Unpleasantries, // Marcel

[Alexander Cross]

Alexander was not having a good week. He'd failed his master and succeeding in giving the woman he [still] loved a reason to hate him. All in all, not a recipe for a good mood. Fortunately, brooding made for excellent music so while he was in London and waiting for Marcus to arrive, he spent nearly every waking hour with Vivian. Vivian was the one lady who knew just what he needed and never got all mad when he said something she might not like.

He was sitting on the grass, his mandolin in his hands. Eyes closed and brow furrowed, he was in the middle of weaving a melody so intricate and complex that the world around him was completely lost. This was his sanctuary. The one place he could go to escape everything that was breathing down his neck and gnawing at his mind.

Small crowds of people would stop by and listen for a while. He never noticed. He just kept playing, melodies and harmonies that floated on the air with haunting refrains caused enough people to stay away and help him keep his concentration. It was the holiday season, after all. Most people wanted to hear something cheerful and festive; neither of which Alexander felt. He was just grateful for a momentary reprieve from the reality that awaited him when the music stopped.

[Marcel LaCroix]

Marcel was pretty happy these days. Happy, content, comfortable, what have you. Things were...they were just going really well, and he appreciated it immensely. He and Ginny were happier, probably, than they ever were before they broke up. He didn't know exactly what caused that difference, but whatever it was, it was significant. Maybe the happiness he felt with her was just heightened in contrast to his crushing unhappiness without her, he didn't know... But they still slept together and snuggled together and watched old movies together and watched Bijou treat Beauregard the Great Dane like a jungle gym together. And it was good. All of it was very good.

Things seemed less good for Ginny, though. Not that she seemed unhappy; on the contrary, she seemed to be perfectly happy with him and with her situation, and she admitted as much. The problem came in when she tried to clean up her own messes...especially considering she'd made some pretty big messes in her time. Marcel wasn't the only one - hardly. He knew she was starting to feel guilty about some past issues with Sofia; that was just a blow-up waiting to happen, he was sure. And Alex... Fucking Alex.

Now, Marcel didn't appear to have very many particular talents. He had his bird calls, which he only ever used to tease Princess Bijou, and he had a few good coin tricks up his sleeve, and he was a damn good ballroom dancer. But none of these were things that were expected of him, really. God knew he didn't look like much (unless "quite sexy, if a bit overage" counted as much). But one talent he never much noticed himself, or indeed considered a talent, was the ability to find people. If he was looking for someone he knew, whether he hated them or loved him, then he could find them. He just instinctively knew where to go, within reason. He couldn't say that Ginny was in Italy, for example, when he was in London, but once in Venice, it was just a matter of letting his feet do the work.

Tonight, he was looking for Alex, and despite having only met the man once (for an extended period appreciated by neither of them), Alex wasn't difficult to find. Marcel headed straight to the park where Alex was sitting forlornly against a tree, strumming a mandolin.

Marcel almost had to double-take. A mandolin?

He approached and stood a few feet from the younger vampire, smirking mercilessly down at him with his arms crossed over his chest. "You play a fucking mandolin?" he said. "Why don't you just tattoo 'I'm a fairy' across your forehead?"

[Alexander Cross]

Alexander would have happily been lost in his music for several more hours, not bothering anyone and certainly minding his own business. He would have been content and perhaps even found the music healed him to have some conversation with a friendly-looking soul on the way back. Or perhaps he would have been stumbled upon by a recording artist who liked his sound and wanted to use it, the Prime Minister of England who happened to be passing by and wanted to give him a handsome sum of money for being such a decent fellow. Or, perhaps he would have been randomly shot in the head by a passerby who didn't like his songs...anything would have been better than the reality that beset him.

"Why don't you just tattoo 'I'm a fairy' across your forehead?"

Stupid Frenchman.

Alexander stopped playing, not even bothering to look at his antagonizer. He simply turned around and began to walk he other way, "Leave me alone," he told the other vampire in a tone that warned he was not so weepy that he would have forgotten how much he despised his stupid, French face. Whatever reason Marcel had thought fitting of a visit had lost any legitimacy with his greeting and Alex found no shred of curiosity strong enough to care what the real reason was. All he wanted to do was play his mandolin, no matter how it made him look.

[Marcel LaCroix]

Marcel didn't quite expect Alex to be happy with his comment, but come on. He was playing a mandolin! He was playing sappy little songs on a silly little mandolin, alone in the park with a look on his face like his goldfish just died. How much more sad-sack could he get? Alex didn't waste time muttering a stolid "Leave me alone," and turning to walk away. Marcel, naturally, followed him. Well, did Alex expect anything else? Maybe it wasn't abundantly clear that he was looking for a discussion, but in fact, he was. A very serious discussion. It wasn't his fault that he wasn't so good at serious sometimes.

"Hey!" Marcel called, walking briskly after the juvenile. "Oh, come on... It was a joke! A joke, all right? Listen, I... Would you stop-" He caught up and grabbed Alex's shoulder to roughly swivel him around. Alex may have been a big boy, but Marcel had over 400 years under his belt. "-walking away while I'm talking to you? Listen, I don't like you, and I get the funny impression you're not especially fond of me. But we have a little discussion we need to have, and I will continue hounding you until we have it. Literally, if necessary, but fur isn't my most becoming asset."

[Alexander Cross]

He didn't stop walking as he heard Marcel's footsteps behind him. He didn't stop even as Marcel tried to justify his attempt at humor. Alexander only stopped walking when he felt a grip on his shoulder, one which he promptly shrugged off with his brow furrowed deeply. He didn't look happy. In fact, he was looking less mournful and more annoyed by the second. Marcel didn't have to turn him around...Alexander did that by himself and the face the older vampire was met with was hardly one to be scoffed at.

Alex could think of a thousand -- no, a million different things he would rather be doing at the moment. One of them involved being tortured with a hundred paper cuts in between his fingers. Talking to Marcel was easily the most unpleasant of all the unpleasantries he could imagine. Being touched by him managed to break that record...which was a feat in and of itself.

His sense of humor was appalling, not to mention irksome and offensive. Alexander was not the sort of person that would make jokes at another's expense...a recent conversation he'd had with Ginny made him wonder whether or not she actually heard anything her lover said...though the Frenchman was doubtlessly more careful with his words around her, now. The whole situation was just...stupid and the more time Alex spent thinking about it the more angry he got.

"Talk," Alex demanded in a low tone, finding looking at Marcel's face easier to do when he imagined a big red-and-white target painted on it, with a red bull's eye right over his nose.

[Marcel LaCroix]

There was something inherently quite likable about Alex, if Marcel was going to be perfectly honest. He could see what Ginny had once liked about him, even if he was about as interesting as wallpaper paste. He was fun to tease and goad because he was just so damned earnest! He wore his heart - and his lungs, and his spleen, and his liver - right on his sleeve for all the world to see. He appeared to, anyway. Alex had no finesse, no style, nothing that made him unique or appealing...and in this way, he was entirely 100% Alex. Marcel was bored by this, bored practically to tears by just being around the man, but in a strange sort of way...he almost respected it. Marcel couldn't show as much of himself so openly to the world as Alex could.

Of course, he could never say this...to Alex or to anybody else. He'd continue teasing and bugging and irking the Boy Scout because it was funny. Respect...nobody had to know about it.

"Talk."

Another good thing about Alex, he could be very succinct. Again, boring...but good. Sometimes Marcel marvelled at the fact that Ginny could have gone from being engaged to Alex to being in love with him. They were total opposites in all but one thing...they were hopelessly and infuriatingly in love with Genevieve.

"I don't know what transpired between you and Ginny the other night," Marcel said, slipping his hands into the pockets of his black wool coat. "All I know for sure is that Ginny came into my apartment ranting and raving and scaring my cat. Now, I don't know what you said to her or she said to you, but she wasn't exactly one for specifics at the time. Care to fill in the blanks, or tell me why she's refused to see you ever again?"

[Alexander Cross]

Simplicity was Alexander's charm and curse. He was vaguely aware of this, but it never mattered much. He never tried to be one thing or another...he was always (for better or for worse) simply himself. Marcel, on the other hand, seemed to want to fill a role that wasn't made for him. Alex was greatly unnerved being near him because of this. The bigger reason was because Ginny preferred the man Marcel was to the man he was and that only served to slice away at his already raw feelings and nerves. However, there was a genuine part of Alexander that wanted to stay away from Marcel simply because he felt as though he was always looking at him from behind several shrouds. Somebody that had to hide themselves that way...they could never be trusted.

Marcel asked what happened between Alex and Ginny. The fact that she had been upset afterwards did not even give him a hint of pleasure. He did want her to be upset over him, but not that way. The fact was, Marcel was the one she went to for comfort and Alex was doing everything he could to close himself to that chapter in his life. Bringing it back up was unexpected, especially when the one who wanted to bridge the gaps in the story was the Frenchman.

"I don't care to," Alex spat back at him, "I did what I had to do! You of all people should be pleased to hear that." He paused, fuming inwardly at the whole situation. It was too late to say none of it should have ever happened. He just had to shoulder it and move on. After staring at the ground for a few, long moments, Alex's eyes rose back up to the target on Marcel's face, "I didn't hurt her or anything like that, if that's what's got you all concerned. I just gave her a reason not to see me an' that's all you need t'know."

[Marcel LaCroix]

"I did what I had to do! You of all people should be pleased to hear that."

Alex's little outburst was something of a surprise. Marcel blinked away a brief startled moment, but then he just...looked at Alex. Alex wasn't looking at him; he was staring at the ground as though it could tell him something, as though it had some answer to all the unvoiced questions in his handsome young eyes. Marcel's patience lasted the first few seconds, but then he started wondering...was Alex going to say anything? Did he care to elaborate on this just the tiniest bit? No, Marcel was not pleased with any of this, wasn't that obvious? He knew Alex wasn't exactly the brightest bulb on the chandelier, but he wasn't a complete moron.

"I didn't hurt her or anything like that, if that's what's got you all concerned. I just gave her a reason not to see me an' that's all you need t'know."

"I know you didn't hurt her," Marcel scoffed. "If you'd hurt her, either you'd have been found in an alley mauled by a large wildcat, or I would have come to find you a lot sooner. What I want an explanation for is this-" He affected a mocking version of Alex's accent. "-reahson not tuh see ya."

He took a step or two forward, his hands still in his pockets, and gave Alex a mild, probing look. "Are you a fucking retard?" he said calmly.

[Alexander Cross]

Marcel's personality was much like a giant, metal cheese grater. It more than rubbed Alexander the wrong way. It rubbed him raw and cut him up in such a way that he was certain there could never be a way the two of them would ever make nice. Alex didn't initiate this conversation and he certainly wasn't going to stand for being mocked and insulted as Marcel proceeded to probe further into a topic that was clearly a sore spot using both means.

"No," Alexander said with a warning tone in his voice, "You're not gettin' anything from me." He was mad. Not upset, not annoyed...Alexander was fumingly, furiously irate. "You've already got Ginny, Marcel. You've got her an' I've made sure I won't get in the way of that." His words could have been kind, if he didn't sound as though he was about to breathe fire and look as though he wanted to do it, so he could melt off the other vampire's face. He stared at Marcel just a moment or two longer before he let loose his tightened jaw to add, "You don't deserve a woman like that, but she chose you...why you're here talkin' to me instead of bein' with her make you the idiot, not me."

A second later his brow creased deeply and he took a step backwards and turned to walk away again, "So just go back to whatever hole in the ground you crawled out of, 'cause I don't owe you a single thing."

[Marcel LaCroix]

Marcel knew he was getting on Alex's nerves. He was very good at getting on people's nerves, but for one reason or another, Alex seemed particularly susceptible to Marcel's personal brand of nerve-prodding. Whether it was Marcel's personality and acquired-taste charm, or the fact that he was currently sleeping with the younger man's ex-fiancee, he didn't know. What he did know was that he was making Alex angry, and he suspected this was probably a little counter-productive... He was just so damn sensitive! Marcel couldn't say one word without him throwing a hissy fit.

"You've already got Ginny, Marcel. You've got her an' I've made sure I won't get in the way of that.You don't deserve a woman like that, but she chose you...why you're here talkin' to me instead of bein' with her make you the idiot, not me." Marcel opened his mouth to say something, but Alex took that moment to turn and begin walking away. "So just go back to whatever hole in the ground you crawled out of, 'cause I don't owe you a single thing."

Marcel growled in annoyance under his breath and jogged forward, taking Alex's shoulder and jerking him a step backward. "I didn't say you owe me anything," he snapped, his cool facade cracking under the pressure of his own frustration. "Would you look at me? You're right, you gibbering idiot, I don't deserve someone like Ginny, and why she came back is beyond me, but this isn't about me. It's about her. If you refuse to stay in her life, then you do not and never did give one shit about her."