(my goodness, it's been a while! apologies, but life has been fifty shades of insane lately. Moved across the country, started this new job, and then the site went down for a while. But I'm settling in now (my job is legit btw) and the site is back!! Yay!)
Ryker grinned. "Yeah? Well I bet parallel you is still a skank." And Ryker was the only one in the world he would allow to call her that. Anyone else tried, and they would find themselves with bruises they could not remember getting, a broken nose, and maybe a few missing teeth. Mostly because he knew that he meant it in good humor, but others he could not be so sure of. "Besides, I make a great asshat and you know it." Ryker was a lighthearted guy often enough, though in his usual stoic, quiet way he didn't always show it. It came out mostly when he played with Cat (or so he would name him until the stray feline had an actual name) or Loki, when he was drunk, or when he was alone with his sister and free from stress. To most others, he was the stony guy at the bar, laying down the law when it was required of him. Out here in the middle of nowhere, though, he felt free, more than he had in a while. Too long in civilization, he decided.
"I used to hate wine back then," Ryker laughed. "I never told Dad because I knew he was doing a nice thing for us and he tried real hard, and you know, we were always taught to take what we were given. But I hated it for years and drank it anyway. A few times though, he'd let me have a sip or two of his beer and that, that I loved. We would have little private moments where I'd find him in his study and I'd sit with him in that huge leather armchair he had while he read. That's where I first tasted whiskey, but I didn't like it so much back then." He thought about the wine they now swigged carelessly and just how much it was worth, what kind of occasion his parents would have saved it for and how extravagant the dinner would be. And they were in the desert drinking right from the bottle. Mother would be mortified.
"I have no doubts that you DID kill for it, my dear sister. But that's how things go around here, isn't it? Kill or be killed." He waved off her insistence that lizard wasn't all bad if it was cooked right; he just hated the stuff altogether and would avoid it if he could, but he would take it if he had to.
"I DO make a horrible hooker. Thats what these are for," he held up his two clenched fists, which, compared to hers, were like great boulders with yellow callouses instead of moss. "For protecting your sorry ass." He smiled, knowing he often didn't need to--she was quite capable of defending herself, but often he found it his duty to do it anyway.
"Mmm, music! I miss some good music. And not the lame stuff people play when they're drunk and pull out a hand carved flute thing, nah, real music. Nirvana. I would stab a man right now for a Nirvana record." He laughed, remembering the day Sera broke their grandparents' record player. The poor thing was ancient, but well kept. Even so, it couldn't withstand the whirlwind that was young Sera. "Wasn't Gramps in a war way back when? Or something? I think that changed his perspective a lot. It's different when death and survival become more important than table manners. Ugh...table manners." In his best mockingly stuffy tone, bordering on a nasally British accent, he said, "Pardon me, may I please be excuuuuused?"
"Remember that one thanksgiving, Dad asked me to set the table and I put the forks on the wrong side of the placemat? I got such a lecture from him. Gramps told him I should put forks in the glasses if I wanted to. The important thing was that we were gonna have dinner as a family. I miss that about him, you know? He saw through all the crap and focused on what was important. Why didn't we do that when we were younger?" he wondered in vain. "And Gram was kind of up tight sometimes, but she had a good heart. You could break her with a cute smile faster than you could Mom anyway, and she told the best bedtime stories..." Now he was starting to get sappy, so like a pro, he switched the conversation to a lighter angle. "Can you imagine us as grandparents? We would be the WORST. We'd be every parent's worst nightmare and every kid's best friend. Besides, I can't exactly see us having kids. You, maybe, you like them more than I do, but you're more of the adoptive type. I dont' think you'd settle down with one dapper chap for the rest of your life, pop out a kid, and lead a quieter--" he started to laugh, "lifestyle. Just can't see it."
Tip jar: the author of this post has received
0.00 INK
in return for their work.