InsaneJournal

In a world before trouble had confronted her in the face, she'd usually have been the one gently stroking Riley's hair and being a silent reassurance for him. Now the world had somehow changed, trouble was both of their lives, and Lottie was just curled up against him on the couch.

But she was finally quiet again, having torn out enough words with Riley and earlier with Theo to express how hurt and betrayed she felt. Maybe if a person didn't cry often they'd eventually run out of tears, but fresh ones still seemed a possibility.

She heard the soft ping as her phone went again, from where it was tucked in the pocket of her blazer that she'd thrown down in anger. "I'm going to throw that goddamn phone in the garbage soon," she muttered sullenly.

"There's the fish tank, but you might hit Wanda," Riley said lightly against the top of her head, his fingers still gently carding through her hair. They hadn't moved for a while and one shoulder was locked stuck, but he was staying right where he was for as long as Lottie needed him to. She'd come to him this time when she was so often reluctant to for his sake, and he wasn't about to underestimate the importance of that.

He thumbed over her shoulder. "Do you want to move to the bed? There are real pillows there."

Usually she might've joked about how he was a better pillow, but humour seemed beyond her for the moment. Instead she turned a wary look up to his face. "Is it awful? Please be honest."

Honesty and Riley's powers were two tricky things together. Honesty led to friends keeping an emotional distance from him when all he wanted was to help, but lying, or omitting important pieces, was just another kind of distance. There were no personal upsides to his powers. Lottie knew that. She'd come, anyway.

"It's not great," he admitted gently. "But some of my own is mixed up in there, too."

"Don't sugar-coat it," she insisted quietly, "I'm not leaving you any time soon. I can't," Lottie was probably unable to even face getting up, let alone moving anywhere at any point soon. She'd never known that tears could be so exhausting. But she raised her arms, "Help me up, it's real pillow time."

All comments on that were withheld, and Riley righted himself so he could scoop her up into his own arms. Similar in height though they were, he was stronger than he looked, and it didn't take much to carry her across the apartment. "I'm not sugar-coating," he argued, angling them sideways through the door frame so as not to smash any skulls. "It's — a lot, but like I said, some of that is me. All of this pisses me off, and," he set her down gently on the mattress, "you're tempering it. It's like an echo."

She clung to him, limpet-like, but his attempts to carry her had brought out a touch of humour that she'd found impossible any time earlier that day. "I came here though," she murmured, "I didn't want it to be like last time."

Last time when feelings had been rampant, she had accepted a sole hug before sending him away with his tail between his legs. They had been equal parts insistent, but ultimately Lottie had won that. Things had been changing for both of them, more while apart than while together, though Riley, as he tucked a lock of hair behind an ear, wondered what it was in particular that had opened up this door for him.

"It won't be," he promised her, and following a kiss to her forehead, he enveloped her in his arms as he had then.

Nestled in his arms she did feel calmer, even though everything still ached furiously. "And I'm sorry if I ruined any plans you had for today," she apologised, feeling a definite twinge of guilt about that.

Riley gave her a squeeze. "Don't apologize, okay? I'll tell my brothers I'll be late to dinner."

The guilt picked up a notch. "Shit," she breathed the word, "it's your family dinner night and I —" Lottie groaned quietly. "I'm a dumbass and I'm the worst. I'll have to make it up to them. And you."

"Lottie." His hand passed over and then through her dark hair. "It's okay. It'll be okay." He knew, in the moment, those words never registered, but he hoped his presence, his body, could help where words couldn't. "You don't have to make up anything to anyone, especially me. I just wanna — take it all away from you, and I wish I could do it permanently, but I can't. You deserve better. You should never have to feel this."

She nodded into his chest. "Theo said — even if you did then it'd just keep coming back. Because they don't leave you," she scoffed quietly, although somehow the sound of a sob crept into the noise. "The feeling of someone leaving you never leaves you. That's some sick irony, isn't it?"

It was, and didn't need to be said. Riley thought of another point of irony: that he could be full of other people, other emotions, and still, at times, feel empty and alone. He preferred the feeling to nothing at all, a constant radio channel of emotions rather than static or silence.

His cheek rested against the side of her head. "It can leave you today," he suggested. "And tomorrow might be worse, or it might be better. You won't know until you get there, y'know?"

It was an option she'd never felt the need to consider before, but she looked up at him in silence while she did consider it. Her thumb and forefinger kneaded anxiously at his shoulder.

"What does it do to you if I say yes?"

Riley's thumb swiped a lone half-dried tear track from her cheekbone. "Long-term or short?"

"Whichever's the one you don't want to tell me."

He hesitated, and obviously. "Short-term, I take it in, feel it, send most of it back out. Long-term…" His mouth twisted. "I think it'll shut me down, though I don't have actual proof it will, and I don't want to wait to find out. I waited too long to figure out I needed things to change, which includes my power. So I'm not just taking and living with it," he explained. "I got dealt a shitty hand, but I'm not going to shrug my shoulders about it anymore."

The smile Riley gave her was half-hearted. "I'm not really good at this optimism thing, though."

She listened in careful silence, still keeping one hand on his shoulder. "We need to find an anti-Riley," she murmured. "If I thought I could boost the odds for you I would, okay? If I could take it for you, I would."

He tipped forward so their foreheads pressed together. "I know you would. Let me do this for you instead, okay? We'll worry about tomorrow tomorrow."

"I trust you," she conceded. "Just this once. Then you go to your dinner, you don't need to worry about me. I'll be still here and hopefully snoring by the time you get back."

Riley's hand sought her free one and squeezed. The only warning out of him was a soft, "This might feel weird", and then he was directing his focus elsewhere. His powers sought out the thick aura embracing her — the loneliness, the hurt, anger, misery — and began to draw all of it up slowly and cautiously so as not to suddenly overwhelm him. He'd learned the hard way that doing it too quickly was messy, so he took care now, all the while rubbing little circles into the back of her hand.

Her resentment tangled with his own. The ache became his, starting low in his abdomen and creeping up into his throat. Everything swept through and found its place inside of his body, tactical and precise, like it had been there before. And he could feel it all coming on strong enough to choke him, but rather than soaking it up to the last drop, he jerked back.

He wasn't fast enough to catch the tears that skid down his cheeks, this time, not hers.

Her hand reached up to brush his cheek, dusting away the tears as if they were nothing. She felt calmer, lighter in an absence of everything that had weighed her down. "Love you," she whispered, pressing her fingers against his cheek once more. "Are you okay?"

No was the short answer, but Riley didn't want to answer that just yet. The heaviness sat inside him, upon his shoulders, and it wasn't going to do either of them any good if he let it sit there. He caught her hand and kissed her fingers, voice a crack as he said, "Gimme a sec."

In many ways, Riley thought that maybe he had deserved this power, that this had been a punishment, though he couldn't say whether just or not. For whatever reason he'd been given this, continuing to look at it through the purgatorial lens was giving in and letting it win. He'd been given an ability that was terrible for him, but beneficial to others. This might not have been the gift he'd wanted under the Christmas tree, but he had it, and there was no changing it.

He pitched backward onto the mattress with a huff. Years spent letting it build up until it was too much to take meant he wasn't good at this part: the subtle discharges, the release before any of it clung firmly enough to his bones and organs that he couldn't unhook them. He tried now — and it wasn't clean, it wasn't practiced, but the energy peeled itself away finger by finger to float off and away. Gone, released into the stuffiness of his apartment in nothing but a shimmer of the air around him as if Lottie was laying eyes upon an optical heat illusion.

But one last tear did escape, and Riley rubbed it away while the other hand reached for her. "Okay, c'mere."

It was a reverent silence that she held until he was reaching for her again, and her hand clasped his readily. Dark eyes sought his face, confirming that he was okay. He was still there, still with her.

"Better?" Lottie whispered the query cautiously, pressing her fingers tight against his.

"Better." Or as good at it could be, in the moment, and until more practice. That was for another day. He gently interlocked their fingers. "I love you, too, by the way."

"You'd better," she replied weakly. "It's part of our friendship deal."

The corner of his lips turned up. "You're my ride or die, Thelma. Now get down here."

She shuffled closer, still not quite ready to leave what felt like safety. "You're supposed to be going out for family dinner, Louise," she reminded him. "I can stay here and screw up your Netflix queue while you're gone, can't I?"

"Be nice to my Netflix queue. I have a half hour til I have to leave." Riley pulled her in the rest of the way.

"Thank you," she released her gratitude in a whisper, nestling her head against his chest once more. Sometimes their friendship meant playfully joking about Netflix, sometimes it was just cuddles in silence. But he'd done something for her that she knew she'd never take lightly, never forget at any point. Maybe there'd come a time when she could repay him, but until then she could just thank him. "You're the best."