Thread:Riliane De Lucifen/@comment-31597382-20200116162517

So...I'm sick today so I had a lot of time to write this and rewrite this, and I hope you like the way it turned out!

--

Ah life is good.

Pierre was a writer, (who was currently without his muse but he didn't really care about that, life was still good, his muse would come back) and he had no responsibilities!

And he would be going to a really awesome party that night, he heard there would be all kinds of wine that he didn't have to pay for. (He doesn't have a problem with drinking wine, he just likes it at the parties. Sue him.)

Nothing could bring him down from this height, nothing could touch him here, he was just so...

"Pierre?"

Scratch that, there was something that could bring him down. Or rather some one. And his name was Alistair Lang.

"What brings you here?" Pierre asked, yanking on his scarf.

"Oh, you know, was just in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop by. You seem awfully happy." Alistair sounded like a middle aged accountant who didn't understand how anyone could find fun or happiness in anything that wasn't work related. (he pretty much hit the nail on the head with that, despite the fact that Alistair wasn't middle aged or an accountant. At least, Pierre didn't think so, he could be wrong, it had been a long time since he had seen him.)

"And is that a bad thing? I'm enjoying life, mon ami." Friend was really stretching it, but it was the best thing to be polite to Alistair. After all, he had never done anything truly awful to Pierre, even if he was a stuffy fusspot. Most things they could agree to disagree on.

"It's not a bad thing to enjoy where you are in life. It's quite a good thing to be content, that's something that everyone needs to learn and it's hard for most people."

Great, perfect, fantastic. How had Pierre started one of Alistair's lectures? Anything could start one, he should have learned that by now, and hearing the other young man out was the best course of option. Assuming he didn't say something that was completely and totally out there that Pierre could not stay silent about, of course.

"I just want to know what you find so enjoyable about your lot in life, that's all." Alistair said this calmly, his face not betraying any secret diabolical meaning behind his words.

"Did you come all the way to Book End just to ask me that?" Pierre asked challenging, he didn't mind listening to a lecture from Alistair, so long as he didn't go too extreme towards views that Pierre did not agree with, but that didn't mean that he was above playful bantering. It would probably be the only way he survived the next, (however long this took. He was hoping for only a half on hour, but he figured it was a safe bet to assume that this would take at least an hour.)

"Don't flatter yourself. I had business that I had to take care of. It was pure luck I saw you and had the time to talk to you." Pierre could tell that Alistair didn't know if it was good luck or bad luck. To be fair, neither did Pierre himself.

"I just like the way my life's going. Didn't know I needed to have that validated by you." Pierre smirked, more at Alistair's reaction to his words than at the words themselves. He could tell the other man was regretting even approaching Pierre today, which to be honest was almost more entertainment than anything Pierre could think to do at the moment.

"You don't. But...when's the last time you've written anything?"

Ah, there it was. Pierre bristled at the accusatory tone, though he could tell Alistair was trying to keep this conversation friendly and as casual as such a formal responsible adult could. If Alistair could do it, then so could he! Or at least he could try.

Pierre kept his voice as calm and steady as he possibly could. "About a month." Actually it was closer to five and a half weeks, but he figured about a month was pretty close to that, and it probably would make Alistair less annoyed if he said it that way.

"Pierre!"

"I can't write without a muse!"

"So call on your "muse"!"

"That's not how it works! I think it might be attending someone else at the moment." Pierre actually wasn't one hundred percent certain that was how muses worked, but if it was true and his muse was actually helping more than just him, that would explain why sometimes it was gone for weeks at a time.

"Writers can't be greedy Alistair." Pierre kept his voice calm as he tried to remind him of the facts. "Besides, it's not that I don't want to write, it's actually that if I try to write now, with no muse, then I will just get frustrated and end up wasting my time because if I actually end up writing anything, though that is incredibly unlikely, I will just go back to it when I do have my muse and just end up destroying what I've written."

"You do have a point." Alistair conceded, making Pierre cheer inside. He couldn't remember the last time Alistair actually agreed with a decision that he'd made about his life and he certainly was wishing he had something to use to record it because he was pretty sure this wouldn't happen again any time soon. Plus, Alistair probably wouldn't remember this, (whether on purpose or just because there are certain things that take priorities as memories and certain things that don't.)

"So if you aren't writing right now because your muse is inaccessible, then what are you doing tonight?" Alistair asked.

Oh, great, now for the topic that would really make him mad. In all honesty, Pierre totally should have seen this coming. "I am going to a party!"

"Really? How late will you be dancing and having fun and drinking wine this time?!" Alistair's voice practically dripped with disapproval, almost making Pierre wonder if Alistair could taste it, and if he could, what exactly disapproval tasted like. Bad wine? Vinegar?

"You sound like someone's overprotective mother Alistair, I am a fully grown man, I have the right to go to any party that I want to, whenever I want to."

"I swear sometimes your a teenage boy in a man's body." Alistair moaned. Pierre wasn't sure what exactly that meant, but he figured by the way he said that that it was an insult.

Before Pierre could retort back with something, he didn't know what but he knew it would be as bad of a burn as Alistair's one, someone else cut in.

"Hey party animal! I'm surprised to see you here, unless your on your way to a party!" Someone that Pierre only sort of recognized and Alistair didn't know at all, called.

"Well, no I'm not, just out for a walk." Pierre called back cheerfully.

The person's companion, an older woman that Pierre didn't even remember ever seeing before, scowled. "You don't even have a job do you?"

"Um..."

"I bet you live in your parent's basement and just mooch off of there money! You should wake up and realize that you are an adult and you need to make your own money so your parents don't have to feed you..."

"That's enough!" Alistair scolded, kind of surprising Pierre but kind of not.

"He has a career as a very successful writer, no he does not live in his parents basement, even though if he did it's none of your business."

The woman's companion tried to pull the stunned older woman away, to avoid any further confrontation, but then the older woman snapped back with one final remark. "Writer's don't make any money!!"

"Very sorry to hear that you think that! Maybe you should go research some authors, see how much they make, and then seeif you know what your talking about!" Alistair yelled after them, clearly not willing to let them have the last word.

When he turned back to Pierre, he seemed to snap back to his calm state. "Now about that party, are you sure you think it's worth it to waste your night over there?"

Pierre couldn't help it. He laughed. He literally burst out laughing in the middle of the streets of book end because Alistair had lectured him on his lifestyle choices, and then suddenly snapped to his defense when someone else was critiquing his lifestyle choices, only to pick up where he left off when the antagonist left.

"What's so funny?" Alistair demanded, sounding almost offended that he would find anything about his lecture funny, which of course just made Pierre laugh all the more.

When he finally caught his breath, he winked at Alistair. "You think I'm a successful writer?" He asked.

"The world thinks your a successful writer, even if sometimes you don't write anything at all for a month and instead spend all your time at parties." Alistair corrected primly.

Pierre laughed again, though not as loudly and not as long as he did before. "Can't even give me a compliment can you? Do you agree with the world?"

Alistair didn't say anything at first, just held eye contact with the young man. That lasted for about fifty seconds, and Pierre was just about to insert a witty insult to break this somewhat eerie silence, when Alistair did something unexpected. He smiled.

"I don't disagree with the world." He said carefully.

Pierre shook his head fondly. That was indeed the best that he was going to get.

I think Alistair is the adult everyone wants to be and Pierre is the adult that everyone winds up being. 