Aidan William Stark ♚ Menelaus (avaliantman) wrote in mythologs, @ 2012-04-09 13:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | !event #018, barachiel, menelaus |
[completed/closed]
Characters: Barachiel (stormblessed) & Menelaus (avaliantman)
Date/Time: April 4th
Location: Maze, left side and west
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some awkwardness on Menelaus' part.
Summary: The meet of the archangel of marriage and family and the guy who kind of fails at both.
Ed had narrowly avoided a person bent on sending him to an early grave. He hadn't actually managed to catch a glimpse of his would-be murderer, but the throwing knife that had embedded itself into his phone spoke louder than any glances could have.
Ed was possessed of an unnaturally patient temperament, for reasons yet beyond his understanding, so he did not utter a single groan or yell of frustration before calmly stepping into dense thicket. He allowed a half-hour to pass before stepping back out.
A trained soldier, Ed did not allow panic to set in. Keeping Al and Ali as far from his mind as possible, lest he lose his control, he did what he knew to do -- found a source of food and water (a clump of apple trees), set up shelter (set up a pseudo wall and door with larger leaves), and did not venture out in the hopes of conserving energy. He would have gotten a fire roaring had he not considered the possibility of more attempts on his life.
Oh well. The cold wasn't so bad. Not like there was any venison to cook either.
Menelaus had been a soldier once and he wasn't so bad with roughing it. But this was all too frustrating. He wanted to be by Helen's side, wanted to check in on Denver in person. He knew the blonde lady would get to her, perhaps. The woman looked determined enough to do the job right but he still wished it could be him getting to her.
It was when he heard of movement that he stilled, grasping his knife hard in his hands. Someone was there. Someone was going to be a problem for him and he wanted the fight to be not some game of hide-n-seek but a battle face-to-face. "I'm not interested in your goddamn games." Lord, what he'd do for a gun. "Get out here now."
Some wishes were granted and he steeled himself, ready to fight, unwilling to go down without drawing blood. And then...
...out came a rabbit from the bushes. And its nose twitched sweetly all while Menelaus glared at his brown little face.
The yelled oath had Ed pushing aside his curtain of leaves to see what was going on. A man face-to-face with a rabbit was hardly what he'd expected to see. His fingers itched to hurl his knife at the innocent animal. But he really could not afford a fire, and raw meat was not so appealing as some claimed.
"You okay there?"
The sound of the other man's voice sent the rabbit running and Menelaus looked after it, mouth forming a frown. "Peachy," he offered back. No, this man did not look like he was a threat. The threats were unlikely to ask if he was well, he knew that by now.
The once-Greek-now-Texan approached the blond man, curious of just who this was. Here he thought he knew most of the folks on the community. "Just irritated, sorry for disturbing you."
"Nah, it's fine," Ed offered easily. "Not an irritant at all."
The man's Texan drawl brought up memories. He'd served with a few Texans in his time. And he'd lost a few.
The fondness he bore those fallen men bled into his first impression of Menelaus. "You from here, or you need a place to stay the night?" Ed gestured towards his makeshift camp. "Nothing much, but it keeps the hack-and-slashers away."
It did seem cozy and he couldn't help but feel fatigue hit him a lot harder than it had before now that he saw a decent place to rest. As much as he wanted to find Helen and Denver, he couldn't do it without his head on straight.
"A night sounds good. I appreciate it, man. The name's Aidan." His real name could be saved for later, when he knew who this was.
"Ed." Ed held the curtain out wider to accommodate Aidan before retreating inward. Making himself comfortable, he tossed the other man an apple.
"Could you tell me anything 'bout this place?"
Once seated with apple in hand, he made a face over the question. "So you are new. Well, you're not really going to like what you're going to hear. Try not to want to kick me out after I've told you, though." Taking out his knife, he put it to the skin of the apple and began to slice it.
"Basically, we're constantly screwed by this Greek goddess named Khaos. This isn't just kidnapping. You were here for the whole annoying touching stuff, right? This is serious power and she's abusing it."
It wasn't the most logically sound situation, but Ed accepted it. It could have been any number of things -- even military ghosts of his past coming to haunt him by confining him in an eccentric prison. But this would forever be a weakness of Ed's -- trust would almost always be given, immediately and unconditionally.
"Any reason we're being targeted?" For a moment, he thought of Mary and worried. He couldn't see her surviving in a place like this. Not at all.
"So we can be fed on supposedly," Menelaus replied, after having speared a sliced part of the apple on the end of his knife. "I think it makes her stronger somehow. I don't really understand it well but she's probably been behind our reincarnations."
He lifted his eyes to meet Ed's. "That's the other crazy part, by the way. Everyone on that community's been reincarnated once."
"I see," Ed said after considerable pause. He hadn't been on the community enough to see who people claimed to have been, but maybe he ought to have invested a little more time online. "Must be uncomfortable for those with past issues."
He laughed suddenly. "I can imagine there are a lot of happy reunions, as well."
"You've not idea," Menelaus muttered, biting into the apple slice afterward. Once the slice was gone, he resumed speaking of the topic brought up. "My wife's around but so is her third husband. A real bastard. Woman's not exactly in her right mind all the time but I was her first husband. True husband since I never let her go voluntarily."
The once-king of Sparta grew quiet, contemplating that wife of his. The woman who, on occasion, made him feel he should kick her into Deiphobus' arms if that was what she wanted so much. Never was a woman more maddening than Helen.
"Some reunions are alright. Not all."
Ed frowned. "You could only let her go on account of death." For some reason, this was bothering him more than it ought have. "Her second and third marriages are null and void if death had not taken you beforehand."
But Ed was not a man accustomed to indignation, so he made quick work of shaking his head and chuckling. "Makes me wonder if I'm anyone." He paused with a quirk of his lips. "Can a woman be reincarnated as a man? That'd be so weird." Ed didn't feel the least bit womanly, but the thought was more than amusing to consider.
"It's a long story how those marriages even happened." The next slice of apple tasted like sawdust in his mouth but he continued to eat if only in attempt to distract himself from his thoughts.
Fortunately, Ed would help with his comment about a woman being reincarnated as a man. A long look was passed over the other in assessment. "I'd say if you were a lady in your past, at least you didn't end up scrawny now. Can safely say I never was a woman, though."
Ed was beginning to think Aidan's wife had been a very loose woman, but knew better than to comment. "But you and she are working through it?"
"For all you know I could've been an Amazon," he joked. More seriously, Ed continued, "How many times have you been reincarnated?" Reincarnation was not within the Catholic faith, nor were other gods and goddesses. But there were darker forces, ones that might claim divinity for themselves. Forces strong enough to force people to live over and over. Still, Ed had to wonder about how easily he was taking things. Beginning to doubt, he pondered if this was all a dream or if he'd somehow had too much to drink.
Aidan's wife wasn't precisely loose though he didn't appreciate how she lusted for attention. "We're...doing something about it." He wished he knew what he even meant by that. But the mental image Ed provided did trigger a grin. Alright, he could see the man as an Amazon. "One them was Theseus' wife. I think you'd want to spare yourself that."
Resuming some concentration his apple, he thought about his past lives. "This is my fourth. It's been alright so far. Minus one that I recall but the second World War probably didn't leave a lot of people alright."
"It's good that you're cooperating toward that end." Something in him approved of that -- of a good, functioning attempt at reconciliation. But Ed didn't bother with further insight. "Wasn't Theseus one of them Greek heroes?"
World War II. "Did you serve?" Ed asked, lightening up. It was always good to meet a fellow soldier.
"He was. Before my time. He ruled Athens." And kidnapped his Helen when she was young and impressionable.
Menelaus would have to disappoint him there. "Sort of wish I had. Maybe my wife back then wouldn't have suffered as much. We were part of a German resistance group. It didn't end well in the end.
"I fought in the Trojan War, however. I was Menelaus, you see. Husband of Helen of Sparta." Always Sparta, never Troy.
"You fought for your wife, at least." Ed could appreciate that, though he had to wonder at what sent her away in the first place. Was she unhappy with their lives? It did not matter -- she should have stayed and strove to improve the situation. Especially with a daughter chasing at her heels.
"And you're still fighting."
"I have to. Her 'third husband' is here. He's the worst between the two because he's unkind. Paris was a little bastard, don't get me wrong, but he wasn't a fighter and he only had luck on his side. Beauty and luck. Deiphobus was simply awarded my wife." The same way Menelaus had been but Helen had not been married then. And they had made it work.
"Sometimes I wonder what she wants. She wants me to try to be romantic now, you know. I have no idea how that works. I've never been that kind of man."
Ed had to laugh at that. "Women always want to be wined and dined and romanced."
He wasn't sure what could be more romantic than waging an international war over one woman, but again he refrained from making unnecessary side-comments. "D'you know the sort of things she likes?" He paused, mulling over his pillow conversations with Ali. "My wife likes random flowers. Out of the blue, for no particular reason." She'd really liked when he'd tried that, followed by a bath he'd drawn for her with scented candles and equally fragrant salts. He'd washed her hair for her, and the night had ended in a way it hadn't in a long while. He could see the sting of it in her eyes, the insecurity as she angrily tucked herself into bed, facing away from him. But answers eluded him, even as he spent long hours in fervent prayer.
If his new pal Ed had said that about the war, Menelaus would have agreed easily. "The girls I knew in high school and after were easier. They just wanted to be with me." And there was also the whole matter of sex. The simpler times.
Mulling over what Helen liked, he wondered if there were parts of her he wasn't seeing. It wasn't impossible. "Attention. Beautiful things. Being fought over. I'm pretty sure she's liked the jewelry I've gotten her before. She's expensive, fussy about her hair and clothing." A small pause. "And sex. But I think none of what I said is really romantic. I don't know how Helen would take to flowers."
But he could guess she might think he wasn't trying hard enough.
"If it's attention she wants, be attentive." It sounded dangerously simple, but it was far more than that. Ed took a breath before expounding. "If she works late nights, be there to pick her up with coffee and an extra coat. Volunteer to handle a spa weekend. Take her out shopping -- which is more boring than calculus, mind you -- and don't complain about anything she tries on."
He shrugged. "No expert on this myself, man, but I picked up a few things from Ali." Running a hand through his own hair, Ed continued. "Just think of what you could do for her, then do it. Not always gonna be fun, not gonna lie, but it's what you can work with, aye?"
"I try my damned best, Ed. I really do. She knows where I live, where I work, my place in Texas. My family. I send her things at her work place. But I don't even know where she lives." It was immensely frustrating and sometimes, during his less than pleasant moods, he considered tell Helen off. That he was going to find a woman who gave back to him.
But those words never reached his tongue. He endured her all for the sake of... "Those are some good ideas, though." None made him feel very manly and he was seeing how he was going to have to really clench his teeth and bear it but they were, as far as he knew, romantic ideas. "Ali your wife? And yeah. None of this is really my thing. One time, I just grabbed her and put her in my car before taking her out of town for a bit. She's a model, so I don't always know where she's at. But I guess I could start with shopping. Move on to maybe a picnic if the weather's good?"
"Sucks, I know, but she's your wife." That was how it worked in Ed's mind. What God had put together, no man could put asunder. Death did them part, of course, but if Menelaus wanted a second time around, he had to play by Helen's rules. Well, not entirely, no. But that was the quickest way to earning her surrender. If women like Helen of Sparta ever surrendered.
"Good ideas in their minds, yeah." Like with Menelaus, the experiences were often more emasculating than fulfilling to Ed. But Ali's smiles had been worth it. "My wife. I know what you mean. Much easier to play caveman, grab and go, but Ali's told me off for that more times than I care to count." He laughed, remembering the tiny woman with her arms akimbo, lips drawn in a pout. A kitten trying to play tiger. "Sounds good. For her, that is." Another laugh. "It's going to be painful, mate. I am so sorry."
"Even the most patient of men find their limits." But he touched no more on the topic of Helen's ways in keeping him at arm's length. He'd done wrong in the past, he knew it but that still didn't give his wife the right to come to him and then leave him. Not if she also wanted a second chance.
"It's going to give me a headache. I'll likely take a shot before entertaining her." And then down the rest of the bottle if it didn't work. "I miss the old days. She's Spartan but she was mine and no one else's. It was good and we had a child together. Hermione." His face softened at the mention of her. "I wish I could have that again."
As Menelaus spoke, the maze began to dim. Ed rose, tying his makeshift curtain more securely. They'd need to stay hidden if the planned to last the night. His actions did not deter from his listening intently, and as he returned to his seat he gave a single brotherly pat on Menelaus's shoulder.
"In time, Aidan. In time."