milliways_bar | (no subject)

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[OOM: If I could I would make you a raging river,
with angry rapids, supplied with rain,
so you could always meander
and forever be able to run away
without contending with myths wrongly interpreted, with pain.
A harsh wind.]

One of the odd (and sometimes quite nice) things about Milliways is that time works differently here.

So while it was only last night that Orpheus fled from the apparently terrifying prospect of dancing with someone he genuinely cared about, from the perspective of the bar, it's been about a week for him in Paris.

He's hardly eaten or showered since he left, and he's still slightly inebriated as he stumbles into the bar, reeking of cigarettes and alcohol. He seems surprised to find himself there, and stumbles into an empty table.

"Oops, sorry," he mutters, not looking to see who he might be apologizing to, and carries his guitar (fingers raw from playing for nearly a week straight) to the bar to get another drink.

The trouble with releasing your emotions in a torrent on the city of Paris is that it leaves you rather, well, drained.

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"This one does sound a bit compulsive and unpleasant," Antinoos says. "As if the music were taking you over. Is it because of the divinity of your instrument?"

To his credit, it must be said he hardly giggles this time.

Edited 2012-08-11 20:08 (UTC)

"No," Orpheus says, not at all reacting to the giggle this time. "It's because of the pain in my heart."

"Everybody has it, one way or another," Antinoos says, thinking of what he felt at that one single chord. "What happened?"

"Don't want to talk about it," he mumbles, getting another refill.

He's just getting over a bender. No need to start another so soon.

"Fair enough," Antinoos says. "Things like that are so bloody painful."

At least for him, they are.

Orpheus gives him a look like 'oh, kid, you have no idea.'

"So they say."

"I say so as well!" Antinoos says.

To a teenager, as he still is, their own angst always is the centre of the world, and the lodestone of everything else.

"Then I guess it must be true," Orpheus answers, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Well, your finger tips must hurt like hell," Antinoos points out, all sensibly, "so I guess the rest must be even worse for them to have got in that state?"

"You'd guess right."

Honestly, who would rate sore fingers above a broken heart in terms of pain?

"I'd buy you a drink to show my support," Antinoos says, "only you already had a number of them, so that's out. Anything else I can do for you?"

He asks in all innocence.

"Already turned down my other offer," Orpheus says, though he isn't even sure he'd be up for that right now.

"I'm with somebody," Antinoos argues. "Even if this is the end of the universe, you can never be sure he won't hear of it, and then there'd be hell to pay."

Even drunk as he is, there are some things Orpheus holds to be sacred. He nods at that.

"Then keep yourself true, boy."

"He says I'm at an age to experiment," Antinoos says, "but I actually don't want anybody else most of the time. Definitely not women. And if I do get curious about anyone, it feels like a really bad idea."

"Are you afraid he's testing you?"

It helps, struggling to follow the train of the conversation, to keep him from ordering another drink.

In fact, when his whiskey glass disappears and a glass of water takes its place, he hardly notices, just sips on the water as he has been the whiskey.

"Either me, or himself," Antinoos says. "Most people say I'm getting too old for us to stay together, so he may be looking for ways to justify getting rid of me to himself, even though he still loves me. But the older I get, the less he should. And it's not just about plucking out all the hair with string or tweezers and being good and submissive as always. I wasn't that ever, anyway. People know how long we've been together, so of course know I'm growing up."

Orpheus tilts his head, taking in the boy's appearance for the first time.

"Who is he that it matters what others think?" Clearly someone of some importance to have a boy like this, no matter his age.

"Any Roman optimate or eques cares tremendously about that sort of nonsense," Antinoos says. "And he's -- well, he's the head Roman. The emperor."

"Ah," Orpheus says, nodding, and he thinks he might know who the boy is now.

"In that case, can he not do whatever he likes?"

Orpheus has always seen that as the only possible temptation of power.

"He's very intense about being sane and sensible and virtuous and nothing like Nero or Caligula," Antinoos says. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely, he says, so he has to prove every day he's uncorrupted. He works like a plough oxen in spring."

Long pause.

"There is this thing I hear here..."

"Well, he's not wrong there." He's seen quite a lot of corrupt rulers.

"And what is that?"

Another long pause.

Then, it all rushes out.

"That I'm still sort of famous in the far future because I killed myself and he grieved so badly he declared me a god, which makes him as bad as Nero or Caligula, doesn't it? He still loves me so much he sort of loses it when I die. And I don't want to die, I ant to stay alive and stay with him and maybe think about a different future when he dies because that's very likely as he's a lot older than me. He survived me by six years, their history say, but that might not happen if I manage to stay alive and with him so he's not going to lose it altogether? On the other hand, what if it takes my death for him to realise how much he still loves me and always will?"

He takes a breath and goes on.

"And if their future's true I don't even have half a year left to live. I don't want to die, and I don't want to leave him, and I don't want him to kick me out because he never realises..."

That is...an awful lot for Orpheus to take in given his current state.

"So don't kill yourself," is just about the best he can do on such short notice.

"I'm not going to!" Antinoos says. "Not now that I know how much he really loves me. So if I still die, somebody would have murdered me. Perhaps somebody will be going to have murdered me all along, and they only believed I killed myself? Isn't it all bloody scary and confusing?"