eschatological | [psl] post-mortem; closed to @destinymaker

All at once, of course. I was outnumbered.

[ No, he's just a really sore loser. And you can't be outnumbered at chess. ]

Maybe we'll need a new game to pass the time in our eternity.

[ Can one get bored in the afterlife? Is their sense of time going to disappear as soon as they let go of it? Questions, questions. Gil doesn't truly want them answered just yet. ]

[ There's definitely a level of inverted je pense, donc je suis to existence after death, that if the dialectic ceases then the self might as well. But also shooting the shit about people is just funsies. ]

Again, that requires an objective. Perhaps rules, perhaps an opponent.

[ In any case, Rau isn't objecting, or even redirecting by teasing about the idea of three-on-one chess. ]

Well, the latter is clear enough. There'd be precious little challenge if we were playing on the same side.

[ Though what a thought that is - the two of them actually united in something, rather than pushing and pulling at each other. Sitting with their hands linked almost makes it easy to imagine. ]

We might just need to narrow our playing field, unless we want to be relegated to merely placing bets as we watch the gears of history keep turning.

You are making assumptions already – that there are objectives of significance for which we would be on the “same side.”

[ Rau lifts their hands, then finally pulls his own away very deliberately. Just an inch, well within reach. He even holds his palm up, the hand outstretched. ]

If you would like a well-bounded challenge, [ he smiles slightly to emphasize the word, ] you might as well begin by thinking of ways we have not worked at cross-purposes.

[ The obvious answer is not a trap, it is a jumping-off point. ]

[ Though Rau broke their peaceful little handhold, Gil seems pleased enough with this turn of conversation ]

Rey. However we influenced him in differing directions, it's a fact that we brought him up with as much care as the two of us can give.

[ That's the easy one, the obvious one. So simple, it may as well be cheating. Acknowledging that, Gil only brings one of his fingertips down to rest on Rau's gloved counterpart. It feels cheeky and needlessly coy, and it amuses him greatly.]

Then... well, all the hours we put into adjusting your medication to your exact needs were not for nothing, hm?

[ Though this also feels like an easy one, he doesn't connect a second finger just yet - he's waiting for approval.

Out of all the keepsakes Gil could have hung onto, Rau's medication had been the most sentimental by far. The physical proof that Rau wanted to keep going as far as he could push his body and the world... nothing else could have inspired Gil as much as that. ]

[ Rau would raise an eyebrow at Rey's name if he wasn't wearing a mask; because the mask cuts judgmental facial expressions in half, that obvious answer just gets a momentary thinning of the lips -- an amused but slightly reproachful really now. But he doesn't draw away and, however obvious the first answer may be, both answers are excellent starting points. After a moment Rau decides to pursue the latter. His voice is back to being conversational, amiably accepting the capture of a pawn. ]

We did share a mutual interest in my staying alive and functional, for a time. But ultimately, I wanted to stay alive long enough to see humanity destroy itself, while you preferred to avoid Muruta Azrael's nuclear tantrums.

[ Of course, it's easy to be amiable when, to his mind, he's lost the pawn to take a knight. ]

[ Gil exhales, amused. It's a denial that he had to expect. They've known each other too long to not be aware of Rau's go-to reason for being alive - or maybe it should be called an excuse? Gil still believes that there is something even more raw to find below it. ]

Yet our disdain for their pitiful small-minded depravity is one and the same.

[ He taps their middle fingers together but does not leave them connected. ]

You would give him and the likes of him the weapons to annihilate themselves completely, while I would much prefer to destroy with more precision, yes. But both of us wish to see them rotting in the rubble of their war-mongering.

Edited 2023-10-26 23:49 (UTC)

"Precision."

[ Rau is visibly holding himself back from laughing, and he lifts his hand to rap Gil lightly on the knuckles. ]

You died in the process of firing a rather large laser.

[ For once, he's not trying to make a cutting point, he just finds it genuinely funny to hear Neo-Genesis described as "precise." And Rau feels entitled to make jokes about big laser death after dying pinned to the first Genesis. ]

[ .... he'd be delighted by Rau's amusement if it wasn't so clearly at his expense. It actually gets him to make a sour face for a second. ]

It's a lot more controlled than the destruction you were aiming for and you know it.

[ It's too soon to make fun of his giant laser base :( ]

You were going to fire at one country and I was waiting for the entire world to go up in flames, yes.

[ He's still openly amused by ZAFT's propensity for superlasers, and even a touch self-satisfied about pivoting back to the divergence in their ultimate goals. But the self-satisfaction comes from making an argumentative pivot cleanly, not about giant-laser-related-death. He unfolds his hand again, placing it palm up once more. ]

Will you still insist that we were not working at cross-purposes, in keeping me alive?

[ The smile returns to Gil's face as if it had never left. Rau can rile him up for small diversions (and truly, what's one small superlaser, it's fine), but he's determined to not lose the plot here. ]

Of course.

[ He's always good at sounding like he means what he says, but this one's genuine. ]

I knew you then as I know you now. I made the decision to help you, understanding full well what you would use your health for.

[ Maybe in the beginning, he hadn't understood just yet. Back in the very early days, when Rau had been an intriguing scientific oddity instead of an indispensable friend. But Gil likes to think that he soon understood the depth of Rau's abyss, and that he hadn't shied away from it. ]

I kept you alive because I truly desired it. There is nothing contrary about that.

[ And that's two fingers running gently across Rau's palm before resting on his fingertips. ]

[ Rau doesn't reject the gesture, but he tilts his head and considers it a moment before speaking. ]

Why?

[ The word is incongruously simple and insubstantial relative to its potential scope, and Rau is as curious about how delicately (precisely, even) the question will be interpreted as he is about the actual answer.

And the potential answers are a minefield that could wipe out either or both of them, although Rau considers himself better situated to take a hit and, in any case, thinks the answer will be interesting enough to take the risk. At some level of cloning-induced identity drama, Rau's sense of self is constructed partially as an individual, and partially as an embodiment of mankind's insatiability. He's curious to see whether he can provoke Gil -- as a scientist, as a politician, as a human, not particularly in any order -- to express greater interest in the individual or in the manifestation. ]

[ Gil has been thinking about this for the better part of a decade. The thoughts had only intensified in the last two years. In public: Coworkers in the PLANT administration who remembered Gilbert Durandal's personal friendship with Rau le Creuset and were dying for some more insightful input on Rau's actions during the war. In private: ghosts of little moments in every room they'd ever been in together, and a child with Rau's exact features looking for guidance.

"Why?"

A deceptively simple question. And the simple answer ("I love you. I've loved you for so long.") is not enough, not for either of them.

Gil looks at their connected fingertips as he starts speaking. ]

Because you've intrigued me from the moment I met you. As a scientific achievement, at first. And as a man, very soon after. The reasons for that were quite benign at first. I liked your wit, the way you would challenge me with that condescending glint in your eyes.

Making medicine that suits your unique body was a challenge, but talking to you was always the greater one. It was you who inspired me to look behind the curtain of what was accepted as normal throughout history. You, who hate so much and whose hatred cuts right to the truth at the heart of this world.

I was curious, in truth, to see where you would go. Despite your hatred, despite the constraints of your body, you were living. You were more alive than anybody else. How could I ever take my eyes off you?

[ And with that, he's looking back into the mask's eyes, hoping desperately that Rau is meeting his gaze with the same intensity. He smiles, a little melancholy, and reaches out to brush a strand of Rau's hair out of his face. A hint of a wish to take off the mask, but he won't really commit to that invasion without permission. ]

I'm better for having met you. I would have remained eternally lost, complacent, and uninspired if it hadn't been for you whittling away at all that I've ever believed.

What's between you and me threatens to render me a hypocrite, and still... If my dreams cannot prove to you that someday, somewhere, life can be worth it... then they're meaningless. I chose your life, even at the risk of annihilation, because nothing would have been a greater failure to me than letting you die unfulfilled.

Edited 2023-10-27 20:39 (UTC)

[ the risk I took was calculated but man, am I bad at math.jpg ]

[ That is a lot of words and feelings and it visibly takes time for Rau to think through them. It’s a striking contrast to his usual capacity for a quick, sharp response.

Rau has operated under the conclusion that Gil considered Rau’s tigerish inclinations to annihilate as something to be dulled and filed down and buried. That when Gilbert Durandal dreamed a utopia in which humanity’s desire was tamed by wisdom and power, he dreamed a tamed version of Rau -- Talia’s loyal opposition, if not Rey’s near-unconditional support. (This makes it reflexive to invoke Talia to needle, though it is a disservice to her, alas.) Rau would have scratched and bristled at that impossible dream for as long as death lasted. But.

It is something else entirely to be told that the claws and striving are the draw rather than something to be endured or blunted. It’s rather disarming, actually, particularly when juxtaposed with Rau’s critical view of his own existence. It would be so easy to deal with feeling off-balance by meeting candor with deflection and indifference, but it would also be glaringly, irritatingly cowardly .... and, in any case, acceptance of the tendency toward destructiveness somewhat dulls the inclination to be destructive. ]

Good grief.

[ He folds his open palm around Gil’s hand, accepting what has been offered, even if he is not similarly inclined to lay himself out under glass at the moment. ]

Forget hypocrisy. What is done out of love always occurs beyond good and evil.

[ Gil had been braced for another deflection. He wouldn't have faulted Rau for it either - it's simply how he is, an endless negation, and Gil has still spent most of his adult life thinking about him with endless fondness.

But ah... This is acceptance, isn't it? Rau is allowing his feelings to stand unchallenged. ]

Maybe love is the most destructive desire that way.

[ He returns Rau's hold on his hand firmly and dares to lean in closer, forehead to forehead. Rau should know he's enabling a greedy person, after all. ]

[ Rau tolerates the gesture without responding any further in kind; acceptance and acknowledgement are one thing, reciprocation (the self-capacity for reciprocation, even) is another. If the matter were approached properly, Rau would concede that Gilbert Durandal falls into the miniscule set of people that he enjoys, appreciates, is fond of, can be comparatively unguarded with -- as distinct from the wider world that he found at best challenging, amusing, intriguing, or useful. He likes Gil as well as he likes anything. But Rau is also, by ~~nurture?~~ nature, much freer with negative emotion than positive. As well as anything is sharply circumscribed. ]

For you, certainly.

[ Rau still inclined to think that jealousy, hatred, and envy spur men to activity more generally; he pats Gil's head tolerantly, as though Gil is being a slightly ridiculous child. ]

[ The headpat makes Gil laugh softly. It's so completely incongruous with the sentiments being lavished onto Rau that it's comical, but at the same time it's a gesture of goodwill that needs appreciation. Rau is trying, in his own way, and Gil's dead heart is responding to it with endless fondness. ]

Coming from you, that almost sounds like a compliment.

[ Gil has never wanted to be destructive. As a geneticist he's dedicated his whole life to the act of of preservation, of creation even. First for the PLANTs and then, in his own twisted way and owed again to Rau (who is by all genetic metrics a Natural), for all of mankind.

Even when giving the order to kill, to annihilate fleets and countries, Gil would not like to think of himself as a destroyer. Those actions should have merely paved the way towards a future he'd envisioned to be that much more prosperous.

But if Rau, who speaks of violence with such disdain that it wraps back around to fondness (or is that the other way around?), wants to acknowledge his love as destructive? Then that feels like a stamp of approval to keep loving. Gil thinks it's a more noble kind of destruction than any other, at least. ]

Or I am calling you very foolish. Or both at once.

[ One more headpat, and then Rau draws back slightly and slips his hand under Gil's chin again. (If Gil rests his head against Rau's forehead too long he'll get weird skin dents from the mask geez.) ]

It was self-destructive, if nothing else. Even if your life was more fulfilling, it was also markedly shorter.

[ Gil allows his chin to be held this way, curious more than anything where Rau is going with this if anywhere. It's certainly gentler than just pushing him away, which Rau would have been within his rights to do. Gil knows he's being very clingy today. He died, he deserves the indulgence. Probably. ]

Hm, was it now? I recall someone telling me that a path not taken is a path that simply does not exist. That it was pointless to wonder 'what if I had done this or that instead'.

[ This time it's Gil who is deflecting a little. It's hard to deny that he has imagined it often, that ideal life he could have lived where he met none of the people who would cause him such immense pain. ]

[ Rau shrugs, smiles. Well-played. ]

That drowning in "what-ifs" is a waste of limited time, yes. Though now there is either no time or infinite time.

[ His lips thin thoughtfully as he considers Gil. ]

In any case, it is not a "what if" to consider whether I killed you after all.

[ He's not overly sympathetic or particularly regretful, but also not trying to be cruel or catty. Just curious and thoughtful. ]

[ You did, Gil thinks instantly. Another you.

But he thinks better of saying as much. They've had the genetic determinism debate just a little while ago and it'll do nothing but lead them in circles. And regardless of how much he believes that Rey and Rau are the same in essence... ultimately, they are not interchangeable. The way they view the world is as different as the way Gil feels about each of them. ]

And if you did? If we assume for argument's sake that it was my love for you that drove me to extremes and ended my life... then what?

[ 'For argument's sake' is the operative term here. He doesn't agree with the framing to start with. ]

You would have killed me earlier, if you had it your way.

I would have killed most of mankind, if I'd had my way.

[ There's an oblique correction in that -- "killed me" makes it sound so personal; Gil and Rey were acceptable collateral damage to reach an objective, but not the objectives themselves. (Still showing zero remorse for that attempted omnicide, obvs.) ]

But I did not. And....

[ A small sigh. ]

You realize that it sounds rather tawdry to say that you died for love.

It is. Good thing then that I'm not the one making the claim. You can be quite the romantic. Who knew?

[ Gil grins, looking entirely too self-satisfied. ]

I died because I made a mistake in setting up my board. I died for ideals I believed in, because I made the decision to put everything on the line for my vision.

[ Even if Rey hadn't fired, someone in that room would have put a bullet through his chest. It just happened to be the most favorable option who pulled the trigger. ]

I love you, because I am myself. And I died, because I am myself. That's all there is to it.

[ Romantic, snap, Gil is on a roll. Emotional baiting really has backfired on Rau. Probably should have learned from that time that bullying Kira blew up on him, figuratively and literally. Rau shrugs minutely again, touche. ]

I already told you that you're a terrible influence.

[ Although that was a matter of influencing Rey, not himself.

That's all there is to it. All things are born and all things die, that's all there is to it. Their current situation seems rather outside the axiom, though. How messy. ]

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