Alejandro's Bistro. I will be sending you the coordinates. Some time in the afternoon tomorrow. You will pick the time, as I have a clear schedule tomorrow. [ This was so important he rescheduled things. Or, well. He would once tomorrow was confirmed. ]
[that's all he says, cutting the connection and assuming archer will be there. i mean... why not? archie arrives well in advance beforehand-- for no real reason other than he doesn't really want archer to see some of the difficulties moving around he still has after being shot. he'd rather seem completely healed, rather than the... less than halfway there he is in reality.]
[ Archer shows up about fifteen minutes early. For once he looks tired, like a man who has genuinely had a difficult time with sleep, though it doesn't show beneath his eyes due to the makeup he uses to hide it. He doesn't seem terribly surprised to see Archie there ahead of him. He merely calls a waitress to bring him a coffee, points out the table, and takes a seat.
As he sits he takes out his phone and places it on the table between them, clearly recording.]
Good morning, Archie. I hope you don't mind that I am making sure there is record of our discussion, what with our last meeting.
[ There is a long sigh and Archer rests his chin on one of his hands. ] I believe that we would be best capable of serving Nikolai's needs if we were to work together on certain matters. Perhaps if we had been capable of collaboration, the recent events could have been avoided.
Perhaps, if we were to work together and both attempt to impress some of the same ideas upon him we could avoid future recklessness, at least so far as to keep him alive. There is reason to believe that he is acting in such ways, in part, both to impress you and to alarm me, after all.
[ He is mostly unaware that he's also doing some of these things to impress a girl and to get fame and glory, but also he has never once in his life felt the desire to impress a girl or society for anything other than long-term gain.
He has, however, gone to great lengths to gain praise from Giovanni. Not that he'd ever think Nikolai could mistake the praise of The People as some form of replacement for praise from his father. Why, that would just be foolish. ]
[it's very tempting to throw his hospital visit back in archer's face, even though archie knows it was fully his own fault. it takes some willpower to keep himself quiet.]
I wouldn't assume those were the reasons without speaking to him about it. I'd rather not assume at all, while he's not present.
I would prefer to speak with him and confirm his reasons, but he understandably does not yet trust me enough to do so. I believe that based on what I know of him, and I want you to recall that I aided in raising him, that this is no small part of his motivation.
The ideas I want him to internalise are ideas that prioritise his safety. While I am not completely at ease with the idea of him taking on heroics that put him in the way of bodily harm, I understand the drive to do something which you feel matters and I will not suggest we both tell him to stop. [ That would just get the boy to do it even more, and Archer would lose the ability to use Archie to get certain ideas through to his charge. ] I would like for us to both encourage him to get training from someone who will teach him to keep his distance in a battle and to pay attention to the details, someone we can both agree on, as I think he would simply baulk at me teaching him all of this again.
[archie leans his elbows on the table, resting his chin on top of his bridged fingers as he listens to the entire spiel.]
I can get him training in Aegis, without him needing to subscribe to anything to do with the team itself. If you want, you can pick who does it so you can't cry about any bias in the lessons he receives.
This is more than acceptable. I will need to look into the potential trainers, but this would be for the best. People with field experience are ore likely to know how to handle his recklessness than a party neither of us has any proper contact with.
Let me know when you've decided on one. There might be some bias within the team for what happened, but I can't imagine any of them would deny a request to help Niko. If it does prove to be too severe, then we can look at outside options.
[as much as he hates the idea of that, though archie doubts it'll come to it. besides, there's plenty of other imports he trusts with it.]
Are you going to tell me what happened? I haven't pressed Niko beyond anything he wanted to tell me without prompting, for obvious reasons.
[ Archer paused, and then a break in his calm facade was seen. He crossed his hands in front of himself and took a deep breath, placing his head down on them. ]
The creature froze him in his tracks after he had gotten too close to it. Bodhi and I attempted to intervene, but the creature caused me to freeze as well. It advanced before I could recover from the auditory attack, and it engulfed Nikolai. [ He shook his head. ] I have no doubts that his fans [ he said the word like it were a curse. ] have all of the footage available on the internet.
Once the creature was killed, Bodhi and I confirmed Nikolai's death. [ His master's legacy, dead in his arms. ] As he and another man took Nikolai, kept the onlookers from taking too much footage of his body. From there on you would know more than I.
[ He sat up straight once more and pulled an envelope from the inside of his jacket. He slides it across to Archie. ] You are of course free to have another lawyer look it over, but if you sign these papers you will make it easier for me to make claims against the videos and to work with the various streaming sites to automatically delete the footage should someone upload it. I have made it so that it is specific to just the footage of this event, and nothing else.
I can do it without your help, but it will take far, far longer, as without the aid of Nikolai's legal guardian I will have to specify my tactics to each site it is on.
[ There was silence for a moment, and then a sigh. ]
As for how he got too close, he got cocky. He apparently did not do any research on the creature and had gotten lucky enough in the last fight to avoid any serious harm. I had falsely assumed that he knew what he was doing and did not realise just how much danger he was in until it was too late to inform him otherwise. [ There is, oddly enough, some shame in his voice. ]
Let us pray that between the two of us we can keep a teenage boy alive.
[ He then shook his head. ]
Nothing else. I will start to fill out the appropriate forms for removal of the videos. Should you get back to me within a day's time I will be able to have the videos down by the end of the week.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: Voice
>action
[that's all he says, cutting the connection and assuming archer will be there. i mean... why not? archie arrives well in advance beforehand-- for no real reason other than he doesn't really want archer to see some of the difficulties moving around he still has after being shot. he'd rather seem completely healed, rather than the... less than halfway there he is in reality.]
Re: >action
As he sits he takes out his phone and places it on the table between them, clearly recording.]
Good morning, Archie. I hope you don't mind that I am making sure there is record of our discussion, what with our last meeting.
Re: >action
Afternoon, [he says, curtly.] go ahead. I have nothing to say I wouldn't want repeating in front of anyone.
[leaning back in the chair, archie raises his eyebrows.]
I'll let you start.
Re: >action
Perhaps, if we were to work together and both attempt to impress some of the same ideas upon him we could avoid future recklessness, at least so far as to keep him alive. There is reason to believe that he is acting in such ways, in part, both to impress you and to alarm me, after all.
[ He is mostly unaware that he's also doing some of these things to impress a girl and to get fame and glory, but also he has never once in his life felt the desire to impress a girl or society for anything other than long-term gain.
He has, however, gone to great lengths to gain praise from Giovanni. Not that he'd ever think Nikolai could mistake the praise of The People as some form of replacement for praise from his father. Why, that would just be foolish. ]
Re: >action
I wouldn't assume those were the reasons without speaking to him about it. I'd rather not assume at all, while he's not present.
[he shrugs.] What kind of ideas?
Re: >action
The ideas I want him to internalise are ideas that prioritise his safety. While I am not completely at ease with the idea of him taking on heroics that put him in the way of bodily harm, I understand the drive to do something which you feel matters and I will not suggest we both tell him to stop. [ That would just get the boy to do it even more, and Archer would lose the ability to use Archie to get certain ideas through to his charge. ] I would like for us to both encourage him to get training from someone who will teach him to keep his distance in a battle and to pay attention to the details, someone we can both agree on, as I think he would simply baulk at me teaching him all of this again.
Re: >action
I can get him training in Aegis, without him needing to subscribe to anything to do with the team itself. If you want, you can pick who does it so you can't cry about any bias in the lessons he receives.
Re: >action
This is more than acceptable. I will need to look into the potential trainers, but this would be for the best. People with field experience are ore likely to know how to handle his recklessness than a party neither of us has any proper contact with.
Re: >action
[as much as he hates the idea of that, though archie doubts it'll come to it. besides, there's plenty of other imports he trusts with it.]
Are you going to tell me what happened? I haven't pressed Niko beyond anything he wanted to tell me without prompting, for obvious reasons.
Re: >action
The creature froze him in his tracks after he had gotten too close to it. Bodhi and I attempted to intervene, but the creature caused me to freeze as well. It advanced before I could recover from the auditory attack, and it engulfed Nikolai. [ He shook his head. ] I have no doubts that his fans [ he said the word like it were a curse. ] have all of the footage available on the internet.
Once the creature was killed, Bodhi and I confirmed Nikolai's death. [ His master's legacy, dead in his arms. ] As he and another man took Nikolai, kept the onlookers from taking too much footage of his body. From there on you would know more than I.
Re: >action
[he does know what happened after that and SUPER DOESN'T WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT. archie leans back, crossing his arms.]
You gonna tell me how he got too close in the first place?
Re: >action
I can do it without your help, but it will take far, far longer, as without the aid of Nikolai's legal guardian I will have to specify my tactics to each site it is on.
[ There was silence for a moment, and then a sigh. ]
As for how he got too close, he got cocky. He apparently did not do any research on the creature and had gotten lucky enough in the last fight to avoid any serious harm. I had falsely assumed that he knew what he was doing and did not realise just how much danger he was in until it was too late to inform him otherwise. [ There is, oddly enough, some shame in his voice. ]
Re: >action
[because he absolutely is going to do that.]
Seems you don't know him as well as you think you do, then.
Re: >action
Since he left to go on his journey he has changed a great deal. I had underestimated the level of recklessness. It is not an error I will make again.
Re: >action
[leaning back, he crosses his arms.]
Anythin' else?
Re: >action
[ He then shook his head. ]
Nothing else. I will start to fill out the appropriate forms for removal of the videos. Should you get back to me within a day's time I will be able to have the videos down by the end of the week.