¡Tink! (tinkhatespink) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-05-12 18:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, anders, tinkerbell |
Who: Tinkerbell and Anders
When: Recently
Where: Tink’s House
What: Tink’s upset
Rating/Warnings: Low/None
Status: Complete
Tink hadn’t really realized what was weighing on her so heavily. She’d been going about her business, finding her new equilibrium, and making things work. So much of her life had changed in the last few months; she owned her own business, she owned her own home, the Old Man was dead, her brother was having a baby, and she’d gone from one relationship to another. She was head over heels in love with Anders, too, but there was a bit of a sting whenever she saw stuff on Valarnet about Neal and Ruby’s engagement. It hit her harder than she thought it would. they were friends, right? She and Neal? She was happy for him. But she was also… a little sad.
Okay, make that a lot sad. Maybe she was PMSing. Maybe she hadn’t had enough to eat, or enough sleep, or maybe she just needed a good cry. One reason or another, she headed home after work, curled up on the sofa, and started to cry. Anders was supposed to be over later, and Tink figured she’d be able to collect herself by then. For now she just held the pillow against her face and cried into it.
The clinic had been dead all day. Completely dead. It was a little unusual, but Anders didn’t think too hard on it. He and his staff had played a couple of rounds of cards in the back room in between the odd patient that they had, but finally Anders had decided to send most of the staff home, and included himself in that group, with instructions that they were to call him if things got busier and the needed him to come in.
“Hello Lov-” Anders started cheerfully when he came through the door, but when he caught sight of Tink, the words died on his lips. He went over to her side, and knelt in front of her, and gently asked her “What’s wrong?”
Tink peeled the pillow away from her face and then reached forward to wrap her arms around him. She mumbled she was okay between sobs, but it was more likely that she was doing a very good job convincing him of the opposite. Crying against someone’s shoulder was much better than crying into a pillow, and after a couple of minutes she was able to manage, “I didn’t think you’d be home so soon.” Both sleeves came up to wipe at her face as she sat back.
Anders held her for a while, gently stroking her back as she did so. It tore him up a little to see Tink like this. “Well, I’m glad I came early,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Sorry.” Tink lifted her knees and wrapped her arms around them. Her wings were tucked away tight in her clothes. She sniffed heartily--the sniff of someone who’d just regained control of her tear ducts--and then swallowed. After a moment she turned incredibly red and wet eyes to him. “...it’s just a lot, you know?”
“Don’t be sorry,” Anders said gently, kissing the top of her head. “This place just can’t get enough of throwing stuff at us, can it?” He couldn’t say he knew, because he really didn’t know what was going on with Tink right now. “Did you have a bad Dream?” Tink’s Dreams had always sounded pretty mild, but that could change at any point, he knew.
“No.” Tink gave a small chuckle that forced more tears out of her eyes and down her cheeks. “It’s nothing Dream related, or Orange County related.” She sighed, leaning back on the sofa and motioning for him to join her. “This is just… me being a stupid, girly girl who’s having horrible emotions about the wrong stuff.”
“Hey,” Anders said, and wiped away some of the tears on her cheek with his thumb. “There’s no such thing as having emotions about the wrong stuff. Nothing stupid about it.”
Tink nodded once. It was hard to put it all into words. She just felt emotional and vulnerable and… honestly, a bit silly about how sad she felt. “I was seeing this guy. Neal.” Best to start there, anyway. “In like, November? He told me he was driving cross country with this friend of his to go find his son. And I guess his friend had some business that she needed to attend to, too. So… he left. They were on the road for… six weeks? I think? And he came back on Christmas, so… then he was possessed.” The story got weird. “Anyway, we broke up around that time. It was… weird. Now he’s engaged to someone else.”
Anders had remembered Tink telling him a little bit about Neal, but he hadn’t heard a lot about the guy. He felt a pang of guilt at the idea that Neal had gotten possessed, knowing that in his Dreams, he’d eventually share his body with Justice (who was currently, in Anders’ dreams, possessing the body of a dead Grey Warden), but he didn’t want to bring that up. He didn’t even know if Justice was going to show up here or not. He fought down the wave of jealousy that Tink was this upset about her ex, because really, he was sure that he wouldn’t take it especially well if he found out his ex-girlfriend in Germany got engaged.
“Oh Tink,” Anders said. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine that it’s very easy. But his loss is my gain, right?”
Yeeeah. Tink didn’t know she had a type. Apparently, though… not that she knew anything of what the future was going to bring. She was still trying to get through the present, get over the past. Whatever that was, she wasn’t thinking about the future. (Though, grandchildren had sounded nice.)
“Yes.” She said, and gave a hearty sniff. Her nose itched, so she scratched it with her sleeve. “Definitely your gain.” She gave him what she could muster of a smile. “I don’t… I love you. You know that, right?”
“Of course I know that,” Anders said. “I’ve never doubted it. Hearing news like that can bring up feelings that you didn’t know you had.” Anders said, though he realized that that was phrased poorly. “Or rather, memories of feelings that you had thought you had forgotten.”
“No, you were right the first time,” Tink said softly. Though, now she was turning to him, leaning in against him, cuddling close. There was an ache inside. The crying helped bring it out, but now it had to heal. “I didn’t know I had these feelings. I thought… I don’t know. It makes me confused, I think. Paranoid? I wonder what was wrong with me. Why I wasn’t… what he wanted.”
And there was the green-eyed monster, rearing its head again. Anders suppressed it as best he could, though he did hold Tink a little bit tighter. “I can’t tell you that,” Anders said softly. “You can never really know what goes on in other people’s heads. I’d just chalk it up to bad taste.” The last he said in a more jovial tone of voice, at least attempting to make some sort of joke. Anders didn’t know who this guy’s betrothed was, but there was no way she could measure up to Tink.
It was comforting how perfectly she fit against him. Her head fit into the curve of his neck, her cheek against his collarbone. She wrapped her arms around him and cuddled close, comforted by his arms, his words. She actually smiled, though there was sadness to it, too. “That’s the worst part. I know he’s a good guy. And the girl he’s marrying is a good person, too, from what I know of her.” She cleared her throat. “I’d much rather be with you. Everything worked out for the best, I know, I just… it’s not …” she sighed. “It’s not a race. So why does it feel like I lost?”
It was a strange time to think it, with her crying, but Anders did enjoy how Tink fit against him. “You’re just taking the more scenic route,” he said. “And everyone knows that the scenic route is the best one to take. When you rush to the finish line, you miss so much.”
“I like the scenic route,” Tink said softly, cuddled close against him. “I like taking my time with you, I don’t want you to think I don’t. I just… I needed to feel all that.” She said, suddenly and inexplicably sage-like about the whole thing. “I need to know it’s okay to feel all that.”
“It’s completely okay,” Anders said, kissing the top of her head. “I don’t want you ever thinking that something you’re feeling isn’t okay. Maybe other people might not understand, but it’s your feelings, and if you’re feeling them then they’re the right ones.”
Tink gave a little sigh. She felt exhausted now, even though she felt quite a bit better about all of the feelings she had running through her. Hungry, drained, and incredibly lucky. “What did I ever do to deserve someone as wonderful as you?” She asked, finally lifting her head to look at him. “Can we make nachos?”
“I think what you did was be awesome,” Anders said. When she looked up at him, he bent his head down to steal a peck on the lips. “We can definitely make nachos.”