[ravindra & anson]: the wondrous story of a boy & his dog
Who: Ravindra & Anson
When: The morning of June 19th
Where: AROUND THE CITY \:|/
Rating & Warnings: oh god I'm so bad at this PG-13? I mean, Ravi drops an f-bomb :Oc !!
Patrol with Kratochvil. Noooot what Ravi wanted to be doing today. Or tomorrow. Or anytime in the near future, actually. Kratochvil was pretty much the worst person to be around after an awkward situation because he never let anything die.
But dereliction of duty etc etc things get more awkward when you avoid people and they don't know why and so on, so patrol with Kratochvil it was. Ravi was outside the station first thing in the morning, waiting for him to appear so they could head out. He leaned against the wall beside the station's door, a cigarette in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, wondering what the fuck he was going to do if/when Kratochvil brought up the goddamn cookies.
Awkward? Man, only for you. Anson casually strolled up to the station, hailing the sergeant with a little wave. "Hey, Naran."
The fact that Ravindra was made of constant, perpetual fretting made it pretty easy to spot, but the other guard decided to leave it (relatively) alone, for now. Let him feel the anxiety and just straight-up stew for a while; that'd teach him not to appreciate kind!! gestures!!. Rude. "Let's get moving. There's plenty of time for you to worry about shit no one cares about once we're moving." He grinned, like, y'know-- jokes, Ravi! Jokes! Even if it really was shit nobody else cared about.
Rude, Anson!! Ravi shot him a glare, but stepped away from the wall, dropping his cigarette and crushing it out before leading off down the street. Just don't talk, Kratochvil, and this patrol would go by perfectly smoothly!
Not talking was hard, if not impossible. It was a constant struggle as he walked next to Ravi, the anticipation threatening to kill him. Gosh. Patrols were boring when there weren't mobs roaming about the city demanding blood, and it was only a matter of time before he had to break the silence somehow. Anson cleared his throat.
"So, do you just hate cookies?"
GOD DAMMIT ANSON. Ravi only spazflailed at the question in his head, but TRUST ME, IT WAS A LOT OF MENTAL SPAZFLAIL OKAY.
On the outside, though, he was just calm, if a little annoyed. "Yes." Yes, think that, Kratochvil, because he wasn't admitting the real reason it bothered him and he was not fucking talking about it shut up.
"That's a lie, sergeant. See, no one can actually hate cookies." It was so hard not to be Smuggo McSmuggerson, sometimes, but Anson kept his best impression of a straight face on.
He had no idea how to respond to that. There was something clever he could say here, wasn't there? Really he just wanted to not respond at all and hope Kratochvil would take the hint and FUCKING SHUT UP ALREADY, but not giving a response would probably just make him talk more. But then giving a response would make him talk more, too! CAN'T WIN.
In the end, what he settled on was, "Only yours."
"Why do you have to be so surly, Naran? I'm just trying to include you in our wonderful Tyrolian society, and you have to and shun everything I do? Throw me a fucking bone, here!" haha get it The guard spread his arms wide, giving Ravindra his best approximation of a pleading look.
It was probably cheapened by the fact that he was snickering.
OH HE GOT IT. His response was a facepalm. He didn't even say anything. Just. So much facepalm, Anson. SO MUCH.
Ah, come on, he wasn't even using his words now? The guard nudged him once. Twice.
The third time, it was with his elbow, and it was really more of a jab than a nudge.
OW GODDAMMIT ANSON. Ravi shot him another glare. How hard was it to pick up on the hint that he didn't fucking want to talk about it, you idiot? (He really should've just skipped patrol today and assigned someone else to his spot. Really should've.)
It wasn't that it was hard to pick up on. There just, weren't any fucks given at this point.
"You should've just asked Bertrand to share, if you're that hung up on it." A pause. "But seriously, just knock up your wife already. Then everybody will care even less."
Oh for fuck's sake--did he know too? Did everyone know? Ravi wanted to track down whoever was spreading those rumours and choke them to death.
Ravi did not swear very often, so it was obvious Anson's comment had pissed him off when he replied, "Fuck off, Kratochvil."
Man look it wasn't his fault everyone knew! Anson's eyebrows shot up at the response. He'd consider that one a small victory, in a very roundabout way. Getting Ravi not to be so Ravi-ish (ravish?) was always an impressive feat, no matter who did it. "Is that an order, sir?"
He did not see the reaction because he was too busy glaring straight ahead and not looking at the fucking asshole walking beside him. "Yes."
... Hmm. Well. Even if Ravindra had said it just to shut him up, a dude has to respect his superiors eventually.
Anson continued on in silence. There really wasn't much else to do; streets were clear, people were behaving, and an official bar from heckling meant that things got very dull, very quickly.
Blissful silence. He just wished Kratochvil had taken the hint earlier and saved him from having to get pissed off about it in the first place.
But...seriously, was it that common a rumour? How many people knew, or at least thought they knew? Not a single one of them understood, of course. It was common enough for men to have affairs with other men, but to not even be attracted to a woman no matter how pretty? Nobody understood that. That wasn't normal. To have a wife as gorgeous as Sofia and no children--how many people, like Aguilar and Kratochvil, were judging him for that?
Something rose above the normal sounds of Tyrol's streets, pulling Ravi from his thoughts. A dog's plaintive yipping, interspersed with whining. He threw Kratochvil a glance, and then turned away to seek out the source of the noise. It was curiosity, mostly, but also he had a soft spot for animals and wanted to make sure the dog wasn't in danger.
He followed the sound down an alleyway, and found a pile of what looked like discarded storefront decorations, including a torn and frayed canvas tarp that must have once been an awning. And underneath it, a moving lump that was the source of the noise.
It looked like a beam of wood had fallen and trapped the dog under the tarp. Ravi kicked the beam aside and knelt to lift the edge of the tarp, looking under it. A blur of orange and cream darted out, stopping a few feet away from Ravi and turning on stubby little legs to start barking at him, instead.
Ravi wasn't the only one who had noticed the pup's noisemaking; anything that could possibly break up the monotony as welcome. Anson had followed, admittedly at a distance. He'd never been much of a animal guy, really, as he stared down the alleyway at what seemed to be a wholly ridiculous situation. Not only was the dog tiny, but it looked as though it hadn't even grown into its huge ears or head, yet. And the legs? Surprising that it could move at all, let alone so quickly...
Though, not that quickly. He strode forward, easily scooping the dog up with one hand, ignoring its yipe of surprise. A grown dog probably wouldn't have let Anson sneak up on it so easily, but-- "It's even shorter than you are, Naran. Think somebody left it here?" He held the dog out at arm's length, as if to study it.
"A remarkable feat." Short jokes were A-OK. He could bandy those around all day.
He stood, letting the tarp fall, and gave the dog a closer look. It was obviously only a puppy; maybe it was deformed and its mother's owner had thrown it out because he wouldn't be able to sell it. (The idea of those legs actually being part of the breed was so ridiculous it didn't even occur to him.) But it had obviously been stray a while, its fur muddy and matted. "I think so, yes," he said.
(It was so cute aaa~) He reached out to pet the puppy's head, but it just clamped its tiny jaws shut on his leather glove (horse leather, of course, not cow). One eyebrow rose along with an almost imperceptible smile. "Charming."
Anson gently tugged the puppy back, until it let go with the tiniest of growls. Its legs continued to motor in mid-air as it strained to reach the offending glove, yipping furiously. "It seems to like you about as much as the rest of us, too."
It was strangely endearing, this poor misshapen dog covered in dirt. As long as it wasn't secretly an Other, or something... a silly notion, but sometimes he got this nagging suspicion that everything was secretly an Other but him. Of course, that was ridiculous! "The question is, what do we do with it?"
Setting it back down was an option, seeing as it was continuing to survive in the city somehow, but that seemed unnecessarily cruel. On the other hand, it wasn't like he was going to keep a dog, either-- the man looked back to Ravi, waiting for his direction. C'mon, sergeant! You were good at deciding things. This was a thing that you did.
"I don't think it dislikes me that much." Aw yeah, freely joking about how nobody liked him. (Because he knew it wasn't true.)
But what do they do with it, that was a serious question to consider. Sofie would love it, probably, but he didn't think putting it with Missy was a good idea. Nobody who lived in the barracks could take it. They could probably put out something on the ledgers to see if anybody wanted a puppy--
Damica liked dogs, didn't she? "Lieutenant Bertrand's birthday is tomorrow," he suggested.
See, Ravi? You didn't always have to make things so awkward. Anson paused to consider his suggestion with a frown. "I'm sure Cosimo would love to have another member in the 'short-girls-with-dogs' club." He looked at the puppy again, which continued to squirm in his grasp. Birthday, huh. Man, how did he not know that? Maybe he needed to interact with Damica beyond her punching him. He sighed. Well. It's not like he had any other ideas, besides trying to see what Rasmus would do with such a tiny thing.
but what if he crushed it on accident oh nooooooo
"You sure you don't want it? Maybe it could teach you how to actually relax for once in your life. A touching story of a boy and his dog, yeah?" But no, the birthday gift sounded like a good plan to Anson, as he tucked the dog under his arm. It'd just be a pain to carry it for the rest of the patrol-- especially if there was an incident. Oh man.
Eyebrow arch. "I have a cat, already." Ravi actually relaxing ha ha good one Anson.
But they couldn't very well bring the dog along on patrol until it was over, so Ravi told him, "I can handle patrol by myself for a while. Take it back to the station. It is hungry, I am sure."
"Really? Don't you eat cats where you come from?" Honest question, sadly. Anson... really didn't know much about Hindu culture.
Ah, well. He shrugged. It was pretty irrelevant; the fact that Ravindra was a guard in Tyrol meant there was a good chance that he didn't subscribe to the cat-eating philosophy much. "If you're sure, Naran." Truthfully, he didn't like leaving patrol unfinished. A glance down at the struggling dog in his arm, though, reinforced the fact that he couldn't stay, either.
That question got a flat look in return. Ravi was used to people saying dumb shit about Indians and Hindus though.
"I am. Only come back when you are done." Kratochvil knew the patrol route. He could catch up to Ravi once he was finished getting the dog settled in.
When: The morning of June 19th
Where: AROUND THE CITY \:|/
Rating & Warnings: oh god I'm so bad at this PG-13? I mean, Ravi drops an f-bomb :Oc !!
Patrol with Kratochvil. Noooot what Ravi wanted to be doing today. Or tomorrow. Or anytime in the near future, actually. Kratochvil was pretty much the worst person to be around after an awkward situation because he never let anything die.
But dereliction of duty etc etc things get more awkward when you avoid people and they don't know why and so on, so patrol with Kratochvil it was. Ravi was outside the station first thing in the morning, waiting for him to appear so they could head out. He leaned against the wall beside the station's door, a cigarette in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, wondering what the fuck he was going to do if/when Kratochvil brought up the goddamn cookies.
Awkward? Man, only for you. Anson casually strolled up to the station, hailing the sergeant with a little wave. "Hey, Naran."
The fact that Ravindra was made of constant, perpetual fretting made it pretty easy to spot, but the other guard decided to leave it (relatively) alone, for now. Let him feel the anxiety and just straight-up stew for a while; that'd teach him not to appreciate kind!! gestures!!. Rude. "Let's get moving. There's plenty of time for you to worry about shit no one cares about once we're moving." He grinned, like, y'know-- jokes, Ravi! Jokes! Even if it really was shit nobody else cared about.
Rude, Anson!! Ravi shot him a glare, but stepped away from the wall, dropping his cigarette and crushing it out before leading off down the street. Just don't talk, Kratochvil, and this patrol would go by perfectly smoothly!
Not talking was hard, if not impossible. It was a constant struggle as he walked next to Ravi, the anticipation threatening to kill him. Gosh. Patrols were boring when there weren't mobs roaming about the city demanding blood, and it was only a matter of time before he had to break the silence somehow. Anson cleared his throat.
"So, do you just hate cookies?"
GOD DAMMIT ANSON. Ravi only spazflailed at the question in his head, but TRUST ME, IT WAS A LOT OF MENTAL SPAZFLAIL OKAY.
On the outside, though, he was just calm, if a little annoyed. "Yes." Yes, think that, Kratochvil, because he wasn't admitting the real reason it bothered him and he was not fucking talking about it shut up.
"That's a lie, sergeant. See, no one can actually hate cookies." It was so hard not to be Smuggo McSmuggerson, sometimes, but Anson kept his best impression of a straight face on.
He had no idea how to respond to that. There was something clever he could say here, wasn't there? Really he just wanted to not respond at all and hope Kratochvil would take the hint and FUCKING SHUT UP ALREADY, but not giving a response would probably just make him talk more. But then giving a response would make him talk more, too! CAN'T WIN.
In the end, what he settled on was, "Only yours."
"Why do you have to be so surly, Naran? I'm just trying to include you in our wonderful Tyrolian society, and you have to and shun everything I do? Throw me a fucking bone, here!" haha get it The guard spread his arms wide, giving Ravindra his best approximation of a pleading look.
It was probably cheapened by the fact that he was snickering.
OH HE GOT IT. His response was a facepalm. He didn't even say anything. Just. So much facepalm, Anson. SO MUCH.
Ah, come on, he wasn't even using his words now? The guard nudged him once. Twice.
The third time, it was with his elbow, and it was really more of a jab than a nudge.
OW GODDAMMIT ANSON. Ravi shot him another glare. How hard was it to pick up on the hint that he didn't fucking want to talk about it, you idiot? (He really should've just skipped patrol today and assigned someone else to his spot. Really should've.)
It wasn't that it was hard to pick up on. There just, weren't any fucks given at this point.
"You should've just asked Bertrand to share, if you're that hung up on it." A pause. "But seriously, just knock up your wife already. Then everybody will care even less."
Oh for fuck's sake--did he know too? Did everyone know? Ravi wanted to track down whoever was spreading those rumours and choke them to death.
Ravi did not swear very often, so it was obvious Anson's comment had pissed him off when he replied, "Fuck off, Kratochvil."
Man look it wasn't his fault everyone knew! Anson's eyebrows shot up at the response. He'd consider that one a small victory, in a very roundabout way. Getting Ravi not to be so Ravi-ish (ravish?) was always an impressive feat, no matter who did it. "Is that an order, sir?"
He did not see the reaction because he was too busy glaring straight ahead and not looking at the fucking asshole walking beside him. "Yes."
... Hmm. Well. Even if Ravindra had said it just to shut him up, a dude has to respect his superiors eventually.
Anson continued on in silence. There really wasn't much else to do; streets were clear, people were behaving, and an official bar from heckling meant that things got very dull, very quickly.
Blissful silence. He just wished Kratochvil had taken the hint earlier and saved him from having to get pissed off about it in the first place.
But...seriously, was it that common a rumour? How many people knew, or at least thought they knew? Not a single one of them understood, of course. It was common enough for men to have affairs with other men, but to not even be attracted to a woman no matter how pretty? Nobody understood that. That wasn't normal. To have a wife as gorgeous as Sofia and no children--how many people, like Aguilar and Kratochvil, were judging him for that?
Something rose above the normal sounds of Tyrol's streets, pulling Ravi from his thoughts. A dog's plaintive yipping, interspersed with whining. He threw Kratochvil a glance, and then turned away to seek out the source of the noise. It was curiosity, mostly, but also he had a soft spot for animals and wanted to make sure the dog wasn't in danger.
He followed the sound down an alleyway, and found a pile of what looked like discarded storefront decorations, including a torn and frayed canvas tarp that must have once been an awning. And underneath it, a moving lump that was the source of the noise.
It looked like a beam of wood had fallen and trapped the dog under the tarp. Ravi kicked the beam aside and knelt to lift the edge of the tarp, looking under it. A blur of orange and cream darted out, stopping a few feet away from Ravi and turning on stubby little legs to start barking at him, instead.
Ravi wasn't the only one who had noticed the pup's noisemaking; anything that could possibly break up the monotony as welcome. Anson had followed, admittedly at a distance. He'd never been much of a animal guy, really, as he stared down the alleyway at what seemed to be a wholly ridiculous situation. Not only was the dog tiny, but it looked as though it hadn't even grown into its huge ears or head, yet. And the legs? Surprising that it could move at all, let alone so quickly...
Though, not that quickly. He strode forward, easily scooping the dog up with one hand, ignoring its yipe of surprise. A grown dog probably wouldn't have let Anson sneak up on it so easily, but-- "It's even shorter than you are, Naran. Think somebody left it here?" He held the dog out at arm's length, as if to study it.
"A remarkable feat." Short jokes were A-OK. He could bandy those around all day.
He stood, letting the tarp fall, and gave the dog a closer look. It was obviously only a puppy; maybe it was deformed and its mother's owner had thrown it out because he wouldn't be able to sell it. (The idea of those legs actually being part of the breed was so ridiculous it didn't even occur to him.) But it had obviously been stray a while, its fur muddy and matted. "I think so, yes," he said.
(It was so cute aaa~) He reached out to pet the puppy's head, but it just clamped its tiny jaws shut on his leather glove (horse leather, of course, not cow). One eyebrow rose along with an almost imperceptible smile. "Charming."
Anson gently tugged the puppy back, until it let go with the tiniest of growls. Its legs continued to motor in mid-air as it strained to reach the offending glove, yipping furiously. "It seems to like you about as much as the rest of us, too."
It was strangely endearing, this poor misshapen dog covered in dirt. As long as it wasn't secretly an Other, or something... a silly notion, but sometimes he got this nagging suspicion that everything was secretly an Other but him. Of course, that was ridiculous! "The question is, what do we do with it?"
Setting it back down was an option, seeing as it was continuing to survive in the city somehow, but that seemed unnecessarily cruel. On the other hand, it wasn't like he was going to keep a dog, either-- the man looked back to Ravi, waiting for his direction. C'mon, sergeant! You were good at deciding things. This was a thing that you did.
"I don't think it dislikes me that much." Aw yeah, freely joking about how nobody liked him. (Because he knew it wasn't true.)
But what do they do with it, that was a serious question to consider. Sofie would love it, probably, but he didn't think putting it with Missy was a good idea. Nobody who lived in the barracks could take it. They could probably put out something on the ledgers to see if anybody wanted a puppy--
Damica liked dogs, didn't she? "Lieutenant Bertrand's birthday is tomorrow," he suggested.
See, Ravi? You didn't always have to make things so awkward. Anson paused to consider his suggestion with a frown. "I'm sure Cosimo would love to have another member in the 'short-girls-with-dogs' club." He looked at the puppy again, which continued to squirm in his grasp. Birthday, huh. Man, how did he not know that? Maybe he needed to interact with Damica beyond her punching him. He sighed. Well. It's not like he had any other ideas, besides trying to see what Rasmus would do with such a tiny thing.
but what if he crushed it on accident oh nooooooo
"You sure you don't want it? Maybe it could teach you how to actually relax for once in your life. A touching story of a boy and his dog, yeah?" But no, the birthday gift sounded like a good plan to Anson, as he tucked the dog under his arm. It'd just be a pain to carry it for the rest of the patrol-- especially if there was an incident. Oh man.
Eyebrow arch. "I have a cat, already." Ravi actually relaxing ha ha good one Anson.
But they couldn't very well bring the dog along on patrol until it was over, so Ravi told him, "I can handle patrol by myself for a while. Take it back to the station. It is hungry, I am sure."
"Really? Don't you eat cats where you come from?" Honest question, sadly. Anson... really didn't know much about Hindu culture.
Ah, well. He shrugged. It was pretty irrelevant; the fact that Ravindra was a guard in Tyrol meant there was a good chance that he didn't subscribe to the cat-eating philosophy much. "If you're sure, Naran." Truthfully, he didn't like leaving patrol unfinished. A glance down at the struggling dog in his arm, though, reinforced the fact that he couldn't stay, either.
That question got a flat look in return. Ravi was used to people saying dumb shit about Indians and Hindus though.
"I am. Only come back when you are done." Kratochvil knew the patrol route. He could catch up to Ravi once he was finished getting the dog settled in.