We met at the disco

[Raphael Malai]

"Or you'll do what?" Raphael retorted, feeling angrier than he had ever felt in his life. Not only anger but outrage and deep, deep resentment. Not towards Rhys—never towards Rhys. Resentment towards the system and the unfairness that had oppressed him throughout his life. The fact that merely because he was born into poverty, his life was forfeit.

They dragged him from his home when he was six years old. Took him to the castle. Destroyed his body and took his soul and put it into the body of a dead noble boy, and expected him to be okay with it. All because he was a 'nobody' and no one cared what he thought or felt or wanted. And if he said anything—anything at all—they would have killed his mother and father and siblings, because no one valued their lives either, except as bargaining chips.

So yes. Raphael was a little upset.

"Make me." He held the pants up higher, virtually taunting Rhys now with them, flaunting his so-called authority in his face.

[Rhys McCabe]

I'll call the guards! was an old favorite. But here was the problem with that: there were no guards. There wasn't even a Keith. There was nothing but himself and Raphael and a pair of wet pants. And for some reason, those pants set off more anger than he could even express. But he was pissed. He was angry that he'd grown wings and that he corrupted himself trying to get them off and that the blight hurt like a bitch and that he'd hidden in a bathroom for probably an hour or two while everybody else chilled out here.

And he was pissed that when he came out to nothing but silence that he didn't like it. And he was pissed that Raphael asked such a moronic question that shook his stupid hand into stupidity, which ended up in this. In THIS.

"Fine," he said. "Don't fucking eat the pants, Raphael." He pushed the books off the table. "Or don't put them on your head like a jackass." He grasped the pants that he'd tossed away and shoved them down, as if he could just make Raphael let go of them, drop them for whatever reason. "What, you're going to leave the books now?"

[Raphael Malai]

What could he ever do to Raphael that hadn't been done to him already? Boss him around? His whole life he'd done that! Glare at him? Better than being looked through as though he didn't exist, maybe, but so what? Just because things weren't going his way now, Rhys was going to start taking his anger and frustrations out on Raphael? Make a punching bag out of him because he couldn't handle a little adversity?

Well punching bags could hit back too! They swung back when punched and if a person wasn't careful, they could get knocked down on their ass!

He made an outraged noise when Rhys pushed the books off the table, nostrils flaring. Those books belonged to Bee! Bee loved them! He had collected them! For Rhys to blatantly disrespect them like that, it was unforgivable! Raphael kept a tight hold on the pants, refusing to let them go. Now Rhys was talking sheer nonsense, telling him to not eat them or put them on his head. He wasn't going to anyway!

And Rhys was the contrarian, not Raphael!

"Pick them up." He stepped into Rhys' space, eyes blazing. "Pick up the books! You have no right to do that to someone else's things! You can be a jerk to me all you want, and you have been your whole life, but don't you dare disrespect Prince Bee!"

[Rhys McCabe]

"No."

He wasn't picking up any goddamn books. He put them there, why would he pick them up? Because Raphael tried to tell him what to do? And what did he think he was doing, stepping straight up into his space? Did he think it was enough to make him back up? Because it wasn't. Rhys would rather die than do a lot of things and one of them was deferring to somebody beneath him.

"Did you tell Prince Niall to pick up the books, Raphael?"

As he recalled, the books had been kicked around before by somebody else and where was Raphael then? Oh right, in the back room with the hunter boyfriend of PRINCE NIALL.

"Did you hold onto Prince Jack's pants?" Sheer lunacy; this situation was too strange to have occurred more than once.

"Do you want to serve Prince BEE?" He let go of the pants and stepped back. "You'd rather disrespect me, your actual prince. If you didn't defect, I'd dismiss you right now." He took another step back. His voice lowered. "And keep your wings. I'm going home where I won't need such frippery. Real or otherwise."

He moved past Raphael and back into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him, this time with a definite teenager style slam. What the hell was happening to him? He could not... keep it together. As soon as Raphael talked about another prince, everything started... falling apart. His eyes stung and his stomach hurt and he could not fucking believe it--something escaped and dripped onto the linoleum floor. One, two. Plip, plop. Not blood. Fucking. Tears. He was so fucking frustrated. He jammed his palms into his eyes and sank down. He hated. Everything.

[Raphael Malai]

(Ooooh he so jaaaalous)

What?

What?!

Prince Niall? Prince Jack? Hold on to his pants?! Why did Rhys make that sound so... so lurid? Raphael could only gape at him, shocked into silence again. Why was Rhys saying their names like that?! Why did it sound like he was insinuating that... that Raphael had been unfaithful? It sounded very much like that. Like he was bringing up past lovers or something, the way couples did when they got into a big fight—Raphael had heard one such argument out on the street, between a fuming couple.

"You—"

Rhys stormed past him and slammed the bathroom door, leaving him holding a pair of damp pants and shaking with anger and hurt and disbelief. "You—" He turned and marched himself right up to the bathroom door. Flung the pants at the door as hard as he could, so hard that he hurt his shoulder. "YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A JEALOUS ASSHOLE RHYS MCCABE!" He shouted at the top of his lungs at the door.

"I'VE NEVER SERVED ANOTHER PRINCE IN MY LIFE! AND I NEVER WILL! AND THAT INCLUDES YOU! YOU BOOK-THROWING JERK!"

He marched off, still shaking, with tears stinging his own eyes. How could Rhys even think that he would serve another prince? When Raphael told him—more than once!—that he was in love with him and could never be happy without him? Jealous asshole! Because that was what it was—jealousy. Raphael might have been naive but even he knew a thing or two. Rhys wouldn't bring up other princes—Jack, Niall, Bee—if he didn't like the thought of Raphael serving them. But to say that he would dismiss Raphael!

To still treat him like a servant instead of an equal! That was the last straw!

Raphael stormed out of the front door and he slammed that behind him, too. He took himself across the courtyard and banged on Professor Jack's door.

[Jack Ripley]

(Oooh he is, frand. He mad jelly.)

"Oh, I was never any good at hunting. Of any kind. I actually, this one time, just let the bow slide out of my hand, it hit real hard in me willy, straight down, just like... bam! Arrow barely missed me foot, too!"

Jack stared as Niall rubbed his foot--he'd promptly taken his shoes off when he arrived--as if the arrow did actually hit his foot and he was remembering it. Then Jack looked over at Brayden. He could have been still watching Brayden sleep... but he had to admit, Niall was kind of amusing. Although Marge wasn't kidding about him being a talker.

"I was actually in the archery club at Harvard," Jack said. "If you're still interested--"

A sudden and violent banging on his door made him jump and he turned toward the door in utter disbelief. Heart still hammering in his chest, he got up and went for the door as quickly as possible, afraid one of his friends was going to be half dead. Instead, he found himself looking at...

"Raphael? What are you doing here?"

Didn't Marge put him under some spell? Uh... Uh oh...

[Brayden Smith]

Bray actually had no idea what to make of Niall, but... he liked him. He liked his talkative nature and his overly friendly approach to meeting new people... by telling them everything about himself, pertinent or not. Words came from Niall like a torrent, and even someone who was used to being talked over was stunned at how rapidly Niall switched from topic to topic.

He sat beside Jack, bemused, amused. The long nap had done him a world of good; Bray felt a lot like himself. He'd even put some soup on the stove to heat up, feeling hungry and having eaten nothing all day. It was about time for some TLC! Jack could use it too. And Niall, and his hunter partner, whenever he showed up.

The resemblance between brothers was uncanny, though. Bray couldn't stop staring at them both. Curly dark hair, hazel eyes. Same effortless sense of style—though Niall's was a bit more... bold than Jack's. Both of them were extroverts, that was plain to see, and confident. Bray couldn't help but smile as Niall rubbed his foot, feeling some kind of phantom pain there as he described his mishaps with hunting.

Then—the banging. Bray started to his feet but Jack got to the door first and opened it to a teary-eyed Raphael. "He's just a big JERK!" Raphael shouted as he stormed inside and promptly threw himself down onto the couch, crying up a storm. His head landed in Bray's lap, so Bray gently stroked the back of his head as he stared wide-eyed at Jack and then at Niall.

"He—" Raphael sniffled. "He's a jealous big stupid book-throwing big stupid jerk! I can't believe he would even think I'd serve another prince!" When he looked up at them all, his face was splotchy red and his eyes were swimming in tears. "Can you believe he would say that?! And—and he still thinks of me as nothing but a servant!" Raphael spat the word out with venom in his tone. "A servant he gets to boss around forever!" His head fell heavily back into Bray's lap and he continued sobbing into his thigh.

[Jack Ripley]

"Well... all right then."

Jack closed the door, stunned by Raphael's rather dramatic entrance. So... Marge wasn't kidding when she said there was a lot of drama stirring over in the other apartment. And it seemed like all of the... Ripley brothers (for lack of any other name for them) were all very much entrenched in drama. Maybe it was just... genetic. Their father must be quite the drama queen himself.

"Who?" Niall asked. "Are you talking about the lad we talked about before I left? Was my advice bad? Ooooh, I knew I shouldn't be giving advice." Niall grabbed his own head. Dramatics. Jack sighed as he made his way back over to the couch and looked over at Brayden. Was this real life? Was this their life from this moment on? There would never be room for a family of their own; they would forever be mired in all their adopted children's antics. And brothers.

Also, who let Niall give advice? Jack let out a breath and shook his head at the sheer insanity.

"What advice," Jack asked, pinching the bridge of his nose, "did you give him, Niall?"

"What? I just, I told him to straddle him--"

Jack's hm was not one of total approval.

"--and look him in the eyes and tell him how important he was to him!"

Jack's next hm and head nod was more approving.

"I swear!" Niall put up both hands. "I mean, it worked for me. I don't know if that's exactly how it happened but it was something like that..." Niall looked to Raphael helplessly, reaching out as if to touch him, then looking like he thought better of it. And then thought again and reached over to pet his back soothingly. "If he thinks of you as a servant, then he's all wrong for you. I was wrong when I said he loved you, I just thought he did because all I know is Kenny, you know, and Kenny isn't good with words and he looked jealous as hell when he saw you leave with Kenny. Okay I was jealous a little, too so maybe I was doing that wordy thing that means I put my feelings on him. I misread him, I'm sorry."

[Brayden Smith]

The sobs didn't last long, thankfully; they were like the sudden storm outside, here and gone in a matter of minutes. But the aftermath was sure to be ugly; it was sure to have wide-spread consequences. Like them ever having a normal life. Like that beautiful golden vision of children and a dog and a home together ever happening when they were so busy taking care of everyone else.

Yet, Bray couldn't blame any of them. They didn't come here with the intention of disrupting Jack's and his life.

He stroked Raphael's hair as the crying stopped, and all there was left were sniffles. "I asked him if he loved me," He said, voice muffled into Bray's lap. "And he--he spilled tea on himself on purpose to avoid answering it!" The tear-stained face reappeared. "It's not your fault prince Niall! You--your advice was good! Rhys is just a big JERK! He was telling me not to pick up books or clean up and he--he took off his pants and threw them across the room and he said don't you dare pick them up like he was talking to a slave! He doesn't own me! He had no right to do those things!"

Yikes. Sounded like it all went out of control, but also that maybe wires had gotten crossed somewhere. Rhys telling him not to pick up things didn't sound like a man talking to a servant; he would have if he ordered Raphael to pick them up, if anything. Bray gently tried to ease himself out from under Raphael. "I think... I should go and check on my apartment," he said softly, while Raphael buried his face into the couch cushions. "Maybe he shouldn't be left alone in there."

"He's hiding in the bathroom," Raphael sniffled. "Big stupid jerk!"

[Rhys McCabe]

Once he got some kind of handle on himself, Rhys felt like a fool.

His problem was that he was not in the least bit accustomed to these... feelings. Some of them were so unnecessarily strong, too. Enough to knock a man off his feet if he wasn't careful. And some of them were not easy to identify with. The last time Rhys felt things, he had been a child, where his emotions were simple. Happy, sad, angry, excited, curious. Now, the emotions were stronger and they were more nuanced. What seemed like a certain feeling wasn't quite that feeling.

Like all that anger; he was seeing now, alone in the bathroom, that maybe it wasn't just anger. Or even frustration. Oh, there was anger and frustration but they were layered over other emotions, the ones that caused the anger, the frustration.

Rhys couldn't even remember the last time he felt this huge, ugly ball of feelings inside his chest and the pit of his gut, like a big knot he couldn't quite swallow. It was taking over, pushing emotions out in physical forms, like tears.

Embarrassing--but he was glad they were behind closed doors so he could wash them quickly away.

It took him a moment to calm down. He didn't know how long he sat on the floor with his hands on his eyes, willing the feelings of frustration and jealousy and hurt to go away. Why was he even hurt, anyway? Something about the way Raphael talked about Prince Bee really set him off. Not expected, probably by either of them.

But eventually, the feeling slowly subsided. It didn't disappear but it became more manageable. He was able to get up. Wash his face. Wonder what he was doing here. What to do next. Rhys sat on the lid of the toilet. This was it, then. He... should go. Back home. But he had to find a way out of the apartment. To find a weakness in the ward to escape through. Or...

He had his phone. Where did he leave it? He sat in silence for a long, long time. Finally, he mustered up his courage and left the bathroom, peering down the hall. Everything was so still and quiet. It was probably on the couch somewhere. Or... He looked down at the pants they'd fought over. Leaning down, he started to pick up the pants when he heard the front door opening. Quickly, Rhys grabbed the pants and pulled them into the bathroom with him.

[Brayden Smith]

For the very young and inexperienced, one wrong word taken out of context could blow everything up. They felt too strongly about everything; they read too much into each word sometimes, when cooler heads needed to prevail. Bray had never been that type but he knew people like that. He knew that in the grip of love, feeling the way Raphael undoubtedly felt about Rhys, it wasn't easy to take a step back to reassess the situation and to see things for what they were.

Spilling tea after being asked a significant question didn't necessarily mean avoidance. Perhaps Rhys was caught off-guard. Or it could have been a sudden reaction. Whatever Raphael thought, Bray imagined that things weren't half as bad as he made them out to be. Plus, everyone was coddling Raphael but there was another side to the story too--there was another person who was hurt by all this.

He entered his own apartment in time to see someone bolting back into the bathroom with bare legs flashing and a pair of pants trailing behind him. Bray waited a moment, taking it to pick up the scattered books and to frown at the tea stain on his couch. Ah, well--that could be washed out. After a decent length of time had passed, he went to the bathroom and knocked lightly on the door.

"Hello? Rhys? Are you okay in there? My name is Brayden. Would you come out and talk to me, please?"

[Rhys McCabe]

Oh, great. It was the amazing Bee. As if he hadn't heard enough about him from everybody who knew him. Naturally, Rhys didn't trust people who were beloved by everyone. To him, that wasn't possible. Somebody had to hate him. Maybe it was him. Maybe Rhys was the one to hate him.

Logically, he knew he wasn't making any sense but he was still struggling with the idiotic fight he just had with Raphael. When he looked back on it with a calmer mind, it embarrassed him greatly. He never got angry. There wasn't enough in him to care about anything enough to get that mad. But boy, grow a little wings and suddenly, he cared.

Rhys sighed and rolled his eyes. Should he tell him to go away? Why did he even want to talk? To convince him to apologize for hurting Raphael's feelings? Well, what about his feelings? Where did that idiot get off asking that question anyway?! How many times did Rhys have to say these wings on his back? They were Raphael's fault. That was admission enough. And he'd said it more than once now.

Taking in a breath, he reminded himself that Brayden was just another fairy prince stuck here on the human side. Slowly, Rhys got up and opened the bathroom door again, phone in hand. The wet pants were in the hamper. But he had fished the phone out.

"I'll be out of your hair as soon as they take the wards down," he said to Brayden with a haughty tilt of the head. "I was about to call another servant of mine to come and get me."

[Brayden Smith]

One thing the Ripley brothers had in common, Bray was beginning to find out, was their collective refusal to wear a full set of clothes. The person emerging from the bathroom was clad in... almost nothing. Underwear. No shirt, no pants. (No service?) Bray kept his eyes to himself, though, and only focused on the young man's haughty expression.

He did a very good job of appearing aloof, Bray thought. One of those people who were adept at pushing others away with a flick of the eyes and a sneer. But despite that, there was nothing truly unlikable about him. Nothing deeply, personally offensive. He was simply young. Inexperienced. That could be forgiven, surely.

Smiling in the face of his oh-so-unaffected facade, Bray stepped back to allow him some room. "You're welcome to stay for as long as you want." He spoke in a soft voice, not unlike the type of tone one might adopt with a skittish stray. Someone calm and collected was what Rhys needed, he thought—not someone who would fan the flames, like another little hothead surging with volatile emotions.

"Well before you do that, maybe we can find you something to wear? I heard you were injured. Your back. Do you think a robe would be okay to wear, until your--servant gets here?"

[Rhys McCabe]

"I don't want to stay."

He wanted to leave. He wanted home. He wanted his huge bathing chambers back, his soft bed with its enormous four posts, the ability to be alone whenever he asked for privacy. He wanted to go back to feeling nothing, so he could sleep well at night. These wings brought nothing but heartache and he didn't want it. Nothing to do with it. He didn't want to have a volatile temper, he didn't like feeling angry, he didn't like being frustrated to the point of tears, he didn't like feeling misunderstood, he didn't like the way it felt when his words hit so hard that the actually did some damage. Maybe he always had that power but it never hurt him before.

"My pants are wet," he said tiredly. "I don't want anything on my back. If you have pants you can spare... I suppose I'll take them."

Then he lifted the phone. "In the meantime, if you'll excuse me..."

He moved past Brayden into the living room. Again. It was quiet again and everything was tidied but the stain on the couch was conspicuous. Rhys sat at the dining table and chose Keith's name from his contacts.

[Brayden Smith]

"All right. I'll find you a pair of pants." Bray moved towards the chest of drawers and the closet to assess what he had that might fit Rhys. There was a height difference but it wasn't terribly large. Maybe a few inches... He dug around until he found a pair of sweat pants that used to belong to Wyatt, which were loose-fitting enough and long enough in the legs to fit Rhys. Luckily he hadn't thrown it away... although he really ought to have, since Wyatt hadn't lived with him for about three years.

When he emerged from the bedroom, Rhys was seated at the dining table, so Bray set the neatly folded sweat pants down. So as not to pry or eavesdrop, he went to the kitchen to fill two glasses with lemon water and briefly sipped one while bringing the other back. Bray sat down opposite him, pushing the glass of water towards him.

"I'll try to talk to Marge about lowering whatever defenses she put up." He curled his fingers around his own glass of water. "If you really want to leave, we won't stop you. We're not here to take hostages." To confine Rhys to this apartment was cruel. He knew Marge and everyone else meant well, and that they were only trying to help, but this wasn't the way to go about it. If Rhys didn't want to join them, he shouldn't be forced to. Besides, he was more than old enough to make his own decisions.

"But..." He weighed his words here, trying to find a way to speak his thoughts without offending Rhys. "I think all of us would like you to stay. Including Raphael."