"No I don't know why I'm staying for dinner! What?" A beat. "No. Yes. Probably. It would be really rude." Quiet. "You know I can't tell. That fucking-- sixth sense, whatever they want to call it, hasn't worked in decades. You saw what happened the last time, I almost-- I can't go through this again. It's going to be bullshit like it always is."
It is safe to say from the bleak tone of his Macedonian - musical and guttural at once, too ill-refined to be proper Greek - that he believes he hallucinated Jon's look of understanding and little quip, there. That he has certainly hallucinated before. Alexander was always sensitive and passionate and prone to mood swings if he wasn't kept occupied, his instability only truly revealing itself after the death of his soulmate. In this day and age, never having that grounding presence in his life and living for so many years, of course he's going to have a bumpy road with mental health.
And of course missing Hephaestion is going to be a continent-sized trigger.
So that's one bright spot for Jon, anyway: Alexander did recognize and know him, at least in a way. Alexander has just seen some shit in his life as Alejandro Olin, and his coping methods are suddenly really not helpful.
"I just want to be drunk, honestly." A beat, then in exasperated, groaning English: "What the shitting Christ are you doing in Tunisia."
The rest of the conversation is drowned out by bad acoustics as Alejandro faces another direction, but it's not too long later that he appears back in the boardroom looking - well we'll go with mostly the same. There's a bit of tiredness behind his eyes.
no subject
Then:
"I'm losing my fucking mind, Achilles."
(Woah now, who.)
"No I don't know why I'm staying for dinner! What?" A beat. "No. Yes. Probably. It would be really rude." Quiet. "You know I can't tell. That fucking-- sixth sense, whatever they want to call it, hasn't worked in decades. You saw what happened the last time, I almost-- I can't go through this again. It's going to be bullshit like it always is."
It is safe to say from the bleak tone of his Macedonian - musical and guttural at once, too ill-refined to be proper Greek - that he believes he hallucinated Jon's look of understanding and little quip, there. That he has certainly hallucinated before. Alexander was always sensitive and passionate and prone to mood swings if he wasn't kept occupied, his instability only truly revealing itself after the death of his soulmate. In this day and age, never having that grounding presence in his life and living for so many years, of course he's going to have a bumpy road with mental health.
And of course missing Hephaestion is going to be a continent-sized trigger.
So that's one bright spot for Jon, anyway: Alexander did recognize and know him, at least in a way. Alexander has just seen some shit in his life as Alejandro Olin, and his coping methods are suddenly really not helpful.
"I just want to be drunk, honestly." A beat, then in exasperated, groaning English: "What the shitting Christ are you doing in Tunisia."
The rest of the conversation is drowned out by bad acoustics as Alejandro faces another direction, but it's not too long later that he appears back in the boardroom looking - well we'll go with mostly the same. There's a bit of tiredness behind his eyes.
"That was quick."