[fanfic] when it brings no profit
Title: when it brings no profit
Author: sonofon
Character(s): Prussia, England
Rating: PG-15
Warning: Rated for potty mouths, themes, but mostly because this was actually meant to be a rad ~*bromance*~ if you choose to believe me.
Summary: I can't think of any reason why we should be friends, but perhaps that is reason enough, what do you say?
Notes: written for leriacossato, happy sixteenth, dear. &hearts If I had the funds, I'd throw you a masochists-only party, but since I don't, have a fic (an experimental-ly fic involving no exact plot and purposeful vagueness; are they synonyms or what yeah i don't get me either.)
-
(to please you, I'll be an Englishman, I'll be a Turk!)
-
For five years, Gilbert Beilschmidt worked as a longshoreman. He worked all over the place, and every time he went to a different country he became a different person. In Italy, he was Spanish, in Greece he was Turkish, in Denmark he was English, so it all worked out, really, because when he opened his mouth you couldn't tell whether he was from Oslo or Piz Palü.
He spoke five languages, all fluently, and the skill came rather in handy when he was slipping through borders and dealing with their patrolmen. He always had a pack of cigarettes on hand, and crisp euros, because that's how they played the game nowadays. "Let's not start trouble," he'd say in his favorite taunting voice, "it's not the best course to take. Fighting's never the answer, children." His laugh wasn't really a laugh, it was a cackle. (It still is.) He was called the English gentleman, and if he was not the depraved Christian-repressed orphan from Blackstable that he said he was, then he was damn good at pretending to be one.
One day, he met a real English gentleman. He was about to enter a taxi when he was shoved out of the way by the English gentleman. It was raining and he had always been of the competitive sort and there was no way he was going to lose this cab so he shoved back, and they both boarded and scowled all the way to Mayfair which is where the gentleman was headed to for an afternoon appointment. But now he was going to be late and good God the Countless absolutely hates tardiness how can I possibly show my face now? ("Blame traffic," was his rejected suggestion.) Then the English gentleman scowled some more and asked to be let off, but Gilbert refused because he was going to pay his share of the fare no matter what. Then the rain stopped and they were still very far from Mayfair so at the next red light the English gentleman said, "Oh bugger this," and jumped out. Gilbert followed suit. Demanded the money. Didn't receive it.
By the time he forced the money out of the fuming English gentleman the cab was gone. Probably had sped off to report them or something. In the meantime, he and the gentleman shared names and a cigarette. Everything seemed more pleasant after a cigarette. They were smoking a Chesterfield.
"I am Lord Arthur Kirkland," said the gentleman. He was wearing a cardigan under his blazer. His cuff-links glinted with the shine of something really fucking expensive.
"Don't shit me."
"Oh hardly. It's in the stud-book and everything."
After this, Gilbert turned towards imitating a German from Frankfurt and discovered, for the first time in many years, that he possessed a genuine talent for it.
*
Listen: it might not seem so in the least, but Gilbert Weillschmidt and Arthur Kirkland eventually became dependable friends in the most undependable of ways. (And he learned that Arthur didn't really live like a lord, he just abused the title for the credit. His apartment was functionable at best, but it was nice and clean.)
They ate Indian takeout twice a week, and Gilbert liked to eat while lying flat on his stomach so he got sick twice as quickly, which Arthur thought disgustingly amusing. They watched EastEnders while Arthur endured Gilbert's laughs at his tastes in the male characters. Sometimes if one or the other was feeling insomniac (and at least one of them always was), they went to watch the sunrise, only they didn't know exactly where to go for that so they usually ended up by the river. Some portions of the river were badly polluted, and once Gilbert was induced to puke right into it, last night's takeout and everything else; to which Arthur made a perfectly vague and useless comment about the lack of municipal legislation and initiation, as if it was some kind of magic spell that would solve all problems.
Then they watched the sun rise, though they had to go somewhere else for that, and even Gilbert agreed that it possessed a certain kind of beauty. They talked about their childhoods and were amazed at how language barriers and cultural differences really had no impact on the lives they'd lived, growing up.
"Did there used to be a drugstore on the corner of the street you lived and your mother always warned you to never go there-"
"And there'd be an immigrant family living there and they couldn't speak whatever language you were speaking, and mummy thought you were going to be mugged or ruined there. Pig-English was the only way to communicate and there would be this perpetual smell about the place, some cheap cooking oil or cigar smoke."
"God, I always felt so awful."
Or long stories that began: "Once when I was a kid-" about almost drowning in a river during a family day trip or jamming a finger against a door or catching a lizard with bare hands. They would talk about the American books that used to be imported over and there was talk about the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. ("Did you ever read the Boxcar Children?" Gilbert asked once. "I loved them so damn much; I thought Henry was awesome, almost as awesome as me.")
Did you ever know anyone who won a real Shetland pony by selling magazine subscriptions? No, but Arthur's family had owned a few racehorses though that was a long time ago and they had to eventually sell the horses for various reasons. Had Gilbert ever played Diabolo? No, he thought they were some kind of scam and he didn't want to waste his money on that. Oh, he had an allowance? Hardly; he worked since he was strong enough to hold a shipping box and he'd started saving up when he was nine. He had a safe storage for the money he made; 'course, it was pretty much all inflated but he didn't know so as far as he was concerned, he was the coolist little shit around. Weren't all kids like that? They laughed; and found out how small Europe really was and that was both comforting and sad at the same time.
*
"I've never been to America," Gilbert said. "Have you?"
"I've been to Canada," said Arthur. "Oh, but that doesn't really count does it?"
They pondered this. "I've never been to South America," Gilbert declared. "Or Africa."
"I went to Japan once," Arthur said, "but that was a long time ago and I don't really remember much of it, besides too many bright lights and miniature ship toys."
"I want to go to Mauritius," Gilbert suddenly said, "one day, just you watch. I'll go there if it's the last thing I do."
*
During the day, Gilbert worked at the docks. He claimed he was born and bred in Surrey which was one thing, but then he forgot his story and the next day he was talking about growing up in downtown London. It made everything much more complicated and he received all kinds of criticism: from the Surrey people who thought he was covering up something and from the Londoners who thought he looked down on the city, the premier metropolitan capital of the civilized world. But Gilbert was used to antics and he got a kick out of entertaining Arthur with the stories. He was a talented storyteller; in Germany he used to tell them to his younger brother. (He had a younger brother, believe it or not.) He was so good that he could convince his little brother of a lot of things: that money grew on trees if you danced long enough, that chocolate torte fell from the heavens when you finished your homework early, that if you only knew what you wanted you could be happy.
*
Listen: Gilbert was a sufficiently advanced alcoholic by the time he was in his early twenties so his family had made it known that it was highly desirable for him to stay in England.
When he was drunk, he had a tendency of getting angry. When he was angry, he was twice as susceptible to betting, so he was a very bad gambler. Arthur, on the other hand, was very good. Gilbert put it this way: "It's because you've got that p-p-p-poker face and your eyebrows are so ugly that the others get distracted and when they get distracted you start playing your cards which you are very good at, by the way, I'm not denying your inherent talent it's just that you get a lot of outside help and that might be a bit unfair to the other fellas like, you know, me. Man, I know I'm stewed and sort of down right now but let me go give him another beating that jerkwad really deserves it you know he called me a damn fairy and he called you even worse names do you want to know because I don't think you'd want to they're really quite-"
And he knew Arthur had gone off to sock him because he could hear the yelling and the proprietor's daughter came out wearing her war outfit (tight dress pulled at the waist and two braided strands of hair that reached the middle of her back). She must have been seventeen or eighteen. Arthur's sockings hurt, and Gilbert knew because Arthur socked him all the time. He could make an awful mean face when he wasn't trying to be an English gentleman, and his shouting could get nasty. He was a tough shrimp fighter.
Anyway Arthur waved his arms an awful lot when he was trying to make a point and it appeared that he was successful, from Gilbert's hazy vantage point. Arthur had begun mentioning names. That scared a lot of people, including Gilbert. Arthur knew Hell's own amount of people. He had unlimited credit, and just as many creditors. The onslaughts were warded off. Gilbert stopped being drunk.
Then they got in trouble with the loan sharks, though that was another matter.
*
"I've got such-and-such amount in the bank right now," Arthur said, "I'll lend it to you. No interest. You can pay me back anytime."
"F-fuck," he was still sprawled out on the ground, the back of his hand blocking his eyes from the bright light. They were at Arthur's apartment and it was three in the morning. He wished he weren't breathing but he didn't really mean it. "I don't want to think about the money. God, the money."
"Look, chap, I didn't mean to do you in. I had no idea the fellow you were gambling was also the loan shark. Couldn't you have picked a better fight? Even I, the sheltered young aristocrat, know better than to get in the wrong with a loan shark. Where do you think I get my money from? Oh, oops, that was classified information right there." He was standing over Gilbert. He didn't look too sorry. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Even in his half-drunken stupor, Gilbert noticed that the sleeves were perfectly rolled with hardly a wrinkle. Arthur always looked so damn put together it made him irrationally angry, and irrational anger coupled with being drunk has never made for benevolent results. "Do you want a drink?"
"Oh fuck you."
"Not right now, darling."
Gilbert yelled nonsense in a combination of German and Danish, and aimed for Arthur's face but accidentally hit his nether regions.
Arthur blushed, and proceeded to sock him.
*
"Honestly," he said later, "I didn't mean to hurt you." I didn't mean to sock you twenty-three times. I didn't mean to ruin you, literally and figuratively, today's only March's 15 by coincidence, because I do like you a lot I really do because it's interesting with you around and you don't mind going shopping for sushi and winter scarves at Harrods at eight in the morning in July even if you do complain an inordinate amount and I know you're not French which is good because I'm twenty-five and I'm still not sure why I hate them so.
He said: "I can go make some tea, if you want. It'd probably help more than the whiskey, if you know what I mean."
"I'm gonna die," Gilbert dramatically groaned, and rolled over. He was lying on Arthur's coach, which he had marked as his territory on the basis of the funky beer stain on the left arm and the indistinguishable marks all over. This was his second home. His first home was some junk thing behind an alleyway back in Germany, and there was a very good chance that it had since been demolished and replaced with an edifice of social importance or cultural well-being, like a gas station. "I'm gonna just fucking blow up and fucking die." Gilbert could be very whiny. Arthur almost wanted to sock him again.
"Do you want Chamomile or Earl Grey? But just letting you know, I haven't any lemon. Awfully unfortunate, I know."
"Fuck you, what do you mean, you haven't got lemon? What kind of English faggot are you?"
"Apparently a very bad one," he easily replied. "Please don't reprimand me."
"Faggot," he called after him.
"What's that you said?"
"I said you're a faggot. A very big and obvious English faggot. You queer! Ha, how's that?"
Arthur returned with two mugs. "You know, I find it rather amazing how your mouth still manages to spew out such vulgarity, even when the rest of your body is in tatters. It's like your mouth functions independently from the rest of you. If I didn't know you so well, I'd be offended. Or afraid. Or both."
"Well you don't know me well, not to be rude but that's the truth. So I'm offending you now. Technically. But let's not stop there: I'm a damn fairy and you're-you're a-"
"Say, why don't we call a truce?" He answered with very little energy now, almost a bit upset. "I'm tired."
"Never!" he growled, but it came out as a very hoarse choke.
"You ought to get a job."
"I do have a job."
"You can't really call that a job, can you? Carrying boxes and cursing at sailors."
"I get paid. Say, who're you to call me out on my profession? On the other hand, what do you do? Go around having tea with Countess Haverfoord Denis Meriwether (spell any of those names wrong and suffer, little children) and sleeping with a different embassy fellow every other Saturday night? That's a great job. I'm sure the competition's tough and the market's busting with capable applicants."
"What rot are you talking? I swear, I didn't damage your brain earlier. I was aiming at your chest." He looked sad, sighing and pressing the palm of his hand along the side of the desk and leaning against it, with his left shoe crossed over his leg to the right. "And even if I did flunk anatomy at Eton (that's a secret, by the way), I'm smart enough to know that the chest cavity is an entity entirely different from the brain. Well, my aim may not be what it used to be, but it's still not all that bad."
"But suppose you did do some damage. I could sue you. You could lose money. A lot of money. I'll send you deep into the red. You'd become an awful gentleman, and what then?"
"You don't honestly mean that."
"Hell yeah I do."
"You're feeling sick, that's all."
Gilbert shrugged, and closed his eyes. "My head still hurts, no thanks to you."
"If I kissed you to make the pain go away, would you forgive me?" Arthur laughed, and went to turn off the stove.
*
"So do it."
"W-what?"
"Kiss me," Gilbert demanded. Arthur found this to be genuine funny. It was funny because Gilbert wasn't twelve, nor was he a pretty Thai whore with silicon-injected D-cups. He was a guy who looked his age, maybe older. He had cuts and bruises all over the arms; calloused skin, and his hands had been permanently blistered since the age of seventeen. His body was tired from the long years of hard labor. He had ashen-looking hair and his eyes were a glazed red. It didn't look pleasant when Gilbert said it, truth be told. He hadn't the right face.
"Now look here-"
"You said you would. You just said it!"
"I was kidding. Just like you're kidding when you call me awful names and we say bad things about each other."
"That's right," he eased his breathing down. "I was kidding."
"Of course you were. It's not like you'd want to kiss me. And I don't want to kiss you."
"Right. Right."
"We're friends, that's all."
"We're good friends."
"We're lovely friends."
"Here, have some more tea," said Arthur Kirkland.
"Okay," but when he drank, he spilled the hot liquid all over his shirt and he swore so loud the neighbors woke up and Arthur had to shut him up before someone accidentally called the police and wouldn't that have been the perfect end to everything?
*
"I'm in Hell."
"Try again."
He scratched his nose. "Well, I know I'm not in Heaven. Heaven doesn't smell like two-day old tea and crumpets and a stuffy Englishman breathing down my neck. That's for sure."
Arthur punched him. Gilbert's bruised eye from the day before was showing and it was only going to get worse, he knew from experience, but he was laughing and so was Arthur and without their noticing, the sun had crept up from behind.
-
notes:
→ title derived from Oedipus Rex, the full quote being "Wisdom is a dreadful thing when it brings no profit to its possessor".
→ and the subtitle from The Portrait of a Lady. (Gilbert Osmond ;; &hearts)
→ a little bit interested? you can check out my other fic here.
Author: sonofon
Character(s): Prussia, England
Rating: PG-15
Warning: Rated for potty mouths, themes, but mostly because this was actually meant to be a rad ~*bromance*~ if you choose to believe me.
Summary: I can't think of any reason why we should be friends, but perhaps that is reason enough, what do you say?
Notes: written for leriacossato, happy sixteenth, dear. &hearts If I had the funds, I'd throw you a masochists-only party, but since I don't, have a fic (an experimental-ly fic involving no exact plot and purposeful vagueness; are they synonyms or what yeah i don't get me either.)
-
(to please you, I'll be an Englishman, I'll be a Turk!)
-
For five years, Gilbert Beilschmidt worked as a longshoreman. He worked all over the place, and every time he went to a different country he became a different person. In Italy, he was Spanish, in Greece he was Turkish, in Denmark he was English, so it all worked out, really, because when he opened his mouth you couldn't tell whether he was from Oslo or Piz Palü.
He spoke five languages, all fluently, and the skill came rather in handy when he was slipping through borders and dealing with their patrolmen. He always had a pack of cigarettes on hand, and crisp euros, because that's how they played the game nowadays. "Let's not start trouble," he'd say in his favorite taunting voice, "it's not the best course to take. Fighting's never the answer, children." His laugh wasn't really a laugh, it was a cackle. (It still is.) He was called the English gentleman, and if he was not the depraved Christian-repressed orphan from Blackstable that he said he was, then he was damn good at pretending to be one.
One day, he met a real English gentleman. He was about to enter a taxi when he was shoved out of the way by the English gentleman. It was raining and he had always been of the competitive sort and there was no way he was going to lose this cab so he shoved back, and they both boarded and scowled all the way to Mayfair which is where the gentleman was headed to for an afternoon appointment. But now he was going to be late and good God the Countless absolutely hates tardiness how can I possibly show my face now? ("Blame traffic," was his rejected suggestion.) Then the English gentleman scowled some more and asked to be let off, but Gilbert refused because he was going to pay his share of the fare no matter what. Then the rain stopped and they were still very far from Mayfair so at the next red light the English gentleman said, "Oh bugger this," and jumped out. Gilbert followed suit. Demanded the money. Didn't receive it.
By the time he forced the money out of the fuming English gentleman the cab was gone. Probably had sped off to report them or something. In the meantime, he and the gentleman shared names and a cigarette. Everything seemed more pleasant after a cigarette. They were smoking a Chesterfield.
"I am Lord Arthur Kirkland," said the gentleman. He was wearing a cardigan under his blazer. His cuff-links glinted with the shine of something really fucking expensive.
"Don't shit me."
"Oh hardly. It's in the stud-book and everything."
After this, Gilbert turned towards imitating a German from Frankfurt and discovered, for the first time in many years, that he possessed a genuine talent for it.
*
Listen: it might not seem so in the least, but Gilbert Weillschmidt and Arthur Kirkland eventually became dependable friends in the most undependable of ways. (And he learned that Arthur didn't really live like a lord, he just abused the title for the credit. His apartment was functionable at best, but it was nice and clean.)
They ate Indian takeout twice a week, and Gilbert liked to eat while lying flat on his stomach so he got sick twice as quickly, which Arthur thought disgustingly amusing. They watched EastEnders while Arthur endured Gilbert's laughs at his tastes in the male characters. Sometimes if one or the other was feeling insomniac (and at least one of them always was), they went to watch the sunrise, only they didn't know exactly where to go for that so they usually ended up by the river. Some portions of the river were badly polluted, and once Gilbert was induced to puke right into it, last night's takeout and everything else; to which Arthur made a perfectly vague and useless comment about the lack of municipal legislation and initiation, as if it was some kind of magic spell that would solve all problems.
Then they watched the sun rise, though they had to go somewhere else for that, and even Gilbert agreed that it possessed a certain kind of beauty. They talked about their childhoods and were amazed at how language barriers and cultural differences really had no impact on the lives they'd lived, growing up.
"Did there used to be a drugstore on the corner of the street you lived and your mother always warned you to never go there-"
"And there'd be an immigrant family living there and they couldn't speak whatever language you were speaking, and mummy thought you were going to be mugged or ruined there. Pig-English was the only way to communicate and there would be this perpetual smell about the place, some cheap cooking oil or cigar smoke."
"God, I always felt so awful."
Or long stories that began: "Once when I was a kid-" about almost drowning in a river during a family day trip or jamming a finger against a door or catching a lizard with bare hands. They would talk about the American books that used to be imported over and there was talk about the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. ("Did you ever read the Boxcar Children?" Gilbert asked once. "I loved them so damn much; I thought Henry was awesome, almost as awesome as me.")
Did you ever know anyone who won a real Shetland pony by selling magazine subscriptions? No, but Arthur's family had owned a few racehorses though that was a long time ago and they had to eventually sell the horses for various reasons. Had Gilbert ever played Diabolo? No, he thought they were some kind of scam and he didn't want to waste his money on that. Oh, he had an allowance? Hardly; he worked since he was strong enough to hold a shipping box and he'd started saving up when he was nine. He had a safe storage for the money he made; 'course, it was pretty much all inflated but he didn't know so as far as he was concerned, he was the coolist little shit around. Weren't all kids like that? They laughed; and found out how small Europe really was and that was both comforting and sad at the same time.
*
"I've never been to America," Gilbert said. "Have you?"
"I've been to Canada," said Arthur. "Oh, but that doesn't really count does it?"
They pondered this. "I've never been to South America," Gilbert declared. "Or Africa."
"I went to Japan once," Arthur said, "but that was a long time ago and I don't really remember much of it, besides too many bright lights and miniature ship toys."
"I want to go to Mauritius," Gilbert suddenly said, "one day, just you watch. I'll go there if it's the last thing I do."
*
During the day, Gilbert worked at the docks. He claimed he was born and bred in Surrey which was one thing, but then he forgot his story and the next day he was talking about growing up in downtown London. It made everything much more complicated and he received all kinds of criticism: from the Surrey people who thought he was covering up something and from the Londoners who thought he looked down on the city, the premier metropolitan capital of the civilized world. But Gilbert was used to antics and he got a kick out of entertaining Arthur with the stories. He was a talented storyteller; in Germany he used to tell them to his younger brother. (He had a younger brother, believe it or not.) He was so good that he could convince his little brother of a lot of things: that money grew on trees if you danced long enough, that chocolate torte fell from the heavens when you finished your homework early, that if you only knew what you wanted you could be happy.
*
Listen: Gilbert was a sufficiently advanced alcoholic by the time he was in his early twenties so his family had made it known that it was highly desirable for him to stay in England.
When he was drunk, he had a tendency of getting angry. When he was angry, he was twice as susceptible to betting, so he was a very bad gambler. Arthur, on the other hand, was very good. Gilbert put it this way: "It's because you've got that p-p-p-poker face and your eyebrows are so ugly that the others get distracted and when they get distracted you start playing your cards which you are very good at, by the way, I'm not denying your inherent talent it's just that you get a lot of outside help and that might be a bit unfair to the other fellas like, you know, me. Man, I know I'm stewed and sort of down right now but let me go give him another beating that jerkwad really deserves it you know he called me a damn fairy and he called you even worse names do you want to know because I don't think you'd want to they're really quite-"
And he knew Arthur had gone off to sock him because he could hear the yelling and the proprietor's daughter came out wearing her war outfit (tight dress pulled at the waist and two braided strands of hair that reached the middle of her back). She must have been seventeen or eighteen. Arthur's sockings hurt, and Gilbert knew because Arthur socked him all the time. He could make an awful mean face when he wasn't trying to be an English gentleman, and his shouting could get nasty. He was a tough shrimp fighter.
Anyway Arthur waved his arms an awful lot when he was trying to make a point and it appeared that he was successful, from Gilbert's hazy vantage point. Arthur had begun mentioning names. That scared a lot of people, including Gilbert. Arthur knew Hell's own amount of people. He had unlimited credit, and just as many creditors. The onslaughts were warded off. Gilbert stopped being drunk.
Then they got in trouble with the loan sharks, though that was another matter.
*
"I've got such-and-such amount in the bank right now," Arthur said, "I'll lend it to you. No interest. You can pay me back anytime."
"F-fuck," he was still sprawled out on the ground, the back of his hand blocking his eyes from the bright light. They were at Arthur's apartment and it was three in the morning. He wished he weren't breathing but he didn't really mean it. "I don't want to think about the money. God, the money."
"Look, chap, I didn't mean to do you in. I had no idea the fellow you were gambling was also the loan shark. Couldn't you have picked a better fight? Even I, the sheltered young aristocrat, know better than to get in the wrong with a loan shark. Where do you think I get my money from? Oh, oops, that was classified information right there." He was standing over Gilbert. He didn't look too sorry. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Even in his half-drunken stupor, Gilbert noticed that the sleeves were perfectly rolled with hardly a wrinkle. Arthur always looked so damn put together it made him irrationally angry, and irrational anger coupled with being drunk has never made for benevolent results. "Do you want a drink?"
"Oh fuck you."
"Not right now, darling."
Gilbert yelled nonsense in a combination of German and Danish, and aimed for Arthur's face but accidentally hit his nether regions.
Arthur blushed, and proceeded to sock him.
*
"Honestly," he said later, "I didn't mean to hurt you." I didn't mean to sock you twenty-three times. I didn't mean to ruin you, literally and figuratively, today's only March's 15 by coincidence, because I do like you a lot I really do because it's interesting with you around and you don't mind going shopping for sushi and winter scarves at Harrods at eight in the morning in July even if you do complain an inordinate amount and I know you're not French which is good because I'm twenty-five and I'm still not sure why I hate them so.
He said: "I can go make some tea, if you want. It'd probably help more than the whiskey, if you know what I mean."
"I'm gonna die," Gilbert dramatically groaned, and rolled over. He was lying on Arthur's coach, which he had marked as his territory on the basis of the funky beer stain on the left arm and the indistinguishable marks all over. This was his second home. His first home was some junk thing behind an alleyway back in Germany, and there was a very good chance that it had since been demolished and replaced with an edifice of social importance or cultural well-being, like a gas station. "I'm gonna just fucking blow up and fucking die." Gilbert could be very whiny. Arthur almost wanted to sock him again.
"Do you want Chamomile or Earl Grey? But just letting you know, I haven't any lemon. Awfully unfortunate, I know."
"Fuck you, what do you mean, you haven't got lemon? What kind of English faggot are you?"
"Apparently a very bad one," he easily replied. "Please don't reprimand me."
"Faggot," he called after him.
"What's that you said?"
"I said you're a faggot. A very big and obvious English faggot. You queer! Ha, how's that?"
Arthur returned with two mugs. "You know, I find it rather amazing how your mouth still manages to spew out such vulgarity, even when the rest of your body is in tatters. It's like your mouth functions independently from the rest of you. If I didn't know you so well, I'd be offended. Or afraid. Or both."
"Well you don't know me well, not to be rude but that's the truth. So I'm offending you now. Technically. But let's not stop there: I'm a damn fairy and you're-you're a-"
"Say, why don't we call a truce?" He answered with very little energy now, almost a bit upset. "I'm tired."
"Never!" he growled, but it came out as a very hoarse choke.
"You ought to get a job."
"I do have a job."
"You can't really call that a job, can you? Carrying boxes and cursing at sailors."
"I get paid. Say, who're you to call me out on my profession? On the other hand, what do you do? Go around having tea with Countess Haverfoord Denis Meriwether (spell any of those names wrong and suffer, little children) and sleeping with a different embassy fellow every other Saturday night? That's a great job. I'm sure the competition's tough and the market's busting with capable applicants."
"What rot are you talking? I swear, I didn't damage your brain earlier. I was aiming at your chest." He looked sad, sighing and pressing the palm of his hand along the side of the desk and leaning against it, with his left shoe crossed over his leg to the right. "And even if I did flunk anatomy at Eton (that's a secret, by the way), I'm smart enough to know that the chest cavity is an entity entirely different from the brain. Well, my aim may not be what it used to be, but it's still not all that bad."
"But suppose you did do some damage. I could sue you. You could lose money. A lot of money. I'll send you deep into the red. You'd become an awful gentleman, and what then?"
"You don't honestly mean that."
"Hell yeah I do."
"You're feeling sick, that's all."
Gilbert shrugged, and closed his eyes. "My head still hurts, no thanks to you."
"If I kissed you to make the pain go away, would you forgive me?" Arthur laughed, and went to turn off the stove.
*
"So do it."
"W-what?"
"Kiss me," Gilbert demanded. Arthur found this to be genuine funny. It was funny because Gilbert wasn't twelve, nor was he a pretty Thai whore with silicon-injected D-cups. He was a guy who looked his age, maybe older. He had cuts and bruises all over the arms; calloused skin, and his hands had been permanently blistered since the age of seventeen. His body was tired from the long years of hard labor. He had ashen-looking hair and his eyes were a glazed red. It didn't look pleasant when Gilbert said it, truth be told. He hadn't the right face.
"Now look here-"
"You said you would. You just said it!"
"I was kidding. Just like you're kidding when you call me awful names and we say bad things about each other."
"That's right," he eased his breathing down. "I was kidding."
"Of course you were. It's not like you'd want to kiss me. And I don't want to kiss you."
"Right. Right."
"We're friends, that's all."
"We're good friends."
"We're lovely friends."
"Here, have some more tea," said Arthur Kirkland.
"Okay," but when he drank, he spilled the hot liquid all over his shirt and he swore so loud the neighbors woke up and Arthur had to shut him up before someone accidentally called the police and wouldn't that have been the perfect end to everything?
*
"I'm in Hell."
"Try again."
He scratched his nose. "Well, I know I'm not in Heaven. Heaven doesn't smell like two-day old tea and crumpets and a stuffy Englishman breathing down my neck. That's for sure."
Arthur punched him. Gilbert's bruised eye from the day before was showing and it was only going to get worse, he knew from experience, but he was laughing and so was Arthur and without their noticing, the sun had crept up from behind.
-
notes:
→ title derived from Oedipus Rex, the full quote being "Wisdom is a dreadful thing when it brings no profit to its possessor".
→ and the subtitle from The Portrait of a Lady. (Gilbert Osmond ;; &hearts)
→ a little bit interested? you can check out my other fic here.