onlythebranch | (no subject)

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rowan

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These days, Mad Sweeney lives in a fucking cemetery.

It's for the best. Spike had found him a solution just like he'd asked, one that he hopes will hold over until his luck gets bad enough that he just up and dies, and it's not the most uncomfortable place he's ever laid his head. The mausoleum is cozy enough, fixed up from when Spike lived in the damn thing, and it means every time something goes wrong, the only people around are the dead and they're not exactly in any real danger.

He doesn't tell anyone where he is. When they text, which they do -- and ain't that a weird fucking thing -- he answers, but he doesn't give out any information. He can't. They're all important in their own ways and he can't risk their lives just because he's a lonely piece of shit. He's always been lonely, he can suffer through it for a few more weeks until the luck takes care of him.

And he's resigned to it now. His death. Used to be he feared it and then he'd fled from it, then he'd gotten in over his head with Wednesday because he thought he owed a death on a battlefield. Now it's coming for him whether he likes it or not, whether it's owed or not, and he's prepared.

Doesn't mean he's not going to go out without being able to smoke and drink right up until the end. He tries not to go out when there'll be others around, but sometimes it can't be helped, and he's creeping out of a nearby corner store, the sound of the owner's curses at his back -- seems all the glass bottles of booze had shattered only seconds after Mad Sweeney paid for his -- when he catches sight of someone familiar.

Someone, he realizes, he can't fucking kill.

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Rowan wouldn't hide the fact that he had been worried about Sweeney. He texted him, yes, and Sweeney usually responded, as much as the big man ever did, but that wasn't the same as seeing him. Making sure with his own eyes and hands that he was alright.

This whole luck business confused him, didn't make any sense. Bad luck didn't kill people. People did, through accident or intent. And clearly Sweeney didn't want to kill anyone, so why take this responsibility onto himself?

So it was with a twinge of relief that Rowan saw the leprechaun. He paused, giving him a look of well there you are, then strode over.

There was some kind of commotion going on in the store behind him, but Rowan paid it only a passing glance.

"Where have you been?" were the first words out of his mouth.

"Mausoleum," Mad Sweeney answers, because he could feed Rowan some bullshit line and get him off his back, but he finds he doesn't really want to. Lately he hasn't had much company besides Spike and while he likes the vampire, he's been itching to get out. Even just to a bar. Something with a crowd.

But chances are he'll kill a crowd somehow. So he stays in the mausoleum and pretends he's not sulking about being stuck there, even though it was his bloody idea to segregate himself in the first place.

"It's real cozy, wanna come see?" he asks. As he extends the invitation, there's an immediate flush of guilt he shoves aside. He can't kill Rowan, but that doesn't mean he can't fuck him up at least temporarily.

His eyes went a little wide at the answer. Rowan hadn't assumed Sweeney was hiding out somewhere, but he had also assumed it would be somewhere comfortable, like his apartment. Or maybe even a tent in the woods. Not the cemetery.

He shook his head to clear his shock and confusion, uncertain how best to respond. Tell him off for being ridiculous? Would that even achieve anything?

"Sure," Rowan said, not knowing what else to say.

Except... "Seriously? A mausoleum?"

"Can't accidentally kill my neighbours if they're already dead," he answers with a shrug. "I know a guy who'd already had the place sort of cleaned up. It's not half bad."

He's slept worse places. Worse by far. It's a hell of a lot more comfortable than the bathroom floor at the shitty bars he tends to frequent. Used to frequent. These days he drinks in the fucking mausoleum.

His words are dismissive, but as he nods for Rowan to follow him, his expression turns thoughtful and troubled. "Sure I can't kill you, right?"

Rowan didn't understand it, but he understood it so little that he couldn't begin to argue against it. So he let it be without further comment, other than the confused expression on his face which would slowly fade as the conversation went on.

He moved to keep up with Sweeney. The truth was, the big man could kill him, under the right circumstances. Decapitation. Fire. But at this point in time, there was no reason to go mentioning that.

"No. I'll just come back like a bad penny. Promise."

Mad Sweeney turns slightly, tucking the paper bag with his bottle under his arm, and appraises Rowan for a long moment as if he's looking for a lie. Whether or not he finds one, eventually he just nods, because the truth is, he needs the fucking company. Spike comes by and looks in on him and it's not like Sweeney's always been the most social creature in the fucking world, but he'd spent decades as a bloody bird, the loneliest he'd ever thought he could be, and it had driven him halfway to madness.

He doesn't want to make the rest of the trip alone in a mausoleum in the final weeks before his inevitable death.

"Cute choice of words," he says dryly, turning down a quiet street toward the cemetery. Already he can feel that oppressive loneliness that's been clinging to him and he's more grateful for Rowan's unexpected presence that he can figure out how to say. "But good. It'd be a shitty fuckin' thing, killing you."

Rowan huffed out a dry laugh at the comment. He hadn't been aiming for clever, but he had stumbled upon it like he sometimes did. He liked that, when he sounded braver and smarter than he felt.

"More so than anyone else?" he asked, and he was teasing now, just a little. "I know I'm special around here but I didn't know I was special to you."

They make their way towards the cemetery and already, just the sight, it gives Rowan the creeps.

"We don't have cemeteries anymore," he remarked distantly, trying to keep his focus on Sweeney but finding it straying to tombstones and markers.

They were practically walking on dead people. Who did that?

In response to the comment about Rowan being special, Sweeney only shrugs, broad shoulders rising and falling as he finds the path toward the tomb. He's not about to tell anyone in this place they're important to him, but he can't lie to himself and pretend they haven't managed to get under his skin. Having them leave is one thing, because for all it fucking sucks, it's no different than the life he's been leading for the past seven centuries.

Having them die wouldn't even be that different. But dying because of his shit luck is something else. He can't carry that right now.

"Guess not," he says. "If no one dies. Is it weird for you?"

Cemeteries are places of worship in a way people don't often understand. They're heavy with both grief and belief, with prayer and offering. Maybe that's part of why he likes being here now, too.

"Yeah." Of course it was. But that didn't stop him from following Sweeney along the path through the myriad of markers to the mausoleum. It was weird, but not something he feared. Unsettled though he may have been, he was with Sweeney, and that was more important.

"No weirder than people dying in general, I guess. It's just a reminder. Of what was lost, right? ... I also can't understand why people would want to hold onto that."

Even when his own father had died, Rowan hadn't felt any need or want to visit a grave stone where his body might have been decaying. He had wanted revenge, but what was done was done.

"They don't have forever," he says, as if that's somehow an explanation. It's not. He does have forever -- or he used to, anyway -- and he still mourned the people he lost, even if he doesn't know how to say so and never has. He's visited graves, he's put down flowers, he's been the survived by more than once, and every single time it had broken his fucking heart.

"They have a single lifetime. Some of them only love once." He shrugs as he pushes open the mausoleum door. "That shit is hard to leave behind."

The tomb, just like he'd said, is a hell of a lot cozier than it has any right to be. It's not a half bad place to be his last. It's warm enough, he's got a place to sleep, a place to store his booze, and no one complains if he smokes. Which he does, reaching into his pocket for his lighter, putting the bag of booze down on a little table.

Rowan made no response, just followed Sweeney into the tomb. He could imagine loving once, could imagine not wanting to lose that person. But at the same time, what was a decomposing corpse and a stone marker? Religion had gone the way of the dodo in the Age of Immortality, so the thought of an afterlife, of being able to be with someone after they had passed, was ridiculous to him.

It made him wish, though. Wish that he did feel that way, could feel that way. Could mourn and long for someone in that way, keep them in his memory. But that ability to feel had also disappeared with the Age of Immortality.

"Wow," Rowan remarked as they stepped into the space. "You're right, this is... cozy. Still ridiculous, but cozy."

"No one else has died," Mad Sweeney answers with a shrug before he takes a long drag from his cigarette once it's lit, tossing the case down on the table as well. Whether or not it's ridiculous to live in a fucking tomb, it's not like it's the most ridiculous thing he's done in his very long life. And he pretends not to give a shit, but he can't just go around causing fatal accidents all over the damn city.

Dropping onto the makeshift bed, he nods for Rowan to join him. Or sit in the single chair. Whatever he wants. It's just nice, finally not being on his own.

"You want a drink?" he asks. "I know you can't get drunk, but I've got other shit. Mostly pop." To go with his alcohol, admittedly, but Rowan doesn't have to drink it like that.

"You're not really living, either," Rowan pointed out under his breath. Quiet enough to be ignored or loud enough to be acknowledged. He didn't really care except that he was in Sweeney's space and it seemed rude to start a debate (or fight) when he had been invited in and offered liquor.

Then again this was Sweeney. Maybe he was aching for a fight.

Rowan ran his fingers through his short cropped hair and nodded before shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "Maybe we test my limits," he countered with a wry smile. It wouldn't be impossible to get tipsy, would it? Why had he never thought to ask before?

Oh, right, because he had been too content and taken care of to want anything more in life than to go on as usual.

"I've had seven hundred years, lad, most people'd say that's more than my fair share," Mad Sweeney answers with a small smirk, then gets to his feet so he can go to the small refrigerator and retrieve the pop. He reaches for a few glasses, then drops them on the little table and pours a generous amount of Southern Comfort into both. He has other whiskies around, but he figures this is where they're going to start.

If it's possible this is one of the last time he's going to see Rowan, they're going to drink his favourite drink.

Filling the rest of the cups up with coke, he passes one to Rowan with a grin. "To testing your limits, then," he says. He has no idea if Rowan can actually get drunk, but if he wants to make an experiment of it, Sweeney's certainly not going to argue. He likes getting people drunk, likes seeing them with their guard down and he supposes he's seen Rowan like that already, but it's a bit different, he thinks.

"No such thing," Rowan countered. Of course, it was the spoiled view point of a young man with immortality in front of him, someone who had seen death, experienced it, but not nearly so much as the man he was about to share a drink with. Rowan knew that there had to be balance, had to be death for life to truly be appreciated, but he wanted everyone to have as long as they could. Forever.

He took the glass, trying to match Sweeney's smile, and lifted it up in a slight cheers motion. Taking a sip, his nose wrinkled at the strong taste, and it went down with a burn, but ultimately it wasn't that bad.

"So what have you been doing besides hiding out?" he asked. "Reading War and Peace?"

"Read that decades ago, it's not really worth the fuss," Sweeney answers with a grin, even though he knows Rowan is just giving him a hard time. He has read it, though, he's read more books than most people expect of him, but there have been times in the past when he's really had nothing else of interest to distract him, not even a good fight, and so he'd drink and read. It's actually not a bad idea and he wonders if he can text Spike and get him to swing by the library.

"Not a hell of a lot to do," he answers, collapsing back on the bed with a huff, still holding the bottle of Southern Comfort. "Spike comes by some of the time so I don't drive myself fuckin' crazy, cooped up in here, but mostly..." He shrugs.

Mostly, right now, he's just focused on not dying. On not killing anyone else by accident. It's boring as shit.

"You should have texted me," Rowan pointed out. He helped himself to a seat on the bed, on the edge, not quite relaxing but trying to. He wanted to be okay with Sweeney's decision, because it was his decision. But it was a stupid fucking decision and something about it set Rowan on edge.

"What makes Spike so special that he gets to come around and I don't?" Or, rather, that he got to come around at all. What was the point of hiding yourself away if you were going to let one person in on your bad luck.

"I can't kill him either," Mad Sweeney answers, shoulders lifting in a shrug before he takes a sip of the Southern Comfort straight from the bottle and then lets it rest against his big thigh. He grins a little, unable to help himself, and for all he's filled with shitty luck and shittier ideas lately, this was a good one. He's glad to see Rowan.

"You're not the only immortal in my life, love," he teases with a smirk, giving him a nudge with his elbow. His grin fades bit by bit and he takes another shot of the Southern Comfort before holding the bottle toward Rowan.

"But you're right. Should've texted you," he says. "Got it in my head these days that I'm two steps from killin' everyone and I forget I can't kill everyone."

"Wow. I'm wounded," Rowan says, playing at true disappointment with a startled face. "I thought we had something special, Sweeney. And here you are, running around behind my back with other immortals."

It's mostly just surprising that there's someone else who knows what this is like, not dying. He wonders what type of person this Spike is that he also lives forever, but Rowan's more interested in Sweeney at the moment than in other people.

He takes the bottle and a sip, wincing again as the alcohol burns its way down. He takes yet another sip for good measure before handing it back over.

"Got a few of 'em around these parts," he answers. The guy with all the magic who throws the parties, Spike, fucking Thor, who he's avoided at every single turn possible, using the last bit of luck he has left just so he doesn't have to speak to Odin's well meaning son.

"Dunno if you two would like each other," he says thoughtfully. "Maybe I ought to have a crypt warming party. See how you get on."

There's no fucking way he's doing that. Not that he cares if Spike and Rowan get along. They could become the best of fucking friends for all he cares. A party just seems like a recipe for disaster.

Clearly, Rowan needs to go looking for immortals more. He heard rumors about the man who throws the parties, but he doesn't know if he can't die the way Rowan can't. Or, mostly can't. Can anyone?

"I get along with most people who aren't assholes," Rowan says, adjusting his seat on the bed so his legs are crossed and he's half turned towards Sweeney. This makes it easier to steal another sip of the alcohol. His pain receptors are dialed down low, but that doesn't mean his body can't naturally adapt to the burn.

"But I don't put it past you to hang out with assholes."

"If asshole is what keeps you from getting along with people, how the fuck do you get along with me?" Sweeney asks as he leans back against the wall and then gestures for the bottle. Spike is probably capable of being an asshole, Sweeney wouldn't like him as much as he does if that weren't the case, but if either of them is the real prick, it's Sweeney.

And Rowan is here.

"I hang out with plenty of assholes," he says. "Hang out with plenty of people who aren't assholes, too. Don't know why the fuck any of 'em give a shit either way."

But he especially doesn't deserve people like Greta or Rowan.

"You're not a real asshole," Rowan counters with a mild smile of the perfectly logical. But there's something playful in his eyes, too. He knows how Sweeney sees himself, how he talks about himself, and he knows that it's -- in a lot of ways, but not all -- bullshit.

"You act tough but you've got a squishy center. Like those candies with the hard shell but something gooey and sweet on the inside."

You're like me, he wants to say, but doesn't.

That's a pretty good description of Spike, too, he thinks, and he smirks, thinking of all three of them. Assholes, immortals, whatever the fuck else they are, with squishy insides. Sweeney has done a pretty good job of hiding his, pressing it down, pretending it doesn't exist. Soft centres are the sort of thing that get people fucked over and hurt, it's the thing that causes someone to fall in love when they know damn well they shouldn't, because they're going to stay alive and the person they've fallen in love with is going to die.

He takes a drink from the bottle, letting the sweetness of the whiskey fill his mouth before it slides down his throat and he shrugs.

"So I'm a fake asshole," he says. "Plenty of people who'd argue with you on that." Shadow, Laura, Salim, hell, even Odin himself. The only gods who don't hate him are Ostara and Bast, although he can't even be sure about Bast most of the time, given that she doesn't often leave her cat form.

"You're just a breed of asshole," Rowan reassures him, like he might be hurt by the reclassification to fake asshole.

"And I don't argue with people." Rowan can be ornery and contrary when he wants to, can stick it to the man as well as the next person. He's done it before, defending Citra without letting on that that was what he was doing, subverting Goddard whenever he could, holding his own values even when he was being brainwashed. Doing what he could to keep the Scythedom fair and on the straight and narrow. But outright arguing was not something that he did well.

"But I can kill them if they talk shit on you," he deadpans.