After the Fight [Private RP, Upstairs Bedroom]

[Posh-Tim]

Keane finally finds something to agree to.
"Yes" he hisses back.
"The last time he *was* put into torpor. This time it might go further and he is destroyed." He looks to Anton, probably the only thing that might actually get Raife to calm down.
"Now, do you think this is actually helping? Standing and shouting and arguing like this? Don't you think Anton has had enough for one night."
He gives what he hopes is a reassuring look to Anton. "Now *sit* down if you want to know what has actually happened or you can run off and get yourself killed like you're always trying to."
He fixes Raife with a stern look. Trying to give the air of a displeased school master.

[Anton]

Anton falls silent. What can he say? He agrees - with everything. He doesn't understand why the Brujah are allowed in the Camarilla, but meanwhile Anton has to hide his disciplines or face incredible censure.

"I guess," he says miserably.

"I'd like to sleep this off," he directs to Keane. "And... change. Can if I stay out of what's happening downstairs - please? I wasn't in the mood for that many elders. Neither were you, by the looks of it," he tries for humour. It falls flat, however. Anton tries to sit up straighter and a spasm contorts his face.

The word 'passion' makes Anton tense slightly and glance up, his lashes heavy with blood and making everything feel like too much work. The hint of a frown is replaced as quickly as Anton can hide it. Guiltily, he'd glad Raife has his back to him.

When Keane turns this onto poor-Anton, the boy in question slants him a look, one eyebrow lifting. Anton supposes he'll have to put pride aside if he wanted rest tonight. Fine. No point defending your own ability to look after yourself when you're so much bulleid meat.

He's so busy trying to figure out why his pelvis hurts this much that he doesn't realise Raife's moved until it's too late - not having clocked anything in Keane's language that would be such a problem. But there clearly was.

"Whoa! Hold it -!" Anton scramble-crawls forward, but snatches a gasp of agonised breath instead, something slicing wrongly into his ribs. Or into his lung, he's not sure.

[Raife Black]

Get yourself killed, like you're always trying to!

A red haze seemed to mire Raife's vision. He clocked it, felt the urge to resist it, but something in Keane's tone sent a shiver through him.

Fuck it.

Anton's words fell on selectively deaf ears and Raife feinted to the side then aimed one square, deliberate blow at Keane's jaw. Unfortunately for Raife, he had no such excuse as the unnamed Jean-Jaques - he was entirely in control of himself and his actions.

[Posh-Tim]

The first blow strikes an unexpectant Keane expertly across the jaw. To a human it probably would have been a knockout punch but Keane was not a human. In addition, Keane had something neither of the other two here did. Hundreds of years experience taking a beating.
This time, he was fighting back.
Drawn by a strange instinct he hadn't had only the night before, his hand whips out to the stick that lay propped up against the chair. From its position he swings it wildly towards Raife's face, ostensibly to drive him back but quite happy to let it land.
As he does so he growls;
"You ungrateful fool!"

[Anton]

As the stick crack-lands across Raife's face, Anton shouts out, his heart leaping into his throat - and also back, into the past, nosing like a sick hound through the mud of his memories.

"Fuck -! Keane - I -"

He's not thinking, acting on instinct - both to get in the way and to get away - the dual needs conflicting in his aching muscles. But there's a lot of anger, too, and Anton's Beast is superimposing his own father all-too-easily on the taller Brythonic, the elder a towering silhouette from where Anton is trying, badly, to get up off the bed.

He can feel his blood's hallmark race dirtily up, dementation comes slathering its eager way to the surface of his skin, his hands, but Anton's too busy falling off the bed to notice.

"Fucking hell - please - Keane get off him, Raife stop it!"

But a twist in his torso has Anton half scream, and double over, his eyes scrunching shut as pink tears leak in frustration at the corners. He's too busy clutching his ribs to do anything immediately.

[Raife Black]

White pain cracked across Raife's cheek, blazing out the world for a split second before he landed hard on his arse - a similar pain shooting up his tailbone. He could feel his face burning underneath his hand but a good half of his head felt numb, unable to feel his own fingers touching the welt rising on his skin. He looked up at Keane with indignant fury and an equal measure of shock - the blow was unlike anything he had experienced yet in his existence. As he stared at his sire, he noticed his vision becoming decidedly one-sided. His fingers moved up to his eye socket and felt the skin there swelling his lids shut.

There was another quiver of heat in the air as Raife glowed up at Keane, holding his face - but Anton's shriek of pain soon distracted him from whatever intentions he was debating. Raife struggled to his knees and shuffled over to where Anton had fallen, murmuring unintelligible nothings under his breath as he tried to maneuver Anton's head into his lap as gently as he could.

"Sorry, sorry - I'll stop. It's nothing. Just a silly stick." Raife muttered, trying to smooth Anton's wild hair back from his brow, "You really are hurt - back on the bed, eh? No?"

Raife spoke and moved with a tenderness that one would be forgiven for assuming he was not capable of managing. He seemed to have utterly forgotten his altercation with his sire for the moment, entirely focused on Anton's choked sobs.

[Posh-Tim]

Keane now standing and prepared for another swing holds back. He simply lowers the cane and shakes his head slowly, turning away from the two of them. He doesn't say anything, instead hoping that being confronted with the consequences of his actions might actually shock Raife into some semblance of rationality, but he doubts it.
Either way, it pained him to see Anton antagonised like this after Jean-Jacques assault so didn't want to take it further if it wasn't necessary.
He takes an unnecessary breath, and tries to calm down from the shock of actually having the upper hand in a physical encounter.

[Anton]

Anton can't quite get out the no that he wants to, or even the thank you that's next, but he's flush with gratitude and relief and finds a tender thrill of shock that's - ripped fast away by a second lurch from his ribs, or rather beneath his ribs, that makes Anton imagine there's hot bile coming out of his spleen and climbing up his throat and blurring his vision. He whimpers, and hates himself for it. And then remains very, very still.

He's one of those people to worry if he's unable to reassure those around him, especially when he's the one looking crippled and vulnerable and it's doing all sorts of unpleasant things to his ego and sending goosebumps rising along his flesh in humiliation.

"M'fine," he gets out, with shortness of breath.

[Raife Black]

Raife let out a long, slow breath between pursed lips, his gaze fixed on Anton's body as he watched the other boy's chest wall quivering underneath his scruffy shirt. In life, Raife liked to think he was good at spotting sparring injuries and identifying when they were serious. He was rapidly realising that he had no idea how to make an assessment of another vampire's injuries. After a few moments, he shifted very carefully under Anton so that his own back was propped up by the foot of the rickety bed. He stopped stroking Anton's hair - suddenly quite self conscious under his sire's gaze - and instead rested that hand on Anton's shoulder.

"So this not-Brujah - which one is it?" Raife was clearly exerting a fair amount of effort to keep his tone level but he succeed as he met Keane's eyes, "And - sorry Anton, I wasn't listening - what exactly is wrong with him? Is it punishable by death by any delightful chance?"

He tried to inject some of his customary venom into his voice, but it was still tremulous. His face was throbbing and his eye felt like it might pop out of his skull. Under the cover of Anton's shoulder, Raife's thumb rubbed small, soothing circles into Anton's back. Soothing for Raife, at least.

[Posh-Tim]

Keane shoots a look back at Raife. At the look of the mark on Raife's face he isn't quite sure whether he is appalled or the slightest bit proud of his work.
He tries to match Raife for a level tone.
"I don't think he'll be punished as he should be for this." He indicates Anton, shaking his head.
"Anton, you know more than me though."
He stays standing and looking at them both, though his face makes the steady slide from Anger to Upset.