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“This is ridiculous, Magnus,” Ragnor snaps, looking down at the object in his hand with blatant disgust. “I don’t want it.”
“Too bad,” Magnus replies, handing an identical black, rectangular object to Raphael. “It’s 1997. Some cellular phones have the internet now. You’re at least going to learn how to send a text message.”
“I don’t see why I need a mundane telephone when I can send a fire message to anyone I need to contact,” Ragnor insists.
“And I don’t see why I need a mundane telephone when I can simply continue to avoid speaking with anyone at all costs,” Raphael adds.
Magnus rolls his eyes.
Ragnor’s stubborn annoyance at this entire thing is momentarily betrayed by the twitch of a small smile at Raphael’s comment, one that Raphael catches and returns. Though they hit it off from the first day they met, back when Raphael was newly turned, it took many years of building trust to reach the place they are now. Ragnor knows that if Raphael could avoid dealing with 99.99% of the people in his life he’d be perfectly content. Ragnor also knows that he falls within the .01% of people Raphael actually enjoys talking to and being with. It isn’t something he takes lightly.
“You’ll thank me one day,” he promises. “Just because we’re immortal doesn’t mean we want to be stuck in the past. Ragnor, you’ve been alive long enough to know the importance of adapting with the times. You aren’t exactly living in a cave scratching spells into rock now are you?”
“I’d rather be doing that than this,” Ragnor mutters, and while it pulls a short, sharp huff of amusement from Raphael, Magnus pretends not to hear either of them.
Magnus painstakingly goes over the basics - how to navigate the menu, where to add a new contact and scroll through the contacts they already have.
“Ragnor, you already have Raphael’s number and mine on your phone. Raphael, same with Ragnor’s and my numbers. I figured I’d put them in ahead of time in case you didn’t stay to actually figure them out and I just had to toss them at you and hope for the best,” Magnus admits.
“You mean leaving was an option?” Raphael sighs.
“Is leaving still an option?” Ragnor asks hopefully.
“I suddenly remember why it’s been so long since I was in the same room as the two of you,” Magnus says.
The only thing making this tolerable for Ragnor is the fact that Raphael is right beside him every step of the way, from fumbling with things that should be much easier than they are, in his humble opinion, to simply being there to make snarky comments back and forth to one another about the phones or about Magnus or about life in general. Raphael, someone he’s recently grown to view as one of his constants during these ever-changing times.
He’s tuned out a bit and nearly misses Magnus suggesting they call each other to test them out, focusing back in time to catch Raphael’s reply.
“Please, as if hearing your voice in person all night isn’t enough, now I must subject myself to it echoing in my ear while you’re two feet away?” Raphael quips.
“Fine, we’ll skip test calls and move to sending messages,” Magnus relents, before Ragnor can say anything.
“There has to be a way for me to get my magic to-” Ragnor starts, green magic licking at his fingertips, but Magnus shakes his head.
“Nope. No magic. The whole point of this is to have options if we’re somewhere we shouldn’t, or can’t, use magic,” Magnus reminds him.
Ragnor frowns at him. “Are you planning something? Is this all just some very elaborate preparation for you getting yourself wrapped up in trouble you can’t use magic in and needing to reach us to come bail you out?”
“Maybe he’s going to get himself kidnapped!” Raphael chimes in, the most animated he’s been since all this began.
“Honestly, the two of you are impossible. I’m going to take a break and get food, try not to set the phones on fire while I’m gone,” Magnus says, grabbing his coat and slipping quickly out of his apartment.
The moment he’s gone Raphael turns to Ragnor with a curious expression.
Ragnor arches an eyebrow. “Do you actually want me to set them on fire? Because I will.”
“No,” Raphael says. “I was going to suggest we teach ourselves to send a message before he gets back, to avoid more of his infuriating ‘Magnus knows best’ lecturing.”
They both willfully overlook the fact that, in this particular instance,, Magnus actually does know best. Having the phones is an objectively good idea. Not that either of them will ever admit it.
Ragnor hums in consideration, then nods. “Alright. The letters are right on the keys, I can’t see how difficult it could be.”
Five minutes later and with nothing but a series of ‘AAAAAAA’s typed from holding down the key, trying to get to the ‘B’, Ragnor might be able to admit to himself that it’s more difficult than it looks to figure out with no guidance.
“Got it!” Raphael exclaims, beaming, and already leaning over Ragnor to show him the way he has to hit it to switch to the next letter. After that break-through, the rest comes much easier. A few minutes later Ragnor hits the send button and watches Raphael look down after feeling the phone vibrate in his hands with Ragnor’s message.
Ragnor: I hate this, but thank you.
Raphael laughs. “You’re welcome,” he says out loud. “You know, now we can use these to talk about Magnus while he’s in the room without him knowing.”
Ragnor brightens up considerably at that. “This may not be as useless as I first thought.”
Between the combination of being able to annoy Magnus and speaking with Raphael more often, perhaps the idea of using the phone is growing on him faster than anticipated.