[ He doesn't speak like this. Not to— anyone. It's one of many things that isn't done (one says only what's necessary, in his time and especially in his service: there's a distinct danger of oversharing, of exposing thoughts and feelings in a way that's inappropriate), but he's found more and more of those types of things happening here in this strange place. He's invited his former steward, William Gibson, to sit with him at a table. He's offered that same man his own coat. He's opened up to some of the residents here about some of his anxieties, however sparingly; he is still learning how to open up his genuine thoughts and wants, but it's been coming, slowly. He sits beside a woman he hardly knows and couldn't be more different from and yet somehow, somehow, shares much in common with, in ways that feel incredibly important in this place — and he could have kept it to a few sentences. There was an incident in our camps; a man burned, and then many more did, and I was afraid I couldn't escape that same fate.
...But the story comes out much like that — a story, a thing with a start, middle, and ending, and painted a little more colourfully. It tells what happened and how; maybe he wants to share it with someone. (Wants? Needs? Everything has been so unbearably lonely, and his heart is still raw from that shadowed thing and the particular way it had affected him. He'd sat on the edge of his bed with his shotgun an arm's length away, and it wasn't that he planned to use it, but maybe, after all this time, and after all the ways of feeling so alone and so strange within himself, so achingly aware that he's nothing more than a ghost now, it felt like the only outcome.)
Maybe Wynonna Earp is the only one he could ever tell this to. She, who'd seen him caught in the throes of what he doesn't quite understand to be panic, maybe shock, and she, who'd gotten him out of it. Maybe he's all right with that fact, if it's just her; maybe he only wants it to be her. A little glimpse into his world before here, one chapter of it, what it was like. To be known by someone else is... frightening, and uncomfortable, and goes against so much that's normal within Edward Little, but maybe it's nice, too.
However it is, none of it is forced. It comes willingly, more easily than he could have ever imagined.
Finally, he's looking back up at the woman when she speaks, eyes heavy but not dulled the way they were not so long ago. 'I'm so sorry,' she says, and it's a little dose of her own sincerity. 'Little' she calls him, like usual, and he finds it's an odd comfort in this moment, another unexpected thing. It isn't appropriate, or normal, for a lieutenant to speak this way to anyone. Rarely even with one another. Confiding in each other behind closed doors certainly happened, but.... always with some boundary. With rules, and expectations. As their first, he was especially careful.
But here, he's just... a man, speaking to someone else, sharing with them one of the worst things he's ever faced in his life, and despite the tight coil in his gut to re-live it, his shoulders release some of their own tension, and he's leaning back against the sofa with his glass held against a knee as he looks over at her. And none of it is forced.
He stares as she compliments him, says he did great, and it's startling to hear, because when he looks back at how he handled that situation, "great" is hardly the word he'd use. Not like her (again, how is she so resilient? So capable? He'd seen those streaks down her cheeks, the heaviness in her eyes, something wounded and aching, but she didn't completely crumble the way he surely would have in the face of something so horrific and gutting as a child screaming in fear and terror and pain.)
He doesn't understand how someone as brave as her could appreciate anything about him, or how he'd handled it, but his heart so desperately wants someone to see him as good, as useful, and it flutters and melts at the idea that she might, liquid-warm in his chest. Or maybe it's the alcohol spreading through him, making the edges of him feel just slightly prickly. He isn't a small man, but it's been awhile since he'd drank (...he also has hardly eaten anything today).
He flushes a little at his ears, red blossoming at their tips. He's too shy to answer that, at once incapable of that open sincerity, can't say There was no question that I would wait for you or Nothing else mattered, only that you returned safely. Those things feel like too much suddenly, and he's fighting to hold contact with the woman's eyes, big and grey-blue as she apologises to him.
And ordinarily, he might say You needn't be sorry for a thing, Miss Earp, or You have nothing to apologise to me for, and those things would smooth out any uncomfortable emotion, but Edward finds that he's asking instead. It's soft, not a challenge in the least but genuinely curious, searching, voice barely above a whisper. ]
Why are you sorry?
[ He would never ask someone that, would never feel that it was his place to. And maybe that's what it is, about her. He sits beside Wynonna Earp and feels as though they are equals, and it has nothing to do with rank or experience or any real sort of comparison, only the fact that somehow, for reasons he's not quite certain how to define, he feels safe enough to. ]
cw: brief mention of suicidal ideation
...But the story comes out much like that — a story, a thing with a start, middle, and ending, and painted a little more colourfully. It tells what happened and how; maybe he wants to share it with someone. (Wants? Needs? Everything has been so unbearably lonely, and his heart is still raw from that shadowed thing and the particular way it had affected him. He'd sat on the edge of his bed with his shotgun an arm's length away, and it wasn't that he planned to use it, but maybe, after all this time, and after all the ways of feeling so alone and so strange within himself, so achingly aware that he's nothing more than a ghost now, it felt like the only outcome.)
Maybe Wynonna Earp is the only one he could ever tell this to. She, who'd seen him caught in the throes of what he doesn't quite understand to be panic, maybe shock, and she, who'd gotten him out of it. Maybe he's all right with that fact, if it's just her; maybe he only wants it to be her. A little glimpse into his world before here, one chapter of it, what it was like. To be known by someone else is... frightening, and uncomfortable, and goes against so much that's normal within Edward Little, but maybe it's nice, too.
However it is, none of it is forced. It comes willingly, more easily than he could have ever imagined.
Finally, he's looking back up at the woman when she speaks, eyes heavy but not dulled the way they were not so long ago. 'I'm so sorry,' she says, and it's a little dose of her own sincerity. 'Little' she calls him, like usual, and he finds it's an odd comfort in this moment, another unexpected thing. It isn't appropriate, or normal, for a lieutenant to speak this way to anyone. Rarely even with one another. Confiding in each other behind closed doors certainly happened, but.... always with some boundary. With rules, and expectations. As their first, he was especially careful.
But here, he's just... a man, speaking to someone else, sharing with them one of the worst things he's ever faced in his life, and despite the tight coil in his gut to re-live it, his shoulders release some of their own tension, and he's leaning back against the sofa with his glass held against a knee as he looks over at her. And none of it is forced.
He stares as she compliments him, says he did great, and it's startling to hear, because when he looks back at how he handled that situation, "great" is hardly the word he'd use. Not like her (again, how is she so resilient? So capable? He'd seen those streaks down her cheeks, the heaviness in her eyes, something wounded and aching, but she didn't completely crumble the way he surely would have in the face of something so horrific and gutting as a child screaming in fear and terror and pain.)
He doesn't understand how someone as brave as her could appreciate anything about him, or how he'd handled it, but his heart so desperately wants someone to see him as good, as useful, and it flutters and melts at the idea that she might, liquid-warm in his chest. Or maybe it's the alcohol spreading through him, making the edges of him feel just slightly prickly. He isn't a small man, but it's been awhile since he'd drank (...he also has hardly eaten anything today).
He flushes a little at his ears, red blossoming at their tips. He's too shy to answer that, at once incapable of that open sincerity, can't say There was no question that I would wait for you or Nothing else mattered, only that you returned safely. Those things feel like too much suddenly, and he's fighting to hold contact with the woman's eyes, big and grey-blue as she apologises to him.
And ordinarily, he might say You needn't be sorry for a thing, Miss Earp, or You have nothing to apologise to me for, and those things would smooth out any uncomfortable emotion, but Edward finds that he's asking instead. It's soft, not a challenge in the least but genuinely curious, searching, voice barely above a whisper. ]
Why are you sorry?
[ He would never ask someone that, would never feel that it was his place to. And maybe that's what it is, about her. He sits beside Wynonna Earp and feels as though they are equals, and it has nothing to do with rank or experience or any real sort of comparison, only the fact that somehow, for reasons he's not quite certain how to define, he feels safe enough to. ]