ώάήȡά (scarlets) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-03-27 20:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, marvel: wanda maximoff, ₴ inactive: stephen strange |
WHO: Wanda & Stephen
WHAT: Talking about loved ones lost
WHERE: Vallo Forest, out by a stream
WHEN: Today
WARNINGS: Mentions of people dying and grief
STATUS: Complete
The potential spot they’d selected was nice, Stephen thought - very green, emerald and chlorophyll shades, and right by a stream with its clear water playing and cascading, sounding like small silvery bells. The air was cool and wonderfully crisp and he hadn’t worn his typical sorcerer’s garb - but a sweater and khaki pants instead, carrying with him a bag of supplies. They didn’t need much - just some candles, incense that would carry the aroma of frankincense and sandalwood (neither of them were Catholic but the idea of the funerary smoke honoring the deceased, lifting to wherever wasn’t bad), and a bottle of Russian liquor he’d picked up (cherry vodka, to be specific). Plus the memories that he’d brought to the forefront of his mind, ready to unpack and share even if sharing them and having them hit the light of day made him want to hiss and shy away to some degree. But he wouldn’t - he believed it would be beneficial, helpful, for Wanda to do this. And for himself too - it would help them both, and he couldn’t just let her participate one-hundred percent without giving some of his own effort too. “Is this good?” he asked, stopping near the edge of the stream. If nothing else, it was peaceful - they were surrounded by nature and no one else. Which Stephen always preferred (the ‘no one else’ part, that is, he wasn’t sure if he was one for glamping but supposed he could see the appeal). Wanda knew she needed this. She needed something, anything - she had been desperate, back home, searching for the location of Vision’s body with this delusion that if she stormed the facility and demanded him, she’d get it. That had been her plan, anyway, and now that she had more clarity she highly doubted things would go her way. Still, she would have tried. Even if it would have been a fruitless attempt, considering she doubted anyone would let his body remain dormant somewhere without experimenting; Vision wasn’t a person to the government, he was too valuable to just be sitting there collecting dust. And the more she found herself stewing in it, the more she felt that rage eat away at her like acid, bit by bit. Those last moments with him cycled through her head too, oftentimes plaguing her dreams to the point that sleep wasn’t restful. It had been agonizing. But she had been through the mourning phase before, too many times. Wanda knew how it worked. She knew that, one day, either the strength of those waves would lessen or she wouldn’t allow them to knock her over anymore. Either way - time would keep going on, and she would have to adapt. There was no other option. “Yes,” Wanda replied, fiddling with one of her rings - somewhat of a restless twist around her finger. “It’s nice.” Away from people, the noise of the city. Her eyes flitted to him, and she nudged him gently with her elbow. “Thank you. For coming with me and - this. I know how feelings make you itch.” “What feelings?” Stephen deadpanned, but the light smirk gave away that he was teasing a little. The grass was a cushion in one of those vibrant verdant shades, and he unfolded the blanket he had tucked into the bag and set it down - then he settled, sitting cross-legged in prime meditation position. Though he didn’t plan to do any meditating right now - rather, he lit the ends of the incense sticks in their burners and the candles as well (with matches, he didn’t conjure fire out of nowhere though he supposed that was possible) in order to get everything set up. Now they’d break into the vodka - he was assured it wouldn’t taste like cough syrup, not too sweet, and tart instead. It also wasn’t cheap vodka - the cheap stuff you could keep in the freezer to mask the burning and eeeughhh aftertastes it seemed to possess, but not something like this. Alright. If there was any time to show he actually did have feelings, that time was this very moment. “Do you want me to go first?” he glanced at Wanda, taking a breath - the air was already perfumed with the aroma of incense, weighted with it but not in an unpleasant way. “We can - take turns.” Oh, she appreciated the vodka very much. Wanda didn’t drink often (though she did enjoy a glass of wine with Prue a night or two a week?), but this evening was going to be one of those so some liquid courage to get her through it couldn’t hurt. Just a little bit. Might help loosen up those nerves, make the words flow easier. Next to Stephen is where she sat, legs stretched out before her - she’d worn a simple black dress with a jacket over it, paired with boots that reached right below her knees. She inhaled that scented air, held her breath for two seconds, then exhaled deeply. “We can take turns,” she confirmed. “But - please go first.” And since he was going first, she reached for that bottle to twist it open and hold it out to him as an offering. Cups weren’t required. Stephen didn’t have mouth herpes and if he did, well. She knew where he slept. “First sip, too.” Individual shot glasses were for people who cared about cooties - and Stephen wasn’t one of those people. At least not when it came to Wanda - maybe, sure, there were some people he’d rather avoid swapping backwash with. He took the bottle and, bottoms up, swallowed a mouthful - it was pretty good (and he had a rule, if you could actually pronounce the name of the vodka it probably happened to be awful) and went down smoothly. “There was a spot in the Adirondacks - we’d go swimming there in the summer, when we were kids. Me and my sister Donna - our parents would take us. So many waterfalls, they all drained into a pool at the base. Good cliff jumping too, which was great for reckless kids. But after any heavy rain, things got harder - harder to swim in, plus everything was slippery. The rocks and all that. It had rained but we wanted to swim anyway, so we were splashing in the pool and Donna got a cramp. I couldn’t get to her in time,” he said in a rumble, an oncoming storm. “She drowned - well, we finally pulled her out, did CPR, but...it was too late.” Nothing had been the same after that - his mother and father had been changed, he had been changed. Her death inspired him to go into medicine, instilling the want to save lives since he couldn’t save hers - but more than that, it also left this gaping, vacant hole somewhere within him. The kind that only the death of a sibling could leave - he’d known her for her entire (cut-too-short) life. But since this was also about remembrance, he didn’t want to focus solely on the way the loss felt. “We were so incredibly stupid,” he had to laugh. “One time when we were home alone we decided to ride a mattress down the stairs. We didn’t think about how fast the ride would be and we ended up crashing into a bookcase that knocked over onto us - it was solid oak so instead of crushing us it landed on the fifth or so step, and only the books on the top shelves fell over onto us. Somehow we managed to push the bookcase back up again and put the books back in the same order they’d been in, literally five minutes before our mom got home. Then we never talked about it again.” Still a funny story though - it made him chuckle fondly, as he passed the vodka to Wanda. Wanda listened, watching him as she did so - she barely knew him back home and yes, technically they’ve only known each other well here for about a month but they interacted a lot. They spent time flipping through ancient texts at the Sanctum, Stephen working on helping her polish more control over her abilities that were beyond precision through rage and even discussing his craft of magic and all that it entailed, this was definitely the most personal he’d been with her. Family was a sensitive subject to many, and he bled fondness for those memories the same way he did sadness. Sorry for your loss wouldn’t cut it. They never did. It was always so recycled, an exhausting constant that had lost meaning overtime. Did anyone really say those words out of actual sincerity, or was it merely custom? Probably both. Regardless, she understood that ache of losing a sibling - having that someone you’ve known your whole life gone too soon, hating that you couldn’t save them. She could picture it, though. His words painted the memories for her; their summer trip, the ride down the stairs. The vodka was back into her possession but she didn’t drink from it yet. “I love the imagery of you having actual fun,” she chuckled, barely able to stop herself from smiling. “Though I do need to ask, whose idea was it to use a mattress to go down the stairs? I have trouble picturing you as the mischievous sibling but I really, really hope it was you.” Really, she was picturing a tiny Stephen Strange with the same beard on a baby face and the silver streaking his hair. It was a shame there wasn’t actual photographic evidence, like an album to look through. “It was me,” he confirmed, and there was humor in his eyes - not so sapphire or anything terribly romantic like that, but dusty blue. Like steel. Steel in his gaze, steel he created armor with that he used to protect himself. “I was her big brother, she had to go along with all my dumb ideas.” He missed her - even years later, he missed Donna. Stephen didn’t think it would ever fully go away but he’d learned to sort of work around that loss - to understand what a new ‘normal’ would be, and how he had to acclimate. Over time, sorry for your loss lost its shine - it was why he didn’t usually bring her up, because he didn’t want to hear the standard societal platitudes that were recycled and printed on a thousand different Hallmark sympathy cards. So it was easier to just keep those memories under lock and key - never share them, barely even consider them. Until now. And surprisingly, he was glad for it. Maybe about time he gave those precious childhood recollections and stories some air. “Were you the mischievous sibling?” he asked, watching the flickering candle flames for a moment and then looking back toward Wanda. Likely she wasn’t, but she wasn’t without mischievousness at all - she was no fragile Fabergé egg, despite what some may have wanted to believe. Ah, yes, she suspected as such - and really, Wanda thought it was the sweetest thing. She could see Stephen in that role; big brother, being a thorn in Donna’s side. He must miss that. “I was not,” she protested, holding the neck of the bottle with her finger pointed out to emphasize the not in that. Then she took a swig, and the taste had surprised her but not in a bad way - the taste of it going down her throat caused the rise of goosebumps. “Pietro was - he was funny. Or he thought he was funny, most of the time. When we were in the orphanage he had a habit of playing pranks on the other children, roped me into being an accomplice a few times.” She didn’t mean to be a downer by mentioning the orphanage bit - it was what it was, and the loss of her parents wasn’t news. Her childhood had been tainted by the flames of war, yes, though there were moments she held dear. Ones that made her smile, ones she wanted to cling to and never forget. Wanda tried to think of those instead of her twin’s body riddled with bloody holes, or how she felt him die. It was his turn for another sip, so she passed the bottle. “He would have liked you, I think - he did not like bullshit, had a very dry sense of humor as he got older.” That was actually pleasant to hear - maybe because Stephen knew he wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. He could see why people found him to be off-putting, and he owned the fact that he wasn’t conventionally nice. “Wasn’t into bullshit, dry humor - yeah, sounds like we have that in common. I probably would have liked him too,” he said, taking the bottle to indulge in another swig of cherry vodka. That sip was a lot more refreshing and maybe it loosened his tongue a little as well - made it easier to talk about these things. They were taking turns so he should go next - he took another deep breath, the spice and the prickle of the air perfumed by incense tickling his nose. It reminded him a little of Kamar-Taj, how there were incense pots in every room; most especially the entrance corridor, as it kept the smells of the Kathmandu streets at bay (diesel fumes and fish markets). He thought of the Ancient One, and all he wanted to say about her - it was hard. Really hard. “I went into medicine to save lives, because I couldn’t save my sister’s life,” he continued. “But it was my fear of failure that pushed me so hard. It took me some time to break out of that mindset - and to just...let go of everything. And I guess I did, when I had no choice but to go up against Dormammu.” After all, he’d put them both in that time loop - he lost, over and over, he failed in order to have a chance for an even greater victory. Right, Dormammu. The ruler of the Dark Dimension, that personification of destruction. Wanda had read some mentions of him in texts that existed at the Sanctum, plus Stephen’s own shared tidbits - like all the times he died facing him. They had never discussed in much depth. Felt a little personal at the time to pry, but they were literally spilling all sorts of personal details, so. “Thanos sounds like he was a cakewalk compared to him,” she mused darkly - she had gone toe-to-toe with the wrinkly Mad Titan herself, had been on the precipice to rip him apart if fire power hadn’t rained from the sky. Facing some interdimensional that wanted to devour other dimensions was daunting. Wanda went to gently tug on the bottle, a my turn gesture. “He killed you over and over and yet - you live.” She found that impressive. And also a very Stephen Strange way to achieve victory in the end. “Can’t say it wasn’t without fucking me up,” he admitted, gladly relinquishing the bottle to Wanda. Yeah, there he was - Stephen Strange, confessing that he probably needed therapy. Or something - he needed something, maybe multiple something’s. He was burdened with the unfortunate knowledge that we, the world, everyone happened to be a mere tiny ship in an ocean of other dangers that hailed from other dimensions and other realities. Burdened with the powers of the time stone, tasked with looking into millions of other timelines to find one - a timeline with dominoes that had a certain way to fall. It wound up costing him not only his life but billions of lives around the globe. Maybe someone else would have balked, but Stephen wasn’t trying to save a city, a country, or even only Earth itself. No, he played on a universal game board against demons, cosmic entities, and purple maniacs - and to do that, he had to go all in. And it sucked. “The Ancient One - she was the previous Sorcerer Supreme. I held her hand as she died - we watched the snow fall, on the astral plane. And when her hand slipped away, she was gone. She tried to extend the last moments of her life for as long as she could though, just to keep watching the snow. Before she went I told her I wasn’t ready to stop Dormammu but she said no one is ever ready - for something like that, for death,” he murmured. “I think that’s something we all identify with. And I know she would have liked you,” Stephen added, finding that thought amusing for some reason. “Probably would have been a better student than I was.” If only it wasn’t him who was meant to follow in her footsteps. That was an extreme shift in careers, from a renown surgeon to Sorcerer Supreme - and she doubted anyone was really ready for that kind of responsibility. There was a difference in being responsible for one life at a time to literally everything else, like the fabric of reality or existence. Wanda mulled that over, tilting the bottle to her mouth and knocking back another shot of cherry vodka. It was less of a shock to her system now, more of a swimmy relaxed sort of feeling. “I would have definitely been a better student,” she agreed, smiling wryly. Wanda shifted on the blanket, leaning back on an elbow and setting the bottle between them. It was his for the taking now. “But you were the student she needed to fill the role she was leaving behind. Do you think she knew that it would be you, one day? A sorcerer supreme also called The Ancient One seems like she would be able to divine that kind of thing.” It was a wild guess. Maybe Stephen simply fell into it out of chance, but such a role seemed to be almost fated. Pre-determined by whatever powers to be existed out there and there seemed to be plenty of that, working in mysterious ways. Stephen sighed, though it came out in more of a rumble - thunder that was muted, the bass of it all. “She knew,” he confirmed. “The time stone had been used by her, by the Masters of the Mystic Arts - for things like that.” The Ancient One gazed into its green mists, seeing the various possibilities and outcomes - she understood it had been her time to go, because a Sorcerer Supreme didn’t just pass on the mantle. They didn’t retire. No, it was a role, a duty, they had to die to get out of - and she knew he realized that sometimes it was necessary to bend the rules in order to benefit the greater good; his flexibility would suit the job well, unlike with Mordo who...wasn’t flexible at all. He didn’t have the greatest feeling about any of that and what they might face as they prepared to right the cosmic imbalances after the Blip, but there was little he could do about it here in Vallo. Despite the way shit kept rolling downhill after the Ancient One died, he still missed her - besides one of his teachers, she’d been his friend. Someone he trusted. The bottle of whiskey, he held it in his hands - turning it around and around before taking that next shot in memory of her. “I’m sorry,” he added, and it was pointless to say because it wasn’t his fault - but maybe the burden of ensuring the one out of fourteen million (and more) came to fruition weighed on him. “About the time stone and how Thanos used it on Vision.” Oh. Wanda hadn’t expected that. Yes, the apology was pointless - it wasn’t his fault, she didn’t blame anyone for what happened (at least anyone on their team). Obviously the last thing she had ever wanted was to lose Vision, and she had fought against for as long as she could as the sands of time kept draining through the hourglass and Thanos inched closer and closer. Selfishly, she wanted to choose Vision over humanity and everyone else. She didn’t want to be the hand responsible for killing the man she loved. But she couldn’t be selfish, and she had killed him (also because she had been the only one capable of destroying that Mind Stone), and that was a moot sacrifice considering he was literally re-killed minutes later. And while that may have all happened five years ago for others, two months had passed since that moment for her at most. The wound still felt raw. Slowly healing, yes - but there was a freshness to it. “You are not the type to apologize for things out of your control,” Wanda said, right before letting out a slow and deep sigh. Her eyes focused on the stream of water ahead, incense smoke wisping about. “Don’t start now. We all made the choices we had to make. Vision knew what had to be done and as much as I hated it, I knew it too. Your choice was just as difficult.” He let out a puff of air that could be misconstrued as a huffy chuckle - soft, quiet, and maybe bitter as wormwood, but still there. “No, I’m not,” Stephen agreed - not the type to apologize for things out of his control, but that had been a lot for Wanda to have to handle and as someone who considered her a friend, well. He just fell under that category or not liking to see her hurting - he realized it happened, of course, because life wasn’t all rosy and sweet. But that didn’t mean he had to like it. “Tell me something you loved about him?” he prompted, and it was - odd. To be asking something like that, to be curious about it. “I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone like that.” Of course he’d tried - but he wasn’t good at relationships then and they tended to end quickly. He imagined he wasn’t any better now, not that he’d attempted it. There had been Christine, time will tell how much I love you engraved on the watch he always carried with him - the watch that didn’t work. Neither did their romantic relationship and Stephen supposed he loved her, however - just not like that. Had fond memories though. Nights out when the city streets were bright and everything felt so alive, when the skyline was swimming in streams of neon lights and there was a certain freedom to that. A balm for all the bad things but Christine had moved on since then and so had Stephen - moved into a kind of loneliness that he knew he unfortunately had accepted he was destined for. Something she loved about him. Just one? Wanda had a list catalogued in her brain, and she was tempted to write them down should time just… blur them for her. She didn’t want to forget. Part of her wanted to dig her heels into the ground and stubbornly not move on but Vision wouldn’t have wanted that for her. If he was selfless, and good (sometimes she swore he was opposite of what she was), and he’d want her to be happy - with or without him. She let out a small laugh, a tiny bit choked but there were no waterworks. A lot of crying had been done already, it would be surprising if any tears were left. “He had a certain way of looking at the world,” Wanda reminisced, nose crinkled in fondness as the memories came. “Very logical, very practical and some might assume with how he was created that there’d be a coldness to how he processed things, but - there wasn’t. He had hope. And faith in people. Which I did find strange at first.” It wasn’t as if she was bursting at the seams with rainbows and sunshines, god no. There was a cynicism to Wanda, jaded and weary and overall distrustful - she believed there was good in people but she had seen them do terrible things for terrible reasons. He never denied humanity’s penchant for darkness, though he made a point to highlight the better things they were capable of. “After Pietro was killed, and I was at the compound,” she went on, pausing to swallow that knot in her throat - felt like barbed wire making its way down but she went on. “He would visit me. Sometimes awkwardly - he had a habit of phasing through walls, and kept forgetting that doors existed. I remember him telling me that he didn’t understand what I was feeling since he’d never lost a loved one, and still he tried to. He listened. Then told me it sounded like grief was simply… love persevering.” It had stuck with her. Wanda thought about it often, especially now. “I think he was right,” Stephen murmured. “‘How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.’ Winnie the Pooh,” he added, with a sideways glance at Wanda, like he was reciting great works of literature - but hey, in a way, he kind of was. That made sense. “I read something about how grief doesn’t go in stages like how some think - those were originally made up as part of the process people who have terminal illnesses go through. Instead it’s more like...waves, probably. They come out of nowhere at the slightest provocation, like a song or even a color and some are really big and some are smaller - important thing is to just let them wash over you. And be kind to yourself when they do.” Wanda wasn’t ever going to forget Vision - she’d loved him, and so because of that he’d be with her always. Just like how Stephen’s loved ones were with him too - he felt better, when he talked about them. He’d held Donna too close to him for too long, not wanting to share her with anyone because of the pain it brought him - but that wasn’t helping either. He let the haze of the incense surround them, the wick on the candle burning - and he reached over, taking Wanda’s hand in his. It wasn’t a ‘I want to get you naked’ type of hand hold, just a show of comfort and support; as much as he could give with broken, useless hands before the familiar ache from too much pressure reared its ugly head. They could sit here and watch the water for however long she liked - after the last week or so, peace was sorely necessary. At the very least, a well-earned moment of it. Waves. That was exactly it. That was how she felt with her parents, with Pietro, and now with Vision - she was too familiar with the motions of it, the feeling like these tides were pulling her asunder with the threat of robbing the air straight out of her lungs. Recovering from loss wasn’t this linear process; there was no finish line, no end to it. It was a permanent, constant adjustment. Wanda would learn to deal with it, just as she did with everything else. She had survived too much not to. Truthfully, she was surprised that he reached out with his hand - Stephen never did strike her as a touchy kind of person, though he had a habit of surprising her with a gooey center of softness when he allowed it to be seen. The reaction to it was really instantaneous anyway, squeezing in return as if she was holding onto some kind of lifeline that kept her from being dragged down. She straightened her posture, and then just - plopped her head onto his shoulder. “Winnie the Pooh is very wise for a cartoon bear that shows off their belly,” Wanda whispered after a moment of silence, gaze still latched onto the moving waters. “Thank you for this. It’s… good to talk about them, isn’t it? All of them.” He didn’t mind the way Wanda rested her head on his shoulder - Stephen wasn’t always affectionate but he could get there. Clearly this was proof of that - he just needed time to open up. Patience. The right conditions present. Like how flowers didn’t bloom overnight, neither did he. “It is good,” he agreed, and maybe it was the emotional toll this had all taken - not in a bad way, it was just cathartic - or the effects of the vodka in all of its sloshiness, but Stephen slumped a little too. With relaxed muscles and his cheek resting in Wanda’s hair - he just gave in, there was no reason not to. “We can talk about them anytime. I should talk about them more anyway - and maybe read more Winnie the Pooh.” That was said with fond, warm sarcasm - but hey. That bear really was wise. The vodka provided a light, pleasant buzz - no overdoing it, she didn’t want to be messy (she had shreds of dignity intact, thanks). Wanda was comfortable like this anyway, even steeped in the bittersweetness of it all. Her head hadn’t budged from his shoulder, either. Unless he was saying something then she could stay like this for a minute, a while. “You will have to tell me all the times you were a terrible student to this Ancient One too,” she mused, chuckling quietly under her breath. “I am sure if she saw all that you have done since then, though - she would be proud.” Stephen laughed a little, and he had the strangest feeling - wetness there, boiling water that felt hot and brimmed at his lashes. They were tears, surprisingly - maybe a natural release after all of this, a natural part of the story. He wouldn’t attempt to pretend like they weren’t there but for now he just blinked to keep them at bay, his vision blurred. “I was a shit,” he admitted. “Had a few teachers at Kamar-Taj but she was definitely my favorite.” Sometimes he thought about when he was just beginning - desperate and alone, getting to know the other Masters of the Mystic Arts and the structure where they trained. The view of the mountains from the terrace, the small cell he called home, the luminous and airy rooms (save for the library which was dim and stuffy in order to best keep the books preserved), and the parlor where there were low tables and always tea to be served. “I was taken there and she attempted to explain magic to me but I wasn’t getting it - so she kicked me out. I was too stubborn to leave and just sat outside on the front stoop for hours until she finally let me back in. She did it on purpose, of course. To see if I wanted it enough.” While she may have known who he would become, he had to be in a place where he’d be able to step onto the right path - so he doubted the Ancient One felt bad about doing what she did. She wasn’t one to feel needlessly guilty anyway. The mention that she’d be proud of him though, that was what caused a tear or two to actually fall - rolling on down his cheeks, dripping from glassy blue eyes. He didn’t know why, but - maybe it was the word, proud. Hardly anyone told him they were proud of him; you didn’t often realize how much you needed to hear that until you finally did. “Thank you,” was all he could say but it meant so much - it really did. Wanda expected nothing less from Stephen in regards to being a shit. When they had worked on practicing setting up mental barriers before their contract job with the coven, she had caught glimpses of his mind. Memories, mostly - but the point was that it had been unintentional, and he had been aware of the risks. He trusted her with it, and she had caught flashes of feelings that carried with those memories - the desperation, the need for another purpose. She thought of his hands and the scars lining them, how they seemed to ache more when there was rainfall and how they still trembled. Without thinking much of it she flipped their hands, trailing her fingernails along the marks that accident left him with. “You’re welcome,” she told him, slightly tilting her head to meet his glassy eyes. Wanda wasn’t terribly surprised to see him cry. He needed to - and something told her it wasn’t anything he often allowed himself to do. “We can stay here for awhile, you know. Then - maybe something to eat? This emotional labor takes a toll on the appetite.” Rainy days made his knuckles swell, they let Stephen feel every movement of pins and steel deep in his joints - during days like those, there were flashes of thunderstorms in his very hands, flexes of his fingers causing burning agony that sped through his nerves, up his wrists, into his arms. He always dropped things because of the pain - ceramic tea mugs and items like that, broken shards and parts of his stupid broken heart shattering on the floor. Though he didn’t bother anyone with it - he tried not to, anyway, and just let the Sanctum work its magic to clean up the messes. He hadn’t really thought Wanda noticed but apparently she had - the way she actually touched the scars, the long red lines that didn’t look any better even after multiple surgeries because his skin was a mottled mess there, surprised him. His fingers twitched, still shook minutely, but he didn’t move away - he didn’t want to, because her touch was gentle and he needed more gentleness in his life. “Yes - I think that sounds good,” he said, clearing his throat. With his free hand he wiped at his eyes; tears were so foreign, he almost couldn’t comprehend they’d actually come from him. “We can pick something up and bring it home. Better than me cooking.” And better than dealing with the fridge demon. It really had been emotionally draining and he wasn’t sure he wanted to argue with something that would just toss eggs at him in a snit. In the meantime though, they could enjoy the view and the peacefulness a little while longer. There was no harm in that, none at all. |