Say When (A New Year's Brunch)

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot had been warned by various people that New Year's often brings some kind of supernatural mischief to Darrow, and this news had only made him more determined to stick to his plan. No power of god or man or eldritch entity place-spirit or army of fish people will prevent him from throwing a damn party. 

It made sense, really, and part of him wishes he'd done something like this before now. He needn't frame it as a sort of surrender to this imprisonment, but rather just indulging in something frivolous because, as far as his understanding of the metaphysics goes, none of this really counts. So why shouldn't he enjoy it? He's been here long enough to decorate the apartment some, and it really is a marvel the amount of things available through Nile. There's more comfortable furniture, potted plants, and a series of apothecary cabinets and display cases for magical components that give the whole place the air of some eccentric explorer's gallery of curiosities. 

He's even managed to get enough appliances that the little kitchen is decently functional, and has spent a few days stocking up and preparing for what he hopes will a successful brunch. He has enough eggs to feed an army. There will be copious crepes. There will be mimosas for days. 

Eliot's used to working through a wicked hangover this time of year, so he built that into consideration in his prep time. Thanks to the night's adventure, though, he spends his downtime sober and scrubbing mer-blood off of himself, and still feels a bit frazzled by the time the first guests arrive.

[It's time for brunch! Brunch is a state of mind, not an actual timeframe, so please feel free to have your pups show up whenever in the day, honestly. Tag in, tag around, chase the memory of merman horror away with a mimosa, air your grievances and dirty laundry in the neutral ground of Eliot's apartment. This is a safe space. For Drama.]

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[littleorphanalien]

Michael leans forward on his toes to pick him out, eyeing Martin, and thinking about what they talked about, but hey, they're here, they're alive, and they're happy. Who the hell is he to argue with any of that?

"I found mine," he confirms. "As expected, rescuing people like the hero he is," Michael says, but it's with fondness. "We got his prosthetic back in place, and I got him on the pier before I proposed, but lucky for me, he said yes."

[loficharm]

Martin smiles, small but genuine. "That's fantastic," he says warmly. "I'm glad he's all right. And that he said yes."

He raises his drink again, less in jest and more in a sincere toast, taking another sip.

"Is he here?" he wonders, a bit curious to meet him, curious about Michael in general, given their limited but markedly odd interactions so far.

[littleorphanalien]

"Fuck, me too, because I don't think I could ever get someone like him again," he scoffs, shaking his head. "He's over there, with Blue," he says, gesturing to them. "We're going up to Kagura to make good on the couples retreat that we were supposed to have," he says, blissful. "Alex and me. Not Blue."

"Like I said. I get complicated, man," he promises. "But proposing to Alex was the simplest thing I've ever done."

[loficharm]

Martin glances back, pleased to see Blue's here as well, Christ he really ought to catch her up on a few things—and turns back with another smile as Michael mentions his plans for the evening.

And then he brings up last night's conversation, a bit obliquely, but it's enough to make Martin falter a bit.

"That's good," he says, and looks down at his drink. Of all things he doesn't want to feel jealous, Christ, but it's a bit difficult. He is happy for Michael, of course. It is good to have that certainty about someone, to have it reciprocated, to feel it strongly enough to act on it in a place like this. He wonders how long it took. He's not even sure how long Michael's been here, doesn't remember if that came up on their first meeting or not. It is tempting, the idea of finding someone here, as much as it is dangerous. This is not his life; it's some state of in-between, something he's constantly aware he might lose at any moment. But god, if it works for other people...

The idea of getting over John makes his stomach turn, and he pushes it back at once. It's not as if he's been able to pull it off before. Years of disdain, paranoia, and unattainability couldn't do it, six months of an unliving coma couldn't do it, so it's laughable to think he could simply exert his own will on it now.

He retreats into the quick distraction of realizing he's just made a complete assumption about Michael and Alex's history. He'd been given to understand it was a bit rare to have someone from home join you but that certainly doesn't mean he and John and Daisy are the only ones.

"Did he erm... did you meet him here, or do you come from the same place?" he asks, looking up.

[littleorphanalien]

Michael stares at Alex for a long moment, but he does that a lot. It's making up for lost time, all those moments he didn't get to look at him like this, all the nights and mornings he wanted to, and he lets out a soft breath, trying not to get lost in what-ifs and hypotheticals like that.

When Martin asks about that, Michael snorts.

"Shit, I'm what, twenty-eight now?" He guesses, seeing as he doesn't have a real birthday and doesn't like to celebrate the fake one that he has. "We met when I got back to Roswell and started in school with him, so when I was eleven," he says. "Fell in love with him a few years later," he says, still staring across the room. "Didn't do anything about it until we were seventeen, and then things got massively fucked up for a decade."

It hurts, even now that they're engaged, to think about all that lost time. "But we're here now. We're making it work."

[loficharm]

Oh. Martin's internal barricade against that petulant jealousy crumbles a little more as he realizes Michael and Alex are actually in a very similar situation. Of course he and John didn't meet until Martin was 28 himself, but...

There is no sense in comparing the two. They're different. That's all.

"Well, I'm glad," he says with a little smile. "Better late than not, right? It's good you still have each other here."

He can't quite resist looking back toward John, who's talking to Daisy now. Good that she's here, probably a bit pissed he came without her when she's ostensibly playing bodyguard to him. Last night was bad enough.

[littleorphanalien]

"Definitely better to happen at all," he guarantees, because honestly, before here and with Caulfield, who knows how things could have ended up? Alex had walked away from him more than once, but he stopped that and now they've been together six months. He's stupid lucky, and he knows it. "Helps, really, to not be bogged down in a lot bullshit," he says, finishing his drink and reaching for another.

"I was here without him for five weeks," he admits, "and yeah, I managed, but surviving's not the same as living."

That's the lesson that he's learned over the last six months, and he knows it's a crucial one. "Speaking from experience," he also adds, "I wouldn't give up on anyone, cuz if I had, we wouldn't be engaged."

[loficharm]

Seems like he's not going to escape this line of conversation anytime soon, and Martin sighs quietly as he decides to just accept it.

"Yeah." He frowns into his drink before taking a more substantial sip. "I mean, I'm not giving up on him, ever. But it's bigger than just my... m-my feelings for him."

Ugh. He hesitates, glancing back at John, still otherwise engaged. It's weird to be talking about this openly at all, much less with John in the bloody room, but... well, it's not like he chose the moment, and he's got just enough of a buzz going that he thinks he can bully his way through the discomfort.

"We were both part of something back home that... it didn't exactly let us go when we came here." Martin shrugs. It's vague, but he's not sure he has the stamina to just launch into all that. "We need each other. He needs me. And if it's just that, if it's just... taking care of him, that's all right."

He means it, too. There is always going to be that unforgiving heartache and the awful loneliness whenever he's left with his thoughts for too long, becoming sometimes literally oppressive in his empty flat and his haunted dreams. But he can survive it.

"I'll live," he says aloud, just a bit too tired to sound properly wry, as he takes another drink.

[littleorphanalien]

"Look, if he told you point-blank that he doesn't want you, he doesn't like or love you, and you know him well enough to believe him, then fine," he allows. Then again, Michael screamed at the love of his life that he didn't love him.

Thank fuck Alex could see through his miserable lying.

"I just think that living isn't so great if it's just going through the bullshit motions. From experience," he allows, because he definitely did that a lot.

[loficharm]

Martin stands there, his gaze still downturned at the dregs of his mimosa, letting Michael's advice sink in before he even considers a response. No, of course, John has never said these things. Not point-blank, not even obliquely. People have forced him to confront this before as though it ought to provide him some sort of hope, and it's difficult not to resent it. It is never so easy as just allowing himself to think maybe. As though the only thing missing in their situation is a bloody discussion, oh, why didn't I think of that.

But he can't explain all that. He can't explain about the tapes and what he said on them and how he knows John has listened to every one, and he certainly can't explain that a lack of discussion is evidence considering his own pointed unavailability that filled in space where John might have addressed any of it. Most of all he can't just go into a whole damn diatribe about John's asexuality and the murky state of his capacity for romantic attraction because that isn't anyone's goddamn business, least of all his own.

But the thing that really needles him this time, more than any other moment this has come up, is that he has a harder time shaking it off than usual, a harder time resenting it than he did last night. Because Michael is right: Martin's entire life has been a perpetual state of going through the motions, and it's only recently that anyone's had cause or willingness or interest to tell him he deserves better. And that person was John.

He rubs at the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up, and downs what little remains of his drink.

"Maybe you're right," he says tiredly as he resets his glasses, because as hedging goes, that at least feels marginally like the answer Michael is going for. "Just..." He risks one more glance toward John, then faces Michael directly. "We only just became friends, if I'm honest," he says, because if they're going by the first time they actually had the audacity to use that word with each other was here, just a day over two months ago. "I really, really don't want to mess with that."

[littleorphanalien]

"Fuck, you genuinely sound like me," Michael says, because he'd been the same. "Alex wanted to start over, as friends, and when I got here, I was a fucking mess and I wanted the same, so we did start that way. Friends, no kissing, barely hugging, and learning about each other. We became best friends."

And then this place turned them into the teenagers that hooked up, with no memory of anything else.

So maybe the universe is bound to step in, if it's meant to happen. "Look, if that's what's most important to you, I get that, I do. I'm just of the opinion that you should never shut doors if you want something." Says a man who indulges in acetone and liquor like it's going out of style, and he reaches for his mimosa for a punctuating sip.

[loficharm]

Martin relaxes a bit, relieved that Michael understands where he's coming from. That certainly makes it easier to appreciate his ongoing encouragement.

"Yeah," he says, managing a little smile. "Well, nothing's shut. Guess I'll just have to see if anything comes through."

He doubts it, but it's nice to imagine there's a shred of hope, even if that mostly feels like a mistake.

"I need a top-up," he says, gesturing with his empty glass. "You?"