singillatim | I had a dream about a burning house

Entry tags:

I had a dream about a burning house

Who: Wynonna Earp & others
What: Event recovery post-Visitor & Adust
When: Through February
Where: Around town, Little's cabin, tbd.

Content Warnings: General Wynonna warnings (alcoholism, possible mentions of child abandonment & abduction, patricide, violence), others tbd.

Hit me up for plotting or starters at repeatandfade or blueofthebay on disco!

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[ It's a long process, even once she understands what's happening... mostly. As well as she can. But with every kind word from people who don't owe her anything, with every gesture of friendship, with every cup of tea she has with Thomas Jopson and every expression of thanks from Goodsir when she chops wood for him, the shadow retreats. And then, one day, she wakes up to find it's gone entirely, and the sun is back in the sky, and she can think again, feel again.

Which is great, until she's up and making coffee for herself, stoking the fire in her wood stove, and a thought hits her out of nowhere, leaving her wincing at herself and the memory of storming at Little, of slamming the door behind her as she left in a high temper and a swirl of black emotions. It's the fire she's building that sparks some realization, and as it does – as she remembers how listless he'd been, how cold the cabin with a fire gone black and quiet, how he couldn't even look at her — she smacks herself in the forehead. ]

Oh, you unbelievable asshole. He had one, too.

[ The rest of the day feels very like those two hours August Hamilton had given her – tick-tock, tick-tock – as she heads into town, making a beeline for Louis and his collection of foodstuffs and beverages. She'd fucked up big time – something she's used to, the usual state of affairs for Wynonna Earp – but apologizing, asking for forgiveness... none of it is anything she's good at. Better to go straight for bribery, a little something to soften him up. She's been drinking the pine shine for herself, and it's terrible, and she's been almost desperate for something else, something better, but she doesn't touch the bottle she manages to collect once she's jumped through all Louis' hoops. Which takes her hours, because he's got about a million tasks that need doing, but she does them. And then she grabs that bottle by the neck and hits the path that leads her to the outskirts and his cabin. Again.

Finding herself standing here just like she had before and she's nervous. One hand wrapped around the neck of the glass bottle, the other lifted, hesitating, before she knocks. She's got no idea if he's home, if he's shaken off what Jopson called her melancholy or if he still needs the help she'd neglected to realize he needed before, when she was blinded by her own fears. Her history rising to bite her in the ass, and even now, with the shadow gone and her mind clear, it takes everything she's got not to just flee from this porch when she hears floorboards creaking inside.

Her stomach is tight and knotted with nerves; she should have thought of something to say. Too late now. ]

Edited 2024-02-02 21:29 (UTC)

[ The thing is gone now. At least, on the surface. He can no longer see it there, following him along, standing mutely at his side or watching him from across the room.

Admittedly, however, some part of him wonders if it isn't really gone. While his vision and thoughts are clearer now — as though some veil has been lifted from his eyes, leaving him horrified by what he's done (abandoning the town just after one of its citizens was murdered, abandoning the people who rely on him, ignoring knocks at his door and turning his back on anyone who managed to make it inside) — Edward still feels.... a weight. It's odd, as though the absence of the literal shadow makes him more deeply feel some of the figurative ones that have been following him for a very long time.

La'an is still dead. And this place is not safe, and he can do nothing to protect anyone. Not really.

He's failed at so many things. He doesn't know what to... do, with this weight, this ache. He's always tried to simply push through it, not look too closely at it, but the truth is that he has lost so many people that he loves, and he is so deeply wounded by the thought of losing more. For the first time since it happened, he weeps over the deaths of his companions from the Expedition, and what he's lost here, too.

At some point, he takes off the outer layers of his uniform, and doesn't put them back on. His boots, gloves, and waistcoat are removed, leaving him only in his jumper, trousers, and socks (this is casual, for him...) His greatcoat hangs in the wardrobe, along with his other uniform, and his cap. His epaulettes are placed there too. He closes its wooden door, the clothes hidden from his sight, and he tucks his shotgun under his bed.

He should return to his patrols around town. Pick up the mantle again, resume his duties. And yet in the days to follow since Kieren Walker came here and Edward learned what the boy was (a monster, is the word that most would use for it, but not the one that Edward sees) and was saved by that very boy, he doesn't return.

What is the point to it? To him.... acting as a lieutenant, as though it means anything anymore? The others have all given up those roles. Even Crozier shirks from being referred to as captain, now. An officer's title means nothing; he means nothing. He'll reach out to those he'd abandoned soon enough, apologise to them, hope for forgiveness, but.... he can't bear to do it in those immediate days. Perhaps it really would be better if everyone forgot about him.

And then one day a knock comes to the door, and although his stomach twists with its own nerves, he won't ignore it this time — can't bear to behave so impolitely, and he's moving that way, trying to prepare himself for whomever might be on the other side of that door.

But the person actually standing there is a complete surprise, and no brief swell of mental preparation can actually stop him from looking at Wynonna with outright stun when he slowly opens the door, eyes wide and expression frozen. ]

Miss Earp.

[ His voice is no longer the lifeless thing it was before; there's a lilt of recognition, then surprise — and he's not refusing to look at her anymore, but quite the opposite, almost ogling the woman. He blinks, swallows, and pushes his door open a little bit more. He hasn't forgotten the last time he saw her. It's been there, like coming out of a nightmare, memory thick and hazy and with a slick, sick feeling at the back of the throat. Like Kate, she was one of the ones he abandoned directly, literally turning his back to her. He doesn't deserve for her to even look at him again.

Maybe she's here to unleash some more (well-deserved) anger at him, but maybe something's happened. Maybe the thing came back, killed someone else. Maybe Hickey's done something in his absence. Maybe, maybe, maybe, a thousand maybes bubbling up and he's fretful in his usual quiet but earnest way, eyes tightening with worry, searching. ]

Is... is everything all right?

[ In the end, there's really only one important thing to say, and she's just going to have to try and get it out before he tells her to get the fuck off his porch. Which is all well and good in principle, but it doesn't stop her stomach from lurching when the door opens – under his hand this time, not hers, the very least she can do is stop shoving her way into his space – and Edward Little's there, looking at her with blank astonishment.

For a long second, she stares at him and he stares back at her in an awkward stand-off, like people who haven't seen each other for years who suddenly ran into one another at a coffee shop, and she's got absolutely no fucking idea what to say to that Miss Earp that sounds so surprised. Of course he's surprised, considering the way she slammed her way out of here before; what she doesn't get is the lack of exasperation or even outright anger that ought to follow it. She'd expected him to be mad, and when he isn't it feels like a rug has been yanked out under her feet. To give herself a second to think, she blinks and wrenches her glance away from his to give him a once-over; he looks better. There's color back in his face and his voice is back to that pleasant rumble that's been a problem since day one, and he's holding himself more like he used to... but he looks different, too. He's sock-footed, which is both bizarre and kind of endearing, wearing just a sweater with his uniform pants, and without his cap his hair is all slightly rumpled dark waves and he just seems... softer around the edges, lacking all the trappings of his rank.

He looks almost like a regular guy, and she realizes, belatedly, that he's not actually that much taller than she is. The boots and greatcoat and cap had lent him more of a physical presence; without them he turns out to be... just normal, if a little sad around the eyes and mouth. It's nice and weird in equal measure and she squirms internally, uncomfortable with it for no very good reason.

Thank god his expression shifts into one she recognizes on his face: uncertain worry. Thank god he asks her a question she can actually answer. ]

Yeah. Or... getting there, anyway. No, I just came to, uh...

[ Everything is categorically not all right, but she's not lying. It does seem to be getting there. She's feeling better, and it looks like he is, too, although she's a little worried about how dressed down he is. Should she be concerned or relieved that it was Edward who came to the door and not the First Lieutenant?

Or how about she just be grateful he showed up at the door at all and stop overthinking shit? Wynonna drifts into a lean, her shoulder pressing against the doorframe, and looks up with eyes big and solemn and eloquently remorseful as a dog that tore apart something necessary and expensive, like a couch. She chews her lip. But, weirdly, now that the moment has come, it actually feels easy to say: ]

Apologize. I came to apologize.

I'm really sorry.

[ She shifts; lifts the bottle by its neck. What's left of the few hours of sunlight they get these days slants through the bourbon inside, making it glow invitingly golden. ]

Pax?

Edited 2024-02-06 16:13 (UTC)

[ For that long moment they're just staring at each other, taking each other in, and it's not quite the kind of tension he was expecting, readying himself for in those split seconds. They both just seem— confused, and it's awkward but it's not terrible, just a breath of air held in the lungs for a beat or two too long before it's exhaled again.

Little blinks openly at the way she's looking up at him now, eyes all big and round and mournful, and maybe more vulnerable than he's seen Wynonna ever look at him, tilted against the doorframe, not angry but..... something else. When he learns what it is, his own eyes widen (and, for a comical moment, he reflects that mournful look right back, the pair of them locked in another round of staring: Puppy Eyes Edition).

'Apologize. I came to apologize. I'm really sorry.'

And she's holding something up, a bottle that's recognisable as alcohol, and Edward gives a soft exhale of realisation through the lingering confusion, and he doesn't know at all how to handle this, but he's pushing the door open wider because there's only one option that feels right to begin with, and it's— ]

Will you come inside?

[ It's not his usual way to handle things, even just that small bit of framing. Will you isn't Would you like to, even if the two things are very close. Close, but not the same, because it's more of a request (a little too bold for his usual comfort zone) and it's his turn to bite his lower lip for a moment, worrying soft tissue, taking a step back from the door. If there were any lingering doubts as to his invitation inwards, that gesture nips them clean; he's stepping back so she can step in.

Please come in, he thinks, once and then twice and then another time. He wants her to. There are so many things to say — his own apologies to make, and explanations to give (even if he doesn't know where to begin, how to convey any of it), and even as much as he's baffled by this, taken aback by all of it, his heart knows exactly what it wants, which is to make sure that Wynonna comes in, and this time, stays. ]

[ He might close the door; he might turn his back on her like he did before. She's had a lot of doors slammed in her face and slammed plenty of her own, but that motion had been worse than any infuriated crash of a door into its frame. Seeing him there and not there; there but unreachable, there but impossibly far away because he hadn't wanted to see her, had hurt like a slap. Maybe they don't know each other well, maybe they spend half their time being bewildered by each other, but he'd helped her in the storm and again in that cabin and again when she came out of Milton House. There'd been something deeply wrong about the steadfast Edward Little simply... giving up, and at the time she'd thought he'd just turned out to be someone else in the long list of all the people who gave up on her, but –

But it turns out it was the other way around. And she can't go back in time and make herself stay instead of pushing out the door and leaving him to his misery, but he's still here and so is she, so maybe there's something she can do now, if he lets her.

Which he does. He steps back, opening the door she'd slammed in her tornado of emotions, and invites her in, instead of sending her packing like she probably deserves. Her whole expression shifts; that hangdog remorse in her eyes softening and brightening, the wry press of her lips curving more into something that's almost a smile, crooked and pleased. ]

Thanks.

[ She lowers the bottle and does just as he asks, coming into his cabin – again, but this time as an invited guest and not as a whirlwind of frustrated worry – and glances around as she waits for him to close the door behind her. It's a pretty simple set up, but neat and tidy. He'd built the fire back up – or someone had – and that cold, oppressing feeling of gloom has lifted. Relief loosens her shoulders before she turns back to look at him. ]

You had one too, right? One of those shadows.

[ The familiar twisting sensation of guilt starts crawling up her throat; she tries to smash it flat. It won't help anyone, least of all him. ]

[ There's a lot to be said — a recognition of her apology and one of his own, and probably many more things, and usually he worries about what to say and how, and then ends up never saying the things he wanted to. And this is all.. atypical, inviting her in, not knowing what to do with any of it, but he's just.... glad for the chance. As much as his stomach's nervous and guilty and unsure what he's even doing anymore, there's a relief that at least this is something he can deal with. One thing at a time, piece by piece.

And he's grateful for the company, if he were to admit it. It feels like he's been alone for a very long time. It... says something, that Wynonna came to find him again. That she wanted to see him, even after... everything. That someone cares. He almost doesn't know what to do with the thought of that, and it makes him weirdly shy and pleased all in equal parts.

He's quietly closing the cabin door and moving inside, socked feet padding against wooden floors. Without his boots on, his footsteps are lighter, quicker, as he moves to stoke the fire again, and turns to look at her, brows lifting in surprise to hear those words. He hasn't told anyone about what had been following him, and certainly never expected to hear that anyone else experienced the same. ]

You know about them?

[ But her words said more than that, didn't they. Understanding comes in, and he's watching her widely, quietly horrified and curious all at the same time. ]

I thought.... I thought it was only myself. You had one?

Yeah.

For a while, I thought it was my sister... My older sister. Willa. Hanging around to remind me of all the ways I've fucked up... like I could forget.

[ Willa. She's talked more about Willa in the past few weeks than she had in the last decade and a half before. It's brought her sister back in dreams, the two of them walking through the long, golden grasses of the homestead. Giggling to each other late at night. Making promises neither of them were ever able to uphold. And sometimes Willa asks her what she's doing, why she'd left. How she could leave while one of the Seven is still breathing.

She wakes up from those dreams breathing hard and shaking, but she holds them close, anyway. It's the only way she can see her sister.

Wynonna turns around as he goes to stoke the fire, taking stock of the little cabin, then goes to set the bottle of bourbon on the table with a thunk of heavy glass on wood. ]

By the time I figured out it was me, it was already screwing with my head. I sat there in my cabin with the door open. Fire out. Didn’t care if I ate, if I slept, if I lived or died.

[ She slants a careful glance at him, then lifts the bottle again to twist the cap, gaze lowered. ]

Anyway, afterward – [ It's such a small word for everything that happened between the shadow clinging to her, draining her of everything that made her her, but it's all she's got. ] – I remembered. Your door was unlocked. Your fire was out.

[ The seal crackles, breaks, and the cap comes off in her hand. ]

... you got any glasses?

[ He's listening, giving a soft exhale at the words. He remembers Wynonna mentioning a younger sister — 'my baby sister' — but this is something new, and he's taking in the information somberly, eyes softening. An older sister.

It's not difficult to imagine that someone could mistake that twin for another person. If his hadn't been wearing the outline of his clothing, he might've thought it was one of the other men, and it could have been any of them — but Thomas Jopson is the ghost that haunts him the most, and it would be too suiting that this place would conjure up some phantom version of the other man.

He's stunned by the knowledge that the experience wasn't isolated to himself, standing there absorbing the information, and everything Wynonna says is too familiar. Doors open and fires gone out. 'Didn’t care if I ate, if I slept, if I lived or died.'

It's an ache to hear someone else voice the worse parts of it aloud, but it's a connection too (someone else knows what it was like, and maybe he shouldn't be surprised, considering the ways this place has affected people in the past.) He hadn't questioned it, though. Hadn't even considered the thought anyone else was experiencing it. He knew he deserved it, whatever that silent double of himself truly was, and he'd... accepted it, more easily than most might have.

He stares, and then he's blinking, nodding, stepping forth to the modest kitchen area of the cabin, opening a cupboard and pulling down a glass. One, to begin with, and then after a brief hesitation, another. (Even Edward Little can enjoy a glass of alcohol, though it's been a long time since he has, and having a glass with a woman is..... an entirely new concept, but— he's becoming more used to that, these days.)

He brings them both over to her, setting them down on the table, looking at Wynonna with something wounded, a deep wet empathy that glosses his eyes. ]

Was yours... still there, when you came to me? She was with you?

[ This stuff isn't the best she's ever seen, but it's a hell of a lot better than the pine shine she'd gotten wasted on. That's good; it has a different purpose. She didn't come here to get drunk, she came to say she was sorry.

Which she had. And she could have left after that, but she's still here. He hasn't kicked her out, and now she's pouring, the sweet smoky scent of bourbon drifting into the air as she dollops a measure into first one glass, then the other. And maybe she's paying a little more attention to how much she's pouring than she really needs, but she can't meet that sore, all too understanding look in his eyes for long. ]

Yeah, [ she says, again, her lashes lowered as she spins the cap back onto the bottle. ]

It wasn't so bad for me then, but she was there. But my point is –

[ What exactly is her point? What did she come here to say, now that she's picking up the two glasses and lifting her gaze back up to meet his.
Just fucking say it, Earp. Don't be such a coward. ]

Look, I hadn’t thought there was anyone here who gave a damn about me. Except March, maybe, and maybe...

But there were. There are. And it helped to know that. So I just wanted to say... I do give a damn. About you. For whatever that might be worth.

[ It can't be worth much, especially since she still finds him unbelievably irritating in too many ways to count. Her mouth twists, her shoulders shift: this is fucking awkward. To cover it, she holds out one of the glasses to him, offering. ]

And I’m sorry I was such an asshole before. Shadow or no shadow.

[ What a thing to look back upon now, to consider from the perspective he has now. Both of them were being haunted by something, something.... exacerbating certain aches and pains. He can recognise, now, that the thing attached to him was making everything feel worse, so much more, even if its presence was never the birth of such feelings in him. No, everything it worsened was already there — the guilt, hurt, horror, loneliness.....

But it was pulling him into those things, slowly, more and more over time. And she had one too. He's still caught between his stun and his horror over it all, expression remaining soft and disturbed and wounded, a hand gently grazing the wood of the tabletop as he watches her pour the drink, listens to Wynonna speak, eyes widening slightly at the words.

'So I just wanted to say... I do give a damn. About you.'

Edward's mouth tips open, openly staring at her — no doubt making the awkwardness worse, sorry Wynonna.... but all of it's so unexpected. Such an outright conveyance of feeling to verbal form in itself is different for the norms of his particular time, and especially from a woman to a man, it's.... not something he's used to. But of course, he's felt so much of that here, and so much of it in the presence of Wynonna Earp, who has consistently challenged everything that he knows, and ever since he had met the woman he's found himself wrenched out of his comfort zone just as consistently. She's remained such a mystery in so many ways, something he can't quite predict.

....And yet maybe he has learned her in ways, because he finds himself realising that for Wynonna to openly voice her feelings like this doesn't seem typical, that she'd be someone who would keep them close to herself instead, everything layered in rougher edges and a sharp tongue with a quick wit. He finds himself understanding that this is a very great deal, and his heart's fluttering not with anxiety but something else: affected, aching.... touched. (And for someone to say that they "give a damn", that they care about him — to know that someone came to his home not once but twice to seek him out with intention, to check up on him....)

His eyelids flutter softly as he gives a slow exhale, looks down to the drink she holds out to him and takes it, drawing the cold glass back to himself. 'I'm sorry' she says again, and someone gives a damn about him, someone he knows wouldn't say words like that unless she very much needed him to understand them. Edward swallows, shy in the face of all of it, and warmed, and he doesn't know what to do with those things, but his heart does, and he lets it speak, quietly. ]

I need to apologise, as well. No matter what was.... affecting the both of us, I caused you hurt, Miss Earp. I am deeply sorry for that. [ His eyes dip to the glass in his hand, fingers brushing against it, slowly. No, it isn't typical for him to open up either, but the words come. Maybe he's a little emboldened by her doing so first, and maybe he needs her to know just as much. Maybe he hasn't ruined this.... relationship with her, whatever it may be. ]

In truth, I have been feeling.... very melancholic for some time now. This place has been... difficult, from my arrival to it and in all of the months to follow. I am consistently reminded of the things I have ruined. ....The people I have failed.

[ She thought her shadow was her sister, to begin with. 'hanging around to remind me of all the ways I've fucked up' — he understands it. ]

When Lieutenant Noonien-Singh was killed, I... could no longer bear it. I let myself fall to that shadow. I believe I wanted it to consume me.

[ And that's the shame of it, one of many, tucked up beneath his ribcage, squeezing his heart now. He'd always been someone who never gave in, who kept going, maintained hope, even foolishly so.... (until he finally lost all of it, and abandoned those men, and gave away the last parts of himself, just like in this place. He let himself fade. Turned his back on the people here.) ]

...I do not deserve your mercy in the face of my own weakness, but I am grateful for it. [ A pause, his shyness revving back up again, and it's difficult to look at her as he voices it, but he still does, eyes finding hers and staying there. ] I am glad you came here today. I was afraid I might have lost you.

[ He would have sought her out to apologise eventually, he knows, but.... there was the chance it would have done nothing. Why should she accept his apology? Open her door to him? He provides nothing for her; as she'd said in that heated moment of upset, they aren't friends, or crewmates, or anything at all.

....Except, perhaps, they are. Perhaps this has proven it; no, it does — she gives a damn about him. And that sentiment is mutual, and so he adds on, after a moment, earnest— ]

I care for you, as well. [ Worded a bit differently than she had... but at the core, the same. ] If I were to have lost your presence... it would have been a great loss indeed.

[ The last thing she wants to do is to listen to him apologize to her, but she'd made this bed and now she's going to have to lie in it, squirming all the while. Wynonna shakes her head at him, but holds her tongue, letting him explain like he let her explain, listening to every word he carefully picks, places.

It's almost impossible to think of steady, dutiful Edward Little failing anyone... she's a failure. She knows the signs. But she'd never considered... she hadn't thought he would ever know what it's like. What it does to a person, knowing they can never make up for something they did. Only now, as he slowly walks himself through his thoughts, does she start to wonder about the way he's so stubbornly held to duty. How he's tried to make himself so helpful. She'd written it off as him being a rule-follower, a perfectly proper officer and a gentleman, but... could it be there's something else feeding that impulse, along with his own personality? Is he trying to make up for something?

But then he says I believe I wanted it to consume me and her glance jumps back to his face, sharp and searching. ]

Do you feel better now? Is that... thing... gone?

[ She's lifting the glass to her lips to sip at the golden liquid as he continues, which was a terrible idea because he says I care for you with all the earnest weight of his serious eyes and resonating voice behind it and she chokes. Sputters and coughs for a second as her throat and sinuses and eyes all burn, her lungs full of sharp smoky vapor.

Look, she'd been sincere. She'd pulled those words, reluctant and stunted and not really enough for everything she was trying to say, out of the deepest parts of herself, and she'd meant them. She just hadn't ever imagined a world where he might say something similar back, and her first instinct — sorry, Edward — is to toss the glass across the room to distract him so she can climb out a window.

She doesn't. But she wouldn't want to sit under oath and say it was easy to stay exactly where she is, her throat working and her heart doing a weird half-lurch, half-stutter in her chest when he tells her he'd have missed her. That it would have been a great loss to never see her again.

She's used to people telling her that the real great loss is everything Waverly won't get to do because she's got Wynonna weighing her down, an albatross around her neck. So this is... something new. Someone who would miss her. Someone who cares about her.

No, for her. Wynonna coughs, trying to clear her throat, and casts a little wildly around for some kind of response, grasping at something light she can use to cover her confusion. ]

Well, you haven't lost it. I mean, even I draw the line at running off on you four times in a row. Three times, fine. Four?

[ She clicks her tongue, tips her head. ]

Maybe a little much.

[ The air in here has grown claustrophobically close and she desperately wants to step back, to put space between her and him and all the words that are hanging in that caught air between them, which is both beside the point of why she came and also unfair to him. He probably hadn't expected anyone to show up and bare their soul today, least of all her.

So she... sidesteps it, instead. For the moment. ]

Besides, you're maybe the only person in town I can trust to hold onto Peacemaker for me.

Edited 2024-02-16 20:24 (UTC)

It is gone from me, as far as I know. [ He glances up for a brief moment, looks across the small kitchen to the opposite wall, almost as though expecting to see it again. It had become.... such a part of things, with him for weeks, nearly a month. And now that it's gone... he's left with some odd confliction. One should undoubtedly only feel relieved to be freed of such a thing, but Edward finds that it was... something for all of those feelings to go, a point of focus. Despite how hollowed-out it made him feel, it's... another odd sense of loss to be without it now. He couldn't explain it well, eyes squinting slightly as he struggles with the words. ]

I must admit, in its absence, I feel a little... lost. Aimless.

[ There's an alarmed startle when Wynonna suddenly starts coughing, and he sets his glass down, moving around the table to where she stands, bringing a closer proximity so that he can assist as needed (Edward, you're not helping....) But there's really nothing to be done for it, only to offer her a glass of water, which he slips inbetween her words — "Would you like some water?" — but fortunately, the woman seems to be all right after a moment or two. It's understandable; it's likely been awhile since she's consumed alcohol either, in this place; it can be abrasive to the throat. (...If only he knew the truth...)

He pauses then, at her words, and gives his head a soft tilt downwards, something that might almost be the sliver of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. 'even I draw the line at running off on you four times in a row'

It has become something of a pattern between them, hasn't it? This place has created such situations, harrowing moments of upset; she's had to flee, he's had to find her. Or wait for her, like back at the Milton House — a memory that flickers soft and strange within him, and brought back to the forefront of his mind now. ]

Your weapon. [ He nods, rests a palm against the tabletop. It's... a little awkward, just standing up like this around the kitchen table; he should invite her to sit. He's never entertained a woman before... But he's been to many gentlemen's gatherings, back home — and plenty of officer's meetings, of course. There's only so much to be done; he can follow that protocol... ]

Would you like to sit more comfortably? [ He offers after a beat too long, and yes, it's— an awkward little interjection, a little out of place, a hand extended towards the sofa in his living room, much more pleasing than the old wooden table here. ]

It must mean a great deal to you. Your Peacemaker.

[ Ah, there's the awkward solicitous Edward Little she's come to know and... give a damn about, apparently. It's funny how often they've been all up in each other's space, considering how alarmed he'd been at the very sight of her when they met, considering the invisible walls she normally draws around herself for everyone but Waverly. But he's been right here, inches from her, so many times since that first day, and somehow she'd never noticed that there's one curling lock of hair that falls over his forehead and over his eye before.

But why would she notice that, why would anyone? It doesn't have anything to do with anything.

She waves him off, her eyes watering, until she's cleared her throat, which helps, and then he ducks his head and almost smiles, which almost sets her off again. She's never seen him look anything but severe or worried or caught in that horrible blank panic from the house, the knowledge that he's even capable of amusement is... fucking weird. Thankfully, he offers a seat on the couch by the fire and she grasps at the invitation, nodding. It's a relief to hear the shadow thing isn't around anymore, but what he says about it... that's too familiar. And concerning.

The damn thing was an anchor in more ways than one. It weighed her down, yes, but she knows what he means: it had given her some focus for... everything. All her mistakes, all her fears, all her despairs. They're all still there, she knows, lurking under the surface.

At the couch, she sets her glass down for long enough to shed her jacket and toss it over the arm, leaving her in her red-burnout tee and a flannel shirt she'd dredged up from some trunk here in Milton, the bottom tied just above the waist of her jeans. It shifts as she undoes her gunbelt, taking it off and setting belt, holster, and gun aside. Sitting down, she picks up her drink and flips her hair back over her shoulder as she settles in, one leg bent beneath her, the other with the sole of her boot flat on the floor, letting her turn toward him when he sits.

As she slips her fingers under her hair and pushes it back, two marks at her throat are uncovered, marring the skin. One, a thin line a few inches below her chin, old and white. The other is still healing: two small puncture wounds sunk into the channel of her jugular. ]

Yeah, about that.

[ About how she pushed the gun on him with next to no explanation and ran back to the house. ]

I should probably explain. I meant to, before, but...

[ Her words drift off; she shrugs, awkward. But. ]

Edited 2024-02-17 01:24 (UTC)

(Edward Little) – trying to take what's lost & broke & make it right

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post That Incident (usual march and wynonna cw of alcohol)

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