As You Lay Dying - Alfie Solomons

17

//Sorry for the delay, I'm sort of reaching a hiccup in my plotting of this fic. I'm not entirely sure where to go from here so I'm trying my best to sort through the issues. 

            "When was the last time you saw your uncle?" Lily was gravely concerned that Alfie wasn't handling things in a healthy way. Of course, she had had similar concerns before but she hadn't seen him grieve.

Alfie was sitting in an armchair close to the fire. His hands were folded over his stomach as he slouched slightly. Argos was sitting by his feet, content to be around the man again. "Eh, don't remember." He replied.

"So...when you were a kid? Before the war?"

He absent-mindedly ran a hand over his beard. "Might be. Can't remember the last time he came over. I've never been to America."

"I've heard it's different over there." Lily went to perch on the arm of Alfie's chair.

He just grunted in vague agreement and patted her knee. "Y'know I've been listening to opera."

Lily paused; not sure she followed his train of thought from America to opera but she followed along. "Have you?"

"You heard of L'Orfeo?"

She decided to just go along with his rambling. It was at least a relief to be with him, having a conversation that seemed a bit more light-hearted. The way they used to talk. Conversing back and forth about art and history and myths. "I don't know much about opera."

"Think you'd like it. It's about Orpheus. Y'know the one, goes down to get the woman he loves outta the underworld. Hades strikes a deal and if Orpheus doesn't look back on the way out of the underworld, Eurydice can go home with him."

"Oh, yes, I'm familiar." She nodded.

"Funny story, aye?"

Lily effortlessly slipped off the arm of the chair so she could curl up on his lap. "It is a tragedy." She reminded him.

"Yeah." He wrapped an arm around her waist and let his hand rest on her thigh. He chuckled at Argos who raised his head, looking a bit jealous that he wasn't invited to cuddle with them. "But was it truly love? He knew the rules, didn't he? Don't fucking understand why he looked back."

Lily realized Alfie was trying to veil what he really wanted to talk about. "Fear got the better of him. He was afraid she wasn't following him anymore."

"Then he didn't trust her."

"He didn't trust Hades." She traced the scar down his cheek. It had healed remarkably since she found him on the beach. That moment felt like lifetimes ago. And yet, Lily still didn't feel like she had yet gained the key to Alfie Solomons' heart. "Would you trust the god of the underworld to keep his promise?"

"Men like me, we've got codes, don't we? S'a rule of thumb, innit? A deal is made, you pay the debt. An offer is made, you follow the stipulations." Alfie looked past Lily.

"Life isn't that simple." She disagreed softly. "There are other forces of nature. We can't predict being able to follow these steps of life. We can't always pay our debts."

He sighed and let his head hang a bit. "I don't know what to do with you, Lil." He admitted quietly. "If ya come to America with me then I've turned around, haven't I? I've sealed your fate and locked you away in the underworld forever."

"I think I knew at the start what to expect from a relationship with you." She replied steadily. "I'm not afraid."

"You fucking should, love. The world is a fucking ugly place, innit?"