latino_menace | OOM: Another visit

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OOM: Another visit

Ramon's a bit nervous about this visit. Not only because of the conversation with Dworkin, but the 'little visitor' that had been promised in the last letter. Still, he gets to see Random again and that's worth anything.

So, here he his. Late at night, tired but happy with anticipation. He can't keep his mind off the Trump in his pocket.

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"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.'

"Oh."

He leans into him, now seeking comfort.

"Are you going to ask?"

'Do you want me to?' he asks uneasily. He doesn't want to ask if it's going to make him react like Dworkin said it would.

'I've asked things before and it's not been a problem.'

That he can remember anyway.

"I've lied."

He says it softly.

"Not recently. Not for months. But I've had to lie. I'm not perfect. But the important things, I don't forget. Ever. Ever."

He kind of feels like he's been punched in the stomach.

'So I've asked you things and you've made up the answers? Because you've forgotten?'

"Not since before your curse."

He's kinda, like Dworkin said, unravelling.

"You can't imagine how embarassing..."

Well, that's a little better. He can handle that, it was months ago and he barely remembers things himself, from then.

But still, this is worrying. Random is...shit, he didn't want this.

'...what? What's embarrassing?'

"To not know something like that. To not remember where you learned to speak French. No idea."

He lies to acquaintances. He lies to strangers. He lies to friends if he thinks it will do them well.

He never, never lies to Ramon, not if he can help it. He has yet to lie to Martin. There are some limits you don't push.

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