ɢᴀʟᴇ (traps) wrote in evaluation, @ 2019-12-03 11:51:00 |
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Gale wasn’t exactly amazing at like, building relationships or anything. His only friend for awhile had been Katniss, and neither of them were what one might call ‘well adjusted.’ And even then, he’d been so used to going at it alone for so long that to have this person who was so much like him, to actually have her and care about what she thought of him when he didn’t give a fuck about what anyone else thought - it was strange. Really strange. Not in a bad way, just different. It was also strange that he didn’t even need to spend years hunting and gathering with Gretel to trust her - she was a balm for so many of his battle-weary wounds and slotted so nicely beside him. Not behind him or in front of him, but beside him - that too was strange. Still, he knew enough to understand that sometimes people just got into it with words - maybe tensions were high because of the fact that they’d all been pranking each other for days with nothing to show for it, or there was far too much time to speculate about the who, what, why, how of this mess when you weren’t uncovering ghost family clues. But whatever it was, he didn’t like that she wasn’t in their room last night and he felt bad about hurting her feelings, if he did. So he went to track her down, knowing exactly where she’d go. The snow made a pretty backdrop, at least, the foliage and trees stained white. Eventually he came across her, and he cleared his throat to get her attention. That was the first step, maybe? He’d just...figure the rest out. A cold, sleepless night hadn’t given Gretel a lot of answers as to where she’d gone wrong the day before. She suspected it was because words had never been something she was very good at, but in her defense, she’d never needed to learn. Hansel understood her perfectly without a single syllable spoken. They’d been together so long that they could communicate with a look- only the tic of a brow or the faint curl of a lip- so why bother with words anyway? In a hunt, words would only give away their position, and in a village, they’d hand information to people who didn’t need it. She missed Hansel. He would’ve understood what she was driving at, inexact words or no. The way Gretel saw it, these pranks had no purpose unto themselves. What could possibly be solved by tampering with someone’s food or sticking eyes to random objects? Nothing. So the purpose wasn’t the task itself, but about observing the execution. Who took up the pranks, how they went about them. How much effort versus its lack, whether help was sought or people worked independently. Motive was a trickier thing to understand at a glance, but observing the exchanges on the network would solve that pretty readily. People seemed to be falling into distinct camps- do the tasks in the hopes it would appease their overseers, do the tasks in the hopes it would net some kind of positive response, do the tasks for fear of negative response, do the tasks just because, or don’t do them at all (typically that seemed to be because of lack of interest, lack of concern for rewards or consequences, or simple defiance of being presented with a list in the first place). Her observation hadn’t been intended as accusation. She wasn’t slinging names at anyone, and frankly didn’t care if people played along with the pranks or balked at them. That wasn’t her business. But once they got to debating why the pranks, she’d put her thoughts out there and… well. Results were mixed. Maybe it was the fault of the network. So much was lost exchanging flat words on a screen. You didn’t get to see the person. You didn’t get their tone or room for much in the way of nuance. Gretel didn’t explain herself well most of the time anyway. She went with instinct and that easy understanding she shared with her twin, and it worked. Here, with these people, not so much. Everything got muddled. She didn’t belong here, honestly. Gretel was the furthest out of time, the one struggling to keep up with things everyone else took for granted. It was frustrating and exhausting, and the person she thought to understand her best had gotten outright mean for reasons she couldn’t pin down and didn’t have the energy to pursue. So she’d left the motel- left behind the phone that only brought trouble and the flowers she’d admired all day long- and walked. For hours she picked her way along the invisible boundary that kept them all contained, looking for answers she couldn’t hope to find; tossing rocks and pinecones across to see what happened, climbing the trees to see if the barrier was more like a wall or a bubble… Nothing helped. Nothing suddenly seized her like an epiphany. Mostly she scraped her palms or bruised her legs and ended up with pine needles in her hair. Eventually, as the clouds overhead grew thicker and the chill sharper as snow began to fall, Gretel circled back in the direction of the barn, thinking wistfully about the party that she, apparently, shouldn’t have attended or enjoyed. Maybe Gale had a point. Maybe if they minimized all the distractions, every scrap of fun or relief or rest, they could get something done. Or maybe they’d all go mad and tear one another apart. She was still there now, bundled up and shimmied into the low branches of a snow-laden tree- the better to avoid notice of any random passerby or exploring wildlife- so of course she’d seen Gale coming well out. He wasn’t trying to be subtle. It was almost impossible in the snow, anyway. People thought it dampened sound, but it also made people clumsier. They couldn’t see sticks underfoot, they crunched over unseen obstacles, and every bump caused drifts in the trees to shift and fall. “What?” She asked, favoring him with a flat, weary look. “I just wanted to talk,” he said, leaning against the tree trunk, glancing up. “I’m sorry - I know you weren’t accusing me of anything. It just sounded like - after everything I told you, I thought you’d think better of me.” Wouldn’t just lump him and others under ‘obedient’ and justify it as ‘tough shit, that’s my opinion, oh well.’ He personally didn’t see a difference in using a party as an excuse to have fun and not feel angry or sad for a few hours and completing a harmless prank as an excuse to not feel like shit for a little while - both were at the behest of the town they couldn’t leave, technically, but. It didn’t really matter. He didn’t want to get into that, there was no point. And he also tried to put into words why being lumped into a specific category bothered him so much - if it was anyone else, it wouldn’t. But Gretel? It mattered. “I care what you think and I - I care about you,” he added gruffly. “So yeah, I’m sorry if I hurt you with what I said.” Gretel tipped her head up, fraying braids snagging bark and making her wince even as she stared hard at an abandoned bird’s nest she’d spotted a few hours ago, half-buried under powder and lonesome without any occupants. “I wasn’t,” she started, only to stop again before she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. That way waited more trouble, she was sure of it. Careful wasn’t her speed, but she could try. “I wasn’t talking about what I think. This thing or person or whatever it is that brought us here, that’s the perspective that I was talking about. It doesn’t know any of us really, so if it’s just watching what we do… it’s going to interpret things more broadly. Do you take instruction or not? Not… why. Just if.” Her hands flexed, chilled, stiff fingers curling and uncurling from the damp branch she was gripping. She wasn’t coming down yet. Maybe she wouldn’t until it was time to go, and maybe it wouldn’t matter what she did anyway. This whole thing could be some horrible joke and they had no way of knowing about it. Gretel hated not knowing. The world was so much simpler at home. “I don’t think you’re a drone. If you want to have fun, then you should have fun.” How glitter was fun remained a question mark to Gretel, but so did lots of other things. She clearly wasn’t an expert on the matter. “I think you should do whatever you want and not have to justify it to anybody.” He wasn’t sure if glitter was fun or not either - maybe it wasn’t the glitter itself though, but the reaction, and Ronan’s reaction had been hilarious - but Gale had just wanted to try. Something new, something he’d never done before - he didn’t know where the door marked ‘exit’ lead to, but he was too stubborn to just leave one big task (this one) before it was completed. “I don’t know - part of it is since I’m here, I may as well see it through til’ the end. Part of it is trying new things,” he said, and sure, this could all very well be some kind of fucked up Hunger Games arena but he had no way of knowing without diving in. “It’s difficult to speculate with little knowledge to go off of anyway. But I get what you meant, Gretel. I know it’s been shit for you without your brother and all of this is literally so foreign and I didn’t mean to make it more difficult for you.” His gaze remained tilted up - he would have climbed the tree after her, but he’d break those branches with his hulking, not girlish figure. “Come down? The room feels weird without you in it.” Everyone wanted to find meaning in this, whatever it was. Surely it wasn’t a big joke, right? Surely there was a purpose. They all had their ideas, they all got to puzzle through it their own way. Gretel didn’t know who was right or wrong or if it even mattered. Did figuring it all out mean it would end? And if it ended, what then? They could all go back to their lives, but nothing would be the same if this knowledge remained… and nothing would have changed if it didn’t. All of that seemed so big. Gretel never had to think on a grand scale like that before. It was immediacy and survival- the next hunt, the next witch, Hansel’s next dose of medicine, their next meal. This was all trying to plan ten steps ahead when you didn’t even know the name of the game, much less the rules. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” Gretel sighed, glancing down. In the pale, early morning light, her eyes were like dark pits. “I used to know. Now even that doesn’t feel right.” She peered at him, wary. “Do you feel like that? Lost?” “Yeah, I do,” Gale responded right away. He sighed, cold breath curling in the air on the exhale, dragging a hand through hair black as an oil slick - that sigh seemed to dislodge some of the tension on his shoulders, though it didn’t knock all of it off. He’d been carrying that tension, those weights, for years. “Ever since I was twelve years old, I’ve been focused on making sure my family doesn’t starve. Thinking about what would happen if me or my siblings got reaped for the Hunger Games - then we went to war, and that’s over too, but it’s really not. I know what I have to do, to keep the pockets of Capitol support from rising up again. I know where I fit, when it comes to rebuilding our government. Here...” He trailed off - because it was obvious he too didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. It had been a little easier in the house, since he had a brain that was engaged by puzzles, but right now? They weren’t solving puzzles. He’d been as clueless as Gretel about the pranks, it was just that he decided to see what was what and attempt one. “Here there’s nothing like that. And I mean - it’s daunting to try to build everything up from scratch again, but I guess I’m gonna try.” “I was eight,” Gretel murmured, “When I killed my first witch.” She would’ve killed them, so fair was fair. Gretel didn’t regret it at all. Well. No. She regretted not doing it faster, because then Hansel wouldn’t have gotten sick. They wouldn’t have developed weird problems with food- too much that Hansel couldn’t eat, too much that Gretel wouldn’t, and here people were just screwing around with food like it didn’t even matter. Clearly they’d never gone hungry. She looked up, through the trees as far as barren branches would allow. “Our problems… they’re not here. Not all of them, anyway.” Gretel sighed. Some had definitely followed behind, and of course there were new ones to find. This communication thing, for one. “I don’t know who to be, here. It’s always Hansel and Gretel, witch hunters, and here there’s no Hansel and…” She glanced down again, lips trembling. “There are still witches, but they’re not bad. You have no government, here. No one is starving. Nothing needs hunting.” Some people seemed keen to have a reprieve. Gretel just felt hollow. Gale rubbed his shoulder, squeezing gently at the knots of tension - basically, his entire shoulders and back were just one big slab of concrete. Well, and the scars on his back from the flogging in District 12, whipped in the town square for everyone to see. All for trying to deal in turkeys to Peacekeepers, some of whom were just as hungry as the rest of them. There was nothing like that here, no. Felt like being splashed with ice cold water as a wakeup call - your reality is invalid. “Who do you want to be?” he asked, looking up at Gretel with pale grey eyes in the early morning light, a bit of blue caught in the irises. “You get to pick.” It was kind of terrifying, to have that freedom. But the good thing about it was that you didn’t have to jump in all at once. Gretel laughed, only it wasn’t really laughter. It was the sort of sound that people made when they felt overwhelmed and too many emotions were all vying to take front-and-center and the choices for dealing with that involved screaming, crying, laughing, or breaking something. She didn’t have anything to break and she wasn’t the crying type. And if she screamed, they were bound to end up with company and Gretel didn’t think she was up to other people, right now. Or ever, really. Being social was hard. She kept picturing Augsburg and the sneer on men’s faces as they suggested she ought to smile more. “I don’t know,” she admitted, shifting on the branch she occupied. Leaves crinkled, some floating down in Gale’s direction. “Do you look at the others and think… what do I have in common with any of these people? Why me. Why them.” Her forehead creased, little puckers drawing in close between her eyebrows. “I don’t want to be them. But then I don’t want to be me, either. It’s a lot.” “Sometimes,” Gale shrugged. He hadn’t been a social butterfly before all this, and he wasn’t about to be that way now either. “But they’re just - they have their own lives, that they came from. They’re set in their ways. They just know different things. Some are really good people, some aren’t.” He liked Ronan, he liked Eddie - it had taken him some time to warm up to the latter, but they had more in common than he thought. Maybe shared trauma, of some kind, was what they all had in common. He caught some of those falling leaves, clutching one in his grip, letting it brush over the back of his hand. “Gretel, will you - “ Words, what were they. Emotions, what were those - even harder than words, that’s all he knew. “Why don’t you want to be you? Will you tell me?” There was something. Obviously something - it was weighing her down, he could see it. In addition to all of the other intricacies and the hardships of attempting to fit in, in another time and place. Fingers tightened on the branch, the ragged edges of nails she’d broken last night catching and splitting further on rough bark. Maybe yesterday, she would’ve told him. She’d begged off at the party, had thought maybe it could wait, and now Gretel wasn’t sure she wanted to say a word. It wouldn’t help anything, not that she could tell. But then again, what did she know? Not talking landed them here, which clearly wasn’t all that helpful either. Her head drooped forward, chin sinking low. “We didn’t really know our parents. I mean.” She scoffed, quiet and under her breath. “We spent fifteen years thinking they left us to die in the woods… which isn’t very charitable, I guess. Then we find out that isn’t right either. They were trying to save us, even if they weren’t very good at it.” Panic made people stupid, she supposed. Gretel had seen enough in her life to know all about the bad decisions that were made when things got messy or frightening. “That would’ve been big enough, you know? Like this idea you’ve built up in your head turns out to be all wrong and now you’ve got to look at things differently.” Gretel sighed, wondering if anything she was saying made sense. Probably not. But she’d started now and there was no swallowing the words down again, so she might as well keep talking. “At the same time… for the first time, we meet a witch that isn’t bad. I didn’t even know that could be a thing. We’ve killed hundreds and hundreds and they’re all the same, and here’s this new idea, that maybe there can be good witches who don’t use magic to curse or hex or flay children alive, and that’s another thing I thought I knew, gone.” She made a vague gesture, imitating a toss. Ideas, thrown out; whole cornerstones of the world as she understood it, gone. If they hadn’t been in the middle of a pretty serious life-or-death kind of situation, Gretel might’ve had a breakdown right outside of Augsburg. But, given she’d been literally tied up and on the chopping block, she’d gotten distracted. Understandably. Even the house had been distraction enough, but none of this was, and she kept circling back to the mess left unresolved, no Hansel to talk it over with, and it was maddening. “Then,” Gretel continued, voice pitching sharply up, “Then we add to those two things the knowledge that our mother was a witch, one of the good ones we’ve never heard about before, and we learn that sort of thing runs in families.” She fumbled, words crowding up behind her teeth and choking her, and she looked down to Gale with obvious misery written all over her face. “Mother to daughter. I’ve spent a lifetime hunting witches, and I’m a witch.” Oddly enough, Gale kind of had a feeling it was something like that - his instincts had flared up when Gretel told him her mother was a witch, but he hadn’t wanted to ask her, at the time, if it ran in families. Apparently it did. He couldn’t change it, obviously - this was in her, magic was in her and lying in wait like some kind of glow of arcane power, but he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that it didn’t change anything about how he looked at her. The odd, confusing things he felt about her - that had everything to do with how beautiful she was and how stubborn and brave, and nothing to do with her family lineage. Clearly he was going to have to climb this tree now. “Gretel - “ He exhaled in a whoosh, making an executive decision and grabbing a branch, swinging himself up. Considering he wasn’t a small, lithe monkey like Katniss this would be a task - but she was worth the chance of him taking a fall and breaking his neck. “Remember how I said there are good people here? That’s you. You’re a good person - also a witch. But you can be both. You can figure out how. I know you can. I’ve never been more sure of anything.” It was why he was in this tree right now, anyway. “Idiot,” Gretel snarled, reaching out to anchor Gale’s hands so he didn’t end up putting his weight in the wrong spot and falling right onto his fool head. He wasn’t too big or too heavy for the tree, precisely, but agile was not a word to ascribe to him and Gretel wasn’t sure if she had the strength to catch him if he did fall. Maybe. She’d give it a shot either way because that was just who she was, good or bad. Stubborn had never been in question. If Gretel wasn’t as pigheaded as she happened to be, she would’ve died in that horrible candy house a decade plus back. The end, no more story. Once she was satisfied that he’d be safe enough- as safe as anyone got, sitting in a tree that was slick and wet with snow- Gretel pulled back and tucked her hands into the folds of her sweater. “I don’t want to be a witch. I don’t want magic.” She tipped her head back again, thunk, against the tree and stared balefully up into the sky as it lightened up. “I’m the witch, apparently, because why shouldn’t it be even more complicated? The Great. White. Witch.” Gretel snorted, glancing back to Gale, expression all clouded up with anger and uncertainty and a fair dash of self-loathing. “I don’t know what that even means, aside from how it makes my heart a great potion ingredient. Learned that the hard way when someone tried to cut it out.” “No one’s going to take your heart here, or anywhere after here,” Gale insisted - maybe he was terrible at climbing trees but he was pretty good at killing things that threatened people he cared about. “Do you think...maybe if you had something of your mother’s, that at least it might help you understand it a little better?” Because right now, she had zilch. No information, no magical education, nothing except what had been drilled into her all her life and what some shitty spellcaster happened to tell her because she wanted Gretel’s heart for a potion, which also likely didn’t help at viewing magic as something to be feared. You couldn’t just make a switch in viewpoint that quickly - it took time, and working through some things first. “And I guess a white witch means...good magic?” he surmised, scooting closer precariously on the branch. “We found her grimoire.” They’d taken it on a whim, an impulse in the moment because it might be helpful, and Mina had been able to do something with it. Mina was dead now, of course, and with her Gretel’s only window into figuring out what in the world she was meant to do with power she didn’t want. If she didn’t use it, would something happen? Worse, if she did use it, would she end up like Muriel? It was a lot of question marks, really, and Gretel had no answers at all. She hadn’t so much as peeked at any of the magic users here, too wary of what they might see in her. Disgruntled, she shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. Mina- the good witch we met- was able to heal a stab wound that should’ve killed Hansel. How she did it… neither of us know. He wasn’t conscious at the time and I wasn’t there. Stop wiggling. You’ll fall.” Eyes narrowing, Gretel pointed a warning finger in Gale’s direction. His lips pursed in amusement, hiding a smile when Gretel told him to stop wiggling. He would, he was just - trying to get closer. “I don’t know shit about shit when it comes to this sort of thing,” he hedged. “But - you’re a good witch who hunts the bad ones. Maybe learning how to be a good one will better help you find the bad ones? Either way - “ Gale reached out and touched her cheek, fingers curling to grasp some of the strands of hair that had fallen out of her braid and tuck them back. “Witch, witch hunter, whatever - you’re the best Gretel I know.” The sentimentality of it made him grin, crinkling grey eyes, ash and smoke blowing in the wind, at the corners. He leaned in and his lips had barely brushed hers when CRRRRRAAACK - There went that branch, and there went Gale. Trying to kiss a girl he liked and falling from a tree, hitting the ground with a pain that shot through him in a fiery burst. The way he landed, his arm was broken, he could tell already - but at the very least, it hurt less than being flogged. Or taking a bullet. Plus the snow kind of cushioned his fall a little. It was honestly more embarrassing than anything else. Ow. “I’m the only Gretel you know.” Dryly spoken, accompanied by a roll of her eyes that was absolutely belied by the blush that warmed her cheeks, Gretel sighed. She wanted to be aggravated, if only for the sake of form, but it was really hard when Gale was leaning in, fingers gentle on her cheek. And then Gale very abruptly wasn’t there anymore, instead plummeting like a stone among a cascade of snow and the crackling sound of branches. Gretel yelped and swung down after him, nimble in spite of overwhelming surprise, and landed in a crouch near enough to touch. She didn’t, not right away. His arm didn’t look right at all. “Gale,” she breathed, hands hovering uncertainly. “If this is a really complicated plot to see if I can fix this, I have to tell you… it’s really terrible.” “It’s not, I swear,” Gale sat up, cradling his arm against his chest - he was a little pale, because the shock was sort of on its way from wearing off and, yeah, pain. He felt it pulse with every beat of his heart. Silver lining - the bone wasn’t poking out of the skin? It was either fractured really badly or straight up broken, he wasn’t sure which. “I didn’t even know you were a good witch until like, two seconds ago. My plans usually take longer to form.” But, well, since he was here - he eyed Gretel speculatively. “Can you fix it?” No pressure. He’d just go to the vet if need be, since it was his own damn fault he ended up here freezing cold with a broken limb in the first place. Gretel, eyes very wide, stared at him, then at the arm he was cradling like a precious thing, and took a slow, deep breath. “I have no idea,” she admitted. She really didn’t. How was that supposed to work? Did she need words? Or a wand? Muriel had a wand… But Muriel mostly used hers to blow things up, which was definitely not the objective here. Kind of the opposite. “Okay. Let me… think. Are you… is anything else hurt? Other than your pride, I mean.” She dredged up the ghost of a smirk, aiming for levity that maybe fell a little flat. Gale was conscious, at least. If this didn’t work, he could get back to town under his own power. That was positive, since Gretel didn’t think she could carry him. The woods were too thick right here. Gale coughed a laugh. “Just my pride,” he confirmed. “Everything else is good.” There was a deep, intense sort of ache in his arm - like it was right there inside the bone, like the marrow had been snapped too. But other than that? He felt okay - and above all else, he had experienced worse in his life. The flogging nearly killed him. This was child’s play in comparison - and he hadn’t passed out yet either, so he’d take it as a win. It would just be awkward to go for a hunt while wearing a cast, was the thing - made it real difficult to use a bow and arrow. “Maybe a lot of it is instinct?” Sheer force of will? He had no idea. “Right, I’ll just - shut up.” Crouched here in the snow, Gale’s face bleached to white and drawn with pain, Gretel definitely felt the urge to do something... but that didn’t exactly translate to knowing what. Or how. They probably ought to get up and start moving, the better to get back to town in search of help, but. If she could fix it- “I’m going to tell Eddie,” she muttered, “If this doesn’t work, and he’s going to shout at you.” He’d probably shout at both of them and they would absolutely deserve it. Swallowing hard, Gretel reached out, hesitated, and cautiously curled chilled fingertips around Gale’s hand. “Okay. I can do this.” She could. She had this power and maybe she didn’t want it, but if it could help someone she cared about, it couldn’t be all bad, right? Right. Gretel took a steadying breath, closed her eyes, and tried to imagine Gale’s arm the way it ought to be- in one piece, unharmed, totally functional. She could picture that. She just needed to push that picture out into reality. The idea of Eddie shouting at them was enough to pull forth a wince from Gale - he didn’t want that; he could almost hear that tea kettle of anxiety going off right now. “It’ll work,” he murmured, letting Gretel take his hand. His fingers twitched a little in her grasp, but other than that he was still. His eyes closed and he attempted to relax as best he could, and just not pay attention to the pain. After a minute or so though, one eye cracked open and he glanced down. “It tingles,” he said, and that was a good thing? There wasn’t any pain, actually, not now. It was just warmth, the kind you felt when you wrapped cold hands around a mug of hot soup or something and let the heat defrost your fingers. Where their hands were clasped, a faint white glow flickered, pulsing in time with Gale’s heartbeat. Gretel could feel that steadying thu-thump if she concentrated, and she tried to chase it down, narrowing her focus to two things- the image of Gale’s uninjured arm and the reassuring beat of his heart. If his heart was beating, he was fine. If Gretel could just embrace that idea, could wrap all of her concentration around it, that would work. Wouldn’t it? There was no room for doubt here. If she started thinking what if, she was going to lose the thread of this, second-guess herself, and nothing at all would happen. So Gretel sank into it as much as she could, even as it felt like something ignited in her chest and rushed up and out, passing between them in a wave. The wave, whatever it was, hit Gale - it seemed to hit him in the chest and spread, traveling throughout the network of veins, pulsing beneath his skin. It fused the broken bone too, he was watching by this point - where there was once bumps and bruises, skin tender to the touch, there was now nothing out of the ordinary. Just the usual olive tones - his face was also back to its normal color, the pallor fading away. Though he may be flushed a little, from the wind and cold and...everything else. He flexed his fingers, testing it out - even moved his arm at the elbow joint, and he felt no pain. “Wow,” he looked at Gretel, unable to help the awe. Wow, yes, and other words were failing him - so he finished what he started before he fell out of a tree. He tilted his head and kissed her, a different sort of white thrill tearing down his spine, nervous system singing, thudding heart. “I think you did it.” The cautious movement of fingers in her grip broke Gretel’s focus, snapping her eyes open in surprise. For a moment, with Gale’s heartbeat still thundering in her ears, she couldn’t quite regain her bearings… and then there were lips on hers again, warm and steadying. Gretel exhaled into the kiss, relief making her giddy. Fingers crept down from Gale’s wrist, feeling along the limb that no longer seemed to be shaped wrongly. It wasn’t hot or bruised or marked at all, and Gretel hiccuped out a thin laugh as she gave the arm a quick squeeze. “Never make me do that again,” she chided, pulling back to fix him with a look that should’ve been exasperated. It fell woefully short of the mark. “I’ll try not to,” Gale chuckled - a sound he so rarely made, but he couldn’t help it. That kiss had also been different than all of the others he’d experienced - those were all tainted with sorrow and despair. This one made him feel happy and like, stupid. So, so, stupid. It was probably obvious on his face too, like he had birds circling his head or some Cupid’s arrow shit going on. “It’s cold, let’s head back?” he suggested, and now that all his bones were in one piece and he could move without agonizing pain, he offered his hands to help Gretel up. “We can find coffee someplace.” It was definitely cold, and now they’d both been basically sitting in the snow, so they were going to be walking back while damp and chilled, and Eddie might still get to yell at them. But. They should definitely get coffee first, because now Gretel felt well and truly exhausted. She wanted to tell herself that it was the sleepless night dragging at her, but a strange hollow place in her chest said maybe it was something else. No matter. That was something to worry about later, after they were in possession of a hot drink, and maybe back in the motel, warm, dry, and bundled up against the weather. “Coffee,” Gretel agreed, clasping the offered hands and pulling herself upright. “Lots of coffee.” Black, obviously. It was the only way to drink the stuff. Gale liked his coffee black too, so Gretel was in good company there. After basically eighteen years of never drinking the stuff (could never afford it, really), he found he had a fondness for it. And it was helpful for an energy burst while traveling across Districts during the war. He kept a hold on Gretel’s hand, just in case she needed some steadying and was tired from her first foray into magical healing. “Lots of coffee and maybe one of those big, greasy breakfasts...” he trailed off. Eggs and bacon and toast and all of that - it was something he never ate, most of the time, but why not now? Perfect way to start the day, and a better do-over. Though things had vastly improved from yesterday, so hopefully they could only go up from here. Gretel was tired, but with a lifetime’s practice of putting one foot in front of the other regardless of anything as mundane as weariness, she wasn’t inclined to let it show or allow it to slow her down. There was, however, something niggling at her that caused a stall mid-stride, and she tugged at Gale’s hand just to make sure he hadn’t been lost to dreaming about breakfast. “You won’t tell anyone,” she hedged, wary. “About your arm. Or what I did. Right?” Because Gretel wasn’t up for some kind of big reveal, or to having this level of heart-to-heart with anyone else. Gale was more than enough for now. She’d get around to it. Maybe. But first Gretel needed space to think about what she’d done and what it meant, and that relied heavily on Gale keeping this secret. Fortunately he seemed like he’d be good with secrets. Provided he didn’t mind accepting that burden, anyway. He had, admittedly, been dreaming about food - now that he had access to it, he wasn’t about to take it for granted. Plus, if anyone ruined his orange juice with macaroni and cheese powder he was going to slam his fist into someone’s face. But the tug from Gretel got him to stop walking, of course. “I won’t,” Gale agreed right away, and he meant it, squeezing her hand for emphasis. He hadn’t even been considering sharing that story. And not only because it was embarrassing that he fell out of a tree in the first place, while trying to smoothly plant a kiss on her. “It’s your magic - you can tell people when you’re ready. Or not at all. It’s up to you.” Healing was pretty useful, and obviously Gretel had untapped resources that were powerful, but it wasn’t his decision. That was something Gretel would have to weigh- helping others versus hiding a power she hadn’t wanted in the first place- and it wouldn’t be an easy thing to consider. Not intervening would be selfish, but… maybe she was due. It wasn’t often she wanted something for herself. And maybe she was a teensy bit worried that the more she used any kind of magic, the more she’d run the risk of becoming like every witch she’d helped kill over the years. Power was addictive and corrupting, seductive in a way that made her uneasy. Plus, she felt like this was the kind of big decision that Hansel ought to get to help make, and he wasn’t exactly around to have the hard conversations right now. Possibly that was an excuse she was making, if only to herself. Fortunately, no one else had to know about whether or not she was making bargains in her own head. “Okay,” she sighed, squeezing right back, “Good. I knew you’d understand.” She chanced a small, grateful smile and resumed walking, picking her way around underbrush buried in deceptively soft drifts of snow. They didn’t need another tumble, after all. |