The Liar
Chapter Twelve

“Have a nice day with Michele, you incorrigible pedophile?” Marcus didn’t look up from his generic newspaper, recognizing Gaius’ tread even on the soft carpeting.

“I’m not a pedophile!” protested Gaius loudly, wind milling his arms. “I don’t know why the pair of you persist in your claims.” He folded his arms huffily, refusing to look at Marcus and instead taking in the sparse but nicely arranged furniture. “I have done absolutely nothing improper in the entire time I’ve known the girl.”

“You broke into her house in the wee hours of the morning, and you’ve only known her for three days.” Marcus finally folded his newspaper carefully, setting it down on his lap. It seemed to fit in perfectly with his tailored black slacks and his pristine white dress shirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

“I don’t know why you read those,” Gaius said accusingly, glaring at the newspaper. “They’re awful.”

“Yes, yes, you damned purist, I get it: you don’t like newspapers. Shocker.” Marcus smiled at his friend. “Now are you going to sit down or not? I can turn the TV on and put the newspaper away if it will get you to shut up. And take off your shoes.” The Angel of War’s own shoes were placed neatly next to the door.

“Fine.” The Liar kicked off his sneakers and stalked over to the couch, dropping down beside Marcus. He plucked the paper from his grasp and flung it across the room with extreme precision, hitting the power button on the large TV. It blinked into life.

“Have you practiced that?” Marcus wondered, bemused. “That was really very good.”

“I am a man of many talents,” declared Gaius, attempting mysterious.

“Technically, you’re not really a “man”. You’re male, certainly, but you’re not human, so you can’t really be called a man.” Marcus reached for the remote and flipped to a movie.

“Stop being such a bastard, Marcus. I’ll be a man if I damned well want to, you asshole.” He didn’t get a chance to attempt sulking, though, as he suddenly noticed that the movie was an old Sherlock Holmes.

“That is awesome,” he announced delightedly, after a particularly well-delivered line in which Holmes bitched out Watson for tampering with his opium.

“You’re easy to please,” remarked Marcus, watching the movie with mild interest. Television wasn’t really his thing. Give him a book or a good live fight any day.

“I appreciate good writing. Television is just another medium through which it channeled. The acting is like the font, the directing the style, and the backgrounds and people replace your own active imagination. A different way to experience the same thing.” Gaius spoke excitedly, interjecting random gestures alongside his words.

“Fucking manic, that’s what you are,” said Marcus, his deep and deliberate voice only serving to punctuate his words. He scratched his square jaw absently, letting his hand fall back into his lap. “You never did say how your day with Michele went.”

“I didn’t spend too much time with her today.” Gaius shrugged, never taking his eyes off the screen. “Today after tomorrow would be a little much,” he admitted, and although Marcus’ face was as mildly interested as it ever was, he was definitely storing away that slip for later use. “I visited her this morning, and we hung out for maybe an hour at a café.”

Grinning, he fished a piece of paper out of his pocket and proudly presented it to Marcus.

“And what might that be?” the larger angel asked, glancing down only briefly.

“A phone number. From a rather hot young woman.” The Liar seemed proud of himself. “I wasn’t even hitting on her! I tell you, I am a charming devil.”

“I’m not too sure about that adjective, but the noun sounds about right,” agreed Marcus, absolutely straight-faced.

“Why, yes, it—hey!”

“You’re really off today,” noted Marcus, turning his attention back to the movie.

“Maybe a little.” Gaius shrugged and sank down into the couch even further, defying all accepted laws of physics.

They sat in companionable silence until the movie ended, side by side, more or less ignoring each other. It was like that a lot, each had privately realized. There was only so much to say to a person after however many thousands of years. You could come to appreciate the silences, and proper banter was like a war—you needed a little time to regroup in between skirmishes.

“So what was so interesting in that newspaper?”

“Not much. Talking about the war.”

“Fucking stupid.” The Liar was immediately derisive.

“Oh, I don’t know. There’s something to be said for a good revenge and putting in place.” Marcus shrugged one shoulder, noncommittal.

“Pff, I don’t care why they started it.” Gaius rolled his green eyes expressively. “They’re always starting shit. It’s what they do. I don’t know how they manage not to go extinct, I don’t know. I just think it was handled badly. Whatever general or generals were in charge don’t know what they’re doing.”

“Oh. I assumed you meant the reason behind it was stupid, because that just goes without saying.”

*

The speaker system thundered the tune into the bar, rattling the dancer’s bones. On the floor, Gaius was quickly picking up on how to dance in this decade. His hair was slicked with sweat, but he was grinning, moving along to the music the band was hammering out. They were pretty good.

Marcus was sitting down at the tables that were a little farther away from the small stage. Just to fit in—and at Gaius’ insistence—he had changed into a pair of jeans with a simple belt and a yellow t-shirt. And they had stopped at a shoe store and bought him a pair of grey-and-blue checkered shoes called “Vans”. Whatever those were.

Chuckling, he shook his head. Today was a day to try something different. Instead of his usual rye, he had a beer perched on the table. He watched his friend thrash around in the middle of the pulsating crowd in amusement.

After the song finished with a deafening bang, the Lair wove his way out of the dancers and sat down on the other side of the table. “You should totally come and dance.”

“Gaius,” drawled Marcus, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I’m nearly seven feet tall. I don’t exactly fit well into a crowd.”

“Dude, you’re an angel, you can change your appearance—including your height. You just like to be that tall because you’re the Angel of War, and you think it makes you intimidating.”

“It does make me intimidating.”

“Have people told you so?” demanded Gaius.

“Not in so many words, but when people look at me they usually tend to piss themselves.” He glanced sideways at his friend.

"That changes nothing,” the Liar dismissed it, “because you can still change your height and come dance.” He paused. “It’d make me happy.”

“You’re such an idiot,” growled Marcus, grabbing his beer and taking a long pull. He jerked to his feet and suddenly he was about a foot shorter, now only nearly six feet tall. His build was still muscled enough to give anyone a second thought about fighting him, but he had shrunk proportionately to his height.

“Weird.” The Lair studied him carefully for a minute. “Weirder than I expected. I guess it’s just because you’ve always looked the same.”

“Like you haven’t. You’re so attached to your appearance you wouldn’t change it to stop yourself from being hung.” Marcus laughed.

“I’m immortal.”

“That’s not the point and you know it.”

“It’s not my fault I look neutral enough to pass in any era. You do the same, so stop being hypocritical.” Gaius looked like he was about to start pouting rebelliously.

“It’s your hypocrisy we were discussing, not mine,” laughed Marcus. He grabbed Gaius by the arm and pulled him to his feet and back into the crowd. “Now are we here to dance or what?”