milliways_bar | (no subject)

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(no subject)

(Not-Actually-OOM: A few days ago, Gavroche and Sunshine come to the conclusion that it's better to show someone you're still their friend than abandon them when things get complicated. The trick is finding the right balance.)

When Sunshine comes in from the kitchen, today, she has a plate of food - a full meal, really - in addition to her tray of baked goods. The plate holds a sizable slice of broccoli-cheese quiche, a spinach and mixed greens salad with raspberries, feta cheese, candied pecans and a homemade vinaigrette dressing, and some toasted quinoa with carrots, sweet peppers, corn and caramelized onions. Though vegetarian, everything in it is a good source of iron and protein. On a smaller plate, for dessert, she includes one of her humongous cinnamon rolls.

She leaves the plate and cinnamon roll with with the bar, with instructions that they are for Jason Todd.

A peace offering, and a sign she doesn't want their friendship to be over, though she knows neither of them is probably ready to confront this yet. They'll work through it, though, eventually. That's what friends do.

Once the plate has been delivered to the Bar, Rae starts arranging her tray of baked goods for sale, and puts up a sign:

Sunshine's Freshly-Made Baked Goods
Cinnamon Rolls As Big As Your Head: $4
(Extra Icing: $.50)
Bitter Chocolate Death: $3.50
Death of Marat: $4 (only two available)
Caramel Cataclysms: $3
Lemon Lechery: $3
Rocky Road Avalanche: $3
Chocoholia: $3
Hell's Angelfood: $2:75
Meringuamania: $2.00
As-Of-Yet Unnamed Chocolate Cake with Pecans, Ginger Fudge, Pistachios, and Sea Salt
Help me name it, and get a slice for free!

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"Apparently avoiding a potentially touchy subject is the touchy subject," Rae sighs, resting her hands on the bar. Misplaced kindness is still meant as kindness.

"Didn't know if you'd want to talk about the fact that you're currently in jail, or not. Figured you could use something other than prison food."

He looks away from her as she speaks, but there's the smallest flicker of a smile when she mentions 'prison food.'

"I might want to talk about who told you," Graham answers.

Rae blinks at him, hesitating.

"About Dr. Lecter?"

His mouth twitches again, as he nods.

"And - what did he tell you?"

"That's a tricky question, because I know him from your future, Will," Rae says, at last. There's always the question of how knowledge of the future might change that future.

"At the time, he told me that you had been shot, and had been imprisoned for murder. He said you were trying to find your way back to yourself, and that he intended to help."

Graham watches the floor, a long moment passing before he speaks.

"Then he was careful," he murmurs. "Not to lie to you."

It's not small comfort. It's no comfort.

Rae watches him.

"What would he have lied to me about?"

He doesn't return her look.

"Are you starting to doubt him, Rae?"

"Now who's talking around what they know?" Rae answers, pointed again.

No, that's not her answer. Her answer follows.

"A friend of mine has been telling me for much of the past year that Dr. Lecter isn't what he seems to be - I had dismissed it as personal dislike. Lately, there have been things that have made me question whether my friend has been right all along."

True as it is, he doesn't answer the reminder.

Quietly, "You should listen to your friend."

Rae's face draws down.

"He says that Dr. Lecter is cruel. That he hurts people for fun, but in ways that are hard to pin down as deliberate. Last fall, Dr Lecter told me my friend's suspicions about him were paranoia - and in part I believed him. He told my friend so in a way that made even my friend wonder whether Dr. Lecter may have been telling the truth."

Sunshine still feels the sting of realizing how she had been doubting Autor.

"That's... not unlike what he's been telling others about me."

Graham looks to her, very briefly, with a trembling smile.

"I didn't know whether you believed him."

"I did," she admits. Rae couldn't lie if she tried, and she doesn't try now. In the wake of what has happened with Autor, his unheeded warnings, and the forgiveness he gave her for doubting him, she doesn't try to hide what she believed or did not believe.

"At the time, I had no reason not to believe him," Rae murmurs. That was then. This is now. How times do change us.

"Would you tell me the truth?"

Graham looks back to her.

"I would try."

She is tired. It shows around her eyes and in the set of her shoulders. Tired and worried. This whole week has been one thing after another, but she hasn't shied away from any of it. She mustn't. It is a very easy thing to start, but terribly difficult to stop.

"Then try," she requests, seeing again Autor, telling the truth and not being believed. "I'll try, too."

He thinks of Beverly, sitting across from him, he's baiting a hook -

"I've been - charged with murder. That's true. I'm not in in prison, I'm in a um - psychiatric hospital."

The way he says the last two words, it's clear he's using this term as loosely as possible.

"Five people were killed, and they were all connected to me or cases I was investigating. They found - remains, in my home."

He can't bring himself to share more details on that. But he meets her eyes, and there's still a quiet, nervous insistence in his voice - "I didn't kill them."

Her gaze doesn't leave him as he speaks, but she isn't necessarily looking at his eyes. Her sight searches his face, his shadows, for signs of any deception.

But there isn't any. There's just fear.

When he does look at her, and her gaze moves automatically to meet his, Rae's knees feel weak under her. He's telling her the truth.

"You believe Dr. Lecter killed those people," Rae breathes, her knuckles white where she grips the edge of her tray of baked goods. "And framed you for them. While... insisting he was helping you."

Rae feels ill.

"I thought that."

He takes a breath, looking away, down to her hands.

"Rae, I'm telling you this because - if you know the truth, you need to know what he's capable of."

Her knuckles show scars - scrapes from past fights against monsters in the night, burns from being careless around ovens and baking trays. Callouses from both sides of her life, livid white as she holds on.

"If that isn't already the extent of it, I..." Sometimes there are things you shouldn't learn are true, because when you do, you simply fold up. She refuses to fold.

"...I would like to have a seat, and a drink, before I hear it." What he's capable of.

Graham takes a step back from her.

"Have whatever you need."

Movement is easier than words are, when stillness is threatening to make her start shivering.

Previous bartending shifts mean she knows where things are kept. She comes up with a bottle of whiskey of a brand from her world in her hand, two low-ball glasses held in the other. She motions with the bottle in a wordless offer.

He's not sure he'll be able to take it. But he hasn't had a drink since his arrest - in the moment she offers, he doesn't care.

Graham just nods, and moves to sit with her.

She pours for them both, before sitting. It's pretty good stuff, the kind you buy when you want to splurge a bit without it being prohibitively expensive.

Only after she has taken the first drink, seeking to center herself now there is no danger of falling, does she speak.

"So. You were... you were telling me how a friend of mine isn't just cruel and manipulative, but also a murderer and a really shitty friend," she says, fingers restless against the glass. It's an attempt at levity, but it doesn't take.

Edited 2014-06-01 03:47 (UTC)

He wonders if he thought it might feel better, being believed. But Graham just feels sick. His hand shakes slightly as he lowers his glass.

"I was telling you that," he agrees, softly. "That's all true."

It's just not all of the truth.

Rae nods, slightly.

"I believe you."

She can't look at him when she says it. Rae believes what he has told her, but she also knows he hasn't told her everything yet. She can hear it in his voice and see it in the shadows that cross his face.

She just isn't sure she can stand to hear it. If the murder and framing were just the beginning.

Edited 2014-06-01 04:17 (UTC)