ALEXANDER+RAVINDRA; dramallamalavaramalavallama
Who: Alex & Ravi
When: June 23rd ish before Emilian is stabbidied
Where: Naran house!
Ratings & Warnings: PG
Having Alex in the city on a nightly basis, and thus having the chance to see him regularly, was exciting. It was probably the happiest Ravi had been in ages. He felt like he could finally stop stressing about the possibility of never seeing Alex again, because Alex was showing a willingness to start building a new life in Tyrol. It meant he was planning to stick around. Even though he'd had his friend back for a while now, it finally felt like he actually had Alex back.
They'd agreed to meet up after Alex finished his first round of lighting the lamps. At Ravi's house, this time, which was also exciting because they were meeting openly instead of somewhere sequestered off in the middle of nowhere where nobody could see. Ravi waited on his front steps, a cigarette in his mouth and a cat in his lap. She'd probably run off as soon as Alex appeared, but as long as she didn't try to eat him in his bat form, Ravi didn't care. She'd come back.
Well, Alex did come, but not as a bat! He entered the street, casting a glance around the area. Spotting the Ravi-shape, he raised his hand in greeting before closing the distance between them. His lighting pole rested on his shoulder, as if it had always been there.
"Vin, my friend!" he said, lowering his hand to shake Ravi's. "I owe you so much!" His face was positively beaming. Anyone else would have thought it strange for a man to be so joyful about lighting lamps at night, but Ravi was sure to understand. Alex needed to be around people. He could never stay sequestered away from others for long.
As predicted, Missy jumped out of his lap and took off running the instant Alex appeared from the shadows. She went to hide somewhere around the back of the house, but Ravi paid her no mind. He stood to meet Alex, matching his friend's grin as they shook hands. Alex's cheer had always been infectious, and didn't hurt that Ravi was already in good spirits.
"No, nothing," he replied, motioning for Alex to take a seat on the steps before returning to that position himself. "I am only glad to see you happy." Being alone in a forest didn't suit a person like Alex, Ravi knew. It'd suit him just fine, but Alex needed to be around people or he started getting cabin fever something fierce.
Alex smiled a little wistfully at the cat's retreating figure, but took the offered seat without comment. He surveyed the view from the steps, then, with his palms flat on his knees, he twisted to look at the house behind him. "Your own house," he said, and there was a bit of awe in his voice. He looked back at Ravi, brows rising. "Is the missus asleep?"
Was that so strange? He'd had it fifteen years now, he hardly even thought of it anymore. "Paid for by Iravati," he said, flippantly gesturing over his shoulder to indicate the house. "It is much nicer than to live in the barracks." He could actually get some time alone. It was marvelous.
'The missus.' People called her that so infrequently, and it made him twitch every time. It felt too disingenuous. She was only his wife by law, to call her any of those pet terms felt wrong. "Sofia is asleep, yes." (And she probably thought he'd left to a brothel when she heard the door open and was JUDGING HIM IN HER SLEEP. Ugh.)
"Amen to that," he said, tilting his head in agreement. Loved his guardsmates he did, but nothing beat the privacy of your own house once you had a wife. "Iravati does well looking out for her brother."
Ravi's answer may have been perfectly acceptable save the slight undertone behind them. "So, has there been any..." He motioned vaguely with his hand and shrugged. "Developments? Improvements?" Setbacks? But he wouldn't bring them up for fear of jinxing them.
He frowned. Mood instantly soured, thanks Alex. He hadn't invited you out here to talk about his marriage, dammit! He used his cigarette as an excuse for a long pause, a stalling tactic Alex was sure to remember from their previous years together. After blowing out a cloud of smoke, he finally answered, his eyes focused solidly on the ground at the edge of the street. "Nothing. Well, no, I am teaching her to knit, now. She asked for that."
Alex was good at bringing up stuff you didn't want to think about. He was irritating like that. He waited calmly for Ravi's response and once he had it, lifted his hand. "There! See? That is an improvement."
It was also an improvement that the mention of knitting didn't send him wallowing in self-pity now.
Ravi shrugged and fell silent. It was only an improvement inasmuch as she'd wanted them to spend more time together, and had actually managed to find something he didn't mind doing with her. It was an improvement as far as them being forced to interact with and live with each other. It wasn't an improvement on her stubbornly clinging to a relationship that didn't exist, or refusing to do anything about how unhappy she was simply because she wanted to hold the moral high ground.
He didn't want to talk about any of that. So he said nothing and hoped Alex would move on to a new topic.
Hope in vain, brow boy. "My god, Vin, you need to stop turning to stone every time your wife comes up." Alex paused, licked his lips, then held his hand out, fingers up, ready to explain something. "Doing an activity together? That's good. That's a good first step. You have to be happy about it, though. Be hopeful, Vin, otherwise she's going to read your disinterest like a whore reads gold. You often wish others could read your mind-- well! She'll definitely pick up any negative feelings you might have about it, especially since you're the teacher."
He rubbed his knee, then slapped it. "All right, come on. What's Sofie like? Don't give me that look, Vin," he added, brows rising. That look of 'would you please drop it you don't even know what you're talking about also you're a dumbass shut up.'
Ravi rolled his eyes. He rolled them SO HARD it was a wonder they did not fall out. That description of the ensuing look that he threw at Alex was apt, because he was, in fact, projecting those very words in his thoughts and wishing Alex could read them from his mind.
But he answered anyway. Because Alex wouldn't stop pressing if he clammed up. "Sofia is a quiet, self-pitying woman brings unhappiness on herself and then blames me for it." He was maybe more bitter about this than usual because he was annoyed with Alex for asking; in truth, when Sofia was not being infuriatingly morally superior, she was easy enough to get along with, if not particularly engaging.
Alex knew exactly what Ravi was thinking, at least right then, but refused to drop the matter. He was going to make Ravi see his role in their dysfunctional marriage, by Cita (nevermind the face that he didn't even know the core reason why the marriage was whacked), or he'd run around the city of Tyrol naked. (False, he wouldn't now, though it was highly likely that he would when he had been a living human being.)
Ravi's flattering description of Sofie earned himself a facepalm. "Do you not see how horrible you're making her out to be?" asked Alex, voice muffled behind his hand, which dragged down his face in exasperation. "How could she bring unhappiness on herself when she wasn't the one who chose to marry you? I'd be pretty damn unhappy, too, if I were in her shoes."
"I do see." He was doing it on purpose because he was MAD and ANGRY!! "You do not know enough about the situation to advise me on it, Alex." Of course, that was only going to drive Alex to ask for an explanation, which he didn't want to give, because he hadn't wanted to talk about this at all in the first place.
"You said that before." Alex shifted his lighting pole to allow him to lean closer to Ravi, forehead creased in concern. "Vin, you know I don't like seeing you in a loveless marriage, and if you don't, then you should. Stop being an impenetrable jackass and let me help you."
Ravi leaned away, his head propped on his hand propped on his knee, and gave Alex a typical Ravi GlareTM. He understood Alex was just trying to help. He really did. But he also knew Alex could not possibly help unless Ravi told him several uncomfortable truths about himself and explained exactly why the marriage was irreparable from the angle Alex was coming in at. "It will never not be a loveless marriage, Alex," was all he said.
As soon as Ravi leaned backwards, Alex leaned closer, purely in retaliation, giving him a dirty look. Then he pulled back, crossing his arms together. "What about a friendly one, then?"
Another eyeroll, this time his eyes stopped in the direction opposite Alex because he didn't feel like looking at that face right now. "That is what I have been trying to do." (But only fairly recently and not very hard. It got difficult when they had no shared interests and were both rather private people.) "But being friends with her will not solve her problems."
"But it may solve one," he said stubbornly, refusing to give up. How twisted was this, that he seemed to be more concerned with a husband and wife getting along instead of the husband! Quite frankly, Alex found himself disappointed with his friend. "Do you want to solve at least one?"
He growled out a sigh. "Alex. I am trying to be friends with her." That was why he'd agreed to teach her to knit. You know, that thing he'd just mentioned like two minutes ago? Trying to create a shared interest and find something to do together? "I don't know if you noticed, but that is not what she broke down about over the ledgers."
"This is an endeavor of the social variety. You have to take small steps." And he meant that you as in Ravi-you, not the general-all-encompassing-you. "I know this is difficult for you -- I still think you were a stone in a wall in one of your past lives -- but your attitude contradicts your offer. You offered to help her knit, but how you told me about it makes me think she had to threaten the safety of your balls for you to do it. And it's not just your words, either. Your body language, too."
That was it. He was fed up. He hadn't invited Alex over to talk about this shit, and listening to him go on about Ravi and Sofie's relationship as if he were an expert when he knew absolutely nothing about their situation was the most infuriating thing in the entire fucking universe right at that moment. He calmly flicked away what remained of his cigarette and reached over to grab Alex by the collar, hauling him forward, throwing him off the steps as Ravi pushed himself to his feet in the same motion.
"Get up," he said, standing over Alex. "Tell me again how I am ruining my marriage." I fucking dare you.
It was a blessing Alex had a natural grace of the physical variety because his eagerness to help left him blind to Ravi's intentions until he actually executed them. He stumbled down the first two steps, then caught himself and managed to land on his feet on the ground, looking up at Ravindra incredulously as he did so. It was also a blessing that his pole didn't end up in his eye.
"Vin, don't do this," said Alex, head canting to watch him, cautious. Instead of the automatic counter attack and arguing just to argue, Alex was hoping to avoid an altercation, both for himself and his friend. Perhaps death had given him an extra pound of patience. "You're in a precarious position right now. Having a fist fight outside of your home will not help." Despite his words, his body was already tensed to react, limbs positioned where they needed to be out of habit.
Alex's unwillingness to fight (and to rise to Ravi's bait) did have at least some moderating effect. Instead of outright punching him, Ravi just grabbed him by the collar again, hauling him down to eye level. "The truth is, I am ruining my marriage, Alex. But not in the way you think, and not in a way I can fix. And I would appreciate it," despite the polite phrasing, he was positively livid and it showed, "if you would stop trying to fix it like you know what is wrong between us."
He placed a hand over Ravindra's fist and detached it from his shirt, not unkindly. The disappointment he had been feeling before was ten times stronger now, with a dash of confusion, and it was quite evidently written on his face. He wanted to tell Ravi, again, to just tell him what was wrong between him and Sofie, what was it that made him find the simple act of being friends with her a chore, but it was obvious that Ravi had no intentions of doing so. And, now that he thought of it, it wouldn't do to get into a fight, verbal or physical, lest they wake Sofie.
So, instead of apologizing to Ravi or badgering him to spill the beans, Alex simply took a step back, hands raised in a sign of concession, then turned to leave.
Watching Alex turn to leave was like a knife in the heart. That, too, was his own fault, a fact that twisted the knife and drove it deeper.
His anger didn't fade. He was angry with Alex for leaving, yes, but mostly angry with himself. For making Alex leave, for not being able to explain the situation, for hating himself so much that he couldn't even talk about it to his best friend, for being in love since he was sixteen and not being able to say a goddamn word about it. For ruining everything. Because that was what he did.
He should have stopped Alex. Maybe apologized. Maybe torn the knife out of his heart and poured out everything he'd kept bottled up in there for so long. Maybe, at least, explained why Alex's advice had made him so angry.
He didn't. He swept up the stairs and disappeared inside, shutting the door behind himself without saying a word.
And he'd started out the night in such a good mood, too.
When: June 23rd ish before Emilian is stabbidied
Where: Naran house!
Ratings & Warnings: PG
Having Alex in the city on a nightly basis, and thus having the chance to see him regularly, was exciting. It was probably the happiest Ravi had been in ages. He felt like he could finally stop stressing about the possibility of never seeing Alex again, because Alex was showing a willingness to start building a new life in Tyrol. It meant he was planning to stick around. Even though he'd had his friend back for a while now, it finally felt like he actually had Alex back.
They'd agreed to meet up after Alex finished his first round of lighting the lamps. At Ravi's house, this time, which was also exciting because they were meeting openly instead of somewhere sequestered off in the middle of nowhere where nobody could see. Ravi waited on his front steps, a cigarette in his mouth and a cat in his lap. She'd probably run off as soon as Alex appeared, but as long as she didn't try to eat him in his bat form, Ravi didn't care. She'd come back.
Well, Alex did come, but not as a bat! He entered the street, casting a glance around the area. Spotting the Ravi-shape, he raised his hand in greeting before closing the distance between them. His lighting pole rested on his shoulder, as if it had always been there.
"Vin, my friend!" he said, lowering his hand to shake Ravi's. "I owe you so much!" His face was positively beaming. Anyone else would have thought it strange for a man to be so joyful about lighting lamps at night, but Ravi was sure to understand. Alex needed to be around people. He could never stay sequestered away from others for long.
As predicted, Missy jumped out of his lap and took off running the instant Alex appeared from the shadows. She went to hide somewhere around the back of the house, but Ravi paid her no mind. He stood to meet Alex, matching his friend's grin as they shook hands. Alex's cheer had always been infectious, and didn't hurt that Ravi was already in good spirits.
"No, nothing," he replied, motioning for Alex to take a seat on the steps before returning to that position himself. "I am only glad to see you happy." Being alone in a forest didn't suit a person like Alex, Ravi knew. It'd suit him just fine, but Alex needed to be around people or he started getting cabin fever something fierce.
Alex smiled a little wistfully at the cat's retreating figure, but took the offered seat without comment. He surveyed the view from the steps, then, with his palms flat on his knees, he twisted to look at the house behind him. "Your own house," he said, and there was a bit of awe in his voice. He looked back at Ravi, brows rising. "Is the missus asleep?"
Was that so strange? He'd had it fifteen years now, he hardly even thought of it anymore. "Paid for by Iravati," he said, flippantly gesturing over his shoulder to indicate the house. "It is much nicer than to live in the barracks." He could actually get some time alone. It was marvelous.
'The missus.' People called her that so infrequently, and it made him twitch every time. It felt too disingenuous. She was only his wife by law, to call her any of those pet terms felt wrong. "Sofia is asleep, yes." (And she probably thought he'd left to a brothel when she heard the door open and was JUDGING HIM IN HER SLEEP. Ugh.)
"Amen to that," he said, tilting his head in agreement. Loved his guardsmates he did, but nothing beat the privacy of your own house once you had a wife. "Iravati does well looking out for her brother."
Ravi's answer may have been perfectly acceptable save the slight undertone behind them. "So, has there been any..." He motioned vaguely with his hand and shrugged. "Developments? Improvements?" Setbacks? But he wouldn't bring them up for fear of jinxing them.
He frowned. Mood instantly soured, thanks Alex. He hadn't invited you out here to talk about his marriage, dammit! He used his cigarette as an excuse for a long pause, a stalling tactic Alex was sure to remember from their previous years together. After blowing out a cloud of smoke, he finally answered, his eyes focused solidly on the ground at the edge of the street. "Nothing. Well, no, I am teaching her to knit, now. She asked for that."
Alex was good at bringing up stuff you didn't want to think about. He was irritating like that. He waited calmly for Ravi's response and once he had it, lifted his hand. "There! See? That is an improvement."
It was also an improvement that the mention of knitting didn't send him wallowing in self-pity now.
Ravi shrugged and fell silent. It was only an improvement inasmuch as she'd wanted them to spend more time together, and had actually managed to find something he didn't mind doing with her. It was an improvement as far as them being forced to interact with and live with each other. It wasn't an improvement on her stubbornly clinging to a relationship that didn't exist, or refusing to do anything about how unhappy she was simply because she wanted to hold the moral high ground.
He didn't want to talk about any of that. So he said nothing and hoped Alex would move on to a new topic.
Hope in vain, brow boy. "My god, Vin, you need to stop turning to stone every time your wife comes up." Alex paused, licked his lips, then held his hand out, fingers up, ready to explain something. "Doing an activity together? That's good. That's a good first step. You have to be happy about it, though. Be hopeful, Vin, otherwise she's going to read your disinterest like a whore reads gold. You often wish others could read your mind-- well! She'll definitely pick up any negative feelings you might have about it, especially since you're the teacher."
He rubbed his knee, then slapped it. "All right, come on. What's Sofie like? Don't give me that look, Vin," he added, brows rising. That look of 'would you please drop it you don't even know what you're talking about also you're a dumbass shut up.'
Ravi rolled his eyes. He rolled them SO HARD it was a wonder they did not fall out. That description of the ensuing look that he threw at Alex was apt, because he was, in fact, projecting those very words in his thoughts and wishing Alex could read them from his mind.
But he answered anyway. Because Alex wouldn't stop pressing if he clammed up. "Sofia is a quiet, self-pitying woman brings unhappiness on herself and then blames me for it." He was maybe more bitter about this than usual because he was annoyed with Alex for asking; in truth, when Sofia was not being infuriatingly morally superior, she was easy enough to get along with, if not particularly engaging.
Alex knew exactly what Ravi was thinking, at least right then, but refused to drop the matter. He was going to make Ravi see his role in their dysfunctional marriage, by Cita (nevermind the face that he didn't even know the core reason why the marriage was whacked), or he'd run around the city of Tyrol naked. (False, he wouldn't now, though it was highly likely that he would when he had been a living human being.)
Ravi's flattering description of Sofie earned himself a facepalm. "Do you not see how horrible you're making her out to be?" asked Alex, voice muffled behind his hand, which dragged down his face in exasperation. "How could she bring unhappiness on herself when she wasn't the one who chose to marry you? I'd be pretty damn unhappy, too, if I were in her shoes."
"I do see." He was doing it on purpose because he was MAD and ANGRY!! "You do not know enough about the situation to advise me on it, Alex." Of course, that was only going to drive Alex to ask for an explanation, which he didn't want to give, because he hadn't wanted to talk about this at all in the first place.
"You said that before." Alex shifted his lighting pole to allow him to lean closer to Ravi, forehead creased in concern. "Vin, you know I don't like seeing you in a loveless marriage, and if you don't, then you should. Stop being an impenetrable jackass and let me help you."
Ravi leaned away, his head propped on his hand propped on his knee, and gave Alex a typical Ravi GlareTM. He understood Alex was just trying to help. He really did. But he also knew Alex could not possibly help unless Ravi told him several uncomfortable truths about himself and explained exactly why the marriage was irreparable from the angle Alex was coming in at. "It will never not be a loveless marriage, Alex," was all he said.
As soon as Ravi leaned backwards, Alex leaned closer, purely in retaliation, giving him a dirty look. Then he pulled back, crossing his arms together. "What about a friendly one, then?"
Another eyeroll, this time his eyes stopped in the direction opposite Alex because he didn't feel like looking at that face right now. "That is what I have been trying to do." (But only fairly recently and not very hard. It got difficult when they had no shared interests and were both rather private people.) "But being friends with her will not solve her problems."
"But it may solve one," he said stubbornly, refusing to give up. How twisted was this, that he seemed to be more concerned with a husband and wife getting along instead of the husband! Quite frankly, Alex found himself disappointed with his friend. "Do you want to solve at least one?"
He growled out a sigh. "Alex. I am trying to be friends with her." That was why he'd agreed to teach her to knit. You know, that thing he'd just mentioned like two minutes ago? Trying to create a shared interest and find something to do together? "I don't know if you noticed, but that is not what she broke down about over the ledgers."
"This is an endeavor of the social variety. You have to take small steps." And he meant that you as in Ravi-you, not the general-all-encompassing-you. "I know this is difficult for you -- I still think you were a stone in a wall in one of your past lives -- but your attitude contradicts your offer. You offered to help her knit, but how you told me about it makes me think she had to threaten the safety of your balls for you to do it. And it's not just your words, either. Your body language, too."
That was it. He was fed up. He hadn't invited Alex over to talk about this shit, and listening to him go on about Ravi and Sofie's relationship as if he were an expert when he knew absolutely nothing about their situation was the most infuriating thing in the entire fucking universe right at that moment. He calmly flicked away what remained of his cigarette and reached over to grab Alex by the collar, hauling him forward, throwing him off the steps as Ravi pushed himself to his feet in the same motion.
"Get up," he said, standing over Alex. "Tell me again how I am ruining my marriage." I fucking dare you.
It was a blessing Alex had a natural grace of the physical variety because his eagerness to help left him blind to Ravi's intentions until he actually executed them. He stumbled down the first two steps, then caught himself and managed to land on his feet on the ground, looking up at Ravindra incredulously as he did so. It was also a blessing that his pole didn't end up in his eye.
"Vin, don't do this," said Alex, head canting to watch him, cautious. Instead of the automatic counter attack and arguing just to argue, Alex was hoping to avoid an altercation, both for himself and his friend. Perhaps death had given him an extra pound of patience. "You're in a precarious position right now. Having a fist fight outside of your home will not help." Despite his words, his body was already tensed to react, limbs positioned where they needed to be out of habit.
Alex's unwillingness to fight (and to rise to Ravi's bait) did have at least some moderating effect. Instead of outright punching him, Ravi just grabbed him by the collar again, hauling him down to eye level. "The truth is, I am ruining my marriage, Alex. But not in the way you think, and not in a way I can fix. And I would appreciate it," despite the polite phrasing, he was positively livid and it showed, "if you would stop trying to fix it like you know what is wrong between us."
He placed a hand over Ravindra's fist and detached it from his shirt, not unkindly. The disappointment he had been feeling before was ten times stronger now, with a dash of confusion, and it was quite evidently written on his face. He wanted to tell Ravi, again, to just tell him what was wrong between him and Sofie, what was it that made him find the simple act of being friends with her a chore, but it was obvious that Ravi had no intentions of doing so. And, now that he thought of it, it wouldn't do to get into a fight, verbal or physical, lest they wake Sofie.
So, instead of apologizing to Ravi or badgering him to spill the beans, Alex simply took a step back, hands raised in a sign of concession, then turned to leave.
Watching Alex turn to leave was like a knife in the heart. That, too, was his own fault, a fact that twisted the knife and drove it deeper.
His anger didn't fade. He was angry with Alex for leaving, yes, but mostly angry with himself. For making Alex leave, for not being able to explain the situation, for hating himself so much that he couldn't even talk about it to his best friend, for being in love since he was sixteen and not being able to say a goddamn word about it. For ruining everything. Because that was what he did.
He should have stopped Alex. Maybe apologized. Maybe torn the knife out of his heart and poured out everything he'd kept bottled up in there for so long. Maybe, at least, explained why Alex's advice had made him so angry.
He didn't. He swept up the stairs and disappeared inside, shutting the door behind himself without saying a word.
And he'd started out the night in such a good mood, too.