thebastion | [Day 205] It's the end of the world, get drunk

Entry tags:

!npc

[Day 205] It's the end of the world, get drunk

Who: Georges and anyone about
Open: Open
When: 205 sometime in the afternoon
Where: Around the Monument
What: The Cael way of celebrating everyone not dying involves booze, so drink up! (Fun fact: the Cael way of mourning may also involve booze.)
Format: Any
Warnings: Drunken shenanigans, likely. Also feel free to treat this like a mingle thread and not just talking to Georges! (Although he'll try to chat with everyone if he can)

So, just to double check: A cure has been found? Everyone's recovered? No one's dead? It's safe to leave the house now? Excellent.

With this fact well known, one can find Georges starting off his morning not hanging about the bar (as is his custom as the only bartender in the Bastion) but in fact setting up something in front of the Monument. Tables, chairs, some blankets to sit on when those inevitably run out... There's also something of a makeshift bar area, a variety of liquor in fascinating bottles set up along with some glasses.

Everything is all finished up around the afternoon, and Georges goes behind his little makeshift table-bar to cup his hands around his mouth so he can yell-

"DRINKS ON THE HOUSE!"

...What do you mean he technically never makes anyone pay for booze at the end of the world? Just come up and have a drink, Georges will be happy to recommend something. Or maybe bother someone else having a drink?

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"Sake? Please say you have sake..." Seimei's voice rasped, still raw from so much coughing. He had no business drinking when he was still in the process of recovering his strength. Not that he cared. He wanted a drink and while nothing really got him drunk, he wanted to taste that sweet ambrosial burn and relax his tension and wander in search of Kaoru and...

Well, he wanted to set some things right, but a little liquid courage could do anyone some good, really. At least he didn't look like a corpse anymore, washed and combed. His hair was still loose, flowing around him in a black sheet, but he didn't feel like asking anyone for help with it and was just grateful to be on his own two feet.

Georges would argue that recovery is exactly when you need some spirits to lift up your own. For now, however, he just takes one look at Seimei and immediately makes a grab for what isn't a sake bottle but instead a pale bottle strangely wrapped up in bandages. He hooks a finger through its tiny little handle and pops out the cork. The smell which wafts out isn't one of sake, that much is immediately obvious. It's too... herbal, floral almost, but exceedingly pleasant to breathe in. Georges pours it into a glass, the liquid a beautiful deep gold.

It's passed over to Seimei promptly. "No sake, but Mender's Mead helps the health. I know it ain't what you're looking for, my friend, but give it a try and see if it helps you any. I got plenty others that will help a man out when his body isn't doing him proper."

After a brief whiff of the drink and view of its richness, Seimei found himself less discontented by the lack of sake. In fact, he was fairly eager to try this new thing, which was unusual for him. Perhaps a brush with death opened up his willingness to be a little more reckless in experiences.

"Abe no Seimei," he said by way of introduction, having never formally met the individual before him. "And I thank you. sake is my cultural drink of choice, but the beverage before me has a pleasant bouquet and you surely know your drinks well enough to give a man what he needs over what he wants."

Lifting his glass slightly, Seimei offered a light toast on Georges behalf before taking a hearty swallow of the contents. It couldn't hurt to try and get drunk for once, though he very much doubted the possibility.

Bartenders really should be a bit more impervious to flattery, but, well, Georges can't help but be pleased and give a little tip of his head in acknolwedgement with a grin on his face. It's been a while since he's heard some, anyway.

"Georges. I've heard a bit about you from just listening around, but it's a lot better to meet folks face to face! Especially here when it's pretty much a guarantee." He eases back a bit, watching to make sure the drink goes down alright. Some of the reactions to his drinks throughout today have been... Well, they didn't quite know what they were getting into, let's leave it at that.

"I got a few drinks that are good for the health, but I'd say the Mead is one of those that goes down the nicest. Let me know how it is, won't you?"

Seimei was a drinker by nature and unlikely to be thrown by anything that wasn't packing a particular wallop, but working out of his usual comfort zone meant he needed a little time to adapt. It still went down better than either of them might have immediate expected and he smiled in spite of himself.

"It is....very robust?" he offered, sniffing the contents remaining in his cup. "I enjoy the flavor. I am unfamiliar with things outside of sake and umeshu or their relatives. Perhaps I should make more effort to explore local spirits?" he mused, arching a brow at the cup before taking another long swallow.

"Dare I ask what you've heard of me, Georges-san?"

Shifting into what he knows definitely has Georges seeming to perk up. It's been a bit tricky to get some of the younger crowd interesting in Caelondian spirits- they're all foreigners so he supposes it's only to be expected. So to have a chance to explain his wares definitely has him starting to gesture as he talks. "I'd welcome it! Caelondian spirits are one of a kind, you know. A lot of them are good for a fighter's body, or can help you out when you're on the Skyway. A lot of them have their history from our military groups, like the Menders or Masons, so... Well, heh, some of them are definitely a soldier's kind of drink! I can always recommend you others like Mender's Mead, however."

He rattles it all off without pausing for breath, cheery in his element. The next question has him pause just a bit.

"Not too much as I'd like, to be honest! But a bit. You have that nice house here, and Zulf- I like to chat with some of the folks who work in the kitchen if they indulge me- he says you're a properly educated kind of man."

"Properly educated? Haha, odd sort of thing to say, but I suppose my choice of seclusion does not really avail people to anything more worth saying about me," he mused, holding his cup out for more to drink. He was perfectly willing to be served a variety of drinks designed to help in one way or the other. Granted his actual goal was to attempt getting drunk, but healing himself wasn't such a bad idea either.

"A kind compliment on my home, by the way. I simply designed it based on my world - I share the same origins with many others here, albeit different variations. I only wanted a place others could be comfortable in while keeping it away from the technological advances of others. I find all of this electricity very distracting."

Georges hardly needs to be prompted. More Mender's Mead becomes poured. Way he figures, it's a good thing to stick with until Seimei is a bit too drunk to care about the tastes of anything else. That should help take the shock of 'em off.

Probably.

"That's good, then. Times like this, it really helps for folks to have something familiar to look towards! I can't really say the same about electricity... But then, I suppose I've grown up with it, more or less, so it isn't as much of a bother."

"We do not have anything like it where I am from. Unless you count magic, or storms. The nights are quiet and it is far easier to ruminate on matters," he mused aloud, tilting his head in thanks for the refill and setting to drinking. He wanted to do his best to blitz himself, this seemed as good a way as any.

"I do not know that I can ever adapt to the modern man's constant need for noise. I prefer a certain quietude."

Kaoru could pick Seimei's ridiculously long hair out of any crowd, and his eyes lighted on him almost immediately. He gave the other a few minutes before making his stealthy way toward him - seeing as he was deep in conversation with Georges. Far be it from Kaoru to disrupt Seimei's first foray into the wonderful world of Caelondian booze

Of course, he had never successfully sneaked up on Seimei thus far, but that didn't mean Kaoru wasn't going to try. Plus, he was pretty sure Seimei was going to let him get away with creeping over from behind to cover his eyes, anyway.

Being completely off his game, a little woozy from being sick - testing laudanum - and dull from drinking copious amounts of foreign liquor, Seimei was easily snuck up on by the least stealthy of creatures. Trying or not, Kaoru succeeded and the onmyoji sat still, lips curling into a vaguely nervous smile.

This was an encounter he had hoped to be much more drunk for...if he could even get drunk. Which he was getting to without realizing.

"I suppose this is the part where I get chastised for my choice in fluid after being sick?"

He chuckled softly, letting his hands slide down to drape over Seimei's shoulders.

"It's a party. Plus, from what I've been told, they're actually supposed to help. That's provided you can get past some of the tastes, of course…" To say that Kaoru had enjoyed his run-in with Falling Malt would have been a huge overstatement. What kind of alcohol had bits in it, anyway? He had tried a shot and… a shot had been more than enough for him.

He leaned over Seimei's shoulder to kiss his cheek.

"How are you, my love?"

"Well enough," he replied, ducking his head slightly and looking away. Lifting his cup to drink more of whatever Georges had served him last, Seimei tried to avoid looking at the boy, knowing his pain would show on his face. He didn't want to look at that bright hair or those bright eyes. He didn't want to see the smiles.

Correction - he wanted to, but didn't feel he had the right. Guilt sat in his belly like a stone and dragged his head and eyes down as much as his shoulders. He used to be so proud, he mused, but lately he felt so ashamed.

"Never mind me, what about you? Colin gave you a pass, you are well enough now? Without question?"

"Well too." He didn't shift from his position, continuing to hug him from behind, though leaning forward a little for a curious sniff at whatever Seimei is drinking. "Recovering, sure, but proudly sickness-free."

His arms tightened a little, experimentally. Even with his layers of robes, Kaoru could feel how much weight Seimei had lost. And the drooping posture was clear.

"What's wrong?"

How to explain? How to admit defeat or resignation? How to express love while demanding distance? How, how, how.

He wasn't drunk enough, but he was getting there. Another cup was swallowed in a rush, head swimming and eyes dark as he set his drained container out and nodded to Georges for more.

"I am trying to understand things. Trying to...work around a matter I am ill-equipped to control. I cannot be objective, I cannot make decisions alone. The trouble is that bias and selfishness are turning everything into a greater complication. I am finding myself unable to fulfill the demands of my promises and guilt and regret are weighing me down as though I have been lashed with rocks and thrown over a bridge. I am drowning my sorrow, as the saying goes, as I drown in my own troubles," he remarked, immediately taking to swallowing more when his cup was filled.

So maybe he was drunk enough to talk. But not drunk enough to cope. He'd get there.

"Seimei…" the lightest of frowns before stepping around to settle astride his lap (Distance? Screw distance), arms coming to rest on Seimei's shoulders again with a sigh.

"…like always, you say a lot, but you don't actually tell me anything." His fingertips slid up to stroke at the base of his neck. "Am I going to have to read your mind, my love? Is that what has to happen here?"

He took Seimei's glass gently with one hand - not withholding it so much as holding it for him - as he leaned forward to rest their foreheads together for a moment, closing his eyes with a low hum and a sigh.

He was pretty sure he knew the reasons behind Seimei's behaviour, but he wasn't about to just ambush him.

"Well, you were fine before - and mostly during - the quarantine. And I can imagine that you're delighted the both of us are safely out of there. So it has to be something between the two. Between my visit then and our being released. Which means it's something to do with the sickness…" He opened his eyes inquisitively. "…am I warm?"

"Please, do not," the onmyoji whispered hoarsely, dark eyes lowering and turning away, hands careful not to touch where they would normally wrap around the boy. His unease was obvious, his discomfort clear in the rigidity of his posture.

"I have had too much time to think. I cannot keep my promises, Kaoru. I do not know how. I made them with the best intentions - I made them out of love - and then I betrayed them. I do not deserve you, and that has been made painfully clear to me. I have not seen your brother but I can only imagine the venom with which he thinks of me by now. And with good reason. He was right...I was wrong."

"That's a lie. That's not true, my love."

Which of the statements Kaoru was contradicting was unclear. Quite possibly all of them. He did not withdraw, remaining balanced in Seimei's lap, but he did lean back slightly, his hand settling on Seimei's shoulder, the other one palm-up with his glass.

"Seimei, you didn't cause this. Nobody blames you for this, and if I thought Hikaru did, I would be knocking some sense into him. No one could have predicted this."

"Even if I did not cause this in its entirety I was still partly responsible," he insisted, gesturing vaguely to nothing in particular.

"Moreover, I did break my promise. I do it constantly. I worry you. I cause you grief and pain. I hurt you in ways I cannot help. Is it not better to break my promise once than to do it again and again, dishonoring my vow and disgracing myself before you and your brother?" Seimei asked, the strain of his confusion and frustration coloring his words.

"I do not know what to do, Kaoru," he whispered, his face distraught, dampness glittering on his lashes as he struggled, willing himself not to further disgrace himself by weeping. "I just...want to be good to you. Now I question my every motivation and cannot see myself as anything but a dangerous burden."

"Responsible for what, though, Seimei?" That had him setting the glass down, the other hand going to his shoulder, both giving a gentle squeeze, "And the alternative, what would that have been? Locking all of you out there to die? We would never have done that. I could never have done that." His thumbs rubbed circles, tenderly.

"I need you to understand, my sweet - Love is always portrayed as this blissful thing but it can hurt just as much. I know you want to protect me from everything, and that's okay that you want to do that, just... Seimei, it's not always going to be possible. There are things that are outside of anyone's control, and I know that's hard for you. And when things like this happen you'll feel like you failed, like you need to be blamed. But I have no blame here for you. It wasn't your fault, none of this was your fault. As long as you're trying. I'm more resilient than you realise."

"I am not stupid or naive," he protested weakly, frowning around the boy and lurching for his cup to drink more, because it felt sensible. More sensible than anything else, anyways.

"I know love hurts. Love hurts more than anything I have ever experienced in my life. It is blissful. A blissful sort of agony that rends as much as it soothes, and I do not question my love for you, or yours for me. This is not about that. This is about promising never to hurt you or let harm come to you. I swore I would not be the cause of your pain but...you weep. You fret and you worry and I cannot stay sedentary in my home forever just as I cannot expect you to stay safe and protected and never leave. I cannot - I will not - control you...but neither can I protect you," he murmured, his pitch rising, feverish and frantic at first, only to die out, consumed by sudden melancholy.

"I promised your brother things I could not fulfill. I went out as I do, when you did not want me to, as always. I came back carrying a blight. I may not have been the only one, but I was part of it. I poisoned the Bastion. It nearly killed you. Kaoru, what have I done that has not endangered you or caused you pain in some way? It isn't your resilience I question...its why it has to constantly be tested that condemns me."

"What about your tears, my love?" A quiet sigh, stroking Seimei's hair back gently. "You can't just cancel yourself out in all of this. What about the pain that I've caused - you can't pretend that I haven't. Does that get cancelled out, just because it was me?"

Where to even begin answering Seimei's question? He knew full well that he wouldn't have managed in the Bastion without Seimei's support. Seimei couldn't just ignore that.

"You gave me shelter. You gave me a home. You supported me, protected me, even when I dragged you out onto the Skyway when you didn't want to go. You made me feel whole. You think one mistake is going to wipe out everything else you have done? It can't. It couldn't. It was an accident, Seimei, even Hikaru understands that."

Edited 2014-07-26 02:47 (UTC)

"I do not matter to me," he stated with simple determination, as though the fact were so glaringly obvious and reasonable that anyone else should understand and feel the same. He shouldn't matter. He was a strange old creature from a bygone era in love with a boy that represented, in his life, all of the good and bright and new things. Kaoru was worth protecting, he was not. His feelings only mattered insomuch as they applied to Kaoru - his love, his affection, his devotion. The things that would be given to the boy. Things that could enrich another life. But Seimei's needs were second place. Seimei's desires only relevant in regards to the boy.

When they came at the detriment of another?

"It could have been anyone," he murmured miserably, staring at the fluid in the bottom of his cup, dark eyes deeper and blacker than ever before, mirroring his feelings. "If I had not come into your life as I did, you could be happy somewhere else. You could have your brother and I would not be this complication that I have become. I want you to have your brother without me in the way. That is what I am: in the way," the onmyoji insisted with a soft note of the strain of one trying desperately to make someone else see something out of their line of figurative vision.

"Always you have to think about my feelings, endlessly you have to divide your time, but I do not want you to have to do that. I want you to have your brother and feel whole again. I cannot give you your old life and your old world. I cannot protect you from everything, much as I wish I could and I cannot keep the promise I made to your brother. What value have I if I do little more than break my word time and again? That I love you was not enough. It should be...love should be enough, but there is so much more. My heart, my soul...they seem like such flimsy things. Brittle and valueless," he murmured, looking up briefly to gaze at the boy with a soft sigh.

"I only wanted to love you and give you all that I have...but I am so afraid now," Seimei said, hardly above a whisper.

"I am powerless, Kaoru. I cannot keep my word, I cannot protect you from everything and I cannot stand the separation. I feel that I am only endangering you," he muttered, Hikaru's words prickling at him, dragging him further into the sort of sorrow that twisted one's belly into nauseating knots.

"You were dying there beside me. Whether it was my fault or not matters little. You were dying and there was nothing I could do. You were weeping and I had not the strength even to speak. What of the next time, Kaoru? What am I to do, when love cannot change anything?"

"But you matter to me." He couldn't help but skirt around the way that Seimei's admission had cut him. It hurt, to hear Seimei value himself so little. If he wasn't going to treat himself preciously, Kaoru had to be the one to do so.

"Whenever I object to you seeing us as anything other than equals, it's because you are just as precious to me. Because it's just as important to me that you don't hurt. That you be happy. Is it so wrong that I want for you the things you want for me?

The life you would send me back to... has it occurred to you for a moment I might have outgrown it? I came here missing a part of myself and... there will always be a space for Hikaru in my life, of course there will. But after I came to this place, I adapted. I grew. And that hole I arrived here with... the very nature of that hole changed."

He held his tongue for a moment, straightening, tucking back a lock of his hair and trying to compose himself. He knew his emotions were written clear on his face, but he would not show tears, even thought he could feel them coming. Letting them fall would be the worst thing he could do in this situation. He couldn't let Seimei hurt more than he already was.

"You speak like you break your word time and time again but... that isn't true, my love. It would be one thing, if you didn't care about your promises at all, if you thought it too much bother to even try to keep them. But that's not the case, is it? It was one time. One time, one accident, does not rule out a thousand kept promises - all the times you came home safely, all the times you kept me safe..."

The hand still on Seimei's shoulder slid down his back, smoothing Seimei's robes as it went. His other fell to rest on Seimei's chest.

"...you have to let me protect you, sometimes. Let me shelter you sometimes. Listen when I say that the rest doesn't matter - not even Hikaru matters, Seimei, I'll deal with him. You and I are all that should matter to you and I. This heart and this soul, my love, they are the most valuable things of all. If they don't matter to you, entrust them to me."

He wanted to believe, and maybe that was why a little piece did. A little piece that hid in the back and pleased with him for sense - perhaps it was even the drunken part, pickled and willing to say things he might otherwise have kept secret. The breath he released came on a shudder, Seimei folding in on himself as he dropped the cup and its meager contents to wrap his arms around the boy instead. That was more important.

He croaked some ugly sound, sobbed noisily and buried his face against Kaoru, angry with himself for being emotional, furious at himself for letting anything show, for being so weak. Things the boy loved anyways. Kaoru stood by when the onmyoji was bitter and stern, when he was happy and cordial. Much as Seimei loved Kaoru for all his foibles. Why he himself was too blind to accept it he couldn't understand. He only knew he was still filled with regret and sorrow.

It might never go away, the echo of Kaoru's voice cracked with the illness, the weak grasp they had; kisses pressed to glass. Those memories might never pass, but they had then and there. Everything else...

"I cannot bear a part of you hating me," he admitted quietly, hiding behind the thick mass of his hair. It was one thing for the redhead to see him in such a state, entirely another for anyone else. "Hikaru is...he is such an important part of you." For Kaoru had said as much, spoken of their shared mind, their completeness, their oneness. Things Seimei didn't imagine he could ever experience with anyone, despite having it there, plain as day, for him to see for himself. Living without the boy was rapidly becoming unimaginable.

"If he hates me, what am I meant to do? I don't expect him to care for me at all, but the idea that he might come to loathe me...I cannot be the thing that creates a rift between you. Time and space and circumstance certainly, but not me."

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