stu rasmussen is not a manslut. (stumu) wrote in dissentwo, @ 2013-08-10 14:11:00 |
|
|||
LOG: Betty is eternally chained to the Rasmussmen.
WHO: Stu Rasmussen and Betty Braithwaite.
WHEN: Just after King's Cross.
WHERE: St Mungo's.
WHAT: Idk what you're talking about I always finish logs on time and then post them immediately.
Under most any circumstances, Stu was far better equipped to deal with emotion than his older brother. True, he was still a master of snark, between years of acquaintance with the 69ers and years spent in Ravenclaw. True, he never could convince himself to say he loved a girl. But, by and large, the younger Rasmussen brother was infinitely better adjusted than his elder. When he was upset, though -- really upset -- he was easily just as bad as Luke. He had displayed this, to some extent, when Fort Freedom was attacked. It was worse now. Jedediah’s death had been hard, but he hadn’t been Stu’s friend the way Conor had. Stu hadn’t spent 6 years living with Jedediah, watching him go through break-up after make-up after break-up, going to classes with him, joking with him, marathoning belated pre-OWL studying hours in the library with him. Stu was only now beginning to really process what had happened at King’s Cross -- and even now, just beginning; thinking about it in any depth was far too much to handle -- and the more upset he got, the more jokes he cracked, the less he did his best to appear to care. It helped, at least, that Luke seemed to be doing better now. When he’d first found out about Conor, Luke had been... bad off, to say the least, and Stu had existed in a state of terror for several hours on end. Now Luke was doing well enough to whinge about pizza, and to grope Gun when she came by to see him. If his behaviour was any indication, Luke was going to be just fine. (And thinking about the limp Luke had earned in February, that he tried to hide, and how this latest blow might make it worse, was not on Stu’s agenda.) So, when the Healer shooed him away, citing Luke’s need for rest (Stu was almost certain she did this when she was about to do something painful to help Luke; it would not be above his brother, he knew, to sweet talk a Healer into helping his bravado), Stu returned to the waiting room, slouching against the wall for lack of an empty chair. He was hungry, and tired, and this was a rubbish start to summer, but anything was better than going home and knowing Luke was stuck in here alone. Betty was exhausted and flustered and having the most intense feeling of deja vu she’d ever experienced. While she wasn’t exactly some high ranking writer at the Prophet, she was still expected to be there when something big happened--ready to cover whatever was needed, be it research, getting statements or helping edit last minute articles--as often as was humanly possible, along with countless others of her co-workers. And if that weren’t enough to leave someone feeling run-down, it was a thousand times worse when the ‘something big’ involved the vast majority of your loved ones in beds at St. Mungo’s for days on end and in varying states of damage and pain. So, every moment she could spare from work she was at the hospital--in the waiting room with friends, sleeping in the uncomfortable chairs for an hour here and there, apologizing to the Healer dealing with Luke daily for his less-than-appropriate comments, and bringing food (far more edible than what Mungo’s offered) as often as she could manage. She’d been home for a shower each day, but that was about it. So, as she finally got the nod to head out from the work, she’d swung by a nearby deli and got a smattering of sandwiches for any of the 69ers who may not have eaten before heading back to the hospital. Initially, she’d meant to visit Luke first--if there was ever a time she couldn’t deny how much he meant to her (as a friend, she would insist) it was when he was hurt--, but he was asleep and not allowed any more visitors for the evening, so she headed to the waiting room instead. It was, unsurprisingly, still packed with worried and tired families and friends, but it only took a moment for Betty to notice the younger Rasmussen leaning against a wall not far into the room. He may be better equipped to deal with this sort of thing than a lot of his peers by virtue of growing up around such an older crowd and having dealt with tragedy mere months before, but it was evident he wasn’t doing great. She immediately headed toward him through the crowd. “Hey, I brought food,” she offered by way of greeting, a small smile on her face. “Food is good,” Stu said gratefully, his voice surprisingly casual for a boy as worn down as he was (but then, that was the point). “Thanks.” Betty opened the bag and glanced in at its contents. “I figured it’d be better than the shit they serve here. I’ve got sandwiches--turkey, ham, some veggie thing and chicken salad. Any preference?” She looked up at Stu questioningly. A small crease of concern formed on her brow now that she saw him up close. The kid had to be exhausted. Stu caught the look on Betty’s face, but ignored it dutifully, like any Rasmussen man would. “Chicken salad,” he said automatically. “Give Luke the veggies, he’ll hate it.” “Oh I plan on it,” Betty replied without missing a beat, handing him a sandwich. “I probably won’t be able to give it to him for a couple hours at least--it’ll be nice and soggy.” “Poor sod. At least he has potions for the pain.” “The sad part is,” Betty began thoughtfully, “the soggy, shoddy veggie sandwich is probably still better than what he’d have here otherwise.” She set the bag of food at her feet and leaned against the wall beside him. “Not that that would stop him from bitching about it, but still.” “He’s a great bitcher. I think he takes it as a point of prod; so few Hufflepuffs are given credit for that sort of thing, you know. Everyone thinks they’re all hugs and cookies.” A pause. “We know better.” “They come off so innocent and loving and full of hugs, but...” Betty shook her head. “They’re worse manipulators than we Slytherins are, I swear it.” “Oh no,” Stu said seriously. “No one’s worse than you lot. Really, Ravenclaw is the only house worth knowing.” Betty gave him A Look. “I don’t know. You lot are right pretentious.” “We wouldn’t be so pretentious if we weren’t so much better than everyone else,” Stu said casually, unwrapping his sandwich, taking a bite, and looking at Betty, the picture of innocence. “House differences aside,” Betty gave him an amused smirk. “You’re just as much of a pain in the arse as your brother, you know.” “Oh, I know,” Stu said lightly, taking another bite of the sandwich and swallowing before he added, “genetics.” “Oh God, and as smug,” Betty rolled her eyes jokingly. “I feel so bad for the girls your age; you’re going to break every single one of their hearts--if you haven’t already.” “Am not,” said Stu, a hint of something in his tone, though he wasn’t especially annoyed. Much as relationships scared him past a certain point, the idea of being as scared of them as Luke was frightened him much more. Betty had spent far too much time around RasmussMen to not notice his tone, but she also knew better than to call him out on it. She glanced around the waiting room, “Is your dad still around?” “Nah, he’s at work right now.” At least Stu assumed he was. He may well have been at the pub instead. “I was thinking about getting a summer job.” Betty nodded without comment at the first but raised a brow at the second. “What kind of job?” “Dunno, maybe see if I can get work in a wizarding pub or something. Probably not Macbeth’s, be better to do it closer to home?” Stu theorized, crumpling up the sandwich wrapper as he finished it. “Or maybe not. I know Rhys could probably get me a job.” “Oh God, not Macbeth’s,” Betty said with a chuckle. “Don’t you see the lot of us drunk and stupid often enough as it is?” “But I figured if I was working there, I’d get more photos, and then I could blackmail you all for money through seventh year,” Stu said in a tone that suggested he was discussing perfectly normal, innocent, sane career plans, looking wide-eyed and innocent at Betty (a trick he had, yes, mostly picked up from Rhys). “Of course, of course,” Betty nodded with a smirk. “The one major flaw in your plan, my dear, is that none of us have enough money to make that much of a difference in your life, I’m afraid.” “What about Jove? Is he still hanging around? He’s rich, yeah? Purebloods are best to blackmail.” “He is, but I’m also quite sure that man has zero shame,” Betty reasoned. “It’d be rather hard to blackmail him, I think.” “You’re not giving me nearly enough credit. I’m a Ravenclaw, remember. I’d find a way.” Betty smirked. “It certainly wouldn’t be easy, but I’d be rooting for you to manage it somehow.” “Thank you, Betty,” Stu said, grinning slightly as he crossed his arms, adjusting his weight against the wall. “I appreciate that.” Betty nodded in response and glanced around the over-crowded waiting room before adding, “Blackmail aside, what prompted the summer job idea?” “Having money is both fun and profitable?” “You know, there are summer jobs that are more fun and profitable than bartending, right?” Stu cocked an eyebrow. “Such as?” Betty pursed her lips in thought. Initially, she’d thought to rattle of summer internships and the like with the Ministry or the Prophet--if he had any interest in writing at all to begin with--, but quickly realized that, upbringing and recent attacks considered, bartending actually probably suited him and his amusement better than the frustrations that came with such limited positions of the alternatives. “Well, internships and the like, which, now that I actually say it aloud, probably wouldn’t be nearly as fun as a bar, I’ll be honest,” Betty admitted with a shrug. “Exactly.” Stu smiled at her, triumphant. “You were thinking responsibility, which as far as I understand it involves a lot of suffering, integrity, and toil, none of which I have much interest in.” This wasn’t entirely true — next year was his seventh, and he still had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, and sometimes when he let himself think about that it felt like he’d accidentally swallowed his old Potions cauldron and it had stayed wedged in his chest — but with everything that had happened recently, he had no interest in taking on the mantle of Responsible Young Adult any time soon. A laugh. “True. I do advise you to hold off on embracing responsibility as long as possible,” Betty replied--automatically thinking of Fort Freedom. “It’s really more of a pain in the arse than it is any fun.” “No idea what you’re talking about,” Stu said dryly. “Rupert easily seems like the 69er who has the most fun.” “One can’t wear bowties that often and not regularly be the life of the party,” Betty agreed casually. “Is it true he uses the bowties to keep his head on straight, chastity belt against Rhys’s best measures?” “Stu, if we discussed all the theories behind Rupert’s bowties, we’d be here for weeks,” Betty replied. It struck her, unfortunately, that there was a fairly decent chance they could be haunting Mungo’s for weeks, but chose not to address that thought directly just then. “Yeah,” Stu said simply, looking around the others in the waiting room and feeling slightly glad that he didn’t feel half as bad off as a lot of them looked. (He hadn’t seen Bronwen, since King’s Cross. Part of him was glad he had no reason to go to Cardiff in the summer, that Bronwen had never been the sort to seek people out when she was hurting.) After a moment of silence (or, well, silence between the two of them, anyway--the waiting room was far from silent, in general), Betty glanced at Stu then to the room at large, “Are you staying here tonight?” she asked a little gently. “Yeah,” he said again, studying his shoes. The tip of one toe had been singed from a stray curse. “Someone needs to stick around and make sure Luke doesn’t get killed by any angry feminist Healers.” “Fuck, if they haven’t learned by now to keep the feminists several wards away from him, someone hasn’t been doing their job right,” Betty replied. Across the room, a couple seemed to be vacating with solemn faces and a somber Healer. She nudged Stu gently and nodded toward the newly empty seats, pushing off from the wall they were leaning against. “Well, I don’t know about you, but, personally, I prefer sleeping in the shit, uncomfortable chairs over sleeping standing up.” “I could go either way, personally,” Stu replied. Somewhere in there was a sleepwalking joke, but he was too tired to do it better, and he followed her to the newly vacated seats. “It’s the chance of falling over I can’t handle,” Betty replied as she tucked one leg beneath her and sat. There was a Luke and Betty joke in there somewhere, too, but Stu had the feeling neither Betty nor Luke would appreciate his making it. “Worried about messing up your hair?” he prompted, leaning his head back against the wall behind the chair. “Nah, I wake up with hair this glorious, love,” Betty replied casually. “It’s the potential for bruising that concerns me.” Stu was pretty sure Betty had woken up with mysterious bruises before, but it probably wasn’t his place to say that, either. “If I see you falling out of the chair,” he muttered, eyes shut, “I’ll make a very impressive effort to grab you. Unless it means I fall, too.” “A very Rasmussen answer, indeed,” Betty replied with tired amusement, resting her elbow on the arm of the chair and her head in her hand. Her eyelids felt heavy, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep as soon or as easily as she would have preferred. “Our blood’s strong,” Stu mumbled back, head still resting against the wall. “Not easy traits to shake.” “I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” Betty replied, her voice quieter now. “Are you coming onto me?” Stu said, a hint of amusement among the fatigue in his voice, his mouth hitching up at one corner. “Cause that might weird Luke out.” “No, Stu,” Betty said, unfazed. “Just have spent far too much time around Luke; it’s completely skewed my perception of...” ‘everything’ is what she initially thought to say, but settled for, “right and wrong.” It wasn’t really accurate, but she was too tired to try to elaborate. “Right and wrong are subjective terms dictated in large part by the dubious consensus of the majority,” Stu said, his time in Ravenclaw making the words come easily. “Look at who the majority chose for Minister and tell me right and wrong matter.” “Let’s not pretend that money and purist bullshit didn’t play a part in that election,” Betty said in a low voice. “But, regardless, well-played, Ravenclaw.” “You know us Rasmussens,” Stu mumbled. “Players without peer.” “Undeniably impressive,” Betty nodded, her eyes closing for a moment, before she glanced over to the younger boy. She readjusted to rest her forehead in her hand. “I don’t know about you, but I’m expecting a spectacular night’s sleep.” “The fluorescent lighting really helps with that.” Stu paused, letting the buzz and distant chaos of hospital wash over him. “Night, Betty.” “Night, Stu,” Betty replied, attempting to clear her mind enough to fall into an uneasy sleep. She couldn’t help but think, uncomfortably, of how it hadn’t been that long ago that the two of them had done nearly this same thing, waiting for Luke to recover, drifting to unsatisfying sleep in the terribly uncomfortable waiting room of Mungo’s. |