milliways_bar | (no subject)

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(no subject)

[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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Orpheus is a little awkward with knife and fork as he eats, but he does manage a quick, "Thank you," around a mouthful.

His table manners may leave something to be desired currently.

Right. Not the sort of chatty tidbit Scorpius was listening for.

And so: For the third time! In so many minutes! Another sigh!

Then:

"I think I might be in love with Albus?"

Orpheus pauses to chew and swallow, and then.

"Oh?"

And after a pause.

"I mean. Oh! Um...wow. Good for you!"

Scorpius' mouth twists into a frown and he shrugs.

"Yeah.

"But honestly now, what have you been doing?"

Orpheus' face mirrors that frown.

"Getting into trouble, I think."

He tugs his collar up a bit to hide the two small puncture marks on his neck.

Which means Scorpius' gazes zeroes in on the collar tugging.

"What're you hiding?"

Aside from the billion things that are already kept hidden.

"It's nothing," Orpheus says, but he has to stop the tugging then, or it would look suspicious, so the marks may just be visible.

Right then.

Time for Scorpius to get a bit dirty.

He's out of his seat quite quickly and reaching for Orpheus' collar.

"Hey!" Orpheus says, but there's nothing much he can do to fend off the attack with his hands as they are.

"It's nothing," he says again, now that he's been found out.

Scorpius' bum hits his seat with a heavy thump again and he looks like he got a whiff of some awful odour.

Which he very well may have done, given Orpheus' current state of hygiene.

"It's not that bad," he argues, picking up his tea and holding it in front of him like a shield.

" - You're hanging out with vampires now?"

"Just one. And I wouldn't call it hanging out..."

"Right."

Scorpius is going to take a very deep breath now and not react.

He can't quite stop staring at the marks though.

Which just makes Orpheus squirm uncomfortably.

"I said I'd been getting into trouble."

He did say that.

"What else?" Scorpius asks, wanting to know.

He cares and since Orpheus is talking now...

Orpheus huddles over his tea and glances up at him briefly.

"You know the kind of trouble I keep wanting you to get into with Albus?"

Scorpius reddens as he nods.

"Er, yeah. But, don't you get into that sort of trouble all the time?

"What's different now?"

Aside from, y'know, vampire. And, thinking of such, his nose wrinkles again.

"Not all the time." Honestly, Scorpius, what do you think of him?

"I just...I don't know what's different."

Other than that he's been doing it more often and with more people he doesn't really know and that it's making him feel a bit uncomfortable just how often he has with the person he does really know.

"Okay, often enough that you shouldn't be so self-destructive afterward," Scorpius rectifies, rolling his eyes just a bit.

(He's just a tiny bit envious, honestly. He'd very much like to be getting into loads of trouble with Albus.)

"Are your, uhm - Are your partners different? Than the usual, I mean. Like, er - More vampire sorts?"

(If Orpheus could fix things for him, he'd be getting into all the trouble.)

"Just the one vampire. The others have all been..." tall, blond, muscular, "normal."

He looks at Scorpius for a long moment. To be honest, the boy wouldn't be his first choice to confide in, but he probably should talk to someone about it...

"I...met someone here."

But Scorpius can be a great person to confide in!

Maybe.

"You meet a lot of someones here," he starts to say before shaking his head. "Sorry, not what you meant, right?

"This is a, er - More than a one-off sort of someone?"

"Yeah, it has been."

He's not quite sure when or how that happened. Not that he doesn't repeat himself periodically, but this is getting to be much more than periodically.

Scorpius can't help it: He grins brightly.

"Isn't that a good thing?"

He thinks it is!

"I guess so?" Orpheus says, frowning. "It's been good so far."