latino_menace | OOM: Another visit

'Yeah.'

He'll reserve judgement on 'perfect' until the time. But it doesn't seem so bad right now. Maybe it's the good food - whatever Random doesn't want is quickly polished off and then he leans back on the bed and lights another smoke.

'What's been happening? I've been trying to persuade Arithon not to deliberately make himself a target, which is like talking to a brick wall. Talking to people from my world and trying to work out how to fix things. Keeping an eye on cursed people and trying to find more, which is more difficult than it sounds. And the rest of time, either being bored or missing you or trying to find time to sleep. So.'

He'll be so glad when this is over.

"Dworkin. My... grandfather."

He hesitates on the word.

Because holyfuckingshit.

But holds his tongue. Baby in the room, after all. Baby who, apparently, needs to be changed. Random moves away to do so, with a look at Ramon to tell him to go ahead.

'Ah. Yeah, Dworkin. Crazy old bastard.'

He's trying not to let on how much the conversation bothered him. And not looking at the changing going on, although he does wrinkle his nose at the smell.

'Well, he was adamant about who he is in relation to you. Strange guy.'

Doesn't know where to begin really.

"What worried you the most?"

That's a pretty damned good place to start.

"You got my letter about us kissing in the bar? He might have seen that."

'Yeah I did. And no, that doesn't bother me.' He smirks. 'He descended on me and called me an in-law. Hell of an introduction.'

Not an altogether unwelcome one though. People talking as though he and Random are married amuses him greatly.

'No, he just...had some things to say. I don't know.'

He trails off lamely because he doesn't want to be the one to tell Random that fuck, he might end up like Dworkin one day. He's not sure he believes it himself. Certainly doesn't want to.

"If it bothered you, then he was lying."

He says it blandly, before folding the diaper and niftily tucking it into a completely seperate shadow. One with a garbage heap. Before beginning to re-dress Martin.

"Simple as that. What did he say?"

'Why do you think that? Mightn't the truth bother me?'

He doesn't understand Random's logic on that one.

'He didn't seem like he was lying.'

Avoiding the details, avoiding the details, lalala...

"Please, lover. Do you think he couldn't have if he didn't want to?"

He comes to sit back next to Ramon, Martin comfortably settled.

"You wouldn't know. Now tell me, and I'll inform you if it's patently ridiculous."

He tries to put his arms round him and just forget about it.

'Do we have to talk about it?'

He's been trying not to think about it at all. Because obviously that'll make it go away.

"Oviously. I was going to push in the letter, but I figured I'd wait till now to see if it was still bothering you."

An arm around him is nice, comforting, familiar.

"So... we do. Or I'll worry, and you know it."

'Yeah.'

He sighs and leans back against the pillows.

'He made fun of our relationship. He said you should have taught me to hide things better.'

Which, of course, is nowhere near the real problem. But it still bothers him all the same.

"There will always be people making fun of our relationship. You know the type, the lonely bastards who only wish they could know what this..." he leans up, kissing him softly "...feels like. It's nothing, baby."

They both know it.

"As for teaching you to hide it better, I could if you wanted me to, but there's never been a need."

Ramon smiles and strokes his hair idly.

'Yeah, well. He made me sound like a moony-eyed teenage girl and I don't like that.'

Well, he wouldn't.

'I don't want you to teach me to hide it. I've got nothing to hide and I'm not ashamed of this.'

"Well, there you go."

He smiles back, though faintly.

"Now. Quit beating around the proverbial bush, kay?"

He gives in. Doesn't he always? It's not without hesitation though, not without having to force it out of himself.

'He...implied that you'd end up like him.'

"Which means?"

He rather thinks he knows, but best to hear it said, perhaps.

He hates this. What if it's never occured to Random before and now he's going to worry him with something the old man could have been lying about.

So it's a quiet mutter when he replies, 'That you'd get too old and forget who you are. You know....lose yourself and go insane like he is.'

And I wont be around to remind you of what you are.

"Oh."

He reaches out a hand, taking Ramon's.

"Well. Can I tell you something about time, baby? You need to understand this. For as long as you're going to be with me... you're really still thinking in terms of years.

But my oldest brother is more than twice my age. That's the oldest living. Finndo would be more. Oberon was at least that again before he started having offspring. His father before him would have been the same. That makes the man about ten times my age- this is the roughest of rough guesses, you know. And this is the Dworkin that created the trumps. He's been dabbling so heavily in magic it's a miracle he can see straight at all."

In his humble oppinion.

"Time, Ramon, is long. All that aside, I've already burried brothers. Oberon had siblings too, hear tell. They've all fallen. I can't imagine Dworkin as alone either. Odds are, I'll find something worth dying for that needs me."

'...what?'

It had been making sense, until that last part.

'What are you talking about, 'something worth dying for'?'

"Well, I'll end up on the losing side of a war. Or I'll fall defending Amber. Or I'll get back into politics and be assassinated...
Hell, might even crash Jabberwock one day. Something dangerous, something I lived with knowing it was dangerous, and something that ultimately ends things. It might be a brother."

He considers, calmly.

"It'll probably be a brother. Our games bring out the best and the worst and are the very brightest sort of candles for us moths. That'll probably be what kills me. Though I am an awfully good gambler."

Ramon says nothing for a moment. Then he just carefully pulls Random to him, folding arms around him.

'I don't want to talk about this anymore.'

He seriously doesn't.

"Sorry."

He tucks against his chest.

"I'm not going to forget, though. I promise. Hundreds and hundreds of photos. I kept the one you didn't like, I'm sorry. But you're so lovely when you sleep."

'Didn't say I didn't like it. Just didn't like you taking it without my knowing.'

He murmurs it into his hair, strangely washed out and tired by this whole thing. There's a small smile though and he tucks a bit of stray hair behind Random's ear.

'I don't want you to forget.' Wasn't that one of his old worries, that Random would move on after his death and then forget about him entirely? 'And you know, thinking that you'll probably get killed before you get that old isn't much of a comfort.'

"Something has to end it, Ramon."

He keeps his eyes closed, not through fear, nor denial, just quiet knowledge.

"It won't be my own body, and I'd rather it wasn't my own hand. If things last too long and the lives in the universe around me all go out, it will have to be. Forgive me, but I hope not."

He stays quiet, just holds him close. This subject always depresses him.

'Don't want to think about it.' But before he can stop himself, he blurts out, 'He said you'll duck questions because you're forgetting already. Like if I ask you things then you'll unravel and come apart.'

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