♕ |[30]| Or on the pavements gray

[had_not_lived]

Today is like any other day; free of rehearsals for the moment, Monsieur Perry is seated at a small café, lingering over a cup of black coffee and a cigarette. He's reading, but doesn't seem particularly entranced. He sets his book aside from time to time when someone greets him; an old friend, a new acquaintance, a fan of the theatre who

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[absinthe_eyed]

For Justin, today is more like any other day than it should be, as was yesterday. He isn't the least bit cursed, but that hardly stops him from enjoying the City's latest change of scenery. He sits at a café, a pen in one hand and a glass of absinthe in the other, looking perfectly at home. This is his era--the era of absinthe and poets! The Belle Époque, the time of succès de scandale, la vie bohéme! A bit too late for Rimbaud, but that doesn't matter.

Justin hasn't written much of anything. It's more about acting a part--being the sort of poet he had always admired, living as he always felt he should have lived (regardless of the fact that he isn't living). The setting and the alcohol have put him in unusually high spirits.

It comes to his attention that one of his fellow café-goers is very familiar. Neil? But of course it's Neil. Justin isn't sure if he should address the other boy or pretend he hadn't noticed him. There's no predicting what memories a curse has implanted in a friend's mind; it wouldn't do to hail someone who doesn't know him. Absinthe, however, overcomes a good deal of Justin's natural reservations, and he finally decides to greet Neil.

Justin gets up and wanders over to Neil's table, taking his notebook, pen, and drink with him. "Bonjour," he says quietly. If Neil recognizes him, he'll know soon enough.

[had_not_lived]

"Justin! Mon ami! Come, have a seat!"

Certainly he recognizes his old friend, though as what is anyone's guess. Neil is entirely a young man of his times; and the role the other boy is playing fits right into his cursed view of the world.

"It's been too long; how are you? We missed you opening night, you know. You may as well be married to your pen, for all any of us see you." His grin takes any sting out of the words as he stubs his cigarette out idly.

[absinthe_eyed]

So they do know each other, and Neil clearly doesn't think he's French (not with that accent, at least). An American student enjoying l'esprit de liberté of the times, perhaps?

"Merci, Neil." Justin sits, smiling familiarly and guessing at the part he should play in this made-up world. It shouldn't be hard to play along. "I'm no better or worse than I was last time you saw me," he replies in English, although he is tempted to practice his French. "When was the opening?"

[had_not_lived]

Neil's French is sufficient, but he's inclined to converse in his native tongue; an American runaway among peers of similar backgrounds, with a scattering of likeminded locals. It's all a little vague, a fact he doesn't notice because he's a part of the fiction. Really, it's rather a nice curse. He gestures a waiter to bring his friend a coffee.

"Last Sunday, of course. Could have done with another week's rehearsals, but c'est la vie, as they say. Reviews have been good in any case, since I doubt you've been reading the papers." Bright and teasing as ever, he has a sip of his drink. "How goes the poetry business?"

[absinthe_eyed]

Justin asks the waiter for another absinthe--with sugar, please--rather than coffee. All in moderation. Perhaps he'll actually become a poet if he drinks enough. "What was the show?" Justin doesn't ask Neil what part he had in the production; he can be ignorant of dates, but not of something that important. "Of course the reviews were good. You don't need a paper to guess at that."

Cursed or not, Justin thinks Neil is talented. He does Shakespeare justice, anyway.

He smiles and flips through the mostly blank pages of his notebook, employing some French in his answer. "Poésie est pour les poètes. Ask someone who can write how the business goes."

[had_not_lived]

"I just did. And Todd, too, who says much the same thing as you." A calculatedly dramatic roll of his eyes. Things are not so different in any world, it seems.

"The Tempest, this month. Most little theatres that hold anything in English only want the most English of English plays; not that I mind." He laughs. "My accent's not good enough for something meant for the masses."

[absinthe_eyed]

"Todd and I are realists in a romantic world." Justin sees that eye roll. Curse or not, this isn't a far cry from their life in the City.

He accepts his drink as the waiter brings it around. "I didn't know the French had a taste for Shakespeare. If 'The Tempest' does well, you should do one of the French plays. Something by Zola." Justin smirks and adds, "Your accent's barely good enough for casual conversation."

[had_not_lived]

"I'll take what I can get." It doesn't help that the details of this fantasy are limited by the bounds of his knowledge. Languages aren't his strongest suit; and as for material, he has his own preoccupation. "Sooner or later someone will take a chance and put me in something big."

Confidence, on the other hand, is Neil's strong point; and his favorite point to harp on. "I don't think I've ever met a poet with faith in his own poetry."

[absinthe_eyed]

"Les étoiles brillantes sont inévitablement découvertes," he replies, eyes bright from drinking just a little too much. What a lovely curse this is. "The brightest stars are inevitably discovered. Give it time."

Justin is amused by Neil's endless amounts of confidence; the curse hasn't done much to change him. "Self-deprecation is the hallmark of a poet, good or bad."

[had_not_lived]

"That I'll take your word on. You'll have to trust my judgment on the quality of your work." It is not a question. Indeed, the curse hasn't changed him much.

He leans back, arms crossed. "So what have you been up to?"

[absinthe_eyed]

Neil drives a hard bargain. "Since you trust me, I'll do the same." Of course, Neil has never read any of his poetry (not in reality, at least--Justin can only imagine what false memories the curse has put into his friend's head); his mind might change if he knew how very terrible Justin's writing was. He knows the mechanics of poetry--rhyme, metaphor, allusion, allegory, simile, meter, stress--but lacks art.

"Very little," he says honestly. "Drinking. Not writing." As proof of the latter, Justin shows Neil the last page he'd been working on. The paper is full of doodles--flowers, hands, eyes, all drawn with anatomical precision but without the slightest touch of creativity. There are a few words here and there... French phrases, mostly, and snatches of poems by his favorite authors. The work, truly, of a scientific mind addled by absinthe and not the prodigious scribblings of a budding poet. "...And you? I assume you won't be sitting here all day."

[had_not_lived]

It wouldn't make a difference if Neil had; he's in good spirits, in love with life. Days like this his optimism reaches heights to match his nihilism, in darker moods. If Justin hasn't written anything worth reading, it's only that he hasn't mastered his art yet-- nothing, no one, is hopeless.

"You shouldn't have so much." There's a note of concern there, a brief and worried gaze. Too many brilliant minds have wasted away, la fée verte driving them to their own ruin. He doesn't want to see it happen to someone he considers a friend; and though he's reluctant to threaten another's liberty, he has no qualms about providing distractions. "I'm waiting for Todd, then dinner, perhaps. You could join us if you like."

[absinthe_eyed]

How anyone who took his own life (although likely not in the reality of this curse) can be so in love with the very thing he deprived himself of mystifies Justin. The mood doesn't last forever, but that it can happen at all is a wondrous thing.

Justin sets his drink aside, oddly touched by Neil's concern even if he doubts that a dead person can suffer too many of drinking's ill effects. "You shouldn't smoke so much," is his facetious response. Neil is alive half of the time; it wouldn't do for him to develop lung cancer. "I don't want to impose."

[had_not_lived]

"Maybe not." He wrinkles his nose a bit, but smiles. Cigarettes are par for the course where and when he's from, and honestly Neil has always been a bit astonished that no one in the City seems to smoke.

"You" he says, pointing for emphasis, his expression deadly serious, "Are an invited friend, not an imposition. If you don't have a better excuse, you're coming."

[absinthe_eyed]

Poor Neil is behind the times. It's not fashionable to stand about with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth anymore; stumbling around in a drunken haze is far classier.

Lacking a better excuse (and, although he would never admit it out loud, a desire) to take his leave, Justin sits back in his chair. "Then I would like to join you. Thank you."

[had_not_lived]

Conformité n'est pas l'esprit des Poèts Morts. Fashionable or not, Neil isn't much of a drinker. Besides, it's a habit much more suited to the solitary lifestyle of the poet than the on-stage world he frequents.

"Excellent." Satisfied, he leans back as well, grinning. "At six, outside our building? We can decide where to eat then."