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musewrite Prompt 47
Nov. 14th, 2013 01:23 pm[Regret]
She was so young. He forgot that sometimes. He forgot that she was sheltered and new and so very young. She was so quick to jump to conclusions, to make assumptions about him, about her power, about what was expected and he supposed that part of that was his fault. He’d grown up in this world and he took so much for granted. He could be less vague; he could tell her more. He could and yet she would never realize how difficult it was for him to obliterate her idealism. It wasn’t selfless; it was, in fact, incredibly selfish of him. Her idealism made him want to believe that things could be easier, different, better, more hopeful.
They weren’t. That was the reality of the situation. Things were exactly the way they appeared to be and things had to be done that no one wanted to do.
“I could do it for her,” Finn suggested.
Alex shook his head and coughed, blood spotting the tissue he held to his lips. “No. The council won’t consider that a successful mission. Besides, you have to get closer than he’d allow. Sawyer has a unique ability in that she can do it long distance.”
“But not long distance enough.” Finn pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling a long-suffering sigh.
“No. Not long distance enough.” The admission cost Alex more than he would admit, more than Finn wanted to admit and just enough to make Finn feel guilty for bringing this to Alex when he was so weak anyway.
Finn pushed himself to his feet and patted Alex’s shoulder in a manner that reversed the relationship they normally had. Finn appeared to be the guardian, the protector instead of the other way around. “You should rest. I’ll talk to Sawyer.”
“Are you certain? She’s less likely to argue with me in the condition I’m in.”
Finn chuckled, turning over in his head the idea that Alex wasn’t afraid to use his illness to manipulate someone. He often forgot how wily Alex could be when pressed. “You don’t know Sawyer very well.” He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “No. I’ll do it.”
He felt every single one of the years he didn’t look as he started out of the bedroom and down the stairs. He was unsurprised to see Sawyer curled up on the couch in front of the TV, one of her inane movies in the DVD player. She cut him a glare then looked back at the TV, jaw squarely set.
Finn moved past her, more to throw her off than anything, and into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. While he waited for it to boil he turned over all the ways that he could approach this subject with Sawyer. It was a sore one; they’d already yelled at each other over it. His hands still smarted from where he’d burned himself touching her. He’d like to avoid being set on fire or burned for this conversation.
In the end, he knew there was good way to talk to Sawyer about this. He had to approach it as calmly and gently as possible then give her some time to get used to it, to make her own decisions and come to terms with what they were asking her to do. He finished up the tea, carried his mug into the living room and sat down on the opposite end of the couch. Sawyer, as expected, ignored him, going to great pains to do so. He bade his time, giving her a moment to get accustomed to the idea that they were going to talk, waiting her out. Finn knew that silence made Sawyer uncomfortable. He also knew she was stubborn and pissed off enough at him that she might be able to hold out and deal with the discomfort the silence brought.
After several minutes, he sat forward on the edge of the couch. “Sawyer, might you pause the movie so we can talk.”
“No. I might not.” She never looked away from the screen.
“We’re going to have to discuss this sooner or later. It can’t be avoided forever.” He kept his tone of voice calm and even. It irritated her when he did that and if she was irritated her desire to yell at him would outweigh her desire to avoid the subject. Of course, there was always the possibility that she would set him on fire. It was quite the crapshoot with Sawyer.
“I’ll take later in murder for four hundred, Alec.”
Finn took a deep breath, struggling to maintain his calm demeanor. He knew that she thought he was as emotionless as the stone he could become. She couldn’t be further from the truth. Emotions resonated in Finn the way vibrations might resonate in rock, but he was keenly aware how those vibrations could bring down an entire mountain. He can’t afford to crumble, not now, not around Sawyer ever.
“Don’t you think if there were any other way, we’d take it? You talked to him, Sawyer. We’re not dealing with a sane man. We’re not even dealing with someone who wants help. He is far too dangerous to apprehend.”
“And yet a sixteen year old girl held a five minute conversation with him and walked away unscathed.”
“Yes, and that was ill-advised. However, you weren’t trying to capture him or hinder what he was trying to do in any way. Might I remind you that he tried to kill you by dropping the temperature so drastically the air in your lungs would have frozen.”
He watched as she absorbed that information, trying to guess what her next argument was going to be. The beautiful thing about Sawyer was that she remained unpredictable. He could rely on her to do the most outrageous things, take the most illogical approach. It was scintillating, until he needed to sway her to his side of an argument, the side she was vehemently against.
“I hate you so much.”
Okay, so that was predictable.
“I know,” he said and in that moment, he hated himself as well. He didn’t want to ask this of Sawyer. “If I could do it for you, I would.”
Sawyer shook her head. “No because then I’d be the asshole that was asking you to kill someone. At least this way, I get the moral high ground.”
He snorted a bit of a chuckle. “There is that.” He hesitated, trying to properly gauge what her reaction would be before he set his tea cup aside and moved closer to her on the couch, his hand going to her back just between her shoulder blades.
“If it helps, I know what I’m asking to do.”
“So you’ve done the Ezio gig before?”
It was endearing and frustrating the way she constantly baffled him with her speech. He wasn’t certain, sometimes, that they even spoke the same language. “Pardon?”
She shook her head and waved him off. “Video game…thing.”
“I didn’t know you played any.”
She shrugged a little, his hand moving with the motion. “Sometimes. Assassins. That’s what this one is about.” She sighed, her shoulders bowing under the weight of what he was asking her to do.
In contrast, Finn’s shoulders straightened, squared, his spine stiffening. He knew the only way to bear the burden was to buck up beneath it. “Yes. I’ve done the Ezio gig before.” He paused, turning over words and ideas, trying to decide how Sawyer would best accept his explanation. “You remember how Alex got angry when I turned you to stone.”
He waited for her to nod before continuing. He could tell by the expression on her face that she knew what he was going to say. “Being turned to stone suffocates anyone that isn’t an earth elemental.”
“Please tell me that the statues in Council Headquarters aren’t people.” He knew he should be chagrined by the horror on her face, but he could only chuckle in the wake of it.
“No. The statues in council headquarters were never people. They’re simply likeness carved, not turned, to honor elementals who are deserving.”
“Good. ‘Cause the creep factor on that place is already through the roof. It doesn’t need help.” Her brow furrowed and he held his breath, waiting to see what her next question was going to be. Sometimes he wished his powers included telepathy. He was certain Sawyer’s mind would be a fascinating and frustrating thing to read.
Perhaps she was right. Perhaps he was a glutton.
“What happens to the statues?” It was clear by the way she said statues that she meant people. She said it with a tinge of disgust in her words.
“Generally they’re destroyed.”
Sawyer pondered that, lips thinned as she nodded slightly. She leaned back against his hand, letting him take on some of her weight. He slipped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer so that she was leaning on him. She tensed for a moment then relaxed, her cheek resting against his collarbone. She huffed out a sigh, something he felt against his skin., and he curled his arm a bit tighter around her.
“Sometimes being Johnny Storm sucks.”
He still didn’t entirely get her reference, but she had forced him to watch some horrific movie with a man that stretched and a man that became engulfed in flame. However, he’d heard it enough to just go with what she was saying.
“Indeed. I’m sure he agrees. After all, he often ends up entirely naked.”
Sawyer sighed again; this time it was a more wistful sort of sound. He was becoming fluent in Sawyer sigh language. He snickered silently at his own bad pun.
“Yes, but he’s Chris Evans so no one is complaining. Ever.”
“I suppose. I hadn’t noticed.”
“Which means we have to watch it again.”
“You do realize, Sawyer, that I’m not homosexual and therefore Chris Evans, naked or otherwise, holds no appeal for me.”
“Duh. We’re not watching it for your appeal.”
“Then why must the activity be a group project?” He was teasing her at this point, not that he was certain she ever saw it that way.
“Because he’s hot enough I might spontaneously combust. “
“And what am I meant to do in this scenario?”
“Grab the fire extinguisher. Keep up BB.”
A smile quirked the corners of his lips. She hadn’t called him that in quite a while. “Very well. I’ll watch the movie with you. As a precaution against spontaneous combustion, of course.”
“Of course.”
He might as well allow her this moment of normalcy, this moment of carelessness before he changed what she became as a person irrevocably. After all, he knew from personal experience that that sort of regret changed a person, whether they wanted it to or not.
He was going to miss the person she was in this moment.
She was so young. He forgot that sometimes. He forgot that she was sheltered and new and so very young. She was so quick to jump to conclusions, to make assumptions about him, about her power, about what was expected and he supposed that part of that was his fault. He’d grown up in this world and he took so much for granted. He could be less vague; he could tell her more. He could and yet she would never realize how difficult it was for him to obliterate her idealism. It wasn’t selfless; it was, in fact, incredibly selfish of him. Her idealism made him want to believe that things could be easier, different, better, more hopeful.
They weren’t. That was the reality of the situation. Things were exactly the way they appeared to be and things had to be done that no one wanted to do.
“I could do it for her,” Finn suggested.
Alex shook his head and coughed, blood spotting the tissue he held to his lips. “No. The council won’t consider that a successful mission. Besides, you have to get closer than he’d allow. Sawyer has a unique ability in that she can do it long distance.”
“But not long distance enough.” Finn pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling a long-suffering sigh.
“No. Not long distance enough.” The admission cost Alex more than he would admit, more than Finn wanted to admit and just enough to make Finn feel guilty for bringing this to Alex when he was so weak anyway.
Finn pushed himself to his feet and patted Alex’s shoulder in a manner that reversed the relationship they normally had. Finn appeared to be the guardian, the protector instead of the other way around. “You should rest. I’ll talk to Sawyer.”
“Are you certain? She’s less likely to argue with me in the condition I’m in.”
Finn chuckled, turning over in his head the idea that Alex wasn’t afraid to use his illness to manipulate someone. He often forgot how wily Alex could be when pressed. “You don’t know Sawyer very well.” He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “No. I’ll do it.”
He felt every single one of the years he didn’t look as he started out of the bedroom and down the stairs. He was unsurprised to see Sawyer curled up on the couch in front of the TV, one of her inane movies in the DVD player. She cut him a glare then looked back at the TV, jaw squarely set.
Finn moved past her, more to throw her off than anything, and into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. While he waited for it to boil he turned over all the ways that he could approach this subject with Sawyer. It was a sore one; they’d already yelled at each other over it. His hands still smarted from where he’d burned himself touching her. He’d like to avoid being set on fire or burned for this conversation.
In the end, he knew there was good way to talk to Sawyer about this. He had to approach it as calmly and gently as possible then give her some time to get used to it, to make her own decisions and come to terms with what they were asking her to do. He finished up the tea, carried his mug into the living room and sat down on the opposite end of the couch. Sawyer, as expected, ignored him, going to great pains to do so. He bade his time, giving her a moment to get accustomed to the idea that they were going to talk, waiting her out. Finn knew that silence made Sawyer uncomfortable. He also knew she was stubborn and pissed off enough at him that she might be able to hold out and deal with the discomfort the silence brought.
After several minutes, he sat forward on the edge of the couch. “Sawyer, might you pause the movie so we can talk.”
“No. I might not.” She never looked away from the screen.
“We’re going to have to discuss this sooner or later. It can’t be avoided forever.” He kept his tone of voice calm and even. It irritated her when he did that and if she was irritated her desire to yell at him would outweigh her desire to avoid the subject. Of course, there was always the possibility that she would set him on fire. It was quite the crapshoot with Sawyer.
“I’ll take later in murder for four hundred, Alec.”
Finn took a deep breath, struggling to maintain his calm demeanor. He knew that she thought he was as emotionless as the stone he could become. She couldn’t be further from the truth. Emotions resonated in Finn the way vibrations might resonate in rock, but he was keenly aware how those vibrations could bring down an entire mountain. He can’t afford to crumble, not now, not around Sawyer ever.
“Don’t you think if there were any other way, we’d take it? You talked to him, Sawyer. We’re not dealing with a sane man. We’re not even dealing with someone who wants help. He is far too dangerous to apprehend.”
“And yet a sixteen year old girl held a five minute conversation with him and walked away unscathed.”
“Yes, and that was ill-advised. However, you weren’t trying to capture him or hinder what he was trying to do in any way. Might I remind you that he tried to kill you by dropping the temperature so drastically the air in your lungs would have frozen.”
He watched as she absorbed that information, trying to guess what her next argument was going to be. The beautiful thing about Sawyer was that she remained unpredictable. He could rely on her to do the most outrageous things, take the most illogical approach. It was scintillating, until he needed to sway her to his side of an argument, the side she was vehemently against.
“I hate you so much.”
Okay, so that was predictable.
“I know,” he said and in that moment, he hated himself as well. He didn’t want to ask this of Sawyer. “If I could do it for you, I would.”
Sawyer shook her head. “No because then I’d be the asshole that was asking you to kill someone. At least this way, I get the moral high ground.”
He snorted a bit of a chuckle. “There is that.” He hesitated, trying to properly gauge what her reaction would be before he set his tea cup aside and moved closer to her on the couch, his hand going to her back just between her shoulder blades.
“If it helps, I know what I’m asking to do.”
“So you’ve done the Ezio gig before?”
It was endearing and frustrating the way she constantly baffled him with her speech. He wasn’t certain, sometimes, that they even spoke the same language. “Pardon?”
She shook her head and waved him off. “Video game…thing.”
“I didn’t know you played any.”
She shrugged a little, his hand moving with the motion. “Sometimes. Assassins. That’s what this one is about.” She sighed, her shoulders bowing under the weight of what he was asking her to do.
In contrast, Finn’s shoulders straightened, squared, his spine stiffening. He knew the only way to bear the burden was to buck up beneath it. “Yes. I’ve done the Ezio gig before.” He paused, turning over words and ideas, trying to decide how Sawyer would best accept his explanation. “You remember how Alex got angry when I turned you to stone.”
He waited for her to nod before continuing. He could tell by the expression on her face that she knew what he was going to say. “Being turned to stone suffocates anyone that isn’t an earth elemental.”
“Please tell me that the statues in Council Headquarters aren’t people.” He knew he should be chagrined by the horror on her face, but he could only chuckle in the wake of it.
“No. The statues in council headquarters were never people. They’re simply likeness carved, not turned, to honor elementals who are deserving.”
“Good. ‘Cause the creep factor on that place is already through the roof. It doesn’t need help.” Her brow furrowed and he held his breath, waiting to see what her next question was going to be. Sometimes he wished his powers included telepathy. He was certain Sawyer’s mind would be a fascinating and frustrating thing to read.
Perhaps she was right. Perhaps he was a glutton.
“What happens to the statues?” It was clear by the way she said statues that she meant people. She said it with a tinge of disgust in her words.
“Generally they’re destroyed.”
Sawyer pondered that, lips thinned as she nodded slightly. She leaned back against his hand, letting him take on some of her weight. He slipped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer so that she was leaning on him. She tensed for a moment then relaxed, her cheek resting against his collarbone. She huffed out a sigh, something he felt against his skin., and he curled his arm a bit tighter around her.
“Sometimes being Johnny Storm sucks.”
He still didn’t entirely get her reference, but she had forced him to watch some horrific movie with a man that stretched and a man that became engulfed in flame. However, he’d heard it enough to just go with what she was saying.
“Indeed. I’m sure he agrees. After all, he often ends up entirely naked.”
Sawyer sighed again; this time it was a more wistful sort of sound. He was becoming fluent in Sawyer sigh language. He snickered silently at his own bad pun.
“Yes, but he’s Chris Evans so no one is complaining. Ever.”
“I suppose. I hadn’t noticed.”
“Which means we have to watch it again.”
“You do realize, Sawyer, that I’m not homosexual and therefore Chris Evans, naked or otherwise, holds no appeal for me.”
“Duh. We’re not watching it for your appeal.”
“Then why must the activity be a group project?” He was teasing her at this point, not that he was certain she ever saw it that way.
“Because he’s hot enough I might spontaneously combust. “
“And what am I meant to do in this scenario?”
“Grab the fire extinguisher. Keep up BB.”
A smile quirked the corners of his lips. She hadn’t called him that in quite a while. “Very well. I’ll watch the movie with you. As a precaution against spontaneous combustion, of course.”
“Of course.”
He might as well allow her this moment of normalcy, this moment of carelessness before he changed what she became as a person irrevocably. After all, he knew from personal experience that that sort of regret changed a person, whether they wanted it to or not.
He was going to miss the person she was in this moment.
