milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The Pace family re-enter the bar from Antar, all dressed up in their wedding clothes. Liam is carrying Megan, while Karen and Charlie follow a step behind, talking quietly.

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"...Char, you've really been overthinking this", Liam tells him, not unsympathetically. "You know time's strange here. Take it as it comes, eh? You might be surprised."

"I know."

Somewhat sulkily. Don't try to be logical with a man who's got his pouty on.

"It's just never gone right for me. Never. And it's so easy to see all the ways it could go wrong."

"Sounds like you're overdue some good luck, then."

"Yeah. Wish I thought the universe worked that way."

"You used to", Liam says softly. "And I think... sometimes, it does."

Charlie flexes his hand, where the faded ink of FATE across the back is barely visible.

"The universe," he says slowly, "is completely indifferent to us. Just look out the window if you want proof of that."

"You forget, Charlie. I've seen proof that there is something beyond that. I've been there."

It changed him, in some ways. It had to.

"I think all that is outside the universe we know," he says dryly. "And all things considered, I'm not entirely conviced our best interests are their concern, either."

"I have to believe they are, in the end. And I believe it's of our universe, if not in it, or you wouldn't have been there."

And isn't this just the role reversal.

Megan has wandered back to Karen, by now.

"I don't mean alternative earth type of outside. I mean, here's reality, waaaaaay over here, over the wall and across the moat and through the gate, is all that afterlife stuff."

"But that's the same thing we were always taught. It's not a physical place, it never was. Though somehow we could get there and keep our physical form... but I never claimed to understand everything."

"Right, right," Charlie says, "and what I'm saying is, they don't care what happens here anymore than those stars exploding outside do. So don't talk to me about fate or the universe or whatever else taking care of things. It doesn't work that way. I can't believe for a second that it does."

"But you're willing to just sit back and let whatever you think is going to happen, come? If you don't believe in predestination any more, baby brother, then get up and do something about it."

"That's why I don't want Darien proposing to me! You don't get it, Liam. I don't know how to change it--I don't know what I did to cause it! What if I do something I think'll fix it and it's what breaks us up?

"I don't want things to change. That's all I'm saying. It's so fucking good right now. I don't want rings and I don't want ceremonies and I don't want change. I just want to be with my lover and enjoy now."

Mun apologizes for all the italics, but he's an impassioned little man.

Liam eyes him for a moment, then shakes his head.

"Isn't that what I just told you? You were the one worrying about what if refusing him is what breaks you up, but Charlie, if he's going to ask, then he's going to ask and you'll have to make that choice. Unless you want me to talk to him first."

"No, I don't want you to talk to him," Charlie mutters. "You're not seeing the damned-if-I-do, damned-if-I-don't aspect of this."

"I'm trying", Liam says with some frustration. "But I think you're forgetting what this place can be like. Sawyer and Claire are still on your island when we know that another version of them isn't, your Darien has Kevin when the other one didn't, so who's to say it's not just another case of... of worlds that are almost the same but not quite?" He sighs. "Talk to Darien, Charlie. He deserves that."

"And what do I say? 'Don't propose, it scares me too much'?" He sighs and rubs his eyes.

"Not in quite those words, but... what you said to me. That you want to keep things the way they are."

He looks up and catches Karen's eye, where she's holding a sleepy Megan.

Charlie nods--not convinced, and not especially comforted, but with nothing more to say, really. He catches the look and waves them to the door. "Go home. I'll see you guys later, yeah?"

Liam leans over to give him a hug.

"I'll be back soon, baby brother. Talk to him."

"Yeah," he says, hugging Liam back, and stays on the floor as he watches them go.

Eventually he hauls himself to his feet and goes upstairs, to change clothes and think.

[ooc: and I must get to bed soon. think we should wrap them?]

[ooc: yeah, want to wrap it in the next comment?]

[ooc: can do, in the next next one]

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