open post | 3 | general

[meerkats]

 

◉ drop a comment with one or more of your muses.
◉ Give me a prompt
◉ you can specify any of my muses whom you might like to play with, or I can pick.
◉ Everything goes, even the retired ones, but I can't guarantee good tags from them.
◉ profit!

Comments

[flaskerade]

The primary flaw in Joly's logic is that Grantaire does not, in fact, have lice. In spite of how he presents himself, the personification of a state of disarray, he keeps himself well washed. He showers when he feels the need to do so, with scorching water to wake him up or ice cold to make one slightly more sober. The flecks of paint and ash that knot into his hair are just that, byproducts of a sloppy existence that replenish themselves after being otherwise washed away.

His showers take a total of five minutes when he does bother, but they happen frequently enough.

That said, after three days of pointedly avoiding doing so (a decision made with Joly's squirming hypochondria entirely in mind) he had developed a sort of degenerate film, one that had him scratching the dead skin on his arm and the back of his neck. Enough of a cue, it seemed, to set his tightly wound top of a best friend. He supposes, in retrospect, that he asked for it, with his intentional tugging at the top to wind it even tighter, waiting for it to spin wildly and lose absolutely all tension. Waiting for the winding to begin again, a slow tug on the road of repetitively comfortable entertainment. He supposed, in a sense, he asks for everything that comes his way, and this is one of the more bearable outcomes of daring fate to pull the other one.

"Sure,"

With a shrug, Grantaire polished off the last of his beer before standing up with a series of pops to his back and wrists. He cracks his knuckles for good measure, letting his voice trail behind him on his way to the bathroom.

"You're the one who's going to look like an idiot, not me."

[flaskerade]

Grantaire takes his coffee Irish.

It doesn't take a genius to understand that coffee, while satisfying on it's own, did nothing to help a hangover. Instead, everyone's favorite caffeine addiction was more likely to dehydrate and land you in the damn hospital if you weren't careful. Now Grantaire, with his penchant for irresponsible behavior and the remarkable ability to just barely skirt past self-harm, knows better than to drink straight coffee first thing in the morning. After waking up on his own couch, neck stiff from pressing crookedly against the cushions to avoid a spring pressing urgently up against the thinning upholstery, only a glass of water will do before he's chased it down with a beer.

Because the thing that it does take a genius to understand is that the pain won't fade when the hangover dissipates. The pain will simmer until reduced to it's essence, that overwhelming disappointment called life. The best cure for a hangover, as far as he's concerned, is more drugs and alcohol. That is, after all, the best cure for life.

He glances at Combeferre when asked if he's listening, a visual acknowledgement that he was. Listening, yes, hearing, hardly. Hearing would require that he ever gave a damn about the words that droned out of Combeferre's mouth. He's a wet napkin in a social situation if there ever was one, and Grantaire has learned to read Combeferre as one reads a try philosophical text: First sentence, last sentence, next paragraph, rinse repeat. The rest would, more often than not, prove to be unnecessarily detailed footnotes to whatever point he was trying to make. With his glance he also took out his flask, pouring a decent amount of whiskey into his coffee. It's always five o'clock somewhere, particularly somewhere he would rather be than here, at this hour, with this particular person after this particular mess had begun to unravel.

There is a girl he knows, in passing, who follows Marius around like a lost puppy. Her hair is tangled into the sort of dreadlocks that are only caused in fair hair as hers by unwash and meticulously anxious finger twirling. The state of her delusion is so grand that she believes herself important in the grand scheme of Marius Pontmercy's life. Grantaire has no such delusion. He knows his place in Enjolras' life. Three months ago, when he started sleeping on Enjolras' couch, it wasn't for lack of his own place to sleep, nor was it for some fanciful idea that Enjolras wanted him there. It was merely a circumstance of the situation; late nights making signage for a rally had been, in his case, late nights of drinking that had him waking up with Enjolras nearby, otherwise ignoring him and typing furiously into his laptop. He stayed a few days, found himself comfortable and found, what's more, that Enjolras didn't seem to mind. One month in and they would spend hours of a day when neither of them had to be anywhere on Enjolras' couch on their respective computers, in various sprawling positions of comfort. Two months in, he was making dinner for Enjolras regularly, forcing him to actually eat something, and sleeping in Enjolras' bed when their righteous leader would pull all-nighters for the cause. Sometimes, Grantaire would even wake up to see him curled up next to him, not touching, in his own space, fast asleep.

He looked, in those moments, peaceful, each soft release of breath felt sad in the air between them.

So they were dating. They didn't need to be having sex to be dating, particularly given Enjolras' blatant asexuality. The sex would just be disappointing, anyway.

Stirring his now-Irish coffee, Grantaire stares at Combeferre with darker circles under his eyes than he's had in months, and a sore crick in his neck.

"I really don't think you know what you're talking about, nor is it really any of your business."

[monthly]

3 PM, a phone-call from Ananke's people. Not the Fates themselves, they never called, instead opting to send Liam cryptic texts or mail that would arrive barely in time, because the fates aren't in the business of giving warning. It was Ananke's minder, Heather, calling to let him know that Chronos and Ananke would cross paths again at the Tuilleries on the 15th, and go have lunch. To tell him that he should pencil in the inevitable, so no one's schedules are particularly disrupted by it.

Fucking Gods, taking their responsibilities to damn literally.

He hangs up on her without so much as a proper goodbye, another inevitability, and taps off the ash from his cigarette as he pencils it in. The 15th. A day where everyone within 200 miles of them will feel the weight of the inevitable passing of time sitting on their shoulders morosely while two relatively chipper old souls have crepes.

He gets back to his other paper work, bills to pretend to pay for their flat and notices from other gods. Requests for more time, reminders of punishments with less. A prayer on paper begging for more time to repay a debt, forwarded from Zeus with a note from his minder to cut the time in half. Bills, junk mail, a post-card from that zoo in Taiwan who, out of the goodness of his heart Chronos has gifted with a temporarily unaging tiger for their rehabilitation program.

And then a text from Ananke herself, reminding him that he would need to find Chronos a proper apprentice minder soon, he couldn't remain as he was forever. Fuck off.

He sighs, putting out his cigarette and standing from his creaking chair to get a beer from the fridge. If he's learned anything in the last 40 years it's that it's always 5 o'clock somewhere. He pops open the top of the bottle and looks around the sparse kitchen, through the doorway to the unnecessarily modernist living room. Where the hell was Chronos, anyway?

hannibooboo

[glumshoe]

you sure now how to please me <3

[avoirfaim]

[ We couldn't leave without you.

The sentiment had been genuine, a barb meant to stab right where it hurt, to burn before Hannibal's knife sliced into Will Graham's gut. The palpable irony soured in Hannibal's mouth and dripped off of his tongue, saying in less words what was truly meant: You could have had everything you wanted, and it lays to waste at your hands. It's your fault.

Alana had surely called for the police before going head first into the lions den--she had never been bright, but always had been smart none the less. Dropping Will to the ground to let him bleed out had been far too easy in his anguish, and he could have watched him die in that moment. Will's betrayal would have solidified, and his sins would have soaked into the floorboards like his heartbeat could continue beneath them. He considered starting new, letting the tea cup he had built shatter back into a million pieces as it had started. He considered the wet knife in-hand, he considered Abigail.

He hadn't been able to kill her before, and Will was right, for now. He wouldn't allow it, wouldn't settle for being changed with no sense of that completion he now longed for.

The ambulance would come, the ambulance would save Will Graham, who had watched Hannibal leave that soiled space with Abigail in tow.

To create a new identity for himself was simple enough by means of experience, but to build a new life for a girl who by all records was dead? It was too simple. They could start over in Amsterdam, the two of them, and wait for their missing piece to bite the hook. It had been Will's fault after all, and he would have to suffer the knowledge of his failure in order to have what he had wanted. He would have to repent on bended knees. ]

[movingrightalong]

[Look at you, Jack, looking just as good as you did the last time he saw you. A few more wrinkles around the eyes that only servr to remind the Doctor of Rose, of the guilt of knowing exactly how Jack's existence continues on. He smiles, that same goofy smile he's had for centuries to distract from the fact that it didn't quite reach his eyes. ]

Nah, you know me, always bouncing back in the face of hydronitrates. You should see the rain on Attripe, now that is worth the titanium umbrella.

[ It's been a long time, Jack. ]