milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Today, there is an older boy or young man (what they used to call 'a youth') at the harpsichord, playing Bach.

He's not quite at the level for a professional performance yet, but quite good nevertheless.

tinytag: age spell plot

Warning: in the Autor thread for discussion of demon bunny vivisection.

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It has been a couple of days, and Rae's ability to hold back her worry is faltering. Even apart from having missed two days of school - school she can't afford to miss if she wants to graduate like Charlie is asking of her - she can't imagine how worried her mother and Charlie must be by now. She has gotten new clothes - some that fit - and has made sure to eat, putting aside her doubts about any sort of Persephone-and-pomegranate-seeds type situation... or at least, she has tried to eat.

Even if it's been a while since she has eaten anything, over the last few hours, she has begun to feel sick to her stomach. She feels almost feverish, achy and clammy and yet unable to settle down. Hands clasped around a cup of mildly sweetened ginger tea with lime juice, Rae rests her elbows on the back of a nearby chair and listens to the music.

When Hannibal finishes his piece, he turns around to look at her.

"Hello Rae," he says. "You look green around he gills."

"Hey there, Hannibal," Rae offers a slight, unsteady smile. "I feel a bit green, too." It's only fair that she also look the part.

"'Wretched' might be a more accurate description. I think I must've caught something," she remarks. "Which figures. I never get sick."

He gets up and comes over, looks at her, takes a deep breath, shakes his head. "Now, you are. Seriously."

"Well, I mean, I've been sick before. Once. When I was really little, but no one could figure out what that was," she says, absently rubbing her arm where it aches. The words would've been dry, but thinking of when she'd been sick that once made her think of how worried her mother had been, and how worried her mother probably is now.

"What do you mean, 'seriously'?"

Edited 2013-10-15 20:25 (UTC)

"I think something is wrong with your liver, and you're sweating out strange substances," Hannibal says.

He closes his eyes.

"Chemicals. Have you been in an accident? Poisoned? Taken a lot of medicine?"

Her cheeks, wan compared to how they were the other day, show splotches of pink-tinged color.

"I'd been... I mean, I'd been partying the other night before I woke up here, and that happens pretty regularly." The partying (and potentially passing out) part, specifically. "When I'm not, you know, making breakfast with strange boys in strange bars."

Several moments of silence. Hannibal closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath.

"Okay, then," he says. "What kind of drugs have you been taking?"

She hesitates, wincing.

What kind hasn't she been taking?

"Whatever helps, really," she says, absently flexing her hands and fingers. "Hype, and trippers. Hash, sometimes, and hop when we can afford it."

Edited 2013-10-15 20:56 (UTC)

"Hashish, I have heard of," Hannibal says. "But the rest, they don't even warn us about at school. I guess they need to rework their anti-drug lessons."

Pause.

"What do they do? What are they made from?"

"They make things not hurt, for a little while," she replies, vaguely. Her stomach twists, and Rae seeks to breathe slowly through her mouth. "The world's breaking, people are dying or disappearing in droves, and we can't do anything about it, and it's nice to just... feel okay for a while."

As for his second question, she has no real answer.

"Raoul told me once that hop's made from poppies, but beyond that..." she shrugs.

Edited 2013-10-15 21:05 (UTC)

"Oh dear," Hannibal says. "I guess you need to drink a great lot of water. At least."

"I'd been hoping ginger tea would help settle my stomach, but I don't know that it's working," she says, shivering. Her very skin aches, and the general feeling of malaise is one completely unfamiliar to her. Her hands shake minutely as she takes a sip of her tea.

Edited 2013-10-15 21:24 (UTC)

"I'll get you some water," Hannibal says, getting up and going to the kitchen.

He returns with a gallon jug of cold water, and a large glass, which he fills for her.

Rae is still shivering when he gets back, fidgeting restlessly. "Er, thanks," she blinks at the gallon jug. "That is... a lot of water."

"You have a lot of hangover," Hannibal points out.

"Hangovers, I've dealt with. Withdrawal..." for that is what this is, she knows now. "... is a different beast."

"With apparently no option for a 'hair of the dog' cure, either." She has tried, and failed, to attain from the Bar anything that would help.

"No," he says. "Just try and flush it through as soon as you can."

Her slight chuckle makes her stomach clench uncomfortably. "And emerge into the cold, sober light of day?"

"Is there an alternative?" he says, offering her the glass.

"Apparently not," she says, setting down her half-empty cup of ginger tea before accepting the glass with a shaky hand. "Though not for lack of trying."

Her eyes are watery and red-rimmed.

"The Bar will apparently give anyone who asks drinks to get them drunk as a skunk, but draws the line at getting them even a little bit high."

"Unfair," he says, quietly. "Other drugs have such interesting properties. Did you know that the ancient Scythians burned marijuana in their communal sauna yurts? I read archaeologists dug up these tripod kettles -- but this isn't helping, sorry."

Beat.

"Come on, drink."

Edited 2013-10-16 13:36 (UTC)

She smiles slightly, though it's a bit twitchy as she drinks. "No, I didn't know that."

"I could insist to the Bar that I was doing historical research on ancient Scythians," Rae suggests, grimacing as she agitatedly rubs her aching arm. "Or on the use of opium by the early 19th century Ottomans."

"That would be very handy if you were a historian," Hannibal says. "You do know a few things, though. The obvious connotation with opium is 'China', you dragged up something interestingly obscure. It sounds fascinating. You don't just study drugs practically."

He doesn't sounds exactly disapproving.

Edited 2013-10-16 14:53 (UTC)

"'And here's the secret to happiness, that philosophers had disputed for ages... Happiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat-pocket; portable ecstasies might be had corked up in a pint-bottle; and peace of mind could be sent down by the mail,'" Rae quotes, wry despite her continuing discomfort. "Nah, I just read a lot. Stories stay with me better than math or biology."

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