Mag Paget, Shotgun Knight (clippedwing) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-10-17 20:07:00 |
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In retrospect, Lav’s visit could have ended a lot worse. Though Kiernan had warned her to expect something bad, Mag’s imagination hadn’t even come close to the truth. She was sure her eyes were red, and come tomorrow, Lav would be sporting a very nice bruise along his jaw, but at least they had both managed to calm down somewhat toward the end, and hadn’t ended up brawling it out in Mag’s living room. Small mercies. The moment Lav was out of the door—she barely resisted the urge to offer to walk him back to his family’s estate—Mag fished her comm device out of her pocket and typed a short message to Kiernan. Her hands were shaking as she hit send. She’d planned to have a nice, relaxing first day back in town, but it seemed that wasn’t in the cards today. At least Kiernan deserved to know what to expect, though judging from the warning he’d given her the previous day over the network, he’d known what Lav intended to confess. There was little point asking him about the Harvest Festival; if Lav had told Kiernan then, Mag couldn’t imagine it had turned out to be a very good vacation. Libra couldn’t be over too soon. Mag tried to calm herself down and sit on the couch while she waited, but it was only making her even more fidgety, so she stood up and began to pace the house, looking for something, anything out of place that she could fix. She rearranged her books on the shelves, washed her face about three times, dumped the memo Lav had written on in the trash and, on impulse, the rest of the memo pad too. She was contemplating cleaning the apartment to take her mind off the conversation she’d had with Lavitz when the doorbell rang. With a sigh of relief, she ran to open the door. She’d never been happier to see Kiernan—five minutes longer, and she might have managed to drive herself crazy. Kiernan had wasted no time in rushing out the door (and he didn’t even spend a second basking in the joy that he was able to rush out a door again) once he received Mag’s message. He hadn’t known what to expect when he heard that she and Lavitz were meeting for lunch; Lavitz had asked to be able to tell Mag about what had happened himself and for the sake of friendship and respect, Kiernan had granted it to him on the condition that Lavitz would actually tell her. He wasn’t sure if it was realistic to trust that the other man would actually do it, but he thought to warn Mag anyway: he’s not in a good place right now. He wouldn’t be surprised if Mag was pissed off at him for numerous reasons between that Kiernan didn’t tell her to that he had downplayed it so much himself. So it was with apprehension that he knocked on the door to her apartment, a bottle of cider from the Snuggly Duckling in hand, and the easiest smile he could wear, which was to say, it was barely anything more than pursed lips that was just marginally friendlier than Banes’ own smiles. (Not that Kiernan had ever actually seen her smile himself.) “Hey,” he said when the door opened. Mag looked just about as rattled as he had felt when he received the message from Audrey, and Kiernan was still unsure as to how she’d react. So, for now, he kept the bottle cradled in the crook of his arm. “How are you holding up?” Mag opened her mouth to speak, but she had no idea how to answer. So she threw up her hands and waved Kiernan in, then closed the door behind him. He’d brought the cider, at least—and while she didn’t think alcohol would somehow help her forget the fact that one of her best friends had tried to kill himself, it certainly couldn’t hurt. And if they were going to talk about this, she was willing to bet Kiernan wouldn’t say no to a drink, either. She opened a cabinet to take out two glasses, and placed them on the kitchen counter right away. No fidgeting. She needed to stop fidgeting. Running a hand through her hair to push it back, she said, “Still not sure I shouldn’t go find him right now.” She shook her head. “And if I did, I don’t know if I’d hug him, punch him, or both.” Like she’d done just a short while ago—but at least she’d managed to stop bawling. Fuck Libra. When the month was over, she was going to throw a Faram-damned party to celebrate. She picked up the bottle, then put it back down with a sigh. “Probably punch him, if I thought he’d punch me back. Almost got him to, earlier.” Yet he’d just stood there and taken it, never made a move to defend himself. “Fuck this month, anyway. Hope it sits on the pointy end of a spear and wiggles.” “You almost got him to punch you back? Better than anything I could do,” he said with a sigh as he pulled out a small bottle opener from his pocket. A habit from his years in the Rangers; it sucked being out in the wild with ale and beer and no way to open the bottles. “I was just happy to get him to eat.” He pressed down on the bottle cap with the opener, an inviting hiss escaping into the air. He poured the cider first into Mag’s glass and then his own, briefly wondering if he shouldn’t have brought more than just the one bottle. They would surely kill this tonight. “So you hit him too, then?” It comforted Kiernan to know that he wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been able to keep his temper in check, though to be fair to Mag, he’d had more time to digest the news before confronting Lavitz. “He’ll have a nice black bruise on his jaw come tomorrow.” Mag sighed—what else was she supposed to have done? And the urge to start pacing up and down the room was coming back to her. She leaned her weight against the counter and tried to suppress it. It was too tempting to take the glass and down it in one go, but she took a small sip instead. She really needed to calm down. “The worst part,” she began, slowly, “isn’t that he tried to do such a stupid thing. What really gets to me is he never tried to talk to us about it.” How had he been so selfish? What were friends for? But there was no point in getting even more worked up over it. It stung, but she’d get over it—and by Faram, she hoped there would be no repeat performance. If he tried again, then she was seriously going to kick his ass. And Kiernan was saying now that he’d had trouble getting Lav to eat while they’d been away. No wonder he hadn’t sounded all that excited when she’d asked him about his vacation over the network. She shook her head and took another sip from the glass. “He tell you when you went back home?” Way to destroy Kiernan’s visit home—wasn’t like he didn’t have enough to worry about, with Fergus doing as badly as he was. She sighed again. He shook his head. “No. Aud sent me a message.” And then again a few days after they returned to the city, and he hated how easily he had lost his cool at her accusing words. The worst part was that she wasn’t wrong: he shouldn’t be letting Lavitz out of his sight for a second. What if he tried again? And if Lavitz needed help, well, it was clear he wasn’t going to go around asking for it. Too bad that only the mages had any insight on the probability of reading minds. But hell if Kiernan knew what to do. Survivor’s guilt wasn’t an unusual thing to deal with in the Fighters Guild, especially the older the members were. He himself had a fun bout of it before he even made class, and he hadn’t even been in the training hall where Torin had been killed. But if anyone who struggled with the guilt ever tried to kill themselves, well, Kiernan hadn’t been one of them, nor had he been close enough to anyone else to know who did try and who succeeded. “Dad doesn’t know, at least,” he said, hoping that the words would do something to comfort Mag. Or himself. “I didn’t tell him anyway.” Mag nodded. "Good." Better that way. The more she thought about it, the more Kiernan's lack of enthusiasm about the visit home made sense. If he'd come home to see his father wasn't doing any better, and heard what Lavitz had tried to do, no wonder he hadn't had the best of times at the festival. "Faram, this is depressing." And she'd had enough of being depressed. She was going to be okay, they all were—it was going to work out somehow, and she had to stop dwelling on it. She drank from her glass and mustered a smile. "Let's not talk about this. Let's talk about that brunch you owe me." He quirked an eyebrow. “Brunch?” Mag put on the look of someone struggling to recall a faraway memory, though something in her eyes betrayed her amusement. "I believe it was that first day we went to the Morning Glory Café." She paused, as if trying to find the exact words. "We were talking about stupid rumors, and you said bet they'll be saying I knocked someone up next." She couldn't remember if Kiernan had actually said bet, but it didn't matter. She continued, "And yet, what I heard is you're getting married to a mystery woman, not fathering secret yet lovable offspring." Her eyes met Kiernan's then, and she grinned. "So your prediction was off, and I'd say you owe me brunch. You owe me something, at any rate." In a lower voice, she added, "I'm willing to negotiate the particulars." Kiernan couldn’t help but to laugh; this was by far the best way anyone had brought that particular rumor up to him. “Oh, my poor future mystery wife,” he said, shaking his head as he set his glass on the counter and wrapping an arm around Mag’s waist. He nuzzled the top of Mag’s head and continued, “If these are the particulars you’re willing to negotiate, it almost makes me want to keep losing bets to you.” Mag chuckled and turned to face him, putting her arms around his neck. "Doesn't feel like you lost, does it?" She leaned in to kiss him; when she pulled away, she said, "Well, your future mystery wife will have to deal. She can hang out with the father of my imaginary children." “We’re just one big, happy, dysfunctional family,” he chuckled, pressing his lips against hers for another kiss. Well, maybe that one bottle of cider was all they needed after all. Alcohol wasn’t the only way people could distract themselves and forget, even if only for the night. |