The more things change...

[mnt_raph]

It's a mild night, all things considered. The weather is as even keeled as the Scotland of the Wizarding world is this time of year, and Raph is glad for it. He's glad for the partly cloudy skies, and the chill-yet-not-cold air that breezes past him...and the wounds newly opened on his knuckles.

Yes, he truly wouldn't be Raph if he metabolized his rage using completely healthy means. And there are fewer things less healthy for knuckles than being used to punch brick walls.

They tend to be unforgiving, brick walls.

Kind of like some blondes he knows, Raph muses to himself with a dry chuckle.

"'Least with walls you know where you stand," he says to no one in particular, before lifting the pilfered bottle of Jack to his lips and downing a sizable gulp. He wipes the corner of his mouth with the part of his free hand that isn't currently bleeding, and gives his surroundings a good once over.

It's been a long time since he's been up on this roof. His roof. Even longer since he's sat, legs dangling over the edge, with a bottle of his favorite spirit close at hand.

"fuck."

Comments

[mnt_raph]

"Water is wet," he pauses only to pull the cork from the bottle using his teeth. "An' the sky is blue."

He gives the bottle a sniff before throwing caution to the wind and taking a swig.

[the_lioness]

Continuing in the same vein: "You're an idiot."

Faintly curious, she watches him take a drink, then adds, "An idiot with a very good heart."

[mnt_raph]

"Knew I was forgettin' one. Thanks, Cap'n Obvious."
Already his tone is lightening, so great is the power of the cider he's started drinking.

[the_lioness]

"Sir Obvious, thank you very much."

She's quite certain she's earned it.

"So."

[mnt_raph]

Raph salutes Alanna's promotion from Captain to Sir.

"So," he echoes. "How's your day?"
Because his is going swell.

[the_lioness]

Alanna ignores this.

"Did you apologize?"

She doesn't care for Jack Daniels, but that doesn't stop her from taking a drink. And then immediately regretting it, expressed best through a full body shudder.

[mnt_raph]

"For all the good it did me."
He takes another drink from the bottle before offering it to Alanna. People who don't respect Mr. Daniels should really drink something else.

[the_lioness]

She holds up a finger. It takes a moment for the warmth spreading down her throat and through her stomach to turn more pleasant than burning hot like fire.

"What happened?"

The bottle is accepted, though she doesn't immediately relinquish Jack. She sniffs the cider -- huh, a slightly sweeter scent than Adam's -- and chases the Jack with it.

Much better.



He didn't think it was from Adam, did he? Alanna shrugs to herself and fixes Raph with an expectant look.

[mnt_raph]

So what if he did? It's not a HUGE stretch considering the information readily available. Alanna offering cider as compliments of the House? Come on, now.

"I apologized. She didn't accept it. Then Thomas pulled a katana on me."

You know, the usual.

[the_lioness]

Point.


But Adam uses different bottles.




"He threatened you with your own sword for apologizing to his sister?" Beat. "Thomas?"

They've met.

[mnt_raph]

"I might'a been tryin' to keep her from walkin' out on me at the time..."

But the fact remains, Yes. Thomas.

[the_lioness]

"Goddess."

She takes another drink; hands the bottle back.

"Did she say she needed time?" Alanna suddenly asks. "Because when a woman says she needs time, give it to her."

[mnt_raph]

Raph accepts the bottle with a nod.

"No. But apparently I do. To think 'bout what I've done, an' not come to her with scripts from you."

Oh, yeah, did he fail to mention that Alanna's kind of in the doghouse too? Whoops?

[the_lioness]

She looks insulted.

"I did not tell you what to say. Just to say it."

Beat.

"Also possibly how not to say it, but I'm unclear on whether that took."

[mnt_raph]

Raph turns his attention back to the horizon.
"That ain't how she sees it."

He sighs.

"Said I made her feel like some one-night stand. Leavin' the way I did."

[the_lioness]

Alanna winces. She hadn't really thought Abigail would feel that strongly about it.

This is bad.



"At least you've got Cloud. Horses... they don't mind if you forget to say goodbye." She inhales sharply. "I do say goodbye, of course. Always. You don't want to upset the animal carrying around you and your many pounds of armor."

She blinks: Where had that come from?

"What I mean," she says in a measured tone, "is that this will pass. Abigail will come around."

She hopes.

[mnt_raph]

It doesn't matter where the bit about the horse came from, because Raph is momentarily distracted by the shiny of his own stream of consciousness.

"Which ain't no where near the truth. She's the first girl I been with since Her."

The sentiment would probably be far more solemn had it not been punctuated with a hiccup.

[the_lioness]

"I know."

Alanna chews on her lip for a moment.


"Do you love her more than Her?"

Wait.

"The other Her." And again. "Do you love her enough, Raph?"

[mnt_raph]

He doesn't say anything for a good long while. This is partly because of the haze from the alcohol, and partly because he's not sure of how to word the answer.

The answer itself is easy, it's the words that keep getting in the way.

"'S a totally different thing, isn't it? I mean...loving Her is like...like..."
His attention turns towards the horizon again, where the sun is beginning its retreat under the lake.

With bottle in hand he gestures towards the setting sun.

"Loving Her is like loving a sunset. It's there, it's beautiful, and if you stare at it too long, or in the wrong way, you go blind. She ain't a person, She's a force of nature. An' She don't love no one any more than anyone else.

'S a different thing."

Suddenly thirsty from all his gabbing, Raph takes another pull from his bottle, momentarily forgetting that it's whiskey and not water.

[the_lioness]

Alanna makes a face.

"Mithros, you're doomed," she announces, though not without sympathy.

[mnt_raph]

His brow furrows.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

[the_lioness]

Exactly what it sounds like, says her expression.

"I asked you a question about Abigail," Alanna explains with more patience than she feels, because this is family, "and all you spoke of was Death."

She raises her eyebrows at him over the cider bottle and takes a drink.

[mnt_raph]

From furrow to scowl in no time flat.

"I was sayin' it was different is all," he sneers. Or well, he tries to at any rate. "Long as I'm breathin' I'm gonna love Death. Ain't nothin' can be done 'bout that."

He pulls a slight face. He can count the number of times he's used her name since she left him on one hand.

"Abigail's different. She...makes me feel lighter, you know? Calms me."

[the_lioness]

"Quite poetically, too," Alanna adds helpfully while Raph's confusion shifts to anger.

It doesn't faze her.

Holding up a finger again, she shakes her head once and meets his eyes like she has something very important to say.

If she can remember what it is.





"That's my point." Beat. "Do you think Abigail doesn't know that? She knows. Trust me. I thought it was just Milliways and your former shell standing there between you like great big... big... kraken monsters... but I forgot about Her. If Adam had been that much in love with someone else, no matter how calm I made him," she pauses to indulge in a good laugh, "I'd have known. And I'm not sure my pride would have allowed me to stay."

[mnt_raph]

"You think?"
But before Raph can even himself think about this, he dismisses it out of hand. "No, that ain't it. That ain't...nothin'. We ain't even talked 'bout Her. An' an'...your Dark God whatever came to me in a dream an' tol' me to get over it. An' I did. I'm over it.

Done."

Of course while he says, done, his expression gives an entirely different impression. Let the backpedaling and rationalization begin!

"I...I don't even think o' Her none anymore. You know, unless I'm killin' somethin'. Don't even dream o' Her no more either. An' She don't want nothin' to do with me. That's made clear enough by the fact that she didn't even take me from St. Mungo's."