“Workaholics don’t tend to like scaling back. I’m familiar with the type.” The Stranges, for all their differences, had exhibited some similar streaks; his own father had probably worked his overtaxed heart into a coronary too soon. Heavy physical labour, early mornings in the field and stables, long days. God knows Stephen himself wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he was forced into a second retirement after sorcery.
“Well, I suppose you might have some more harmless busywork for him now that you’re Captain; perhaps there’s some paperwork you can foist off.”
There’s a thoughtful crinkle in his brow, a habitual paranoia still ticking over. Warily: “Since there’s no earldom to protect anymore,” sorry, he’s blunt sometimes, “that means he wouldn’t have any reason to kill me these days, does he?”
The concept of a shovel talk, belated as it would be, is much more unsettling if it’s coming from a not-so-retired assassin who knows exactly where he sleeps and how to get at him.
(Felix Guilfoyle has never fired a warning shot in his life.)
“Well, don't hurt my feelings,” she starts, a bit arch, and almost immediately can't hold it— “no, Maker, it was. You know, besides everything else, that was a direct order from his lord, and we never...”
Gwenaëlle tries to word it less terribly. Fails: “You don't argue with the knife. Thranduil had it out in Orlais with the Comte.” And he had come back sad and strange and she doesn't like to think about understanding why, so she doesn't, especially not now. He isn't her husband any longer, and her father has been ash for years. The past is the past. “And he didn't try again when my feelings were hurt, so I think you're well in the clear.”
“Still,” he sounds distracted, “I’ll have to get him something for Satinalia. Appreciation for his services and what-have-you. Do any Kirkwall businesses do gift cards?”
It’s not tipping the building superintendent at Christmas, but it’s also not not that.
Stephen’s still standing with his back to the door, surveying her in this private space. Looking for more of those hairline fractures or signs of distress, the quiet fidgeting. They’re past that particular crucible, he thinks, but it’s still worth saying it aloud, so he reaches out and his fingertips graze Gwenaëlle’s bare wrist, her pulse-point.
“Are you all right?” he asks. “About him being back.”
He’s no longer talking about Guilfoyle. (Once upon a time, Cosima’s quarters upstairs been Tony’s which once had been Thranduil-and-Gwenaëlle’s. Bizarre, to think about now.)
Some businesses in Hightown, she knows, will allow someone to extend credit for another — she, too, thinks of Tony for entirely different reasons, remembering how she'd made him an appointment with a tailor for a number of items adding up to his not dressing like a depressed ragman any more. Maybe she's about to say something about it (wouldn't it be nice if Tony came back, actually, Cosima would probably be relieved, too—) but the slide of his fingertips and the question,
one soothes more than the other. Gwenaëlle slips her wrist beneath his hand enough that she can press their palms together. Probably he can see the moment where she nearly says of course I'm fine, not because she's thought it through but because she hasn't. He warrants the extra effort, the moment of pause. An answer she's actually given some weight to.
“I was when he was still here,” she says, feeling her way to the edges of how off-balanced she's found herself. “It'd be easier if it were just my ex-husband, you know, and not... I keep reaching for these fragile things,” with a wet laugh, struck by it, tilting her head up half not to let tears surprise her and half not to look at him and find she can't avoid them. “I was so much smaller a part of his life than he was of mine. I was the wife that could be forgotten. The thing I was so fucking afraid of, here it is. And that keeps happening, I have to stop finding new things to be afraid of, I think I just become fearless or something. I think that's—”
She presses her eyes shut, and then her forehead against his shoulder. “And I don't wish I was living a different life. It just, I want this to be real to you.”
Stephen sees the moment and recognises it for what it is, because so much of him does the very same flippant thing (I am happy), but he waits her out as she pulls together the longer answer. Folds her into his side as she presses her head into his shoulder, his palm splayed against the small of her back, the casual unthinking touch which he only ever indulges with Gwenaëlle.
It’s difficult and complicated and so few people have ever been in her exact shoes, with this specific problem.
He can’t even promise it will never happen again. It could so easily happen: the Fade could take him at any moment and he’s met other Stephen Stranges, knows they’re out there walking the multiverse. And he’s been so cagey with telling people about Christine, but Gwenaëlle’s one of the few people who knows, and it does wind up oddly relevant here, another unexpected echo:
“I don’t think I ever mentioned— I once met a Christine in another universe who had never been with me. It’s jarring; they’re both the person you remember and they’re not. I probably did her a disservice by thinking of her as the woman I knew. You have to meet them where they’re at, I think. And in the meantime— whether or not he remembers it, it doesn’t change the fact that it did happen here. It was real. You’re real. You’re what I measure everything else by.”
How the fuck is she supposed to be normal about hearing a thing like that—
but it is exactly, exactly the thing that she needs to hear.
“Then I'm all right,” she decides, letting herself be steadied with next breath and the incredible odds against the fact that they've found one another, maybe the only people who can specifically relate to this narrow experience. The improbability of this very real thing— “About it. I'll be all right.”
His smile is a small, faint thing, but it’s there nonetheless. He gives a squeeze of her hand, tightening pressure, weight.
“Good. And you don’t have to be, immediately. You can take your time adjusting to it and finding your equilibrium again. It’s a hell of a thing to get accustomed to.”
“If it's not one fucking thing around here,” she sighs, and then tilts back enough that she can look up at him— “I'll finish up here later, I'm at sixes and sevens. Let's go get dinner.”
Maybe she'll prod him into regaling her with his jaunts through alternate worlds, or maybe they'll just be companionable; it means so much to her, how instantly he just came when she needed him to. That's something to lean on, now.
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portalling) wrote2022-04-02 01:17 pm
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no subject
“Well, I suppose you might have some more harmless busywork for him now that you’re Captain; perhaps there’s some paperwork you can foist off.”
There’s a thoughtful crinkle in his brow, a habitual paranoia still ticking over. Warily: “Since there’s no earldom to protect anymore,” sorry, he’s blunt sometimes, “that means he wouldn’t have any reason to kill me these days, does he?”
The concept of a shovel talk, belated as it would be, is much more unsettling if it’s coming from a not-so-retired assassin who knows exactly where he sleeps and how to get at him.
no subject
“Well, don't hurt my feelings,” she starts, a bit arch, and almost immediately can't hold it— “no, Maker, it was. You know, besides everything else, that was a direct order from his lord, and we never...”
Gwenaëlle tries to word it less terribly. Fails: “You don't argue with the knife. Thranduil had it out in Orlais with the Comte.” And he had come back sad and strange and she doesn't like to think about understanding why, so she doesn't, especially not now. He isn't her husband any longer, and her father has been ash for years. The past is the past. “And he didn't try again when my feelings were hurt, so I think you're well in the clear.”
(Shovel talks are for people you see coming.)
no subject
It’s not tipping the building superintendent at Christmas, but it’s also not not that.
Stephen’s still standing with his back to the door, surveying her in this private space. Looking for more of those hairline fractures or signs of distress, the quiet fidgeting. They’re past that particular crucible, he thinks, but it’s still worth saying it aloud, so he reaches out and his fingertips graze Gwenaëlle’s bare wrist, her pulse-point.
“Are you all right?” he asks. “About him being back.”
He’s no longer talking about Guilfoyle. (Once upon a time, Cosima’s quarters upstairs been Tony’s which once had been Thranduil-and-Gwenaëlle’s. Bizarre, to think about now.)
no subject
one soothes more than the other. Gwenaëlle slips her wrist beneath his hand enough that she can press their palms together. Probably he can see the moment where she nearly says of course I'm fine, not because she's thought it through but because she hasn't. He warrants the extra effort, the moment of pause. An answer she's actually given some weight to.
“I was when he was still here,” she says, feeling her way to the edges of how off-balanced she's found herself. “It'd be easier if it were just my ex-husband, you know, and not... I keep reaching for these fragile things,” with a wet laugh, struck by it, tilting her head up half not to let tears surprise her and half not to look at him and find she can't avoid them. “I was so much smaller a part of his life than he was of mine. I was the wife that could be forgotten. The thing I was so fucking afraid of, here it is. And that keeps happening, I have to stop finding new things to be afraid of, I think I just become fearless or something. I think that's—”
She presses her eyes shut, and then her forehead against his shoulder. “And I don't wish I was living a different life. It just, I want this to be real to you.”
Thedas, her. It is so fragile.
no subject
It’s difficult and complicated and so few people have ever been in her exact shoes, with this specific problem.
He can’t even promise it will never happen again. It could so easily happen: the Fade could take him at any moment and he’s met other Stephen Stranges, knows they’re out there walking the multiverse. And he’s been so cagey with telling people about Christine, but Gwenaëlle’s one of the few people who knows, and it does wind up oddly relevant here, another unexpected echo:
“I don’t think I ever mentioned— I once met a Christine in another universe who had never been with me. It’s jarring; they’re both the person you remember and they’re not. I probably did her a disservice by thinking of her as the woman I knew. You have to meet them where they’re at, I think. And in the meantime— whether or not he remembers it, it doesn’t change the fact that it did happen here. It was real. You’re real. You’re what I measure everything else by.”
no subject
but it is exactly, exactly the thing that she needs to hear.
“Then I'm all right,” she decides, letting herself be steadied with next breath and the incredible odds against the fact that they've found one another, maybe the only people who can specifically relate to this narrow experience. The improbability of this very real thing— “About it. I'll be all right.”
no subject
“Good. And you don’t have to be, immediately. You can take your time adjusting to it and finding your equilibrium again. It’s a hell of a thing to get accustomed to.”
🎀
Maybe she'll prod him into regaling her with his jaunts through alternate worlds, or maybe they'll just be companionable; it means so much to her, how instantly he just came when she needed him to. That's something to lean on, now.