(no subject)

[inthetapestry]

Dave's been waiting in his apartment, pacing, for a few hours now. Wondering if after all he should have gone.

Though it's not like Sol Laine even knew who he was. And grief - grief is a damn private thing. Not to be shared with strangers.

But still, he was there; he knew what happened. All of what happened, hunt and everything, even more than Kim did. And how the hell could he have let Kim go talk to him by herself, anyways? What kind of friend does that?

And so he paces.

Comments

[bannion_sight]

"Don't worry about it," Kim tells him, and then, without thinking and before she can stop herself from asking,

"Doesn't it bother you that way, though? Without-- I mean, if it's quiet all the time?"

Even as she says it, she thinks of her own apartment, which feels so much larger and more hollow without Jennifer-- and then of Sol Laine's house, so empty and near-echoing, and of how shrunken and old he'd looked.

Kim's smile fades, and she looks down at her hands, ringless now, with the Baelrath long gone.

[inthetapestry]

Dave moves back over to the kettle before answering, checking the color, then pouring a decent amount of water into each cup.

"Yeah," he says, finally. He brings her one of the cups and then goes back for his own. Thinking about brothers-in-arms - brothers in general.

"Guess it does, a little. More now."

[bannion_sight]

"Dave--" She makes a helpless, aimless gesture with one hand, one that fails to describe anything useful, and finishes, "I'm sorry."

Kim looks down into the teacup, staring at the steam rising gently from it, and adds ruefully,

"You know, one of these days I really am going to learn to think before I speak."

[inthetapestry]

"Oh, hell - didn't mean it like that," Dave says, a little startled, and looks over at her.

"Just . . . it was different for you, I know, but -" He shrugs. "Quiet private time wasn't a big part of my Fionavar experience."

[bannion_sight]

"No, I guess it wasn't."

Whereas she, of course, had desperately needed those times she could withdraw to Ysanne's cottage and away from -- well, everything.

Kim hesitates, searching his face.

"Do you miss it?"

[inthetapestry]

Dave meets her eyes without hesitation.

"Yeah.

"- well." He hesitates, and amends, a little wryly, "Not the being constantly kicked in the nuts with some other godawful - you know what I mean. Not the imminent end of the world.

"But the rest of it, yeah. The Dalrei, and -"

He shrugs, and gives up on trying to say the rest of it: how Davor of the Axe was somebody he kind of liked being.

Someone he's afraid of losing.

[bannion_sight]

"Yeah," Kim echoes. Softly.

"I'm sorry."

[inthetapestry]

His eyes don't leave hers.

And he's honestly curious, as he asks, "Do you?"

[bannion_sight]

"Not like you do, I think."

Which isn't exactly a no, and Kim knows he'll hear it.

"It'd be harder, if--"

[inthetapestry]

"If?" Dave echoes.

Then, hasty: "You don't have to answer."

[bannion_sight]

If I couldn't still go to Milliways, she doesn't answer. Even though it's true, Dave evidently can't get there, and it would be worse than cruel to throw that in his face.

Besides, even though it's true -- it's not the only truth.

"If you'd stayed behind," she says, at last. "If you weren't--"

A beat.

"If I were the only one."

[inthetapestry]

Dave turns a little red at that, and looks down at his feet - or would, if the teacup weren't conveniently in the way, so he looks at that.

"Yeah," he says, finally. "Same. It's -

"Not really something you can just forget happened."

[bannion_sight]

"No, it's not."

Kim tries a smile, tugging on a lock of her white hair as she adds with deliberate lightness,

"Besides, if you ever started to, all you'd have to do would be to look at me!"

[inthetapestry]

That earns something of a smile in return.

"It's some souvenir. Works for you, though."

[bannion_sight]

"Thanks. That's good to hear -- especially as I've kind of gotten used to it, anyway."

Kim grins, and takes a sip of tea.

[inthetapestry]

"Hard to imagine you without, now," Dave agrees.

". . . so don't go dying it pink or something just to throw me off, okay?"

It is, after all, the eighties.

[bannion_sight]

She makes a face at him.

"Please. I'm not a pink kind of girl."

[inthetapestry]

"Exactly," Dave counters, grinning, "which is why it'd throw me off."

[bannion_sight]

Kim laughs.

"Well, we can't have that, now can we?"

[inthetapestry]

"Appreciate it." Dave looks very solemn. "Gonna have enough on my mind during this quarter's finals without crazy-hair-colored chicks pulling me off my A-game."

[bannion_sight]

"Dave, you brought evidence notes to Fionavar. Nothing is going to pull you off your game!"

[inthetapestry]

"Hey, not this time around! And I returned the other ones way back in -"

To Kevin.

The sentence falters.

[bannion_sight]

Silence, for a few seconds-- a silence that has a weight and shape and stillness all its own, and then,

"I know," Kim whispers, and somehow it's clear that it's not an answer to what Dave was actually saying, but to what lies behind it.

Clear gray eyes are suddenly overbright as tears well.

[inthetapestry]

There's not much that Dave can think to do, at that point, except set his teacup down on the kitchen table and move the few steps to the couch, wrapping his arm once more around her shoulders.

[bannion_sight]

She dashes the tears from her eyes with a quick, exasperated movement of one hand, then leans into his embrace, resting her head on his shoulder.

"I promised to have lunch with him next week," Kim says, finally.

[inthetapestry]

Dave rubs her shoulder lightly with the hand resting over it, and looks ahead, staring at the time blinking from the microwave without really registering it.


"Do you want me to come with?"

[bannion_sight]

It hadn't even crossed her mind to ask. Kim tilts her head back to look at him.

"If-- you don't have to, Dave, really you don't--"

[inthetapestry]

Quiet, and a little stubborn: "Yeah. Yeah, I know. That's not why I'm asking."

[bannion_sight]

"No, it wouldn't be, would it?" she says softly.

A pause, and Kim smiles, a little.

"If you don't mind, then. Thanks."