multiversallogs | are there even goats in flag hill

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are there even goats in flag hill

Who: Antonin and Rodolphus
What: death drinkers anonymous
Where: a bar in Flag Hill (one that hasn't had its front wall ripped out by the militia)
When: evening, after Rodolphus finishes Hellsing work; after Bellatrix's arrival
Notes: MY WIIIIFE/MY LIIIIFE
Warnings: not actually anonymous in any way

Word gets around, one way or another, and Rodolphus is somewhere between indifferent and grateful. It is an intensely personal matter, but people at Hellsing are more or less accustomed to his ways, and if they understand why he's a little slower for the rest of the work day, struggling to focus on his work instead of being the dutiful machine he usually is, that is acceptable.

He tries to make up for it the next day. It helps that the Flag Hill warding job is more complicated than usual, requiring his full attention. If he's slow today, he's also very careful. Hellsing has a reputation to maintain and maybe he does too, a little bit. When he finishes that evening, he walks for a while in an attempt to clear his head instead of apparating back to an empty house that will become an echo chamber of his own obsessiveness. Rodolphus passes a bar, then slowly backtracks to consider it. Tomorrow is the weekend, and barring any emergencies, he may not be required. And people rarely talk to him at bars, for some reason. Perhaps this could work. Perhaps he could simply sit for a while, alone.

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"These are all separate adventures?" Antonin asks, topping them both off again. "It does sound like you were kept on your toes."

"Separate, yes." He stares at his full again glass and tries to drink at a more sedate pace. "Many things. Many interesting people. I hope no one else from home shows up."

That is indeed a reference to a Certain Someone, but it is an oblique one. Rodolphus didn't tell Bellatrix about his dreams and he's certainly not going to tell Antonin. Probably. Well, he'll try not to. Damn.

"No one else in particular, at least." Antonin gives him a sidelong look. He doesn't particularly want a Certain Someone either - if that Someone is from his own time, he's a lunatic, if he's from earlier... well, it would still rather be like having the teacher return after leaving the class unsupervised.

"Though I am sad I missed Narcissa," he adds, lighter, after a moment. "If we must have Malfoys, I don't see why we can't have the decorative one."

Strangely, it is the mention of Narcissa, or her absence, that makes Rodolphus wilt ever so slightly. It is difficult to put into words how she makes him feel. The words tend to come out completely lacking dignity, things like Narcissa is nice and I wish I had fallen in love with Narcissa, or maybe that's just the way they would come out right now.

"He brought me whiskey." He feels compelled to acknowledge that much.

"Lucius did?" Antonin was never much for 'soft,' and he probably can't really do it now if he tries, but the question is at least quieter and less glib. He didn't, at least, miss the slight change in Rodolphus' demeanor.

"When Bellatrix died." Rodolphus stares off into the same direction he was staring earlier, not coincidentally. "I think Severus killed her."

Most of what he says can be considered cold. That statement has reached subzero temperatures. It is a statement he has thought a lot about, a statement with long, empty nights crammed inside of it. He blinks slowly, then starts drinking again.

Antonin takes a long drink, almost thoughtful. There are several questions it occurs to him to ask. The one he settles on is: "Do you think he'll try to do it again?"

He puts the glass down some distance away from the bottle to indicate that no more is required at the moment, moving his stare from across the bar to the counter top beside his hand. There's a long pause from him too.

"I don't care," Rodolphus says finally, a miserable lie. Then, more truthfully, and with a tinge of sarcastic anger: "What could I possibly do about it, if he did."

Good old repressed homicidal impulses. It is an English tradition.

Antonin raises his eyebrows. Englishmen will insist on being English, he supposes. "Do you know why, the first time?"

"Why don't you ask him?" Rodolphus says, and it is a sort of joke, as he had done earlier, but not one nearly as good-natured. It could even be seen as accusatory, as if Antonin were somehow supposed to know (or care) that Severus had killed Bellatrix before he started hanging out with him. As if Rodolphus knows and has evidence this is true, as opposed to something he only believes because of things Narcissa did and did not say.

With effort, he shuts his eyes, containing the anger, the uncharacteristic sharpness, and putting it away wherever such things go to fester and ferment.

"Don't ask him. Why shouldn't he? It was not the Bellatrix here now. That one was older." With all the ensuing implications.

"Severus offered me a place to stay," Antonin says, lightly, refilling his own glass even if Rodolphus is taking a breather. "I am not showing him any special favor by accepting. He does not understand, properly, but for whatever reason of his own, he gives me a bed, and I am not in a position not to take it." Antonin suspects guilt as the primary reason, even if he doesn't know what the guilt is for.

"I saw Bellatrix at home. I saw you. Your brother. We are what we are, now." 'Should' didn't really enter into it, as far as Antonin is concerned. Perhaps they all should be put down, but it isn't as if he'll suggest it.

He shrugs in response to the second part. As long as Voldemort is truly not here, what does he care who he is? Who he used to be? The dreams mean nothing and his paranoia is getting the better of him when it comes to the Mark.

"Everyone should have someone," he says again, this time deadpan. It will have to pass as wit.

"You, my friend, are not nearly drunk enough to be offering such bullshit," Antonin observes without rancor. "I am willing to help you remedy this problem, but even so."

It's tempting, but Flag Hill is a long way from Sobek Croix, and he won't be trying to apparate in this state. He'll have to actually take some form of public transport, but that's manageable. Probably.

"One more." Famous last words. "Then home."

"Come, then at least let me see you home." They can move that direction - that doesn't mean they can't make more stops along the way. "If everyone should have someone, tonight only you can make do with me."

Unexpectedly, it draws to mind for Antonin a memory of the two of them as much younger men, coming home after a particularly messy raid. When he let Rodolphus clean up at his flat, Antonin hadn't asked whether he was trying to spare Bellatrix worry, or keep her from being put out that she hadn't been with them. (In fairness, he probably hadn't needed to ask.) It had seemed like a bit of a lark, at the time, just some bloodsport to let off steam and then his friend home to the missus. Now it's almost incomprehensible to him apart from the blood.

He finishes his current drink and refills both glasses for Rodolphus' "last."

Rodolphus seems to mull over the idea, and perhaps a similar memory, before giving a passive, monosyllabic sort of assent. Neither of them proposed any toasts, and he doesn't now — there's nothing to drink to, they've established that much.

"It's a long way," he warns Antonin, standing carefully. Yes, practically across the city, and so many bars on the way, too. Why is Antonin so clever.

"I have been told I should see more of the city," he says, undeterred. In fairness, Severus has told him he should occasionally leave the house because Severus cannot deal with too much of any one other person, but it comes to the same thing.

"I have even take the train more than once, I know how it works." It's an accomplishment, evidently, to be proud of.

Under normal circumstances, Rodolphus doesn't have it in him to make any kind of quip, and he still doesn't now but he nods, almost to himself, like yes, this is certainly Antonin.

"Have you tried the Skyrail?"

Even in this state he knows this is a terrible idea, but the El Train doesn't actually reach Sobek Croix, whereas the Skyrail will get them fairly close.

"Not yet, but on the positive side, this means I have not yet been banned from it, either." This is mostly a joke, except the pre-Azkaban Antonin did have a bit of a habit of getting thrown out of places. Had he not had money, he probably would have been banned from more, in fairness.

"We can fix that," Rodolphus says, and with his habitual tendency to be ominous about mundane things, this sounds like a promise about being banned rather than a promise about enjoying a Skyrail ride while drunk. "Come. You'll like this."

Though Antonin paid, he does leave some extra by way of a tip, and out into the night they head.

Antonin would probably be equally likely to enjoy getting thrown off the Skyrail as much as riding it, but he comes along in good humour. The liquor has relaxed him a bit, but has little other visible effect; whether or not Rodolphus extracts himself, Antonin has no personal plans to stop drinking anytime soon.

"What makes you think so?" Rodolphus' assurance he'll enjoy something could be related either to the thing itself, Rodolphus' assessment of Antonin's character, or a combination of the two.

In this case, he'd based it on absolutely nothing other than his desire to get Antonin on the Skyrail because he thinks it'd be funny. The funny part is where the route to Ketch Heath swings out over the harbor near the Fog. No one ever said Rodolphus was a good friend, but it's not like Antonin is as drunk as he is, so this may backfire.

"It is a small adventure. Nothing like the old days."

Antonin makes a dismissive sound. The old days were in the past, and he doesn't expect anything in Baedal to be like them, for good or ill. "Are you up to an adventure this evening?" Which is a question that may fairly be characterized as loaded.

Rodolphus glances back over his shoulder at Antonin, eyebrows raised just enough to be his version of quizzical. For a second it seems like that will be all, as is so often his habit, but then he says, turning his face away, "What do you think I'll do? Throw myself off?"

He sounds perfectly reasonable, but then, he always does.

"Not at all, I just don't want you to strain yourself entertaining me. You know I am a man of simple tastes." In the sense of 'uncomplicated,' if not always in the sense of 'inexpensive' or 'without collateral damage.'

He can see, though, that Rodolphus is not quite himself, even his post-Azkaban self. He's something without shouting distance of concerned.

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