Joseph does not understand the mindset of someone who cuts themself. It is not that he doesn't get the need to feel something -- rather, he assumes, like a more dramatic version of picking at that scab on your elbow. It's an interesting sensation and one Cecily might have rebuked him for exploring at some point in the past.

The marks they make rip and seep and scar; they're ugly and jagged and have no pattern. And that is something Joseph just doesn't hold with. Why go through all that pain just to leave your body a mess of ugly marks? Why not, he muses, get a tattoo or a brand? Layer yourself with swirls of colors and pictures and meanings; tell your story through your limbs. Hold up an arm still throbbing and red and fresh and say 'I am hurting myself. This is for you to see but for me to feel.'

Maybe it's because everything Joseph does is about the colors and meanings. Maybe he hates their ugly scars because they break apart his story. Scars are a sure-fire way to interrupt Joseph's magic and send it scuttling back through the conduit it came from. But that's such a personal reason that he dismisses it entirely and ignores the niggling whisper of truth. No, surely he looks down on them for their unsubtle ways of screaming 'I'm in pain, I do this thing to myself' with their bodies while their mouths press tight and lie and push you away. An attention getter that is just as ugly and pointless as their methods. Maybe that's what he doesn't understand.

It isn't all about beauty, for Joseph. He mouths that to himself in a mirror as he passes, watches his lips move, sees the words literally fall from his lips. Some fade away because there is no real magic in his spoken word and he's really the only one who sees them as he does anyway.

They distract him from his thoughts on cutters however, easily turning his attention to their much less confusing ways. Beauty, in particular, had wriggled in the air like an eager puppy; changing shape and meaning with each slowly fading pulse. He's quick to sketch them down.

A weaving line leads him to the abstract idea of stitches which, he delights in an absent sort of way, is an irony of sorts. A sigil of stitches that is about beauty. To the left of his work he jots a quick note to himself to share this thought about stitching together prettier plastic parts and this particular symbol with Quinten who will at least be amused with the idea that anyone would think to think about it.

He's not sure that last thought made much sense; he'll run it by Cecily just in case. Another note is placed under the first to that effect -- the 'y' in Cecily careens into a slash of unattractive sharpness, veering off the page as Hanserfold, the boiler room ghost, chooses just that moment to bang and moan unattractively next door.

The word 'bitch' apparently has only one form when said in that tone. Who knew?

It's two in the morning. If Joseph were at all the superstitious type (and isn't it odd that he isn't) he might be scared witless by the knocking coming from the boiler room just on the other side of his bedroom wall.

As he is not all that happens is that Joseph bangs back pointedly, rolls over and once again returns to sleep.

The knocking that starts up five minutes later had a very nonplussed quality to it. This went on for more then an hour with Joseph knocking back in varying degrees of annoyance until finally at three thirty four he decided to address the situation once and for all.


At three thirty nine Joseph was back in bed, bright orange earplugs firmly in place.

Dear Quinten,

I feel queer (and by queer, for those of you postal workers reading through my private correspondence, I do not mean slang for 'gay' although that is an applicable enough title for myself) address these letters 'dear Quinten'. It's not that I don't hold you in some affection, it is that I would never address anyone as 'dear'. However I find 'greetings' makes me sound more a social outcast then even I might stand to consider and 'salutations' is a bit formal for our friendly conversation, business related though some of them may be.

When next we meet, perhaps we can sort out some sort of proper address for each other that doesn't make me sound like more of a twat then I most likely already do.

At any rate, I have a question about the moral implication of using something much more permanent then ink and parchment for my symbols. tattoos, while certainly an interesting idea, leads to ....certain problems. Any injury across the area in question that changed the design (even a scratch be enough to slice through one line) could drastically change the spell and outcome.

Any thoughts?

Yours (though only in the most meta-- oh who am I kidding?)

Sincerely,

Joseph

It's an older style basement apartment, wallpaper stained from age and peeling, lighting flickering and dull everywhere but the kitchen and around an old desk. The carpets have obviously been pulled up for in the corners you can make out bits of glue and some fibers. In place of it there are symbols painted the entire length, swirling around each other and connecting before veering off into another all together.

It took Joseph two months of painting to get it right. Another month of sleep to make up for the loss of power but it was worth it. He can touch any part of his apartment and the symbols will go to work, flashing up to protect him or destroy something else. Demons have no right of passage and Angels have none either.

There's a chair on the other side of the door to his apartment. It's old but sturdy and if you wish an appointment you'd better like it because that's where you'll be sitting.

"I don't see why I can't come in. What if someone hears?"

Joseph doesn't bother to look up from his desk, just moves a bottle of yellow ink to the floor in order to spread his papers wider. His voice is only slightly raspy from disuse (since he's acquired actual costumers he's been expected to talk more). "No one will hear down here, sir. One of the perks to a home next to the boiler room. You said you wanted this in blue -- any reason why?"

The man shifts, sweaty palms leaving marks behind on the knees of his tweed trousers. "It needs to match her dress. And ...and she loves the color."

A hmm and then silence but for the scratching of quill against old parchment. Finally Joseph pushes his chair back, leaning over to breath cool air across the ink, drying it. "Well, I hope you bury her in it then, it's the least you could do."

"I... I... that isn't what this is about!"

"No?" Joseph's expression remains blank as he carefully rolls the paper up, sealing the edges with a bit of colorless wax.

"N-no!" The sweat stain has spread upward across the man's thighs, sticking to his legs as he stands. "No, no, it's not murder! She's sick it's for the best."

Joseph holds the roll out past the doorway, in easy reach. "I see. Well then. The rest of the money, sir."

Papers are exchanged, deeds are done and Joseph turns back to his desk, clearing up inks and bottles, sweeping stray bits of parchment into drawers. There are doctors, he doesn't say to absent man. There are magics that heal or doctors.

But alas, no one answers him. There's no one in his head but himself, after all.

Every line is a new sweep of life, a breath of spell being held; waiting. Ink colors blend and twist around each other in complicated forms one minute before circling into simplistic whirls of power.

This is magic. With a touch of your fingers or a gasp breathing in the ashes of their former being you ca unleash it.