❛❛  well, i do have all two of them.  ❜❜         fists, that is.    the night had started out pleasant, as far as these things usually go, with champagne by the gallon and food in tiny portions and dull speeches.    now, renly is standing outside an unlocked bathroom stall with a wad of tissues pressed to his face, trying to remember if he’s supposed to tilt his head down or up, because he read somewhere that one of these options had actually been a myth all along, but he can't quite recall which one.    he's bleeding onto the collar of his pristine dress shirt regardless, so he bends forward to minimise the mess, and inspects the soiled paper.

truthfully, asha had come up to the roof to be alone. the feeling of being high above the city & thus far removed from the minutiae of its day-to-day workings & its infinite cascade of tiny crises helped her think, lent a little clarity to a mind clouded with confusion. so when she hears footsteps approaching, asha turns fully prepared to tell her uninvited guest off. but seeing a familiar face donning an expression of concern, she softens. ❝ company ? no thanks. but you ? definitely. ❞

in case anyone wonders how Maron feels about pets . . . his relationship to Bébé in modern is just a touch better than the relationship between Napoleon Usher and the cat in the walls .

why you shouldn’t watch Ratatouille with Loras and Maron?

Maron: continuously insists that Skinner was kinda right for not wanting a goddamn rodent in his kitchen

"Hm, I would." I have. Unfortunately, with his wretch of a father, and mess of a mother in attendance, he'd never hear the end of it if he started drama at this particular event. Life was boring without a bit of drama. A tiny smirk lifted the corners of his lips. "But fisticuffs? You sound like you stepped out of Bridgerton. Not that I watch, Bridgerton." Except when his sister made him do so, and sometimes it was mildly entertaining, though it was a shame the Duke guy only had one season. Loras watched the near stranger with faint amusement as he moved around the room, trying to solve the issue of his bloodied nose. It didn't seem that it occurred to Renly to ask the athlete in the room about how to stop the flow right away. Inevitable injuries came with the job, after all. So, when he did finally ask, Loras waited a moment, popping himself up onto the bathroom counter. "Neither way. You're supposed to pinch the soft part of your nose for ten minutes or so. It puts pressure on the blood vessels, stops them from bleeding further." His expression grew a fraction, knowing he could've told him that all along. Alas, he'd been born a menace, with no intention of stopping anytime soon. "Your brother is weird...derogatory weird." Neither Garlan nor Willas would ever lay a finger upon him. Their father, on the other hand. Well, there was a reason he'd spent most of his life with his grandparents. Loras rummaged through his jacket pocket, removing a small rectangular silver case. Upon opening it, the insides revealed a stack of neatly rolled cigarettes, and he offered one to the other man whilst taking a second for himself. Without hesitation or any regard for smoking laws, he promptly lit his with a matching silver lighter with the initials L.T. engraved on the side. "Thought you might need one of these."

renly met loras’ gaze through the mirror and hiked up his eyebrows in a way that made his nose pulse and smart.         ❛❛  what, you're not partial to a bit of fisticuffs with the lads?    the good old chaps?  ❜❜         loras wasn't wrong, was the thing  —  robert was weird, and drunk, and it wouldn't help anyone if renly were to try to explain that he almost certainly hadn't meant to hit him.    if he had, they would've been talking outside instead, waiting for an ambulance.    renly once again waved his hand as if to wipe away what he'd just said    ( and hadn't said ),    but he was smiling sharply as he did, his upper lip stained messy red.         ❛❛  you know, i find that comparison very reductive.    i don't go around telling you you should be in emily in paris, even though  —  i think . . . there's models in that show, right?    look, there's a whole wonderful world of media representing posh wankers.    downton abbey, for example. or little lord fauntleroy.  ❜❜ 

one moment, loras and his devastating appearance were a reflection, lingering at a safe distance. the next, he was crossing over to where renly could see him without the medium of glass softening the blow ;    perched up on the counter, muscles shifting underneath his shirt, and telling renly what to do about his nosebleed like he'd been just waiting for it.    of course loras would know these things  —  renly was rapidly becoming less and less impressed with himself.    he was also, strangely, having much more fun than was reasonable after getting decked in the face.

ten minutes, he thought as he followed the instructions with a lopsided smile, sounded like a very long time.    the dripping slowed, and renly could taste metal at the back of his throat.    at least he was no longer on the main floor, forced to listen to an uninspired playlist that not even sansa could find nice things to say about.    maybe loras felt bad enough to stick around and keep renly company, if only to give him the opportunity to do some damage control to the state of their very young acquaintanceship.    i don't normally come with this much drama, he didn't say  —  because that would've been an exaggeration, if not another lie. 

renly hummed, testing how he sounded with his nose clamped shut.    ( it was pretty bad. still : )         ❛❛  is this part of your medical advice?  ❜❜         he'd freshly sworn off cigarettes the weekend before, intending to last longer than a couple months this time  —  let alone mere days.    his eyes darted from the flashy cigarette case, to loras’ face, to the ceiling where he expected to find a smoke detector.    there was none.    fate, then.

         ❛❛  and what does that leave you with, then?    nothing?  ❜❜         once, when he was a boy, with the sword of knighthood having barely glided off his shoulders, renly had planted roses.    of course, it hadn’t been his own hands rooting in the dirt.    the idea first came as a mere thought, then an order uttered and carried out  —  then, renly went on to forget all about the bushes ‘til it came time to make martyrs of the worst of them.

it was the wrong season for planting  —  summer  —  the weather too fickle on the cliffside ;    too cruel-cold one night, too violent-wet the next.    they were sad and pathetic and diseased when loras arrived to see them, so much so that renly doubted they would be capable of providing the comfort he’d wished to cultivate in their ugly, frayed, bulbous heads.    he wonders, now, if he ever said what they’d really been for.    possibly, loras might have taken offense, then, seen it as a jape.    ( but renly has always been so very good at making friends. )