Reilanin + Ravindra // Bad At Feelings

[winterwhite]

Who: Reilanin and Ravindra
When: Friday, 12/08
Where: The remains of the house in Stonecaster/Reilanin's office
Before/After: After Bastan is rescued
Warnings: An ocean of icy tears and lots of misunderstanding and yelling and guilty and bitter feelings and some suicidal thoughts. A little emo.



It was late afternoon by the time Ravindra finished putting his ransacked room back together on Friday. The job wasn't even done yet, he'd just put all his clothes away and then gotten everything else off the floor onto the desk. But he was moving at a sloth's pace, too weary to work any faster, and that was all he had the energy for. He'd take care of the rest later.

It was more important that he go visit Reilanin and see how she was holding up.

Even if his armour hadn't been stolen out of his room, he still wouldn't have felt much like wearing it. He didn't want to go to the trouble of putting his berserker armour on, either, so he threw on his street clothes to head out. Clothes that were familiar but not, because he'd gone so long with the replacements he'd had to buy and the spares he kept at Alex's house.

As an afterthought, he grabbed Alex's spear to bring with him. His door was broken. He didn't want to risk losing this, too.

It was easy enough to get a warp out to the Nenakret. Safta's forces had brought warp mages with them, to avoid the problem of having their supply lines cut off, and now those supply lines were being used to aid Bastan's restoration effort. Technically, he probably wasn't supposed to be leaving. He probably was supposed to be reporting to the infirmary and asking where he should go if he wasn't needed there. But he wasn't the only one using the lull to take care of non-military business. Most commanders were turning a blind eye to it, as long as they didn't end up short on people, but there was enough manpower to go around with the other guilds helping out that it wasn't a concern.

From the Nenakret to Stonecaster, and from the warp station to Alex's house, a familiar path that he took without a second thought.

He got a sinking feeling when he turned onto the street the house was on and didn't immediately notice its silhouette past the house next door. He stopped, pressing the heel of his hand over his eye, and considered just turning around now. He couldn't handle any more bad news.

It was thinking of Reilanin that spurred him on. If something had happened to the house, maybe something had happened to her. Something he still had time to fix.

As he approached, it didn't take long for him to realize the house was gone. Dread threaded through the pit of his stomach the closer he got. He didn't want to believe it. He stopped in front of the picket fence, staring at the empty space where the second floor had been.

His breathing so shallow that it was barely there, he pulled open the gate and followed the path across the front yard to stop where the front door should have been. He reached out as if to open it, but of course there wasn't one there, and his fingers hit nothing but open air. His hand drew back, laying over his mouth.

Fighting down a growing sense of panic, he scanned the grounds, as if seeking confirmation that he was in the wrong place, he'd made a mistake, ha ha, this was the empty lot on the next street over, Alex's house was actually over there, perfectly fine.

The pond. No penguin. No duck. The fence, crooked, paint peeling, overgrown with moss and vines. The forest behind the house. The magical hybrid tree in the front yard.

And the house's foundation in between it all, covered in ashes, piled up where the wind had blown them against obstacles.

No.

No, this was home, too. This was somewhere he belonged.

Why was he losing everything suddenly?!

Anger fought with dread. Concern overpowered both of them when he thought of Reilanin getting caught in whatever had done this.

No, he couldn't lose Rei too. He couldn't.

He dropped the spear, fumbling his phone out of his pocket to call her, his hands shaking. He dropped to a crouch, holding the phone to his ear, waiting desperately for her to answer. Standing took too much energy, he didn't have the reserves to dedicate to it in light of this fresh new panic.

It was ringing. That meant--that meant the phone was working, right? So it hadn't been caught in whatever had happened to the house. That meant Reilanin was okay. Right?

Please let her pick up. Please.


Her phone rang.

She looked up from the table in her workroom, the glow in her palms fading as she first identified the sound, then attempted to identify from where it came. Her phone did not ring often. Hardly at all, this last week.

The desk. Abandoning her work for the moment, she walked back to the desk and cleared away papers from its surface. Days and days worth of correspondence and orders lay there, along with many pages of her own writing. She found the phone underneath a cloth of gossamer, where the light of its screen shone through, and she didn't even think to look at the name before she answered it.

"Speaking."

Direct, to the point. If you were looking for Reilanin, you'd found her, cutting out pleasantries, introductions. She was not interested. She looked back to the surface of the desk and moved some of the papers around before picking them up to order them. When had she let the desk get so messy?


Relief flooded him at the sound of her voice. Thank the gods he hadn't lost her too.

"Reilanin." He sounded breathless, overwhelmed, with an urgency to his tone. "Are you all right?"


A long pause followed. It took a moment for her mind to recognize the voice on the other line. It felt as though the connection came from a million miles away, years and years ago, even though it couldn't have been more than two weeks since last she'd seen him.

"Yes," she answered finally, a slightly inquisitive tone to her voice. "I am.

"Are you?"


"I'm fine," he answered automatically, realizing as he said it that he was lying to her. He hurried to correct himself. "Ah, no, not fine, but--"

He cut himself off before he could start rambling, sucking in a deep breath, forcing it out. He swallowed, took another deep breath, slower this time, and tried to find his words. He focused on keeping his breathing even, but every so often realized it was growing shallow again and had to concentrate on it for a moment.

"I heard about Alex." His voice was soft, still a little breathless, but not as urgent or rushed. "I was worried about you. The house--" There was that note of panic rising again. He didn't let himself finish. He buried his hand in the waves of his hair and concentrated on breathing, instead.


She continued to rearrange things on her desk, the phone in the crook of her shoulder and chin. Fine, not fine. She listened, but distantly. The desk was slowly becoming visible under all the paperwork. She felt a spike of annoyance at the idea that the dragons were still gone.

Everything stopped for a moment as he continued, but she kept working as though nothing at all had happened. "Yes, it's been burned down," she said, not sounding particularly interested or concerned, but there was a distant tone to her voice, too, not quite conversational.

A sharp noise in the background- Pendleton. She'd created an artificial pond in the floor of her office. Having it there would keep her from anymore large circle spells, at least. It threw off the balance of the room.


He glanced toward the foundation and the ashes, but quickly looked away, focusing on the path that led up to the door as though the dirt were the only thing around worth looking at. Reilanin, stating the obvious. That was just like her.

There was some comfort to be had in the familiarity of Reilanin being Reilanin, but it annoyed him, too. He'd wanted an answer, not a bland restatement of fact, and he didn't think it required mindreading to assume the question he'd implied. He knew she wasn't doing it on purpose. He knew how literal and factual Reilanin was, that she hadn't thought to volunteer an answer because she hadn't realized there was a question.

Usually, he could remind himself of these things and let his annoyance slide. Right now, he was upset enough to find it difficult, but he tried. He bit back the nasty Yes I noticed that wanted to come out, and replaced it with, "I know, I'm there now. What happened?"


"Ah," she said, picking up the cloth and carefully folding it into a square as she spoke, "I burned it to the ground."

A simple statement, without any sign of hesitation or remorse.


He went still. Even his breathing stopped, the attempts to control it forgotten.

Something poisonous began to bubble up inside of him, through the insulating flood of worry. He swallowed it down, resuming his breathing. "What?" came out, just sharp enough to have an edge. "Why?"

A reason, there had to be a reason. All of Alex's things--the things Ravi had kept there--a good reason, to have destroyed all of that. She'd tell him why and he'd be glad he'd kept his reaction under control because it would be a reason even his anger couldn't question.


"It was too quiet."

Simple, matter-of-fact... hardly satisfying.

"Mm... it was too quiet by myself."


"It was too quiet?" It came out loud, forceful, and sharp, disbelieving and angry both at once. That was not a good reason. No, that was--that was not a good reason at all, not good enough, not to take something like this away from him.

His hand dropped, wrapping around the spear, using it to help push himself back to his feet. He forgot about his breathing, but it wasn't the shallow panic it had been, instead growing heavy and furious. "Did you at least save my things before you burned our house down?" he demanded. The 'our' was very much intended to have an impact, though he did it subconsciously.


"I left for a little bit. I came back. It was too quiet without Alexander."

It was deeper than that, but as far as she was aware, that was the reason. As far as she wanted to be aware, that was the reason.

Her voice gave no indication she noticed his anger, or that she had any remorse for what she had done, though again it was factual, without any joy or pride in her words either. "No, I didn't save anything." The footstool saved itself, so that didn't count.


It was too quiet without Alexander.
She didn't save anything.

Without Alexander.

Hadn't even considered him enough to save his things, much less to allow him the chance to save what he wanted of Alex's.

His hands were shaking again, but this time it was not with worry. "You--" He turned away from the house, glaring down at the street, holding himself up against the spear. "It wasn't enough for me to lose Alex, you had to take that home from me, too?" he shouted into the phone.

It felt a little ridiculous, to be standing alone in the empty property, yelling at someone who wasn't there. He glanced up toward the neighbouring houses, feeling self-conscious and angrier for it because he shouldn't feel like he was being judged for expressing a perfectly justified outrage. Still, his voice lowered when he continued, still heated, but at a normal volume. Bitter and resentful, he told her, "It's good to know how much I matter to you."


She held the phone from her ear, staring at it as he yelled. Part of her considered simply turning the phone off. Another part of her wanted to hear his voice, no matter how angry he was.

She remained silent, not quite able to understand what it was he was asking her. Tentatively, she put the phone back to her ear.

As much as she wanted to hear his voice, she didn't want to have this kind of conversation. Reilanin hadn't thought much on Ravindra this past week. She hadn't thought of much of anyone, but especially Ravindra. Ravindra reminded her of Alexander.

She didn't want to be reminded of Alexander.

"Bastan?" she asked, out of the blue.


"Bastan is a place," he shot back, without missing a beat, turning toward the woods behind the house as though he might be able to see her to yell at her properly if he were only facing the right direction. Of course, she wasn't there. But he did put the spear over his shoulder and stalk past the burnt-out foundation toward the trees. "It doesn't care about me. It doesn't need me--I thought you did, but I guess I was wrong about that."


"The house was only a place."

There was no accusation, but a tentative confusion.

"The house did not care if you were there. Or if I were there. Or-" She cut off, too soon, and then continued as though she hadn't stopped, "or that Alexander was not there.

"So I did not care about the house."


He didn't like her turning it back around on him; it just made him angrier to have it pointed out. He didn't care about the house as a structure on its own. He cared about what the house meant, about the symbolism of it, that it was somewhere he could go and belong in and be welcomed. But all of that was very complicated to express, and Ravindra had never been good at that.

Instead of trying to explain, he shifted to a different blame. "You didn't even give me the chance to keep anything of Alex's."


Unfortunately, an explanation was what Reilanin needed most. Leaving her with none left only confusion to linger and no means to sort out- or the idea that it was something she ought to sort out- the situation.

"Ah... if you would like to keep some of his ashes...?"


The offer was sudden. He stopped, as though a wall had sprung up in his path.

"Yes," he said, his voice choked with emotion, the anger having ebbed away to make room for a resurgence of grief. He sniffed, glancing at the empty pond beside him.

The undead fish, bones at the bottom of it. Pendleton. The ducks, and then just the one duck. Memories attached to all of them. Gone now. Empty.

He moved to the edge of the pond, sitting on the rocks, holding the spear across his knees. "Yes," he repeated, letting go of the spear and reaching up to wipe his eyes. He hated crying, and he felt ridiculous to be doing it here. "But I wanted something of his, too. And..." He took a deep shuddering breath, trying to compose himself. It lasted maybe five words. "My things were in that house too, Reilanin. You destroyed all that--you didn't stop to think I'd want them back?"

"No."

She hadn't thought for a moment about it, about anyone outside of herself. Even now the attempt was tentative. It had been a week ago, and no one had questioned her about it. Perhaps she had tricked herself into thinking no one ever would.

Reilanin looked to the shelf where the new urn rested, more appropriate for holding something as fine as ashes. If she gave him some... hm, that would be less for her to use, if she ever decided to try using them... but he was right, and had as much claim to part of them as she did. She just didn't understand what he would do with them.

"Why would you want something of his?"


Ah, just like that--No, she hadn't thought of him; no, he wasn't important enough to be considered; no, she didn't care enough about him to save anything he owned. All that had mattered to her was that Alex wasn't there and the house was too quiet without him. She didn't care about anything else. She'd never cared about Ravindra at all, had she? She must have been lying to make him feel better, that night by the pond, even though she'd said she didn't understand why you'd be kind to someone you didn't like.

Well, she hadn't been very kind about this, so maybe it fit.

She couldn't see him crying, and if he tried to stop himself, she'd hear it, so he just let himself cry. Maybe she'd still be able to hear it in the thickness of his voice and the occasional sniffle, but that was better than sobbing over the phone. He felt weak and childish, and self-conscious because the neighbours were probably at home and would be able to see him sitting beside the empty pond behind the burnt-out house, and they'd be able to tell, even if they weren't close enough to actually see. He kept wiping his face on his sleeve, trying to keep it dry, but it was a futile effort.

"To keep it," he told her. "To have it. Ah..." He didn't know how to explain it. Wasn't sure he wanted to. Would she even care about the explanation? "It doesn't matter anymore, anyway. Chisaki gave me his spear, but that's...he never used them around me, it doesn't mean as much. I wanted something that--that felt like his."


In between their words all that could be heard on her end was the sound of rustling paper and objects shifting place, as she set about organizing her space. She must have lost track of things while she worked, to let them pile so high...

"Do you know how to use a spear?" she asked, tone verging on curious again. "Otherwise, I don't know if there would have been anything useful of his to take with you," she added, clearly missing the point.


She didn't understand. He couldn't explain it well enough to make her understand. She was just trying to convince him of why it shouldn't matter, she wasn't actually listening. It wasn't worth the effort anymore.

"Never mind, Reilanin," he muttered, sounding petulant, but that didn't matter anymore either. He curled up with his knees to his chest, the spear set aside for the moment, making himself small to reflect how small he felt. "You don't care, anyway."

He'd wanted something of Alex's that he could make his own while always associating it with Alex. The mug, or a few of his shirts. He even planned on learning how to use a spear, especially now that it was the only option he had with nothing else of Alex's remaining to choose from.

Ah--the mug. His own, with the cat painted on the side. He'd considered it a sign of his belonging in the home. Fitting, then, for it to have been destroyed along with it. That was a bitter thought that made him feel no better.


A soft sigh escaped her. "I don't understand."

She didn't understand, and he would not explain it, and Nova was not there to chide her, and Alexander was not there to intercede. She pressed on anyway, "I don't understand why you would want something that would remind you of him. But if you do want some of the ashes, you need only come to the Nenakret."

She looked at her desk, pleased with the outcome.

"Or, if you would prefer, I could come to Bastan. That should be all right, unless... no, it should be fine. It is your decision."


"You don't care," he corrected. "You don't care about me at all, I didn't even matter to you." It was miserable and self-pitying, but he couldn't make her understand why he was upset, so the best he could do was just be upset at her.

At the same time, he didn't want to turn her away. He didn't even want to hang up the phone and plunge himself into solitude and silence. Her voice on the other side was evidence that she cared at least enough to humour him, which was better than nothing.

Really, what he wanted was for her to care enough to come out here and console him, but to do it without him having to ask or tell her he wanted it. He'd said where he was and it was obvious that he was upset, she only needed to step through a portal to see him. And if she wouldn't, then it was just more evidence that she didn't care about him.


"I don't understand," she reiterated, more confused by the moment. "None of what you've said has made sense to me. What aren't I understanding? Are you coming or do you want me to meet you in Bastan?"

She had no intention of leaving the office if he didn't make the request for her to meet him, and she had absolutely no intention of returning to the house, though she wasn't aware of that unless it were to come up. So she stood, increasingly frustrated, not knowing what it was she was supposed to be doing.


The directness of the question forced him to give in and answer it, instead of letting the desire go unsaid. "Come here," he said, a mumble muffled by his arm as he wiped his face on his sleeve again. "I told you where I am."


There was a long pause, a long silence, before she asked, "to the house?"

And then, sharply, smothering the panic that had manifested in the question, "no. Bastan or the Library. I won't go there."


"You destroyed a place I called home and all the things I kept there and now you're going to make me leave to see you, too?" His tone made it obvious that he just thought that was evidence that he was right: she didn't care.


"A home- how could it still be a home?" Unable to contain herself, there was a note of anger in her words. "Would it be a home if it stood still and I were not there? And you- what would you have done? Back and forth, as always- would you leave me alone in that house? I could not- I will not- I will not go back there. I will not be left alone again."

She was upset. She didn't know why she was upset. Thinking about the house did it- thinking about Ravindra did it.

"If you don't want the ashes, that's fine. If you do, they'll be here. But don't ask me that again."


"You didn't give me the chance to leave it properly!" he shouted back, allowing her anger to rile him. "If you didn't want to stay there anymore, fine, but destroying it wasn't your choice to make alone!"


"I made it alone because I was alone," she said, her voice soft again. She didn't like to think about it. After Afera- after this- "I... I didn't know what else to do.
"...it hurt. I just wanted it to stop hurting."


He wasn't in the right emotional state for her response to elicit sympathy, but there was something in the back of his mind that reined him in. It reminded him that Reilanin was one of the people he'd survived for, and that he cared about her, loved her, even, the same way he loved Iravati.

He breathed deep, uncurling from the ball he'd huddled into. He wanted to keep shouting, to just yell at her until she understood or apologized or something, but making Iravati feel worse never made him feel better--the same would be true of Reilanin. "You hurt me instead, Reilanin," he said, his voice also softened, but still with an edge to it. "Do you understand that?"


Was it sympathy she was looking for? She didn't know. She wasn't aware of what she wanted, or needed, out of this situation. She had never encountered anything like it, a total absence of another in the face of some great hurt or fear. There was no Sascha, no Alexander, no Nova or Ravindra. And now that there was Ravindra, he was only angry with her, and she could not understand why.

"No," she said. No, she didn't understand. She didn't understand why someone would want a place that had only painful things in it, that had only mocking silence and useless things. She didn't understand why he wanted that. She didn't even think of it as doing him a favour- it simply seemed common sense. Why dwell in or on something that brought only pain? "No, I don't."


Alex had called him selfish? Beaten him and nearly cut him out of their lives over it? And Reilanin--not one harsh word, when she was so selfish she'd been able to do something like this? Would Alex even have been angry with her if he were here? Or would he have taken her side and been angry with Ravi for yelling at her over it?

Both of them had told him he was welcome and wanted, that he was just as important to them as they were to each other. But Alex hadn't even been willing to kick Reilanin out of the bedroom so they could use it, and now Reilanin was acting as if he hadn't even existed, as though she couldn't have sent him a text or an e-mail or tried to call just to feel less alone. She'd said outright that she hadn't thought of him.

Maybe he'd never been that important to either of them after all. Maybe he'd just been fooling himself this whole time, so desperate for someplace to belong that he'd ignored the obvious.

He'd stopped crying, and now there was only a dull sort of hurt constricting his heart. It was bitter, and he was angry with himself for letting himself be fooled. "I thought we were a family, Reilanin," he mumbled, staring down at the pond's murky depths. There was a note of accusation to it. "The house--that was what it meant, to me. And you didn't even warn me or ask before you decided to take it away from me."

It sounded stupid and just confirmed why he hadn't wanted to bother trying to explain it to her. He couldn't get the words right.


"But... I'm here. I'm still here."

Confused, she couldn't stop being confused. The house- what did the house mean- nothing! Nothing, it was just a hollow reminder of what she had lost, it was no better than Alexander's lifeless body, reminding her of everything that had been and never would be again, and she hated it, she hated it, more than Jordan, more than Alexander leaving her, she hated that house.

"Please come. Please come to the Library. I can't go back. Ravindra- Ravindra, please, I can't go back there." Selfish, yes, she was selfish, though she didn't understand why it was bad. Ravindra was selfish too, wasn't he? He had gone to fight for people that were not family, for a place that was not home- or for people who were family, and a place he also considered home- and she didn't know if she faulted him for that or not, because she had liked Bastan, and she had liked Iravati.

But he had been gone, and there had been no one to check on her since Alexander had died, and she had been alone without thinking about what had happened because she was terrified of it. So she repeated herself with the words she thought might help make him understand her, because she didn't understand herself what was going on.

"Please. Please, please."


"Stop." It wasn't harsh, sharp, mean, or even slightly edged. It was guilty and a little sad. She was upset, as hysterical as he'd ever heard Reilanin be, and it hurt to hear her like that.

He glanced up, looking forlornly toward the place where the house had stood. The signs of the life he'd lived with Reilanin and Alex, everything he'd considered a part of it except for Reilanin and himself, gone. Ravindra was somebody who focused on material things and the meaning they contained beyond themselves, so having the house taken from him without the chance to say good-bye to the life it symbolized was just as devastating to him as losing Alex.

But that was something he himself didn't even understand in coherent words, much less was he able to explain it to her.

What he did understand was that it was petty to force her to come here when the thought upset her so badly just because he wanted her to confront what she'd done.

"I'll come to the library," he said softly, turning back down to the pond.


"Thank you."

It wasn't quite a sob. She wasn't sure what it was she was feeling, she wasn't quite able to contain how upset she was, that clenching, painful feeling in her chest. But it came out with such a mixture of relief and pain that it may as well have been a sob. "Thank you."

She didn't cry. She couldn't. Or, she didn't think she should. She fell silent, still holding the phone. She couldn't understand how he felt. She couldn't even begin to until she saw him.

"I'll find something. I'll get something- I have containers. Urns, and flasks. Boxes. You can pick whichever you like. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I don't understand. Thank you."


His heart twisted painfully at the sound. Guilt gnawed at him, knowing he'd put her in that state by wanting to upset her in return for how she'd hurt him.

Maybe he was being the selfish one here after all. He couldn't tell. He could never tell. Where was the line? They both had something they wanted, completely opposite things, either side of the divide would've ended with one of them hurting. So he couldn't tell. Was he being selfish? Was she? Who was right?

"I--" I'm sorry. He didn't want to say it. Or maybe he wasn't ready to say it. He was still angry with her, and he felt all the worse for that in light of this. "Don't worry about it until I'm there," he told her, instead. "We'll figure it out together."

Like they should have figured out together what to do about the house...

The bitterness that rose up at the thought made it clear to him that he could not handle seeing Reilanin just yet. "I'll come later," he told her, keeping it out of his voice. "Today, though."


"Yes," she answered, anxiously. "Later. Today. That's fine. I'll be here." She hadn't left in nearly a week. Once to get some binding powder. Her office, though ordered, was still crowded, as she completed requests faster than they could be picked up, whether by Upas or by any other person seeking her work.

There was silence on her end, silence because she did not breathe, even now, simply holding the phone, wondering what to do now. "Later," she repeated. "I'll see you later."


"See you later," he echoed, and after a couple seconds, pulled the phone away from his ear to hang up. He looked down at it, watching until the screen went black, and then set it aside on the rocks.

It was hours later that he finally made his way to the Nenakret. He'd spent some time in contemplative silence by the pond, and some time digging through the ashes for anything that remained, and some time digging through the basement which hadn't been touched by the flames. He'd never spent much time in the basement, though, and it was only filled with the unfamiliar or impersonal things that had been stored there. There really was nothing left for him.

But he'd needed the time to look. He'd needed the time to sift through the ashes and remember, and say good-bye to what the house had been. Even if it was upsetting, even if it hurt, he needed it, and he was better off for having taken the time to do it before seeing Reilanin in person.

It was growing dark by the time he arrived at the World Library. He'd stopped to pick up something to eat on the way, half because he was hungry and half as an apology of sorts for Reilanin. When he knocked on the door to her office, he was carrying Alex's spear and a paper bag with the name of a French bakery printed across it.


The door opened, though not with her behind it. She was rising from the desk, from behind piles of paper. "May I help you?" she asked, her voice calm again, collected again.

She saw him as she looked up, and for a moment stood still. Then she stepped back from the desk to come around it.

The room was much more cluttered than he would have ever seen it. Maybe not cluttered- but more full, certainly. She had been busy, and the room was cold despite her constant activity. It seemed a little mad in a way, the impression of nonstop work, of slowly being buried beneath it, and the way she moved around it to get to him suggested she didn't see it at all.

She stopped, some distance from him. Partly she looked as she always did- calm, meticulously neat and tidy, her expression neutral. But there was a flicker in her face, something in her eyes as she took him in, that seemed disturbed and shy, like an uncertain animal.

Later. He'd said later? How much time had passed?... She stared at him, as though she had no idea what to do with him now that he was there. Her feet would move her no closer to him.


He moved cautiously into the doorway as the door opened, scanning the room for her. He didn't answer her question, because she recognized him shortly after asking it. He stepped inside, setting the spear against the wall, and eased the door shut behind him for privacy.

The room was cluttered, but at least it hadn't been ransacked. She'd been keeping herself distracted, he assumed. That was okay. It didn't worry him to see it. He understood that need to desperately keep yourself from thinking, and Reilanin didn't sleep, so there wasn't much else for her to do but work.

He looked back at her, his expression many things but none of them harsh. Mostly guilty and apologetic, with an undercurrent of sympathy and understanding. He'd given himself enough time to realize she'd never had to deal with the death of someone she cared about. She was too young and new to know what grieving was. It wasn't that she didn't care about him--she just didn't know how to cope, and didn't know how to factor others into her coping.

It still hurt. But it had been ignorant, not malicious. He was in a better place now to try to explain himself.

He found the nearest available surface to set the bag down, and then turned to her, holding his arms open in invitation for a hug. She would've seen the gesture from him enough times to know what it meant.


She watched him, still poised as though to run, though towards him or away was hard to say. She watched his every movement without moving herself, saw him set the spear aside, put the bag down, and return his attention to her.

He didn't say anything. Just held his arms out to her. She knew what that meant, but she didn't know if she wanted it. Didn't know if she trusted it. She looked at Ravindra and saw him as she'd known him, but there was a new, terrible factor involved.

He could die, too. She could hold on to him, and have to let go, now or later. She hadn't really understood that, speaking with Alexander. She understood it now.

She stepped forward, slowly, picking her way through the room, her expression hard to read. She wrapped her arms around him, automatically resting her head on his shoulder, cold and small and unmoving once she had her hands settled against his back.

"...it hurts," she said, eyes shut. He was warm. Maybe hot, but not like Alexander had been. Alexander had burned.


Sometimes he forgot just how cold Reilanin was. He wasn't prepared for it, but didn't let that force him away from her. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and held her close, tight but not too tight. He rested his head against hers, his own eyes also closed. He ignored the cold seeping in.

"I know," he said, just that, that was all that needed to be said. He'd lost enough people in his life to know how much it hurt, and it never didn't hurt, you just got more used to the way it hurt.


"I want it to stop."

She tried to take hold of that heat again, tried to get that feeling back, but it was just out of reach, taunting her. She missed it. She wanted it again. She didn't want it. It was why she'd burnt the house down, to forget it, to get rid of it, but the pain lingered, the loneliness lingered, and even Ravindra could not get rid of it, because he was tainted and doomed to die long before her.

Alex was supposed to be there with her through that. Alex was supposed to live a long time with her. Now she would just live a long time alone.

"I want to stop feeling it. I thought the house... the work... I wanted to get rid of it... but it won't go."


He tucked her head into the crook of his neck and brought one hand up to stroke her hair. It was like holding onto cold iron, but he would hold her until it became painful. Comforting her was more important to him than the cold.

"You can't make it stop hurting," he told her, his words gentle despite the news they delivered. "But you can get used to the way it hurts, so it's not as sharp."


"I even killed her and it didn't change anything," Reilanin said, muffled into his shoulder. "I killed her and it didn't mean anything anymore."

Why, why had Alexander gone without saying anything? She'd never understand that. She'd never want to, even if, with a bit of thought, she could probably get the answer. She didn't want the answer. She had been too late. That was all the answer she needed.

"I'm sorry. I tried. He didn't say anything. I couldn't stop him. I tried to bring him back, but it was too late." Ah, part of it had to be her fault. She couldn't possibly feel this way if there weren't some blame involved. It was almost comforting to think that. "If I'd been home, maybe I could have stopped him- maybe I could have killed her sooner."

She didn't want to cry. Her voice remained muffled, but it shook now. Crying- she didn't want any more of that. She was so tired of it.


His hand settled on the back of her neck, and his hold on her tightened, just slightly. It broke his heart to listen to her blame herself--and he knew the feeling well enough to recognize it for what it was.

'Don't blame yourself' sounded trite, but he wasn't sure what else to say. He had to give himself a moment to consider. Reilanin wouldn't accept reassurances. She needed facts, explanations--she needed to understand. That was just the kind of person she was.

Alex's loathing of Jordan was no secret, and the situation between them was intensely personal. If Ravindra were going to confront Heimdall face-to-face, he wouldn't have wanted anyone else there to hear what they had to say to each other.

He could guess that Alex hadn't intended to let Jordan walk away from their confrontation, and that the reverse was probably true as well. It would've been smart to bring Reilanin as backup. It also would've put her in the same danger, but he didn't think that had been Alex's concern at the time.

"He wanted to face her alone," he told Reilanin. He understood the reason, but didn't quite know how to put it in words. "You couldn't have stopped him. He..."

Their last conversation, the phone call before the Mazda and Spenta's forces had moved in. The strange, unsettling forcefulness when Alex had talked about his player.

If I found her dying, I wouldn't save her.

Without giving me the chance to meet her. Good thing you don't know.

His arms tightened another degree. For himself, this time. That had been the point in the conversation when he realized that nothing he could say would be the right thing, and that it was best to just disengage and let the storm play out with as little input from himself as possible. It'd turned out fine then, with Alex backing off as soon as he disengaged, but it was still uncomfortable to remember, for reasons that ran deeper than he was able to place.

"He wanted to kill her himself," he said, his voice soft, but not uncertain. "If you did it before he could, he would've been angry." Angry enough to become violent? It was easy to tell himself it was a line Alex wouldn't have crossed, not with Reilanin. It wasn't as easy to believe it. "He didn't tell you because he didn't want you to have the chance to get to her first."


Did that make sense to her? She wasn't sure. She couldn't understand that level of hatred. For a brief moment, perhaps, she had felt it, but it had been over quickly. She had been so numbed by Alexander's death, she hadn't even been able to make Jordan suffer as she'd meant to. It had happened too fast, and there had been no way to take it back and do it over.

"But... I don't understand. Why was I there?"
Her fingers clutched at his shirt at his back, her arms tight around him. "From the very beginning, I was there to protect him. I promised him- I promised."

She was too tired to reason. Reilanin stopped there, leaning against him, feeling every part of her as too heavy. What did it matter, in the end? Alexander was dead. Ravindra would die. She would, too, in her own way. Why and how didn't really matter, did they? The need to answer these questions, and so many others, had faded. A dulled sense of apathy settled inside of her. She had not been prepared for a world without Alexander.


He supported her as she leaned, none of her too heavy for him to hold up. He stroked her hair again, soothing.

The answer to her question was simple. "You were there because you wanted to be."


To that, she remained silent. It was true. It had taken her some time to realize it, but it was where she'd wanted to be. And it had been important because she'd never wanted anything before. And it was hard to imagine ever wanting anything else. Her silence was a kind of acknowledgement, but nothing more. To think on it any deeper was terrifying.

"...what now?" she asked finally, defeated.


Her silence didn't bother him. He didn't take it as a sign that she was ignoring him, and it didn't make him feel like he'd said the wrong thing. It felt like she'd fallen silent simply because she had nothing to say, and that was all right.

The answer to her next question wasn't nearly as simple. 'What now' was something everyone had to figure out for themselves. He couldn't tell her where to go from here. He had to think about it for a minute, because all he had was 'I don't know' and 'That's up to you.'

He didn't even know how to answer it for himself. Alex had been important to him, but not so important that losing him was life-altering. Reclaiming Bastan had a more significant impact on his circumstances than losing Alex did. The same wasn't true for Reilanin. He couldn't come at her question from his own angle.

Instead, he tried to think of something that had the same impact on him. She'd lost a home. Not the house's physical shell, that was just the same as burning a corpse; the home was the soul within it, the personality that she and Alex and Ravindra together had given the place, and that had died along with Alex, leaving the house empty.

When he'd lost Bastan, there was the chance of reclaiming it. That didn't exist here. There was no goal to strive for. But there was still an answer in there, because he knew what his options for 'what now' would have been if Bastan had been lost just as permanently as Reilanin's sense of home was.

"Keep going," he said, "or stop."


A simple-sounding answer, but one she had been avoiding coming to. Keep going or stop. She wanted both. She didn't want either. She didn't understand the concept of suicide, and so had no choice but to keep going. But at the same time, part of her knew the idea, and desired nothing more than to simply 'stop'. But how?...

Frustration welled up in her again, but she had no strength to fight it. Instead she gave in to the last thing she'd wanted, and began to cry, a whimper followed by a sob before the tears came, as though he had said the most awful thing he possibly could have. But she clung to him all the same.


Ravindra understood that desire to stop. Permanently, or temporarily, he'd felt both. He'd resolved never to stop permanently himself, but he wouldn't hold it against anyone who did. It was still a relief to think that Reilanin liked living too much to accept that option.

But sometimes you just needed to stop temporarily to give yourself the time to settle. Sleep, for him. When his depression was bad, he could go days without getting out of bed unless something forced him to. Reilanin didn't sleep, her unconsciousness was different, he didn't know if it would do the same for her.

He had time to think of something to suggest. He didn't need to give her a solution right now. He was stuck here for the night, thanks to the curfew, so there was plenty of time to figure it out.

For now, all he needed to do was hold her and let her cry until she was done.


She cried, and hard, the messy tears of a child, but cold, like ice water seeping through his clothes onto his shoulder. At first she didn't even think to restrain herself, and when finally she did, it was a slow and difficult process.

She did not want to be human. She did not want to carry their feelings or their attachments. She did not want this pain ever again- she wished she could take back every step towards humanity she had ever made.

Stop. She wanted to stop. She pulled away from Ravindra, disentangling her arms from around him, looking tired, looking dazed, unable to bring her eyes up. The static tang of magic settle in the air. She sniffed. Her tears seemed thick, but only because they threatened to freeze on her face. Keep going. Towards what? She had no other investments save her work, and it did not appeal to her. There was no meaning to the work.
"What will you do?"


Holding Reilanin while she cried was not as easy as it had seemed. By the time she finally pulled away, he was freezing. He folded his arms over his chest in an effort to keep his heat in, and though he wasn't shivering, his whole body was tense as a precursor to it.

Could he ask her to warm him up with some magic? Was that inappropriate at a time like this? Fuck, he didn't know.

"Tonight, I'll stay here," he answered her. He glanced toward the artificial pond and Pendleton, before looking back to Reilanin. "Tomorrow, I don't know. It's easier not to think that far ahead."


She nodded vaguely, partially distracted by some thought or other. Thinking ahead had never been her strong point to begin with. A vague answer wasn't any better or worse than an exact one. The idea of finding some new purpose to her life didn't occur to her. Keep going or stop. That was it.

"There's a cot... Alexander used it when he was here," she said distantly, looking around the room as though trying to find it. Her stomach hurt. She didn't want to find it, but there it was, under some crates and several articles of clothing, all of which she moved with a wave of her hand and careful guidance to the floor beside it. The last of it put aside, she snapped the sheets clean and smoothed them out. She stared at the bed a moment, then turned back to Ravindra.

"Ah... and a box... or a jar... did you want to pick one now...?"


He'd finally earned back his bed after weeks of sleeping on a cot, and here he was again. The thought got a wry smile out of him, but it was a very brief flicker. The mention of Alex sleeping there brought on an ache in his chest as his mind went automatically to the image of Alex sprawled out on the cot, his limbs haphazardly thrown about him. It was easy to picture, even having never seen it.

Never would see it.

It took him a second to realize what she meant, with the box or jar. He let out a short sigh, his eyes on the floor. Alex's ashes. All they had left, the ashes and the spear. He still didn't even know how to explain to Reilanin that he'd wanted something mundane to remember Alex by.

He didn't want to think about that right now. They had all night. He'd rather just spend the time with Reilanin, the same way they'd spent time together in the house. He wanted that small slice of familiarity. Of family.

"Later." He reached out to pick up the bag he'd brought with him, and fished out the frosted apple and cinnamon pastry he'd bought for Reilanin. He held it out toward her. "Let's just be us, for now."


It seemed a little cruel, to have that requested of her. Who she was- who he knew her to be- that was the last person she wanted to be, a mess of missing context and terrible echoes of feelings. She stared at the food he offered and felt no curiousity, no excitement for it. She didn't need it. She didn't want it. She wasn't hungry.

"Okay," she said, the word difficult to force through her throat. She would do it. Because it was Ravindra, she would do it. She would stay that person, for a little bit longer. It was a tenuous link at best, but it was all she had to keep her going. She did not look at all happy or pleased, but she sat on the cot and ate.


He could tell she wasn't happy, but he didn't quite know what to do about it. He sat with her, taking out the mixed-berry tart he'd bought for himself, and set the bag on the floor between them while he ate. There was more in there; he'd bought two for each of them, both of hers different varieties of apple pastries.

What he'd meant was to be themselves, instead of people who missed Alex. He was exhausted of missing Alex, and just wanted a break from it for a while, as much as he could manage.

Not that he thought of it in such terms, but maybe Reilanin needed someone to show her that was possible. That your own life could continue, that you still had a self separate from what you'd lost.

"Have you tried knitting lately?" he asked her, an easy subject to bring up, something they'd shared which had no connotations of Alexander. He could see easily enough that she'd been spending all her recent time on her enchantment business, but there was plenty of time in between the last time he'd seen her and Alex's death.


Knitting? It hadn't even entered her mind as something to do. "No," she said slowly, lowering the pastry to her lap and picking at it. "I lost all of my things." The needles, the yarn. She supposed she could go out and get more, but she had no desire to leave the office just yet. There was a kind of insulation here, a safety she was loathe to leave. "Have you?"


That was a feeling Ravi also understood, the insulation of your own space. But he'd lost that, too. His room in Bastan, raided; Alex's house, gone; his room at AGHQ too unfamiliar to be a comfort.

"No, I haven't had the time. And my knitting things were..." In Bastan. Or in Alex's house. His eyes narrowed at the floor, his mouth set in a hard line. The ones in Bastan hadn't been taken, thankfully, but Alex's house was where he'd been keeping most of the things he'd bought to replace them. "Unavailable," he finished finally, looking up, glancing toward her.

She'd burned hers along with his. She hadn't saved anything, she'd said. "I can give you some replacements, if you like." It'd give her something to do that wasn't work.


She didn't look up at him again, her eyes sightlessly pointed to the pastry in her lap. Knitting. Why knit? To what end? At least work was productive, useful, something she could immerse herself in and see results with quickly. Taking pleasure in anything seemed impossible.

She didn't know how to answer. She didn't want to. It was a struggle not to outright say it, because she had been told to be conscientious of others. She had to be that way for Ravindra. "Yes, please." It felt like choking. "There's no rush. I've still a bit of work to do."


She needed something to focus on besides work, he thought. Something that meant something, instead of just being busywork to distract herself with.

He and Alex had been the most important people in her life. Without Alex, it was just him.

"I'd like it if you knit something for me," he said, his tone warm. He almost felt bad for asking, but he reminded himself that he wasn't actually asking for his own sake. He was trying to give her something to invest herself in.


Not realizing why he was steering her in this direction but going along with it, grasping at it tightly, she nodded without much thought, because to think about it only brought panic. She didn't want to, she didn't want to do it, she didn't want to knit, she didn't want to eat, she didn't want to work, she wanted to stop, she wanted everything to stop-

"Like what? I can only knit lines..."


"A scarf?" he suggested. It wasn't the weather for scarves, but it was within the scope of her ability without being an overwhelmingly sized project. "Lines are all you need for that."


"A scarf..." She could do that, yes. She opened her mouth to say something more, only to realize she did not want to say it. Is that enough? No, that was not a question she would ask anyone ever again. "Yes, I can do a scarf. Choose the colour and I will do that for you."


"White," he said, which was not an arbitrary choice, though it came out quickly enough that it may have seemed such. White was a cold colour, like snow, and the same colour as Reilanin's hair. He associated it with her. So he wanted something from her that intrinsically reminded him of her.


White. She would have to be very careful with it, then. Everything got on white.

She nodded again, picking at the pastry and ripping another piece off to pop into her mouth, chewing mechanically.

"...I burned my book, too," she said after a moment, completely unrelated, just as miserable.


He was still freezing, only barely starting to warm up now, but he nonetheless set an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him. Part of him wanted to feel petty about that, vindicated that she was finally realizing she'd destroyed her own things and regretting it, but he shoved that part of his mind back. He cared about Reilanin too much to give it a voice.

But he couldn't think of anything to say that didn't sound like it was throwing her actions back in her face. Maybe he was still too bitter to address it with her.


Used to Alexander not worrying about how cold she was, she didn't even think to refuse the touch for Ravi's sake. Also the fact she was partly in this position because of what amounted to an uncontrolled temper tantrum did not quite occur to her, either. But expression was not her strong point, and without guidance it could only manifest in destruction.

She had nothing more to say, nothing more to do. She had no energy for it, though she couldn't quite say she was tired. She looked up to him, hesitant.

"...Ravindra... is it all right... is it all right if I stop for a little while?" She sounded guilty, approaching hopeful. It was the most colour she'd had in her voice all day.


It was heartbreaking; he was relieved not to have to tell her no. "Yes," he said, giving her shoulders a squeeze, laying his head against hers. "Sometimes it's too much to keep going, so you stop for a while to rest from it so you can keep going after."


She didn't want to keep going. She didn't want rest- she wanted things to simply end. Going on frightened her. Unable to imagine further than a few days ahead, she could not see, could not understand the possibility of things changing for the better.

But there was nothing she could do while Ravindra was there. He was a link to the world she could not willingly sever.

"Will you wake me up before you leave?"


He was glad for that. He knew how it was to have that one person--just one--that kept you going even when you didn't want to. That kind of responsibility was a heavy burden to place on someone, but Reilanin was one of the people he'd kept alive for. He would gladly shoulder the burden of being the one to keep her going.

He didn't have the feeling defined. It was simply a vague sense that she needed him around in order to remember that she wasn't alone, and that there was still someone who cared about her. It couldn't have put it into words if he tried. But he didn't need to to act on it.

"Yes," he promised. "And I'll call you tomorrow night, too. Is that all right?" Every night. To give her a voice to hear.


"Yes. Yes, that's all right."

It wasn't quite relief that came with those words, but an acceptance all the same that felt something like it. She put the pastry down- maybe later she would eat the rest and hesitated, looking at him, looking at the cot. Suddenly, she realized she didn't know how to proceed. Alexander had always slept between them because Ravindra had never been quite comfortable sleeping next to her, though she'd never really processed the reasons.

Her expression shifted, confused and lost and suddenly very upset, as though she might cry again.


He had no idea what was wrong this time. She was just suddenly upset and he couldn't discern a cause. His own expression shifted to concern, confusion, distress. He had to make it better and he didn't know how.

At a loss for any other course of action, he asked her, "What's wrong?"


A breath in- one of few she had taken since he had arrived- to try and calm herself, though it did nothing, her mind racing to try and explain herself, the reason not immediately there.

"I don't- I don't understand, I don't know h-how- I don't know wh-what to do, he's not... he's not there. I don't know what to do. He's not there."

Panic made her voice high, threatening wildness. Her calm dissolved into fresh grief.

"I can't if he's not here!" she exclaimed, turned and twisted so that she could press both hands to the mattress, staring at it as her fingers dug into the material. "He's s-supposed to b-be he-here," she stuttered before she began to wail again, the realization new all over again. She hit the mattress. "Th-there's supposed to- to be- to be three of us-!"


He drew back instinctively, wincing at the sudden breakdown. Shouldn't have asked. Or should have asked? It was probably better for her to let her feelings out than suppress and ignore them, but he felt ill-equipped for handling them.

Part of him wanted to walk out and bar the door and wait out her tantrum.

It was a very small and frightened part of him, easily overridden by his sense of concern.

He grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her against his chest, holding her tightly even though it was frigid all over again when he'd only just started warming up. He was panicked enough not to care at the moment. "Shh, Reilanin." His voice was soft but urgent, an attempt to keep her grounded in the sound of it rather than to comfort her with the words. "I know. I know it's hard, but you can, even if it's just two of us, alright?"


"You don't like it," she sobbed, not accusatory, but to make him understand why this was important. "So you can sleep- he has to- t-to be between us. He's s-supposed... to be..."

No more words would leave her, all of it lost in another cry that she could do no more than muffle into his shoulder. Arms pinned, she held on to him tightly again, keening like a wild animal. She didn't understand it. She couldn't control it. It changed everything. She couldn't look at anything, see anything without realizing how much had changed.

Even Ravindra had changed. For better, for worse... it didn't matter, if this was the tradeoff.

She tried to stop, tried to regain some measure of composure, forcing herself to breathe- it did nothing but trick the body- and pressed her mouth to his shoulder in an effort to silence herself. A whimper escaped her instead, but it was better than the cries from before.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She didn't even know why she was saying it, or who she was saying it to. It just seemed the only thing that made sense. Even if it didn't.


It hadn't even clicked that she intended to sleep with him. It was true he'd been uncomfortable without Alex lying between them, but those were different circumstances. That was with the three of them. That was with Alex. There was a different meaning behind it, a sort of intimacy that Alex's presence--their respective relationships with him--added to it. It wasn't that he couldn't sleep beside Reilanin. He just wasn't comfortable with it when he was also sleeping beside his lover.

That factor no longer existed.

Though there was still the problem of her being much too cold for him to comfortably sleep next to her...

"Shhh," was all he could find to say, like he was comforting a small child. In a lot of ways, she was. He stroked her hair, waiting out the fresh breakdown, thinking as he did. About Alex, about how he missed him, about how Reilanin missed him far more, about what to say once she had calmed down...

"It's fine, Reilanin," he reassured her. She was apologizing as a mantra; he could recognize that. But he hoped it would still help to hear him say it. "It just gets too cold and I can't sleep, that's all." That wasn't the whole truth, but much easier to relate to her than the other reasons.


It had never occurred to her it would happen any other way. She could shut down right there, or continue in the belief she was still somehow human, could continue to mimic them, could hold on to some small part of what had been. But this single thing broke her.

She quieted as he stroked her hair. It felt warm, but it wasn't enough to eliminate the chill.

She'd never considered it. Alexander had never said anything- he'd embraced the cold and, at times, overtook it completely. The idea of controlling her own temperature hadn't become an issue.

Ravindra's words made her think on it, slowly. It gets too cold. Why did it get too cold? She was cold. She thought about it, trying to link the ideas together intelligibly.

Sniffing, she toyed with the front of his shirt- a habit now- and considered it. She had a kind of control over her body that humans did not. It would take blocking off the majority of her mana flow, but if she wasn't going to be doing much anyway... "I can stop it, for a bit."


A habit, maybe, but not one she'd done with him before. He didn't find it uncomfortable. It just made her seem more childlike, and that made it easier for him to deal with her grief, because children weren't so difficult to handle as adults.

"Then it's fine," he told her, still holding her, though not quite as tightly now that she'd calmed. The hand stroking her hair stopped to rest over the back of her neck. "If you can stop the cold, there's no problem."


It was reassuring, all those small touches. Ravindra had not much been the one to administer them, but it was comforting, having become so used to being touched to experience it again.

She breathed in, held it, shutting her eyes to look inward. It was almost like shutting off a valve to stop the constant flow of mana through her, particularly through the connection she had with the Library. Once it was off, she could feel an almost physical difference. The extra energy that had kept her going nonstop for several days seemed to drain out of her, and the strange beat of her heart crystal slowed. She breathed out. Mist escaped her as she did so.

She settled against him more easily, though it was most simply because she was too tired now herself. Cold still, but it no longer bit and allowed for him to adjust to it without it being numbed from the cold.


It was going to take some time for the numbness to fade, but he could tell the difference immediately. He held her more easily, no longer tense to brace himself against the cold. Room temperature was a big step up from the biting chill. "Thank you," he told her, just because he thought she needed the reassurance that it would be enough.

He was unsure how she wanted to do this, so he didn't move to lay down yet, instead waiting for her to go first. He continued to hold her in the meantime, loosely enough that she could pull away if she wanted to.


She did after a moment, not bothering in taking her boots off, too tired to consider it. She already felt sluggish in comparison, and it felt like it took effort to get her legs up onto the cot.

She tucked herself behind him, back to the wall, settling on her side. Unsure of what to do with herself, she ended up curling up, not even using the pillow. She rubbed at her face, wet now that the partially frozen tears were warming up. She sniffed again, beginning to feel that uncomfortable warmth settling into her. The last she'd been warm like this had been when she'd had mana burn. She felt about as miserable.

"...and you'll wake me before you go," she said again, anxious.


...With her boots still on. Ah.

She probably hadn't even thought to take them off. He started the motion of reaching toward her, but gave up before it ever became anything. He bent down to take off his own boots first, instead.

"I will," he said. "I promise."

He lined his boots up with the edge of the cot and then turned to Reilanin, pulling his legs up with him. This was sort of an uncomfortably new territory for him, he'd never really had to remove someone's shoes for them before.

Well. No. That wasn't true. As he unlaced her boots, he remembered doing the same for Helia once. She'd passed out from mana burn and had been left with him overnight to look after her; he'd had to take her boots off for her then. The thought brought on a wave of sadness, linked itself to the fresh loss and dredged up his feelings over Alex as well.

People needed to stop dying on him.


She nodded a little, sniffing again, watching as he undid his boots and then turned to undo hers.

"...I forgot," she mumbled unhappily into the mattress with the tone of an apology. They took a bit of work, going all the way up to her knees, and they landed heavily when put on the floor and flopped over unceremoniously once left alone. She didn't move at all while he did it. Moving was full of effort she didn't want to expend. She could feel everything slowly beginning to shut down, like someone going through a house and turning the lights off one by one.


"It's fine," he assured her, and it was genuinely sincere. He fumbled with the boots--taking off someone else's was a lot more trouble than taking off your own. He ended up just unlacing them most of the way instead of loosening the laces. That'd be a pain in the morning, but she'd have to deal with it then. It didn't matter now.

Once he was finished, he laid down beside her, facing the door, and pulled the blanket over them. He was emotionally exhausted enough for sleep to come easily.