Turin forgot how to smile (masterofdoom) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-04-10 11:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, beleg cuthalion, turin turambar |
...so your wife was, so you were, so the two of you married and....?
Who: Beleg and Turin
What: Meeting at a bar
When: A few days ago
Where: a crappy bar
Status: complete
Rating PG-13
Notes: Mentions of accidental incest and angst
Beleg was really looking forward to seeing Turin again, like he’d been searching forever for his friend and finally had found him after a long, long absence. It was a pity that Beleg had not taken the time to familiarize himself with his surroundings, because he probably picked one of the worst spots ever for a drink with an old friend.
Shortly before seven that evening, he showed up at a dive bar that looked like it had seen better days, sometime in the early 1970’s. It had wood paneling on the walls, a pool table with ripped felt and a low hanging, flickering light bulb, and highly suspect patrons. All of those patrons (i.e. bikers and parolees) gave the long haired young man that walked in a solid glowering at, all the way from the door to the bar, where a cheery looking Beleg popped his rear onto a barstool, and plonked both elbows down on the bar. He ordered himself a cheap beer - the only kind they served there - and waited for Turin to show up.It’s almost like walking into a den of thieves. I mean... wut?.
The man stared at the bar with an expression of open dismay. It looked like he would be robbed upon entrance. But Beleg had selected it, and for better or worse he'd agreed to meet the other man. He walked in, wearing black pants, a black shirt, a black tie, and his long hair tied back by a black band. He looked rather scruffy.
Dismay might cover all the proverbial bases of this particular situation, since it's not like Beleg was known for planning, as much as he was for 'It went thatta way, so I'm following it over hill and dale until I leave an arrow in it. If there's a cliff in the way, I'll deal with that when I get to it."
Bonus points were in order for Turin looking scruffy, having his hair tied back, and wearing all black. He fit right in with the rest of the bar's occupants, except for the one spot of surprising clean in the midst of all the manly scruff, and that would be Beleg Cuthalion in all of his pale skinned, windblown haired glory.
It probably didn't help matters when Beleg looked over to the door and waved at Turin upon spying him there, thus proving that they knew one another and turning the glowering upon Turin, as guilt by association. Beleg even went so far as to pat the barstool next to him like PULL UP A CHAIR RIGHT HERE, OL' PAL O' MINE!
The bar was that sort of quiet that was uncomfortable, interrupted only by a throat being cleared of a loogie and the faint gurgle of a stomach in intestinal distress, likely on the verge of some gas coming out one end or the other.
Turin groaned. He knew they were going to get attacked. Or hit on. He was surprised someone hadn’t hit on Beleg, thinking he was a girl. That had happened more than once, back in Europe. Turin would never, ever let Beleg live that down.
And it was probably why stabbing had happened.
He took a seat. “You look girlier.”
Beleg wasn't totally girly! He was like one of those slender rock star looking guys, only he was one of those guys who hunted like a mo fo and lived on a strictly carniverous diet. Maybe with a side of potatoes and bread. Vegan? Beleg was not.
That probably was why that stabbing happened, too. Because...lulz.
"You look angstier," Beleg said, giving Turin a wide smile and a pat on the shoulder with one hand. "Go ahead and order whatever you want! I'm buying. Maybe I should buy drinks for everyone else here, so they'll stop staring so expectantly."
Beleg toasted the rest of the bar with his beer bottle of ice cold Coors, and shrugged like he wasn't sure what these people's problems were. Eeesh!
“You have no idea...” Turin was dying to tell SOMEONE but Beleg? He wasn’t sure that was safe. He was pretty sure he needed to take that to his grave.
"If you tell me why such the long face, then I might have an idea," was Beleg's response, his attention off those around them for a moment. They weren't forgotten, but the majority of his focus was on Turin. "But you will probably say nothing, because that tends to be your way."
It was also Beleg's way not to pry, outright, but to more gently persuade when it was someone he liked. He neither pushed nor pulled, and had the patience of a saint, courtesy of so many countless hours spent hunting. That often meant he was laying in wait for prey, if he didn't nod off entirely. There was a web episode of him nodded off in a tree limb with twigs and leaves tucked into his clothing, time lapsed to show that he could take a two hour nap, before he moved the wrong way and fell out of the tree onto his head. Luckily it was onto soft dirt and not onto a rock. Go him.He's not graceful yet, ALL RIGHT?!
"I'll tell you about it sometime. I think I need a few drinks in me first." Maybe he'll get into a car accident and die. That would be wonderful. Turin picked up his drink and glugged it.
"Drink up! I'm buying." Turin probably wouldn't be able to die in a car accident, if Beleg was around. He'd not only pull him out of a burning car about to explode, but he had learned enough on the fly emergency medical procedures, to see to it that Turin survived. "I'll get you about ten more and then maybe you'll tell me about it now. Did something bad happen?"*hello cricket symphony serenading Beleg Strongbow*
Turin would be pissed at that. Getting pulled from the burning wreckage. A friend ought to know when to let their buddy die! “Other than my life falling completely apart? Not much. Nearly dying wasn’t even the worst of it.”
Sorry, Turin. That's not how friendsies works!
"Maybe if you tell someone, then the load on your shoulders would be less than it is now," Beleg very wisely pointed out, even if that was coming from someone who had been gored by a gazelle and nearly had his face eaten off by a bear. "And how did you nearly die?"
“Some kind of gang war spilled into our house. I was shot, and then the place burned down around me. My...wife, lost out child. I was out of for so long, and then she’s..moved on now.” Turin picked up his drink and downed it in a gulp.
Beleg immediately looked sympathetic, because that had to be the worst streak of bad luck he'd heard of. Worse even than his own real life adventures of When Animals Attack.
"But you're alive now? That's something." He ordered another drink for them both, because this was sobering news that required more drinking, since sober was a terrible thing. "I'm sorry about your wife and child. But maybe you need to look at things from another angle, now that you know how things are? It means you can pick up what's left to you, you still have the ability to walk and talk and act, and you can still move forward. Or try to."
Turin looked at Beleg for a long moment. “Do you remember how I told you my parents adopted me? How I was lost in the woods and I don’t remember how I got there?”
"Yes. I do remember." Beleg was staring back at Turin, wide-eyed and expectant, ready for whatever it was that he might be willing to tell him.
“I found out who my parents were.” Turin started on his third beer. He couldn’t drink them fast enough. They were weaksauce anyway, and only now was he starting to really feel the effects.
Weaksauce was better than no sauce at all? Or at least that's what Beleg thought, even though he was making a terrible wincey face, and still looking expectant.
"Well? Who were they?" he inquired, trying to give Turin a verbal nudging, but not sounding or looking like he was being pushy about doing so.
Turin looked his friend right in the eye. “Turns out they were my wife’s parents, all along.”
Beleg looked as though he was about to say 'WUUUUT?' but instead he fumbled off one side of the barstool and had to quickly right himself. Even the fumble looked strangely and unplaceably graceful, for Beleg had a way of making even an accident like falling over a cliff look like poetry in motion.
"...so your wife was, so you were, so the two of you married and....?"
It might take Beleg a few token moments to let his brain fully wrap around this newly obtained knowledge.
"And she was pregnant." Turin finished another two beers in thirty seconds, then started on his third. "We had no idea no idea. I found out by accident when researching my own..." He sighed. "We were trying to figure out what to do. How to handle the shame. When I died. So that..frees her, right? Why the hell am I trying to get back into her life?"
Beleg's oh-so-intelligent answer to that was a lengthy moment of "..." followed by a sudden shaking of his head and downing that full bottle of beer in under five seconds. He held up one index finger to the bartender, saying, "I'm going to need about five more beers. Thanks."
He then turned his attention back on Turin, and tried with all his might to reasonably answer those questions being posed, since his friend was in dire mental straights. Rightfully so.
"Maybe it does, but that doesn't erase the fact that she's still your sister. You found her, you didn't know...how could you? But you don't want to leave her life completely, right? That's probably why, despite it all."
“...no, I don’t. I still love her.” Hell he was still attracted, but that wasn’t going to happen. “I just want to protect her. This could ruin her life if it came out.”
"That's understandable," Beleg said, while nodding emphatically. "Did you tell her that? That you want to protect her? If so, then she might understand, and not shun you. I will help, however I’m able to."
“I don’t really know...” Turin looked down at his drink. He’d lost count, and was feeling buzzy. “I shouldn’t have come back Beleg.”
"I would think you didn't know and wanted to set things right. So your intentions were noble, for better or worse." That was the best advice or condolences that Beleg could give his friend, along with a gentle pat on the back. "Would you like another drink? It may help to drown your sorrows, and then tomorrow, deal with the aftermath."
“Something harder. I want to forget.” Just as long as he didn’t wake up in Beleg’s bed again, anyway.
No way was Beleg sharing any bedspace with Turin ever again, no matter how drunk they were. He considered it the worst way to wake up, ever, with a knife stuck in his gut.
"Can't blame you," Beleg said, and he ordered them both something harder. Forgetting might be a good idea.
Turin barely tasted it when he downed the first glass. It burned down his throat and his chest, and everything swam. Maybe he could go out with alcohol poisoning.