asoncalledgabriel | (no subject)

Gabriel didn't know if he was just engaging in silly superstition, or if he was attempting to connect to things he remembered his family doing, or if he just-- He didn't know.

But for about a month, he'd been leaving things on the edge of a window that went out to the fire escape. It was little pieces of things he got for himself: some bread, cheese, and a bottle of beer, usually. His grandmother left out a saucer of cream religiously, and on Christmas in particular she made sure to leave out porridge with a bit of honey in it. As faithfully Catholic as she was, she'd always say something like it never hurts to have friends whenever Gabriel asked if Jesus would be angry with her for leaving offerings to faerie-folk. Jesus preached kindness, Gabriel Harkin. And don't be telling your mother about this.

He didn't know if Sweeney was really a leprechaun like he said he was, but he'd been thinking about it ever since they met. And whether it was true or it wasn't, the things he left always disappeared. Sometimes he wondered if it was just one of his neighbors, or if a crow had gotten wise and made off with things. But he didn't let himself question it. Somehow that just seemed wrong.

He'd just gotten home from classes and some grocery shopping,and once he had everything put away he ripped off a hunk of the baguette he'd gotten and put it in a plastic bag. He tucked in a few slices of good cheese and a thick slice of honeyed ham. He plucked a bottle of beer out of the six pack he'd just brought and headed to the window to set it out.

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"No, that bit's true," he says. "Spent a long fuckin' time as a bird because of it."

And it had driven him mad as a result. Looking at himself now, Sweeney doesn't think he's terribly insane, not compared to most folks, but he also knows he's not entirely stable either. Whether it's having been a bird that's done it or the fact that he's still alive after all this time, he doesn't think it much matters.

"That's what happens when a king runs away from battle," he says with a shrug. "They get fuckin' cursed."

"Sounds like something out of the Mabinogion, but I think that was in Welsh."

Not that he'd ever learned Welsh. He'd gotten interested in Arthurian legends at one point and some well-meaning teacher had recommended it to him, perhaps forgetting some of the stories that were in it. To this day he still had fevered dreams about Gwydion and Gilfaethwy.

"Why did you run away?"

Edited 2018-01-06 04:47 (UTC)

"Didn't want t'die, did I?" he says. "But then, who the fuck wants to die?"

There are people who do, people who end their lives, people who find ways to make other folks end them. That's their business, though, Sweeney's never much bought into the mortal sin bullshit and if they're ready to shuffle the fuck off this mortal coil, then they're welcome to it. Hell, more and more often lately, he feels like he might be ready, too. It's been a long life.

"I saw it the night before. Looked into the fire and there it was, my death. So I fucked off."

Gabriel thought of the times he'd considered ending his life, and thought of how quickly he'd put it out of his mind for fear that it would be counted a mortal sin, among the others he felt were piling against him.

"And then you were a bird, and then a-- a leprechaun? Do leprechauns really protect things or is that just a not-right-fairy-story too?"

Sweeney shrugs, looks at his beer and says, "Protect people more than we protect things. Their things come with the territory, I suppose."

And they only receive that protection so long as they remember the offerings, so long as the leprechaun's not forgotten. The moment the offerings dry up, that luck and protective is revoked, replaced with something darker and Mad Sweeney thinks he ought to feel bad about that, but he doesn't. It's what they made him to be, he's only fulfilling the requirements of their stories of him.

They told the stories, after all, passed them down through generations. He only acted as they dictated he must.

"Does that mean the other things I've heard in stories are real, then? All the fairy tales, the things the Church says are just pagan nonsense?"

Gabriel frowned a bit and finally sat down, thinking hard about that. If God and the saints were real, was it a far thing to suppose maybe leprechauns or bean sidhe were? He wasn't sure how long he wanted to dwell on that particular thought, as if his mother would appear from nowhere and box him for even thinking it.

"If someone believes in it, then it's real," Sweeney answers, which is probably not what he wants to hear, but it's the best response he has. The truest answer, too.

"Are y'asking about somethin' in particular?" he asks in return, smirking a little. "Want to know if nymphs were watchin' you from the forest or if a banshee's shriek really foretells of a death or if the selkies must truly stay human when their skins are stolen?"

He pauses, then adds, "Probably, yes and yes, for the record."

"Christ," he breathed, a little dazed by the prospect of nymphs and selkies and bean sidhe all being real somehow. He sank back in his chair, frowning a bit as he considered his beer.

"I just always thought-- I was told none of it was real. I've spent my entire life wanting desperately to be... good. To be enough, to avoid eternal damnation."

"Well, ain't that just a boring fuckin' way of lookin' at life," Sweeney answers. "By whose fuckin' rules d'you play, then? Catholics? Muslims? Fuckin' atheists?"

Eternal damnation is so fucking broad, too. People who are so obsessed with telling kids they have to be good or they'll go to hell tend not to be the best sort of people. At least, that's what Mad Sweeney has found and he's always been an asshole himself.