We met at the disco

[Rhys McCabe]

Well, calling Keith turned out to be a huge mistake. Change in management? What was going on with them? Rhys wished he still had contact with his father but whatever they used to ward him inside this place also appeared to ward his father out. The last time he saw his father, it was in that cafe mirror. He hadn't even been gone that long and everything apparently went to shit.

Also, now that Brayden was sitting across from him, Rhys didn't feel that comfortable speaking on the phone anymore. He made a hasty goodbye and clicked out of the call, not feeling entirely good about what had just transpired. Rhys didn't agree to anything but... Why was Keith targeting Brayden now? Still fucking playing his games. No wonder Keith was out and Pax was in. His father could control Pax in a way he couldn't control Keith.

Setting the phone face down, he pushed it down beside the glass of lemon water set before him. He wrinkled his nose as Brayden brought up Marge.

"Tell that to her. She thinks if she traps me with Raphael that we'll become the two of you."

And then wouldn't that just fix everything for them, tied neatly in a little bow? That wasn't how it was going to work. Rhys wasn't Jack and Raf wasn't Brayden. They were different people under different circumstances. And obviously, Marge's fucking plan didn't work. Pushing the two of them together only caused an explosion, not lovey-dovey sparks.

"And I highly doubt that." He took the sweatpants and sighed, pulling them on, standing to pull them on over his rump and then sitting back down. They were the last type of thing he would normally wear but he hardly had any choices here. All of his own clothes were back at the other apartment he would never see again.

[Brayden Smith]

The phone call sounded strained and strange. Bray didn't know who Rhys called but apparently they weren't much help, and it wasn't long before Rhys was hanging up on his other servant. It didn't sound to Bray like plans had been made to break him out. If anything, Rhys claimed that he would find his own way out, and whatever his servant said after that was displeasing to him.

Bray laughed—he couldn't help himself. "I hope you two don't become like us... But Marge probably just wants to see you happy, because you're Jack's brother and she cares a lot about Jack and everyone around him. Her—ah—personality takes some getting used to but she's not that bad, really. When Jack and I were just starting out, she gave me a bottle of wine to try and get us drunk so that we'd... get intimate." His smile was embarrassed, but amused, as he thought back to that night. It felt like years ago! "That's the way she operates, you see."

He politely averted his gaze as Rhys pulled the sweatpants on, and luckily they were a reasonable fit. Rhys was skeptical that everyone—or maybe only Raphael—wanted him to stay, but Bray couldn't think of a single person who wanted him to leave! Again he thought for a brief while before he spoke. "Raphael was very upset, but I think he would be devastated if you actually left. He told us a little about what happened here, but I thought maybe someone ought to come and hear you side of the story. If you don't mind telling me what happened. It sounds like there was just a misunderstanding between you two."

[Rhys McCabe]

"Well she operates like a psychopath." And he should know psychopaths. He had just been talking to one over the phone! And fat lot of good he did anybody.

Rhys looked sourly down at his glass of water but he took a small sip from it. Feeling as unwell as he did, the water would probably do him some good. He hadn't had anything to eat or drink since... Well, he didn't even get to drink at the cafe date that failed spectacularly. Honestly, he couldn't remember when he'd had anything to eat or drink and it was probably contributing to the general sense of malaise he was feeling.

His sip ended up being the entire glass. Apparently his body was thirsty and who was he to argue right now? It seemed like most of the fight in him had flagged after that ridiculous display with the pants and the books. Not anything he felt like divulging to a total stranger. He wasn't Raphael. Or that irritating Niall.

"We fought and he ran away. Not much to tell."

[Brayden Smith]

"...I can see why you'd say that." Margie did have a habit of trying to strong-arm everything. Now, she did it out of the goodness of her heart but it took a lot of understanding and getting used to. Accepting that Marge was going to have her way eventually helped ease things along. Then again, not everyone was as passive as Brayden...

"You fought over books and pants, right?" Bray stood up to refill the glass, since Rhys was thirsty enough to down the whole thing in one go! He brought the pitcher back too, in case Rhys wanted to have more. There was also still a pot of soup in the fridge that he noticed while retrieving the water, and he put that on to heat in case Rhys felt like eating something a little heartier.

"Raphael seemed to think you still see him as a servant." Bray sipped his own water pensively. "But you were telling him... not to do things that servants did, weren't you?"

[Rhys McCabe]

This guy was a doormat. No wonder whatever that woman did worked for them. Rhys pointed out his friend was a psychopath and he just said oh I see how you can think that! Unbelievable. And he knew about the fucking books and pants. Lovely. What did Raphael tell him? Every sordid detail? About the tea spilling? Well he had to, if he knew about the damned pants.

Without really thinking about it, he took the refilled glass and took another drink but this time managed to only drink half the glass. Now that he thought about it, every time he tried to drink today, the world seemed against it. No coffee, no tea... At least the water wasn't getting flung around.

"He's the one acting like a damn servant," he said stormily. "If he doesn't want to be seen as one, he should stop acting like one."

[Brayden Smith]

"Well now, some habits are hard to get out of. He's been serving you his entire life, hasn't he? Maybe he does those things without really thinking about it, because it's become second-nature." That was sad, wasn't it? To live his entire life serving others... It was a role that placed Raphael beneath the person he served. By definition, servants were inferior; the masters were superior. There was a power imbalance and a distinct lack of fairness towards the one being subjugated.

"And maybe," Bray continued gently, "all he needs is someone to tell him that they see more than a person who cleans and fetches things and picks up after other people. Maybe that would help him to realize that he's worth something. Because you wouldn't have gotten so angry if he wasn't worth something to you, right?"

What Bray really heard from all of Raphael's outburst was that he was insecure and lacked confidence that he was worth being loved by Rhys—his master. And Bray, he knew quite a bit about feeling worthless and insecure and wondering if he deserved love after all, or if he was destined to wait out his life looking in from the outside. It took someone like Jack, with the gentle reassurance and confidence born out of true love, to coax him out of his shell. It took someone to affirm that he was worth being loved before he could accept their love—and learn to love himself.

[Rhys McCabe]

It wasn't the habits that got under his skin. But it was obvious why Brayden thought so. Because it was what Raphael said to him, and because Rhys reacted to that with don't act like a servant if you don't want to be treated like one. That wasn't even why Rhys got so annoyed with Raphael in the first place.

It was his constant moving around, fluttering about, not sitting down. How was anybody supposed to have a proper or serious conversation when the other person was distracted with stupid menial chores and looking at anything other than the person they were talking to? All that fluttering around distracted Rhys and he couldn't get a quiet second to arrange any of those feelings he wasn't used to, let alone translate them into words.

So instead, he grew more irritated by the second. What was worse, he pushed his stupid question onto him without preamble. It was just silence and weird scooting and then blam--a super personal question that literally startled him. Not that he would admit it aloud but he was physically weak right now; was he really supposed to hold onto his damned tea? But no, Raphael thought he did it on purpose--accused him of it--and it escalated into the stupidest damn fight he'd ever been a part of.

"Whatever, right." So Raphael was worth something to him. "The rest of it's just bullshit. Do you even know what it's like to not feel anything and then have it all turned back on like a light switch? Of course not. You're not a recovering Fallen. So take it from one: it fucking sucks. He might have turned on the switch but he's too immature for me and I'm too fucked up for him. What did you say? He needs somebody to tell him all these things, to coddle him, and make him feel better about himself? That's not me. Not right now. I can barely fucking name my own feelings, let alone worry about his at the same time. And that's where this Marge has everything wrong, trying to push this thing. Sometimes, giving a fuck about somebody else isn't enough. Because you're right, that is what he needs. And it's not coming from me. That's what none of you people understand. You can't force a person into something they aren't ready for. "

He sat back with his arms crossed, winced, and sat forward again. Stupid blight. He finished off the glass of water, wishing it was something stronger.

"Trust me. I'm not ready to be taking care of anybody, even if it was ever in my nature in the first place."

[Brayden Smith]

Bray sat and listened and sipped his lemon water while Rhys unloaded quite a lot of frustrations. He could see where Rhys was coming from, why he sounded so upset. Everything he knew was turned on its head; he was experiencing some painful, confusing changes to his body that he had no explanation for. And... Bray didn't say it but he thought it: the symptoms of puberty were hitting Rhys quite hard in the moment.

And what did people most associate with puberty? The violent mood swings and feeling that no one could ever understand what they were going through! But Rhys' problems weren't unique, surely. Raphael was a fallen too and he had to have gone through some of these changes as well. If anyone could understand how he felt, Raphael had the best chance. Bray thought that if they could only communicate their feelings better and not bottle them up so much—not leap to so many hasty conclusions—they would both be a lot better off.

"Well now, that's not what I'm saying exactly," he replied slowly, after Rhys had finished. Bray even waited for a brief few seconds to make sure he was done—he didn't want to cut Rhys off. "I don't know that he needs to be coddled, or even wants to be. But he takes what you say to heart, and your words matter. To him, a little reassurance could go a long way. And I think maybe it goes the other way, too..."

Behind him the soup pot bubbled; he excused himself briefly to go and turn the heat down. Bray ladled out a bowl and brought it back—with a spoon. After making Jack fish around a bowl of soup with his fingers that one time, Bray never forgot another spoon ever again! "Here, have some of this. Careful, don't burn yourself. The dumplings get really hot."

[Rhys McCabe]

Then what was he saying, exactly? Rhys didn't see how smushing the two of them together in a confined space was meant to make them fall in love~ when they were both pretty stunted in the emotional department in different ways. Maybe they were both qualified to know what it felt like to have no feelings to having feelings but that hardly meant much of anything to Rhys. Honestly, he didn't understand Raphael any more than he understood himself. And he could clearly state that Raphael didn't understand him.

"And my words aren't nice. He idolizes you idiots. He wants what you have with Jack; he doesn't shut up about it. I'm not either of you, nor do I want to be. He'll be happier when he realizes whatever he's looking for isn't with me."

He wasn't even getting into what he himself needed to hear. Rhys didn't even know what he wanted to hear. Just that he wasn't hearing it. Rhys fell silent as soup was placed before him. Apparently he didn't get the memo about Rhys' aversion to soup. Mostly, he just rolled dumplings around in the soup, even though his stomach rumbled for food.

[Brayden Smith]

"Is that what you really want? For him to find someone like me or Jack?" Somehow he doubted that. Rhys was keeping Raphael at arms' length and finding all the ways that they wouldn't work, focusing on everything that made them clash. He was afraid of not living up to the standard that he imagined Raphael had set for relationships, based on what he saw of Jack and Bray. And yet the wings... the look in his eyes, the physical cues that he couldn't quite hide, they told a different story. Rhys wanted what Raphael wanted, even if their methods of getting there left them stranded instead of meeting in the middle.

Bray watching him rolling the dumplings around, not eating. Well, the soup was still pretty hot; maybe once it cooled, Rhys would take a sip or two. He looked sickly and ill, and the soup was nourishing and full of healthy, wholesome ingredients. It did also smell very good, piping hot off the stove. It was good for him but... something told Bray that Rhys was one of those people to whom suggestions and well-meaning advice elicited quite the opposite reaction.

He was a contrarian, Marge didn't get that wrong about him, and not because he was stubborn but because it seemed to Bray like everyone had been forcing their opinions upon him without giving him much of a chance—or choice—to express himself. And maybe not doing what everyone told him, even if it was sensible, was his way of clawing back some control. From what Raphael revealed, Rhys had been groomed from an early age by his father to become... his father. Added to that the whole Fallen aspect, losing his wings and his individuality, small wonder Rhys seized control wherever he could—even if it was to his own detriment.

"I'm sorry." Yes, yes, Bray apologized a lot but that wasn't the real issue right now. "You've been through a lot lately, I can tell. Everything's been happening a thousand miles a minute, and no one's giving you any time or space to breathe and think. It's hard to make sense of... anything when the reality you know keeps changing and people keep showing up to add more uncertainty and confusion, even before you've had a chance to get caught up. And I'm very sorry that happened to you."

And if that sounded familiar, it was because Bray had been living that horror with Jack ever since that night at the ridge top, when Keith's golem appeared.

[Rhys McCabe]

"No," he said, annoyed again. "Obviously not."

Or he wouldn't have been so pissed about the way Raphael talked about this guy right here in front of him. Or Professor Jack and how amazing he was. It felt like... everybody else was so amazing, why didn't he just run off with one of them? Which was way immature of him and he knew it and he hated it. And hating everything was tiring.

Great. Brayden could see right through him better than Marge could. He didn't think he much liked it, having everything plainly laid out like that. Another dumpling rolled around and he remembered doing this exact sort of thing when he was dead bored. Not hungry, not thirsty, not excited about or for anything. Just plodding along. But unlike Raphael, who seemed to have somehow managed to experience good, positive emotions, Rhys had only negative ones. It really salted up the whole having feelings thing for him.

"You got me. That's the gist of it. I don't know what you want me to say about it." Was he supposed to say thanks for giving a shit? Agree that he wasn't doing well with all these people and all their talking and the lack of time or space? He already did that.

[Brayden Smith]

"You don't have to say anything. Just know that you're not alone in the way you feel, and if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm here. And if you don't want to talk, that's fine too. You have options, even if it might not feel that way."

Rhys was still a little storm cloud, but Bray thought that maybe in time he would learn to trust them--and lighten up. Surely someone related to Jack and Niall wouldn't be this gloomy all the time! He gently pushed the soup bowl closer to Rhys, since he was merely toying with the dumplings. "Eat a little of the soup, please, even if you don't like it. It'll make you feel better. And stronger, so you'll have more energy to fight with Marge when she comes back."

Bray smiled across the table at him, then lightly patted his hand. "We're not your enemies here, please believe me. We don't want to make you feel bad about yourself or about your choices. I'll try to keep the others out of this apartment so you can have some time to rest. If you need anything, you can call me, okay?"

[Rhys McCabe]

It really didn't feel like there were options. Maybe they were there but they felt robbed. Like the option to leave--totally taken from him. The option to keep to himself--well that had been off the table until now. It wasn't like he was going to hermit himself away forever but it felt like he couldn't get a single goddamn moment to sort through everything. It just happened--the wings, the feelings. They literally seemed to sprout up overnight. And then it was just... constant in your face pushing and pulling and talking and feel this, Rhys, feel that, Rhys.

If he wasn't already exhausted from the stupid blight, he would have been exhausted by all that mental energy alone.

He looked back down at the soup. Soup, he had always disliked. Even now, it stared at him, daunting. If he thought of it more like a stew maybe it was more tolerable. Maybe. It smelled good, that he could at least begrudgingly admit to himself. Or maybe that was just his hunger talking--because he was very hungry. The dumplings that he was rolling around weren't soup, so he settled first on that. Although it made him feel six years old, with his mother telling him to eat well so he could grow up strong or something.

"I don't feel bad about myself." His choices, he wasn't going to touch on that. The out-of-whack emotional bullshit was making all the decisions for him lately and that... he hated that. He felt so... human and he'd spent most of his life disdaining humans as garbage. Now he thought he was justified in that. Not having emotions had been a boon to his decision making skills. Nothing to get in the way of making a smart and rational decision over something muddled in emotions.

"And if you want me to rest," he said, "I'd suggest... changing your bedding."

Maybe it was just him but... he never slept in the same bed he entertained consorts in (or rather, they tried to entertain him). Humans and their... vices.

[Brayden Smith]

There, see? Rhys wasn't completely immune to someone talking sense into him. Bray nodded approvingly when he began to eat, knowing that with some food in him and with a little quiet and rest, he would feel much better about everything that had happened. Not fully good, maybe, since he was a virtual hostage here, but better than he felt now. And he really did look quite ill; it was unfair to expect him to engage in any sort of meaningful decision-making when he was like this.

Bray stood up. "I should have some spare sheets... I'll go see about the bed. You eat up, as much as you can." He left to go and find spare, clean sheets, not exactly wanting the details on what happened to or in his bed. It was better not to know sometimes... Besides which, clean sheets always did feel better for naps than ones somebody had slept in. (Not that Bray was dirty!)

He found the spare set and went about making the bed, though occasionally he peeked in on Rhys just to make sure he was all right. "There, the bed's changed, so you're good to go. I'll just be across the courtyard, and I left my phone number on the nightstand in case you need it. Have a good rest, Rhys. And I hope you feel better when you wake up."

Now... he had to go back and deal with that other little storm cloud... Hopefully Jack and Niall were having more luck over there!

[Jack Ripley]

Drama, drama, drama.

It. Was everywhere. Jack suddenly saw why Marge needed a few (hundred) drinks and some fucking. Because there was a lot of drama dripping from everyone and it wasn't just the brothers Ripley, either. Raphael was a good kid, he was. But he was also kind of dramatic. Maybe he was a long lost cousin. ...Which wouldn't be good news for him regarding Rhys but then, maybe there was no good news regarding Rhys. Also, he wasn't quite sure if Raphael still wanted that or not because he was pretty upset about a fight involving--of all things--books and wet pants.

For a moment, it was pure chaos after Brayden left. Because Brayden was the Voice of Reason. He was the Glue. And once he left, it all sort of came undone.

Niall was doing his best but Niall, it seemed, was sort of... flighty. He couldn't seem to remain on topic. He was doing his best--it seemed--to try and calm Raphael down but he was also... Well.

"You're not a servant and you shouldn't be treated as such! I would tell him off, if I were you. I'd march right over and tell him off for it. What's he got against you, anyway? Who throws tea on their nether regions on purpose?! Actually..." Niall paused and seemed to think on it, stroking his own chin in thought. "I think I have. Mind you, it was to get out of paying for this load of magical drugs I honestly didn't have the money for. Only it wasn't money they wanted, witches rarely do, you know, they usually ask for other things as payment. Spell ingredients, you know, for potions and such, and sometimes little niggling things like souls, which I personally have no idea how to get...? I was born with a soul--I think. Pookas have souls, right? But I don't want to sell my soul for a pinch of the good stuff, you hear?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Jack said, putting up a hand and using the other to rub his aching temple. "Stop, stop."

Jack came to sit beside Raphael and his poor, tear-stained face. "First of all, disregard everything this one's just said--"

"Hey!"

"And listen to me instead." Jack ignored the pout--Niall's pouts had no power here. "Do you love him?"

"Have you not been listening this whole--"

"Tut, tut, tut. Shut up, Niall. Raphael... do you love him?"