[ There's a certain gladness in having suspected correctly. They haven't known each other long, so they can't yet know each other well, but there's enough similarity there at least that his guess hadn't landed far from the mark. A nod of acknowledgement, acceptance - and then to be rewarded with a little glimpse into the man cracks him into a fresh half-smile as he's loading up his fork. ]

You should be careful. That's how a man becomes a wizard.

[ Wizard, his least favourite word for what he is, but he can't always take himself so seriously. It is, unfortunately, extremely ridiculous that he is who is he is, no matter how important or wonderful or necessary the change.

A smirking mouthful of honeyed carrot marks his approval: better or worse, he's more or less the same. ]

[ Talking about himself in the context of calling is a siren song he's unable to ignore. He takes up the bait all too easily, blind to the way it steers them off course - or perhaps just not worried whether their journey toward their destination is a meander or a sprint. ]

I went looking for my last chance at solving what I considered to be my problem. So in that sense, I had purpose. [ A little wiggle of scarred fingers in indication of the then-problem in question. ] Wound up at a compound half a world away where the woman in charge claimed I could heal myself with magic. I thought that was bullshit. So I scoffed, then I yelled at her, then she threw my soul out of my body and sent me plummeting through a constant stream of other dimensions.

[ As one does. A sip of wine to pause and punctuate. Looking briefly down to his food as if he's not hooked on how hooked Silco is on his tale. But he is. It's not long before he's seeking him out again. ]

When she kicked me out, I sat outside on the doorstep for as long as it took for her to let me back in. Hours, I think. Maybe a day. Sometimes, you just need to know.

[ A little twitch of lips, sensing the lead and this time strolling knowingly after it. ]

No. [ A disagreement and agreement both. She wasn't, he hasn't. Not to the miraculous, total extent he'd dreamt of when he was first welcomed into Kamar-Taj. The extent he could have. His hands still shake, fingers still trembling when they trail over skin.

Just when it seems he might elaborate, he pops a sliver of steak into his mouth. Makes eye contact while he chews, a glimmer of mischief tucked into the crinkle of crow's feet. When he's done: ] I use it to take the edge off. I decided against the rest.

There's always a cost. Maybe not for the spells, but the choices?

[ Extortionate, usually. Silco must know that as well as he does, the question posed not just as pedantry. It doesn't need answering, but the raise of his brows still asks it after he moves on. ]

I became a doctor to save lives. As a surgeon I could save one at a time, maybe three in a day, five at a push. My first day on the job as a sorcerer, I convinced a primordial entity not to swallow the Earth.

[ A shrug, gaze dropping to his food, carving off another piece of steak. ]

The choice was pretty clear.

[ As was the cost of not making it. ]

[ It's an observation that peeks out through his own relative reticence to self-reflect and glimmers, recognised and true. Once upon a time he'd have disputed it. Now he looks up from where he'd been teasing food transparently around his plate, smiles. A little wistful, a little glad for company that isn't afraid to ask.

To state, even, anticipating that he isn't wrong. ]

At first it was practicality. My hands are fucked, really, there's as much metal keeping them held together as there is bone. To 'heal' them, I'd need to build in concentrated spellwork to tell my body they're fine twenty four hours a day. Easily enough done, but more effort than simple pain management, and sorcery doesn't need fine motor control. So what would be the point?

[ But. ] But I could've had them fixed in New Amsterdam. Four centuries of medical advancement, they'd have been good as new.

[ A pause here, mulling over Silco's theories. Finding his truth in both and in neither, catching the essence of it somewhere in the middle. ]

I think more than anything, I didn't want to give myself an excuse to be who I was before.

[ A matter of trust and the lack of it. Of things being so much better, but remembering the man who'd thought them so much worse. He'd decided to remain resolutely as he was not as a symbol of those better things, but so as not to bow to the desperation of the self who'd wrestled so frantically with the sheets of the bed he'd made that he set them aflame with himself still inside, all because he couldn't bear to feel less than.

If he'd ever been less than, it hadn't been his hands that made him so. ]

An asshole.

[ Short, to the point. A brief upward glance as he considers that answer, then his focus drops back on Silco again. ]

A different kind of asshole. I wasn't doing my job to help people anymore. I was doing it to impress them.

[ There's something going on over there, in the quiet and the looks and the lack thereof. Stephen's brow knits, smile creeping back. ]

What?

[ He knows what, but still. ]

[ There it is. A heavenward sweep of his eyes, trying as he might to mute a little the stretch of amusement at his own expense, but it's funny. What can he do? ]

You're laughing now, but I haven't taken you to a single neurological society dinner to watch me speak about my own prowess to a room full of people who paid me to be there, so. You're welcome.

[ That gets him, Stephen blinking surprise, the humor in his face going briefly slack as that point fades into watching Silco try something new. He gathers himself after a short stretch of seconds, pulling on play like a coat to push through the fog of fondness. ]

In that case, I'll make sure to get you a copy of my books.

[ One last little sample of a past they can share more about another time. He can sense the full circle turn of the conversation too - even though he called for it, he's not quite sure how to start, but his expression settles into something calm and comfortable as he lapses into quiet to consider it. Watching Silco, not too concerned by the possibility of embarrassing himself entirely when he finds his next words, plucked from their earlier conversation. ]

Your opinion's important to me, too.

[ Even if it's just the fact that he likes the size of his ego, even though Stephen's wielding it disguised as play - it matters. In that and the rest. It makes a good segue: it's why they're having this conversation at all. ]

[ There. They're in. Stephen listens, steady focus fixed on Silco as he speaks, dealing with the fizzing, anxious delight of I've thought about you quite a lot these last few days with an almost entirely straight face. He nods at mention of his daughter, at the gulf of time between now and when last Silco experienced any even-fielded ease in another's company.

His thoughts skim over the complex mire of his own more recent relationship history with a flip of the stomach. If not for Rubilykskoye, this might have been a less complicated conversation. But if not for Rubilykskoye, they probably wouldn't have found themselves here at all. He'd have vanished that mistletoe before they had the chance. ]

Is it alright? That this hasn't been [ hm. ] what you're used to.

[ One thing at a time. He'll start adding his colorful history to the pile once they've unpacked Silco's, the question more a prompt for a laying out worries than the sum of its parts. If the answer's no, they're shit out of luck - there's nothing else Stephen can offer him but their shared blind stumble through early days. ]

[ A thrill blooming bright behind his sternum with that yes, small breath snatched to compensate. There's a reason he doesn't have these conversations, he thinks. Funny enough, it has quite a lot to do with the next thing that comes out of Silco's mouth. ]

I get it. [ Phrased like this, separate from the heat of their earlier talk and cast in candlelight, it's all too easy to understand the sentiment. Their perspectives not the same, perhaps, but he knows the impulse. Remembers conversations like dark corners, his back unexpectedly against walls, fight or flight or freeze? It's the former more often than not - for both of them, it seems, and that's going to get them into some trouble if this keeps going where it's going. But. ] I know hearing it won't change that, but I won't make a weapon of the parts of yourself you let us both enjoy.

[ At least not outside of the context of that enjoyment. Words do very little to kill fear, he knows, and more of them won't change that, but context might help anyway. Something for him to remember, in the times when fear doesn't drown memory out. ]

I've spent the better part of the last year learning it's worth the risk. [ Being vulnerable. Baring the tender parts that can't hold up to misuse. ] I'll do whatever I can not to be the reason you decide it isn't.

[ It's more direct than he really meant to be, filled with a more fierce, focused determination. But it's important to him. Whatever this is, whatever it becomes, however long it's allowed to last - even if in the end he's only one small stepping stone in Silco's path, he hopes to be sturdy underfoot. To carry him onward, not crack and send him back the way he came. ]

[ Trust. It pulls at his cheek without the thought to commit to a smile, tugging his mouth up at one corner, marionette. ]

Good. [ Emphatic. Some leftover gladness for the trust oozing into his enjoyment of the game. ] We can agree on that.

[ And he takes a moment here to bask in it. In the colour creeping under Silco's skin, in something new discussed and made real. Not that the conversation's over, but he's lost interest in the meal, and all ten extra meals' worth of sides the staff managed to squeeze onto the table. Wine, then. Another sip, then reaching to top them both up as the few seconds' pause clears out the joy and reminds him that there's more than one conversation that needs having tonight. Just because they've made it through the first doesn't mean he's off the hook for the rest. ]

... I have your history. [ The bones of it, anyway, as it pertains to what they're doing. ] Mine's a little less, uh. [ Past. How to approach it? He's realising - slow, creeping understanding - that the way he's learned to be no longer sits in the comfortable realms of normalcy outside of its context. ] I didn't leave my last life behind on purpose.

[ The start of a point that ends and people have a habit of showing up here. He doesn't get that far, lapses into quiet and his own turn to look uncomfortable, tension clear in his jaw and the skin around his eyes for all he tries to will himself relaxed. It's been all too easy up until today to consider this almost as if it were simple, truly simple, a new shoot in empty soil. Unfortunate, then, to have to take a point to the bubble of that self-delusion. ]

I can. Not much of it is pleasant story-telling, but I don't mind if you don't.

[ The place isn't the problem. He can spill his hate for it happily, all his rage and resentment, the horrors and the things he can't help but miss. Some of the tension seems to slip at mention of that part at least, no resistance to be found.

But. This isn't a conversation about pasts in the general sense. Is it better to be honest now, whatever extra pressure or inference of expectation that might pile on something too new to have to bear it, than have it break under unexpected weight without warning down the line? ]

It's more that I had people there. Some of them have been and gone, here. Some of them are here and don't remember. Some of them aren't.

[ People, is the point. He's not unattached, for all that he's been torn from those attachments. It isn't— straightforward. ]