closed RP: Ryder has a little talk with Charles.

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

So this guy Charles remembered very vaguely from Camilla's wedding came to pull him out of a Sorting. John Ryder. Asked to talk to him privately. Asked politely. And oh shit, Charles thought, oh shit, the whole damn load of it has hit the fan. Something has happened to Milly. Because what other possible reason could this stranger have to talk to Charles? To say something that couldn't be said in front of everyone in the Sorting Room?

He walked calmly with Ryder to the nearest vacant classroom -- weren't almost all the classrooms vacant? If what the man had to say was something that couldn't be said in the Sorting Room, it was a safe bet the conversation couldn't be had in a common room either. And if it was anything like what Charles thought it was, he didn't want to be anywhere near the Ravenclaw common room at the end of it, because the last thing he needed right now was a drink. He needed to be steady for her, if she needed him. For his sister.

Why, who else would Ryder need to talk to him about?

Comments

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

Charles really did look a hell of a lot like his sister in male form; it was kinda weird, really. A little twitchy, too, like he was nervous--then again, Ryder had a tendency to make people nervous; even if one didn't know he was a demon, the fact that he was six-foot-two and smiled like Charles Manson on speed was usually enough to do it.

He sat on an old desk, tapping out a cigarette and lighting it. "Hear you started hanging around with Susan recently," he said. "You're that guy, right?" Keeping Wednesday's words (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1530955.html?thread=77476427#t77476427) in mind, he was trying to be as nonthreatening as possible; however much good that effort did was debatable.

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

It was all Charles could do to keep back the reason for his nervousness. Watching Ryder settle on the desk and leisurely light himself a smoke was practically a mild form of torture. Charles wanted to shake the man by the lapels and demand what the fuck was going on, where was Camilla, why did they have to talk in secret.

Charles was, it might be said, just a little paranoid.

He shoved his hands into his pockets to keep them still. He inhaled slowly. It was a good habit. Count to three on the inhale, five on the exhale. Ryder was saying something about Susan, beating around the bush. "Yeah," said Charles, "Susan's a friend of ours." His and Camilla's.

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

Ryder's eyebrows went up. "Way I hear it, she's a little more friendly with you than your sister, if you take my meaning," he said. The information he had from Shaun was...vague, based mostly on what Liz had told Shaun, and women were more or less incomprehensible. "Buddy of hers says she's happy with that, and a happy Susan is a good thing." There, he was actually managing to not be terribly threatening. His next words undid the whole thing entirely, though--especially given their tone, which was quite conversational. "But, you know, if you hurt her, I will so cut you."

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

Whoa, there. Just a minute.

Charles's brow furrowed, the way his sister's did when she was thinking about something particularly troubling, something that she couldn't quite suspend her disbelief enough to examine closely.

"Are you telling me," he said, slowly, "that you have an interest in the lady's personal life? Let me tell you right now, where I'm from, a lady's personal life isn't discussed in that kind of a way." Not unless you got really drunk, and then it was a good time to call your sister a whore and tell her to go to hell, but then, Camilla wasn't always a lady. "And like I said, Susan's a friend of mine. So I hope you'll understand when I say this isn't a conversation I think we ought to be having."

He was too incredulous, almost, to take much offense at the more-than-implied threat. He was too busy being surprised that (1) Ryder wasn't here to talk to him about his sister after all, and (2) Ryder actually seemed to care who Susan was sleeping with.

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

Defensive, wasn't he? Huh. Why?

Ryder shook his head. "I'm just looking out for her," he said. "She got herself hurt real bad a while back, and I don't want it to happen again, all right?" Hampered by Wednesday's warnings, he couldn't say why he didn't want Susan to get her--couldn't explain to Charles that a wounded Susan might take it out on, you know, half the globe. "It won't end well, if she is." There, that could be interpreted any number of ways, and was more true than Charles could ever know.

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

Oh. Oh. Charles knew what Ryder was talking about, now, actually. "Heard about that," he said. "Believe me, if I re-enacted that episode, I think you might have to stand in line for the, ah, cutting." Cut him? He knew it was a euphemism for castration in the Historia Calamitatum, but he didn't fancy himself an Abelard or Susan a Heloise, and besides, he doubted Ryder had ever so much as heard of the Historia Calamitatum. "You know my sister."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

"True," Ryder conceded, relenting a little. "Her buddy says you're making her happy. Just...keep it up. She's got a lotta people who don't want to see that happen to her again." A lot more than Charles could imagine, if what Wednesday had said was accurate. Ryder still wasn't entirely sure he believed Susan could really do that much damage, but he was in no hurry to find out.

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

All right, Charles had just reproved the man for speaking too familiarly of a lady's personal affairs, so he wasn't about to let Ryder know what he made of that remark. Her buddy says you're making her happy. Just keep it up. He wanted to laugh and he couldn't.

Instead he played his old reliable trump card: sincerity. Or rather, the appearance of sincerity, grave and guileless.

"I'm the last person who wants to see Susan unhappy," he told Ryder. "And my sister's the next-to-last and I'll catch hell from her if I mess up, believe me. Camilla doesn't have a lot of really good friends. I'm not going to mess up their friendship either."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

That was definitely not what Ryder had meant, and he would have been as close to weirded out as a demon could be, if he'd known what Charles made of it--that was a facet of Susan's life he Did Not Need to know about, unless there was a chance of it somehow sending her China Syndrome.

Ryder knew damn well how easy it was to lie, but even if the kid wasn't entirely sincere, he did have a point--if he hurt Camilla's friend, Camilla would definitely be the first in line to thwack him with something.

"Good to know," he said. "I didn't know her before her other guy went south, but Camilla told me it was hard on her." Said she'd cried, actually, which he still had a hard time picturing. "Good thing she's got you, maybe."

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

Ryder was safe. Charles would quite agree that the facet in question was indeed a facet of Susan's life that Ryder did not need to know about. More to the point, it was a facet of Charles's life that Ryder did not need to know about -- unless Ryder could unwittingly convey maddening jealous-making tidbits to Camilla's blushing ears.

"I didn't know her before the 'other guy' either. Camilla says he's a friend of hers too, so it's best I leave it alone. If Susan wanted to talk about it, I'd listen. If Susan asked me to go break the guy's kneecaps or something, Camilla might not be too thrilled about that." He shrugged his one-shouldered twin-shrug. "I'm interested in keeping my sister happy."

He paused thoughtfully. "She is happy, isn't she?" Ryder was something of a friend of hers, wasn't he? He might know something.

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

"Haven't seen her in a while," Ryder said, crushing out his cigarette. "Had to go back to work for a while, so I've been away. Got a souvenir I need to give her, though, so maybe I'll see her soon. Got one for Susan too, actually, that I ought to deliver." He could guage both their happiness for himself, though admittedly he was no judge of that.

The cats, whom Ryder had managed to successfully dodge for a while, chose that moment to come pouring into the classroom, a sea of meowing fur. "God dammit," he muttered, as one jumped onto his foot and hung on for dear life. "Tell Susan to take her damn cats back, too. Little bastards used to belong to her grandfather, and when he popcorned she inherited them. I sure as hell don't want 'em, but she seems to think it's funny."

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

Having little idea what 'work' might entail for Ryder, Charles didn't think twice about this matter of souvenirs. If the man had brought something back for both Camilla and Susan, it oughtn't to be terribly personal, what he'd brought for Camilla. So there was nothing for Charles to find objectionable. "Well, you know, Camilla's kind of like a rabbit that way. They hide it when they don't feel well. It's instinctive. If she's unhappy even I might miss it, and God knows she wouldn't tell me -- thinks I'd say 'I told you so'. And, you know," Charles said, bending to pick up a loitering cat, "if Susan's ever unhappy I wish someone would tell me, too. I think the world of that girl, I really do. If there's anything I can do about it I'd like to, whether I'm the cause of it or not."

He scratched between the cat's ears. "Hell, send me all the cats. I like cats. Always have (http://charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com/1222.html)."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

Well, that sounded promising. Good.

"Camilla's pretty damn unreadable," he agreed, and did not add 'so are most humans because they're humans and not demons'. "From what she's told me, Susan doesn't talk about stuff either, until it hits--what's the word--fission. It's why your sister asked me to look after Susan, though I'll be damned if I really know how to." Camilla had Henry to keep an eye on her, though Ryder had no idea how annoying a thought that was for Charles, whereas Susan did not--though she did have Shaun and Liz, who were a lot better at the whole human thing than Ryder himself.

"And you're welcome to the cats, if you can get them to follow you," he added, as one climbed his jeans and sat triumphantly on his knee, staring at him with almost unendurable smugness.

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

Charles chuckled. He couldn't help it. The cat looked so pleased with itself, and Ryder so resigned. "Cats do whatever they want," he said. "That's a prerequisite of felinity. Maybe a perquisite too." The cat in his arms wriggled free and slipped lazily down to the floor, where it wound around his ankles once before making its way over to join its littermate in harassing Ryder.

Yes, Camilla was unreadable. Charles didn't expect anyone would be able to read Camilla better than he himself could read her -- in fact, he'd have been jealous and upset if Ryder could read her better. What he wanted were observations. Observations that Charles alone would know how to interpret. What he needed, damn it, were informants. And the best he had was Susan, and he couldn't ask her incessantly what Camilla seemed to be feeling or whether she'd eaten much at lunch or whether she was saying anything about Henry. That would tip her off that something was up. And he liked being able to relax around Susan, be with someone whose life didn't revolve around old Hampden days. In a way she was a respite from all that. He liked talking to her about things Camilla had nothing to do with.

"Didn't Camilla think she could look after Susan herself?"

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

"Camilla seems to think Susan's a lot more incapable of taking care of herself than she actually is," Ryder said. "Dunno what made her think that, but she seems pretty convinced somebody's got to look after Susan. I know sometimes she's got problems understanding normal humanity, but shit, most humans do too. Nothing too unusual there." He had a feeling Susan Would Not Appreciate it if he mentioned her supposed crying incident, and even then there wasn't much to mention, since he didn't actually know anything beyond Camilla's rather vague words. "Might have to ask her about that one sometime--maybe when I go give her her souvenir."

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

"Projection," said Charles, a little more curtly than he meant to. "Camilla needs someone to take care of her, ergo every woman needs someone to take care of her. Q.E.D. I was just a little surprised to think Camilla would've thought she couldn't handle Susan on her own. It's not often she'll admit she's bitten off more than she can chew."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

Ah. Yeah, that made a lot of sense--Camilla, Ryder thought, definitely needed someone like Winter to look after her. "Camilla's human," he said. "There's aspects of Susan she just can't understand. Not that I can get some of them, either, since a lot of that female crap is a mystery."

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

Charles shook his head. "Women aren't all that mysterious. Not most of them." Charles knew his way around women, generally. "My sister's an exception, that's all. I think it's as hard for her to understand other people as it is for them to understand her." Crouching, he waved his fingers at one of the cats. "Why, what aspects of Susan don't you understand? She's a good kid. She says what she means."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

"Susan's," he waved a hand, "weird. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you--I've just never met anyone who was half Death before, and I can't always understand what's going on in her head. If I had to guess, just by what Camilla said, maybe Susan gets hurt a little harder than most people." What Camilla and Wednesday had said, really. "You can't be human and inhuman at the same, really. Bound to cause problems somewhere, and I think Camilla just wanted help keeping an eye on her." Ryder knew damn well Camilla was not normally the altruistic type, but so far as she did care, she worried about Susan.

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

Charles mulled this over while the little cat batted at his hand. "Yeah. Susan's weird. She's really apologetic about it, the whole not-understanding-humans thing. It's kind of cute. I ought to tell her to just think of herself as a foreign exchange student, or something. But she's really self-conscious about it, and I don't think anything I say is going to change that. All I can do is just ... keep telling her it's okay."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

All right, yeah, this guy really was just what Susan needed. "She needs to hear that," he said. "Poor woman's had a hell of a time of it, and she needs somebody to tell her she's not a complete mess. I don't know exactly what made her think so, but she's got kind of a complex going. I know Shaun and Liz try, but the more people she hears it from, the better." Ryder had never known Susan before, but he got the impression that this self-consciousness was a newer development.

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

The cat snagged a claw into the back of Charles's hand. A thin red scratch marked the spot. "Bad kitty. Tsk," said Charles mildly to the cat, and took a quill pen from his jacket pocket to wave at it instead. "I don't know," he said to Ryder, "why Susan's so self-conscious about everything. I've met much weirder people just hanging around in random bars. Granted none of them are genetically linked to Death, but some of them probably wish they were. Now, if Susan thought everyone around here was like my sister and Henry, I could understand why she'd feel abnormal. I love my sister to death but she's a snob, always has been, it's not something she's going to grow out of. It's just the way we were raised and she has certain ideas about how things should be. And Henry's almost farther from normal than Susan is, if by normal you mean the way most of the Western world thinks and acts. So if Susan were spending all her time with them, I could see her thinking that everyone goes around wearing wool suits and carrying umbrellas in good weather and acting like they've got a yardstick up their derriere. But for Christ's sake, her closest friendship is with a guy who carries a cricket bat around like a security blanket. Is all this fallout from my, ah, predecessor?" Charles's polite way of saying the guy who used to occupy the place in her bed that I occupy now. "I understand he was some kind of 19th-century whaling captain or something."

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

"If I had to guess, I'd say that it is," Ryder said. "Fallout, I mean. Never actually met the guy myself, but he was some kind of doctor, I think, on a Navy ship. Probably not someone who'd ever dealt with somebody like Susan before, which makes me wonder how the whole thing got going in the first place."

Charle's assessment of Henry and Camilla amused him--unflattering as it was, it wasn't entirely without merit. Ryder liked the two well enough, in his own way, but he wasn't deluded about them. "Anyway, from what I gather it somehow went really sour, and she must blame it on what she is. And who knows, maybe that really was it, or part of it. I think she'll get over it in time, once she figures out that normal humans are just as weird as her. Her brand of weirdness might be rare, but as I told her, I've met lot of people way the hell more bizarre than her." Most of them were vanilla humans, too.

[charlesmacaulay.livejournal.com]

"Well, that's probably why Camilla likes the man. He'd be like something out of an old book, to her." Charles had not met Stephen at the wedding, and envisioned some sort of Captain Ahab figure, primarily interested in Susan for her promise as a harpooner. "Maybe Milly thought he was a good influence on Susan. I don't think she quite approves of me and Susan together, if you see what I mean." He wasn't going to spell it out in a crude way.

If Camilla had said anything to Ryder about disapproval or unhappiness, or if Camilla had put Ryder up to this little chat, maybe that remark would get him to say so, Charles hoped.

The cat got bored, or Charles got bored. Either way, the cat wound up carrying off the quill pen, and Charles straightened to stand again. "No one can have dealt with someone like Susan before because there is no one like Susan anywhere. She's an anomaly. And she doesn't like that. So there you have it. If you've got any suggestions, I'm all ears. Like I said, I really do think the world of her. It's hard to get her to loosen up, let alone feel comfortable being who she is ..." Pretty much the only times Charles could think of when Susan seemed completely comfortable were occasions of a nature he wasn't going to discuss with Ryder.

[johnryder.livejournal.com]

"That so?" Interesting...he wondered what it meant. "Might be your sister's a little overprotective of you. Stranger things have happened." Ryder didn't think it odd that a sister might be protective of her brother, rather than the other way around. It was a human thing, presumably.

Suggestions...Ryder knew piss-all about women in general, and still less about Susan as a female of the species, but he could take a stab at it based off what they'd talked about. "Just...let her know she's okay," he said. "That you like her the way she is--both sides of her, weird hair and all. She doesn't like being what she is, so tell her you do. Might make a difference."