Strong language warning.
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The first impression The Fountain gave was not a terribly good one. If I had had to sum it up I would have said booze and gay sex. Which for a gay bar I suppose was rather the point. It was dark, smelled of drink and cheap perfume, constantly noisy and you would be advised to disinfect anything you dropped on the floor.
That said, behind the counter was clean, the back rooms were spotless and the flat upstairs was tidy. You just had to trust Aaron when he said the stains on the carpet were wine and beer.
Trusting Aaron wasn't hard. He was one of those people who was smart enough to lie to you but also cute enough for you to trust. Or for me to trust. Others might be less trusting. I was head over heels hopelessly truly and completely in love with him.
He had a perfectly full smile that came every other second, a serious frown that was only half actually serious and baby eyes which instantly won any argument. Even against many people who weren't me. He was just too cute to piss off.379Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzP7XptV2Uf
Possibly the buzz cut barkeep an inch away from being an official giant who was never far from his protégé and the not exactly sinister but he might get you taken to gaol because he's a greasy white guy in a suit had something to do with Aaron not getting pissed off by strangers too often.
Between the onyx skyscraper and the blond CIA applicant Aaron was a tiny songbird who had never done anything wrong. He flittered around the bar with a tray and purple shirt open one button lower than mortals do. They were the titans and he was a Greek Adonis, dark olive skinned and tousled hair and a tendency to drop plates.
"Fucking idiot." Aaron just stared at the mess on the floor, cheap china and cheaper chips were scattered everywhere. He looked on the verge of tears, wide eyes glistening in the dim light. Eric glared at him, the lopsided gait of a man not quite used to his plastic leg made him slightly more terrible as he bore down on Aaron, cursing under his breath.
"You're a fucking clot. Get a move on and clear it up. Bloody hell, how many things are you going to break before you work out how to carry two plates at once? Get a fucking move on!" Aaron had everything swept up before he had stopped apologising, which he did repeatedly and in a worried squeak.
"I'm sorry, Eric. I didn't mean to. I- Look it's clear, there aren't any shards." Eric had stalked off behind the bar, glaring daggers at Aaron and the plate he was sweeping into the bin.
"Go and get another one," Eric snapped, sending Adonis scurrying. Instead of relenting and perhaps reassuring Aaron that it was only a plate and no harm was done, Eric leaned over the bar towards his associate.
"Give him a break." Eric snorted at the man who wasn't from MI6.
"He knows I don't mean it." The sudden lack of Aaron anywhere near the bar and his hunched shoulders as he cleared away glasses from the tables furthers from us suggested that he did not know that Eric didn't mean everything he said.
"Whatever. Here." A brown paper package was handed over quickly. "And you'd better be careful."
"Being careful never did me any good. Reverse psychology." Eric moved away to deal with a paying customer rather than the two sods sitting at his bar. I decided that I would really rather not know the contents of the package. I was liable to get into trouble just for being in the Fountain let alone poking my nose in places I shouldn't.
"Baby come yet?" Jo-Jo turned from his pint to look at me, smoothing his hair back with one finger so that it went back behind his ear.
"No."
"Shouldn't you be running things?" My brother was currently waiting for another baby to be brought into the world. The moment his wife went into labour all responsibility for our business would fall solely to me until such a time as he could once again exercise his control-freak mentality and wrestle everything away from me again. So far it had happened twice before.
"It's not due for another week." Jo-Jo had little to say to me and I had little to say to Jo-Jo. He was there for Eric, I was there for Adonis. We stopped talking and I went back to observing. Two drag queens were singing along to something I couldn’t name, it wasn't particularly good. Even relative to most of what Eric had as music. It was nothing compared to Aaron. Even his voice came straight from Olympus.
A firmly held tray of empty glasses held in both hands, Aaron returned to the bar and began to unload them one by one onto the washing up rack with the cautious shaking of someone still partly in shock and not trusting himself not to drop something else.
“Boo,” Jo-Jo called softly in his direction. He received Aaron’s extended middle finger. “Hey.” Aaron ignored him, concentrating on the glasses. “Hey!”
“What?” Through the use of hand signals and several years of practice Eric could give Aaron orders without being anywhere near him. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Adonis was also telepathic and could tell that another round of pints was needed, the woman with a buzz cut taking the drinks immediately. The shock of dropping something vanished as soon as Eric had him busy again and he was everywhere at once yet still standing opposite Jo-Jo with his hands on his hips.
“Thought you’d like this.” Jo-Jo handed him a magazine with a blown up picture of a radio dish on a starry background. Most five year olds had had more formal schooling than Aaron but that didn't stop him from being educated. He knew things undergrads didn't, about literature and science just from reading and paying attention. Jo-Jo sat on a nice shiny First from Bristol but wasn't half as smart as Aaron.
"Thanks." He would have put down his tray to read had Eric not appeared at his shoulder.
"Go on, get out there. I can only stand those two for so long." Eric jerked his head towards the singers. "Knock 'em dead kid." Aaron almost shot over to where the Queens were singing and ever so politely asked if he might have the mic. They retired gracefully and we were spared anymore of the off key pop songs.
"I was thinking," Eric began as Aaron took down the second microphone. "How hard would it be to get him into school? Proper school. Not night school, back to get some dish rags with grades on." He was flicking through the magazine absently, stopping to read something about SETI.
"Adult education," I suggested quietly.
"He's not even, what? Eighteen?" Jo-Jo span around to watch as Aaron stepped up to the mic.
"Eighteen sometime this summer." 15th of August, I already had an idea of the huge encyclopaedia I was going to get him, a collection of everything he wanted to know about in fancy binding.
"Some college might take him, he could get O-Levels, or whatever they are these days. It'd be a while until you had a mortarboard on your wall though."
"My dad framed his degree, put it up on the wall," Eric sighed. He wiped the counter down, making me move my glass but wiping around Jo-Jo's. "Why isn't yours up somewhere?"
"Had the wrong name on it." Silence fell for a second. "It's in a box somewhere." Jo-Jo kept his back to us. I wondered if Eric was going to say something before he was called away, apologise maybe. He didn't, going to serve a customer instead.
Soft lilting love songs, the sort played in smoky Mediterranean bars or long after the wedding cake was cut suited Aaron's voice better. Anything gentle and subtly sexy. He didn't have the most subtle crowd though so the first tape began to play and ABBA was pumped out a little too loudly.
"Half past twelve and I'm watching the late show in my flat all alone." He couldn't help but grin as he sang, swaying slightly in his too tight jeans and red shirt. Someone started the annoying clapping that was always out of time and made it harder to hear him.
"Hey, Fulley." Eric tapped my shoulder and I did my best not to scowl as he made me turn around. "What's the changeover when the baby's born?"
"I get to mess Theo’s things up for a bit. No changes." He narrowed his eyes. "If something comes up I'll deal with it. I'm not changing anything, only if something new happens." That didn’t please him.
"Well that-"
"Leave it, Eric. He's can't do anything Theo won't undo immediately. He knows what this place is." That shut Eric up. Theo wasn't happy about having me around let alone my inappropriate favouritism towards establishments such as Eric's. "Anyway, you shouldn't have fingers in three pies. You're going to get yourself ripped to shreds." Jo-Jo turned back for that, taking Eric's hand. "I mean it."
"No fucking way. I don't trust you, or that bastard you shack up with." Flattering Jo-Jo's main associate was Eric's favourite thing to do. I was silently willing them to shut up and let me listen to Adonis.
"Thanks, love."
"Not going to work." How they had a functioning relationship the devil only knew. It seemed neither particularly liked the other at times. "Which is worse," Eric hissed in a mock whisper to Jo-Jo. "Our lovely Queens who forget they're only meant to mime or Fulley here making moon eyes at the kid?" I glared at him and took my drink to the side of the lit area that acted as a stage, well away from their sniggers. Aaron gave me a wink as I neared him. I liked to think that he turned just a fraction to face me as he sang.
He stopped after everyone had gone through at least one round listening to him and even got a motley round of applause afterwards, from only the most sober and the most wasted. The rest could have been listening to Cyndi Lauper herself and not given a toss.
“I’m shattered,” he said to me and draped himself over my arm to prove it, hanging all his weight on me. He smelled of alcohol fumes and the sort of deodorant that had a strange name and was meant to be a less serious version of musk. He was boiling hot in the already muggy room, a miniature kettle attached to my arm. “Stay right there, don’t move.” I had no intention of moving an inch if he was comfortable, his arms hugging my waist. I worried that he might find the damp patch beneath my arm as he nuzzled at my shoulder, it was impossible not to sweat in the bar, the lights and crowd were all too much to really be pleasant.379Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡak3zjpf2Ns
He laughed, so softly I only heard it since it was almost right inside my ear.
“You’re doing it again,” he told me, smiling.
“Doing what?”
“Looking around as if you wished everyone would just leave. Scowling turns away customers.” Eric could spare a few people turned off by my face. Hell knows his wasn’t exactly a work of art.
“Maybe I do wish everyone would leave.” He let out a little sigh.
“I wish they’d shut up. I want to go to sleep. We’ve got two hours until last orders then we have to close up.” He pressed a little harder into my shoulder, almost tipping me over.
“At least there’s no early start?”
“Not helping right now.” Like a sleepy cartoon he rubbed his eyes and gave a yawn and cat would be proud of. “I need some air.” I didn’t follow the hand signal he sent Eric and was being pulled towards the door before I could miss his weight on my shoulder.
The outside air, cold and hard compared to the moisture indoors smacked me in the face. Aaron spent a moment breathing and resting first his hands then his head against the bricks. In the more stable orange light of the street his face seemed hollow, exhausted and too sharp to still be in his teens.
“He works you too hard,” I murmured, handing him a cigarette.
“I don’t pay rent, that’s why.” As far as I was aware Aaron didn’t earn a thing, he worked in return for board and lodging upstairs with Eric. “He works hard too, and gets less sleep than me.” He grinned before lighting up. The smoke drifted away up towards the clouded over sky, completely pitch black and threatening rain.
“Jo-Jo’s asthma’s going to get us wet,” I said, trying to look past the lamppost. Eric had banned any smoke from the bar after Jo-Jo nearly ended up in hospital suffocating. It was unpopular, but the bar was significantly more pleasant. I just ended up wet the odd night along with everyone else.
“It’s not his fault and the girls like it better now.”
“Where are they? You’re rushed off your feet and shattered and they’re what, on holiday?” Aaron glanced around uncomfortably.
“Dunno. I asked but… Better not to ask. They’ll turn up.” It was impossible to judge if he meant they would return to the bar or if they would turn up floating in a canal somewhere. “How long are you staying?”
“Last nights of freedom before I’m in charge and have Theo breathing down my neck every second of the day and night. I wish he could keep it in his pants and stop with the babies. He’s a neurotic little madam at the best of times. I’ll stay until you close up.” I would also wait to see if he needed my sofa if Eric and Jo-Jo were best left alone in a soundproof box together.
“It’s good though, that he’s letting you be in charge?” His face was closer than was casual, blowing carcinogens at me. “That he wants you around.”
“I’m not allowed to see the boys, I won’t be allowed to see the baby.” Any eager or hopeful expression fell from his face. “But, yeah it’s good.” I couldn’t bring it back.
“Why’d he not let you see them? You can run the business but not see your nephews?”
“To quote: you’ve got brains, I’m just not letting filth like you in the same house as my children.”
“Bastard.” I rather hoped not, a lot rode on the fact that I was my father’s legitimate son and I was older than Theo.
“Nothing I can do. Jo-Jo’s sister’s the same, isn’t she?” Not that I knew much more than the basics. Jo-Jo had a similar family to me, with similar problems.
“Better, she got over it. A bit. Well, he doesn’t like going round much but for Sundays and stuff.” He threw his stub away and opened the door before I could ask about his folks. I often almost asked, but Adonis’ parentage was known only to those on Olympus. “Can I have your sofa?”
“Course.” It was just the sofa, unfortunately.
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