“Who taught you how to bow? One of those awful people who tried to kill you, I bet.”
WHAT: Post-speed dating drunken mini-golfing, with a side of questions. WHERE: A place where mini-golf happens in Vallo WHEN: September 4th (backdated) WARNINGS: Brief mention of eye things, nothing in detail STATUS:Complete!
Serefin was fairly drunk.
Not uncommon for a regular Friday evening, but tonight had been different. Speed dating. The mead had been good, and the conversation hadn't been painful, and he won some internal bet about not answering questions about himself. He would have to let Dan know that the fire talk went over well. Dates, romantic or platonic, seemed intrigued about burning things. And so that meant he didn't keep track of the alcohol he was consuming, and maybe that was why everything was all blissfully fuzzy, unnaturally funny, and Serefin was overall agreeable to whatever was suggested next for the evening.
But he had no idea what in the hell he was holding in his hand. A long metal stick, with a sort of foot at the bottom. Golf. But this wasn't regular golf, the clerk told them—mini golf. Except everything was still regular-sized when they made it to the first hole.
Serefin did not understand the concept.
He spun the club around, a lazy gesture, as he eyed the tacky, plastic green. Knocking the ball into the cup seemed easy, but the world was a little tilty. When Serefin glanced over at Jacob—his post-booty camp distraction and most agreeable friend to drag to do something ridiculous—he wasn't all that solid-looking either. Huh.
Serefin made a small noise of disapproval as he placed his neon orange ball down, and it slowly rolled away. "I do think the evening could have turned out worse. Your sister didn't stab you for signing her up."
Jacob had seen a dumb sign about mini golf and there’d been a bloke swinging a metal club on it. Seemed right up his alley, really. But he hadn’t wanted to go alone and, well.
Speed dating hadn’t been a disaster but it hadn’t been brilliant either. His fault, entirely, for being even a little honest with Evie the night before. That never ended well. He’d spent the majority of his quick dates feeling like he was auditioning for “worthwhile human being” status and ultimately failing.
He’d never admit it to her, but Evie was right about needing to connect. He wasn’t as strict about it as she was, but that was because he tended to connect with people who were impossible or unavailable or genuinely deranged. Did the blood mage in front of him qualify as any of the above? He wasn’t sure yet.
Torunn’s excellent mead wasn’t clearing things up, of course. Jacob weaved his way over to Serefin with his club on his shoulder and put a foot out to stop the wayward ball from escaping. He missed but that was besides the point. “Give her time. She’s much more patient than the likes of us.”
He watched a man and woman at the next hole, dancing around each other and laughing. Eventually the man tapped his ball into the hole. “Think I heard about this sport. Don’t think there was a dragon involved—“ He pointed his club at the wooden structure looming over their green. “—But still.”
Given the opportunity to reflect on his speed dating experience, which would be later when the pleasant buzz wore off and he was once again alone in his bed at Morningside, there might have been a good reason he didn't take it seriously. Something about borrowed time or inevitable godly powers taking over. Small fears he never voiced that unconsciously made his decisions—it was why Serefin avoided answering questions. Only when backed into a corner, like he was with Diego, he could admit the bare minimum.
What a thin existence he carved out for himself. It was why he flocked toward instances like this, where he could be inebriated, poking balls with sticks, and casually talking about dragons. Somehow, Serefin still felt guilty. He pushed it away.
"Do you have to swing it?" Serefin asked, as he half-heartedly tapped at the escaping ball. Sober, and with two working eyes, Serefin was certain he would be terrible at this game. He crouched down and pushed the ball toward the dragon end instead. It hit the wall and didn't get very far.
"Next booty camp, I can tell all my potential paramours that I have played a sport. They do not need to know if I was any good at it." And then he added, cheekier, "I got out of answering thirty-seven questions tonight. Almost thirty-eight, but I thought withholding my name was unfair."
Jacob’s answering eyeroll might have ended with him in the pond next to them if there hadn’t been a heroic guard rail for him to grab onto at the last second. Thank Christ. He’d never have lived that one down. He stepped back up to the start and slowly nudged Serefin out of his way with a hand that probably lingered too long.
In his defense, it was more about his balance being shite than impropriety. Mostly.
“I’m not your mum. You can pick your ball up and carry it around for eighteen holes if that tickles your fancy.” He tried to copy the man from the next hole, putter on the ground, leaning over it. “But we paid ten dollars for this nonsense, so we should at least pretend we’re smart enough to figure it out.” He whacked the ball and it disappeared into a tree for a second before thunking to the dirt and rolling back onto the green. It ended up right next to Serefin’s ball.
When Jacob's expertly shot ball came rolling back next to Serefin's weak attempt at golf, he couldn't help himself. Oh this was too good. He barked out a sharp laugh, and went gleefully running to where they sat waiting to be hit again. "This, this is nonsense," Serefin said, pointing out how ridiculous it was. Right or wrong, they ended up in the same place.
Serefin, still staving off his laugher, put his hand on Jacob's arm, consoling. "Please, please. Allow me. I think I've figured this out now."
And then with much more force than he applied the first time (and with the putter), Serefin swung one handed to knock the ball further down the green into the dragon's open mouth. Somehow, still missing and bouncing into the corner. Serefin spun back to Jacob, a little wobbly, and bowed deeply, dramatically, and drunkenly. "Thank you, thank you. Save your applause for the end. Beat that."
Serefin’s laugh pulled one out of Jacob, stealing away the urge to complain about uneven ground or some other rubbish excuse for failure. It had been a weak urge anyway. Jacob rarely got bent out of shape about failure. His father had inoculated him against caring too much about that. At least, caring on the outside.
“You know what’s nonsense? That bow,” Jacob teased. “Who taught you how to bow? One of those awful people who tried to kill you, I bet.” It was a little too serious of a comment, from flirtatious to growling in a blink, but that’s what liquor did to him. Let all his emotions come tumbling out of his dumb mouth with lightning speed. He meandered over to his ball and kicked it towards the dragon’s mouth. It zoomed around the inside and then came spitting right back out again, but he was distracted turning back to Serefin anyway.
“Please tell me you have someone at home that you can trust not to stab you in the back,” he said. “Friend, family, something.”
"No one taught me to bow. Who am I supposed to bow to? I was—am? No, was the High Prince. And High King for a moment there. Everyone bowed to me," Serefin said, meandering over to his ball. It took two tries but he managed to grab it.
There was something about Jacob's tone, and Serefin's expression twisted up in confusion. It was the alcohol making every thought much more difficult to understand. Focus was fleeting, and Serefin waved a dismissive hand at Jacob—as if to say not to worry.
"I have plenty of people who won't stab me in the back." He counted on his hand, putting up one, two, three fingers. Then reconsidered and put the third one back down. Two. "Kacper and Ostyia. I might have said Nadya, but she's become weird, and I suppose that's what I get for associating with my country’s enemy, a Kalyazi cleric."
Serefin tossed his ball into the dragon's maw, and after a bit of clanking around, it did not spit it back out. Success. He held up another finger to stop Jacob from saying anything, and hiccuped before he spoke. "We are going to be here all night if you don't best the dragon. There's a spinny thing further on that looks dangerous."
“Oi, princes at home bow!” Jacob grumbled, lifting his arms in a frustrated gesture. He didn’t actually know much about royalty but he argued like he did. “To kings and queens and royalty from other lands. How was I supposed to know you were above all that?”
Thankfully, he was back to sounding cheeky. Hearing Serefin at least had two people to watch his back eased the tension out of him. It wasn’t a lot but it was better than none. Jacob tripped his way over to his ball and slapped at it a few times with his club until it finally went where it was meant to go. He could hear it clinking around in the inner workings below them and used his eagle vision to follow it down to the next green, down a set of short stairs.
He hooked an arm around Serefin’s neck and tugged him towards the stairs. “Tell me about this weird Nadya. Was that a thing?”
With little resistance, Serefin allowed himself to be pulled to the next part of the course. He had never been more thankful that he was leaning heavily on Jacob as he took the short flight of stairs. Every obstacle was a fall just waiting to happen. Serefin was not ready to go down like a drunken fool, yet.
"A thing?" Serefin asked, and because alcohol made his thoughts sluggish, it took a beat too long for him to realize what Jacob was asking. When he did, Serefin made a horrible, disgusted noise. "No, oh no. Never, never, no. I tried to kill her," Serefin said, his voice going contemplative, before adding, "Multiple times, actually. Claimed she could speak to the gods, plural. Becomes a problem for my country full of heretical atheists."
The hypocriticalness of that statement was not lost on him as it poured so easily out of his mouth. He could talk to one, had talked to one. He didn't want to now though.
As they hit the bottom stairs, Serefin raised an eyebrow at Jacob. "Why, are you interested? She's small, blonde, absolutely annoying, has a thing for my half-brother. I could introduce you if she ever shows her face here."
“Trying to kill someone - or even succeeding - doesn’t mean it wasn’t a thing,” Jacob shrugged and pulled away to chase his ball when it popped out of a pipe and rolled into a little collection area. Serefin’s was there already, so Jacob picked it up and tossed it in the air. Considering how he swayed on the spot, it was surprising how easily he caught it. Muscle memory was like that sometimes.
The number of times he’d had to catch something before it alerted everyone in the area to his presence was stupidly high.
“Anyway, if you think she’s annoying, I probably would too,” Jacob frowned. “Can’t imagine what a woman who talks to gods would have to say to the likes of me anyway.” He lobbed Serefin’s ball at him with nothing more than a crooked smirk for a warning. “Wait, is this brother that tried to kill you or a different one?”
"It would be a very short thing if the other person wanted to kill you," Serefin murmured as Jacob went chasing after the golf balls. He used the putter for stability, like a fancy, wholly unnecessary cane.
The voice inside Serefin—the one that was his conscience and not Velyos—was clawing at him. His inhibitions were down, his question-dodging tiring out, and Jacob's mention of talking to gods made Serefin do that thousand-mile stare, just long enough to almost miss the ball being lobbed toward him. He did, though, manage to bat it away with his hand, followed by a drunken stumble. But he managed to stay upright.
And that was only because of all that ridiculous, and clearly effective, training from Jacob and Diego.
"That's the one. I couldn't imagine having any power-hungry siblings," Serefin said, watching the ball bounce-roll away, sinking into the hole with a satisfying clatter. Serefin didn't even need to try, and the shit-eating grin he gave Jacob chased away all his previous moodiness. "Tell me that you would have felt terrible if you took out my other eye with flying balls."
“Yeah, well, I didn’t ask if you were married,” Jacob tossed back. The hint of defensiveness in his voice couldn’t be helped. He was all too aware that his general history of “things” was convoluted and unhealthy. Thankfully, they were also brief, so he had no trouble shrugging off the feeling and laughing at Serefin’s clumsy (but effective) defense of his person.
“That was an underhand toss and I’m three sheets to the wind. If I took out your other eye, I’d be bloody impressed with myself.” His grin flashed bright and then faded as he came closer. The starting point was right at Serefin’s feet, after all. “And alright...a little sorry,” he added with a small, apologetic smile. He took his turn but it wasn’t nearly as impressive as Serefin’s. All this talk of shite family and romantic interest was distracting. Trotting after his slow moving ball, he scooted it along faster with extra nudges from his club until it tumbled into the hole.
Serefin quick-stepped over to the part of the green to watch Jacob tap his ball the last few inches in. He stared, maybe longer than necessary, before slowly, turning to look at Jacob, a smile growing on his face. He brought his hands together to clap, slowly, a couple of times in approval. Even drunk, he was a little shit.
"We—" Serefin said, incredibly serious, waving a hand between them, before tapping a few times on Jacob's chest. "Are very good at this game." He used Jacob again for support as he bent down to recover both of the golf balls. He dropped one into Jacob's hand and took off to the next tee, up another small flight of stairs.
"And you could have asked if I was married. That could be your one question." And sure he had more or less answered a few from Jacob already this evening, but that was because he didn't care about those matters. Or Jacob already knew the backstory. How easy it was when he didn't have to prep another person for the inevitable onslaught of heavy baggage.
Serefin stopped, spinning around at the top, his hands on either side of the railing, blocking Jacob from coming through. "Did you ask someone at speed dating if they were married? Did someone ask you?"
It was a good thing Jacob was never deterred by someone slinging cheeky behavior at him; that would make him quite the hypocrite. He did swat playfully at Serefin’s face as he rose up with their golf balls in hand, though. It was the principal of the matter. The principal was destroyed a bit when he trotted after Serefin like a loyal hound, but he was too sloshed to be embarrassed.
“That’s it, no more liquor for you,” Jacob ordered as he stumbled to a stop and stared up at Serefin at the top of the stairs. His brain got a little distracted but he eventually found his way back to a point. After a noteworthy pause anyway. “...Your train of thought is crashing between stations. Do married people still openly date in your world?” Pushing up into Serefin’s space, he tried to scoot him out of the way with hands on his hips.
“Anyway, my plan was to ask you to tell me something personal. Something you actually want to tell me. Were you married is definitely a giveaway.”
Telling Serefin no more liquor was about as foolish as telling him not to breathe. Impossible, ridiculous. He laughed, and then found himself trying to get his train of thought to the right station.
"Openly? No, but I do suppose secretly is how I ended up with another sibling. Most marriages are arranged. Finding other people to warm your bed as royalty is not uncommon—" Serefin cut himself off, watching Jacob move him out of the way with his hands on his hips. That was one quick way to get him to shut up, and Serefin shuffled back without much resistance, but not because it was the alcohol making him pliable and obedient.
Serefin swallowed hard, then looked off down the next green—a hilly, weaving thing that made the idea of getting a ball down the course seem impossible. "Ah, there are plenty of personal things I want to tell you," Serefin said quietly, far too serious from his previous carefree tone. "But other conversations keep getting in the way."
Another shrug, another rolling the important things away. He gestured toward the tee as if to say let's go, hurry up. "Your turn to go first."
Jacob shot a scowl at him - more confused and frustrated than actually annoyed. He didn’t particularly like the look of the green ahead either, but he liked the vague words out of Serefin’s mouth even less. The fact that there were things he wanted to say but hadn’t, well. Patience was not a virtue Jacob possessed.
“What’s stopping you from telling me right now? Do you prefer talking about philandering royals and their bastard children?” The concrete tripped him up for a second as he tried to step backwards away from Serefin, his arms raised in challenge. He didn’t land on his arse, but he didn’t look particularly graceful either. “You didn’t see that,” he grumbled, dusting himself off as if he had gone for a tumble. Setting the ball down on the tee, he pretended to take it all very seriously for a moment. Mostly because he wanted a response and he didn’t want Serefin to have the excuse of taking his turn.
“Come on then,” he teased with a troublemaker’s glance of his shoulder. “What’s the hold up?”
"Am I boring you with my life?" Serefin asked, smiling, as brief as it was. Because right after that, Jacob was stumbling a little on the concrete, and taking his grand time hitting the ball, and Serefin was starting to frown again at Jacob's challenging words:
What was the hold up?
"Diego knows. You could ask him," Serefin said, and almost left it at that. It wouldn't be the first time he was pawning off important discussions to other people to have on his behalf. But knowing how stupidly loyal Diego was to people, he'd go to his grave with the information and then Jacob would come back to ask again. Probably when Serefin was far more sober and not as willing to let all his secrets come pouring out.
"Do you believe in gods, Jacob?" Serefin asked, in that way that absolutely sounded like he was turning this into a philosophical debate and once again not answering the question. "There is—there is a point." Serefin held up his index finger, then looked at his hand surprised to find, well, a point. "To all of this."
Being a twin that often got treated as the lesser of the pair, Jacob was a little sensitive to people getting chosen before him. Usually, he covered it well. After all it was hardly anyone else’s fault he had fears of inadequacy. Better to hide all that behind swagger and reckless behavior then let it expose him. But in this instance, surprise briefly flashed across his face and he missed his shot completely.
“For fuck’s sake,” he grunted. Blowing out a breath, he set up for a second try. “Well, I’m not badgering Diego for your secrets. I’d just ask Evie if I wanted them that way.” His second shot was better, even though he really had no idea where he was aiming and the ball rolled wildly over the strange hills.
“If you’d have asked me a few months ago about gods I’d have said absolutely not, but I’ve seen things here I can’t bloody begin to explain.” Jacob stepped back to give Serefin room and watched him a little too closely. “Do I need to believe in gods to hear the point?”
This was when Serefin wished his alcohol tolerance was far less than it was currently. Any regular person should have been passed out somewhere on the steps or by the mouth of the dragon, and yet Serefin was still upright, and using his putter as a crutch to step up to the hole. He hadn't missed the surprise on Jacob's face, so he kept his head down and focused on the tee.
"No, you don't have to believe in them to hear the point. It would make me a hypocrite," Serefin said, and took a practice swing, before giving up the pretense and turning to face Jacob. "Diego finding out was an accident. I wouldn't have told him if I could have avoided it." He just needed to make that clear.
Again he leaned on the putter, waiting. It was a mix of allowing his brain to catch up with his body, and wondering if Velyos was going to find the time to cut through that inebriated fog and make himself known. When neither happened, Serefin let out a full-bodied sigh and knocked his ball without care.
"There's one inside of me," Serefin said, with a half-hearted gesture to his eyepatch, going for a poor attempt at nonchalant. Then laughed, with strange relief, at the stupidity of that statement out of context. He needed more wine.
The fact that Diego wasn’t as much a choice as a matter of circumstance shouldn’t have relieved Jacob but he was just a little pleased, there was no denying it. Well, there was schooling his face into relaxed curiosity but that wasn’t the same.
The waiting was brutal though. Jacob eventually frowned and moved closer, opening his mouth to say something like it’s fine if you don’t, you know but then Serefin’s announcement had him blinking in confusion.
“Inside of you.” His eyes tracked to the gesture towards the eyepatch. “...You have a god in your eye socket?” He tried not to sound incredulous but, well, he was only human.
Serefin frowned, then looked horrified, as he tried to imagine what Velyos would look like hanging out in his eye. The whole point was that the god didn't have a body to inhabit, and therefore Serefin was his lucky ride-along. Serefin shook his head, again and again, because he didn't have any type of self-awareness with this much alcohol in him to stop.
He made a large beckoning motion to get Jacob closer. It wasn't as if anyone was watching them, but who knew at this point, and Serefin was still cautious about flashing his uncovered eye to people who didn't know the whole story. Technically, neither did Jacob, but this was different. He was different.
Bracing one hand on Jacob's shoulder, he let the putter fall as he lifted up his eyepatch to show—well, not a god, but the touch of one. His eye was dark, full of stars, and unnatural; a stark contrast to the other.
"A side effect of dying," Serefin said, flipping the patch back down and turning back to the game. "No, wait, a parting gift. Huh, none of these seem right. Suppose I can't call it one of those housewarming presents?"
Watching Serefin’s face journey was hard on Jacob’s inebriated brain. He felt - stupidly - like apologizing. But then he was being drawn in and shown something that made his coherent thoughts run for the hills. His fingertips grazed Serefin’s cheekbone just below that impossible eye before he’d even realized he’d lifted his hand. He pulled back though, as Serefin righted his eyepatch. His throat felt coated in dust. He blinked rapidly for a few moments, staring at Serefin’s profile and then up at the sky.
As if he needed to confirm the stars hadn’t fled.
“A side effect of dying, he says,” Jacob murmured. He rubbed a hand over his mouth and a breathless laugh trickled out. A sensible man might have stepped away. Jacob Frye moved closer. “You’ve got the night sky in your eye and you say it’s a god, but you’re talking about it like someone left a--a--bloody fruitcake at your wake.”
He had turned away, embarrassment for once rearing its ugly head. Serefin's hand ghosted where Jacob's had so gently before. It made him squirm, unbearably flattered, as if care and concern caused all the skin on his body to go tight, his feelings a mess. It made his heart pound loudly in his chest.
"No one would have left a fruitcake at my wake, it would have been—what's the word? Distasteful? Garish? And that's assuming I had one. Filicide is looked down upon in most places." Serefin was course-correcting, leaning hard into the parts that weren't difficult to talk about. Making a joke about it, because the other options were not as fun.
Serefin bent down to grab his golf club, but his whole equilibrium was off, and so instead of coming back up with the putter, he just sat down. This was much easier than standing.
"Now you know why the—" Serefin did that ridiculous hand gesture from speed dating, the aura one. "—is all strange. If it's periwinkle though, don't tell me. I couldn't take it if I was matching Diego with that horrible color."
Jacob couldn’t really blame Serefin for the cavalier dismissal. This was the most mad thing Jacob had ever heard and if it had happened to him, he’d have ignored it as thoroughly as possible.
He doubted it was easy to ignore.
“Well you’re in luck!” Stumbling around behind him, Jacob crouched to stick both arms under Serefin’s and bodily lifted him up to his feet. “It’s a lovely shade of chartreuse.” He spoke close to his ear. “I have questions, but I’m going to let you off the hook because there’s an eerie pair of blondes coming up the course behind us and I’d rather get a move on.”
With a pat on the back, he stepped away and set up to take his turn. “God eye,” he mumbled under his breath. “Should’ve known you wouldn’t be easy.”
Serefin groaned when Jacob brought him back to his feet, half in complaint because he just sat down and half in disgust because chartreuse. But there was a grateful look, a brief flash of it, when Jacob said he had questions but he was holding off for now. There was relief too—a strange complicated secret that easily affected every second of Serefin's life was now not so closed away.
He told Jacob that he trusted him. He meant it. And this was proof of that.
"If I was easy," Serefin said, stumbling right up to Jacob before he took his swing. He paused, unnecessarily long, before Serefin shot him a wicked little smile. "I don't know, actually."
And then he kicked the ball further down the course, dragging Jacob with him after it. They could cheat at this game a little bit more, couldn't they?