Doing Fine

[Rhys Armitage]

(ooc: THIS ISN'T GREAT but I wanted to get Rhys out into the world so, you know, I'm up for whoever)

Rhys sat on a bench in front of the ice cream parlour, a giant tub of strawberry ice cream at his feet. He was waiting for the Knight Bus, as he'd failed to go to the Ministry last year to renew his Apparition license and could do without getting fined and spending a perfectly good afternoon standing before the Wizengamot, thanks.

Rhys had bought the ice cream for his sister (What else would he do, eat it himself? When he was clearly trying to get ripped for summer? Come on). He was attempting to make up for the fact that there had been more drama in their family in the last couple of years than there had been in their entire lives leading up to that point, and Rhys had remained thoroughly absent for most of it. He knew he should have visited or written or rang or something else that decent brothers did, but it was all too easy to get wrapped up in his French adventures and take an 'out of sight, out of mind' approach to the whole thing.

Scrunching his nose, he pulled his scarf tighter around his neck while trying to shoo a bird with his foot in a rather unfortunately dainty manner. Pigeons are gross, okay. He was willing to stand by that.

[Rachael Barnes]

((ooc: For what it's worth, I love him already. Also, hope Rach is okay, I just made up something for when they kissed, kinda assumed it would be a sloppy, drunken incident that didn't get further than a bit of a snog and a feel. That cool?))

Rachael stifled a laugh as she saw her cousin trying to shoo a pigeon, managing somehow to look a dainty little thing while he did so. She approached him casually, stomping on the ground near the pigeon and causing it to fly upwards in a flurry of wings and squawking before it shot off into the depths of Diagon Alley. Looking down at Rhys she shook her head in disbelief, silently inviting herself to sit beside him on the bench, dumping her heavy gym bag at her feet and resting her broom on top of it. On her way back from a gruelling crack-of-dawn training session with the Harpies, making a pit stop in Diagon Alley for coffee, Rach was aching, knackered and was pretty sure she was still a sweaty mess. Hot. So she needed a diversion, a distraction, a source of amusement if you will.

"Hey, Armitage. Mummy not around?" Rach asked, making a show of looking around him and appearing surprised because Amy Armitage Beaumont wasn't stuck to his arm. She knew the fact her aunt and cousin had reappeared at the end of the year wasn't a coincidence at all. It was touching really. "Strawberry, really? You do realise how many calories are in that tub, don't you?" she asked teasingly as she looked sideways at him with a raised eyebrow. She tried really, really hard whenever she interacted with Rhys not to remember it - that sloppy, drunken kiss at a party in the Forbidden Forest in 6th year, when she was still blissfully unaware of her father's family thanks to the fact he'd buggered off when she was too young to remember him. She hadn't know Rhys was her cousin, all she'd saw was a hot guy. She just thanked Merlin it hadn't gone any further than a snog, and that she'd been able to mostly repress the memory of it at will when he was around.

[Rhys Armitage]

"Well, now you've done it. It's gonna tell all its pigeon friends, so they can bring revenge down upon us," Rhys proclaimed while waving his hand down the street, only about 75% joking. Rather than look Rachael in the eye, he pretended to be extraordinarily interested in his watch, shifting a little so he was sitting perfectly straight and a bit apart from her on the bench. Rhys still felt incredibly awkward around his cousin since, well, finding out they were cousins -- even if he'd gotten over the urge to attempt a very formal handshake every time they met. It wasn't like their other cousins were about to let them live that drunken incident down... but thank Merlin he had to go home sick that night after doing too many shots. Score one for teenage binge drinking!

"Why, you've seen her?" Rhys asked, pausing a second for the knut to drop. "Oh. Ha ha, very funny. Hey Rachael, do the Harpies not have a mirror in their locker room?" Of course, sweaty mess or not, she still looked fine. Oh god. He was going to throw up. He sighed and shook his head. "It's for Nat. Come on, Barnes. Use your head. I'm coming off a vegetable broth cleanse to start a raw spinach and egg regiment and I. Feel. Great."

[Rachael Barnes]

Rachael shot him a scathing look at his proclamation; she was pretty certain he wasn't completely joking, something about Rhys told her he genuinely feared pigeon revenge. "What's up with you?" she carelessly blurted out, noting how he corrected his posture so he was ram-rod straight and further away from her. She should have known really. The brunette managed to strangle a laugh then as it took a second for him to realise she was teasing him. And it only took him a second later for him to retaliate... he'd clearly been practicing his insults. "Oh, ha ha, very funny," she mimicked his tone patronisingly before rolling her eyes, "No, they don't, because unlike you us Harpies can last for 5 minutes without needing to check our reflection."

"Nat? Wait, Nat will eat something with double-digit calories? Well I never," she shot back sarcastically before stifling yet another laugh as he talked about his own dietary requirements. "You are... please tell me you're joking," she begged with faux-sincerity, "Oh Merlin, you aren't. Spinach and egg? Jesus, you really do want that 'beach bod' for summer, don't you?" she smirked in amusement. "Sad thing is, my brother's been caught by that delusion too, even though he won't admit it. The fame that comes from pro Quidditch and the pressure of looking good off-the-pitch has got to poor ol' Dan. Tragic really," she commented with a joking sniff of sadness. Then, looking sideways at him, "So what brings you to Diagon Alley?"

[Rhys Armitage]

"Nothing," Rhys coughed out, attempting a few different 'casual' postures before settling on one that seemed fairly normal. "I thought I saw the bus. It was just a fat lady in a purple coat I guess. Ha ha." He sniffed lightly. If they were going to get technical, he didn't need a mirror every five seconds... a window, a puddle or the back of a clean spoon would do. Okay. Comeback comeback comeback. First thing that pops into your head. What would Brad or Kev say about the Harpies? He pointed at Rach and squinted. "Yeah well. It looks like they uhhh didn't invite you to the team shower either. That must be very disappointing for you."

"Does she not eat ice cream anymore? Well, whatever, it's a gesture," Rhys said with a vague hand wave. He was so used to getting by in life by being sort of nice and dim, he was sure that his halfhearted attempt would get his sister back on his side in no time. "It's not a big deal? I mean, I eat mostly greens and stuff anyway. I just need to do some oblique work, maybe another hour at the gym to get really defined," he explained, forever convinced that people were way more interested in the details of his workout regime than they actually were. He at least had the good sense to stop from mentioning the 'Hip-Hop Abs' DVD he so thoroughly enjoyed, which in his cousin's hands would surely be a ripe source for mockery. "No offense to Dan, but are the Wanderers really known for their bods?"

Rhys shrugged. "Procrastinating on a translation. The Goblins wrote a manifesto in their native language, and like, I don't know their words for 'proletariat' and 'coup d'état' you know? Anyways, if I don't do it soon, they're probably going to be our new three-foot-tall overlords. You?"

[Rachael Barnes]

Rachael raised an eyebrow skeptically but, deciding she'd probably be better off not knowing the real reason he seemed uncomfortable, she shrugged it off. "Oh... you're resorting to the Knight Bus? How come?" she asked. No one took to the Knight Bus in vain, it wasn't exactly a comfy ride (even with the armchairs) and she couldn't quite imagine Rhys at home as he was thrown about its interior with every bumb and cobble on the road ahead of it.

"Didn't Mummy ever tell you it's rude to point at people?" she hissed under her breath, fixing him with one of her deadliest 'I am not amused' looks. Then, "I'm more concerned about the fact you're thinking about what a pity it is I'm not involved in the team showering. But I have to admit, I'm dreadfully upset not to have been invited this time. It's so... hot, all us girls showering together like that, soapy, water dripping off each others' skin, no boundaries-" she trailed off in a low, sensual tone before snorting loudly. "You've been talking to Bradley or Kevin, haven't you? They're convinced as the Harpies team are lesbians."

Taking of Natasha, "Since when has she ever ate?" Rach grumbled, "It's a nice gesture," she admitted, very begrudgingly as she glanced back down at the box of ice cream so she at least didn't have to look at him while she admitted it was actually quite a sweet gesture for him to bring his sister some ice cream. She unclipped the black claw clip that was messily holding her hair back and shook her hair out as she talked to him, "Uh no offence, Rhys, but I don't really give a shit," the girl told him bluntly, worried he was going to go off on one of his recitations about his gym routine. Since joining the Harpies she'd had to brave the gym, a place she hated with every fibre of her being, in an effort to keep up with the sort of fitness levels needed to play pro Quidditch. Mostly she just took every kickboxing class going - might aswell mix keeping fit with being able to kick the hell out of an attacker. As she ran a hand through her hair to untangle it, and make it look less of a sweaty mess, she shrugged, "Dan is deluded, I thought you knew that?" she joked easily about her twin with a small laugh.

The laugh became a smile as Rhys talked of his translation duties, "Aaah so if in a couple of weeks I'm being oppressed by a goblin overlord I'll have your procrastination to thank for that?" Rachael jokingly checked with him before nodding, "Well, seriously, thanks in advance for that, Armitage." Shrugging casually as she finished shaking out her hair, it now looking much better and just more curly than her usual style, Rachael said simply, "A want of caffeine. And mostly something dipped it chocolate and/or sugar. I've just had a bitch of a training session," she explained, nudging her broomstick with her foot to illustrate this.

[Rhys Armitage]

"Huh? Oh, yeah, my Apparition license is crazy expired. It's a really good picture of me too, so I might just hang on to it," he explained while waving his hand, absentmindedly fixing a chunk of hair stuck to his forehead. After staying in numerous European hostels the summer after graduation, he'd discovered that uncomfortable and non-luxurious settings were not in fact disgusting, but rather hotbeds of physical and substance-related experimentation! Uh, not that he was expecting that to happen on the Knight Bus. Point is, he could stand twenty minutes of being jostled around a bit.

Rhys pressed his fingertips against his eyeballs and held up his hand for Rachael to stop. "Okay, okay, I get it." Next time you attempt a comeback, try a scenario that's maaaaybe not incredibly stupid-hot. Mon dieu. "To be fair, they probably think every girl who won't sleep with them is a lesbian."

"You think?" he asked, frowning down at the box of ice cream, which now just seemed rather sad to him. He looked up and caught Rachael's eye for a second before shiftily looking down and adjusting his watch. "Pssh, fiiine. Maybe I don't want to share my workout secrets anyways," he said while crossing his arms over his chest and jokingly rolling his eyes.

"I've only got through about a quarter of it, but you know... they make some pretty compelling arguments. I'm open to it." He glanced sideways and grinned. He turned toward Rach, bending his knee to rest his foot on the bench. "Yeah? What kind of of chocolate sugar thing? Dude living vicariously over here."

[Rachael Barnes]

"Aaah I see,” Rach nodded with a smirk, “So, let me make sure I have this completely right, you’re hanging on to it because there aren’t many really good pictures of you?” she teased, using his words against him before laughing it off good-naturedly. Then, she shrugged casually, “I can do you a Side-Along Apparition if you want? Saves making small talk with the crazy Knight Bus driver,” she offered.

The girl smiled impishly as Rhys seemed to find such a particular description horrific to imagine. “Aww, you’re not one for lesbian fantasies?” she asked, “What a shame, I had a bunch I could have described for your pleasure.” Then she shrugged, “Probably, I can imagine such a retort coming out of Kevin’s mouth quite freely. Then again he must be thinking right now that all women are lesbians.” She was fairly certain her cousin had zero chance of scoring, there was something abrasive in his personality that she just didn’t think would do it for a girl, unless they were a bit abrasive themselves and/or too drunk to care.

“Yeah,” Rachael begrudgingly reiterated as he seemed now less than impressed with his brilliant idea to bring Natasha some ice cream. “It’ll probably take more than that to make her on speaking terms with you though. So long as you side with your mum, Nat will dislike you because she’ll think you’re accepting what your mum did. Okay so she had an affair, she owned up to it… eventually… she’s said she’s sorry. Your dad forgives her, they split amicably. It should have worked out amazingly calmly but instead you lot really need to sort out your shit." She found herself staring at the ground fiercely as she continued, "A kid hating a parent because of what they’ve done just causes tension, it doesn’t achieve anything, doesn’t change the past, and in the end they’re your parents whether you like them or not. They’re human, they make mistakes, cock up monumentally but what can they do but apologise and try to move on from it? Something my delightful twin brother really ought to get into this thick skull when it comes to our dad,” she concluded with a heavy sigh, feeling she’d probably been a bit too serious for their casual conversation but that kind of familial tension really irked her. If someone as bullishly stubborn and unforgiving as Rachael could forgive, why couldn’t her more placid, kind-hearted brother?

Rolling her eyes she retorted, “Maybe I don’t want to know your workout secrets, I have my own that works just fine for me, thanks.” Aimlessly nudging the cobbles with her left foot she looked up at him with a smile as he talked of his work, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they do make good arguments, goblins are quite persuasive when they want to be and we’ve treated them as inferior for as long as we've existed alongside them. They basically control all British wizards' money 'cause of Gringotts, and thereby the economy. And the last revolution was, what, in the 1700s, so I reckon another revolution is overdue.” Looking sideways at Rhys she couldn’t help but laugh, genuinely lightly this time without any hint of mockery, as he asked for details of her imminent chocolate-sugar purpose. “Well, since it’ll act as my breakfast I’m thinking in the pastry realm, possibly a pain au chocolat fresh from the oven and a black coffee to go. I’m not supposed to eat chocolate at all, bad for my fitness apparently, but I saw fuck you to any personal trainer who won’t let me eat chocolate.”

[Rhys Armitage]

"Very funny," he shook his head, "Look, as much as I'd wish otherwise, a frankly fantastic photo of me lounging on a boat off the coast of Portugal is still not a legally admissible form of ID." He looked up as the Knight Bus barreled down the street, letting it pass as it disappeared from view just as quickly and haphazardly as it had arrived. "See you another day, Ernie, you crazy old bastard," he mumbled while waving good-naturedly.

Rhys narrowed his eyes. "I'm more than capable of coming up with vivid girl-on-girl fantasies on my own time, thanks. Funnily enough, they don't involve you!" He laughed a little at Kevin's plight and shook his head. "Wait, wait. You don't think he's still a virgin, do you? Aww, Wee Kev." Their cousin had so much going for him! He was good at sports! Looked kind of like Rhys, if you squint! It was just the tiny matter of his abysmal personality.

"Right? It was bound to happen one way or another. It wouldn't have gone down so smoothly if Dad didn't already have one foot out the door." He fidgeted with his jacket, absently raising and lowering the zipper. Rhys didn't say anything about it, but he had his own daddy issues -- a small part of him suspected his father would have been happier staying with that Muggleborn lady back in the day and raising a kid he had far more in common with than either Rhys or Natasha. "So Dan the Man's being stubborn about more than his delusional beach body prospects?" he asked, finally zipping his coat fully. Personally, he'd never had a sibling fight of this magnitude before. He just wanted it to be over, honestly.

"Hmm. My trainer just feels up my abs a lot. Is that normal?" Rhys chuckled and jumped up suddenly, tucking the ice cream under his arm. Standing up on the bench, he clapped his hands and announced, "Well come on, Barnes. Let's do this shit. I'm buying. I should get to have at least one decent gesture today, alright."

[Rachael Barnes]

“Wasn’t trying to be,” Rachael retorted seriously before she couldn’t keep it up any longer and found herself smiling. “What selfish bastards the Ministry are, not letting you use a photo where you’re posing shirtless as your ID!” she exclaimed, as though appalled by this knowledge, and then watched as Rhys waved bye to the Knight Bus as it passed them. “Funnily enough, I had a sort of hunch you’d take me up on that offer,” she said knowingly as the bus screeched round the corner at an alarming speed.

Raising an eyebrow, “Oh, are you now?” she challenged and then found herself frowning, “I wasn’t suggesting they did,” she argued, “I sort of assumed if you did fantasise about the Harpies’ undoubtedly lesbian adventures there’d just be a fuzzy haze around where I was. And on the subject of Kevin, of course he’s a virgin, he's someone who feels the need to almost aggressively assert that he’s stuck his tongue down girls’ throats.” She eyed him suspiciously for a few moments and then sighed, deciding to just get it over with since neither of them had been particularly good at confronting the past. “Alright, look Armitage, I was more than a little drunk that night, so were you, you’re sort of hot, I kissed you, you felt me up, it ended there, we went our separate ways. It was a mistake, in a way it’s my dad’s fault for not sticking around long enough to point out all my cousins to me so I wouldn’t make a tit of myself years later. It happened, deal with it,” she said bluntly with an air of directness when she talked about it. She had to admit, he was a pretty good kisser. It made her feel absolutely disgusting to admit it to herself but she just couldn’t stand dodging around the issue as they had done for years when they’d seen each other at those rare family occasions that Rachael attended. “If it comforts you at all, gran and granddad would probably be thrilled if we were together, got married, kept it within the family, keep the bloodline pure and all that shit, you know?” she joked with him.

“Exactly. No offence but like your parents were cute enough and that but you could tell they weren’t exactly head over heels, desperately in love with each other. It was a comfortable arrangement for both of them, they churned out a couple of kids, did what’s expected… then split.” Rachael was surprised at Rhys’ insight into his father, “Yeah, whatserface… Zoe, Zoe Deschanel. I’m sorry but that was hilarious when that illegitimate kid popped out of the woodwork… I felt bad for your dad though, you can tell he loved her, probably still does, he just wants to be all noble and shit and sacrifice his own feelings and happiness to ensure other peoples’.” Looking down at her hands for a second she asked, “You don’t really get on with him, do you?” She wasn’t sure Rhys would actually answer her question in any kind of depth but she thought she’d ask it all the same. “Dan the Man is just ridiculously stubborn when it comes to one Harry Armitage, he’s convinced he’s gonna bugger off again at the first whiff of trouble. He’s protective of mum, that’s the issue, he had to grow up pretty quickly when he was younger, sort of be the man of the house, or at least he thought that’s what he needed to do. And then when the actual man of the house came back, he felt emasculated. Probably. Some kind of Oedipus complex I’m sure, jealousy of the closeness the father has to the mother,” she sniffed slightly in distaste.

“Your trainer wants you,” she drawled out dryly, “Is that what you wanted to hear?” Looking up in surprise as her cousin announced they were going to ‘do this shit’ she smiled, “Well you are too kind, good sir, will my gratitude be enough for you to get your kicks today on the ‘decent gesture’ front?” she asked as she tugged at her gym bag, slinging it over her shoulder and stooped to grab her broomstick.

[Rhys Armitage]

Rhys sat perfectly still when Rachael addressed their kiss, folding his hands together and bracing himself like someone was about to punch him in his beloved face. He exhaled deeply once she stopped speaking, suddenly realizing that he'd been holding his breath the whole time out of deep discomfort. Well, consider the plaster ripped, I guess. "Ha ha. Yeah. They'd love that. I could do without three-eyed six-toed mutant kids, though. I mean, I'd say I loved them all the same, but when it comes to putting a family photo in the Christmas card... it would probably just be a picture of the dog in light-up antlers." He winced jokingly and let his eyes dart from side to side.

Continuing to play with the zip on his jacket, Rhys shrugged. "I mean, totally. I'm not a genius or anything, but even I know they stayed together for appearances. If anything, I thought Natasha 'Dated a Gay Dude' Armitage would understand that," he said, a little harsher than he had intended. He didn't want to admit that the divorce was still upsetting and stressful for him and that he hated not being able to talk to his only sibling. "Yeah, it's hilarious that I not only had secret cousins in my age range, but a secret half-sister! Do you know how many people I hook up with in a month? I feel people don't appreciate how difficult my life is," he sniffed while digging in his pocket for a piece of gum.

"I don't hate my dad or anything," he said finally, sure that Rachael would jump at the chance to go Freudian on him and insinuate that he secretly wanted to kill his father and sleep with his mother. It was just that Rhys was a fairly open, expressive person and it was frustrating trying to get through to someone who was so... self-contained. "I just don't think he really gets me, you know? My life, my swag, what I'm all about." Rhys popped the gum in his mouth and shook his head. "Anyway, I think we all need to sort out our shit because I'm pretty sure the O'Connors are the most functional branch of our family right now, and that is just not on."

He grinned then because, yeah, that was exactly what he was fishing to hear. His cousin knew him too well. He jumped down from the bench and waited for Rachael to gather her things. "Would it be too much to ask for you to pretend to be Nat and tell me how I should be wearing my pocket squares?"

[Rachael Barnes]

“Jeez Armitage, breathe,” Rachael grumbled as it seemed her cousin had been holding his breath while she bluntly talked about their kiss, a subject they stubbornly refused to talk about up until that point. Rach was one for taking a deep breath and ripping the plaster off, no doubt about it; she hated the tension lingering between them every time they met at a family party. She wasn’t entirely sure whether an air of normality would return after she’d addressed it bluntly now, but she hoped so. She found herself laughing at his joke and nodded, “Fine, god you could at least pretend to be able to handle family photos. And what makes you think we’d have a dog? A cat, surely?” she challenged with a grin.

Watching Rhys as he talked about his family she frowned slightly, “Most of our relatives stay together for appearance, that is the burden most upper-middle-class families have to bear, dear cousin,” she said in a sad, regretful tone (one that was entirely sarcastic) before she rolled her eyes. “Your sister won’t understand anything she blankly refuses to think about objectively. She can’t hate your mum forever, something’s got to give, and you can see in your mum’s eyes that she’s genuinely sorry and just wants her back. Nat just needs to see that humans are fallible and, contrary to popular belief, your mum is human,” she teased lightly. “No I don’t know how many people you hook up with in a month, I’m not sure I want to know lest we discover you’ve accidentally hooked up with… I don’t know… a secret aunt somewhere along the line.”

“Well… no I can’t imagine Uncle Alistair ‘getting your swag’,” she agreed with an amused smirk, “I can’t even imagine your dad saying ‘swag’ let alone understanding yours. He’s a bit… completely… withdrawn. The first time I actually saw him laugh it shocked me to my very core. I asked dad once about him… apparently he’s always been a bit introverted, but he’s got more aloof with age, he actually used to have fun when he was at Hogwarts. Imagine that! Somehow the idea of your dad at a party where they didn’t serve champagne or hors d'oeuvres just doesn’t quite ring true in my head.” she joked but only good-naturedly. Rachael nodded emphatically, “Absolutely, you know the world has gone to shit when any branch of the family Bradley belongs to is the most functional.”

As she straightened up, loosely holding her broom whilst she talked to him she snorted softly, “I can pretend to be her in conversational topic only, if you’re expecting the full monty with voice, attitude and everything, no can do, I might just slap myself upside the head.”

[Rhys Armitage]

"Who'd put antlers on a cat? Dummy," he jokingly rolled his eyes, knowing full well that Rachael (and, in fact, most people) were significantly smarter than he was. He was relieved that they seemed to be joking and carrying on normally... or at the very least, faking normalcy.

"I wish Nat could've seen Mum in Paris, honestly. It was bad," he explained while ducking his head seriously. Admittedly, Rhys had a huge blind spot where his mother was concerned and would have forgiven her for pretty much anything, but he had to believe his sister wouldn't have wanted to see her so broken down. He then widened his eyes and stared at Rachael. "Do not even joke about that, Barnes. I went through a serious older woman phase that I don't want coming back to haunt me."

Beginning to walk down the street, Rhys turned to Rachael. "You can't do one scoff-y hair flip? For me? Come on, I'm sad." He continued to think about everything she'd said about their respective fathers, but kept quiet for a few moments. Rhys then kicked at a bottle cap and looked back at his cousin. "Your dad seems okay? I guess I don't know him that well, and maybe I'm too trusting, but he seems like a good guy. I reckon having you and Dan and Katie and your mum around has been good for him."