With age comes wisdom, power, and in some cases, wrinkles.

Eighty years of age, for example, have caused this old man a crooked back, cost him all of his hair (and he used to be proud of his hair), and given him a limp.

This, in general, pissed him off.

Now he's here, in an old church that few mortals dare enter, poking around with a cane, looking snide.

Some people have no pride in their churches. He was a church caretaker for twenty-odd years and it always looked better than this dump.

Figured, given who he'd heard occupied it.

Hmph.

It's funny. Colton tries to keep himself as neat as possible, but his church? How about his room? His socks?

Hah. Tonight's socks have a hole in the toe, and that's starting to get to him. Warm feet, cold toe. He doesn't like the contrast.

The rest of him is neat, as is normal. Suit, tie, crisp, collared shirt. His hair is never neat, but tonight it's tame, and his face is shaven clean. He's rubbing his temple as he gently shuts the door behind him.

Important department meeting + headache = irritable Colton.

He's hoping he can sneak down to his room without anyone noticing, particularly Ratter. He's not in the mood for Ratter. He's never in the mood for Ratter, but tonight, he's just kinda hoping Ratter's not in the mood for bugging him.

Unfortunately, there's an old fogie in the church, which means running down to the catacombs is not an opition. Colton stands in the back of the church, watching the man scowl at his church.

May not be clean, but it's his. And he's defensive about his things.

"You. Young man."

This old man is used to command.

"I'm looking for my son Richard. He lives here."

There is no question about it. He knows Richard lives here.

"Fetch him."

Arrogant?

Oh, a tad.

Colton arches an eyebrow artfully and looks the man up and down. Age has made it nearly impossible for Colton to identify him with anyone living here.

"I have no idea who you're talking about."

And he doesn't. Ratter is Ratter. Not Richard.

Besides. He doesn't play fetch unless people say please.

Stubborn? More than a tad.

"He is ashamed of his family name. He is yay high, slim, with dark hair. He looks like a dishrag."

Complimentary, dear fellow. Complimentary.

Sadly, also true.

Colton's eyes widen slightly as he understands. Ah, yes. The dishrag.

Coming right up!

Colton nods and moves to the doorway that leads to the catacombs.

"HEY, RATTER, YOU GOT COMPANY."

Because he's far too lazy to go all the way down and come all the way back up.

He's curious. Ratter's dad's here. There's no way he's going to miss the action.

Pause.

Ratter shadow-slides, because he is lazy.

Also, he needs the practice.

He takes in the sight of his father.

"...ah, fuck."

"Language, boy."

Pause, as Ratter almost cringes. "Sorry, father."

Meet the one person capable of making Ratter apologize and mean it.

Now, see, nine times out of ten, Colton would leave. He respects other people's privacy. He doesn't need to, or want to, know everything about everyone else. Too much effort, and typically, you've gotta get close to the person, and we all know Colton hates people.

But, c'mon. Ratter violated his privacy. Colton's not too honourable to walk away, now that he knows it's gonna be good.

And humiliating.

Colton leans against the doorjam idly, smiling lightly. It's times like these when he misses popcorn.

"You didn't come to your mother's funeral, boy."

Ratter grits his teeth. "To come to her funeral, I would have had to know she was dead."

"If you hadn't deserted her in her time of need, you would have known."

Ratter is a very twitchy little man.

"If you weren't such an overcontrolling bastard, I wouldn't have run away."

"If you weren't such a brat, I wouldn't have had to be controlling. And you're dead, so I'm right."

Twitch. "I'm fucking immortal."

"You still got yourself killed." His father is very smug about that.

"Daaaad."

His dad feels Right and Righteous. Hah.

Colton's grin widens when Ratter's father explains that he was controlling because Ratter's a brat. Not because it's funny or true, but because it was ironic to him.

"Shoulda been more controlling," he suggests, eyes on Ratter.

You can tell he's getting great pleasure out of this.

"You shoulda gone to your mother's funeral. I mean, c'mon. She was your mom."

And we're all going to temporarily forget that Colton never went to his twin sister's funeral. It's more humourous if he takes Dad's side on this.

"Fuck you, sir."

I'm not sure which of them Ratter is addressing.

His father smacks him alongside the head with a stick.

Ratter winces, and looks Mightily Put Upon.

Colton grins. How many times has he wanted to hit Ratter? Countless. Seeing him get smacked around by an old man makes all those pent up striking-feelings dissipate.

He's happy now.

"So!" he exclaims, jauntily putting an arm around Ratter's shoulders, all pal-pal like. "First time you've seen your dear old in a while, eh?"

The touching thing is because he knows it'll make Ratter uncomfortable. Colton's developing a taste for watching Ratter squirm.

Ratter glares sideways at his august leader.

His thoughtstream comes down to one word, and one word only, and it is not a word for mixed company.

Grr.

"Fourty years," he grits out.

"Ingrate ran away from home and got himself killed." His dad is smug about this.

Ratter is twitchy.

He'd rather like to strangle something. Or drink heavily.

I'm going to suggest drinking heavily. Less complications.

"Fourty years... Wow," Colt says, sounding vaguely amused and falsly shocked. "That's a long time, Richard. Didn't you get homesick?"

Richard. Ha.

Expect that name to be used over-excessively in the next few months, or until it loses its hilarity.

Richard. Richard Richard. Colton rather enjoys playing with the sound of it.

Ratter twitches. If he were mortal, he would breath steadily through the nose until the instinct to hit things passed.

Instead, he is tense.

And twitchy.

"No. I don't."

No wit, no bite, just phrases, bitten off.

He really wants to bite something.

His father is watching this with disgust.

"He's one of them." Ratter's father is a tad prejudiced.

"Father? It's none of your damn business."

"You know how they are."

"I know dad. He's fine. Mostly."

His dad barks a laugh. "I've never met one of them that I'd trust to wash socks."

Richard has no real answer for that.

Isn't Richard's dad a joy and a wonder?

Colton's grin doesn't fade. Maybe because he's heard the accusation so many times that it's hardly important these days. Maybe because it was said by someone over eighty, and if the old guy meant any harm by it, Colton could take him.

But, no. In actuality, he grins because he's an ass.

"Actually, I'm sure you could trust us with socks. Just not white socks, because they look tacky if your pants are too short. You'll always look fab in black." He tisks, as if the very thought of it makes him upset.

Oh my God. And he's going to go flambouyant on Ratter's dad.

I'm scared?

"Isn't that right, Rattie?"

He throws a coy, borderline enfatuated look at Ratter.

Hee. He really is an ass.

Thrown back into childhood, Ratter actually lets his expression flicker into disgust before he reinforces the mask of apathy he's wearing at the moment.

His father doesn't even bother masking his disgust.

He hits his son with the stick again.

"Dad!" Stop it.

"You're a disgusting aberation to god's plan, boy."

Twitch. "Yes dad. You've said."

He needs strong alcohol. And drugs. Lots of drugs.

He's going to stay high for a month after this was over.

"And you hang around with this prat, which makes you a sinner as well." Ratter's father has that smug 'ha ha, you're going to burn in hell' look on his face again.

Lots and lots of drugs.

Normal homosexuals would be hurt or angry with such remarks and reactions, but Colton? Oh, this is his stage, and that disgusted look is his applause. He's going to make Ratter hate him.

He should be drunk to do this. Really, the physical contact with someone so downright nasty is getting to him, but he's not going to show it. No, no, that'd ruin his act.

"Trust me," Colton says, flicking his wrist and overemphasizing every movement. "This boy was a sinner long before he met me... If you knew half the tricks he has under his belt..."

And a giggle. A really girlish giggle.

"If you knew what was under his belt..."

Oh, and that sets him off. He laughs now because he thinks he's funny.

Ratter hisses.

Literally hisses.

For the record? Ratter is clean. And does not smell.

It's practically against the laws of nature, and that beard of his disguises it well, but it's true nontheless.

His father, nostrils white, glares. Silently.

Ratter... Ratter wilts.

"Da...." Soft, in an accent long-lost.

"I raised you better than this."

"Da, no...."

Silence, from both of them. They both know the words that will come next, and they're waiting, waiting, for the other.

They both know what comes next.

His father's just deciding how to phrase it.

And Ratter is terrified. Abjectly, irrationally terrified. Mouse frozen before a cat.

Colton doesn't care if he's clean. He looks nasty. He's been nasty in the past. There's a mental blocker in Colton's mind that will always connect Ratter with rats. And rats are smelly, dirty, ugly little critters.

Normally, seeing someone wilt causes Colton to feel guilty. With Ratter, he's not guilty. He's not done. He wants Ratter to cry. Yes, he wants tears. He wants pain. If he doesn't get tears and pain, then he's not done.

"You can't raise it out of 'em, hunny. It just... Is."

But, really, the contact with Ratter is too much for him to take. Sympathetically, he removes his arm from Ratter's shoulder. Detatches himself so that all further image-ruining remarks do not cause Colton greif.

"C'mon now. Let's just get along, shall we?"

And he sounds just chipper. Really, this made his bad day feel so much better.

Long silence.

Then the old man turns on his heel and stumps out, expression stormy.

Ratter's studying the ground.

Finally, softly, he comments, "Well, you just got me disowned. Happy now?"

Tears? Oh, possibly, if he cried about anything, he'd cry now. But he doesn't cry, in general.

Colton grins until the final slam of the old church door. Then, like magic, he's irratible again and glaring back at Ratter.

"If you ever want to piss me off again, think twice."

This is in reference to Zev. That incident is being held like a grudge, but now I think it might finally get to rest in peace. Colton's gotten even. Settled the score. Fair is fair.

Payback's a bitch, along with so many other things.

"You had this coming."

And with that, he turned and starts down the stairs. He really wants to gag at himself. Jesus. He giggled and everything. That was just sick. Twisted. Nasty. Wrong.

Ratter thinks about this.

For a long time.

And then he goes and gets some sleep, because there's really nothing else to do, is there.