Inkling

4.2 Avoidance, Meet Rooftop

8:30 A.M.

"Say what you may about avoiding problems," Max gave his legs a little swing, "but there's nothing that feels quite so satisfying."

Lincoln looked down at the street below, it was dark and wide and shining. All the people milling about, some aimlessly and some with express purpose. Lincoln looked back at Max, his eyes dark and wide and shining. He was so at peace, but also practically buzzing with excitement, all for the simple act of sitting on a roof and dangling his legs. Lincoln pulled his feet back onto the roof wearily, crossing them and resting his elbows on his knees, chin on his hands.

"I am rather fond of actually solving my problems."

"Look at all these people," Max motioned absently at the city before them. "They have things to do, and likely there are many doing them. But look at all those just on this street in front of us. Most of them have no idea what they are doing right now. I know for a fact that Mr. Velasquez should be opening his shop and finishing up his last alterations but he is right there, buying a paper. Avoiding."

"What about all the things they are not doing. What if someone down there is late to work and is not paying attention and gets mowed down by a carriage!" Lincoln raised his eyebrows, as if saying what about that, huh?

"Why that would be a tragedy but you could never discern whether or not that was the cause. There are some things we just don't know."

Lincoln smiled at this, seeming to have remembered something, for when he spoke it was in a formal and slightly sarcastic voice which said: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy."

Max blinked rapidly, an expression of deeply rooted anxiety which Lincoln took for confusion. "Hamlet?" he shook his head sadly. "What a great tragedy." What a tragedy indeed, Max thought dully.

"You've said that before." Was all he said and not at all what he wanted to say.

"Yes, well, I quite like it." Lincoln said defensively.

"It's just that, well, that is the second time you have said that in, oh," Max pulled out his pocket watch, "an hour and a half. I used to know someone who said it all the time." All of this came out very quickly and Max half expected Lincoln to get up and leave despite their precarious situation (the dark magic bit, not the roof bit) but instead he looked at Max softly.

"Oh?" Was all he said. Or rather, asked but it was more of a prompt to share if he pleased and less of a question.

"He taught me magic, this guy." Max started, looking away from Lincoln and down the street. "Ira would do street magic - that's his name, Ira - and I would see him as a kid and I just loved it. I would grab mamá's hand and jump up and down, mira mira - look mom look. Oh I was annoying, but it was the most exciting thing for me."
    Lincoln was smiling, "I knew you were an Ink," Max raised his eyebrows at this but Lincoln pushed on. "Most people born with magic do it on purpose. I ain't seen a Leaf do all that accidental magic you do. It's like you don't even know you're doing it. Right now. Do you see what you're doing right now?"

And he was doing something magical, it seemed, with the air around them. It was warmer and cozier and smelled faintly of lavender.

"Huh." Was all he said, and he didn't say anything else for a little while. "Ira would know what to do right now. He'd have something to say or some solution to fix all this. It'd probably go sideways and we would all end up without eyebrows, but he would know what to do."

"Well, do you know any of the Trees in this town?" Max snorted. "I know, stupid name. It's what some people in London called the old magic people who were naturals and special and had their roots deep in the community - all that shit. Anyway, you know anyone who is old and pretentious and magical?"

"Uh, yeah, and he turned out to be dead and then not dead and then actually really dead and the guy pretending to be him made this whole situation worse so, yeah. Not trying that again."

"Fair point." Lincoln fidgeted for a few minutes before speaking again. "So... where is... Ira... ?"

Max was silent for so long that Lincoln considered tumbling off the rooftop in sheer embarrassment for asking such a moronic question. He was saved from this fate, however, when Max started to speak so fast that, for a moment, he reconsidered the tumbling off the roof idea.

"Ira is dead, but honestly I think he was gone to me long before that - which is an awful thing to say, Dios mio, he gave me a lot and everything - he gave me magic for fuck's sake can you imagine that? no of course you can't you were born with it you don't know what I mean - he saw me, when I was little and had no idea what I was doing - I still have no idea what I'm doing - but he saw what I had inside me and he told me I could be more if I wanted to be and he was nice at first, he really was, he was excited and passionate but he was always distracted, always paranoid about something and he stopped showing up to lessons, stopped talking to me - he got mean and I was so little, I didn't know what to do I just think that -"

"Maxwell." It was the first time, in their admittedly brief acquaintanceship, that Lincoln had called Max by his first name.

Max blinked.

"How did he die?"

Max opened and closed his mouth several times. "He disappeared in December in..." Max blinked, counting, "1880. They found him floating in a harbor in February." Max barked a laughed that sounded more like crying. "I don't know how he died. No one would tell me, or maybe they never knew."

"I'm sorry." Lincoln looked back toward the Dragon, where his mother lay in a wooden box. "It's awful to lose someone."

"In this life, people don't stick around. Most people just focus on themselves and that is fine but I care too much for people like that to care so little." Max brought his hand up over his heart, like he was trying to push it back into his ribcage.

"What about Ira?" Lincoln regretted asking the moment the words left his mouth because Max turned to him sharply, his hand falling to his side.

"Ira never gave a damn about me."