milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The piano attracts him like a moth to flames; he can't keep away.

He circles around it, getting nearer and then walking away. Watching, waiting, wondering.

Then someone else sits down to play and Gren's not sure if he's relieved or annoyed or if he just doesn't care. After all, doesn't he have all the time in the world? It feels as if there have been days of nothing, nothing at all. Just reliving (reliving? is that a joke?) what happened the past few days before he was here.

Instead of watching the piano and listening to the beauty of the music it produces from close range, he takes the seat nearest to the corner stool at the bar. Old habit.

He misses making music. Wanted: one tenor saxophone, a box or two of reeds, a swab cloth. No sheet music required.

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"Do you?" He blinks at the thought, and a few more follow. Thoughts like I'm used to having my own place and the company is nice and I don't know, Julia. Without you I might just be lonely.

Usually, he knows, the last thought is the most important one and the others are just so much noise.

"Would you be lonely?" He rests his head on his hand, watching her. "We can't have that."

Then he sits upright. "Have you eaten? You're pale." (He's still warm, warm, warm, like he's just come from sitting by the fireside: flushed and happy.)

"I think I would be, yes." She runs her fingers across the bar top.

"I'm always pale," she says, turning to him, light glinting off her sunglasses. "But food sounds good."

"Then maybe we should stay together. That way neither of us would get lonely. But I have two conditions for it."

His conditions aren't very severe. They never have been: they usually only involve the little things like trust and honesty and friendship.

Gren turns to face Julia squarely. "The first condition is that you have to eat something, even a little bit, every day. And the second is that when you're cold, you let me keep you warm. I think I have enough heat for both of us."

There's no innuendo to his words; he doesn't work that way and besides, women aren't really his style. He's just telling her what he needs.

She laughs lightly, but it feels good. It feels like it's been so long since she laughed. She feels...a little alive.

"Okay. But, you pick the meal."

"It's a deal. Should we shake on it?" His eyes do that crinkle-into-a-smile thing they're so good at and he ponders the concept of food.

Humans are energy-collecting food processors, when it all boils down to it. He hasn't been able to feel a heartbeat since he died, but he hasn't given up on that yet. He's still sleeping and he's still dreaming and he still gets thirsty and, from time to time, hungry, and he still likes his showers and he still brushes his hair and he still has music in his soul.

"How about... sesame beef and rice... with snow peas. For two, and two cups of green tea." He's watched other people order and he knows what to do now because it's simple and because he's a quick study. It takes a moment, but the food does appear; Gren slides one plate and one cup of tea and one napkin and one pair of chopsticks over to Julia. They're normal restaurant chopsticks wrapped in a thin sheet of paper; the writing on them reads Milliways Bar, est. before you knew it.

He laughs, always having appreciated a sense of humor.

She laughs at the writing on the thin sheet of paper as she unwraps her chopsticks.

The tea is delicious, as is the food, which she can feel warm her throat and stomach as it goes down.

"This is delicious. You always had good taste."

He tilts his head to one side, considering the words.

"Maybe. I'm not sure I always had such good taste in friends."

Titan was a long, long time ago, though, and war makes for strange bedfellows... so to speak.

Gren lets out a small sigh, but it passes by and he picks up the chopsticks and tastes the food, and it's actually quite delicious. Almost as good as the brandy-and-ice-cream dish he had the first time he was here.

What's dead, he wonders, if we retain the pleasures of living? Does it matter? And if it does, what difference does it make? I don't feel wiser; I don't feel omnipotent. I'm just warm, that's all.

"You're right. It is good." He leans into her just a little bit, glad for the company, glad for the friendship, glad for the food, glad for the shelter.

The food is really good and she is doing her best not to just inhale it all. It's not very lady-like.

Between bites she asks, "Have you met anyone here?"

The tea is hot and despite his own warmth radiating, it still feels good in his hands. "I met... a crazy girl with a knife named Alice, I think, and a very pretty boy. His name was Nathaniel. There was a girl named Ed who lost a frog named Phil, and a young woman named Kim who told me about flowers called lilies." He sips the tea.

"Have you?"

She's silent for a long time.

"No."

Spike doesn't count.

"Nobody?"

Tilting his head to the side, he simply watches her.

Why nobody for Julia? That's not fair. Setting down the teacup, he rests his arm on her shoulder. He could be flippant, but that would just be irritating and why bother? This is Julia. Julia.

"You have me. Don't forget."

"Nobody," she echoes.

She turns her head to him.

"You're the only person I want." She takes a bite of the food and smiles. She swallows. "It's why I agreed to eat, after all."

Smiling (sadly), he kisses her cheek; he thinks it's time to tell her what he's been contemplating.

"I think the only reason I'm here is because of you. Otherwise, I would just be..."

Gren's fingers, long and thin and delicate, make a fluttering motion as if floating aside on some unseen breeze. He knows he doesn't need to finish the thought aloud.

"So I'm what's holding you back?"

She looks at the counter.

"Do you think the alternative will be better?"

Pausing, he studies her intently. "I don't feel held back. Just the opposite: I feel..."

What's the term he wants? Liberated? Lucky? Profoundly relieved?

"...blessed." With a firm nod, he squeezes her shoulder. "I told you before: I always thought of death as the end. Just the end: nothing more. Things just... stop, and you can't be sad about them because you have no awareness of any of it. But I know I'm dead and look: look at how much it has to offer. Look at it. It's like a whole different phase, a different level, a different... plane. I can see things like I never saw them before, and hear things like I never heard them before, and touch things like I never felt them before, and smell things like I never smelled them before, and taste things like I never tasted them before. It's such a gift, Julia. Such a gift, and I feel like a child, full of wonder and full of joy and full of curiosity. There's no holding back. None at all. This is the alternative."

Slowly, he shakes his head. "So... thank you."

She smiles sadly.

"I envy you," is all she can say.

She doesn't see.

(Maybe it's the red-eye. And if so, that's his fault.)

Gren sets his hands on her hair, brushing it back from her face. "Don't envy me. Instead, let me share it all with you. Let that be my gift. Will you let me do that for you?"

"And how do you propose to do that, Gren?" she says warily.

"I don't know."

Self-conscious, he moves his hands away from her and folds them across his chest.

"I don't know yet. But I know I can if you'll let me. It won't be a sexual thing," he assures her quickly. "You know that's not my style. I will find a way, though. I will."

The clarity of his purpose is startling, like a piercingly bright light that obscures all else.

He wants to bathe Julia in the light.

"I'll let you try, Gren, but don't be disappointed if it fails. Some people are just beyond saving."

Does she even want to be saved?

She's not sure she deserves it.

His eyes narrow and there's a bit of an angry flash in them, but only for a minute.

"All I ask is that you let me try."

It could, after all, be that he's wrong about purpose. Maybe that's just a smokescreen for something else. He hates to think there's no purpose, though.

He won't let it distress him. But he's not sure how long he can be a wealth of optimism for someone who's chronically depressed.

He will try; turning back to the food he doesn't need to eat he picks up his chopsticks and, a little perfunctorily, eats.

And is caught off guard again by how exquisite and enhanced everything tastes. Why is this his experience and not hers? Why?

Gren knows he won't figure it out right here, today. He can't. It's like a puzzle: the pieces need to fall together over time.

The food squishes as she pokes at it absently with her chopsticks, no longer hungry.

She puts the chopsticks down and reaches into her pocket, pulling out her cigarettes. She would offer one to Gren, but she knows he doesn't smoke. She pulls one out and lights it.

She exhales away from him.

"Do you miss your sax?"

The question takes him by surprise.

"I miss it like you wouldn't believe."

She runs her hand across the bar.

"She might be able to give you a new one. If you wanted."

He hadn't thought of that. He knew about the clothes and the food, but...

"Really?" He grins, and it widens.