Third Floor Common Room, Tuesday Afternoon

[bitchprince]

After completing his go at Gun Club, Arthur returned to the dorms only to realise he didn't much feel like dealing with Leto yet. He'd come up with a proper revenge later. Right now, he craved a chance to sit somewhere, to fight off the sense that was dawning in the wake of yesterday's upset. He sat, and idly considered the Teevee.

Maybe she's just afraid to lose a friend, Merlin had said, and while Arthur was not going to stretch as far as to call her that aloud, he had to admit that the expression on her face had... seemed...

It was easier, dealing with sorcerers, when all you did was distract Father and find them quick shelter elsewhere. Here, there was little escape from them. No matter what he did, they would remain, and the honest truth was that he bore them very little ill will.

Wasn't his father. He'd seen too much damage caused by it not to be wary, but...

Of course, that made him think of Liir. He wasn't going to let thought of his conduct around him make him cringe.

So he sat. Subdued. Thinking.

[[ open common room! ]]

Comments

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

Hannibal wasn't so dumb as to think he'd knock Arthur on his ass but he was a lot more skilled with his hands than a clumsy stick.

"Friendly spar?" Hannibal asked, eyebrow up. "Can your arm take that?"

[bitchprince]

"Yes, Hannibal," he said. For the first time, some of his frustration seeped back in through a crack in the facade. "You might need your eyes checked if you're convinced I'm some sort of delicate waif."

The bandages were finally gone, and Arthur was going to take advantage of that if it killed him.

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"I'm being courteous, ass," Hannibal said dryly. "You, obviously, don't require that sort of thing. Hurrah. I'll just be crude and rude to you from now on."

[bitchprince]

"Not much of a change, then."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"Pot meet the fucking kettle," he said. "You're one to talk."

[bitchprince]

"I am, actually." He wasn't, but that wasn't going to stop Arthur, even if his barbs weren't in quite the best condition today. "Decorum is another thing I've been trained in since birth."

It's just that some people didn't deserve it.

And most of the people who did were a bit dull.

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"Your training's a bit off, then," Hannibal quipped. "I think I'd sooner see you with two heads and tail then you being nice to someone. And honestly, I'd be worrying if I saw you being nice to someone. Probably mean the island is turning upside down."

[bitchprince]

"My training," he said, "Is fine. Your manners aren't, but God help me, I've had to grow used to them."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"Why should I use manners on someone who's never shown me a damn modicum of respect?" Hannibal asked.

[bitchprince]

"Hannibal," he said, pointedly, "back home, I would have been perfectly in my right to have you thrown into the dungeons for being as rude as to address me by name. I think that considering the circumstances, I've shown you all the respect that could be expected of me."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"Arthur, you aren't at home," Hannibal pointed out. "So, your rules don't apply here and I'm surely not going to call you by your damn title when you're not anything but another student to me."

[bitchprince]

"Yes," he gritted out, rolling his eyes once before he could temper his tone. "I have become increasingly aware of that. But you can understand that does not make it sound any less rude to my ears, despite my efforts to restrain myself."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"So, what? You can recognize when someone's being an ass to you but can't recognize it in yourself?" he asked, shaking his head. "How selective of you, Arthur."

[bitchprince]

Beating up Hannibal seemed like a nicer idea by the minute, if he didn't have a point.

The insult was a bit much, though.

"Perhaps you should visit Camelot one day," Arthur said, "We'll see how far you make it."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"I don't see a need to visit Camelot," Hannibal retorted. "Especially when it'd give you some sort of authority over me."

[bitchprince]

Arthur gave him a look that implied that he knew exactly who the alpha male was in this conversation, and it wasn't Hannibal.

"Now who's passing judgement on one and not the other?"

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"Please, like you don't throw your power around whenever I talk to you," Hannibal said. "Don't act so surprised when someone else does the same thing."

[bitchprince]

"That's presuming you have any power to throw around," he said, with a quirk of his eyebrow.

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"I don't need to be a prince to have power," Hannibal said. "Fancy titles need not apply."

[bitchprince]

"I wasn't talking about titles," he said, smiling in a way that showed some teeth. He sat forward. "Although I'm sure I could think of one for you."

Now Arthur was just trying to deal with his crappy mood by taking it out on someone else, yes- Hannibal made such a ready target.

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"Oooh, your words burn me," Hannibal said, doing a mock shake. His own mood was rearing its ugly head and it was much easier to be irrational and bitchy when the mood was already there. "How the women must swoon for you, Arthur. Threats of namecalling? How elementary of you, Arthur."

[bitchprince]

Arthur rose up out of his seat, stalking towards Hannibal with a predatory glint in his eyes.

"Now, now, Hannibal," he said, "I thought you found me charming. It's all right, I can understand the envy."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

Hannibal didn't move from the spot he'd been standing on but forced an air of nonchalance and indifference into his stance.

"I was wrong," he said airily. "Can't judge a book by its cover, now can I? But, I'm sure you look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself how charming and how awesome you are every night before you brush your hair one hundred times with your special brush and go to bed in your silk sheets. Arthur, you almost sound like a manly girl."

[bitchprince]

Arthur pressed his hand to the side of the couch, a scant few inches away from Hannibal's head. He leaned his weight half into his hand with equal nonchalance.

"I'm afraid you may have me mistaken for someone else," he said, airily, infusing his own words with a slight undertone of threat. "But don't worry. I know how easily distractable you are."

[decoder-rings.livejournal.com]

"Oh, how harsh," Hannibal said, turning his face up towards Arthur and sticking out his lower lip in an exaggerated pout. "The princely one things I'm distractable. Let me go cry in my room, weep buckets and blow my nose in scented Kleenex."

He smiled at Arthur, slowly and widely, false cheer and brightness lighting every corner of his face.

"It's nice to know that you're as blind as I thought. I don't care who you are or were or what you do. You're insignificant to me."