miles baines: riff-raff! street rat! (mimicks) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-11-01 14:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, lionel baines, miles baines |
find their fathers and their mothers, if you remember who they are.
Who: The entire Baines family!
What: As a surprise, Lionel brings their parents to opening night of En attendant Godot. Miles is not amused.
Where: A smallish theatre in the city.
When: Backdated to Saturday the 26th.
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Status: Complete.
This time he was getting paid to act, rather than acting in order to get paid. Miles was decked out in the frayed clothing of a tramp or vagrant (and truth be told, it was oddly familiar, like a grown-up version of the rags he’d worn once upon a time on the streets), plus the trademark bowler hat of his role. The bottoms of his shoes were artfully scuffed. Everyone was bustling around backstage with the heady panic of opening night. The other actors also entertained guests, some with significant others imparting them with kisses for good luck. No such solace for Miles Baines: he strode through the melee like a rat skulking around the hold of a ship, until one of the backstage crew tugged at his sleeve. “Your brother’s here,” the woman said, and Miles doffed his hat and went scurrying off to find Lionel in the lobby. He wormed his way through the pre-show crowd, face twitching into a semblance of a smile as he noted his brother looming over the other theatregoers, head and broad shoulders jutting into view like a tree over a grassy plain. But then the crowd parted – one woman turning here, a man moving aside there – and a sporadic line of view opened up. What Miles saw made him freeze. No, he thought, and then no no no Faram fuck it no. He shouldn’t have been surprised. He should have seen this coming, really. But somehow he’d been caught off-bloody-guard, and so there was one disconsolate actor with an incredibly false smile plastered across his face as Elayne and Cole Baines caught sight of their older son and waved frantic hellos. Chin up, smile on, Miles reminded himself as he approached them, trying to simultaneously grin and shoot telepathic daggers at Lionel, which unfortunately the other man did not notice whatsoever. No, Lionel was completely unaware of his brother’s irritation. He had briefly considered the idea that Miles wouldn’t be so keen on their parents attending his opening night (or any other night), those concerns had been dismissed quickly enough. Miles had put off visiting their parents for as long as possible, yes, but surely he’d be glad to see them if Lionel brought them to him, right? Elayne and Cole seemed eager to forget any past disagreements for the evening, at least. Lionel beamed as he watched both his mother and father pull Miles in for huge embraces. Meanwhile, Miles tried not to squirm like an unruly child – a pitch-perfect replay of a hundred different strained embraces as a teenager. “It’s so good to see you,” Elayne said warmly, her hands resting on Miles’ shoulders. “We weren’t sure if we should bring flowers or not, so we brought champagne.” There was a barely a beat before their father chimed in with, “It’s nothing fancy, but Lionel said you’d like it.” Lionel held up the champagne in question and grinned. “I considered giving you a heads up, but I thought it would make a nice surprise.” The blue mage looked entirely too pleased with himself, but he thought a little smugness was in order; a Baines family reunion didn’t happen every day. And for good reason. Miles’ usual charm seemed to fade when in the vicinity of his parents, smothered by the weight of their complete, well-intentioned love and support. They were so affectionate. And so normal. And besides, the mime strove to guard his weak points: shuffle them aside and into a locked safe behind a fake wall, rather than leave them on open display. If that meant being a childish asshole sometimes, then so be it. “What a lovely surprise,” he said through his teeth, slipping away from Elayne’s touch like an eel beneath her hand. “I had no idea! And champagne’s quite the perfect thing for an opening night. We can crack it open after the performance, though – we still don’t know how it’ll go, after all.” The charisma was a strained thing, but the Baineses never seemed to notice. They never noticed anything. Miles had run circles around Cole as a teenager, the older bard not even knowing what truly lay behind the face of their guild. Elayne and Cole may have been oblivious to Miles’ displeasure, but Lionel certainly wasn’t. “I’m sure it’ll be wonderful,” he offered quickly, his smile rapidly waning. He hadn’t expected Miles to be over the moon with the surprise, but he didn’t want Miles to be irritated right before a show. What if this affected his performance? What if he’d inadvertently thrown his brother off his game, ruining everything? The man was a rapidly deflating balloon – and their parents didn’t notice that, either. Cole was wrapping an arm around Elayne and smiling proudly at his oldest son. “You’re going to do Kebett and us proud, son. I know it.” “Mm.” Miles readjusted the bowler hat on his head, if only to have something to do with his hands. And then he finally redirected his attention to his wilting brother, already picking up on the tell-tale signs from Lionel — the two of them had always been rather better at reading each others’ nonverbal and bodily cues, forged from a lifetime of their own private language. Even as blind as the mage could be at times. “Lionel, can I talk to you for a minute? Thanks,” he continued without pause, rattling onwards and latching a hand around the taller, broader man’s arm and trying to pull him off to the side. Naturally, it was a sham, as so many things were with Miles: the blue mage wasn’t moving unless he wanted to be moved. Which meant, of course, that Lionel went willingly along, marched over to a private corner and close to one of the backstage doors. “You should’ve told me they were coming,” Miles hissed, glancing back over his shoulder. In their absence, their parents were chattering happily away and pointing out various decorative pieces of the theatre lobby to each other. “Maybe,” Lionel admitted, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. If Miles was this annoyed about a surprise visit from their parents, then there was a very good chance he would implode whenever Loch eventually sauntered into the theater. Might as well tell him now, he thought, but then his gaze fell on his very content looking parents; a sudden surge of irritation wiped all his guilt away. The mage fixed his gaze on his brother, his eyes narrowing. “But you should’ve invited them yourself. How long have you been in town now, Miles? How many times have you stopped in to say hello? You should’ve gone home and gladly offered them tickets.” The larger man folded his arms across his chest and frowned. The likeness between Lionel and one of the matronly nuns from their childhood was impressive. Miles was forced to tilt his head slightly upwards to meet his younger brother’s eye, which made him rankle – he took a step back in order to even out the height difference between them. “Is that you, Bernadette?” he asked, somewhat cattily, before readjusting his hat yet again with another small harrumph. It didn’t need readjusting. “I was going to stop by,” he said glumly. “It’s just been very busy. Rehearsals, jobs, bards guild business. You know how it is.” “I do know how it is,” Lionel shot back, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Which is why I’m sure you were busy with some female companion or two—” or more, Faram help him, “—between all those rehearsals and jobs and bards guild business.” “Or six,” Miles muttered under his breath, thinking of the Merry Women. But Lionel was never very good at staying angry with Miles, even it was completely justifiable. His expression softened as some of the tension unwound itself from his jaw and shoulders. “I just don’t get it. Some kids ended up with awful foster parents. They were always supportive, they never laid a hand on us, and you want to pay them back by… avoiding them?” The incontrovertible logic settled in like an unwanted weight on Miles’ shoulders, rising in his throat like bile. How to explain it when he hardly even understood it himself? The urge to run free without attachments, like he had before the House of Faram, without any dead weight anchors around his ankle – the dogged need to guard his secret life and identities – the separation and distance from his compromising family, lest some EKP officers come knocking at the door about his activities. Everything. Nothing he could say aloud, of course. So instead Miles slumped, and looked back at their parents again. Something twisted in his gut. They’d provided a safe haven for all those years, a blandly average environment that forged his hankering for mimicry as much as the streets had. A zone which he’d come back to as a teenager, shucking the identities like snakeskin until the only thing left was Miles Baines. A name they’d given him, and which currently decorated the playbill. He sighed. “What if I took you all out to dinner after the show?” Lionel blinked, then lit up like a child on the morning of Faram’s Mass. He didn’t understand his brother’s aversion to the Baines and their home (it had been a much more endearing and understandable trait when they were teenagers), and at this point, he didn’t think he ever would. But there was no point in pushing the topic if Miles was willing to try. “I think they would like that very much,” he replied after a moment, trying (and failing) to suppress a broad grin. “And I think I’m willing to tolerate a meal in your presence if it’ll make them happy.” The joke was paired with an affectionate punch to Miles’ arm. Even that light, playful punch was enough to make the other man fake a grimace and rub his arm, considering the mage’s sheer hulking size. “I’d poison your food,” Miles griped, obviously joking, “if only that didn’t leave them with just the one son to fuss over. Then I’d get all the attention and I’d well and truly die.” He heaved another overdramatic sigh as they started to make their way back. But some of his rattled nerves and temper – thrown into a disarray upon the unexpected sight of Cole and Elayne in this lobby – had started to settle down, to be replaced with a more believable friendliness, a less flinty and sarcastic welcome. The two Baines brothers strode through the crowd and back to their adoptive parents, the ostensible star of the evening tagging along in Lionel’s physical wake. |