Who: Eli and Lucas What: A reunion Where: A karaoke bar When: Recentish Warnings: None
By the time nine rolled around, Lucas was already well in to his evening activities. The bar was lively, filled with 20 and 30 somethings drinking the crafted beers that the bar favoured. Neon signs cluttered the windows, a couple of old pinball machines in the corner with people gathered around. The lights were dim, the crash of pool balls hitting against one another a counterpoint to the small stage set up in the back where the Friday night tradition of karaoke was already going on. Lucas was on that stage, a beer in one hand, the mic clutched in the other, belting out a soulful version of R.E.M.’s Losing My Religion. Even though he was a newcomer to the scene, it was clear he already had a fanbase of the hipsters with alcohol thick on their breaths. He knew how to work the crowd, his hair tucked behind his ears, a loosened tie ringing his neck atop the striped button-down. With a hat on his head, he somehow pulled it all together, and it was clear he was having a good time.
“That’s me in the corner. That’s me in the spot. Light. Losing my religion...” His lips stretched into a smile as he sang from memory, using the breaks in the song to take a swig from his beer. “Trying to keep. Up. With you. And I don’t know if I can do it... Oh, no, I’ve said too much... I haven’t said enough...”
Eli was slightly late. Unintentional, of course, but late all the same. He was dressed in a blue sweater and jeans, no walker in sight, and he took his tweed jacket off as he entered the crowded bar. Someone was already singing, though he couldn’t see the stage immediately upon entering. He made his way through the crowd, listening to the familiar song as he neared the stage. There was no table he could find, no seating available, and he opted to lean against the far end of the bar, draping his jacket along the barstool. It wasn’t until he ordered a lager that he turned and faced the stage. He lit one of his unfiltered cigarettes, and he reached back for the beer when it was handed to him.
Eli looked about for Lucas, only then realizing that finding someone he’d last seen when they were seven years of age would prove difficult. On the stage, the man began a chorus, and Eli looked at him (finally). His gaze stayed, finding something familiar in something he couldn’t define. Perhaps? No, it could hardly be.
The music still pulsed through his veins as Lucas left the stage to a smattering of applause, giving several shallow bows and accepting the gift of a new bottle of beer on his way down the steps. It was a cliched song to sing, he knew, but that didn’t stop it from being one of his favourites. Lucas threaded his way through the crowds gathered in the bar, pausing long enough to shrug up the sleeve of his shirt to glance at his watch. A quarter after. Eli should have been, or already was, here already. Now that the adrenaline from the stage faded away, he focused instead on searching for a familiar face in the crowd, a daunting task considering how many years had passed. How much familiarity remained in a face after nearly two decades?
Beelining towards the bar, a somewhat familiar figure caught his eye. Lucas paused for a moment, studying him, and then, deciding that he had little to nothing to lose, he approached. “Come here often?” he asked, leaning against the bar near Eli, taking a long swallow of his beer, studying the man and looking for the signs of the friend from a lifetime ago.
Eli had watched him come off the stage, and he’d looked for other things, for more similarities, but who could really find similarities between boy and a man. Still, when the singer spoke, Eli broke out in a grin. “You’re either attempting to pick me up, or you’re inclined to help me find my walker,” he said, familiar blue eyes warming. “Which is it?”
Lucas wore a matching grin moments later, his smile crooked and all too knowing. “I’m just surprised you still have teeth, Mister Pride,” he replied with a knowing look, turning moments later so his hip butted against the bar, fully facing Eli. It had been a long time, but there were still bits and pieces of a life so long ago lurking in the other man. “It’s good to see you again, Eli,” Lucas said in complete and utter honesty, knocking back the rest of his beer and pushing the bottle across the top of the bar, away from fingers that would fiddle and toy with it.
El wasn’t nearly as formal in his greeting. He clapped the other man’s shoulders as he pulled him forward in a masculine hug, laughing as he ruffled Lucas’ hair while stepping back. “Look at you. All grown up and not at all the wee pest you were once upon a time.” He nodded toward the stage, and then he looked back at the other man. “You were quite good up there,” he complimented honestly. He smiled. “It is good to see you, old friend.”
Despite the years since their last meeting, Lucas felt like he was coming home as he returned the hug, laughing as he ducked his head at the hair ruffle, accepting it without batting Eli’s hand away like he was tempted to. “Pest, was I?” he asked when he looked back up, his smile never fading. “Your memories are getting skewed, old man.” Laughing, he gave a shrug of his shoulders at the compliment, letting it roll off without too much bravado. “It’s just something I enjoy. Picked it up in college.” For a moment, it appeared that he was going to say something else, but then he turned back to the bar and gestured for another beer from the bartender. While waiting for it, he angled himself back towards Eli, his smile less broad, more easy going. “So,” he began, something positively devilish in his eyes, “you sure you can’t be tempted to coming up on stage with me?”
“There is not enough alcohol in this establishment for that,” Eli said, his voice fond, his expression easy. Life had been less than restful as of late, but this meeting, this reunion, it reminded him of youth and carefree times. And, to be quite honest, Lucas looked very well. Younger than himself by a few years, still young enough to draw the attention of all the college co-eds in the room. Eli was man enough to notice, and he was smart enough to hide said notice. Lucas had no notion of his interest in men, after all. The other boy had been fourteen-going-on-seven when they’d last seen one another, and such things hardly came into conversation. “You look good,” Eli finally said, casual and almost American sounding. “Despite your unfortunate youth.”
There was that grin again, wry and laughing around the edges as Lucas shook his head in amusement. “Unfortunate youth, hmm?” he echoed. “Come now. I’m 40 going on 27 and living it up. I’ve earned it, you know.” A wink and he tipped back his beer, taking a long drink before settling the dew-covered bottle back on the bartop. “And you look good yourself, for an old man, I mean.” And that was as truthful as it got; Eli did look good, and it wasn’t hard for those old feelings of yesteryear to pull at his insides with a familiar, pleasant ache. “So. Give me a recap of the last few years. What have you been up to?”
“Running a shop,” Eli said, resting an elbow on the bar so he could better give Lucas his full attention. “I met up with an organization in Boston a very long time ago called EIT. Have you heard of them? They handle Creation crime, things the local precincts aren’t equipped for. I signed on with them as a researcher. Thought I could protect the world, if you can imagine.” He chuckled. “Graduated with a doctorate in History and Architecture, did my thesis on old haunted places, which should not come as a surprise at all, and then walked away from it all to sell cappuccinos.” A smile, this one not reaching his eyes. “But I’m not bitter.”
The mention of Creation crime definitely caught Lucas’ attention, but his expression faltered little, instead shaking his head in answer to the question. “Can’t say that I have. But then again, my attention’s been elsewhere for a while, and before that, I was too young for many to pay me any mind.” A helpless shrug as he digested the rest of the history, thinking over it as he studied Eli’s face, thoughtful. “Why did you walk away from it, if you don’t mind me asking. Just seems to be... well. An odd detour in your story.”
“My aunt and uncle have funded my entire life without asking anything of me in return. They disapproved of my involvement with EIT, felt I needed responsibility and work over academia. They very much wanted me to settle down, become a responsible, married man. I could not turn them down, not after crossing over and showing up on their doorstep all those years ago,” Eli said, stubbing out his cigarette and pointing at Lucas a moment later. “Now, your turn,” he said, ordering them fresh beers and then nodding toward a recently abandoned table.
The table was welcomed in the crowded bar, and Lucas pulled himself up on one of the stools, pushing the sleeves of his shirt up towards his elbows. “So you’ve done a lot to make others happy? Not the wisest of aspirations, I believe. But at least you’re on your way to the married part with your on again, off again?” Fishing for information, yes he was. “I came over around ‘92, wandered around London for a while and came to the states a couple years later. I wandered from Baltimore to Chicago and had a bit of work during that time. Then decided a few years ago that taking some time off for college would be ‘beneficial’, so I got my degree. Finished that, felt unsettled, and then wandered west. The way I’m going, I’ll be around the world in another 20 years and back to where I began.” He grinned then, accepting the newly delivered beer and tipping it back. His cheeks were flushed, and it was hard to say how long he had been at the bar that night.
“Married,” Eli said with a shake of his head. “Not bloody likely.” He looked at his friend for a moment, really looked, as if he was deciding something, and then he tipped back his beer before saying anything at all. “You see, it’s not quite legal for me to get married in the states,” he said, and bollocks if he knew if it was legal overseas. No matter. He couldn’t imagine Preston doing something as public as getting married.
When Lucas described his life, Eli listened with more than a little envy. “Assuming you were still a wee thing when you crossed, who’d you take up with on this side?”
Well, that was news, albeit not entirely unexpected. Not that Eli broadcasted his sexual preference over a loudspeaker, but Lucas had been comfortable enough with his own preferences for some time that it wasn’t hard to believe. But that was neither here nor now, and no time to reflect on a childhood crush. So he moved on to Eli’s other questions, taking another drink of his beer before answering. “I was nothing but ‘a wee thing’ until I crossed over; my main motivation to crossing over, actually. There’s not much to do in a world where you’re forever only seven.” Lucas cracked a smile at that, a crooked little grin. “I bounced around for a while, here and there. Got picked up by a group and they took me in. I was with them until I went to college. Went back to them after college. Kind of a private interest group,” he added in explanation, skirting around actually naming who he worked for.
Something about the way Lucas described the interest group made Eli curious. It was something born of years of hunting things, he supposed. It was that instinct that made him know when a house was off, when there was something amiss inside it. “What interest group?” he asked, taking a sip of the beer in front of him, asking the question as casually as he could, and following it up with a grin. “And if you attempt to tell me you’ve known all along about my sexual preference, I shall throttle you in this bar.”
Of course Eli would be curious. He wouldn’t be Eli if he was anything else, but Lucas was quicker than that, having expected a question like that. “Just a group,” he answered. “It’s all very hush hush. I’m sure there’s a sniper listening in right now, ready to take me out if I should say too much.” He said it in such a joking, light-hearted manner that it would be hard to take him seriously, and that was just the way he wanted it. “As for your preferences, I suppose I only assumed what I did considering it is something we have in common.” A tip of his beer towards Eli with a lift of his brow before he tipped the rest of it back, setting it back down and pushing the bottle away with the tips of his fingers. “After all, I believe you can be to blame for starting it. And you will not throttle me. If you should even lift a finger,” he cautioned him, wagging a finger at him, “then I shall haul your arse up on that stage before you can even blink.” His grin was wide, reaching his eyes, and he was entirely serious with his threat, light as it was.
Eli was seldom shocked to silence, but Lucas had certainly managed the feat. The beer bottle was frozen partway to his lips, and he stared a moment, red climbing up the sides of his neck. “You’re teasing me, certainly?” he asked, because though he knew Lucas had been his own age, physically he had certainly not been. “A show of solidarity to make me feel less awkward about my confession, which is surely going to result in my kicking your arse?” he asked, but there was something sharp and serious in his gaze. He had not forgotten about Lucas’ strange, unnamed organization, but this was important. He’d shared quite everything with this man when they’d been small, and the possibility of having someone to talk to about his recent realizations regarding his own sexuality was heady.
“You really don’t think I would lie to you, do you, Eli?” Lucas asked in all seriousness, picking up on how important the conversation was, and making no move to lighten it with a joke or a jest. Shifting on his chair, Lucas worked his wallet out of his back pocket, flipping it open to the picture he carried of him and his own ex, William, to show Eli. The two were locked in an embrace at some party, and it was clear that the two were not just platonic friends. “I was with him in college. Life went in different directions, so we parted ways. Good terms, good memories.” Flipping his wallet closed, he settled it back in his pocket before meeting Eli’s gaze once more. “You know me better than that, Elijah,” Lucas murmured in lower tones, just loud enough to reach the other through the throng of the club. And then, in one smooth gesture, he reached over to pluck Eli’s bottle from his hand to take a sip of his own, returning it to him with a crooked grin.
Eli didn’t know what to say, and he stared at the photograph overlong and with slightly parted lips. It was so strange, so unexpected, and then his friend was taking his beer, and Eli’s gaze slid from bottle to mouth. “You’re being intentionally distracting,” he said, even before the bottle was returned to him, but he took it with good nature and tipped it back once it was in his possession again. “The man I’m seeing, his name is Preston. You should meet him. I think you’d like him,” he said, and he did. Preston tended to be the sort of man people liked, and he expected Lucas to be no different.
“You’ll have to introduce us sometime,” Lucas said easily, folding his hands together atop the table as he looked around the bar for a long moment. “Because if you like him, then I’m sure I’ll be able to find something about him to like as well.” Smirking, he shifted on his seat and stretched. “I have to say, Eli, that it’s entirely strange to sit here with you, like this, after so long. I keep expecting to wake up out of some sort of dream and find that I’m back in Chicago and hating everything again.” Relaxing back down, he slumped back in his chair, fiddling with the bar napkin his beer had been sitting on. “Never expected to run into anyone from back there again. Haven’t even seen my family. Everyone was out of the house and off on their own lives by the time I left, and me crossing over was not something I planned for. I had enough time to let mother and father know, but then I was over and across.” His expression saddened for a moment. “I suppose that’s how it is, isn’t it? Nothing to be done, nothing to be gained in getting depressed about it.”
“They might come around,” Eli said, watching Lucas play with the napkin for a moment and then reaching across the table to cover the other man’s hand with his own. “Isobel, my cousin who you never had a chance to meet, is here. As is my youngest sister, the one I ran away from home to avoid. She’s recently arrived, Lilly. I’m fairly certain she is still fleecing every last man in Seattle, but I’m trying to be grateful I have people here that I care for. In addition to Preston, there’s Julian, a young man that lives at my shop. You should come by some day this week. I think you’d quite approve, and you can bring your guitar. We’re quite eclectic.” He squeezed Lucas’ hand, and he pulled his own back after a second longer. “Why did you hate Chicago?” he finally asked, astutely.
The touch to his hand had come unexpectedly, and Lucas glanced down for a moment to study Eli’s fingers before meeting his gaze once more. “You have quite the little family gathered around you, it seems. Looks as though Seattle is doing well for you, and you well for it.” Before he could pull his hand away, he returned the squeeze, and then it was over all too soon. “I’ll put that on my calendar, then. Is there any day that’s better than the others? I fear my schedule is entirely too open, and it’s almost embarrassing at this point.” A sheepish grin as he shrugged his shoulders and pulled his hand down to his lap.
“As for Chicago. Before college, life was just... a bit on the difficult side. There were some problems, some hurdles to cross, but heading to school helped get away from some of that. It’s better now, for the most part.” And then his hands were back atop the table, playing with the napkin for a moment. He seemed to simply be toying with it, but eventually, the napkin was no longer a napkin, and instead a photograph from forever ago, a replica of a photo that Lucas had taken through the portal with him. He and Eli, as just children, fishing off the coast. Perhaps it was a distraction, perhaps it was something else, but Lucas pushed the photo over towards him. “Remember this?”
“Weeknights are good for the younger crowd,” Eli said, remembering Lucas’ voice as he sang on the stage. He noticed the napkin becoming an image partway through the process, and he took it between his fingers reverently, a memory, unexpected. “Quite,” he said. “I caught nothing and threw my pole into the water, hoping it would brain a bloody fish, if memory serves,” and memory did, even without the photograph to remind him. “My ability is nowhere near as brilliant as that,” he said honestly, because for Eli, a way to remember one’s own past was the utmost in brilliance. What he would give to return to the home of his youth and touch a wall on Sunday morning and hear his mother calling everyone to breakfast. He shook off the thought, and he gave Lucas an open look, one he hoped his friend recognized from all those years ago. “On the difficult side how?”
“Expect me to make a visit soon, then,” Lucas said easily, watching as Eli took in the photograph, pleased at the reaction it had brought. “And I ended up wading into the water to fetch that poor pole and scolding you for throwing things,” he said with a certain fondness to his voice, that stroll down memory lane warm and welcome. “And this? It’s nothing brilliant. Just... a thing.” And like that, the photograph faded, the illusion released, the napkin returning to just being a napkin, a bit of paper to be thrown away at the end of the day. “If it was permanent, now that would be something.”
And then Eli’s eyes were on him, that look, imploring, open, and Lucas found himself wandering down that familiar road of his friend’s company. “Just... difficult,” he said, averting his eyes down to the tabletop, playing once again with the napkin. It wasn’t that he was evading the questions, but evading the answers that would undoubtedly lead to more questions. “Things I’m not proud of. Things... I have problems living with.” He didn’t lift his head, but he sought out Eli’s gaze again, something darker there, not quite haunted, but that could have been the beer making everything foggy. “I don’t want to drag you into all of it, Eli. And if you start me talking, you might not like what you hear. I wouldn’t do that to a friend. Especially not to you.”
Eli considered pushing. He considered, and he discounted it almost immediately. “Not this evening,” he offered. He would hear Lucas’ story eventually, but perhaps not this night, which was meant to be about reunion and reminiscing. “There will, after all, be other evenings like this one now you’ve come.” He said it with the certainty of a man who kept his friends and family close, and Lucas was closer than family. The man across from him had heard all his hopes and dreams and fears as a child, and Eli would not forget that, no matter what he’d learned the other man had done. It was, he realized, another example of the way his morality - once so black and white - was ever changing in this world. He did not know what to make of it, and he’d merely been pushing the thought away as of late, but it would have to be dealt with one day. But not today. He picked up his beer, and he motioned to the stage. “Well, then, impress me,” he said, blue eyes smiling at the coaxing.
Lucas felt tension he hadn’t even realised was growing bleed out of his body when Eli let the topic drift from his past, and there was no way Lucas would be able to express his gratitude for the shift. It would come out eventually, he was sure, as there was little he would hide from Eli when it came down to it. He was, after all, a piece of his past, something he treasured, and one did not lie to those they treasured.
As Eli motioned towards the stage, Lucas let out a laugh, hardly able to resist the temptation to have another go on the stage. “Well, I guess I must, since you so adamantly refuse to join me up there,” he said in long tones, not that he thought the pouty lower lip would do anything in winning Eli over, but, he thought, it was worth a try. Before he escaped to the stage, he gave Eli’s hair a ruffle with one hand, chuckling as he wandered off. A brief moment was spent, conferring with the girl who was in charge of the event, and then he was taking the stage after his predecessor had exited.
The song was slower than the last, soulful with a heavy emphasis on the guitar, and Lucas let himself roll into the music. “On a long and lonesome highway, east of Omaha. You can listen to the engine moanin’ out his one note song. You can think about the woman, or the girl you knew the night before...” He sang with his mouth close to the mic, not moving with the music, simply letting the song speak for itself though his eyes never left Eli in the crowd.