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[closed, for alex]
It's been a solid couple of weeks since the beach party, so when Wren runs into Alex as the charity gala winds down, it doesn't feel too over the top to remind him he's still invited over for trading music and stories.
"This weekend, maybe," he says, and gave him an innocent look over his glass, "--unless you also have a quarter million you're planning on dropping on a date with someone, in which case I'd completely understand being occupied."
Now, he's just hanging out, lazily layering loops of guitar and synth into a background wash of music, watching Inari growl at shadows in the corner. Maybe he'll open up some wine later. Depends on what happens; he's not too worried about it.
"This weekend, maybe," he says, and gave him an innocent look over his glass, "--unless you also have a quarter million you're planning on dropping on a date with someone, in which case I'd completely understand being occupied."
Now, he's just hanging out, lazily layering loops of guitar and synth into a background wash of music, watching Inari growl at shadows in the corner. Maybe he'll open up some wine later. Depends on what happens; he's not too worried about it.
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The blond bit his lip and gave Wren a long look. From how he described performing...it almost sounded like a siren using their powers. Like when he captivated a crowd with a story. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask Wren if he had sirens in background but his friend didn't yet seem to know that the mythical was real. Perhaps that was a conversation best left for later.
Though he did have the sudden urge for a swim.
"Tell me, more about it?" He asked as he leaned back on the counter, meeting Wren's gaze. "Traveling and entertaining. Entrancing people with music. What's it like?" It was something he always wondered about. He was a siren but he couldn't carry a tune if he tried, or so he thought compared to most sirens he knew. Ones like him, who used pure words, were a minority so he was curious. "Have you ever truly forgotten yourself?"
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Wren searches his eyes for a read on what he's thinking, smiling curiously.
At the question his expression turns more thoughtful and he raises an eyebrow self-analytically, looking away for the first time since they began talking to look vaguely at his wine glass. "Yes," he admits, and takes a long drink. "For better and for worse. It's easy to lose sight of what's important to you, your real desires and fears, especially when you're on stage every night.
But," he adds, and looks up. "I think you meant have I forgotten myself performing. I have, and that's something else than getting caught in a persona. I think the best shows I've played are when I let the music take over.
Touring's hard. You're not getting any sleep, the food's mostly awful, you wake up somewhere new and lay yourself bare on stage and move again and you owe money constantly. But I've watched the sun rise for a couple hours in Reykjavik winter, I've leaned off the edge of the Grand Canyon on a dare. Things I'd never have done. I've had kids tell me they met each other just because they were fans of ours on some forum. And getting to touch someone with something you create, seeing how people across the country or world all respond to what, some combination of 8 notes. It's like nothing else." He shakes his head, smiling a little.
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One thing was for sure. He definitely needed to talk to Lara about Wren. He wasn't strong enough to sense if he was a fellow siren or not but he was educated enough to make a guess. It was his livelihood after all.
He'd had to compose himself before he looked up again. "I mean, I've traveled the world in my studies but I don't think I could say the same. I'm more the type to get lost in someone else's stories. I could sit for hours listening to someone tell the tales of their home land. To share their oral tradition, whether it's necessarily fictional or not and in their own language...it's like nothing else. It's like..." he thought for a moment for the right way to describe it, "being allowed entrance into someone else's world for a little while."
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He listens, compelled, as Alex describes what he loves about storytelling, nodding a little. "It sounds wonderful," he says, with a nod. "My music brings people together, but what you do - that's earning someone's trust, allowing them to bring you in. You're lucky to have experienced that." Lucky, perhaps, but not all luck. That takes skill, one Alex clearly has. Wren finds himself drawn in by the young man, completely relaxed just talking to him. It's been a while since he's had someone so equally comfortable and interesting both to talk and listen to, and he'd be happy to just continue talking all night, which is not exactly his usual MO.
Though being attractive probably also helps.
"Speaking of which," he says, finishing the last of the wine in his glass and pouring another, offering with a gesture to top off Alex's, "If I'm not mistaken, we owe each other a trade."
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He was flushing again and took a long sip of wine. "Lucky is one way to put it. I think of it more as being very fortunate I get to do what I do."
Alex wouldn't argue with being drawn to Wren more then usual. The older man was attractive and passionate, both things that drew him in. But that was all he let himself do. Attraction never seemed to work for him.
"That we do." He finished his own wine and held out his glass for more. "You had a song about a selkie that was relevant to my interests?"
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"That's fair," he agrees at the slight semantic difference; after all, he's already thinking, a little, that it's not all luck. It's only appropriate that Alex has a better word.
He pours him another glass and nods. "I do." Wren nods toward the slight nook where he keeps his instruments; he pushes himself off the counter he's leaning off with a slightly ostentatious gesture and heads over in that direction. The wall, chosen for its position away from both the heater and the windows, is hung with various stringed instruments of diverse origins. A few chairs and a keyboard stand and pedals occupy the floor space in front of them.
"It's a song from Scotland," he says, "I think. Shetland, maybe." He smiles wryly over his shoulder at Alex as they head over. "Clearly I'm very studied about this."
He pauses at the wall of stringed instruments, running his fingers over them and tilting his head thoughtfully. Wren's eyes go a little soft at his instruments. They're like friends, lovers, things he knows in and out. He sets down his wine on the keyboard stand, lifts down a dulcimer. The drone string is right for the song, he thinks, and Alex hasn't heard him play anything but a guitar.
"There's a version in French, too, where the man turns into a dolphin," he comments, tuning the dulcimer as he sits down.
He starts with the traditional melody, improvising on it a little, and eventually starts, the story of the wandering, absent selkie who returns for his son, warning the boy's mother that one day she'll marry a hunter who will kill them both in their seal form. An earthly nurse sits and sings...
When he was little, too little to be resentful of his father, he'd romanticized the idea of the missing father returning and scooping up his son, of them both bearing some kind of magic. He hadn't thought much of the ending. As an adult with little interest in knowing the father who'd never returned, it seems much sadder for everyone involved.
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Chuckling lightly, he found a nearby armchair to sit down on near the music corner. "Selkies are a very popular myth from the northern climates so I'm not surprised. Europe especially loves them. I could always do some digging to be sure." It would be fun and he pushed down how good it would feel to impress the singer.
The mention of a man turning into a dolphin made Alex flinch and he hurried to hide it in a sip of wine. The last thing he wanted to do was think of the tribe he'd almost been forced into marrying into that had siren forms based on dolphins. If only Wren knew how close the song was to reality.
Forcing the unpleasant thoughts from his mind, he concentrated on listening to Wren play. He already knew the other was talented but this was just another reminder. It was a beautiful song, full of a long emotion, made only more so by the talented performer who sang it. Alex got completely lost in the music and story, completely under Wren's spell.
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Wren can't help but feel good at the whistle. He loves instruments, the differences present even between two guitars, much less a sitar, a lute. The personality of the wood and wire under his hands. It's not usually hard for him to tackle the differences - most of the string family is relatively alike - but he enjoys a challenge, anyway.
And he enjoys leaving an impression.
Alex watches, intent, and Wren falls easily into the story of the song and the pull of his listener's attention. It's a little intoxicating, a feeling like no other to be able to transport someone else for a little while. He has to admit he's especially enjoying the current company.
"...and killed the son and the great silkie."
He finishes the mournful chord. After a moment's silence he tilts his head. "And that's the end." He takes a sip of wine. "I'd be interested in finding out more about it. I've heard a variant on it, once, where the selkie gives his son a necklace and when the hunter brings it home the mother knows he's been killed. I can't decide which is sadder, knowing or not knowing."
He pauses. "Cheery tale, I know," he smiles, wryly.
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As he came back to himself, he cleared his throat and made a mental note to definitely talk to Lara. Wren was amazingly good but there was something else there. Something only another siren would notice. But he wasn't going to say anything about it now. He would hate to ruin the mood.
"It was sad but it was beautiful too. And not just the song but the way you played it. Thank you." He took a sip of his own wine before he spoke again. "I will definitely do some research for you. Maybe even where the variations come from. It would be my pleasure."
He contemplated for a moment, looking down into his wine as he couldn't quite meet Wren's eyes at the moment. Something was happening with his emotions and he couldn't quite figure out what. "I'd say I'd want to know. When my oldest brother was killed, my family made sure to get word to me before I could hear about it in the media. I can't imagine what it would have been like hearing about it from someone else or just not knowing."
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"It's my pleasure," Wren says, genuinely, "I'm glad to do it justice." He runs a hand over the dulcimer's strings for a moment and stands to put it away, glancing over his shoulder toward Alex. "I'd be grateful, if it's not a bother," he says at the offer of research. "I've never known much about it, but I've loved it since I was a child."
He comes back to sit, watching Alex look into his wine. Wren almost never breaks eye contact completely; he's not sure if he learned the habit or never learned not to, but he's always watching, soaking in the little details that make up other people and places. So it's a little more evident when other people do.
Wren watches Alex quietly as he talks about his brother. He hadn't meant to touch something personal, but he won't back away from being trusted. "I'm glad they were the ones to tell you," he says. "If it had to happen." He feels an impulse to be nearer, not just sitting formally, and moves to perch on the arm of Alex's chair.
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Alex was an active listener usually. He didn't so much keep eye contact but he kept his gaze on the speaker and watched for the story their expression and body told as much as the words he was listening too. And he had been actively watching Wren since with all of his attention. Perhaps that was why he suddenly felt overwhelmed and he had needed to concentrate on something else for a moment.
Talking about Henry was much easier then it used to be. The older three brothers, Henry, Will and Alex, had all been rather close. He didn't know why, he loved Phil and Ed just the same, but it was different. But eventually, Alex had realized that not talking about Henry was doing the memory of his brother a disservice so he refused to shy away from the topic any longer.
He looked up when Wren sat on the arm of his chair and, surprisingly to himself, leaned closer. Not quite touching, but definitely taking comfort from the closeness. "Me too. But that's why I think I prefer the version where the mother knows what happened. Personal experience."
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Wren smiles. "Well, here, actually. Way back. The Sauvageons are spread all over the east coast and up into the Canadian maritimes, these days, and we don't settle well, so I'm sure I've got a thousand second cousins I've never met. But that side of the family claims roots in Siren Cove from back when this place was a trading port. Before that, France, and the UK, I think. Our family seems to collect sea stories, though, the more fantastic the better, so I don't know if that'll help you exactly."
He nods, glancing at his own wine. "I've never lost anyone that close to me. Friends..." He's had a couple of friends who overdosed, and one who killed himself, but in retrospect the fact that there weren't more seems remarkable. That period of life was verging on a cautionary tale. "I guess I am glad I'm not just wondering." He pauses. "I don't have any idea about my father, though. At this point I don't care - he certainly doesn't - but it is a little odd to think how little I know." He takes a drink. "That's one reason I used to like this song, when I was too little to appreciate all my mother did. The magical father returning for his son. A little silly."
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The thought of not knowing a parent...that was something Alex couldn't relate to at all. The Senator and his wife were not always the easiest people to have as parents but he knew without a doubt that they both loved their children. "That's understandable though. It was easier as a child to create a romantic version of events. It's not silly at all. And I'm sure your mother knew you appreciated her, even while wanting your father to return."