[She scoffs- scoffs. And maybe it's not the most sensitive thing to do. But the Ludgate secret to not being in trouble mostly involved in keeping the number of people she cares about down-
And. Mm. There's trouble with some of the people she cares about. But nothing that has rules and regulations tied in.]
The Riddler is a jerk. I think we need to talk Grey into getting a last name...and did you seriously talk to the devil about fish?
[Grey Ludgate or Grey Graham, whatever makes him happiest. The Riddler is a jerk? Well, with a name like the Riddler...]
I...did. [Slow, confused. Is he not supposed to talk to the devil at all? When he's so tied up in other people he knows? Would she prefer him only talk to the devil where she can't see it?] What's with the Riddler, though?
[Mostly because this world is chock full of jerks in the first place, for April to call someone a jerk and bring that up in the bed means there has either been a very great display of jerk behavior, or they've been a jerk to April, specifically. Not that he couldn't figure it out from the whole blank postcard thing but...it's eating at her, apparently. So. Might as well.]
[But fish, Will? Fish. Next it will be puns and terrible shirts. But all that is besides the point.
She sighs against his shoulder, suddenly missing talking about Fred and Balitmore over all of this....stuff. Will had the excuse of being bound by home to the Baltimore crew. April only had her own stupid self.]
[Quiet, chest rising as he takes in a deep breath. Ah, revolutionaries. It's like he gets it, she doesn't need to say anything else. Those jerkbag revolutionaries and their endless songs about singing, truly the most obnoxious sort of people that ever could walk the face of any Earth. This one, the one back in April's home, Will's home, all of them. No one compares to the absolute horror of revolutionaries. Will knows this feeling, he knows e x a c t l y what she means—]
[There isn't really a word for the noise she makes at that. All no and gross and why would you even rolled into a formless groan. God, Will.
God.
But talking about how Mitch and Eddie not getting along was like watching her parents get divorced was- well. Weird. Especially when there wasn't much of an age gap between Will and Eddie to begin with.]
Never mind. It doesn't even matter, anyway. Talk about what a jerk Fred is.
[And just like that, it's Will's turn to do the whole sitting up thing, though it's a half-hearted propping that involves rolling on his elbow more than actually sitting up. Still, the effort is there, the effort to stop making it so one of them can stare at something, anything else, but each other and she'll actually have to work to ignore the lean chunk of human in her space.]
What do you mean "it doesn't even matter"? [Bordering on offended over here, don't insult him like that.] It matters enough for you to mention, and—don't think I haven't noticed that you spend a lot of effort not mentioning things that matter. [Troy. Rick. People she actually likes leaving. That one night she came home and acted a little different around muffins in the morning.] What's the point of being married if...
[He waves his hand, finally letting it fall to his side in like a fish giving up. The lazy slap that barely makes a sound, even on the sheets.]
[Now who is being logical, Will Graham? But she doesn't scowl, doesn't try to roll away or look somewhere else or even summon her raccoon hoards to interrupt this moment of sharing. She leans up just enough to go for a fast, light kiss-
Then her elbow goes out from under her so fast she bounces slightly as her head hits the pillow.]
I love you.
[And, sprawled down on the bed as she now is, a hand still comes up to slides up his stomach and onto his chest, hitching the shirt up just a little bit.]
And you're here. And you already know when it matters. So.
[There were so many ways to pretend to be in control of a life one had no actual control over. April's preferred one was just ignoring the parts she didn't like, pretend they didn't happen. Let someone else deal with the negatives...
And most people just went with the idea that was how she actually worked. No cut could be the deepest because she never picked up the knife to begin with. Easy to believe, after a few chats over the network.
But then there's Will. Who knows EAR will never be renamed or even given another nickname because what if Kat came back three years later and his baby didn't remember the right name? Eddie was just a living reminder of another past she won't be getting back again.]
That's. The point, I guess. So, you know. I just...
[She started it. The only time he looks away from her is when she tugs on his shirt, momentarily worried she's going to take an opportunity after affection and confessions to distract him from this in the easiest, best way. Which wouldn't be anything he'd complain about, of course, but it set a terrible precedent and he could just bring it up later. At a worse time. She totally wants to try talking about this jerk directly after sex, right?
Fortunately not the case, and his eyes linger on her without outright staring. That seems easier if he stays as is, stretching his legs to make up for some of that former intensity. They're Just Talking. This isn't a Legitimate Crisis. There's so much space to kick around at the foot of the bed anyway.]
Have you told him? And— [He's quick to add, slowly following her lead back onto the pillow without the bounce part. He is too old for bouncing, not too old for glowy eyes to catch the light and shine green. She could be talking to a raccoon.] —without using the whole he's a jerk as a starting point?
[She scoffs softly at that. Please, Will. Not that she isn't going to use his return to bed level to essentially curl up on top of him. Hope those work outs have been working, because he's going to need those chest muscles to keep breathing with an April pressing down on his rib cage.]
We have our own kind of talking. He said I was getting soft.
[Gotham villain, remember. One that had once upon a time told April how much she would have liked living in that particular city. And also that one that had instilled her endless, knee-jerk disgust with shrinks. So Will had that to thank him for, anyway.]
[If it's April pressing down on him with herself instead of something sharp or heavy enough to crush him, he will be just fine. If he has to be mildly squashed by anything in the world other than a dog, April is really really high on his list of preferred things and people to be beneath, no contest.]
People change. [Not-so-sage advice from the decrepit old man in the room, but better than anything about April being soft. People being soft in general, or how they can physically be made soft...leave the murder talk at work, always.] As long as you still have your own kind of talking...that's something, isn't it?
[Something's better than nothing, or can be. It can also be the worst thing, but advising anyone else to cut off ties with someone who aggravates them or makes them sad or whatever is...not exactly something he can speak on too well without being a super huge hypocrite. Better to keep that to people who don't have enough knowledge about Hannibal Lecter to stare him in the eyes and crush him.]
[It's hard, Will. She wouldn't take the energy to call him a jerk or send blank post cards or whatever if she didn't care. And that was the problem. Eddie, even if he was trying to burn the world down, was her favorite. And it just...
It sucked. A lot.]
Mitch is going to do something. So. It's fine. We just need to not blow up before that.
[Settled on his chest as she is, she can easily pick up on the slow, steady beating of his heart. Calm, normal. Stable. He can be a bedrock pillar of support in the physical regard if nothing else.]
I'm always on board with not blowing up. [Mumbled, inaudible to someone who wasn't right on top of him. Though, if the way his arms wrap around her, fingers interlacing like a loving cage made of human flesh instead of metal or wire is anything to go by, he doesn't mind her perch at all.] And if whatever Mitch does doesn't have the outcome you're hoping for, I'll be right here [minor squeeze, as though she really didn't know where he was] for you to not-talk about it with.
[It comes out slightly sarcastic, but she knows, babe. She knows. It's just...the relationship with her and the people that gave her some foundation in a weird new reality is complicated. As much as she loves Will- and no matter how it's in a very different way than how she loved those Originals- she was already settled when he came along. Losing Eddie or Mitch was like...like watching the parents turn your childhood bedroom into an erotic massage parlor. Sure, it was going to happen eventually, but you didn't want to be there to see it.]
[Sigh. Now this, this is where the sage advice comes out. Except it's coming from a dude who ran a boatyard, so it might not be the most sage thing out there. Still, as an impressionable young man with a memory that could cut a diamond, of course he was going to remember.]
...if you love a woman, you give her flowers. Candy. Take her to dinner. Tell her you love her. [And here, the squeeze gets a little tighter. The cage is shrinking.] If you find one you can't live without, where even thinking of a world without her is enough to bring you to your knees? You marry her. Trap her to you with the support of the law. Otherwise, she can leave at any time without too much fuss, and you're the Goddamn numbskull who let it happen so you never deserved her in the first place.
[Find what you love and make sure it has to really not love you back in order for it to run away. Super romantic.]
[April can only shake her head slightly against the pillow at that bit of insight into the proud male mindset. The true secret of marriage: it was a trap.]
[His squeezing, human trap eases and he relaxes in a way that suggests he's pretty much good to go now on the "maybe getting five hours of sleep and spending the other three not-staring at April" front.]
He ended up with someone who deserved him as he much as he deserved her. And a boatyard to top it all off. Make of that what you will.
[Verbs for names, gotta have a sense of humor sometimes.]
[Though 'deserving' was relative...but hey. As a firm benefactor of weird love, she can't complain. But she goes quiet for a long moment, drumming her fingers against his sternum to let him know she's processing as she makes a mental account of the night...]
So Fred and Eddie suck and Abbey is going to be pissed at you soon- better get a college fund going or something as an 'oops, no. Wait. I'm totally the adult here' apology plan. That's it on our monthly drama update?
[His sternum is all hers to play drumming songs on, there is no ghastly smiling scar underneath for him to get self-conscious over. It's all good. Even the nickname and the reminder that "you are setting up a fall with her it will bite your butt" are just fine.
Is that it? Hmm. Hm. Oh.]
Jeff says you're fantastic and he would totally bone you. [Will reveals, in a tone that is neither threatened nor offended. There's nothing but affection for that Jeff Winger.] Keep it in mind on movie nights, I guess.
[It has nothing to do with Will simply liking getting to call April fantastic or anything. Nah. Nope. No way. Not at all.]
Mm. Good. I'll have something to do. While you're in hiding.
[Said with a wide yawn and a snuggling into his side accompanying the deadpan. Of course he dd, Will. April knows she's amazing, too. But the husband-granted compliments are still appreciated.]
[Oh no. He's lost April, too. He's been abandoned by everyone, Jeff Winger is as much of a homewrecker as Jonathan Crane. Everything is awful, their bed is going to be used and it'll be rubbed in his face every day and this is just the most miserable thing that could possibly ever happen.
He doesn't think at all, glancing to another pair of glowing eyes in the corner of the room before he shuts his own with a despicably content smile plastered on his face. His hand around doesn't slink around her waist further because he's afraid she's going to get out of the bed right and have premature movie night. He does it simply because he can and it's the best way to sleep.]
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2015-06-16 01:46 am (UTC)And. Mm. There's trouble with some of the people she cares about. But nothing that has rules and regulations tied in.]
The Riddler is a jerk. I think we need to talk Grey into getting a last name...and did you seriously talk to the devil about fish?
no subject
Date: 2015-06-16 02:08 am (UTC)I...did. [Slow, confused. Is he not supposed to talk to the devil at all? When he's so tied up in other people he knows? Would she prefer him only talk to the devil where she can't see it?] What's with the Riddler, though?
[Mostly because this world is chock full of jerks in the first place, for April to call someone a jerk and bring that up in the bed means there has either been a very great display of jerk behavior, or they've been a jerk to April, specifically. Not that he couldn't figure it out from the whole blank postcard thing but...it's eating at her, apparently. So. Might as well.]
no subject
Date: 2015-06-17 12:46 am (UTC)She sighs against his shoulder, suddenly missing talking about Fred and Balitmore over all of this....stuff. Will had the excuse of being bound by home to the Baltimore crew. April only had her own stupid self.]
He's a revolutionary. Or something.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-17 01:24 am (UTC)[Quiet, chest rising as he takes in a deep breath. Ah, revolutionaries. It's like he gets it, she doesn't need to say anything else. Those jerkbag revolutionaries and their endless songs about singing, truly the most obnoxious sort of people that ever could walk the face of any Earth. This one, the one back in April's home, Will's home, all of them. No one compares to the absolute horror of revolutionaries. Will knows this feeling, he knows e x a c t l y what she means—]
He's stepping on your turf?
[Psyche.]
no subject
Date: 2015-06-17 01:35 am (UTC)God.
But talking about how Mitch and Eddie not getting along was like watching her parents get divorced was- well. Weird. Especially when there wasn't much of an age gap between Will and Eddie to begin with.]
Never mind. It doesn't even matter, anyway. Talk about what a jerk Fred is.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-17 02:36 am (UTC)What do you mean "it doesn't even matter"? [Bordering on offended over here, don't insult him like that.] It matters enough for you to mention, and—don't think I haven't noticed that you spend a lot of effort not mentioning things that matter. [Troy. Rick. People she actually likes leaving. That one night she came home and acted a little different around muffins in the morning.] What's the point of being married if...
[He waves his hand, finally letting it fall to his side in like a fish giving up. The lazy slap that barely makes a sound, even on the sheets.]
...I don't support you as much as you support me?
no subject
Date: 2015-06-17 02:52 am (UTC)Then her elbow goes out from under her so fast she bounces slightly as her head hits the pillow.]
I love you.
[And, sprawled down on the bed as she now is, a hand still comes up to slides up his stomach and onto his chest, hitching the shirt up just a little bit.]
And you're here. And you already know when it matters. So.
[There were so many ways to pretend to be in control of a life one had no actual control over. April's preferred one was just ignoring the parts she didn't like, pretend they didn't happen. Let someone else deal with the negatives...
And most people just went with the idea that was how she actually worked. No cut could be the deepest because she never picked up the knife to begin with. Easy to believe, after a few chats over the network.
But then there's Will. Who knows EAR will never be renamed or even given another nickname because what if Kat came back three years later and his baby didn't remember the right name? Eddie was just a living reminder of another past she won't be getting back again.]
That's. The point, I guess. So, you know. I just...
I miss him. I guess.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-17 04:03 am (UTC)Fortunately not the case, and his eyes linger on her without outright staring. That seems easier if he stays as is, stretching his legs to make up for some of that former intensity. They're Just Talking. This isn't a Legitimate Crisis. There's so much space to kick around at the foot of the bed anyway.]
Have you told him? And— [He's quick to add, slowly following her lead back onto the pillow without the bounce part. He is too old for bouncing, not too old for glowy eyes to catch the light and shine green. She could be talking to a raccoon.] —without using the whole he's a jerk as a starting point?
no subject
Date: 2015-06-17 04:12 am (UTC)We have our own kind of talking. He said I was getting soft.
[Gotham villain, remember. One that had once upon a time told April how much she would have liked living in that particular city. And also that one that had instilled her endless, knee-jerk disgust with shrinks. So Will had that to thank him for, anyway.]
Then bought me a muffin.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 02:20 am (UTC)People change. [Not-so-sage advice from the decrepit old man in the room, but better than anything about April being soft. People being soft in general, or how they can physically be made soft...leave the murder talk at work, always.] As long as you still have your own kind of talking...that's something, isn't it?
[Something's better than nothing, or can be. It can also be the worst thing, but advising anyone else to cut off ties with someone who aggravates them or makes them sad or whatever is...not exactly something he can speak on too well without being a super huge hypocrite. Better to keep that to people who don't have enough knowledge about Hannibal Lecter to stare him in the eyes and crush him.]
no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 02:23 am (UTC)[It's hard, Will. She wouldn't take the energy to call him a jerk or send blank post cards or whatever if she didn't care. And that was the problem. Eddie, even if he was trying to burn the world down, was her favorite. And it just...
It sucked. A lot.]
Mitch is going to do something. So. It's fine. We just need to not blow up before that.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 03:29 am (UTC)I'm always on board with not blowing up. [Mumbled, inaudible to someone who wasn't right on top of him. Though, if the way his arms wrap around her, fingers interlacing like a loving cage made of human flesh instead of metal or wire is anything to go by, he doesn't mind her perch at all.] And if whatever Mitch does doesn't have the outcome you're hoping for, I'll be right here [minor squeeze, as though she really didn't know where he was] for you to not-talk about it with.
[They can throw out all the muffin pans, even.]
no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 03:42 am (UTC)[It comes out slightly sarcastic, but she knows, babe. She knows. It's just...the relationship with her and the people that gave her some foundation in a weird new reality is complicated. As much as she loves Will- and no matter how it's in a very different way than how she loved those Originals- she was already settled when he came along. Losing Eddie or Mitch was like...like watching the parents turn your childhood bedroom into an erotic massage parlor. Sure, it was going to happen eventually, but you didn't want to be there to see it.]
Way too much work to leave now.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 04:36 am (UTC)[Sigh. Now this, this is where the sage advice comes out. Except it's coming from a dude who ran a boatyard, so it might not be the most sage thing out there. Still, as an impressionable young man with a memory that could cut a diamond, of course he was going to remember.]
...if you love a woman, you give her flowers. Candy. Take her to dinner. Tell her you love her. [And here, the squeeze gets a little tighter. The cage is shrinking.] If you find one you can't live without, where even thinking of a world without her is enough to bring you to your knees? You marry her. Trap her to you with the support of the law. Otherwise, she can leave at any time without too much fuss, and you're the Goddamn numbskull who let it happen so you never deserved her in the first place.
[Find what you love and make sure it has to really not love you back in order for it to run away. Super romantic.]
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 02:16 am (UTC)So...he died alone.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 04:14 am (UTC)He ended up with someone who deserved him as he much as he deserved her. And a boatyard to top it all off. Make of that what you will.
[Verbs for names, gotta have a sense of humor sometimes.]
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 04:19 am (UTC)[Though 'deserving' was relative...but hey. As a firm benefactor of weird love, she can't complain. But she goes quiet for a long moment, drumming her fingers against his sternum to let him know she's processing as she makes a mental account of the night...]
So Fred and Eddie suck and Abbey is going to be pissed at you soon- better get a college fund going or something as an 'oops, no. Wait. I'm totally the adult here' apology plan. That's it on our monthly drama update?
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 04:39 am (UTC)Is that it? Hmm. Hm. Oh.]
Jeff says you're fantastic and he would totally bone you. [Will reveals, in a tone that is neither threatened nor offended. There's nothing but affection for that Jeff Winger.] Keep it in mind on movie nights, I guess.
[It has nothing to do with Will simply liking getting to call April fantastic or anything. Nah. Nope. No way. Not at all.]
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 02:59 pm (UTC)[Said with a wide yawn and a snuggling into his side accompanying the deadpan. Of course he dd, Will. April knows she's amazing, too. But the husband-granted compliments are still appreciated.]
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 11:44 pm (UTC)He doesn't think at all, glancing to another pair of glowing eyes in the corner of the room before he shuts his own with a despicably content smile plastered on his face. His hand around doesn't slink around her waist further because he's afraid she's going to get out of the bed right and have premature movie night. He does it simply because he can and it's the best way to sleep.]