[ It's not exactly riveting information, but it is exactly what she was looking for, so Ramir listens contentedly. You know someone a little better when you know where they came from, after all.
Then the cats come up. She snorts at the first pun as soon as she catches it, then picks her head up from where she'd leaned it on his shoulder when they keep coming. ]
Holy shit, give a girl some warning. [ Talk about a barrage. Three in a sentence, jeez.
She takes a second to consider, then adds: ] Cats really bring out the purrfessional punster in you, huh? [ wait, crap, he just used purr in one of them. a second later: ] Can I expect a clawsome act like this every time they pop up?
[ He was probably about to keep going hard too, but (thankfully) she catches him in the act and he promptly bites his lip. One or two can usually sneak by unassumingly in casual conversation, people just assume they'd misheard, but he'd really let her have it hadn't he... As soon as she starts snickering and calling him on it, he peters out. ]
I— Uh, yeah, sort of. I pawnestly cat help it, it's just kind of a tic I've got whenever I mewntion them.
[ See, repeats are totally purrmitted, Ramir. If you go through this many you pretty much gotta. It sounds like a canned excuse, one that he's pretty used to delivering. It's a weird one, but no one's questioned it yet. But... Hell, they're staying in a big magic castle floating through spacetime, they just killed a hentai villain on Deer Hawaii, no one should possess any disbelief to suspend anymore. ]
Actually... Y'know what, okay. If you promise not to laugh I'll tell you something I haven't mentioned to anyone in like fifteen years.
[ Ramir might actually have been content with that answer, if only because it's such an adorable tic. But at mention of a 15-year secret her entire opinion of it changes, melting into an already delighted grin. Secrets. Her favorite things. ]
I've never laughed at anything in my life.
[ Definitely true, definitely. He should know it's true by the way she just laughed at his puns a second ago. But her smile stays wide as she scoots in just a little closer. ]
[ This was... probably a mistake. Wow, this was definitely a mistake. But he can't back out now, the sheer glee in that smile is more than enough to convince him he'd never get a moment's peace again if he did. ]
Alright, so I stopped by that house purrty much every day after school when I was six or seven. I loved cats. I still do, but like, it was bad back then, like I'd give them almeowst all my lunch on the daily... One day I started hearing voices when I got there, whiskers I could like actually understand. I was pawsitive someone else had gotten there furst and I almost high-tailed it, but a black cat stopped me and... told me that as a token of appurreciation for all the food I'd brought 'em, he'd... granted me the ability to understand them. With the one clawse being I could nefur tell anyone about it.
[ God as if it wasn't hard enough to take seriously without the uncontrollable wordplay, but maybe it lends to its authenticity. Anyway, as he goes on, Sigma's face scrunches up in something resembling exasperation. ]
So what does little grade-school me do? Go and blurt it out to this girl I really liked, almost right away... When the black cat found out he cursed me to speak only in cat puns fur the rest of my life. Then I guess a white cat thought that was a litter harsh and lessened the sentence down to, well. Only if it's the topic of clawnversation.
[ This is... slightly unbelievable, but what the hell, Ramir has never been one to question someone else's world. There's too much weird shit out there, she's walking proof of it. It's the puns that have her attention, mostly. She really does her best to listen seriously, but it proves almost immediately impossible.
By the time he's finished she's dropped her head to rest her forehead on his shoulder, her own shaking in helpless (but silent!) laughter. If she doesn't laugh loudly, it's almost like she's kept her promise not to laugh at all. Right? ]
[ Lucky for her he's off in recollection land, otherwise he would've shut up halfway through for sure. But once he so much as glances down for her reaction— yeah, yep, she's definitely about to lose her shit. ]
Oh fuck off!
[ The hand around her waist jumps up to the back of her head and he shoves it indignantly forward into the water before folding his arms over his chest. It's mostly reflexive, he knows it sounds like a weird-ass fever dream a kid would have, but what other explanation for the compulsive behavior does he have?? ]
Like you don't have anything just as hilariously personal. C'mon, I'm also cursed to never laugh, I swear.
[ Her laughter bubbles up when she hits the water, and it's out in full force when she pops back up again, drifting back. She doesn't let herself stay drifted though, and heads straight back in to invite herself directly into his lap, all the better to throw two helpless arms around his neck. ]
Oh my god, sorry, it's just -- you're so fucking cute. A litter harsh, holy shit.
[ If she has any more praise for his very tragic curse, it's lost to laughter that is definitely long past silent. ]
[ Really helping here, she is. And once she's piling back onto his lap he lets out a groan, as if she were a cat he'd just shooed off the counter immediately clawing its way back up his leg. ]
Shut up! I can't even tell I'm doing it...
[ He slumps a little further with the help of her added weight around his neck, chin to the top of the water, arms still firmly folded. ]
[ That's even cuter, how is it possible? Amazing. But eventually sanity reasserts itself and her laughter finally dies out again. She spends the last of it pressing a firm kiss to his cheek, and when she pulls out again to regard him with a fond smile, it's finally past. ]
Okay, sorry. Listen, though, I got some serious leverage for you — you can use it if I'm ever being too big a dick.
[ And it pains her to offer that, it really does. Her smile fades into a grimace. Out with it in a rush, like pulling off a bandaid: ]
Ana Ramir's a new thing, I made it up a few years ago. Before that, I was Elisabetta.
[ Her efforts to placate him are met with a stubborn tight-lipped crocodile stare from just above the waterline, but it finally softens up once she gets down to offering secrets of her own. And once she spits it out, his lips go back to being pursed, in a bit of a different manner. ]
[ A manner that doesn't work if the snort of laughter that escapes him is anything to go by. ]
... Yeah, Ana Ramir's a little bit cooler.
[ It's no cursed by magical talking cats story, making it an almost disappointing exchange, but it's one of those facts that builds on itself over the course of a minute, like the heat of a really spicy pepper. Being sort of tipsy doesn't help. Giving up on biting his lip, his smirk accompanies itself with a borderline giggle. ]
Seriously, only a few years ago? God I can't even picture you ever going by something that... delicate.
[ There, she's got him smiling again, that's good. But, god, at what cost? That's three people in ALASTAIR now that know her last name, which is way too many. At least Rick transferred and brought it down to two. ]
Yeah, I think I really disappointed my parents on that front. [ She snorts. ] And my grandma agreed with you, she called me Taranto instead.
[ Thus the username, see. She trusts he's not so drunk that he can't work that one out.
With even more of a grimace: ] When that directory thing came out for the network, it listed me as Elisabetta Faraldo. Fucking Jason saw it before I realized and made Rick change it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Then the cats come up. She snorts at the first pun as soon as she catches it, then picks her head up from where she'd leaned it on his shoulder when they keep coming. ]
Holy shit, give a girl some warning. [ Talk about a barrage. Three in a sentence, jeez.
She takes a second to consider, then adds: ] Cats really bring out the purrfessional punster in you, huh? [ wait, crap, he just used purr in one of them. a second later: ] Can I expect a clawsome act like this every time they pop up?
no subject
I— Uh, yeah, sort of. I pawnestly cat help it, it's just kind of a tic I've got whenever I mewntion them.
[ See, repeats are totally purrmitted, Ramir. If you go through this many you pretty much gotta. It sounds like a canned excuse, one that he's pretty used to delivering. It's a weird one, but no one's questioned it yet. But... Hell, they're staying in a big magic castle floating through spacetime, they just killed a hentai villain on Deer Hawaii, no one should possess any disbelief to suspend anymore. ]
Actually... Y'know what, okay. If you promise not to laugh I'll tell you something I haven't mentioned to anyone in like fifteen years.
no subject
I've never laughed at anything in my life.
[ Definitely true, definitely. He should know it's true by the way she just laughed at his puns a second ago. But her smile stays wide as she scoots in just a little closer. ]
All ears, go for it.
no subject
[ This was... probably a mistake. Wow, this was definitely a mistake. But he can't back out now, the sheer glee in that smile is more than enough to convince him he'd never get a moment's peace again if he did. ]
Alright, so I stopped by that house purrty much every day after school when I was six or seven. I loved cats. I still do, but like, it was bad back then, like I'd give them almeowst all my lunch on the daily... One day I started hearing voices when I got there, whiskers I could like actually understand. I was pawsitive someone else had gotten there furst and I almost high-tailed it, but a black cat stopped me and... told me that as a token of appurreciation for all the food I'd brought 'em, he'd... granted me the ability to understand them. With the one clawse being I could nefur tell anyone about it.
[ God as if it wasn't hard enough to take seriously without the uncontrollable wordplay, but maybe it lends to its authenticity. Anyway, as he goes on, Sigma's face scrunches up in something resembling exasperation. ]
So what does little grade-school me do? Go and blurt it out to this girl I really liked, almost right away... When the black cat found out he cursed me to speak only in cat puns fur the rest of my life. Then I guess a white cat thought that was a litter harsh and lessened the sentence down to, well. Only if it's the topic of clawnversation.
no subject
By the time he's finished she's dropped her head to rest her forehead on his shoulder, her own shaking in helpless (but silent!) laughter. If she doesn't laugh loudly, it's almost like she's kept her promise not to laugh at all. Right? ]
no subject
Oh fuck off!
[ The hand around her waist jumps up to the back of her head and he shoves it indignantly forward into the water before folding his arms over his chest. It's mostly reflexive, he knows it sounds like a weird-ass fever dream a kid would have, but what other explanation for the compulsive behavior does he have?? ]
Like you don't have anything just as hilariously personal. C'mon, I'm also cursed to never laugh, I swear.
no subject
Oh my god, sorry, it's just -- you're so fucking cute. A litter harsh, holy shit.
[ If she has any more praise for his very tragic curse, it's lost to laughter that is definitely long past silent. ]
no subject
Shut up! I can't even tell I'm doing it...
[ He slumps a little further with the help of her added weight around his neck, chin to the top of the water, arms still firmly folded. ]
no subject
Okay, sorry. Listen, though, I got some serious leverage for you — you can use it if I'm ever being too big a dick.
[ And it pains her to offer that, it really does. Her smile fades into a grimace. Out with it in a rush, like pulling off a bandaid: ]
Ana Ramir's a new thing, I made it up a few years ago. Before that, I was Elisabetta.
no subject
[ A manner that doesn't work if the snort of laughter that escapes him is anything to go by. ]
... Yeah, Ana Ramir's a little bit cooler.
[ It's no cursed by magical talking cats story, making it an almost disappointing exchange, but it's one of those facts that builds on itself over the course of a minute, like the heat of a really spicy pepper. Being sort of tipsy doesn't help. Giving up on biting his lip, his smirk accompanies itself with a borderline giggle. ]
Seriously, only a few years ago? God I can't even picture you ever going by something that... delicate.
no subject
Yeah, I think I really disappointed my parents on that front. [ She snorts. ] And my grandma agreed with you, she called me Taranto instead.
[ Thus the username, see. She trusts he's not so drunk that he can't work that one out.
With even more of a grimace: ] When that directory thing came out for the network, it listed me as Elisabetta Faraldo. Fucking Jason saw it before I realized and made Rick change it.