Notes: It's a Roddy father theory fic! ...Only it'll take a little while to get to the actual father part. This is a side-story for Grasping Liquid. It's set sometime after the events of Part Twenty of the main story, but I'd recommend having read up to and including at least Part Twenty-Five to avoid spoilers for Grasping Liquid.
It was a crisp, chilly morning when Roddy set out to meet Marilyn and Gus. The frost had settled firmly onto the ground, as a cautious reminder of the dangers that the frequent mist could bring to their town. But Roddy defied this warning as his feet crunched through the frost without fear. It took him only a few short minutes to get to the market stall. It was a walk that he'd done countless times before, though perhaps not for many more...
As the mist cleared a little he saw the other two talking quietly to each other. For a moment he thought that they were holding hands, but if they had been then they pulled away when Roddy got there, both looking a little sheepish. Not that it mattered to Roddy. Whatever Marilyn and Gus got up to in their own time was their business, not his.
"Thanks for coming," Marilyn said, when Roddy had reached the stall.
"Couldn't ignore an order from the leader of the Black Ravens now, could I?" mumbled Roddy.
"Yes, that's... kind of what I called you here to talk about," Marilyn admitted. She took an apple from the display and tossed it towards Roddy; "But first I think you should tell us what's happening on your end."
Roddy caught the apple and took a bite out of it, before he carefully answered, "There's not much to say."
"Rod, we all know that's not true," Marilyn protested.
"Maybe it's not, but it would be easier if it was," retorted Roddy, with a heavy sigh, "The real situation isn't convenient for us. I lied to Crow when he was leaving, all right? When I told him that it'd still be a while before anything happens on my end, that wasn't true at all. Mum wants us to go to London as soon as possible."
"That's good though, isn't it? You'll finally get to be with your dad after waiting so long," Marilyn pointed out.
"And leave Misthallery with just four Black Ravens," Roddy added, "You can be as optimistic as you like, Mal, but the group can't manage with only that many. Especially not now that the auctions are getting more attention."
"That's my problem. I'm the leader, so I'll figure it out if you want to leave," Marilyn insisted.
"But you don't even want to be the leader. Don't think that we can't see that," argued Roddy. He was pleased to see that even Gus nodded in agreement to this; "You took on the role because Crow thought you were best for the job and you didn't want to give him more to worry about now that we'd finally convinced him it was okay for him to go. So I'd be leaving you with one less person to rely on, running a job that you already struggle to balance alongside keeping up this fruit stall."
Marilyn grinned a knowing little grin; "Don't you think that I haven't already gone over all of this in my head, Roddy? As far as the stall's concerned, Mum's been improving a lot lately, so Dad can run it more than before. And Gus has also been helping me with it on top of that. As for being stuck in a leader role I don't want, well..."
Here she trailed off as more footsteps could be heard coming towards them. Part of Roddy wondered if Marilyn timed these sorts of announcements purposely to cause that sort of dramatic flair, which was a very Crow thing to do. Personally Roddy didn't have time for that. He'd rather everyone just got on with what needed to be done. Which was ironic, given that he was currently in a situation where he couldn't get on with his own plans.
The new arrivals turned out to be Arianna and Tony, who had much further than the others to walk to get down from their home to the market. They both gathered around the stall and Tony gratefully took the apple that Marilyn offered him, although Arianna declined one for herself.
"I hope we haven't missed too much," she said.
"Nothing at all," Roddy lied.
"Actually, there is something that I wanted to ask you about, Arianna," corrected Marilyn, which made Roddy nervous, "We've been worried for a while that with so many Black Ravens gone we'll fast become short-handed around here. People leaving is not something that can be helped, but we do need to find a way around it. Do you have any suggestions for what we could do about that?"
Arianna nodded; "The obvious answer would be to hire more people."
"And why wouldn't we do that?" checked Marilyn.
"Because Crow wouldn't like it if we did," Tony answered, "He chooses who gets to be in the Black Ravens and right now he isn't around for us to ask him."
"...But?" Marilyn pressed.
"He also isn't around to stop us," Arianna replied, "He gave us free reign, so we should be able to bring in whoever we want. Even if Crow might not like it."
There were mixed reactions to this statement. Tony definitely looked uneasy at the notion of going behind Crow's back and even Gus, who would probably agree it was the only way, didn't seem too pleased by the idea. Of course Roddy couldn't see his own face, but he was willing to bet that he might have looked the same as well.
"So we look to expand our numbers. That seems like a sensible option," Marilyn continued, not giving the others a chance to object, "The problem being that, even without Crow's approval, we can't bring just anyone into the group. So, are there any suggestions?"
"Finch has wanted to join us since forever..." Gus mumbled. He sounded doubtful about this even as he said it.
"But he wouldn't work, not from the start," Arianna debated, "I'm not saying that we could never mould him into shape, but he'd be too much like, forgive me for saying this Tony, but too much like you were back when you first joined. All starry-eyed about the Black Ravens, without realising that what we do isn't just a game. That's fine when we have the freedom to teach someone up, but we need someone who's going to be ready from the start."
"There's no one like that in Misthallery though," Roddy pointed out, "If we're just looking at people who are around our age, all of them would take work to make them fit in with us. Finch is too star-struck, Sean is shy and clingy, don't even get me started on Jakes's son, Hans or whatever he's called."
"You missed out one," Marilyn hummed.
"Who'd I miss?" Roddy checked, "I think that's all the lot who live up around Great Ely. Unless you mean... oh no, you can't..."
At this point, Roddy was aware that the others were looking between him and Marilyn as if they were some sort of spectacle. It must have seemed that way, given that Marilyn was smiling like a cunning fox and Roddy's frown could have scared off a rampaging bull.
"Why not him?" Marilyn challenged.
"Because Crow hates him. As in properly hates him, not just for part of his hoity leader act," explained Roddy, "Everyone else he can kind of put up with, but not him. And I'm pretty sure that the feeling is mutual. In fact, I know that it is. So he wouldn't join us anyway."
"Who are you talking about?" Tony asked.
"Charlie Webster from up North Ely," Roddy clarified, "The boy that was bidding against Crow for the bear at that auction. Look, I know you're all going to think that I'm being difficult here, but there's history there. Charlie and Crow knew each other since before the Black Ravens were even founded and from what I saw it didn't end on good terms. Crow doesn't want Charlie to have anything to do with us and Charlie won't want to be caught dead in this market either."
"Well then, if there's no chance he'd join us then no harm will come of asking him to," Marilyn prompted.
"It'd be a waste of time," growled Roddy, who knew where this was going, "Time we could be spending seriously finding people who could join the Black Ravens."
"You're right," Marilyn agreed, "Gus, I know it's early, but could you head up into town and find Hans?"
"We're not letting Hans join!" roared Roddy.
"Finch then," corrected Marilyn.
"No!"
"I-I could g-go ask Sean...?" suggested Tony, not sure he should be butting into this at all.
"Those are our options," Marilyn reminded Roddy, "Hans, Finch, Sean or Charlie. It's about choosing the best candidate for the job."
"Charlie would bring nothing to us," Roddy insisted.
"He had the fire to fight against Crow. You don't find that just anywhere," Marilyn stated. Now all the humour had dropped from her voice. She was being deadly serious.
"Maybe he does, but he'll still say no anyway," retorted Roddy.
"If you're so sure about that then why don't you ask him?" Marilyn challenged, "It'd make sense for you to do it, given that you seem to know much more than the rest of us about his history with Crow. You could be much more tactful than we could."
"Ugh... this is such a pain!" Roddy proclaimed, "But fine, I'll do it just to prove you wrong."
"Then there's no time like the present," Marilyn concluded.
It was now too late for Roddy to realise that he'd walked right into her trap. A trap that she'd probably planned from before they'd all got there that morning. She truly could have been a good leader if she wanted, but Marilyn was a much better tactician. Not that it mattered, since Roddy was certain that he was right about Charlie.
As he stormed away from the table, Roddy just caught Gus's voice as he whispered to Marilyn that she never talked about the leader situation like she said she would, but Roddy didn't stick around to hear the outcome of that. He was on a mission now.
Misthallery was built on a hill. The further you got into the town, the higher up you travelled. That went for the social classes as well as the geography. At the very bottom was the market, where all the people who couldn't afford to be anywhere else lived, past that you'd get further up and into what Scraps would regard as the insufferable middle-classes, people who at one time thought they were much better than the Black Ravens (though thankfully in recent years that stigma was dying off a little), and right at the top you had Barde Manor, home to the richest two people in Misthallery. And luckily for the other Black Ravens, the Barde siblings had turned out to be two of the nicest people as well.
Where Roddy was headed was North Ely, which lay comfortably in that middle section. Maybe most of the people there had shaken off their old prejudices, but some of them decidedly hadn't. And Roddy was here to find one of the worst offenders.
He stomped through the street, trying to figure out exactly which house belonged to Charlie's family. In truth, he wasn't sure that he'd ever seen it before, since Roddy didn't make a habit of coming here other than when he needed to pass through for Black Raven business. It always felt too much like he didn't belong and Roddy didn't like that.
Fortunately, it turned out that he didn't have to look as far as to find Charlie's house, because his target came straight for him. He watched as a door opened and Charlie daintily stepped out onto the streets. The boy then brushed himself off and turned around to regard Roddy with stern curiosity. It was clear that Charlie had only come out because he'd seen Roddy hanging around, but even so he made no attempt to talk to him. To Charlie, it was enough to just watch and see what Roddy would do.
Roddy had never been one for small talk, so he walked right over to Charlie.
"I need to talk to you," he informed.
"My parents are just in the house," warned Charlie.
"How very nice for them," Roddy sighed, with a roll of his eyes, "Look, I'm just gonna get to the point so that we're not wasting each other's time-"
"-Are you implying that I would waste your time?" gasped Charlie.
"Yeah. Why?"
"That's such a cruel and untrue thing to say. An ugly brute like yourself should be honoured that someone like me would even spend a moment of their precious time on you," Charlie huffed.
Normally Roddy would let this slide, but he was having a bad day; "I'm sorry, am I getting in the way of you sitting up in your bedroom reading comics alone or loitering around on your doorstep passing judgement at everyone who goes by? Because we all know that you don't have any proper friends to spend time with."
"How very dare you!" snapped Charlie, "For your information, I'd rather have no friends than be anywhere near Crow's horrible fan club. A-and sometimes I hang out with Finch..."
"That pretty much answers my question then," admitted Roddy, "You don't want to be near us. So I won't bother you any more."
With that, he turned to leave. In any other situation, it could be thought that Roddy was baiting Charlie to call after him, but in truth, Roddy just wanted out of here. He didn't care to deal with this and he was looking forward to telling Marilyn that, for once, she was wrong.
Pity he didn't get that far before Charlie did exactly what Roddy didn't want him to do.
"Wait...! What question were you going to ask?" Charlie called.
Honestly, Roddy could have ignored him and left. There was no obligation to stay and all that would happen was that they'd draw out a conversation that would probably end in the same result. But Roddy heard that particular tone in Charlie's voice. A desperate loneliness that wanted to know why someone might want to talk to him, even if he would deny that was the case if someone were to call him out on it. Perhaps he was a bleeding heart, but Roddy couldn't walk away from that.
So he turned back to Charlie and muttered, "I've been sent here to ask you something. On behalf of what you'd call Crow's fan club."
"All right, I suppose I can hear out what the dregs desire to say to me," chimed Charlie, his swagger instantly returning.
"Yeah... right. Well, this is kinda something big that we don't talk about to just anyone, so I'd appreciate it if you kept your mouth shut about it whatever you choose, even if I guess you have no reason to," Roddy said. Now that he had put it into words, he could see just how dangerous openly telling someone who hated Crow about the Black Raven could be. Sure, all of Misthallery knew about the auctions these days, but that didn't mean they knew a bunch of teenagers were the masterminds behind them. Nevertheless, he'd been told to do this, so he ploughed on, "Look, I know you hate Crow and you don't want anything to do with him. But he's gone now and we're short of hands for our... work. I've been sent here to ask if you'd join us, but I already know that you're going to say no, so if you can hurry up and say it then we can both be on our ways."
There was an uncomfortably long pause. Charlie was actually considering it.
"What is it that you do?" he eventually asked.
"You won't believe it," Roddy assured him.
"I'd believe almost anything from Crow," admitted Charlie, "Try me."
"All right then, remember that auction up at Barde Manor? The one that you made an idiot out of yourself in? And all those other auctions that everyone's been talking about ever since then? Yeah, well those are us. We're the Black Ravens. And, for some reason, our leader wants you to join," Roddy explained.
There was a strange light behind Charlie's eyes; "...Crow wants me to join?"
"What? No, not Crow. He's not the leader right now. Marilyn's the one who wants you to join," Roddy clarified, "Trust me, if Crow was here you wouldn't even be in for consideration."
"So Crow wouldn't want me to join then?" Charlie checked.
Roddy realised too late what he'd just said.
"N-no, probably not. But it's still his group. There's no point in joining just to get back at him, because he could still come back and throw you out on your ears at any time. Which he probably will do one day. So you should save yourself the embarrassment and just say no now. Because on top of that it's also a lot of hard work and everyone knows how much you hate-"
"...I'll do it."
"You don't have to!" Roddy begged.
"No, it would be wrong of me to turn my back on those who need me," Charlie announced, "I've read enough super hero comics to know what the right thing to do is and helping peasants like yourself is exactly it. If you just give me a few minutes, I'll just go inside and get changed into something a little more suited to roughing it down at the market. This is a nice shirt and I wouldn't want to get it ruined. Oh, and I should probably pack a decent lunch, since I have no idea how long you'll need me down there for. Mother did buy some good, soft bread just yesterday, so I could make some cucumber sandwiches. And now that I think about it, you'll all probably be so honoured to spend time with someone from a better class of life such as myself, so I should probably bring some of my comics down for you to marvel at. Do you all prefer Beano or Dandy? Actually, scratch that. You probably have that tat down there already. I should bring the comics that Father brought back from his visit to America. You've definitely never seen anything like those. Yes, just give me about five or ten minutes and I should be ready to go."
With all that nonsense having spouted out of his mouth, Charlie turned and practically skipped back inside his house. All Roddy could do was stare after him as grim defeat settled in.
"...What a pain," he grumbled.