Post by Athena on Nov 14, 2009 17:49:56 GMT -5
WARNINGS: 1. Snow is randomly a female. 2. Firewhiskey is the property of JKR, I just borrowed it. 3. Athena is dead. and 4. Seneka gets very drunk.
He does not speak at the funeral.
It is a warm day and there is a brisk wind that whips around the small gathering, tugging robes and veils and hair and stinging tear-soaked cheeks and dry, blank eyes alike.
Seneka is one of the dry-eyed.
He does not speak at the funeral. Seneka stands in the back even though by all rights he should be in the front.
He stands in the back, clean-shaven and whiskey-quiet, and does not say a word to Athena's friends - can't even stand to think their names.
They failed her. Seneka doesn't blame them - there is no one to blame (which is hard) - but he can't look at them straight. Not at Athena's burial.
Not at Athena's burial.
Seneka stumbles away when the casket is lowered into the summer-dry dirt, and no one notices him go.
Athena is dead.
.-.
It is two ticks after twilight when he finds her. He isn't looking for her, but she is where Seneka would normally never go. Which is why he is there.
He doesn't want to speak to anyone, so he goes where they will never look: his father's home.
So he opens the door and walks with now-sober coordination to the kitchen. His steps are silent in the dust, and the ragged curtains of his father's portrait don't fly open in a cacophony of madness and noise. The kitchen door creaks open at his touch, and there she is.
He can't stand to look at her or speak her name or even think her name, but the bright white hair is a brand to his vision. She is lolling in a chair with a half-empty bottle on the beaten table beside her. She is still in her funeral robes. Her magnificent head swings his way drunkenly, and she may be smiling at him but he isn't sure because he can't fucking stand to look at her.
"Hello," she says. Her voice is hoarse, like maybe she has been screaming. Or maybe the firewhiskey has burned her throat. Seneka doesn't care.
He doesn't move or speak for a moment. And then he turns and leaves and lets the door fall shut behind him.
(Lovers of dead friends are creatures that men who have lost everyone they have ever loved cannot deal with.)
He stumbles up the stairs and wants to be drunk again. He shrugs off his robe, tugs off his shirt, falls on a random bed, and ignores the dust that plumes up around his body. His booted feet hang off of the mattress.
He sleeps and dreams of no one.
.-.
Seneka sleeps for two days. He wakes up for a few seconds every now and then, but sleep is his friend. Sleep is good. There is no reason to be awake anyway.
There is no reason to be awake.
On the second day, though, he is unable to return to sleep. He accepts this without a fight and sits up stiffly.
An hour later, he forces himself to stand up and take a shower.
When he descends the stairs, a strange emotion ambushes him. This emotion is curiosity.
It takes him a moment to recognize it. And he thinks: Oh. When did Seneka Hart stop being Seneka Hart? ...When did Seneka Hart start referring to himself in the third person?
The thought is so random and weird that he freezes in the foyer and bursts out laughing. Aloyisius's curtains fly open and his dear old da begins screaming obscenities at him.
"Fire-lover! Scum! How dare you darken the doorstep of my manor!"
He keeps laughing. Aloysius stops screeching after thirty seconds of this. He stares at Seneka.
Seneka finally stops laughing a full five minutes later and smiles at the portrait. His da looks wary and almost frightened - and strangely sane. Seneka tries to think of the last time he saw any medium of his father not throwing a fit in his presence and can barely remember such a time.
"What..." he begins tentatively. But what is there to say between them that hasn't already been said? A lot of things, and all of it is too late. They both know this. The words and possibilities have been smothered and rotting and refused for too long now, and suffocation is the Hart tradition. So he closes her mouth and sniffs and lets the words that might have been said lie in their grave. "What are you laughing at, you traitorous disappointment?"
He accepts his father's words without rage and continues to smile at him pleasantly. It has been a long time since his school days and even longer since he last smiled at Aloysius in anything except the spirit of defiance and derision, but he feels in himself a ghost of his old roguish charm. "Howl once told me never to trust a man who speaks in third-person."
Aloysius is confused and falls back on hatred. "What - get out of my house! And take your traitor whore with you!" he shrieks.
And there is that curiosity again. He turns his back on Aloysius mid-invective and walks to the kitchen. He ignores the still-ranting painting with detached, unfamiliar ease and presses his hand on the door before hesitating. He looks at the battered surface for several moments.
The curiosity dies. The strange levity deflates. He is suddenly empty and - empty. He lets his hand fall from the worn door and walks away.
At his third step, he hears the sound of a bottle breaking.
And then silence.
Hart House is a house of the dead.
.-.
There is a terrible heat in his blood and a tingling restlessness in the muscles of his hands and wrists. He rolls out of bed and grabs his shirt in one surprisingly (for the lethargy and suffocation he has quickly become accustomed to) smooth movement. He steps over a set of clothes that aren't his as he strides out of the dust-choked room.
He doesn't take the time to shower before letting the heavy old door of his blood creak shut behind him.
The sun is brassy on his tongue and bright on his eyes.
(Why is the weather suddenly and consistently beautiful? This is Oslo. Seneka wants his fucking rainstorms back.)
He leaves.
.-.
This is a bar. It's small and quiet and there is low, sad music coming from a strange machine wedged in the corner. Seneka doesn't understand the crooning words. In fact, he doesn't understand the bartender.
He thinks the what locals might be speaking is Orokoson but isn't sure and doesn't care. He has managed to communicate just fine so far. He throws back another of those mysterious shots and stares at the empty shot glass.
The bartender refills it without a word.
This is a bar. This is Seneka. This is Seneka at a bar. This is Seneka at a bar and not shagging or killing that fucking failure of a human being.
This is the best it's going to get.
He takes another shot.
-.-
He wakes up on a really gross cot in a tiny room that smells faintly of bean soup. He slowly gets to his feet and immediately pukes in a corner.
When he is finished, he stumbles out of the room -
And into the bar. The bartender glances his way, unreadable, and jerks his head at Seneka. Seneka staggers to his stool.
His shot glass is still in front of it.
The bartender refills it without a word.
-.-
The next time he wakes up on the cot, it starts off the same. He stands. He pukes. He stumbles out of the room -
The divergence: the place is empty. The bartender is gone. The strange machine isn't singing songs Seneka can't comprehend. There are no tired-looking locals drinking quietly and steadily in the corners.
But there is a single shot sitting on the counter, and all Seneka can think about is how there is still enough alcohol in his blood stream and affecting his brain that he would feel entirely drunk again with just that one drink.
He throws it back.
And then he clumsily pulls a small sack of gold out of a grubby letter in his back pocket, plunks it on the bar, and leaves.
.-.
When he pushes open the door to Hart House, he is pleasantly drunk. He does not know how long he has been gone. On top of that, he does not know how long it has been since he ate something.
He thinks maybe it has been a few days. Or more. Maybe a week. He is suddenly and violently hungry. He sways his way to the kitchen and does not hesitate in opening the door.
She is sitting there again. He walks past her, straight to the cupboards, and stares at empty, dusty shelves.
"What are you looking for?"
He does not turn. He keeps staring at the shelves and hoping something edible will suddenly appear.
And then he does turn around - he turns and walks out of the kitchen that smells like whiskey, out of the house that smells like dust -
And sets out to search for food.
.-.
He ends up finding what looks to be a likely-looking restaurant. He catches a glimpse of himself in the window before he reaches the door, though, and walks past it with deliberation. The alcohol is wearing off, and he knows he can't go in looking like he does. He turns down the alley next to the restaurant and wonders while he fingers his wand and mutters a cleaning spell exactly how long he spent on that bender in possibly-Kiev.
There is no easy answer to that, unless he wants to ask the woman still in his house, and so he quickly dismisses it.
It is three or so in the afternoon judging by the sun, and there is no one in the restaurant except bored waiting staff and two women about his age. He eats with forced slowness and orders several meals to go.
The food is all meant for him. Seneka doesn't give a shit if she starves to death.
He gets home (when the fuck did he start thinking of Hart House as home?) after lingering over the meal for almost two hours and immediately sleeps.
.-.
(He thinks he would like some peace.)
Here is Seneka betraying himself.
(He thinks he would like some peace.)
He does not speak at the funeral.
It is a warm day and there is a brisk wind that whips around the small gathering, tugging robes and veils and hair and stinging tear-soaked cheeks and dry, blank eyes alike.
Seneka is one of the dry-eyed.
He does not speak at the funeral. Seneka stands in the back even though by all rights he should be in the front.
He stands in the back, clean-shaven and whiskey-quiet, and does not say a word to Athena's friends - can't even stand to think their names.
They failed her. Seneka doesn't blame them - there is no one to blame (which is hard) - but he can't look at them straight. Not at Athena's burial.
Not at Athena's burial.
Seneka stumbles away when the casket is lowered into the summer-dry dirt, and no one notices him go.
Athena is dead.
.-.
It is two ticks after twilight when he finds her. He isn't looking for her, but she is where Seneka would normally never go. Which is why he is there.
He doesn't want to speak to anyone, so he goes where they will never look: his father's home.
So he opens the door and walks with now-sober coordination to the kitchen. His steps are silent in the dust, and the ragged curtains of his father's portrait don't fly open in a cacophony of madness and noise. The kitchen door creaks open at his touch, and there she is.
He can't stand to look at her or speak her name or even think her name, but the bright white hair is a brand to his vision. She is lolling in a chair with a half-empty bottle on the beaten table beside her. She is still in her funeral robes. Her magnificent head swings his way drunkenly, and she may be smiling at him but he isn't sure because he can't fucking stand to look at her.
"Hello," she says. Her voice is hoarse, like maybe she has been screaming. Or maybe the firewhiskey has burned her throat. Seneka doesn't care.
He doesn't move or speak for a moment. And then he turns and leaves and lets the door fall shut behind him.
(Lovers of dead friends are creatures that men who have lost everyone they have ever loved cannot deal with.)
He stumbles up the stairs and wants to be drunk again. He shrugs off his robe, tugs off his shirt, falls on a random bed, and ignores the dust that plumes up around his body. His booted feet hang off of the mattress.
He sleeps and dreams of no one.
.-.
Seneka sleeps for two days. He wakes up for a few seconds every now and then, but sleep is his friend. Sleep is good. There is no reason to be awake anyway.
There is no reason to be awake.
On the second day, though, he is unable to return to sleep. He accepts this without a fight and sits up stiffly.
An hour later, he forces himself to stand up and take a shower.
When he descends the stairs, a strange emotion ambushes him. This emotion is curiosity.
It takes him a moment to recognize it. And he thinks: Oh. When did Seneka Hart stop being Seneka Hart? ...When did Seneka Hart start referring to himself in the third person?
The thought is so random and weird that he freezes in the foyer and bursts out laughing. Aloyisius's curtains fly open and his dear old da begins screaming obscenities at him.
"Fire-lover! Scum! How dare you darken the doorstep of my manor!"
He keeps laughing. Aloysius stops screeching after thirty seconds of this. He stares at Seneka.
Seneka finally stops laughing a full five minutes later and smiles at the portrait. His da looks wary and almost frightened - and strangely sane. Seneka tries to think of the last time he saw any medium of his father not throwing a fit in his presence and can barely remember such a time.
"What..." he begins tentatively. But what is there to say between them that hasn't already been said? A lot of things, and all of it is too late. They both know this. The words and possibilities have been smothered and rotting and refused for too long now, and suffocation is the Hart tradition. So he closes her mouth and sniffs and lets the words that might have been said lie in their grave. "What are you laughing at, you traitorous disappointment?"
He accepts his father's words without rage and continues to smile at him pleasantly. It has been a long time since his school days and even longer since he last smiled at Aloysius in anything except the spirit of defiance and derision, but he feels in himself a ghost of his old roguish charm. "Howl once told me never to trust a man who speaks in third-person."
Aloysius is confused and falls back on hatred. "What - get out of my house! And take your traitor whore with you!" he shrieks.
And there is that curiosity again. He turns his back on Aloysius mid-invective and walks to the kitchen. He ignores the still-ranting painting with detached, unfamiliar ease and presses his hand on the door before hesitating. He looks at the battered surface for several moments.
The curiosity dies. The strange levity deflates. He is suddenly empty and - empty. He lets his hand fall from the worn door and walks away.
At his third step, he hears the sound of a bottle breaking.
And then silence.
Hart House is a house of the dead.
.-.
There is a terrible heat in his blood and a tingling restlessness in the muscles of his hands and wrists. He rolls out of bed and grabs his shirt in one surprisingly (for the lethargy and suffocation he has quickly become accustomed to) smooth movement. He steps over a set of clothes that aren't his as he strides out of the dust-choked room.
He doesn't take the time to shower before letting the heavy old door of his blood creak shut behind him.
The sun is brassy on his tongue and bright on his eyes.
(Why is the weather suddenly and consistently beautiful? This is Oslo. Seneka wants his fucking rainstorms back.)
He leaves.
.-.
This is a bar. It's small and quiet and there is low, sad music coming from a strange machine wedged in the corner. Seneka doesn't understand the crooning words. In fact, he doesn't understand the bartender.
He thinks the what locals might be speaking is Orokoson but isn't sure and doesn't care. He has managed to communicate just fine so far. He throws back another of those mysterious shots and stares at the empty shot glass.
The bartender refills it without a word.
This is a bar. This is Seneka. This is Seneka at a bar. This is Seneka at a bar and not shagging or killing that fucking failure of a human being.
This is the best it's going to get.
He takes another shot.
-.-
He wakes up on a really gross cot in a tiny room that smells faintly of bean soup. He slowly gets to his feet and immediately pukes in a corner.
When he is finished, he stumbles out of the room -
And into the bar. The bartender glances his way, unreadable, and jerks his head at Seneka. Seneka staggers to his stool.
His shot glass is still in front of it.
The bartender refills it without a word.
-.-
The next time he wakes up on the cot, it starts off the same. He stands. He pukes. He stumbles out of the room -
The divergence: the place is empty. The bartender is gone. The strange machine isn't singing songs Seneka can't comprehend. There are no tired-looking locals drinking quietly and steadily in the corners.
But there is a single shot sitting on the counter, and all Seneka can think about is how there is still enough alcohol in his blood stream and affecting his brain that he would feel entirely drunk again with just that one drink.
He throws it back.
And then he clumsily pulls a small sack of gold out of a grubby letter in his back pocket, plunks it on the bar, and leaves.
.-.
When he pushes open the door to Hart House, he is pleasantly drunk. He does not know how long he has been gone. On top of that, he does not know how long it has been since he ate something.
He thinks maybe it has been a few days. Or more. Maybe a week. He is suddenly and violently hungry. He sways his way to the kitchen and does not hesitate in opening the door.
She is sitting there again. He walks past her, straight to the cupboards, and stares at empty, dusty shelves.
"What are you looking for?"
He does not turn. He keeps staring at the shelves and hoping something edible will suddenly appear.
And then he does turn around - he turns and walks out of the kitchen that smells like whiskey, out of the house that smells like dust -
And sets out to search for food.
.-.
He ends up finding what looks to be a likely-looking restaurant. He catches a glimpse of himself in the window before he reaches the door, though, and walks past it with deliberation. The alcohol is wearing off, and he knows he can't go in looking like he does. He turns down the alley next to the restaurant and wonders while he fingers his wand and mutters a cleaning spell exactly how long he spent on that bender in possibly-Kiev.
There is no easy answer to that, unless he wants to ask the woman still in his house, and so he quickly dismisses it.
It is three or so in the afternoon judging by the sun, and there is no one in the restaurant except bored waiting staff and two women about his age. He eats with forced slowness and orders several meals to go.
The food is all meant for him. Seneka doesn't give a shit if she starves to death.
He gets home (when the fuck did he start thinking of Hart House as home?) after lingering over the meal for almost two hours and immediately sleeps.
.-.
(He thinks he would like some peace.)
Here is Seneka betraying himself.
(He thinks he would like some peace.)
