Sitting in a bar with a glass of brandy in hand, Marle was not surprised at Cecil's arrival. The bar must have phoned him. It was about that time of night, nearer three in the morning than two, and all but three of the other bar patrons had already left. Of those left besides Marle, two were drunk asleep and the third did not look to be the kind of man you told to go anywhere if you wanted to retain all your fingers. Bounty hunter, maybe. Bandit or outlaw, perhaps. The lone remaining waiter was turning chairs up onto tables. Marle tipped his glass to Cecil in acknowledgment and took another sip of his drink. The brandy was warming up in his hand and turning pungent and starting to burn his tongue.
"What are you drinking?" asked Cecil, which was the most polite greeting possible under the circumstances.
"Brandy," said Marle.
Cecil waved to the bartender. "I'll have one." Without any laws to regulate drinking hours, the bartender was happy to oblige.
"What the hell is brandy, anyway?" said Marle. "I dated a girl named Brandy once. Well, not dated. ********. She liked to party."
"It's made from wine," Cecil said, ignoring the rest.
"She had a red bikini. If it's once in a poolside cabana do you count that as a date?" When Cecil did not answer, Marle continued, "She had really tan skin, like the kind you get from going to one of those places. Brown skin and brown hair but her eyes... her eyes were... what color were they?" Marle had been rambling at the bartender like this for a good two and a half hours now, regardless of whether or not the bartender was actually present or listening. "Who can tell when they're screaming?"
"I think," said Cecil, taking Marle's glass, "that you've had enough."
"Yeah, I've had enough alright," said Marle, but he wasn't talking about the alcohol.
He had to wait for Cecil to finish his drink, which he paid for, and mumbled something about muffins in the interim. Then Cecil took him by the arm and walked him out of the bar. Had it not been for Cecil's firm direction, Marle would have knocked at least one of the chairs off the tables. Once outside, Marle gave up all pretense of self-directed locomotion and just draped himself on Cecil's shoulder.
"Do you want to go and talk?" asked Cecil.
"Dimerdoffenommer-nay," slurred Marle, which could have meant anything.
"Let's get you home," said Cecil.
It was a hard thing, Marle reflected, to admit you loved a man. Not in love with him, but loved him all the same. It was a hard thing to admit you loved anybody. "And you're a good, good friend," Marle finished, jabbing Cecil several times with his finger rather forcefully. He realized he had just spoken all of those sentiments aloud. "I love you more than my brother."
This was not news to Cecil, who had heard it many times before with varying levels of alcohol involved. "Your brother is a d**k."
"My brother has a d**k," corrected Marle, "annits prolly bigger than mine."
Cecil was nonchalant. "Wouldn't know, haven't seen it."
"Course not. He hates queers." That inadvertently put an uncomfortable pause in the conversation. Marle was confused and upset at himself because he hadn't meant it to sound so insulting. It hadn't sounded quite so mean and bad in his head. "I mean my brother."
"Hush," said Cecil.
Cecil's house was closer to the bar but in the opposite direction of Marle's ranch. As usual, Marle was being a horrible imposition. "'M sorry."
"For what?"
"This."
They were turning up the drive now, the cottage directly ahead. "If I minded I wouldn't have come."
"Why did you come?"
Cecil had to think about that because there were so many reasons, but only a few Marle would understand in this state. "Because you're family." Marle sighed. Family. He still wasn't sure if he understood the meaning of that word. "And here we are." Cecil sat Marle down on the front steps and waited a moment.
Marle put his face in his hands. Three hours from now he would have to be up and making the morning rounds and it was already giving him a headache. As if reading Marle's mind, Cecil asked, "Why did you do it?"
"I was thinking about her." Cecil sat down on the steps next to Marle and Marle resisted the urge to lean on him again. "I was going to sleep and I kept thinking how it could have been. Her running around the farm, maybe topless, with all the animals."
Cecil wrapped an arm around Marle and pulled him close, lightly kissing the top of Marle's head. "Stop doing this to yourself."
"I just--" But Marle couldn't finish and buried his head in Cecil's lap, crying. "She would have been-- looked so--"
"Shh," said Cecil, patting Marle's shoulder and sighing.
Marle looked up with his tear-stained face and piteously said, "I ate her, why isn't she with me? They said it was forever."
Cecil could not answer.
=(^・ω・^)=
Cecil left at quarter 'til five only once he was sure Marle was sleeping peacefully. He reset Marle's alarm by fifteen minutes; he didn't think Marle would hold that against him. He would try to turn up again around suppertime to make sure this didn't recur. One night every few months was tolerable, two in a row spelled trouble.
During the twenty-minute walk home, Cecil had ample time to think. He worried about Marle. He wasn't the only one, but he did seem to be the one who acted on his worries the most often. Perhaps it was because he had been the one at Marle's side during the darkest hours when it had seemed they all might lose Marle again, this time for good. There had been other people around, sure, but they came and went. Cecil was the constant anchor in the storm. It should have been Sunny. Why did she have to go and break the rules and get herself killed?
For a while, he had thought Marle would never recover, would just stay living in the guest room until they were both old and grey and Cecil was worn to a thread. But then he had gotten Marle to laugh again, just for a moment, and smiles followed, and more laughter, and gradually the sadness and depression had given way and the lively, mischievous prankster signaled: I'm still in here, buried under all this tragedy. Save me. That prankster was still hidden, but at least Marle was in a better place now, capable of running his own life. He even had the farm to look after. It had done him a world of good to have such an engrossing distraction.
But there were still these slip-ups, these little hiccoughs every few months that made Cecil fear Marle might slip backwards again. He did not want that happen. He needed Marle to get better.
Cecil had his own problems to worry about. He was going to be thirty-nine this year, which meant he was nearly forty. Somehow the years had just slipped him by. Maybe Marle's love was dead, but at least Marle had found a love. Cecil was still looking.
He kept this from Marle. Marle was so self-absorbed most of the time it was hard to get him to realize what was going on with other people, even the best friend he saw all the time and had lived with for almost two years. The worst part was, since the Second Conference, Marle had actually been trying to show more consideration for others. He just seemed to have zero knack for it.
Cecil finally arrived at his own front steps and noted with some annoyance that the sky was starting to brighten. He sincerely hoped he lived long enough to see Marle gain real independence and did not die from the stress of it all first. He loved Marle dearly, but sometimes being best friends with the elf seemed like a trial that would never end.
