What Comes Before

[Raffe]

Sometimes dealing with Oriena was like dealing with arsenic. The more you tried to handle her, the deeper the poison sank. But sometimes she also protested too voraciously as to the empty cavity in her chest, like she wanted the recoil. Ilya’s girls ruined his voice with their healing, but without them he knew he’d have died. Oriena called in that favour. She didn’t have to. Asked if she ever would, he was sure she’d shrug the question off, or sneer at the suggestion she gave a shit. But when it came to it, when it really came to it, she made the choice that meant he was even sitting here now.

Maybe he was a fool. Plenty of people told him that too. Too trusting. Too eager to see the best in people -- to find it even when it didn’t exist. And maybe they were right, but Raffe preferred living that way.

She was needling Nox because she didn’t want to talk about what was really going on. He thought she was suffering, and most likely that was an ailment down to her own shit choices, but whatever was going on behind that mask of a gaze she was unlikely to confide. Whether she deserved it or not was immaterial, at least to Raffe. He still didn’t enjoy seeing it.

So when he ran a frustrated hand over his head it was more because he felt useless than because her point blank ignoring his questions rankled. He didn’t understand half of what was going on, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to either. After Nox went to get the information she asked for, he opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. He weathered her with folded arms and quiet patience as she toyed, but still felt surprise break his expression for what she said. It was a distraction, he was fairly sure, but it pressed on a wound.

He nodded, but his gaze dipped.

The warning that followed he took with stoicism. Maybe because it didn’t surprise him that Nox had more enemies than just the Atharim. He wasn’t sure if Oriena was just trying to get under his skin and sow doubt, or if she meant the concern genuinely. Probably the former, but he was never quite sure. Or just didn’t want to be sure that she could really be so cruel.

Nox’s footsteps thundered down the stairs soon after. He slid a drive across the table and sat back down in his seat. Raffe tried to catch his eye, at least to impart a reassuring smile, but there was a faint line of worry between his brows too. Oriena picked it up, and did not much contemplate it before shifting to pocket it. In fact she seemed done with them, like she no longer really saw them at all. She stood. No thanks or acknowledgement. Though she paused before she left.

“Enjoy it while it lasts, sweetheart,” she said to Nox. There wasn’t even spite in the way she said it; if anything, Raffe thought she only sounded tired. It sent a chill through him. “People like you and me, we aren’t built for the long haul. You’ll fuck it up. Probably won’t even mean to, but you will.” She shrugged, wrapped her hand around the neck of the bottle. Then she glanced at Raffe, and left.