Re: Diner: 1AM-ish
Billy figured that reality was as capable of being shit as it was of seeming like it was better than that, okay? Seeming, not actually being. Reality was perception, and yeah, the nature of perception being subjective sort of inherently made everything potentially shit. The reality of his life up until a certain point had been very straightforward, and healthy, and that had been that. And then a little old lady had showed up and rocked his entire existence to the core and then he’d killed her, and that was where reality had gone, and that was fucking shit. Looking back, it made it hard to think he’d ever been dramatic about bad grades or unrequited crushes.
“Depends. Given the choice, I can think of a whole lot of other things I’d choose to be, before something or somebody I already knew,” he said, shaking his head and shoving one hand through the mess of faded-pink hair that had already been standing up, unruly, and was now just legit disheveled. Anarchistic in shade and haphazard volume. He didn’t flinch at the volume of Shiloh’s voice. Billy was not a man easily embarrassed or self-conscious. But he did laugh, an unexpected sort of sound that burst forth with breath that smelled like coffee and vodka. “These tutors, were they specifically employed to teach you to talk like a Disney prince?”
He slipped the bottle up from beneath the counter’s edge and twirled the cap off again with a flick of his thumb, pouring several more fingers’ worth into his mug until it was mostly clear liquid tinged faintly dark, like steeped tea. “I saw him, yeah. He was interesting in as far as I could get a really good fuck out of him,” he said, leaning forward, one elbow on the table now. Looking intently at the guy across the table, pupils wide and drinking in. “As Patroclus, he was a fantasy. Shit, so I was I, for him. We finished, and cleaned ourselves up, and went our separate ways. I’m pretty sure he ghosted me after that, actually.” This a little wry, but without a trace of bitterness. “But no, I wouldn’t have gone to get hash browns with him. And I think, if there was a lesson going on, it was that I need to be less avoidant. But that’s not about to fucking happen. Did you learn a lesson, Shiloh? How to soothe the tortured soul by showing them that they bleed like anyone else? Was that you, or was that the magic?”