Mag Paget, Shotgun Knight (clippedwing) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-05-15 03:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, kiernan manley, magnolia paget |
Who: Mag Paget & Kiernan Manley
What: Unexpected serious conversation about relationships.
Where: An unnamed tavern somewhere
When: 5/11
Rating: PG-13 (for some minor violence because people don't know when to quit)
Status: Complete!
The moment the stranger walked up to their table at the tavern, Mag had to privately admit that she had been a fool for expecting the evening to remain uneventful. The bartender was pleasant enough and nobody had yet started a brawl―hence, it followed that at some point there would be an unexpected--unwanted--overture from someone they’d never seen before. The guy had his hand on the back of her chair and was dishing out pick-up lines with every breath, and through the amusement Mag couldn’t help but admire a man either clueless or uncaring enough to hit on a woman who had moments before been kissing another man, when said man was still sitting next to her. "All I'm saying is," he went on, "it'd be a great time. Beyond great. It'd be, well, if I had to find a word for it, it would be..." "Amazing?" Mag suggested offhandedly, when it looked like the word would escape him forever, whatever it was. The sooner he was done talking, after all, the sooner she'd be rid of him. "Amazing! As amazing as you are, my lady." He held out his hand. "Just let me prove it to you." Kiernan had heard just about enough. He’d held his tongue, trying to be casual with the man’s advances -- after all, Mag was quite capable of handling herself, and Kiernan hardly considered himself the jealous type. But that last bit was the last straw, and Kiernan gripped the man’s wrist tightly enough to know that it had to hurt even just a little. Hopefully, the man was smart enough to know that if Kiernan wanted to, he could break his arm right then and there with a simple twist. The man yelped. Through gritted teeth Kiernan growled, “Back off, guy.” It took Mag a moment to react. She blinked, stared at Kiernan's hand gripping the guy's wrist; all she could think was maybe scratch that no-brawls part but as she was about to intervene, her untimely admirer spoke again, "Come on, there's no need to be like that, listen, you seem like a cool guy, and I have a friend," he nodded behind him, tried to turn his wince into a friendly smile, "I have a friend over there you'd love, she's really pretty and--" "Listen, buddy," Mag hissed, "how about you and your friend go someplace away from here, without us, and leave us alone?" (Some part of her was shocked at the tone of her voice, but that part was quelled by the sudden anger at the stranger and his friend at a nearby table, tilting her head and waving at Kiernan.) The man made a face that Kiernan was all too happy to want to punch in, but he held off -- a little. When the man opened his mouth to say something, Kiernan pulled the man closer so that they were nose-to-nose, and he said through gritted teeth, “She said get, or I’ll see your face smearing the floor of this joint, got it?” “Hey, now--” Kiernan didn’t want to hear it. His fist hit jaw, and the man went sprawling on the ground. “Get. The fuck. Gone.” Somewhere in the back of her head, Mag could almost laugh at herself for her peaceful expectations for the evening; she was half-waiting for the guy to pick himself up and punch Kiernan in turn, because they hadn't been kicked out of a tavern in some time and maybe history did have a tendency to repeat itself. But he just stood and opened his mouth to say something; then, seeming to think better of it, he shook his head and walked away, rubbing at his jaw. Before too long, the handful of curious onlookers, seeing that a brawl was not forthcoming, returned their attention to their own conversations and their own drinks. Mag did the same―the last part, at least. She took a long sip of her cider, buying herself a few moments' time, trying to figure the way her voice had sounded. "Well," she said finally. "I think we can be sure no one else is going to come hit on us tonight." “Better not,” Kiernan muttered, feeling a little better for having been able to settle it his way, kind of. Though the fact that his bad shoulder was spared the trials of a brawl would call this a lucky damn night, too. “Shit, always thought men knew better than to hit on other men’s…” Kiernan paused and knitted his brows. “Um.” Tapped his fingers on the table. “You know?” Silently, Mag wished for the power to absorb the laid-back rowdiness of the tavern around them, the gift of osmosis versus the nervous anticipation that had taken the bottom out of her stomach. "I'm not actually sure that I know," she said, honestly. "I was too concerned with you getting better to really think much about having that conversation. But," she paused, tried not to look as though her heart was about to beat right out of her chest, "I think I want to know." “Yeah,” was the best Kiernan could muster for a moment. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t thought of him and Mag. It was one of the thoughts that was most prominent in his mind when he thought of how to proceed forward. They had said that they loved each other, but Kiernan liked to think of him practical enough not to assume it meant anything, no matter how much he wanted it to. Damn, how he hoped it meant what he thought it meant. “I love you,” he started, and it still felt good to say, even if what would follow was harder, “but… I don’t want to waste your time if we’re not on the same page on, well, a few things. I’m still figuring out what I want, but I feel like I want to settle down someday. Not too soon, of course, but someday. And the first step towards that is what we’re doing now, I guess.” He exhaled. “Phew, I’m so bad at this.” This was not a talk he had often. “But I love you, and--” He grabbed her hand. “--I’d like for us to be together. Officially. Monogamously. However you want to say it, that’s what I want.” A pause, and as easy a smile as he could muster. “How about you?” She wanted to tell him that he wasn’t bad at it, that the bad way, the rephrasing and the hesitation, that was the only way to do it. The shadow of uncertainty in his smile was something she could identify with, but there was no doubt in her voice when she said, “That’s what I want. I love you too, and I want to be with you. Even if it’s not now, I want to think we have a future together, I want to make that happen.” Her hand shifted to fit her palm against his, and Mag smiled. “We don’t have to figure out exactly what we want right now. We can fill in the details later. We can figure that out together.” As she spoke, the laughter and the loud voices filling the tavern didn’t exist; right then, she couldn’t have brought herself to care about anything outside their linked hands and the way Kiernan’s smile got brighter as she spoke. Her drink completely forgotten on the table, she placed her other hand on the side of his face and kissed him. He grinned wider into the kiss, gathering her up in his arms, one hand coming up to entangle itself in her hair, his chest feeling ready to burst in all the right and good ways. Then he pulled back, but only enough to breathe and say, "Come on, let's get out of here." In return, she grinned and led him away from their table and out of the tavern, their surroundings and the incident earlier the last thing on her mind. |