miles baines: riff-raff! street rat! (mimicks) wrote in emillion,
Miles/Aud/Ari | slightly later morning | complete!
“It may have been ugly, but it was mine.” Miles fumed, arms crossed, like some sort of avenging domestic angel (and perhaps he was unconsciously channeling some of Sister Bernadette in this moment, an avatar of her wrath echoing in the boy she half-raised). “Will the two of you pay it off completely, then? If I bill you for—”
And stingy as always, he started counting off his grievances one by one on his fingers, listing the damage he’d encountered on his way in: “New glass for the window, new coffee table, lamp, wine supply, shower rod, re-tiling of the bathroom, dry-cleaning of the carpet, new bed and mattress and linen. If I send you an itemised receipt, will you pay for all of it?”
(There was one small blessing: at least they hadn’t gotten into Miles’ fabled wardrobe, that land of endless costumes and outfits to match a hundred-odd identities and false-faces.)
“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Audrey honestly had other priorities right now, like getting into a parka. Her eyes skimmed through his room, looking for some sort of coat, even going as far as to peek into his closet. “What? You don’t think we can afford it? Besides, how much could it really be?”
“See, there you go -- so pouring water --” more water -- “on us was just…” Ari grimaced, looking down again at what had once been a really nice dress. Between the tear and the wine stains and the water damage, though… “Are you going to just stand there fuming, or are you going to lend me a shirt? And a potion,” she added. Inspired thought, really -- if only her head stopped pounding, she could clear out of here before Miles attempted to strangle them both, and, well, Aud had said it would get paid for…
“Fine,” he grumbled.
And so, not without a level of grudging bitterness, Miles elbowed past Audrey and into the closet. (It had once been normal-sized but was modified long ago, walls knocked down to make for a secretly spacious and enormous walk-in with a false back.)
He rummaged around for a bit before finally emerging, throwing an armful of trousers and oversized shirts into the faces of both thieves, soft cloth missiles heaved at them before he went stalking out of the room for his cache of potions, hopefully not demolished as the wine had been.