“What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve believed, Rayburn?”

Rayburn looks across the booth to see George Hanwood staring at him intently, waiting for his answer. Henry, beside Rayburn like a statue, has his attention on his wine before him, but his head is cocked to the side, waiting to see how Rayburn will answer.

Rayburn rubs at his eye bags, a bruised purple against his pale skin stretching across his sharp bones. “I’ve been told many things that I’ve found to be wrong and just plain stupid, but the primary one that comes to my mind is…that love always lasts.”

George blinks at that—it seems he wasn’t expecting an answer to come out of gloomy Rayburn’s mouth. “Ah, okay,” he takes a look at Henry’s empty glass and stands up, “I’ll—I’ll get some more wine.”

Rayburn doesn’t care for George’s clear escape, he’s too busy trying to ignore the heated gaze Henry is bestowing upon him.

“What made you think that was ‘ridiculous’?”

Rayburn turns to Henry’s quiet words, mouth set in a growing frown. “That’s none of your concern.”

Henry’s green eyes are sharp, pointed and picking to find out the answer to his question. “You are my concern.”

Rayburn avoids his gaze and looks to where George is coming back with a bottle of wine. And a woman.

“Be careful with words like that, assistant. Some people might get the wrong idea.”

Henry scoots closer to Rayburn, making the latter gentleman uncomfortable. “Maybe the idea they’re thinking is the right idea.”

“Would you like to be fired?” Rayburn hisses.

Henry gets the clue. He scoots back to where he was as George and his lady sit down. “No, I don’t think I would.”

Rayburn sips at the wine freshly poured into his glass. He should’ve said no to this invitation; he doesn’t even really know why he agreed in the first place.

His mind is making too many dangerous decisions, he’ll have to buy more pills to make that stop.

***

_(You do not know how hard this was for me to write. I hate Rayburn after he and Oswald split up. Btw, Rayburn’s 24 in this scene and a very famous magicker. He’s one of the top 5 actually. He’s in charge of the overuse and misconduction of magick in the district he’s in._

_Anyways, thanks for reading and have a good day! _💙_)_