Work Text:
Cam made a face as he looked at the cup of dark liquid. It was as dark as blood, sloshing in the cup as Cam's hand trembles. Roathe scoffs.
"Either drink it or go," the Orokin says. Cam takes a long drink from the glass. The liquid was sweet, but his mouth was horribly dry afterwards. Roathe laughs as he sees Cam's face, pouring more of the sacramental wine into the boy's cup.
"It'll get better after the third glass," Roathe tells him, draining his own glass. Cam drinks more, crossing his legs as he sits on the floor next to the Orokin.
"Do you even want to be here?" Cam asks him, holding out his glass to be refilled, "Like, if you could leave, would you?" Roathe hummed as he leaned back against the wine cellar's cold stone wall. He grabbed another bottle, filling both glasses again.
"I don't know," Roathe answered, "I'd like to say I would leave, but I've begun to get comfortable here." Cam hummed as he continued to drink.
"What about you? Are you... happy? With how things turned out?" Roathe said softly. Cam licked a drop of red wine from his lips as his glass was refilled.
"No. I don't know," Cam sighed, "I wish none of this had ever happened, that I could go back to being an ordinary kid and put all this responsibility on someone else." He was slurring his words and Roathe drained his cup with a grimace.
"All of it? Would you undo your toppling of the Orokin? Would you willingly accept the yolk of servitude again?" Roathe purred as he filled both glasses back up.
"Never," Cam hissed, but when he turned to look at Roathe he almost overbalanced. The Orokin reached out to steady the boy.
"The truth is, I don't know who I would be if I wasn't Tenno," Cam says, setting his empty glass aside. Roathe presses it back into his hands once full.
"Maybe that's for the best," Roathe says, trying to head off Cam's melancholy mood, "You'll never have to second guess your purpose." Cam turned blurry eyes to the protoframe and Roathe barely kept himself from sneering at the boy who was looking up at him with dewy eyes, much like the way the stray cat looked at Lyon when it was expecting to be pet.
Roathe filled both glasses again, not caring if the boy drank or not, but not wanting to be as clear minded as he currently was. Cam slumped over to lean on Roathe's shoulder, holding his glass with both hands as he sipped carefully from it, spilling a few drops that ran down his cheeks and chin.
Roathe nudged the boy back to sitting upright, fishing out a handkerchief and wiping the wine from Cam's face. Cam immediately slumped back over onto Roathe. Roathe took a moment to breathe, trying to tamp down his rage.
"You're nice," Cam slurred, nuzzling into Roathe's shoulder as he got comfortable. Roathe grimaced and pulled the now empty glass from the tenno's hands.
"How do you come to these conclusions, child," Roathe asked drolly, not really expecting an answer as he propped the child back up long enough to slip away. Cam slumped over onto the ground with a small "Night night," and very quickly fell asleep, surrounded by the half dozen empty bottles of wine they had drunk.
Roathe sighed, dragging a hand down his face as he walked out of the wine cellar with his half full glass still in hand. Marie or Lyon- probably Lyon, would find the boy at some point, and with any luck, the tenno would stop hanging around him.