Alana (athenacalled) wrote in olympian_rewind, @ 2010-05-27 20:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | alana kellings, hephaestus, vadimas lugosi |
Who: Alana and Hephaestus
What: Conversations and toasts to friendship
Where: Hephaestus' ship, outside Barcelona
When: Backdated, May 15th I think
Warnings: Discussions of not nice things? little bit of language. It is Alana.
The touring for two weeks had gone, to Alana's mind, amazingly well. Perfect even. There had been plenty of things to do and see, and was well matched with down time to simply sit back and enjoy. While she was no where near perfect with any of the sailing skills, she'd learned a lot. To her, it was enough that they didn't look completely panicked when she asked to do something. How many people could say that? And, best of all, it'd been a great break from everything else that she'd faced back at home.
So now as the day was coming to a close, knowledge that she and her host would be heading separate ways, she dug out a bottle of restina she'd bought, two glasses and headed off to look for Vadimas. Walking around the ship, she hoped to find him on the deck of by one of the railings. The weather was perfect just now, and it seemed best to celebrate enjoying it.
Hephaestus was, indeed, on the deck by the railing. The reception there was much better. Barcelona was as tech-friendly as any of Europes largest cities, but there was little that could be done for poor reception as one was bobbing serenely in Port Vell. He needed every bar he could get. As per usual over the last two weeks, Hephaestus spent any moment he had alone working. As his absence stretched on, the fires he had to put out at VTS grew ever larger. As good as he was with fire, Hephaestus knew he had to get home soon.
The tinkling of glasses alerted him to Alana's approach. Snapping his handset closed, he turned to face her. His last few emails could wait. The work day was almost finished at VTS, giving Hephaestus a few spare moments.
"Good evening, Alana," he greeted pleasantly. He considered asking her if she'd enjoyed herself, but it seemed too early to do so, despite their vacation together swiftly drawing to a close.
"Hey," she greeted in return, grinning and holding up the bottle and glasses. "You busy? I figured we could have a last toast or somethin' if you're game." She raised her eyebrows as she asked, and shifted the bottle so he could see what she was offering. Sure he probably had something that was the best of the best or whatever stashed, but it didn't seem right to raid his supplies when this was basically meant to be like buying someone their drink.
Greek wine. Cute. Hephaestus smiled wryly at her offering.
"Is that from your personal stock? I'm honored." Hephaestus tried to sound deeply flattered, but he couldn't suppress all of his mirth. He changed subjects. "If I were to put my life on hold every time I was busy, I would have no time for life." Which was, in fact, how he had spent most of his life. "I would love to have a toast with you." The cool sea breeze, the lights of Port Vell and the myriad twinkling lights it cast on the water. Hephaestus could take a moment to savor it all with a friend.
Oh good. Because she wasn't entirely sure what she'd do if he had been busy. Probably wander around in search of something else to do. But instead she was able to come close enough to hand him the glasses while she reached into her pocket for the wine opener she'd grabbed and work on cracking the bottle open. "I figured that trying to grab something for your stash wouldn't be in nearly as good taste. My manners may suck, but I can at least make the effort," she joked. Once the bottle was open though, she poured them each a healthy glass and set the bottle to the side.
She paused. Only now did she realize that she didn't exactly have any kind of great toast planned. The idea had seemed good at the time... "I want to say thank you. For the perfect trip, the perfect escape, and being such a perfect host," she stated, lifting the glass slightly in salute. It wasn't a toast, per se, but it was what she had wanted to say, summed up as simply as possible. It just wasn't very eloquent. He was probably more than used to that by now.
It was eloquent enough. Hephaestus felt himself getting choked up over her simple words.
"And thank you," he toasted in return, "for dislodging me from my usual routine and allowing me to get out and enjoy myself. The time I have spent with you shows me that I have had far too few friends and far too few experiences like this in my life." Hephaestus clinked his glass lightly against hers. As he took a sip of the wine, he thought back to his first meeting with Alana. If meeting his family in Miami had made him regret his time there, Alana stood as an example of something positive that had come from it.
She took a sip as well at the toast. As far as she could tell, it was of good taste. She wasn't normally much of a wine drinker, but when something was tolerable or better, she could be game. Alana leaned forward slightly on the railing and smiled at him. "Anytime you need a friend to help you break away, let me know," she promised. "I don't turn away a friend in need, and always feel a bit honored to have such good ones." It was a sincere statement, despite her attempt to deliver it lightly. The time on the trip and increased her trust in Vadimas, and she would honestly count him among her friends, if he did the same with her. In a manner, that put him in a rather select group.
"It is I who feel honored, Alana," Hephaestus replied seriously. "I have known many, many people in my life, but none have held their own against my family nearly as well." High praise, but Alana deserved it. He had seen more mortals than he currently had time to count fall into fawning reverence when it was revealed that a former divinity walked amongst them. The fact that Alana treated him no differently than any other person was, perhaps, what drew him to her.
"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure about that one..." She glanced down at her glass with her muttered comment, before looking up to the view before them once more. And she known that it was her treatment of him that gained her such favor, she probably would have shrugged and pointed out that it always seemed like how he wanted to be treated. It was just the path that also happened to be easiest for both of them. But her thoughts were veering down other paths, and the comment about his family drew them further along. "There's at least one member of your family I seem to do very disastorous around. Possibly more, but one I know."
Hephaestus' brow furrowed. That was a very worrying statement. It brought him back to that night in Lemnos where Alana had hinted at her reasons for leaving Miami behind. He set his glass down, turning to face Alana more fully.
"My family are all walking disasters, with very, very few exceptions," Hephaestus joked weakly. Hephaestus wasn't even sure who he was exempting. Looking back, all of his family members had existed at some point in a cloud of misery and woe, either for themselves or others. "As I mentioned, I have a fair bit of experience avoiding them, if you want some pointers." Again, Hephaestus did not try to pressure the identity of whom she was avoiding out of Alana. Even though he was very curious, he wanted Alana to confide in him only if she wanted to do so.
She smirked slightly with the offer. Wasn't avoiding them what she was doing just now? She shifted to lean forward against the railing, being careful to not drop her glass over the edge. Over the past weeks, he'd proven himself a good person to trust, and she'd had no one else to confide in. All the same, if she did reveal why she was avoiding going home, it wasn't a story she was proud of or found easy to relate. "In this case, it would've been easy to avoid and just walk away. But fuck... D drunk enough to be literally drunk?" She glanced to Hephaesus, raising her eyebrows, curious if he'd had experience with that side of D. "It seemed a bit of a health hazard to not see him at least into the next bar."
"D? Dionysus?" Hephaestus couldn't keep the confusion from his voice. He had not been expecting to hear that name. His curiosity, and concern, burned ever hotter. "Alana," he continued seriously, "Dionysus was the inventor of wine and the embodiment of revelry. He, quite literally, made being drunk an art form." Hephaestus thought back to the revels Dionysus and he had attended or crashed back during Olympus' ascendancy. The memories did not calm his worries.
"No matter how it appeared, I have full faith that Dionysus was in control of his faculties enough to avoid injury, no matter how it appeared." Hephaestus had scene Dionysus cross far greater perils than the path from one bar to another while under alcohol's spell. The path to Olympus itself, to name just one.
"Oh, now you tell me," she mentioned with an eye roll. "Then we chalk it up to me bein' extremely foolish to worry about somethin' like a car hittin' him and getting ichor everywhere because he tripped steppin' off the curb." She shrugged one shoulder and had another sip from her glass. She twisted enough to offer him an only slightly forced grin. "Clearly not one of my brighter moments."
"I'm sorry," Hephaestus said, chagrined. "I didn't mean to belittle your concern. We both know that ichor is not to be taken lightly. Your actions were commendable." Hephaestus cut himself off before he once again admonished Alana. Dionysus was the master of drunken revels, but Alana had a right to be concerned.
"Commendable... And stupid." They both knew it, she was just the one to say it. Hindsight was always 20/20, right? At least it wasn't a mistake she expected to be making again. "But, I avoid D, which should be easy since he doesn't give a flying fuck, and the topic never comes up again. Not like he's likely to loose his father twice in my lifetime." Less likely she'd let herself within any kind of distance of him either.
Well, it was possible he could, but it was rather unlikely in Alana's lifetime. Hephaestus cleared the thought from his mind. He was getting distracted.
"I don't understand," Hephaestus began. "It sounds like you were just trying to help. What could have happened that made you leave Miami?" Her description was painting a rather bleak picture in Hephaestus' mind, so he pressed her a little harder for details, ready to back off if she withdrew.
Alana paused, trying to decide what words to use, how much to reveal, and how much to only imply. She played with the glass in her hands as she thought, took one more drink, then set the glass aside as she mentally braced herself. Being subtle and delicate wasn't something she did well. She'd have to just drop the whole tale at once.
"Alright, starting at the beginning. Before I knew D was Dionysus, we went out a few times. Had fun. All that kinda stuff. Then, mild disagreements, and we more or less didn't bother with each other. Then, he offered me a trip. So, figurin' we were on decent enough terms, I said yes, we made the arrangements, and off we went." Alana shrugged. "First week of the trip was fine. Second week of the trip, we were at a vineyard, I still didn't know fully who he was, and where I'd normally said no before, I uncharacteristically said yes. In the bedroom. Under influence that was not just booze..." She arched an eyebrow, pausing to see if he followed so far.
"Influence?" Hephaestus asked, confused once more. The picture he was getting right now was of a regretted mistake, nothing more. Hephaestus wasn't aware of any "influence" Dionysus may have had, other than very strong wines.
"I've got no proof, but there was a gift bag, with lotion, lingerie and the like, from a shop in Miami, that came from a friend of his. A female friend in favor of sex and passion..." Was that hint enough? She didn't feel like dwelling on it. Really, this story wasn't even the worst of things as she saw it. "But, mix in some wine, and his own abilities, and I'm fairly sure I was buzzed the entire second half of the trip. Which really isn't the best for makin' choices... All of that was over a year ago though," she finished, partly dismissing it. She'd had her mope session and all about that trip, and in many ways just wanted to let it go.
Hephaestus frowned. He did not approve of Dionysus' "female friend" or her methods. However, it wasn't time for him to dwell on his own hang ups.
"And now, you've had another run in with D?" He could see the direction her story was headed. Another night on the town with D, another mistake made, and the desire to rid herself of the opportunity to make the mistake a third time. Darker possibilities lurked at the edges of his imagination, especially given his family, but he dismissed them. Dionysus wasn't Zeus or Apollo.
She nodded. "It was sometime before the memorial for Zeus. I was walking Pirate around the neighborhood. I run into D, drunk off his ass, and in a bad mood. I should have turned around and left him without looking back. Instead of following that smart idea, I intended to follow him long enough to see him safely into the next bar so I would know that no one just killed because I walked away." She'd already given a glimpse to that more or less, but now it was told in relation to the bigger picture. It was impossible to not see it now for the stupidity she felt that it was, despite at the time thinking that it was better thing to do.
Now that she had started this part of the tale, she almost wanted to be done with it as quickly as possible. "He told me to basically fuck off, I made the very foolish mistake of thinking he wasn't paying attention to me, accidentally got within arm's reach, and before I could really think to much off it..." She let out a slow breath. "Well, madness is part of him right? And hyped up on booze, it wasn't like he was needing much power to pass it on and take advantage of it." Now she dropped her head slightly, looking down at her hands. It was only for a moment though before she forced herself to straighten, to stand up tall and stretch her arms over her head, as if somehow the memory was nothing. She couldn't look to Hephaetus though. It was far easier to stare out at the view before her.
Hephaestus felt a sudden rage explode within him. If he had been holding his glass, he would have shattered it. He quickly tried to quell his anger so that he didn't incinerate his clothing. A volcanic explosion of anger wasn't what Alana needed at the moment. But it was what D would get as soon as Hephaestus could lay his burning hands upon the self-styled god of the vine. Thoughts of grievous violence against his former friend helped calm Hephaestus enough to focus on Alana.
"I'm sorry," he said simply yet earnestly. He didn't know what else to say. Unlike some of his other relatives, he hadn't ever been in this situation before.
Ah, he had understood. She hadn't been entirely sure if she'd said enough to let things be clear or not. She also hadn't been entirely sure if she wanted him to understand or not. It was one of those secrets that tended to make her cringe when she knew someone else knew it, because it always felt like they knew how stupid and weak she could be. Not exactly traits she wanted advertised. So a slow nod and a moment more to try and keep her own thoughts under control, and she turned enough to glance at him. "And now you know why I'm not exactly eager to get back to Miami." Alana tried to offer a smirk.
"I don't blame you," Hephaestus said, "for any of it. In fact, I think your intention to return to Miami at all and continue your life is admirable. I'll always be there to support you. And nothing else." He ended with a gentle smirk of his own. Now that Alana had opened up to him, he wanted to help her put it all behind her. He wasn't sure how to do so, but he felt that humor was a good start.
Alana did give a small chuckle at the comment. Humor was the best way to deflect that she'd found yet, and if used right, she could probably ignore the sting of the whole event she was still trying to run away from. "Does that mean if I ever need a sugar daddy with none of the responsibilities I can come beggin' money off of you?" The grin on her face and tone of voice showed it to be meant completely as a joke, as she tried to find some way to subtly change topics.
Hephaestus' eyebrow quirked at her joke. It was rather inappropriate, he felt. Of course, if he said that, Alana would probably take it as a compliment. He was glad to see her smile again.
"How is that different from what we're doing now?" he asked, matching her light tone. He cast his arm over the city. "Barcelona lays open before us and the night is young. Whatever you want to see, whatever you want to do, whatever you want to buy, we can make it happen. And I will pick up every check happily because you are my friend." Wealth meant very little to Hephaestus outside its usefulness as a tool. He had more than enough to shower his friends in luxury and still keep his projects afloat.
She wasn't one who generally looked to free load, and there were more than a few times when she had to remind herself that she didn't have to grab the check just to prove that she had the funds to pull her own weight. It was probably why the idea of a sugar daddy seemed so absurd to her -- appropriate or not. Hey, she'd said none of the responsibilities... But at his offer, she followed his gesture to look out at the city, and consider. "I think, as a friend, it is partly my duty to make sure that since this is the last night of our vacation out here together, we do something to mark the occasion..." Something more than the quiet toast they'd already shared. "The question, is merely, what?"
Seeming to get an idea, she pushed away from the railing. "Let's head into the city." Her tone was only mildly forced toward lightness. She was determined to leave the darker memories behind.
Summary: The last night of the two week trip together, and Alana and Hephaestus are on the ship. Alana finally reveals why she wanted the trip to him before breaking the serious mood with a desire to hit the town.