[Alex/Ravi] - Patching up

[paladont]

Who:
Alexander
Ravindra
When: Sunday, 5/22
Where: The Wandering Fox, Safta
Before/After: After Alex's dmail
Warnings: There's some reflection on abusive situations but nothing descriptive; also Alex is a mega-asshole here



An hour or two is what he told Reilanin, and so an hour or two is the amount of time Alex would spend away from her. Maybe less, but certainly no more barring extreme circumstance. He doubted that such a circumstance would occur on this particular night, but life was full of unexpected surprises...

In any case, he hoped tonight wouldn't be one of them.

He waited in the lobby for Ravindra, leaning on his side against the large window, arms crossed over his chest. Nova's words troubled him still. Nova's involvement, not so much, though still strange. No, it was his observation, that he spoke coldly of Ravi.

Cold.

That was not a word Alex had ever heard used to describe him. Not as the Alex most people knew, the Alex he presented himself as. The Alex of Bohun Upas could be cold, of course, as could most of its members -- "cold" was simply part of the business -- but the Alex of Ravindra and Reilanin...?


Ravindra was afraid to meet him.

Not the abject terror of their last couple meetings, but a quiet worry that sat in the pit of his stomach and gnawed at him. Something was going to go wrong tonight, he was sure of it. Alex would decide he hadn't changed fast enough, or that he wasn't serious about wanting to, or would tell him that Reilanin really didn't want anything to do with him ever again and cut him out of the relationship permanently.

His imagination could not conceive of a single positive reason for this meeting, and so it was with that fearful worry eating at him that he stepped into the lobby of the Wandering Fox.

He spotted Alex immediately and took a deep breath to steel himself before approaching him. It did nothing to untangle the knot in his stomach. He stopped before Alex, too nervous even to give a greeting, and stood with his arms folded in that defensive, walled-up stance he used, and waited to be addressed.


"Hey," he said, greeting a tad dull, but only because he was just pulling himself out of his thoughts. He shoved off from the wall, spinning the key to the room he'd purchased around his gloved finger. He turned around and waved Ravi on.

"I've only got an hour or so," he said as they walked down the hall. The key fit easily into the keyhole, years of use making the fit less particular. He held the door open for Ravi to enter, then followed behind.


Ravi mumbled a very quiet, "Hey," in response and followed, his trepidation growing at the lack of explanation and then the moving to a private space. Well, of course they were moving to a private space, Alex knew that Ravi hated speaking in public spaces. Reassuring himself of that didn't help much.

He stepped into the room, wondering why Alex had bothered paying for it if they were only going to be here an hour, but he didn't voice the confusion. He walked past Alex into the room and stopped next to the foot of the bed, turning to face him. His stance was meek, his eyes not meeting Alex's face. He waited, again, for Alex to explain why he'd called him here.


Maybe Ravi wasn't going to sit, but Alex would. Sitting his ass down at the top of the bed, his back propped against the wall and his legs up, knees bent, he crossed his arms over his chest again and asked, quite plainly, "Am I cold?"


Not...the question he'd expected. It got a confused, "Ah?" in response, because he wasn't sure what context Alex meant that in.


"Cold. To you. About you."


That was not the clarification he'd expected, either. His slightly hunched posture straightened out and he pressed a hand over his eye, the other dropping to the bed between them.

He thought back to the responses Alex had given him during their conversation the night before, the letters that, looking back on them sober, had sounded like thinly veiled sniping that he hadn't caught at the time. And of course their conversation at the library on Tuesday had been very cold, but he didn't know if he should count that, because Alex was still angry at the time.

Maybe he was still angry now.

The knot in his stomach tightened at the idea of telling Alex the truth, the yes answer that Ravi was sure he didn't want to hear. But Ravi had promised to try to be truthful, and Alex had promised not to take it out on him if he got upset, and if Ravi didn't fulfill that first promise now, would Alex feel bound to his in the future?

"I think so, yes," he mumbled, almost as if he didn't want to be heard, as he let his arm fall to fold back over the other.


He cocked his head at the eye-pressing, waiting with a certain bit of apprehension for Ravi's answer.

An affirmative. Alex looked to the wall, brow lifted as his skepticism filtered into the answer, only to be quashed by the affirmative nature of the answer. He brought both palms up to his eyes and tilted his head back, releasing an audible sigh-slash-groan of defeat. After a beat, he asked, "Have I always been, or is it just this?"


He looked up, askance, at Alex, his head down. He wasn't sure what to make of that reaction, but at least he knew how to answer the follow-up question. "It's just this."

'Cold' was not a word he'd have used to describe the relationship they'd had before everything had unraveled. Alex was heated about everything. Even when they'd been angry with each other before, it'd always been heated.


He lifted his palms from his eyes, then let them drop to his sides and with them, his left leg relaxed. "I don't want to be cold," he said, eyes on Ravi's hand on the bed.

He didn't want Ravi and Rei to know that side of him.


That irked him. He raised his head, his brow knit, to look at Alex full-on. It took him a moment to realize why it irked him: because of the way Alex responded to the traits Ravi wished he didn't possess. Like it shouldn't be hard at all to change once the flaws were pointed out to him.

"So stop, then," he said, his tone biting, just short of snapping at him. "Because it's that easy, yes?"


Alex looked up at him with narrowed eyes, somewhat taken aback by Ravi's sudden irritation. "I was planning to," he said at length, brow raised. "That's why I wanted to meet."

He didn't understand the connection Ravi saw because it didn't exist. To him, at least.


The response took him totally aback, and he just stared at Alex, incredulous and completely at a loss.

Was it really that easy for him?

No fucking fair, Heimdall you're the worst!


After enough staring, he said, with a smidgen of wariness, "What."


He sat at the foot of the bed, glaring at the wall, his arms tightly folded, and bit back his instinctive, "Never mind." He wasn't supposed to be saying that anymore. He was supposed to be saying how he really felt, instead.

"Just because it's easy for you doesn't mean it's easy for everyone," he muttered.


Not everyone was cold, Ravi, what the fuck are you talking about!

Oh, unless he meant the stop being cold as a 'stop being' in general...

"It's easy because it's only happening this once," said Alex flatly, resting a wrist on top of his knee, "and because I don't want to lose you."

The 'once' bit was, of course, a lie, but Ravindra didn't know that.


The last half of Alex's reply killed his anger. Frustration rose up in its place, because he wanted to stay angry, but now it was gone.

He let out a sigh instead and tried to sort through the surface feelings muddying how he really felt. It was a relief to hear, 'I don't want to lose you,' because that was the first indication of such he'd gotten since this whole mess had started. He hadn't realized just how worried he'd been about it until now, and at least some of his anxiety dissipated at having that reassurance, but it was replaced by a new, entirely different anxiety that he couldn't place.

His arms unfolded, hands falling, curled over each other, in his lap. "I thought maybe you didn't care if you did," he said softly, his tone a bit forlorn.


At the start, he hadn't cared. He'd been too blinded by indignation to care. It was much easier now to let that anger ebb after Reilanin had cast the severing and now recovered under his (and Nova's) watch, and to let his desire to keep Akhilendra close work on the rest of his resentment against Ravindra.

This was no different from entering an intimate relationship with him. All he had to do was tell himself to accept it, and he would make it happen. He had to make it happen.

Instead of addressing the confession directly, Alex held his arms open. "Come here."


Ravi looked back at him and saw the inviting arms. Maybe it was also selfish and needy, but physical consolation was exactly what he wanted right now. He rose, walked around the bed, and knelt beside Alex, leaning against him, wrapping his arms around his waist.

He was silent for a moment as he slowly unraveled where the new anxiety had come from. It wasn't about Alex, or at least not directly. Ravi was all too willing to believe what he'd said. It was about Reilanin, who still wasn't speaking with him, and about how Alex seemed closer to her now than he had to Ravi before.

"What if Reilanin doesn't care?" he voiced in a whisper, his face against Alex's chest. Would Alex abandon him despite what he'd said if Reilanin asked him to? At this point, given everything that had happened in the past week or so, Ravi couldn't be sure he wouldn't.


Arms around his body, he held Ravi just tight enough for the embrace to feel secure. "She does," he said, confident in the truth of his simple reply. And he was so fucking fortunate that she did, because Alex didn't want to think about his position if she didn't.


Ravi was much less confident, given the complete radio silence from Reilanin's end. He couldn't trust that Alex's reassurance wasn't just blind faith. "It doesn't seem like she does," he mumbled, hoping, even as he said it, that it wasn't something that would set Alex off.


He loosened an arm, raising his hand to the back of Ravi's head, absently twirling his hair around his fingers. It was an action of familiarity, one he was confident Ravi would find some degree of comfort in. "Give her time. I think this may be the first time she's ever been hurt personally."

That probably was not very supportive to say, and even Alex realized it. "Like the first time your trust was broken, or your first heart ache," he explained. "I don't think she's ever been close enough to someone for that happen before now."

It didn't excuse Ravi's actions, but Alex was trying to win his trust. In a way, he also understood the value in it, in being hurt, though he still didn't like that it happened, was still overprotective of her.


It did comfort him, just by being something familiar and intimate that Alex wouldn't have done if he wasn't serious about what he'd said. Ravi shifted to sit in his lap, one arm still around his back, other hand going to rest against his chest.

It didn't really help to hear that, no. His chest tightened and he pressed himself closer into Alex. It was an explanation for why she'd reacted so severely, but it made him feel more guilty about it than he already did. The first time his trust had been broken, the first time he'd been personally hurt--that was his father. He didn't want to be that for someone else.

Or maybe it was Victor, and his betrayal. They'd both existed then, unlike the phantom of Ravi's father in his past, even if they'd both been controlled by players at the time. That incident that everyone wanted Ravi to be angry over, but all he could feel was confused and hurt. The perpetrator being the first person Ravi had grown close to since leaving his sister. Maybe it was more like that.

And that had ended well, or as well as could be expected, hadn't it? There was hope there, that she could forgive him.

"Tell her I'm sorry," he said softly. "I thought if it hurt her that badly, she wouldn't have done it."


"You haven't done things that hurt you badly?" he asked, a gentle rebuttal. Apologies rang hollow when given by someone else, or so of the opinion was Alex, so he made no comment on his request.


"Only when I thought it would hurt worse if I didn't..." Before the words had finished making it out of his mouth, their meaning solidified for him and he felt a fresh stab of guilt.

Reilanin had done it because she thought he'd leave if she didn't. It wasn't true, but that didn't matter if she'd believed it at the time. That meant the idea of losing him had been more painful to her than putting herself through the severing ceremony again. It was a strange thing to realize he was that important to her.

Strange and a little uncomfortable. That was a lot of responsibility to rest on his shoulders, and he didn't think he was worth it. He went through periods where he felt like everyone in his life would be better off without him in it, and this past week had been one such time, and it didn't help to know that simply being important to somebody had made her feel forced to hurt herself for him.

His understanding was clear in the way his tone petered off, the way he shifted against Alex's body, the way his fingers curled in Alex's shirt. He almost didn't want to be welcomed back into their home now, because he thought he'd only end up hurting Reilanin again through his own carelessness.


Not the angle he had prompted from, but however Ravi appeared to see it seemed to bring about some level of understanding, so he didn't correct him. Was it from his father that he drew the comparison? That was unfortunate, and not one made to parallel Ravindra and Reilanin that Alex found encouraging.

"You hurt her," he said softly, stroking Ravi's hair. "I'm not happy that you did. But I hurt you, too."


That dredged up the memory of their encounter last Sunday. That wasn't the only hurt, of course, it had been ongoing in less severe degrees, but it was the worst of it. Ravi felt sick all over again at the memory, and couldn't help recalling his sister, freshly awakened, telling him, "You deserve better."

He didn't want better. He wanted Alex.

But his gut reaction, and the residual fear he'd felt every time he'd seen or conversed with Alex since then spoke volumes of how badly it'd affected him. And still he turned to Alex in search of comfort, the hollow of his eyes against Alex's neck to feel the warmth and solidness of him without having to risk looking at him. He tried not to think about how the arms around him were the same ones that had held him against a tree and broken his nose only a week prior.

"Yes," he confirmed, his voice tighter and more choked than he'd intended it to be.


The sad thing was, Alex didn't see how traumatic that display of violence could have been to Ravi. To him, it was no different from their arguments that devolved into mutual blows. Violence was violence. He was angry at Ravi, so he'd taken it out on Ravi. It was the same as Ravi taking out his anger on Alex. It didn't matter that Ravi hadn't fought back.

It was part of their routine.

As such, it wasn't the beat down that Alex had been referring to. No, he'd been referring to the lies unearthed by Jordan's meddling, the hurt that was strictly emotional, damaging to trust, that Ravi had chosen to accept or deny but regardless of which still accepted Alex. That was a loyalty, or desire, precious to him, and he had to keep it close. Keep it close, just like he had to keep Reilanin close.

He cupped the side of Ravi's cheek. "But you came."


While to Ravi, the power imbalance inherent in feeling like he shouldn't fight back, like he couldn't defend himself, was what made all the difference. It didn't matter if they traded blows, if they were both angry and worked up enough to turn to violence. Even if Alex was stronger than him, and always won because of it, that was different. That was a fight between equals, at least emotionally, if not physically.

If he didn't fight back, it was nothing more than a beating.

That emotional hurt over being lied to was so far past, so distant, already resolved to him, that he didn't even consider it in this context. Alex had already made that up to him, and they'd been stronger for it.

It didn't mean anything that he'd come when asked. He'd always come when Alex asked. Ravi was so desperate to keep him that even in the worst of situations he'd go just in the hopes that it would somehow make things better if he was compliant.

He could affirm it, and let Alex think everything was fine now, that there were no problems just because Ravi had come when asked and Alex had promised to stop being so cold to him. But he was trying to be more honest about his feelings, and Alex hadn't reacted poorly to anything he'd said yet, so he felt like, maybe, it would be safe to say something that implied everything was not fine. "I was scared to."


A delay, his eyes on a face that wasn't looking up at him. He brushed his thumb against his cheek. "You thought I was angry again?"


He nodded wordlessly against Alex's shoulder.


"I'm not."


He knew that now, but it was still nice to have it stated so plainly. It put him a little more at ease to hear it out loud, from Alex himself.

And since that hadn't gone poorly, he felt like it was safe to add, "I've felt like I needed to be careful what I say, so I don't make you angry again."


This sounded like a headache.

Alex raised his hand, lifting Ravi's face in the process, and smiled with exasperated amusement. "Are you trying to never make me angry again?"


Alex didn't understand.

Ravi's head rose with the motion, but he wouldn't look Alex in the face. Alex had acknowledged that he'd hurt him, but he didn't understand how. It was discouraging to realize.

He wanted to clam up, agree with Alex that it was silly to worry about, and pretend nothing was wrong, because Alex didn't think anything was wrong, and of course Alex had a more objective perspective on the world than Ravi did because Ravi was inherently selfish. Maybe he was worried about nothing. Maybe it was normal for people to do this when they got angry. Maybe he just needed to accept it and get used to that constant spark of fear.

But Vati hadn't acted like it was normal. She'd been incensed to hear it.

He trusted Vati's instinct far more than he trusted his own.

"Not like that," he mumbled.


"Like what?" he asked, nosing the small area of exposed skin on his neck. The embrace had helped. Maybe this, too?


No, not this time. It just drove home the point that Alex didn't understand what he'd done, and an action that would normally be welcomed instead made Ravi distinctly uncomfortable.

He pulled back, putting some space between them, and put a hand on Alex's clavicle to force him away. Ravi still couldn't look him in the eyes, but he at least managed to focus on the lower half of his face.

"Like last Sunday," he said, but it felt a little hopeless to keep trying to explain it.


He would see lips parted just enough to show teeth, then flattening, then parting again in the shape of sounds. "What about last Sunday?"


He didn't even try to hide how much the question upset him. He slid off the bed, backing a few steps away from Alex. "Do you even remember what happened?" he demanded, but maybe with too much pain and too little anger to sound properly demanding.


He let Ravi pull away without resistance, one hand falling to the bed, the other into his lap. There was a coldness in his eyes that vanished with the twitch of his fingers.

"What's different?" he asked, concern trickling into his expression. That Alex had beaten him was still an issue, apparently. Why? They beat each other before. Sometimes he deserved it, sometimes he didn't. He'd deserved it then.

Obviously this was not the opinion Ravi found acceptable.


What's different? Really? Alex's continued ignorance only made it hurt worse, but now the anger was starting to win out, because Ravi didn't understand why this wasn't obvious to him. Did Alex even really care at all?

"When you said you've hurt me, were you just saying it to sound good?" This time he managed to sound properly demanding.


His brows furrowed. "No."


"Then why don't you tell me what's different about last Sunday," he challenged, folding his arms, leaning forward just enough to accentuate the glare he was giving Alex.


His breath came out in a startled sigh, a noise of question accompanying it. I just asked that is what he wanted to say, but that was also obviously not the right thing to say if Ravi expected him to have the answer.

After a pause, in which Alex struggled to find an answer, he offered, "You didn't fight back?"


He relaxed a bit when Alex gave that answer, straightening, but keeping his arms folded. The glare softened into more of a glower. All obvious signs that Alex had answered correctly.

"Yes." His tone was less angry now and more sullen, his eyes on the bed below Alex. "Because I thought if I tried to fight, you would make it worse for me."


He didn't know if Ravi's worry was well-founded. No longer in that place, he couldn't tell.

But something about Ravi's response bugged him. Something.

"We've fought before," he said at length. It was clear he still was having trouble understanding what the issue here was.


"That wasn't a fight, Alex!" His voice rose, though not to shouting level. "It's not a fight if the other person never hits back!"


His eyes hardened. Feeling it, the rising irritation, he dropped forward to keep Ravi from seeing, covering his eyes with his hand.

That was part of the consequences of your decision, Ravi. The decision not to revoke your demand approved the delivery of Alex's anger. What was it to you, then? An unfair walloping? You don't think you deserved it?

But he couldn't say that. Ravi didn't agree. Ravi didn't understand. Ravi didn't accept.

In silence he seethed. It was an acute, sudden spike in spitefulness, but because of that, just as easy to squash beneath practicality. He pressed his fingers deeper into his eyelids and saw an impressive imitation of the night sky.

"You're right," he finally said, relenting. "I shouldn't have taken it out on you. I'm sorry."


It didn't feel good enough. What more could he ask, though? Why wasn't an apology enough, why did he still feel upset?

He dropped his arms, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, staring at the floor. His instinct was to accept it anyway and let the matter die there, but he knew it wouldn't. He knew he'd continue to feel anxious around Alex, worried about the next time his temper flared. He'd still spend every interaction, however positive, on edge, afraid of tipping that scale toward another outburst.

So he fought his instinct, and he tried, though his anxiety once again started tying knots in his stomach, to get to the bottom of why he was upset about this. "I felt like I deserved it, so I didn't say anything," he mumbled, without raising his head. "But it made me afraid of you."


he felt upset because alex was a douche tbh

When Alex exhaled, a false calm draped over him to accompany the false apology he'd given. He hunched forward, both hands in his lap now, legs crossed. "I'm sorry," he repeated, and he did sound genuinely chastened. It was almost true. He was sorry that Ravi was afraid of him, but he wasn't sorry for doing what he did to give him that fear. "What should I do?"


He had to think about that. They fought--it was just a given. Eventually, one of them was going to be angry enough to throw a punch, and they'd fight, and they'd get over it. Ravi wouldn't have entered into this relationship if he hadn't been okay with that from the start. So it wasn't the fact that Alex had hit him, per se, that made this more upsetting. And despite what Ravi had said, it wasn't entirely the fact that he hadn't fought back, either.

It was the fact that it hadn't been a fist thrown in the heat of anger. It had been cold, calculated. It wasn't a natural escalation of a conflict, like a real fight was.

It had been a punishment. Alex had wanted to punish him until he admitted his fault and cooperated with Alex's desires.

That realization made him sick all over again, because he knew exactly where the knowledge came from to make it.

And preventing him from fighting back by making him think he deserved it was something his father had done, too.

As his mind went through these realizations, Ravi sank and drew in on himself, until he was standing hunched over with one arm wrapped around him and one hand over his face. Maybe Vati had made the connection sooner. Maybe that was why she'd been angry.

Alex was waiting on an answer, but Ravi couldn't find it in himself to voice his thoughts, and the comparison wasn't an answer to his question, either.


He watched as the seconds ticked by and Ravi became smaller, holding himself like it might help him disappear. He wasn't thinking of something for Alex to do -- he was remembering or realizing something that didn't sit well with him at all.

Alex's eyes narrowed shrewdly as he tried to figure out where Ravindra's mind was going.

It didn't hit him. It crept at the corners of his mind, his memory of an adolescent in the jungles, angry, defeated, angry again, hopeful, resigned. Ravi's father. The man he hardly spoke of. When he had, his voice had been thick with resentment and poorly concealed fear.

Cold, like him. Ruthless. Demanding.

It was that side. That side of business. The side Ravindra and Reilanin were never meant to see.

Is that what Ravi was thinking of?

Alex closed his eyes and swallowed, dismayed to find a speck of worry in his throat. Of course there was worry; this was a worrying situation. He didn't like it. He blamed Ravi for bringing it out of him. If Ravi hadn't--

He couldn't blame. He couldn't hold it against him. If he did, he would only push Ravi further away. He had to keep him close. The person who accepted him after the revelation of his past, his ties, his deceit. The person who held his only friend, the only friend who could understand, in his body.

"Vin," he murmured, eyes falling onto his elbow. "Come back."


The words snapped him out of his thoughts, though the effect wasn't immediate, aside from the sharp intake of breath as he realized how tight his chest felt. He slowly pieced his thoughts back together and pulled himself back to the current conversation, the question Alex had asked him, the answer he needed to give.

He opened up by degrees, back straightening a little more with each breath, hand falling away from his face to lay over his opposite elbow, his whole posture loosening, just slightly, a little at a time, but never quite fully opening up.

What answer could he even give? How useful was 'don't be like my father'?

"I don't," he started, and then hesitated, and started again. "I don't care if we fight. But. If I don't hit back, it's because I feel like it's dangerous to."


His voice was soft, almost weightless. "All right," he said, lifting his gaze to Ravi's face. "Never one-sided."


He took a deep breath, too deep, trying to loosen the vice around his ribs, and then let it out hard and quick. He straightened out his shoulders, dropping his arms, though one hand came up to press against his eye.

The flood of emotion was still there, but it had been quelled, dropped from a squall to restless waters. Alex's agreement was enough, for now. It was enough for Ravi to stop feeling like he had to tiptoe around every conversation with him for fear of rousing the same reaction. It was enough to let him start to rebuild the trust he'd had in him before it had happened. It didn't fix everything, but it was all they could do without turning back time to stop it from ever happening in the first place.

He let his hand fall and raised his eyes to meet Alex's gaze for a brief moment before they also fell. He gave a nod. "Thank you."


After a moment of silence, he lifted his hand out. A plea.

"Come?"


It was exhausting to feel so much. Despite his hurt, he still found Alex's presence a comfort, so he answered the request by sitting beside him and leaning against his side.

It was hard to feel like anything had really been resolved yet, but he told himself this was progress and he just needed to wait to see the results.


Wrapping an arm around Ravi's shoulders, he held him snugly to himself, resting their heads together. After a minute, he let himself fall backwards onto the mattress, pulling Ravi with him if he'd let him, content to spend the remaining time left until he'd return to Stonecaster relaxing on the bed with his legs dangling off its side, even if it wasn't relaxing so much as it was trying to build up Ravi's comfort level again.