(Untitled)

[darkprophecies]

WHO: Raven + Household/Anyone who would be there
WHERE: Lake Placid, NY
WHEN: After her conversation with this fine young gentleman.
WARNINGS: None
SUMMARY: Raven has yet another freak out. She really needs to get a hold of herself, seriously.
FORMAT: Para

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[ajrimmer_ssc]

She had gone white, as white as paper, and then ducked out of the bedroom. Which was something that he didn't want to have happen at all. The only problem was, he was finally beginning to notice that he was being...clingy. Which bothered him. So he'd resolved to give her more space, even though he rather sucked at this resolution. Frowning, he let her go, keeping his mouth shut for a good five minutes, even though she was clearly upset.

Clearly upset, and not talking to him. Smegging hell, he really hated it when she did that. Something would happen and she'd withdraw, making him chase after her.

Ten minutes.

Fifteen.

Twenty.

He flipped open his own comm and started scanning it, looking for whatever it was that had bothered her, and caught the tail end of her conversation with...oh smeg. Smegging smeg. Smeg! A desire to defend her honour flared to life, and he wished he was the teleporter in the household: he'd zap himself right in front of Harry Osborn, punch him right in his stupid gob, and then zip away again. Even

[darkprophecies]

By the time Raven marched back up the stairs, she was soaking wet - no change of clothes, she had adamantly refused it. However she was severely lacking a certain bottle of wine. Everyone else could get drunk when they were upset, but not Raven. She was able to see how things went now.

The effects were minor, but there, this whole 'Joey took my wine damn it' situation bothered her more because of it.

As she appeared back in the bedroom, she immediately put her hand up.

"I'm fine."

[ajrimmer_ssc]

Rimmer was slouched on the edge of the bed, staring at his comm, and glanced up at her with a haunted look. He took in her soaked appearance, her pale face, her snappish tone, and mentally sighed. But he still had a couple of very important questions.

"...So I can't kill him? Not even just once?"

[darkprophecies]

"He's not the same Harry, that wouldn't be fair..." she breathed out, heading over to the dresser to fish out one of his larger shirts. She needed to comfort herself right now, and get her head on straight. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she was overreacting.

Again.

Azar, she overreacted to everything, didn't she? Horrible.

[ajrimmer_ssc]

Tossing the comm aside, he fidgeted and fiddled with his cuticles, not really able to look at her right now. He was overreacting, wasn't he? And she was feeling it. That was the last thing she needed right now, guilt and over-protectiveness and a piquant whiff of mindless male violence pouring into her head. Pfft.

"Sorry," he said quietly. God, he was sorry. Sorry she ever had to know that berk.

[darkprophecies]

"It's all right. I'm happy here." which was a bit of a strange answer to that, but it was all she had at the moment, while she peeled her dripping wet clothing off and replaced it with his dry, button-up shirt. It practically hung off of her, but that was the entire reason why she always wore his things anyway.

"I'm fine now."

[ajrimmer_ssc]

"Have you been drinking, Raven?"

He could hear the soft blurring of her consonants, and immediately shifted into "worried husband" mode rather than "kill the ex" mode. He stood up and crossed to her, picking up that soaked blouse of hers to hang it up in the bathroom.

[darkprophecies]

"I had been, yes," she knew better than to lie to him, he'd call her out on it. "I... just remembered a lot of things I didn't want to remember, and that was the first thing I thought to do."

She briefly wondered why it had been the first thing on her mind. It wouldn't have been that way before.

"Joseph took my wine."

[ajrimmer_ssc]

"Remind me to thank him, later."

He finished the chore of hanging up her shirt, and then went back to her and began unbuttoning her jeans. It wasn't entirely a sexy gesture; he was going to peel them off of her and hang them up as well. But of course, it was also him unbuttoning her trousers. So.

"Wish you'd talk to me about these sorts of things," he said quietly, trying to make it a statement rather than a whinge. He thought he did rather well. Not nagging, not judging, not whining for her attention, just letting her know what he felt. Maybe he was getting better at this whole marriage thing...

[darkprophecies]

She simply stepped out of them when it came time to slide them off, and she shivered. Cool air, wet skin, not a good combination, but she managed, and shrunk further into his shirt.

"... I didn't want to... not this. I had a hard enough time dealing with my own emotions attached to it. It's one thing to tell Joseph or David in passing, but you know what happened. You're... more invested in it."

[ajrimmer_ssc]

The trousers were hung up with care next to the blouse (he even took a moment to smooth a wrinkle out), and then he rejoined her, leading her over to the bed. Her skin felt clammy and ice cold, so he flipped on the fireplace as they went, too, to warm her up properly.

"Well, yes," he said simply, trying to sort through her logic. "That's rather what I'm for, I thought. To be more emotionally invested in your life. And to support you when you need it."

[darkprophecies]

She slipped up into bed, slumping back against that ridiculous mountain of pillows before raising an eyebrow up at him.

"Arnold, I love you. I love you more than anything. However you do tend to overreact as much as I do about things. ... especially involving anything about Harold. ... I was afraid to talk about it with you."

[ajrimmer_ssc]

There was a moment where he took rather a deep emotional plunge at that, with a sinking feeling in his stomach that he'd failed her just by being himself, and a hideous emotional cripple at that. But...oh. Right. That's precisely what she's talking about, smeghead!

He had the good grace to look slightly sheepish as he winced at her, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand.

"If not more so," he conceded. "Although in this case, I really don't think that my using his ears for soup spoons and severing his testicles with a rotary plow is overreacting in the least."

[darkprophecies]

"... that wasn't actually what I was---" she made a bit of a face, mostly at herself, and went silent. She breathed deeply, not really wanting to speak what was on her mind, but the alcohol said otherwise.

"I was afraid that you'd think I would... or that he and I would... it wouldn't be a good thing, and I didn't want things to change."

[ajrimmer_ssc]

"You and he would...what?"

Now he was just confused. As always, his ego had made this about him, the fact that she pulled away because he was the problem. But apparently that wasn't it at all. Uh.

"What did you think, that I'd suspect you of still being in love with him?! Oh my god. You're begging for a flick in the forehead, aren't you? My god, I know you're not. So you were polite to him, big smegging deal. Why on Io would you think that I'd...what? Raven, sometimes your logic baffles me."

[darkprophecies]

"I never know!" she spat out sharply, in a very defensive and high-pitched way. "Arnold, I never know what's going to ultimately bother you, or what will affect you and what won't. I wish I did, but I don't, so I..."

She groaned gently, sinking into the pillows again, arms folded over her eyes so she wouldn't have to look at the world, hiding in a way.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have--- I should know better. I wasn't thinking."