multiversallogs | Fire up that fiddle, boy, and bring me one last drink [open]

Entry tags:

Fire up that fiddle, boy, and bring me one last drink [open]

Who: Apollo and YOU, please

What: Having a drink

Where: One of the taverns by the inn

When: Sukkardi (Saturday)evening

Notes: Multiple threads okay!

Warnings:Tipsy Apollo?

Apollo was not unfamiliar with battle. He'd watched dozens of them. Hundreds of them, maybe. He knew how war worked, understood that people were drawn to bloodshed, believed that world peace would never be achieved. Still, it had never mattered before.

He had never been in the middle of it before.

The whole event had left a bad taste in his mouth, which was why he found himself knocking back drinks. More than ever, he was eager to get back home, to be able to distance himself from all the unpleasantry again. "Another," he called out, pushing his empty glass back. Half distracted by a woman down at the other end of the bar with dark eyes and a large chest. Eyeing him less than discretely and he felt nothing. A sigh of disgust. What was wrong with him?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh, Apollo, not Paul. Like the Greek deity. Her education had been spotty, but she'd had a good memory for the mythological bits. Bit of an odd thing for someone to name their child, although she could see some of her friends back home giving their kids names like that.

"Jones," she said, holding out a hand to shake, professional-like.

She eyed the bow critically for a moment. He could have been lying to her, of course. It wouldn't be the first time. Still, this place did have a balcony. She decided that she would ask someone else in the room later. Either in front of him, or behind his back, depending on how angry this encounter made her. Depending on how much she wanted to sting him, bruise his pride.

Still, she could feel a dozen barbs on the tip of her tongue.

Well, I'm glad to see the alcohol has been protected from the monsters.

That was a good one.

"I've just come from a first aid station," she said, trying to keep her voice even. "I've been instructed to direct anyone who might be injured that way." She glanced from side to side. "Is anyone here injured?"

If Apollo's at all surprised by the fingers, he doesn't show it.

Then again, he is more than a little drunk.

"So. Celebrating your not-being-dead?"

"Hello Jones," and he reached out to take her hand, giving it a good, hearty shake.

"Anyone ever mention that you've got pretty eyes?" he asked, and immediately moved on to "What kind of name is Jones?"

He set the bow down, turning back to his drink. If she wanted to fume, she could fume. Frankly, she'd been avoiding him since they arrived and he wasn't going to go crawling to her feet.

"Not that I saw," he said shortly. "You're free to take a gander yourself."

"I can usually spot injured people," she sighed. "They're large. I have good eyes."

Cassandra ran a hand through her hair. All at once, a wave of utter exhaustion hit her. She had spent the entire week shooting at creeping, crawling things with Boromir and Ianto. Her fingers were sore and bloody. Her arms were tired. There was simply not enough left in her to continue this argument.

She took the remaining coins out of her pocket and walked over to the bar, setting them down by Apollo's elbow. "Don't walk home tonight in your condition," she said. "Stay here."

"I've got money of my own," he said, pushing the coins back away. "Don't need your pity. Never did."

Now he was annoyed.

"Sit down, get a drink. You look like hell."

Not true, but no reason to be nice to her if she was going to be grumpy and patronizing.

Pity? Hardly. It was true, Cassandra had pitied Apollo once. Such a lonely, lost creature with no one else who would never understand love. But she had run out of pity for him back in Willaknapp. Perhaps it was unfair. Perhaps it wasn't Apollo's fault that he was stuck. But it was pointless to waste pity.

Calmly, Cassandra collected her coins, putting them back in her pocket. "No, thank you," she said politely. "I think I'm exhausted enough without any drinks."

She glanced down at her hands. Well, he had gotten one thing right. She certainly did look like hell.

"Then sit and keep an old--"

Friend? Hardly. Lover? Not recently.

"--acquaintance some company," he decided on. Again, he patted the seat

"I imagine my being here would hinder your attempts at conquest," Cassandra said absently. Still, she sat down on the seat. She supposed she would spare him five minutes or so. Her bed would still be there, of course. And there was clearly something wrong with him. Something other than being highly intoxicated, of course.

She glanced down the bar at the woman with an ample bosom and dark eyes. "She's pretty."

A pale imitation, but pretty.

"It's my name." Says the guy named Apollo. It's not like it's a non-obvious pseudonym, but most people just assume she's being impersonal or foreign. Her real name precious few people know, and she'd like to keep it that way. "I'm not sure what you're trying to ask, here."

"Not really. I just felt like being out." Sebastian isn't sure how else to explain that he felt the need for the bustle and noise of people, but that he wasn't usually one to participate in that. There are times when he feels a bit like being a rock or a slow eddy in a fast-moving stream.

"And you?"

"Just celebrating good liquor at this point," he said with a laugh. He spun the glass around, balancing the glass by pressing his fingertip against the rim.

"Were you fighting?" he asked.

"Thought the question was obvious enough," he said and spun around once on the stool, reaching out to press his hand against the counter top to stop himself.

"What brings you here on this fine night, Jones?"

"I suppose she is," he answered, glancing at her way. Apollo wasn't planning on making any conquests tonight, he was much too tired and a little too drunk for it, but the idea that Cassandra didn't like it made him want to tease her.

"Jealous?"

Cassandra propped her elbow on the counter, resting her chin in her palm. "Curious," she replied with a shrug. "This place is different. It isn't like the caravan. It's a community. And I find myself wondering how you're going to fit in within the community." Perhaps he would have done better in Rowan. Unfortunately, that wasn't exactly an option for either of them right now. "Or are you still convinced that we're going to disappear at any moment? Or...you're going to disappear at any moment?"

She swirled one finger in a circle on top of the bar counter. "You know, I hadn't thought of that before. You. Moving on someplace else. Or me. Our being separated."

"No more than a few of the newts. These days, I'm not too swift," he remarks, gesturing to his bad knee, "And someone needed to keep the homefires burning, as it were. You?"

As Sebastian's order arrives and he pays the server, he takes a moment to wonder which, if any, of Apollo's providences would he fall under. He has no faculty for music or geometry, no connection to the sun, and his days in athleticism are behind him. While his namesake, St Sebastian, has a great many similarities to the Apollonian archetype, Sebastian knows that of all the Hellenic deities, he would most likely favour Athena.

Ah, well wasn't this one a treat. Anna let her appreciation show in the smirk that crossed her face as she took in the first man bold enough to approach her -- which was a point in his favor (as if he needed more, with that face); she found shyness terribly dull.

"Only the legs? It's as though you don't realize you're talking to a lady."

There was a bit of a mental twinge as she remembered Leander, missed him -- but she remembered the fight too, his awful fury, and hers, and she didn't know what to think, so for now she preferred not to. Think, that is. And besides, he wasn't here.

He gestured to his bow and arrow. "I was involved from a distance." A description of the last few months of his life, really.

Apollo glanced down at the man's leg. "If you don't mind my asking," he said, emboldened by the drink, "What happened to you?"

He turned to look at her, feeling the alcohol giving him a push toward asking the question he was thinking. A gentle nudge, just enough to convince him not to think through his questions.

"I've thought about it. Would you prefer it, or would you miss me?"

He flashed her a brilliant smile.

"Oh, one of those women, are you?" he teased. "I could write you a letter devoted to your beauty and certainly, the paragraph devoted to your eyes would be satisfactory. But only two sentences about your lips? That would simply not do."

He cast a brief, sweeping glance over her form. "So what will it be? I can only write an ode to one physical feature tonight. Legs? Back? That area where your legs meet your back?"

An awkward question, to be certain. Made more so by the fact that he was completely drunk. "Difficult to say, when you're like this," she replied. After all, she couldn't lie. "All things told, I think I prefer you when you're sober. You're more dangerous, but less..." She made a futile gesture of her hand, unable to come up with the proper word.

"How long would it take you to stop missing me?" she asked. It went without saying that he would miss her, at least remotely. After all, what was it? A hundred years after her death? And he still remembered her name.

Still claimed to love her.

With that humbling thought, she lowered her eyes. "We should not be having this conversation like this."

He snorted in derision.

"I can't give you a number right off the top of my head. You know I'd miss you. The question is, would you miss me?"

Apollo reached over, boldly placed his hand on her thigh. "If I stay the night, will you stay with me?"

"When I was younger, I fought in a war." When he used to live in Britain, Sebastian habitually lied and said that he'd been injured in a car accident. If he'd told the truth, it would've only led to awkward questions about which war.

"It's just an old injury from that time. Nothing to do with the creatures here."

"You're getting a little ahead of yourself with that last one," she teased back, "but what can I say? I admire a man with some ambition."

Anna leaned forward and tilted her head playfully (but of course it also showed off the pale smooth lines of her neck, the subtle curves of her small breasts just beneath the neckline of her dress, the way the light caught her cheekbones).

"So tell me your name, Mister Poet. I'll need to know who I should call on, on the off chance my self-esteem wavers." There is the subtlest hint of an inflection to her voice -- not quite an accent so much as the careful precision of someone who has learned to avoid it.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 2 of 5

Fire up that fiddle, boy, and bring me one last drink [open]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject