summary of their entire relationship to one another.

I should also prefer if this time you went a more direct route in your interrogation then last time. Thank you. As if what he said had been nothing, just words with no memories behind them.

This wouldn’t work, couldn’t work, and Jasper had left, tired of his job as a negotiator. Atlas wasn’t sure he was even capable of it at this point. His fingers twitched for where he knew his wand was. He remembered the deeply wrong feeling of the mute girl as she had rifled through his mind looking for what she wanted. She’d left things in a terrible state and it had taken hours with Bailey carefully picking through and re shelving things before Atlas had begun to feel as if his mind might be his own again.

“Calixtus,” The name sounded overly formal but there was no other he felt he had the right to use. “I didn’t mean to imply that I...” He stopped because he he had been told to be straight, he had to try. “I believe you, did believe you. I am indescribably sorry for what I did to you.” He fought for eye contact and searched for a way to make Cal not construed the words to be pity. “I’ve wanted to apologize since it happened. I am sorry, for the ribs and the crucio and the investigation, and your wrist.” He had no idea how to navigate Cal’s anger, if cataloguing was better than generalizing, or if the opposite was true. In the end he had gone with what was more difficult and uncomfortable for him, wondering if seeing it in his face and hearing it in his voice would sooth Cal’s simmering hair trigger anger. “And your throat, and anything else I did to you.”

“I investigated without first making any attempts to understand. I apologize for my single mindedness as well.”

[Calixtus Ferox]

Atlas crumbled like deflating dough. Cal rubbed his fingers together; ash got into the grooves of his skin and stung acridly.

"Spare me," he said, with disgust, a carryover from weeks spent talking to Shallah or in the mindset to talk to Shallah. She left him with the stringiest spare sinew-snare aggression. He could encircle anything irrational with it and squeeze. The only note this sort of tensed string played was animal anger. All else had dried out.

"Spare me," he said, "your desperate, insincere apologies. You're right to doubt me. Approach it rationally. What sort of testimony do you require? You apologize for leaping to a conclusion and following through haphazardly. Never mind the incidental pain; you are making the same mistake now. Tell me what proof of my intention you require and I'll give it to you. I am sorry I deceived you before, of course." The of course ruined it. Cal cleared his throat and realized one finger rested on his lip. He had the desire to suck away the grit on it, but didn't.

[Atlas Caedmon]

Spare me. The words were spat like a curse while Cal continued to expand in his seat. In spite of himself Atlas felt his heart rate increase, could better hear the blood pumping in his ears. Fear was a horrible unpredictable emotion, made more so by lack of sleep and habitual pain. Cal frightened him and there was no avenue to send that fear down and nothing he seemed to be able to do in order to calm Cal. He’d recovered remarkably quickly from the dazed, closely catatonic form Atlas had encountered the previous evening. That Cal the one who seemed small, and exhausted and splintered had been far more comforting than this one, who repeated his rejection again as if talking to a slow child, or infirm geriatric.

You’re right to doubt me. Approach it rationally. It was startlingly like being spoken too by his grandfather. Being instructed to remove emotionality from the situation at hand and approach it logically, reasonably. Cal was leaning forward, one hand extended, shoulders hunched, looking every bit the role of the professor. His voice was still tinged with anger but it was methodical and teaching, he was trying to nudge Atlas toward the right answer. Or this could be some sort of trick, a path meant to lead him somewhere he didn’t want or need to go, a distraction. What did Cal want? Atlas wasn’t in the habit of caring about what people wanted. So Cal was right, the events had gotten to personal and now he was having trouble disengaging.

I am sorry I deceived you, of course. Now he could feel the oncoming of a headache, building at the base of his skull. Cal seemed to realize he had fallen somewhat into the hole he’d just warned Atlas of and the action was enough to jar him back to the other Cal, one slightly less intense but no less antagonistic.

“Rationally. Rationally legilimency is the best solution. But people can be coached to alter memories, or spelled, or trained to mislead the caster. Another issue being that I am neither trained, comfortable, nor gentle with the spell. It would hardly do me much good to learn that you were telling the truth and then have you a vegetable and otherwise useless for assistance. And Jasper would kill me. That leaves veritaserum, which you could be allergic to, or could claim and allergy to. It also tends to reveal truths that are too pure or abstract to be properly dissected for information. That and it’s highly morally questionable. Pensivenes might be a solution, but once again, memory can be tampered with.”

“Would mere trust be too radical an idea for you?” He thought about markers of trust, or signs of Cal’s waning allegiance to the group and called up the dim memory of patrick everand standing over him with a loaded gun. He hadn’t shot though and shouldn’t that be a sign of sincerity...but couldn’t that have just been another way to earn trust...the headache was getting worse. Think, process the information available, chuck out any and all references to gypsy materials. “If you had been working for Shallah, planning to look as if you were repentant for the purpose of being a double agent....” Loading, re analyze. “You wouldn’t have let her attack Jasper the way she did. Not if you were in on it, not if it was part of some long arching premeditated plan.”

“So when you separated from them after SHOP, you did it for good, and every other event was incidental. I should be able to rationally trust in that. If emotion can be at all rational.”

[Calixtus Ferox]

"Oh f-ck you." Cal stood up spasmodically and had retreated behind the safe expanse of the armchair before he quite realized what he'd done. That shamed him when he realized it, but his body tingled with the anticipation of violence and he couldn't help but stay there. His knees brushed the leather of the chair. His thumbs slid over its back. He glared at Atlas through the hair that had fallen over his eyes.

"You only want an excuse to keep mistrusting me. I wouldn't lie about an aversion to Veritaserum, which the Ministry administered to me anyway. I invite you to read the trial transcripts, if that's what you want. Or I'll take a blood oath to tell you the truth within a limited period of time. I refuse to jump through your unsteady hoops, Caedmon, and emotion should have nothing to do with it."

He stopped and found his teeth wouldn't. They kept gnawing at the inside of his lip. He shifted forward, and then back, a lever balanced on the leather chair.

"Make up your mind. There are others I could go to for help. This collaboration is for your benefit too." You smug idiot. Whom could he approach, though? His family? Jasper? Cal shunted this worry aside.

[Atlas Caedmon]

Oh, f--k you. Cal was up and moving fast, his feet were arranged strangely underneath his legs. From the turned in angles Atlas had no way of telling where Cal was going to go once he was up. The fingers of his right hand twitched in the direction of his wand, working into the pocket of his jacket and finding it was the wrong pocket. Which, as it turned out was just as well because Cal wasn’t moving toward him rather he as edging behind the high back of Jasper’s chair. The back came midway to his chest and dwarfed him, the effect was even more striking when Cal’s long boned fingers crept along the back of the leather, digging in as if he thought Atlas would try to move him.

He didn’t need to worry, Atlas didn’t want to go near him. With his hair hanging over his eyes and hands dug into the chair it was hard to concentrate on Cal as a human being and not some feral animal clawing its way up the back of the chair. He couldn’t see Cal’s legs, or waist and for a moment he imagined that maybe they weren’t there anymore. Possibly replaced with something reptilian or avarian, he had to blink to make the xray image go away. Concentrated instead of which thing he’d said might have set Cal off.

You only want an excuse to keep mistrusting me. It sounded like a hiss, another blink back to reality. Was that true? Atlas didn’t think so, he’d spent months exhausting every possible excuse to continuously mistrust Cal, at this point he’d be getting into the truly abstract ones. Reasoning like: ‘In my panic he somewhat resembles a Naga’, ‘he doesn’t want me to trust him therefore i should’. That logic would take him round and round, distract him, which wasn’t good, he needed to watch Cal, make sure he wasn’t making an untoward moves. I wouldn't lie about an aversion to Veritaserum, which the Ministry administered to me anyway. I invite you to read the trial transcripts, if that's what you want. Or I'll take a blood oath to tell you the truth within a limited period of time. I refuse to jump through your unsteady hoops, Caedmon, and emotion should have nothing to do with it.

They were in agreement then, it shouldn’t but it always did. Unless there was some sort of defect within the brain that caused one to completely discount them. The way Cal spat his last name at him was sort of comforting, familiar.

Make up your mind. As if to stress his point Cal wobbled, a crazed metronome oscillating between two choices. There are others I could go to for help. This collaboration is for your benefit too.

Atlas laughed, a bit breathlessly, leaning on elbow on the arm of the chair and drumming out a simple rhythm. “For my benefit? How do you figure? I’ll admit putting a stop to this would be beneficial, but no more than it would be for any other witch or wizard in London. Maybe Level 9 could help you, if there are any of them who don’t share Shallah’s views left, or any who aren’t afraid to end up like Logan Fletcher, do you know what happened to him?”

The man had disappeared and though Atlas had noted it and theorized what might have become of him, he’d been too caught up in his own research to delve into it too deeply. As he’d told Jasper, there was little Atlas could do for the dead. He shook his head, waving his hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter I guess. I don’t.” Swallowed around a lump. “I have no interest in reading the court transcripts, Jasper gave me some of the details, so did Minister Channing when I met with him to formally refuse to proved testimony.” He sighed, rubbing at one eye. “It doesn’t matter, if the Minister trusted you enough to place you in protection instead of Azkaban, and you were under veriteserum when you made the confession....Unless you’re some sort of masochist I don’t know what you’d insist I take an measures to repeat a process already done and documented by several employees of law enforcement and at least one man I trust. I don’t want a blood oath, I don’t want you beholden to me in anyway....this has to approached with us as equals.” He held up both hands at level to demonstrate.

“I am trying to level the field here. So if what it takes for you to believe that I believe you when you say I can trust you is me rifling through your head for information I’m already assured of I suppose I’m alright with it...but I rather think we’ve both visited enough harm on one another.”