Shannon Reid | Veritas | Team Parakeet (truthstold) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2013-01-06 23:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! log, shannon reid, stephen knight iv |
WHO: Shannon Reid and Stephen Knight IV
WHAT: They reunite after he left her alone at the American safehouse because he's an idiot.
WHEN: Sunday 6th January 2013, evening.
WHERE: A corridor at IVI. Where all emotional conversations should take place.
WARNINGS: Swearing, mentions of the dead characters, and feels. Always with the feels.
STATUS: Complete
Emotionally exhausting did not even come close to describing how the last couple of weeks had been. There had been almost no break from the rollercoaster, with kidnappers and death and increasing relationship problems reminding Stephen that not only was he in a relationship with someone he had gotten massively attached to, something that he had always considered particularly dangerous, but he was on thin ice with it. The idea of losing it in the wake of the loss of several students bothered him more than he thought it would, but he also hadn’t considered he made much of a difference by being around someone or that it would be so difficult to not be around someone so a lot of his beliefs appeared to complete misconceptions. Stephen sought her out; he had to, once he knew she was back. He knew she’d probably still be more than a little angry and likely, considering Myra (a dead teammate, the latter part of that seeming so important suddenly) had died let alone anyone else. The thought was chilling, disturbing down to the bones. It wasn’t news that this could happen, but the keyword had always been ‘could’. Now it was, there almost seemed nothing to say. “Shannon,” He called, seeing the familiar curls. Shannon spun around and forced a small smile as she walked over to her boyfriend. He was still her boyfriend, even through everything she hadn't thought of him as anything else. It had been an exhausting couple of weeks and she was ready to go back to her room and try to sleep until January was over the grief and anger had become manageable. Life was less kind, there would be no respite for her, nothing to take the pain away, there was just taking one day at a time and living through the guilt and sadness. Guilt at being so hurt. Myra had been her friend from before IVI, a girl she'd known from the Vol school in Ireland who had turned her power off when she struggled with it, lied to her to prove that it was possible and had dragged her to pub nights. Without Myra's quiet and helpful friendship, Shannon might've been lost in the beginning and she might never have found the friendships she had now. Without Myra there would have been no Lydie. And no Stephen. The loss of Myra felt sharper than the loss of Erik, and there was another guilt. The loss of Mette's powers, even sharper than that. Shannon couldn't begin to articulate her guilt and anger at that. There were no words to in English or Gaelic that began to describe the feelings that had provoked. Just emotion. Still, Shannon smiled at Stephen, even if it felt forced. It was time to put her anger with him aside, there was too much to deal with without him. "Hi." In a rare show of over affection, Stephen placed his hands on her upper arms and the strange and not entirely unwelcome desire to hug her and never let go. This wasn’t him. He wasn’t some ridiculously clingy prom date; in fact, he hated people who behaved that way. His mind flooded with thoughts that didn’t make much sense for the time. They should have been contrite, or apologetic, or thoughts of the people who died or were sick or had been kidnapped. Instead, he was thinking of how beautiful she looked, how she looked tired and a little freaked but she was here (he refused to think of this as home, no matter what) and not in danger (from some people anyway) so that was something. That was better than nothing. “How are you dealing?” He asked, trying not to look relieved. It would be a lie to say that Shannon didn't feel angry, upset, abandoned and betrayed by Stephen, just like it would be a lie to say that she didn't love him, didn't want him and didn't feel safer and happier by simply being with him. It was a mess, and she was tempted to hit him instead of hug him, but there had been enough violence and pain over the last couple of weeks so she hugged him. It was brief, she didn't linger or cling to him the way she would've done before. There were no words whispered in his ear, no promises that it was okay and no quiet declaration of love. She shrugged, "I'm dealing." She said. "I'm, yeah, I'm dealing. You?" “Dealing.” The word was repeated again, as if it actually meant something. It didn’t. It felt particularly empty. Stephen held on for a moment longer than she probably wanted, reluctant to let go. Considering a mere two weeks ago, their relationship had hit the high point, it was both surprising and painful to know how much a single event chain could change things. He breathed deeply and sighed at nothing in particular. The usually easy silence, filled mostly by her giving commentary, suddenly felt suffocating and more intense than ever. Still, he could think of nothing to say that would make this any better. “I have no idea what to say,” He said, finally deciding on the truth. "Are you supposed to?" Shannon asked, her tone was harsher than she meant it to be and she shook her head. "Sorry. I just don't know what to say either. You left when I needed you, people are dead and Mette-" She rubbed her eyes tiredly and sighed. "I have no fecking idea what to say about any of it." Everything was awkward and uncomfortable and she hated every second of it, and not for the first time she wished that she could turn back the clock to Christmas, before any of this happened and she was genuinely giddy with happiness. If there was a vol for that, Shannon didn't know them. Numbly, Stephen nodded. It seemed like there should be something else he could do or say that would help, but sometimes, that just wasn’t option. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps that was that and that they were about to break up. He hated the idea, felt vaguely nauseated at the notion and was more than a little afraid of the idea. What was more frightening, the idea of breaking up or that the idea itself was so off-putting and horrible because he actually gave a shit? This was the problem with giving a shit. It hurt. “I don’t think I can say that I’m sorry more than I have,” He said, “I can if it’d help but I’ve said it and I meant it and mean it still. You don’t forgive me. I’m not sure you should. I just don’t know where we go from here, in light of everything.” "In light of everything?" Shannon repeated back at him. She could feel her eyes sting with tears and she blinked them away. "And I do forgive you, but that doesn't automatically make everything else just go away. Does it?" Forgiveness didn't make the pain go away, the abandonment, the sadness, if didn't make anything go away. It just meant that she got to keep something instead, didn't it? If she forgave him then maybe they could stick together long enough for it to all fade away and maybe she wouldn't have to add him to the list of things that had been lost. Not to the school, and not in any grand and dramatic way, but simply lost to her. What it all came down to was that she didn't want to lose him. So she forgave him. “Of course it doesn’t,” Stephen said, dumbly. It wouldn’t be the only dumb thing he said tonight, or this week, so it seemed a good way to start things. He hadn’t even considered that she might actually forgive him. He had been right about her; too caring and compassionate for her own good. He wasn’t entirely sure he would do the same in her place, but to his surprise, he decided that he probably would. The revelation was one of many this week. He did hate to feel so profoundly stupid, but then, she did tend to have that effect on him. He gave a nod in acknowledgement, “We could work through this. If we tried.” The feeling was uncomfortable, like trying to be hopeful with no reason to be. “If you want to.” Her smile was small but there, and she nodded, "I want to." She said. "Stephen, I do love you. Things might not be how they were for a while, but I'm not going to give up just because you were a fecking idiot. If I did that we'd never have gotten anywhere." The ache in her heart eased. It didn't disappear, and neither did her anger or her grief, but it eased a little. Enough for her to smile a little and feel a little better. That was probably true. No, it was definitely true. Even Stephen wasn’t quite so full of himself that he didn’t know that he was a handful. He cracked a slightly self-deprecating smile and accepted the answer. “You’re probably right,” He admitted. “Do you need anything now?” It was clear she didn’t need a hug, or anything as ridiculous as that but a drink or talking or something he hadn’t considered like sleep. He knew a lot of people would probably have trouble with that, even with the quick response by IVI. He begrudgingly had to admit that they had done the best they could under the circumstances, despite still thinking that trusting someones right arm when you couldn’t see what their left arm (let alone their legs) were doing was ludicrous at best. "Sleep, alcohol, another holiday?" Shannon offered. "We need to talk about stuff properly, but we can do that tomorrow. If that's okay?" Everything was tentative again, and unsure, but at least they were together and they'd get through it. She hoped they'd get through it. Stephen nodded, “If you want help with the first one on that list, you know where I am.” He didn’t know if she wanted him to go away or stick around, so he felt as if he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do now. “Or I can stay here. It’s up to you.” "Walk me back to my room and knock me out?" She asked. "Sounds okay to me." Stephen nodded, and gave a small smile. “Come on.” |