i'm not in the swing of things, what i really mean is not in the swing of things yet Who: Aisling Wilde, Loch Lemach, Miles Baines What: Ash's bad ideas: part one Where: Ash's place When: This afternoon Rating: PG-13 because lbr, milash Status: Complete!
If she really took the time to think about it, she’d have realized this was a bad idea. But she’d woken up, curled up against Cian and hungover, and had done what any rational woman in her position would have done: she panicked. He’d woken up briefly to groan; she handed him a cup of water, advised him to sleep it off, and bolted. She hadn’t even been all the way out the door when she’d sent Miles and Loch the message.
Still, by the time that they were supposed to meet, she was still nursing a headache and replaying the conversation she and Cian had had in an endless loop. You want something else, he’d said, you’re going to have to tell me what the fuck that is. Not what she’d expected, and when she thought about it - really thought about it - she wasn’t even sure she knew how to have a relationship that wasn’t something she had to keep hidden or was so casual that the word somehow felt wrong.
Loch and Miles weren’t together, but they had a relationship. It was a good place to start. Hence why she’d invited them over. They could help. Probably. (If they didn’t make it worse.)
And the jury was still out on which it would be.
The erstwhile pair in question were waiting on the doorstep of the Wilde house, shooting each other bemused looks (they’d both come early, an innate instinct to always be prepared). They were both close to Ash—but the three of them had hardly been a trio, never been particularly drawn to group engagements. They were solitary creatures, content in the way their lives overlapped.
“Think she’s inviting us over for a sleepover?” Miles asked. “We can braid each others’ hair and paint our nails, I suppose.” His fingers itched for a cigarette but he refrained; they’d be let in soon enough.
Loch shot him an amused glance. "And then you can read us a page of your diary, darling."
“No, no. That one’s padlocked and hidden in my nightstand.”
The door swung open then. Seeing the look on Ash's face, Loch asked, "Passage to Kerwon, or a body?"
Fuck. She’d forgotten the conversation she’d had with Loch before she’d gone to talk to Ci. Without a word, she motioned them in, shutting and locking the door behind them. Not that it would deter anyone who really wanted to get in - it never did - but it made her feel a little more in control, and she was seriously lacking that in her life right now.
“Right,” she said finally. “About that. Neither. Yet.” Maybe she needed another drink. “Want a drink? I could use a drink.”
They walked in pulled by the strings of curiosity, shared a look. Saw their own questions reflected back at them.
"I'm good," Loch said. She didn't ask what had happened, yet; Ash would spill the beans soon enough or else there was no point to their being here.
Miles usually said yes to drinks, but following Loch’s lead, the man shook his head.
Ash walked over to the mini liquor cabinet that was kept in the living room - mostly for Neil’s sake - and grabbed a bottle of schnapps. If Miles or Loch were confused by her sudden desire to drink, they didn’t say anything. She filled a cup with the amber liquid and downed it in three gulps; it was sweet, unlike the vodka from the night before.
“Relationships,” she said, refilling her glass. “How do you have them?”
The man stared, and barked an incredulous laugh. “That? That’s your question?”
“You work at the Ruby House. How come you’re asking us?” Loch’s tone said she fully expected Ash to go just kidding.
Once the words had left her mouth, however, a thought even more ludicrous than their first assumption flashed across her mind. “Wait.” Eyes narrowed, she asked, “Are you asking us about feelings?” Miles made a strangled noise.
Ash didn’t even stop to breathe as she slammed back the second glass. “Yes. No. I don’t fucking know,” she growled, frustrated. “How do you two deal? I mean, you guys aren’t together but you kind of are.” She didn’t point out that Miles would come to Loch every time she crooked her finger - she wasn’t drunk enough for that.
Miles’ mouth twitched, and he flopped down into the nearest seat, still mulling over a potential response. He studiously avoided looking at the woman beside him. Rather than answer, Loch moved to fetch the ashtray (which was there for her benefit, since Ash didn't smoke) and produced the silver case she carried on her person at all times, fished out a cigarette and lit up. Took a drag and glanced at Miles, then offered him the case, a way out for both of them. He wordlessly accepted it.
Grabbing the bottle, Ash moved to the couch and poured yet another cup, but this one she sipped slowly. “I talked to Cian last night. Actually talked.” She didn’t know how much Miles knew about her relationship with Ci, but Loch knew all about it.
"Can't imagine as that worked out well for you." Loch raised her eyebrows and nodded at the bottle.
During the brief pause, Miles suddenly announced, “On second thought, I’ll have that drink after all.” But he seemed ready and waiting for the story regardless, leaning over to light his cigarette off Loch’s.
Ash sighed and let her head fall back; the bottle was offered to Loch, who she knew would take it. “Neil,” she started, staring at the ceiling, “called me princess and said I was being a fucking idiot about Cian. So I had to go talk to him since I like Neil living. He’s less annoying than Kirill.” Harder to shake, but then, she’d already been saddled with Neil for nearly as long as she’d known Cian.
Loch snorted. "That's a low bar you're setting there." She placed the bottle on the table, within reach--waiting to see where the conversation would lead.
The mime turned her head to glare.
“Well, she has a point,” Miles said dryly. “But get to it, then. The two of you are idiots, you went to talk—and?”
Why was she bothering to talk to them about this? It had seemed like such a good fucking idea when she’d been dashing out of Cian’s place this morning. Should have known better, she thought, sighing. “We were talking about maybe trying a relationship again, but what the fuck do either of us know about that?” She sat back up and took a drink from her cup. All this alcohol wasn’t a good idea, but then, what in her life recently had been one?
“And you’re asking us. Because you think we know how,” Miles said, stunned and darkly amused. He hadn’t had to define Loch as his girlfriend for a while now (though there was the creeping awareness that it always seemed an inevitability, only a matter of time before the next turn of the wheel). But—
“Aisling, just yesterday I was peeling my current entanglement off my fake fiancée and trying to stop them from clawing each others’ eyes out. I hardly think I’m a good role model.”
Loch chuckled. "Yeah. Good party."
Ash waved her hand. “I’m not talking about your flings, Miles. Or Leradine. I’m talking about you and Loch. You guys are still civil. Hell, it seems like you even enjoy each other’s company most of the time.” She couldn’t remember the last time she and Cian were that comfortable. “How the hell did you do that?” So long as neither of them asked her if and why she wanted to try again, she could keep it on this vein. Probably.
The amusement slid off Loch's face. An instant later it was back, a carefully constructed mask. She did not look at Miles as she said, "We got sanctioned fighting times. Can't keep up the backstabbing all day long. We're busy people."
Miles had become as still as a statue himself, his face blank as only a mime’s could be. “And the fighting’s fun,” he said dryly. “We both understand that it’s all just…” he struggled to find the right words, the most tactful and least revealing way to phrase it, “part of the game.”
Because there was always a tally, no matter what happened. They threw each other to the guards and to the Knights of the Peace, they robbed and stole and plundered and poisoned, and they kept the tally, and they didn’t truly mind.
"How magnanimous we are," Loch said.
“Look,” Ash said, “I’m hungover and I have no clue what the fuck happened last night. Can we just pretend for a few minutes that you guys actually want to help me?” A pause. “Although the sanctioned fight times are a good idea. Faram above knows Ci and I can’t be in the same room for more than a few minutes before a fight breaks out.” Except during the truce; that had been a unique situation, though.
She pulled her feet up and tucked them underneath her, cradling her half-empty cup of alcohol. Staring into the glass, she thought about what she and Cian had discussed. A whole lot of nothing, really; hell, they hadn’t even come to any sort of a conclusion. They’d both passed out and she’d woken up curled against him. His arm had been flung around her. She wasn’t sure she wanted to ask Loch and Miles what happened when they got drunk together.
Miles sighed, the cigarette dangling from his fingers. “Have you considered that we might want to help, but simply don’t know how? I’ve no real idea what you’re actually asking for. You and the other Wilde are being complicated again, as per usual. That’s all I’ve gathered.” And I don’t see how it’s my problem, he thought, taking another bitter drag.
"Right," Loch said--a preemptive defense, before Ash had a chance to turn to her. "And you sound like you're looking to turn that complicated into simple. Neil's kind of simple."
“Neil made it sound simple,” Ash groused. “All I want to know is how the hell do two people have a relationship? It shouldn’t be this fucking complicated, right?” She peered at them in askance. “My last actual relationship was with that Fighter who told me he didn’t do relationships.” She carefully didn’t look at Miles; they weren’t in a relationship. Never had been.
Damia may not have gotten the Merry Women memo, but Ash had been around long enough to get it.
She sighed; Miles was right, though. Without giving them more information, what help could she expect them to give her? “Cian is a dick. I called him out on it. Turns out Neil was right and that Cian is only being a dick because he’s a fucking idiot, but he doesn’t actually hate me. And now neither of us know what the fuck to do, or if we should even do anything about it.” She tossed back the rest of the liquor. “Which is why I’m asking you two since you’re the only two that I trust to fucking ask about this, unless you count Neil, and I really don’t want to listen to him fucking gloat.”
“If you don’t hate each other,” Miles said—and it had always been a given, hadn’t it, that even when they were betraying each other, Lemach and Baines never hated each other—“then it seems rather simple to me. You have fun with each other until it isn’t fun anymore, then you take a step back. Balance.”
He was still talking in vaguenesses, refusing to name Loch in any of this relationship discussion, though he now couldn’t resist shooting her a sidelong, canny look. He found her looking at him, something speculative in the way she blew out a coil of smoke, which climbed into the air and dissolved, taking that look with it.
"I'm wounded you ever thought I wasn't fun, Baines," she said--but not an admission of any of the things hanging in the air unsaid, never an admission. She turned to Ash. "He's right, though. Ought to be easy to take Cian along for the ride, if it's fun you want." And if you don't, I got no fucking idea why you decided to ask us.
“Fun,” she repeated. Maybe that’s all there really was to it. Lena had said trust and being honest with each other, but fuck. She’d tried that with Cian. It hadn’t gotten her anywhere. “I can work with that,” she continued, warming up to the idea. Cian had only ever wanted to have fun.
(When the alcohol wore off, and she was through her second fucking hangover, she’d probably realize this was the worst way to approach it, but for now? It was the best she was getting.)
The pair sitting in front of her weren’t exactly the best sources of functional advice, after all.
But Miles had finally relaxed, sinking back into his chair and sipping at his own glass, now poured as a salve on this whole conversation. “Don’t overthink. That’s my motto—outside of the job, at least.”
"Might be worth trying for a change," Loch agreed, and then stubbed out her cigarette on the ashtray, a curtain fall. "It don't work, well, the offer to ship you off to Ordalia still stands."
“Kerwon,” she replied automatically. “We have people in Ordalia.” Ash yawned. “But yeah, overthinking this shit is a bad idea.” Cian was a bad idea. Probably. “Thanks.” It was a sincere expression of gratitude, and if she hadn’t invited Loch over as well as Miles, she’d have crawled into Miles’ lap and went to sleep. She trusted Loch, but Loch had always been strange about Miles, so she stayed where she was.
Miles watched Ash for a moment—perhaps he could sense that thought as it fluttered through her head, aware of the strangeness in this gathering—but he let it go. Watching the three of them sitting there, were he less bedraggled from the weekend’s drama, he might have delivered a joking proposition, a lewd insinuation.
Instead, he drank, hiding a small smile behind the glass as he took another liberal sip. Say one thing: he’d never expected the day Loch and Miles were held up to the light as positive role models. But then again, dysfunction was relative, and theirs was a particularly functional brand.
“Good,” he said breezily. And that seemed the end of the curious discussion, at last.