Has your muse ever rejected or pushed away the well-intentioned invitations of another? Why?
Classical Literature Meme
"--D'pends th'sort'a invitations" Ron mused, considering the bottom of his empty tumbler; wondering if he could risk another before making his way home. He settled on a firm maybe, and fixed instead on Ben's query. "If we're talkin' a party invite, them I don't turn dahn f'nuffin'-" Not true, but not a harmful fib either. He could live with that if it meant projecting the species of affable that might earn his bar downtown some trade. "Bu' if we're talkin' roman'ic invitations, advances, wha'evah y'wanna call it..."
A lick'a flirtation never went amiss, granted. Ron was just that sort of chap; at ease with himself, liberal with a compliment if in his opinion one's deserved; a bit of a rogue, but respectful with it. Woe betide a letch at work in his vicinity. They'd come off second best and had. This weren't no bluff. But that aside and beyond his friendly, East End Charming nature lay walls so high they'd kiss cloud cover on an open sky, not a cloud in it day. There beyond lay all which Ron wanted not to exist about himself; the crippling paranoia, delusions, psychosis and their cause which he'd not name in polite company because, so he'd learned from those closest to him upon his diagnosis, the word terrified people. And it made them terrified of him. So while he couldn't at all get rid of the cause of his ills, he could manage it as best he could, cope his way through socialisation in a way that kept the bulk of the symptoms he couldn't help but have minimised, and keep people well out of the range of what-all that very much proverbial wall had behind it. Because they'd be terrified of him if they found out, wouldn't they. Just like his mum had been, and his brothers had been, and the rest and that--
It'd hurt beyond his ability to stand it when his family turned.
Off someone he loved and wanted as his, always? It didn't bear thought.
But none of that was for telling to Ben though, so Ron collected up their tumblers, hopped off his stool, turned slightly to ask, "Same again, yeah?", then made for the bar. And he hoped, and hoped, as the young man's gaze lay heavy on his back, that he'd let the topic drop on Ron's return.
