Real Life Sucks!

19

Rory felt more than a little glad that Katie accompanied him to the launch party. For one reason, because he would have had to come alone and, despite the leaps, the bounds, the tears and the build-up, he doubted he could have done it. And if he had come to London alone, he doubted he would have actually gone to the party. He probably would have simply turned around and got back on the next train home.

The other option would have been to force Rebecca to join him and that would have been problematic itself. He hated the fact that he still felt more than a little betrayed that she and Serena hadn't told him earlier about the wedding and subsequent, or prior, selling of the house. He also felt glad of the fact that he had considered that it wouldn't be fair to drag his sister away from her future wife at such a critical time. Also, Rebecca would have had little to do. He had both selfish and magnanimous reasons for not inviting her. That was progress, of a sort, he supposed.

"And the house hunting? How's that going?" Katie stood beside him, their luggage clustered in front of them. "I know how bad it was for me to find a house. I'll be paying that mortgage forever. Literally forever. Because, you just know in a few years time, I'll want to move and the next house will be more expensive, so I'll get another mortgage that I'll never pay off and ... well, on and on and on."

"That isn't the least bit comforting." He was listening to her, but he also had barely started to prepare himself for what he needed to do next. "I've made several lists. From bog-standard houses that'll leave me with some money left over, going up in cost increases up to, and beyond, the likely money that the sale will bring in. And dream houses, of course."

"Ooh! Dream houses? Like with swimming pools and cinemas in the basements? Billions of acres of land and goats?" She huddled against him as the wind funnelled down the busy street. "Don't buy a farm. Goats are bastards."

"Something like that. No goats." She really did put up with a lot from him. She deserved to be around someone who thought of her first, not himself. "Big walls, with impenetrable gates and security where I can see people coming a mile away. Then I can tell them to bugger off. Unless its a pizza delivery. Of course."

"Of course." Her arm wrapped around his shivering shoulders and hugged him close. He didn't even stiffen at her touch. "Not being pushy, or anything, but I'm freezing my lady parts off here. Are you close to being able to cross the road yet?"

-+-

"You feel like a burden?" The therapist caught on that. She was infuriatingly clever and observant. Also, he had just said he felt like a burden. Which he was. To everybody. "Why do you think that?"

"Because I force everybody to work around me. To consider my feelings all the time." One of her plants were dying. He could relate. "I don't mean to. I don't to make everyone miserable dealing with the stupid things I think need to be done in certain ways, or when I go off on one about stuff that must seem pathetic to them. I wish I lived on an island and then the only person I'd bother is myself."

"That would be incredibly lonely, wouldn't it?" She crossed her legs the other way. That was the fifth time in that session and Rory's first thought was that he bored her and she wanted to get away. "Do you think that's what the people who love you want? Would it fix anything?"

"No. I'd probably start annoying myself." Now he wanted to find some water to try to bring the plant back to life. "More. I'd start annoying myself more."

-+-

It was a big hotel. Far, far bigger than the one they had stayed in for the game-con and far more lavish and ostentatious. Rory hated it. It all felt like someone was trying far too hard to look wealthy for people who were probably far more wealthy than the hotel pretended to be. All he could see were gleaming metal surfaces that looked like gold, but probably wasn't, and plush velvets in colours known to be favoured by the rich and royalty.