Page 6 of Drink Up, Darling
“Ah!” Godwin was on his feet in an instant. “Two moments, that will be our other guest!”
He’d gone before Dariel had a chance to ask anything else.
Chapter Three
Dariel often wondered where his trust issues began.
His first life ended as an accident—no one was to directly blame, and yet when he awoke again, he blamed everyone he saw for not saving Annette andlittleSparrow.
He never learned how he was made; had to figure out how to navigate this new world alone, but he blamed everyone he saw for that too. He was lonely for those first few years, kept himself away from the world, because he thought himself a monster.
He sometimes blamed himself for their deaths, even though he wasn’t even there when the flames began.
When he decided to ‘die’ for the second time, he fled the country. He’d spent over a decade learning to live with his losses, working and learning how to survive again, but once he realised he was never going to age, he wanted to start entirely anew.
He’d heard America was the place to be in the early eighties, so he found himself a small home in New England. By the middle of the decade, he’d moved to New York, decided to flaunt his youthful body, and have some fun.
This was where his trust diminished even more. He got to learn a lot about people very quickly as they invited him into their beds.
Some were kind, treated him well, while many others had him kicked out onto the streets as oblivious and uninvolved partners would walk in and blame him for spreading all sorts of diseases—some entirely made up.
To men, he was their little secret. To women, he was a porcelain doll.
It was an awful time, really. Dariel watched people he’d begun to consider friends die all around him. He watched as the news painted all sorts of false narratives on big screens, communities falling apart. People being thrown out onto streets and denied health care as though they were sub-human. He watched as those in power allowed the AIDs pandemic to spread and spread for years, always prioritising other things, never their own people.
But he also watched communities come together. Rebuild.Love, unconditionally. He joined in with marches, built new friendships, and met so many incredible people as the eighties turned into the nineties.
He always blamed himself for not being able to save anyone, though. For not having the power to cure and make things right. He’d been cursed with this condition, but he couldn’t share it. Couldn’t burden anyone else with the loss of humanity. He refused to take away that autonomy, just as someone had done to him.
Why was he chosen to live, time after time? Why him?
A handful of years before the new millennium, Dariel learned he possibly wasn’t alone.
It happened in a flash, one so quick he would always doubt whether he’d been mistaken, and he hoped he’d find, in time, that he was wrong. It was easier that way. But through all thepulses and sounds of the bustling city, that blond haired stranger did not possess a heart.
He was sure of it.
But they were gone in an instant. Oblivious to Dariel’s existence.
He couldn’t even trust his own mind. Maybe time would naturally take it from him.
Or, time would gift him.
“There we are, make yourself comfortable! Dariel, this is Athens. Athens, meet Dariel. Dariel is to be my personal designer, and Athens, you are of course going to help me make this house look and feel like a home again. I’m glad you could both make it. I’ll let you two get acquainted!”
Godwin was in and out of the room as if his life depended on it. His cheery self left barely a shadow behind him as he closed the door, leaving Dariel alone with the most beautiful man he’d ever seen.
It was a quick and bold realisation—he was aware of that. But his anger at Godwin for neglecting to inform him of this guest was immediately quelled the moment Athens stepped through the door with straight, shiny black hair with red strips flowing past his hips. He had piercing light blue eyes ringed with the blackest eyeshadow known to man, and his full noir ensemble of vinyl, low cut jeans, and a buckled vest top over mesh clung tightly to his slender frame. But the gentle, and equally confused expression painted on his face as he entered eased Dariel a tad.
That, and the fact Athens was dead.
Like him.
Dariel swallowed the lump in his throat, watching the embers light up the side of Athens’ body as the other man stood staring at Dariel, reading his face, and forcing Dariel to readjust himself on the chair, worrying he perhaps did not look his best. The tension was again only hand crafted by Dariel, as a moment later, Athens burst out into laughter.
What? Is there something on my face?
Athens threw himself on the chair opposite Dariel in a severely relaxed manner, tightly crossing one long leg over the other and stretching his arms around the back of the sofa, owning the room.
