[for rian]

[fairywren]

Wren is kind of a teenager when it comes to processing emotions sometimes, complete with flopping on the couch. Where it comes to exes (The Ex, there's only really the one and he's an ex-everything, as Wren tried to explain in spelled out sign language once to Hana), there's no exception there, just more dancing around the subject. He fights it, hides himself in music, makes faces at Hana who gives him a look like he's being a little stupid that doesn't make him feel like it. (Apologizes to Hana for talking about his ex. Gets looked at like he's being a little stupid.)

But after the - whole mummy thing - the gut reaction to Rian in danger, in maybe danger, it's running in his veins. They've got to talk. There's got to be some middle ground. They're not the naive children they were once upon a time, they know better than to expect fantasies about each other, and that means acting like it.

So he leaves a terse message on Rian's machine, and a weird text conversation later he's sitting at Quill watching the colors of coffee and milk swirl into each other and waiting, and thinking.

Comments

[wastelandflower]

"It's not all right," he says, because he knows Wren that well, at least. "But thanks."

Rian closes a fist over his heart to replicate the gesture. It's a good one, he thinks. Like rubbing your heart in sympathy or trying to send something back to make up for what's going on. It's tactile and visceral; he likes it.

"I'm sorry too."

[fairywren]

Wren shrugs one shoulder at him. Rian knows him well enough to know it's not, and also to know that he doesn't know how to be formal and polite, and he knows Rian well enough to know that if he's apologizing he means it. "Well, I forgive you, then," he says.

Wren chews on the inside of his lip and smiles a little, uncertain. "So what do we do now?"

[wastelandflower]

It feels a lot better than he expects it to when Wren forgives him. It's not forgiveness for everything, but it's a start. The door it leaves wide open is a bit harder though.

"I guess we try and live in this town and be neighborly and do our very best not to kill each other," Rian suggests, somewhere in the middle between humor and sincerity.