AU week - telling the tale.

[thewidewideworld]

Sin takes Athelstan's hand and leads him through a door and then another, and up a narrow flight of stairs that seem to be hidden in the walls. To another door that looks like it should be locked but isn't. (Or isn't locked anymore.)

The journey leads them into the roof and a flatish section of tiles where they can sit and look out over the lake, protected from the breeze.

"Come, sit with me." Sin strolls across the tiles, sure as a mountain goat till he finds a good spot to sit with their backs against a chimney.

Comments

[thewidewideworld]

"Oh sweet Athelstan." Sin smiles, kissing Athelstan's cheek. "I have never been so lucky as to find anyone as wonderful as you."

He leans back, tucking his arm under his head. "I've had plenty of people try to save me from my lonely ways. Some of them more aggressively than others."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Love isn't everybody's way to happiness," Ragnar says. "For some people, it really is freedom, and that deserves as much respect as the right to love whom we want."

Being newly in love, Athelstan might think it's the answer to everything.

[athelstanthescribe]

Newly in love and discovering freedom at the same time.

"Aggressively?" he asks with a frown, not liking the sound of that.

[thewidewideworld]

"Oh, I've had love. And have it still. I love a lot of people, including you two. But love means different things to different people and some mistake it for possession. That's where the aggressive bit came in. I have had more that one lover who tired to keep me after I was ready to go. It hasn't aleays ended well." Sin shrugs, a little sadly.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"No, it really doesn't," Ragnar says, "not when people start obsessing about what they think is their love."

[athelstanthescribe]

"And trying to make you do something you don't want to isn't a sign of love", Athelstan agrees quietly. "Not really."

[thewidewideworld]

"And the fact you both know this are just more reasons why I love you." Sin grins, trying not to dwell on past mistakes and how much they nearly cost him. There are parts of his life to dark to talk about.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Like floating on a sea of love, with different kinds of love from different people," Ragnar muses.

As far as metaphors go it's probably nonsense, and it does sound a little stoned, but they probably know what he means.

[athelstanthescribe]

It does sound a bit stoned, but Athelstan reaches over and pats him affectionately.

"But some - tides - are to be avoided."

[thewidewideworld]

"We are swiftly becoming a Kerouac poem." Sin chuckles, stretching his lean body and scratching his ribs.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"We should avoid that," Ragnar murmurs, "and go to sleep."

Now nobody is passed out any more, and everybody's safe.

[athelstanthescribe]

"I'd like that."

He doesn't care that he missed out on joining them in sex, what he's more interested in is closeness anyway.

[thewidewideworld]

"My witness is the empty sky." Sin intones, shifting to pull the blankets up and somehow managing to put Athelstan in the middle. "First time I read 'On the Road' I thought I'd seen the face of God in the lines of poetry. I was very, very high at the time."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"You have to be," Ragnar says, and yawns.

[athelstanthescribe]

"To read On The Road?"

[thewidewideworld]

"To see god in it." Sin chuckles, snuggling down. "But it was very much written to be read while high."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"It's not something you'd want to be all the time," Ragnar says. "But sometimes, it's just great."

[athelstanthescribe]

"What's it like?" He's comfortable and feeling safe between the two of them. "If it's something you can describe?"

[thewidewideworld]

"Being high? Everything depends on the situation for me. Who I'm with, what I'm doing, what I've taken. I could take one pill and walk down a city street and feel nothing but the same pill around a camp fire at a festival with music playing and stars overhead can be a life changing experience."

"But then, I don't often get high for the high's sake."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"I always like the feeling that I ride the high, rather than the high riding me," Ragnar nods.

[athelstanthescribe]

"What for, then, if not its own sake? Opening yourself up, like that pill you gave me?"

[thewidewideworld]

"Exactly that." Sin explains, "to open my senses, to makes myself more aware, transcend my own being."

"Sometimes its an escape from reality, some times I take certain drugs for mood alterations - when I need to deal with something that's upsetting me."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Altering your point of view, or the way you look at reality," Ragnar nods. "Like mental sunglasses."

[athelstanthescribe]

"Does it still help with what's upsetting you when the drugs wear off?" Athelstan asks, quietly interested.

[thewidewideworld]

"It doesn't help me escape the problem but sometimes it helps me get a bit more perspective on the underlying problem. Like Nepal after Iceland. I needed a away to step out of what happened to think about how it affected me." He explains, without thinking about the fact he hasn't told Ragnar the full story of Iceland.