Who: Daniel Morgan & Zane Rosen What: Filing & booze is the best therapy. When: Friday evening, December 12th; after regular work hours. Where: Camelot Castle, R&D department Rating: PG-13 for alcohol use, mild cursing, & lots of break-up talk.
Working at Camelot wasn’t the perfect job. Hell, as far as Zane could tell, there were no perfect jobs, just some that were better, and some that were worse. Camelot was one of the better ones. Sure, maybe he hadn’t worked in enough places to be able to be an authority on that, but he couldn’t see any way that another place would be better. Camelot had become his replacement family; if he felt like some company, he could always go get a drink and goof off with Zach, or call up Dustin to fuck around with some new spells. It was a place to be when his old apartment, or now the house he shared with Ban, felt too empty. It was a purpose, one that he and Vanyel could both be comfortable serving, one he’d be proud to someday die for.
All that grand, mushy, and heroic shit aside, there were some unseen benefits to Camelot, too, ones that didn’t always look like benefits at first glance. The one that was most important to Zane right now was that everybody really hated paperwork. He was included in that, usually, except when he found himself not wanting to think about things. Then, paperwork was the best fucking thing in the whole world. Before, he’d stuck to picking up the extra paperwork in Magics, but since Daniel had pointed him in the direction of other departments where they wouldn’t mind some filing help, he’d started branching out. Just doing his part, and all that shit.
Okay, fine, he was curious about what other departments were getting up to. Sure, he could just go bug them while they were working, but there was something kind of fun about looking at their files when no one was around, like he was a spy or something. Tonight, for some reason, Daniel had asked him to meet him in R&D, which seemed like it should have some really interesting shit going on. Maybe if he understood all the jargon, it would be, but for the most part he was left squinting at the page, trying to figure out what the everloving fuck it all meant.
Of course, Daniel had his own personal motivations behind asking Zane to meet him in R&D tonight of all places, but he wasn’t yet ready to share them. Things with Tai had… dissolved, starting with his birthday at the beginning of last month. He’d spoken of it to no one, not even his own siblings, and when Tai had handed in his official resignation a few days ago, he’d still said nothing. He wasn’t sure what to say yet to anyone who might inquire after Tai’s absence, and frankly, Daniel was okay with putting that explanation off for as long as humanly possible. Daniel didn’t do well with these sorts of things.
Perhaps one of the reasons his friend had left in the first place.
No matter. It was lucky that Daniel and Zane had already started this little ritual of theirs a month ago. Zane seemed to share in his peculiar love for busy work, which was convenient especially in times like these where having someone to share in it was actually needed. They were down a person in the department, after all, and unfortunately Tai had taken on much of the responsibility in the department in just the short amount of time that he’d been an official member of Camelot. The short notice of his resignation had left Daniel in a temporary rut, though he might have seen it coming from a more personal angle. He was unwilling to think about it at the moment.
At least right now he had a worthy enough distraction that kept his mind firmly on the task at hand. Well, sort of. The drinks made it a little harder to focus after awhile, but that was okay. These were just files he had to go through and make sure the department’s inventory numbers checked out against their invoices. It really was a sweet set up he and Zane had here, an entire department all to themselves late at night where they could drink and relax in the quiet solitude of Camelot Castle after hours. Bonus points, the busy work kept his mind off things he didn’t want to deal with yet. Taking another swig of whiskey (straight from the bottle, mind you), Daniel paused and wiped at the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand before looking up from where he was lounging with his pile of papers and eying Zane with a sheepish grin. “One of these days they’re all going to catch onto us, you know.”
“They’ll have to stay late enough to do it, first.” Zane looked up from his papers, too, smirking at Daniel. “You think anyone’s gonna care enough about what we’re up to for that?” It wasn’t like everyone was out the door immediately once work hours were over, but the whole reason they’d started this routine in the first place was that no one else was there to judge them for drinking on the job. Zane, of course, had to be careful with exactly how much he had. He had to get home, after all, not that there was much to get home to now. Before, the late nights had been a good way to kill time before Ban got home, the difference in time zones meaning that Zane had plenty of hours between work and actually having a reason to be home. For the last two weeks, the late nights were a good way of pretending that he still had a reason to be home at all. He’d started out still leaving at the same time, like he had to be back before Ban got in from work, but as the days had stretched on and on, he’d stopped noticing when it would have been time to leave.
Maybe that was a good sign. Zane really had no idea. It wasn’t like he’d been in any other relationships that had lasted long enough for it to take him more than a day or two to get over a breakup. Compared to them, a six month long relationship was an eternity. He may have sucked at the whole relationship thing, but he at least knew enough to realize that was a whole new game.
In the middle of that, late nights at the Castle with Daniel, files, and a bottle of whiskey was a really fucking strange sort of haven, but it was working for him. Even if they spent the whole night not talking, it was nice having someone to share the silence with. Sure, he knew his friends would be glad to keep him company, but that meant he’d actually have to tell them about the breakup, and he wasn’t quite ready to admit that they’d all been right about him and Ban, yet. Yeah, he knew he couldn’t go on pretending like he was still engaged forever (actually, maybe he could, since most of them hadn’t cared to spend much time with Ban, and he really should have seen that warning sign sooner). He just needed a little longer before he faced the ‘I told you so’ that he’d get from at least one of them. Besides, he may not have known Daniel that well before they started drinking and filing, but after a month of it, even he wasn’t dense enough to miss that they were kind of friends, now, so a friend was keeping him company.
And all that shit was way too deep for when he was supposed to be not thinking. Zane shook the papers in his hand, a physical gesture to help him in shaking off the mood. “You gonna hog the bottle all night, y’lush?” Sure, if he’d needed to be back home for Ban, he should have stopped by now, but he didn’t, and he doubted Daniel was paying that close of attention to his drinking schedule.
Daniel scoffed in a way that made it clear he wasn’t actually insulted. Of course, when they’d first started meeting after hours, it had been a little more awkward. Daniel had promoted Zane to the head of the Magics department some time ago, but before now, they had never really gotten to know each other past the important stuff that had qualified Zane for joining Camelot in the first place. His brother Zach was much closer to Zane than he was, but it wasn’t from a lack of interest in trying to bridge that gap, it was just hard for Daniel to A) find time to actually spend with people off the clock, and B) force himself to open up enough to make that time actually worth something. Both very sad realities that had much to do with Daniel’s lack of a personal life, and the still very recent demise of one aspect of his in particular. Well, that, among other things.
He wasn’t sure what it was about Zane that made him feel so at ease, more at ease than he felt around most people outside of his own family. Whatever it was, within a few days of them doing this, Daniel had begun to loosen up enough that now, only an entire month later, the conversation and jokes came much easier to him. It felt perfectly natural now to trade jabs with Zane like they were old friends, and while they might not be old friends, they were definitely friends. It was nice, especially now, to have a friend who would sit with him late at night and do something so horrendously boring to other people but make it seem like fun. It was the perfect distraction, as was the copious amount of booze that came directly from Camelot’s own private cellar.
“I might,” Daniel shot back, taking another drink just to illustrate his non-committal before caving and handing the bottle off to him. “Just make sure you save some for me when you’re done, I know how you like to inhale it. If you want, I can just get you a straw to make it easier.”
“Don’t blame me. Blame your brother’s fucking ridiculous alcohol tolerance.” Zane paused before taking a drink. “And me bein’ bullheaded enough to try to keep up with him. So I guess you can blame me a little.” Enough said, there. He tilted his head back and took a swig like a shot, the alcohol barely touching his mouth before he swallowed it. Probably about a double shot worth, if he was guessing, and he’d done enough shots to get a good estimate on that.
He lowered the bottle with a sigh, savoring the burn of the alcohol all the way down. Damn, that was good, just what he’d needed to keep him from thinking too hard. “And you for sharing the good stuff with me. Of course I’m gonna take advantage when I’m not the one buying, do you think I’m stupid?” He offered the bottle back to Daniel, though, deciding that was enough for the moment. Lack of time limit or not, he did still have to get home somehow, and even if he was due for some bad life choices, trying to ride his motorcycle drunk wasn’t one that he planned to make. It was just a breakup, no need to actually kill himself over it.
That amused him, and he chuckled and almost shared the thought with Daniel before realizing that he’d have to tell him about the breakup for that to even start making sense. Instead, he kept his focus on the bottle of whiskey. “Are you tellin’ me you actually have a straw big enough to fit all the way down in that? That, I’d pay to see.” Sounded like the kind of novelty item he maybe sort of had a weakness for. Ban would never get why that would be hilarious… and how long was it going to take before his thoughts stopped automatically going there when he let his guard down? “Money where your mouth is, Morgan.”
“On behalf of my entire family, I sincerely apologize for the rampant alcoholism present in the Morgan-Evans line. We’re a terrible influence on the general population, and I’m afraid that like so many before you, you have now fallen prey to the same fate.” Daniel said this all very solemnly and matter a fact, like he was delivering Zane news of a terminal illness. He accepted the bottle back from him, though he didn’t drink from it again straight away. They’d consumed a considerable amount in the last couple hours, and even Daniel knew when to admit that he needed to slow down. “But what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t give you the best that I, and by that I mean Camelot’s private booze collection, could possibly offer? See, I’m just trying to be a good friend. You can’t possibly blame me for that.”
Daniel smiled lazily and put down the manila folder he’d been holding onto and doing nothing with for the last ten minutes. That was as sure a sign as any that his brain was far past the point of getting any actual work done, but that was okay. He was content to just sit here until he either sobered up enough to do some more filing before bed, or until he realized there was no hope for sobriety left in sight and still go to bed. Or pass out right where he sat. That had maybe happened to him once or twice, after he’d told Zane he’d finish up and the other man left. He laughed with Zane, unaware that they were perhaps not laughing about the same thing. Sometimes, it just felt really good to laugh, and he wasn’t too proud to admit to himself that he found very few reasons to laugh like that these days. Zane made it look so easy.
“Alright, alright. I admit it. I possess no such contraption.” He held up his hands in mock surrender, a soft smile still present in the corners of his mouth before it disappeared behind the bottle of whiskey being lifted again to his face. Okay, so maybe he still had something of a second wind left in him. “However,” he continued, once he’d pulled the bottle down, swallowed, and set it down firmly on the desk. He leaned back further in his chair and lifted his feet up to prop them on the same surface as the whiskey. “That does actually sound like something we could make in here. It is the department of Research and Development, after all.”
Hell, Zane had known what he was getting in for the first time Daniel had broken out a bottle. He’d been friends with Zach long enough to be wary when a member of his family offered liquor, if he actually gave a fuck about keeping his alcohol consumption in moderation. The upside was that being pretty damn good company while drunk seemed to run in the family, too, if the two of them were anything to judge by. Very different kinds of company, that was for sure, but still good, either way. “You’re a great friend.” That came out sounding a little less joking, and a lot more sincere, than he’d meant it to. Must have been the alcohol. He tried to lighten it up with a joke. “Pretty sure it’s in the best friend contract that Zach has to be my favorite, but you’re definitely in the top five. I’m easy, share your liquor and you’ve got a friend for life.” If that were actually true, Zane would have a lot more friends than he actually did, but it did seem to be a hell of a trend.
Didn’t much matter to Zane what Daniel was laughing about, so long as Zane wasn’t laughing alone like a damn loon. He got the feeling that their fearless leader didn’t have much to laugh about, and as he was one of Zane’s top five friends, it was a solemn duty of Zane’s to make sure that it happened as often as he could make it. If it distracted him and gave him something to laugh about, too, even better. Made him feel more like himself again, more than he had in months. Since before things turned sour with… nope. Not thinking about it. He was done with moping for the night, wasn’t going to ruin the laughter and companionship with that shit.
“Considerin’ the rampant alcoholism, seems like a great use of Camelot’s time and money, makin’ a whiskey bottle size straw.” The whiskey was kicking harder than he’d expected. It was getting harder to keep the twang out of his voice. Didn’t keep him from grabbing for the bottle again once Daniel put it down. Already had more than he should’ve, no sense in stopping now. At least, seemed to make sense to him now that he was starting to get that happy, buzzy feeling. Once he’d swallowed, he slid it back into place. “Think they got a suggestion box? I’ll put it in if you wanna keep ‘em from knowin’ yer such a lush.” Doubted Daniel cared, though. Wasn’t he kinda seeing a guy in R&D? Zane didn’t much keep up with the gossip rag, but he’d heard some whispers.
The thickness of Zane’s accent the more intoxicated he got didn’t escape Daniel’s notice, but it amused him. One half of his family were all Brits, and most if not all, only got more British the more they drank. Especially Lydia, which was always a pretty hilarious sight to see in itself. It must be a people with foreign accents thing, something Daniel could only be envious of since he himself just had a boring old American one. Perhaps if Matthew Morgan had decided to live in the UK longer before moving Julian and his sons to the states, Daniel would sound more like his half-siblings, but alas. At least he’d never spent enough time in New York to sound like a New Yorker. Somehow, that seemed like an even worse fate.
Daniel never thought he’d actually be grateful for all his time spent in the convent during his teenage years. That had to be the whiskey talking for him.
“I suppose I can settle for that. Honestly, I’m honored just to be in your top five at all.” He settled back as Zane reclaimed the bottle and glanced at the clock on the wall, slightly blurred vision telling him that it was even later than usual. Most nights when they did this, they would have called it quits at least an hour ago. Not that Daniel minded, he was just amazed at how the time had flown by. He wasn’t necessarily ready to leave just yet, the idea of facing anything outside of this room was far from appealing to him. They’d created themselves a nice little safe space here, Zane and him, but now he was curious about something.
“So,” Daniel fixed his new friend with a quizzical look, taking the bottle for another, shorter swig before handing it right back. The whiskey burned nicely on the way down. “Where’s Ban? I know he works long hours, though I can’t imagine they run this late. He doesn’t mind me keeping you here all night?”
Zane would take sounding like your average American before sounding like he’d just crawled out from under a rock in northern Arkansas, but you couldn’t pick your accents. Well, you could, but he wasn’t great at them, aside from managing to stamp out his own almost completely after a few years away from the place where he’d grown up. Hell, he’d take just about any accent over his own, but that was probably one of those ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ things.
Having someone be honored by something like that was pretty damn funny, and Zane snorted and shook his head. He wasn’t that great a catch as a friend, something he was surprised his friends hadn’t all clued in on yet, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. He enjoyed the company too much. Especially Daniel’s, right at the moment, drunk and lazy and wrapped in their own little world of whiskey and mounds upon mounds of paper.
It was a damn shame that Daniel had to ruin that by bringing Ban up again, and Zane’s happy buzz crashed down around his ears, leaving him no less drunk but far more miserable. His drink, when he grabbed the bottle of whiskey back, was longer, and far larger, this time, throat and stomach both almost rebelling at the introduction of far too much alcohol at once. He sat it down, probably a bit too heavily, and wiped his mouth off, hard enough to make his lips sting. “Ban’s… he’s…” He sure as hell would mind, if he’d been waiting at home for Zane. Zane could almost hear the tongue lashing he would’ve gotten out of it, too. Ban wouldn’t approve of Zane getting drunk with his boss, at work, when he had him waiting at home for him, just like he’d never approved of Zane going out drinking with Zach, or fucking around with spells with Dustin on weekends at work.
Thing was, Ban wasn’t there to mind anymore, and never would be again. Daniel might be the first person to actually notice, and ask, but he wasn’t going to be the last. Zane had been waiting for and dreading this since he’d walked out. “Ban ain’t comin’ home tonight.” Coward’s way out. He should just admit it, just tell Daniel the whole ugly truth. He didn’t realize that his bowed head, the tension in his shoulders, the tightness in his voice, those all told at least a little of it for him.
If Daniel hadn’t immediately noticed the change in Zane’s tone first, he would have definitely noticed the look on his face and his actions directly following the inquiry. Daniel wasn’t so intoxicated that he couldn’t pick up on the not so subtle signs that he’d just hit a pretty serious nerve. Unintentionally, of course, but a nerve nonetheless. He watched, features morphing into a look of genuine concern as Zane made like he was going to attempt to drain the rest of the bottle. Luckily, he didn’t, but it still was an exceedingly long time before he put the bottle down and Daniel wasn’t yet sure why, but he felt guilty. Clearly, whatever nerve he’d just touched, it was still very much an open wound, if the bowed head was any indication at least.
Should he press further? He was fairly certain that while they were friends, they weren’t that close, but Daniel wasn’t the sort of person who backed off easily. You could say it ran in the family. He didn’t want to make Zane uncomfortable, or somehow make him feel worse than he clearly already did for whatever reason, but if Daniel was one thing it was nosey, on top of being genuinely concerned. He didn’t like seeing the people he cared about hurt, in any way. Zane was a friend, and maybe, just maybe, he would let Daniel be a friend to him right now. If he needed or wanted it, of course. He wouldn’t keep pressing if Zane gave him a firm ‘no’, or ‘get the hell out of my business’. That, Daniel would respect. He didn’t make it obvious that this was what he was doing, but he made sure to take the bottle back from Zane before he said anything else, respectfully letting Zane trail off in case he decided to come out with it on his own while Daniel took another drink from the bottle himself. For his own benefit, really. This didn’t seem like the sort of conversation one would want to be entirely sober for.
“Zane? Feel free to tell me to fuck off, but.” Daniel paused, letting the bottle dangle at his side while gripping it loosely in one hand and biting at his lower lip, still unsure if he should ask, but Zane just looked so miserable and the rate at which that had happened was alarming. From the way he’d struggled to come up with an initial answer, Daniel had a feeling that whatever happened, it wasn’t good. “You seem like you may need to talk about something. … Or not talk about something, as the case can sometimes be, which is also fine. Are you alright?”
Was he alright? Zane was pretty far from alright, maybe not as far as he could get, but less right than he'd been since right after his dad had told him he wasn't welcome in his house anymore. It was the same kind of feeling, losing a connection that had defined him, someone closest to him in the world. God, and he was comparing losing his boyfriend to losing his dad, wasn't he just a fucking godawful stereotype right now? Ban would be ashamed of him, being such a stereotype of a gay man with daddy issues, not that it mattered since it wasn't like Ban would ever need to know. "Nah, I'm not alright." He laughed again, a bitter, almost hysterical edge to it, this time.
It was true he and Daniel weren't what you'd call close. Wasn't like they spent their nights talking about their hopes and dreams or anything. Zane didn't really talk about that much with anyone. Except Ban, and there was a level of strangeness in knowing that he never planned on talking to the person who knew more about him than anyone else in the world again entirely aside from the strangeness of a breakup, in general. Sure, sometimes when they were drinking he'd mention a thing or two to Zach, but he'd never been the type for sharing and caring with people he had to look in the eye when he sobered up. Maybe it was better that he and Daniel weren't close, when it came down to it, that all they really shared were these nights of drinking and just being. Daniel hadn't seen the whole thing falling apart even as it came together that the rest of Zane's friends had, had asked about Ban without the undercurrent of distaste that they could never completely cover. Daniel was as close as he was going to get to unbiased, and Zane thought maybe that was just what he needed. "I've done a lot of not talking." Even before the train wreck of an end, Zane had been spending a lot of time biting his tongue. With his friends, with Ban, even with himself, because if he didn't talk about the problems he'd kept hoping they wouldn't exist. "Doesn't seem t'be helping any."
So, here it went. Zane sucked in a deep breath, braced himself like a man going to the firing squad, and said, "Considering I shipped the last of his things to his brother's place in Philly earlier this week, Ban doesn't have much reason to come round these parts ever again. We broke up a couple weeks ago." And there it was, the words out loud for the first time, aside from when Zane had done the deed on Thanksgiving. It felt... he wasn't sure how it felt. Bad? Good? Little of both? He kinda wished someone would look in his head and tell him, because he had no clue.
It had certainly sounded like a break up before Zane actually said the words, though Daniel hadn’t been prepared to jump to conclusions. Some small part of him was hoping for the common experience, but of course he wasn’t actually hoping Zane and Ban had broken up. Just that now that Zane had admitted to it, somewhere inside Daniel he felt himself a little more willing to let go of his own pretenses. It was tiresome, pretending like things were okay all the time. They certainly weren’t right now, and Zane had just admitted it for the both of them. That took some of the pressure off Daniel continuing to pretend otherwise.
Things had been slowly disintegrating with Tai ever since his birthday, and Daniel’s refusal to take time away from Camelot for a weekend. He didn’t blame Tai for not understanding the actual demands of his job, very few people did when you weren’t physically in his position or had been at some point, but there were just some things Daniel would never budge on. One of them was time off. You didn’t take ‘time off’ from being a leader, not in his book. After that, after their first fight before even really venturing into relationship territory to warrant a ‘first fight’, things had just slid further downhill from there. Tai’s resignation a few days ago had not come as much of a surprise to Daniel, he was actually surprised at how long it had taken.
“I’m sorry.” Daniel understood why Zane had been keeping his break-up with Ban quiet, maybe for similar reasons that Daniel himself had been keeping quiet about Tai. They weren’t sure how to tell people yet who might have strong opinions about it in either direction. Daniel hadn’t known Ban very well, so strong opinions he wouldn’t really have. He’d only known the man as Zane’s boyfriend and a temporary part-time employee of the Magics department, though now it made a little more sense why Ban hadn’t decided to stay on full-time after his contract was up. Ban was also someone who, at the mention of him, his brother Zach would get visibly cross about. Daniel had never asked why, it wasn’t his business at the time, but seeing Zane so hurt now, he had to wonder. So he asked. “Can I ask what happened?”
Zane had no idea where the hell to even start. Now that the words were out there, bleeding and raw, it was harder not to let it all spill out at once than it had been to get them out in the first place, and that had been like choking on knives. Daniel wasn't slinging blame, didn't immediately take Zane's side without knowing the facts, and that, perversely, helped. Awful as the time since the breakup had been, there was still an aching part of Zane just as in love with the man as he had ever been, that wanted to defend him. If Daniel had said anything negative about Ban, the discussion would have been over. Since he hadn't, maybe it would be okay to share a little more.
"Ban is... he's proud of being a black man." Zane didn't want to imply that was a bad thing, so he hurried to add, "I mean, he should be. He had to work harder to get where he is than a white guy would have, and he did it. And there are things about his life that I'm never gonna get, bein' white. That's hard sometimes, for both of us." He paused, swallowed hard, and corrected himself. "It was hard. I tried. Didn't always get it right, or understand why something was racist, but I tried. Stopped questioning after a while, just took his word for it even when it didn't make sense, cause it wasn't my place to say whether or not it was. Ain't my issue, ain't my call." It had taken way too many fights for that to sink in. Maybe it was just something he couldn't understand, no matter how much Ban explained. Wasn't worth the fight, or feeling dumb when he couldn't grasp it.
"We went to his brother's place for Thanksgiving, and... you know what's goin' on in the States right now, right? The protests and all, over racism. They were all talkin' about it, and I was tryin' to be supportive." Zane cringed at the remembered humiliation. "His, uh, his brothers, they said I should stop bein' patronizing, leave the opinions to people who had to deal with it, that I was..." He shook his head. What they said didn't matter. Just what Ban said. "Ban told me he was proud of me for trying. But I wasn't educated enough. That they'd educate me, if I'd just listen. I... apologized. Sat quiet a while. Then I went to the bathroom. I was, uh, I was embarrassed." It was embarrassing to admit. He hadn't done anything he should apologize for, but he just hadn't wanted to fight. There'd been a lot of times like that, where being right had been less important than keeping the peace. "Looked in the mirror and realized I didn't know that guy lookin' back. Realized that in us versus them, I was always going to be the them, not the us, no matter how much I tried to change. Couldn't make the one change that'd make a difference." He would always be just another white guy.
"I left. Told Ban I didn't think we should see each other anymore and just left. Didn't give him a chance to talk." It was cowardly, but Zane hadn't given him a chance to since, either. He knew how it would end, with him apologizing for his entire race and promising to do better.
He cleared his throat, but couldn't get rid of the tightness there. He was too drunk to control his emotions, but not drunk enough to be comfortable with them. "That wasn't it. There were other problems, too, but that was the last straw. Realized I was never gonna be good enough. What he wanted." He was just some dumb kid from Hicksville who could kill things with magic.
Daniel was indeed aware of what was currently going on in the states, he’d actually had a meeting with his Camelot Enterprises team in New York and some White House representatives earlier in the week about what was happening. Daniel had always been a fairly open minded, non-judgmental individual, not one to make snap opinions about people he’d just met. Even still, from a very brief conversation with some of the people supposedly leading this country, Daniel was even more convinced that the inherent racism embedded in the United States was directly cultivated by the leaders of America today. He had gotten the feeling their concern regarding the current political and social climate of their own country was only rivaled by one’s concern for a trail of ants on the ground, and Daniel didn’t think he was being unfair in that opinion.
It was a terrible thing, what was going on in the U.S. right now, what had been going on for over a century, so he understood that tensions were higher than ever in light of recent events. And like Zane, he understood that the color of his own skin put him firmly on the side of the spectrum that often got ostracized in conversations about race. He didn’t take it personally. He knew that to some extent those feelings were justified, but he also knew that it was a lot different being told by a complete stranger that your opinion didn’t matter than it was being told that by someone you loved. Daniel was sympathetic to the other side of the argument, but he also didn’t see how Zane could embody an entire century’s worth of white supremacy in the eyes of someone who claimed to care for him. That, Daniel was not sympathetic towards, and privately he thought Ban was an idiot. He didn’t say so out loud, though, he knew it wouldn’t help, and at this point could possibly still be unwanted. Just because they broke up didn’t mean Zane wanted him trashed.
He silently handed the bottle back to Zane in case he needed it. It was almost empty now, Daniel hadn’t realized they’d already almost gone through an entire bottle in one night. That was a new record for them. But, considering the nature of their current conversation, Daniel was at once prepared to break out another bottle if he had to. Camelot always had spare bedrooms Zane could crash in if he wanted. Licking unconsciously at his lips, Daniel thought for a long moment before he spoke, attempting to choose his words carefully. “Sometimes… you can love someone, and still be so fundamentally different that you never get enough sun in order to grow together. Even in just the way you think, that has to be in sync enough to flourish.” He glanced at Zane solemnly, wishing there was some actual comfort in his words, but he knew it wasn’t likely. “And if someone is always asking you to change but not working themselves to change with you… that love will often times not endure. It’s not your fault. And I think you did the right thing.”
Zane’s stomach was already tying itself in knots, but he took the bottle anyway. Daniel’s silence could be good, Zane had never minded sitting in silence with him before, but after what he’d just shared, he couldn’t help but worry that maybe Daniel was judging him. Maybe breaking up with Ban like that, maybe it made him a bad person. Hell, he’d wondered that more than once since he’d walked out, if he shouldn’t have just waited until they got home and tried, again, to talk about it. Maybe he shouldn’t have been upset about it at all. Ban wouldn’t have understood why he was upset. Could be that Ban was right, he was wrong, that all his friends were just taking his side because they were obligated to, or…
Then, Daniel spoke, and Zane tipped back the bottle and drained it to keep from acting like an idiot in his relief. Daniel didn’t blame him, didn’t seem to blame Ban, either. Lost as Zane was in all this, having someone else think he did the right thing, someone else understand that maybe being in love wasn’t enough, that was more than he could have hoped for. “He’s not a bad guy,” Zane said, once the burn in his throat had eased enough to speak again. It came out sounding like an argument. It was one he’d had a couple times. “He… he wasn’t.” He hadn’t meant to make Zane feel dumb, or inferior, or out in the cold. That, Zane was pretty sure, was all on himself. “Just… thought that since we could get in each others’ heads, we’d understand each other better. Shoulda known it didn’t work that way.” Just made it harder to stand up in a fight, when you could feel how much distress you were causing the other person. “Thought I knew him better than I did.” Or maybe he had gone into it assuming Ban would change, would lighten up, once they’d been together a while. He wasn’t sure if he’d even thought about it, at the time. They’d hooked up, and then everyone had started getting sick and before Zane had known what was happening they’d been together all the time, turned into a real couple. Hadn’t been time to argue, in early days, or find out much about each other except for the fact that they could blend their magic well enough to be a team. After that…
After that, Zane had been too damn bullheaded to admit that his friends were right about them moving too fast, and Ban… he didn’t know why Ban had stuck around when Zane clearly hadn’t been what he’d thought he’d signed up for. Maybe they’d both just been bullheaded, or Ban had bought into that same ‘love conquers all’ shit that Zane had. “I tried,” he said, softly. “Tried hard as I could. Felt real damn guilty tryin’ to ask him to meet me halfway.” No, that wasn’t quite right. For the first time since he and Ban had that bigass fight about Zane venting about their fights to Zach, he acknowledged out loud, “He made me feel guilty.” Finally, he looked up at Daniel. “Don’t think he meant to. But he did.” Fuck, what was he doing, spilling his guts like this? But, it felt safe. Daniel wasn’t going to laugh at him, or think he was weak. Just wasn’t like him. “Never actually did the whole relationship thing before. Guess I kinda suck at it.” And if that wasn’t a little pathetic, twenty-four now and this was what he had to show for it.
He’d done the self-pity thing enough, though. Daniel might have been good enough to listen to him for a while, but he couldn’t want to sit around and talk about Zane’s problems all night. He swiped the back of his hand over his eyes as viciously as he had his mouth, trying to hide all traces of lingering moisture. “Thanks. Guess I needed that.”
Daniel recognized the steps of self-blame to overall acceptance because he’d done it all himself, many times over. Sometimes it was easier just to blame yourself than it was to blame the other person for what went wrong, especially if you still cared for them. Even if it was partially their blame too. Like Zane was claiming, Daniel was also not exactly a relationship guru. Oh, he’d had them. He’d had plenty. Didn’t mean he was any good at them. His two major relationships had ultimately failed because both women had ended up dead, so if that wasn’t a giant crutch on his already limited emotional availability to open himself up to people, he didn’t know what was. He wasn’t entirely convinced those relationships wouldn’t have failed in some other way if they had survived, but the failure of his most recent endeavor would have been much easier to blame solely on himself. Maybe it was a little bit his fault, but while he might not know a whole hell of a lot about relationships, he knew that it usually took two people to break up. And he knew people well enough to know that sometimes, one person was always the one to naturally shift blame onto their significant other.
Not that Daniel was passing judgement, or anything. But in just the little that Zane had told him, it was pretty clear Ban was more comfortable in the role of shifting blame than Zane was. Daniel felt for Zane, he really did. Not just because he could in some ways relate to his current position as the supposed ‘failure’, whether that was true or not (Daniel firmly believed that at least, in Zane’s case, it absolutely wasn’t true). He also knew how hard it was to admit defeat long after it was already over. That was why Daniel had stayed silent, so he was sure, that at least on some level, that was one of the reasons Zane had been relatively silent about it as well. It almost made him smile to think how similar they actually were when it came to coping, but now didn’t really seem like the appropriate time to smile, so he bit it back.
“Whether he meant to make you feel that way or not, I think it’s important to acknowledge that part of the problem. It’s much easier to put it all on yourself, rather than concede that the other person’s actions were just as much a symptom of the bigger issue.” Daniel did smile then, before reaching around to the side of the desk closest to him and pulled out a drawer that revealed an unopened bottle of whiskey. Something told him it might be necessary, were they to continue along this line of conversation. He uncapped the bottle and moved from his chair to the floor in a combined effort to make himself more comfortable and to move close enough to Zane so that he could clink bottlenecks with the bottle Zane still held. “That makes two of us, my friend. Here’s to sucking at them, at least we do it with some style.”
He tipped his own bottle back and drank in a small amount before setting it down on the ground, drawing his knees up towards his chest and propping his elbows on them. This was a lot more comfortable than the chair, and he soon tilted his head back to rest against the cabinet behind him with a long sigh, only glancing at Zane briefly as he got the feeling the man was attempting to pull himself together. Daniel’s way of trying to give him some privacy despite his physical presence in the room contradicting it. “Anytime. I mean that.”
It took a few minutes for Zane's eyes to stop trying to leak. Might have been easier to just give in and cry over it, but it was going to take more alcohol before that would happen. Maybe by the bottom of that second bottle. He was grateful for Daniel giving him some pretend space to get himself back together, but maybe even more grateful that he hadn't actually left. He'd spent way too much time alone, lately. This was really fucking nice, even if it was embarrassing. He was sadly used to embarrassing. This was closer to good than he'd been in a while. For those few minutes, he sat on the floor, clutching the empty bottle, and let the heat of a body near enough his to touch if he wanted to remind him that, even single, he was less alone than he'd felt six months before. It helped.
What Daniel said, that helped, too. Didn’t mean Zane necessarily believed it yet. Might be a while before he did, but hearing it from someone else, someone who was willing to put an equal share of the blame on Zane instead of all on one or the other of them, made it a little easier to consider that maybe it was true. Hell, this point, he was so used to conceding that Ban was right that maybe it was just easier to trust someone else’s judgment on it than it was his own. At least he could recognize that was fucked up, now. Acknowledge it, even. Maybe Ban wasn’t a bad guy, but he hadn’t been good for Zane, and that was the simple truth of it, much as it hurt to admit it now. Zane had never questioned that he knew right from wrong before, had always thought it was easy to grasp, even if it was really, really hard to do the right thing sometimes. With Ban, he’d lost that, a little. He’d find it again, though. There was too much for him to do to let this break him. He cleared his throat, but his voice was still hoarse. “How the hell did you get so smart?” And how the hell did he do it without making Zane feel dumb? Maybe an even bigger mystery.
“Not sure how much style I did it with,” he admitted. “Ain’t been returning his calls. Or his texts. Tried to talk to me on the boards, and I ignored him there, too.” He snorted, not out of any real humor, but because what a fucking pussy move (and how badly would Ban have chewed him out for using ‘pussy’ as an insult? but he wasn’t listening in on Zane’s head anymore). “Don’t know if he wants to try to get back together with me, or lecture me. Maybe both. He’s probably told everyone I broke up with him because he’s black, by now.” It still felt a little traitorous, saying anything negative about Ban, when he knew how much Ban hated that, hated people hearing that shit. Just saying it, that helped make it all a little clearer in his head, though. “Ain’t th’ reason. Wouldn’ta given a fuck if he was black, white, yellow, or purple. But…” The next part came out in a burst, a rush to get it out now that it was okay. “Him bein’ black and me bein’ white was always gonna be more important to him than the fact I love him, and there ain’t nothin’ we could do to fix that.” God knew he’d tried. He’d have changed anything about himself if he could have fixed that for them, and that was the problem. “I’m a dumbass.” How many things were gonna start clicking in place in his head, now that he’d opened his mouth and started letting them out? Too many for one night, especially when the rest of that, the commiseration, was one of the things that had clicked.
Daniel could’ve just been talking about the past, but seemed strange that they were in R&D where Daniel’s ‘friend’ worked, talking about Daniel sucking at relationships like he wasn’t possibly at the beginning of one, if things Zane had heard had any basis in fact. He hadn’t spent much time with Tai, aside from handling the oaths and introducing him to the Heartstone, had been pretty sure that he wouldn’t actually get along with the guy if he tried, but when he’d seen him and Daniel together they’d always seemed pretty fond of each other. “What about, uh…” He squirmed, not quite looking at Daniel, cheeks a little flushed with embarrassment, because it was all gossip, and he knew better than to listen to gossip. “You have a, uh… fuck, look, you gotta know rumors got around. It’s a secret, which means everyone knows about it.” Fuck you, Harry Potter quotes were always appropriate. “Uh. Tai?” At least he hadn’t started the awkward personal questions. He was just a hell of a lot less elegant about it than Daniel.
“After a lot of practice at fucking up,” Daniel laughed darkly, a little self-deprecating, but no less true. He didn’t think he was all that smart, but if it was helping Zane even a little bit, he’d cop to it. He may not think he was that smart, but he did like to think he knew people. He’d always been intuitive, long before Morgaine and the word ‘intuitive’ took on an entirely different meaning. He knew people. He liked people. Well, the ones who weren’t actively trying to kill him and his whole family, anyway. But he liked Zane. He didn’t know Zane inside and out, but Daniel thought he was a good person who’d just gotten mixed up with someone who didn’t entirely appreciate him for who he was. And that was a real shame.
“You’re not a dumbass,” Daniel insisted, his tone gentle but not at all patronizing. He understood the self-deprecation Zane was currently going through because he felt it all too often himself, every time he failed at something or someone, but seeing it reflected in front of him like a mirror in Zane, he didn’t much care for it. And he didn’t like seeing a friend in that much pain. They may have separated themselves from people around the same time, but his situation was far different from Zane’s. He hadn’t been engaged to Tai, not even close. Daniel couldn’t begin to imagine what it felt like to lose that. He offered Zane his freshly opened bottle, since it seemed like he’d finally drained the last of his. “You cared about someone and tried to make the best of things. There’s no wrong in that. Unfortunately, sometimes it doesn’t matter how much we love someone, they can still turn out to be entirely wrong for us.”
… Zane’s direct question about Tai actually caught Daniel off guard, and he was quick to turn his head a little to get his facial expressions under control, running a hand over the back of his head as he struggled to pull together some kind of half-assed explanation. It wasn’t fair of him, he’d just made Zane confess so much in such a short time when he didn’t have to. He should level the playing field and open up, but he wasn’t even sure how to begin explaining Tai to anyone. Perhaps it was better to start with someone who didn’t know Tai very well, and Zane definitely qualified. Still scratching at his head, Daniel let out an awkward laugh. “Yes, well, I expected as much. I should really rename this place Hogwarts. Seems more fitting than Camelot. Yes, Tai and I…. Well. We were Tai and I.”
Shouldn’t make Zane nearly tear up again, hearing someone tell him that so gently, so nicely, but fuck it, he was drunk. He got to get overly emotional about weird shit, like the fact that Ban would have told him he wasn’t a dumbass but qualified it with the fact that he was just ignorant, uneducated, and Ban would teach ‘im, fix ‘im, make ‘im better. Wasn’t much call to be comparing Daniel and Ban, but it was a sad state that someone who was newly a friend came out better than a man who’d said he loved him. He took the bottle with a shaky smile, tossed down another shot’s worth, and returned it with a muttered, ‘thanks’. If this had been Zach, and the conversation lighter, he’d have draped himself casually over him by now. He hadn’t figured out the rules with Daniel, yet, but the temptation to lean on him physically as much as he’d been doing it emotionally was strong. He doubted Daniel would push him away, but he didn’t want to make things awkward, either. He liked being friends with Daniel, liked it in a pure, untainted kind of way that had nothing to do with anything but the fact that he felt like himself when he was in the man’s company.
So, he kept his hands and feet to himself, aside from a maybe not so accidental brush of hand against hand when he gave the bottle back. “First, gonna be comin’ back to the fact that you knew exactly what I was quotin’, and discuss this Camelot equals Hogwarts deal, ‘cause I got a list of comparisons I haven’t been able to share with anybody.” Daniel may have made a big mistake, giving Zane even the slightest hint he liked Harry Potter, because Zane wasn’t going to let that go.
He made himself put it aside for the moment, though, because Daniel had been a great friend for him, and he was going to do his damndest to return the favor. “Were, huh? I, uh… look, you know I’m shit on the relationship thing, but…” He took a deep breath, tried to find the right words. Words had never been this thing, he’d never been good at them, except maybe finding the right song for the moment, since Vanyel had turned up. “Breakin’ up sucks. And mine sucks a little less, now that you know about it, so maybe yours will too, if you share it with me.” Not eloquent, maybe, but he meant every word. He wouldn’t be offended, if Daniel decided to keep it to himself, but he wanted to be there for him, same way Daniel had been for him.
Daniel didn’t mind sharing the details with Zane, he just wasn’t sure where to start. What to say, what to leave out. He was hesitant to say anything at all because he didn’t want to make anyone feel like they had to take sides. There were no sides. Tai had made his choice, and Daniel had respected it. Honestly? That had been the end of it. Not the whole story, obviously, but he could have just left it at that if he’d wanted to. He chose not to, simply because Zane had trusted him enough with so much already, and more importantly, Daniel felt like he could trust him with at least the same. The fact that Zane felt even a little bit better after telling him meant enough to Daniel that he couldn’t in good conscience not reciprocate. It wouldn’t be very polite, after all. He believed that friendship was a two-way street, and if you couldn’t meet someone halfway, then there wasn’t any point in trying. That had been the major problem between him and Tai. Neither of them could compromise enough for the other, because as much as the truth of it stung, they just weren’t meant to be anything other than friends. Of course, they weren’t even friends now, but sometimes that was the price you had to pay.
After four years of leading Camelot, Daniel had learned how to pick and choose his regrets well. Too many could drive a man crazy, and it had taken some practice, but he had soon effectively learned how to compartmentalize. He used to resent that quality in his father, thought it was responsible for making the man so cold towards his family in those early childhood years. Now that the burden of leadership was on his own shoulders, he understood a little more why it was necessary. Daniel could compartmentalize what had happened with Tai easily, but he didn’t mind talking about it with Zane. Even if he’d suddenly much rather be talking about Harry Potter, of which Daniel was a glorified closet fan of. A small smile stretched across his face at Zane’s segway, silently taking a small bit of comfort in the brief contact between their hands as Zane passed the bottle back. Things had crashed and burned with Tai so fast, but Daniel had already gotten used to being in regular physical contact with someone. The sudden absence of that, Daniel found, was harder to get used to again than some other things.
“You are wise beyond your years, Zane Rosen. I’m afraid you have me there,” Daniel chuckled, stretching out a little more where he sat with a low sigh. He hadn’t spoken to anyone about Tai, not before and certainly not after. It was strange, in a way, to be talking about it now, to Zane of all people. But it also felt weirdly right. He wasn’t sure why, perhaps it was simply because they got along so well, so soon. Daniel didn’t miss much, he noticed when he clicked with someone, and surprisingly, he and Zane had proved to be very compatible in the simplest of ways. It wasn’t often that Daniel met someone who he could just sit and talk with. Or drink with. He had secretly come to look forward to these nights with Zane, and though he never said as much, he was grateful for them. They’d really saved him, especially this last month as other things in his personal life had started to fall apart.
“Honestly, it ended before it even started. I’m not sure you can call it a break-up when you were never in a relationship to begin with. We were simply… on the path.” Didn’t mean it hurt any less, cutting ties with someone important in your life was never easy. He’d been friends with Tai for a long time, so he had lost much more than just a potential significant other. You would think Daniel would be used to loss by now, but the thing was, it never got any easier. He was just slowly learning to take it more in stride. His smile noticeably faded as he turned his gaze to stare down into the bottle he now held between his legs. “He, uh. Had trouble adjusting to the kind of demands my type of position comes with. And admittedly, I don’t think I gave him much time to get used to it. There wasn’t much to be done, after a certain point. It wasn’t going to work. Naturally, I blame myself. My fault. It was too much for him. Needless to say, he's no longer with Camelot either.”
“Bullshit.” The word burst out before Zane could consider it, or soften it. Thinking about it, he didn’t actually want to. “That’s bullshit. If mine ain’t all my fault, yours ain’t all yours.” He had to blink and shake his head, going back over that sentence to be sure it made sense. Eh, too late now. “You been leadin’ Camelot since before you started the… thing. On the path. He shoulda known what he was gettin’ into, if he knew you at all. Shouldn’ta needed any time to adjust, shoulda already known.” In Zane’s mind, it should have been obvious that being with someone in Daniel’s position, that was going to mean that personal life had to get sacrificed for the good of others, more often than you’d like. ‘Course, Van and his loved ones had done a whole lot of that, so it was an idea Zane was used to. He had a real hard time feeling bad for Tai on that one, especially since Daniel was looking pretty damn sad over it, and that just wasn’t right.
There was more Zane could have said, like that maybe it wasn’t that it was too much, it was that Tai wasn’t enough to handle it, but… Daniel probably didn’t want to hear it any more than Zane had, and he’d been kind enough to not bash Ban. He changed tracks. “Ain’t easy to love someone with that kinda responsibility, sure, but the right person’s gonna stand with you and help carry the load, not expect you to dump part of it so you can hold his hand.” Tai just hadn’t been right for him, that was all. Didn’t mean it was Daniel’s fault, no more’n… oh. No more than it had been Zane’s that there were those differences he and Ban could never quite bridge. Yeah, okay, he got it.
Fuck it. Zane reached over and squeezed Daniel’s arm. “Sorry ‘bout your friend. You didn’t deserve that.” As much sharing as they’d done, he felt like a hand on the arm was probably okay, for the few second that he allowed it to stay, counting silently in his head to five before drawing it back to his own lap. That hadn’t been too long, not so long as to be creepy, he didn’t think. Social cues were hard when you were drunk.
Zane’s outburst brought a genuine smile to Daniel’s face that didn’t immediately fade. It touched him, how immediately the man was ready to jump to his defense. In some ways, Daniel agreed with him, though he wondered if that was just his father talking. Matthew Morgan had always been particularly adamant that those in leadership positions should seek out partners who wouldn’t hinder by being threatened by them, merely rise to the occasion. At the time, Daniel had thought it was just another symptom of Matthew Morgan’s infamous snobbery, but to some extent, he began to see truth in it later in life. Now that he was in his father’s position, a place he’d never dreamed he’d be when he was a teenager looking up to his older brother, he realized how important it was to surround yourself with people capable of compassion and understanding. Julian had been responsible for much of the positive change in Matthew later on, while still keeping the man’s head firmly onto his shoulders.
Daniel’s fatal flaw was that he was just too over-sensitive of the people around him. No matter what he did, somebody always ended up getting hurt because of him, one way or another. It was easier for Daniel to put the blame on himself because he was the person in charge. Easily the one with the most responsibility, and therefore, the most room for blame since he should have known better. He knew it was hypocritical of him, especially after he’d just gotten through telling Zane how he couldn’t put the blame solely on himself. Somehow he got the feeling that wouldn’t fly with this one. Daniel fully realized that for as much conviction as he possessed, he was also often a person who didn’t always follow through on his own advice. He could admit to that. It was nice to meet a person who actually called him on his bullshit.
“Well when you say it like that, you make my job actually sound important.” Daniel laughed softly, not bothering to hide how much Zane’s words actually touched him despite him making a joke out of it. That was merely a defensive mechanism. Most of the men in his family had it, so it might as well be genetic. He was grateful, at least that Zane hadn’t taken to bashing Tai in his defense, Daniel honestly didn’t have the strength or the sobriety to defend him at the moment. Zane was still right. The right person would stick around. The problem was that Daniel was secretly terrified that the right person was either already dead or was doomed to be as a direct result of simply being linked to him. That kind of deep seeded fear tended to put a damper on anything romantic, at least as far as his track record showed.
“He was the first…” He murmured, immediately trailing off as he swallowed hard, suddenly wishing he’d never brought it up and was now silently praying for Zane to change the subject. Tai wasn’t his first, obviously, Daniel was no thirty-year-old virgin. But he was the first man Daniel had ever chosen to get close to like this. He was fully aware his sexuality had always been somewhat of a constant ongoing mystery for those who loved to gossip, and while Daniel had never sought to label himself for the public, he’d always known that when it came to love, he was never looking for any one particular type. Not wishing to dwell, Zane’s hand on his arm thankfully jolted him out of his brief daze and Daniel glanced at him gratefully, momentarily reaching over to place his hand over Zane’s once he’d let go. The brief physical contact certainly didn’t bother him, but he also pulled away before it could be construed as creepy. “Thank you, friend. You didn’t deserve that either.”
Zane had spent enough time around Zach to recognize the family defense mechanism, and greeted it with a small huff, a sort of a silent laugh. “Yeah, just a little.” He’d said something right, that much he could tell, and that was a huge fucking relief. For once, he’d actually managed to get what he was feeling into words. Figured it’d be when he was at that point of drunk when he wouldn’t remember how to make it happen again in the morning. Or maybe he would. It had been strangely easy, with the shared problem to fall back on. Relationships sucked. Well, no, Zane might be willing to give real relationships another chance to prove themselves. Just one more, and if he screwed it up (they screwed it up, that’s what Daniel would say) again, he was calling it quits and sticking with lots of casual sex for the rest of his life. When the relationship failed, that was what sucked, and he guessed he could say he knew what he was talking about on that one for sure, now.
As for what Tai had been the ‘first’ of, Zane couldn’t quite figure it out. He was pretty sure it wasn’t Daniel’s first time, or first relationship. First time with a guy? Maybe, wasn’t like he bothered keeping tabs on his boss’s dating history. That was just rude, and nosy. Now, with them being friends now, he had a right to be nosy. Didn’t really matter what the guy had been first of, though, because firsts were always a big deal. Hell, Zane still remembered his first time, and it’d been some guy he’d picked up in a bar when he’d been eighteen and sneaking in with a fake ID. Losing your first anything, that was gonna sting something fierce, and he grimaced sympathetically. The return touch, though, that was nice. Meant that Daniel didn’t mind him being a little handsy while drunk, which might be kind of important if they were going to keep drinking together. “Neither of us deserve to feel like shit, I guess. Or havin’ to tell everyone about it. Shit, Zach’s gonna say he told me so. He ain’t gonna be a dick about it, but I hate tellin’ him he’s right.” He’d suck it up though, and admit that Zach had known what he was talking about, that he’d just been looking out for him after all.
Now, though, Zane didn’t really want to talk about it anymore. Little bit at a time, though he wasn’t dumb enough to think that he’d finished dealing with everything that had happened with Ban yet, and he doubted Daniel was done dealing with whatever had gone down with Tai in full. Maybe not right then, though. It was good enough to get the wound out in the open and let it bleed a little. Buoyed by the alcohol and the warmth of human contact for the first time in two weeks, he leaned in a little closer, trying to keep his face as serious as he could. “Right now, though, I got a real important question for ya.”
He waited a beat, then managed to summon up a grin from a place that was starting to heal, just a little. “What House?”