Telling the bees

[andhiswife]

It's warm enough that, under different circumstances, she might describe the night air as pleasant. A little cool, perhaps, but nothing a shawl won't fix. Of course, most of the more positive adjectives -- 'pleasant' or 'enjoyable' or 'nice' -- are still rather out of her reach, and what passes for a 'good' day anymore is one in which she can feel her way into a sort of resigned neutrality.

Today has been one such good day, though it's still left her feeling vaguely impatient with herself. Losing Thomas wasn't like losing her husband, but the grief is just similar enough to edge toward redundancy. It's like dreaming of completing one of your usual chores, and then waking to find out it still needs to be done, and that all that dream-work was for nothing. Surely she shouldn't have to retread this miserable path again.

But she does, because this is Darrow, and because apparently the price she pays for not being lost is being the one who does the losing.

Maybe it's because she isn't feeling particularly tender towards herself that she's out here, waiting up for Sweeney. Not that she expects him to be unsympathetic -- it's more that she trusts him not to dole out the sort of horrified, weepy commiseration that she wouldn't be able to bear. There's a point where other people's horror on your behalf just reminds you that you have something to be horrified about, and she doesn't need that sort of confirmation at the moment. Numbness is preferable.

That, and she thinks he ought to know. Presuming he hasn't already figured it out: that he doesn't have some fae sense that informs him of such things, that he couldn't taste it in the offerings she left on the windowsill. It's like the way beekeepers would deliver bad news to their hives, back in the Village. Someone ought to tell the leprechaun.

She isn't sure how leprechaun senses work -- if the exact 'where' of the offering matters more than the intention behind it -- but she's willing to guess the intention matters more, and at any rate, she's not going to precariously balance a glass of whiskey on the windowsill and risk it falling. Instead, it's sitting across from her on the patio table. Her own glass has been doctored into a hot toddy, less on account of the slight chill and more because drinking whiskey by herself (for as long as that lasts) is a little less depressing under the thin pretense of it being medicinal.

Meanwhile, she hadn't fully considered the optics of an expectant glass on the other side of an empty table, and she pulls her shawl a little closer around herself and frowns, looking out across the yard. He'd bloody well better show up soon.

Comments

[onlythebranch]

Something's wrong with Greta.

He doesn't know what it may be or even how he knows, only that he does know, and he's been a bit of a shit about it this evening, staying away longer than necessary even though he knows she's set something out for him. It's just that he's no good at comfort. Maybe he used to be, a very long time ago, but these days he's too bloody crass for it and Greta deserves better than that. Better than him.

That's bullshit, though, because she deserves better than his cowardice, too, so in the end he goes.

"You waitin' up for me?" he calls from across the yard when he sees her. Somehow he's not surprised to find a glass waiting for him instead of a pastry on a windowsill. He's even less surprised to find her there, too.

[andhiswife]

"Only because you took your time," she returns, without rancor and at a slightly lower volume, lest she wake her daughter. Saoirse ought to be asleep by now, but Greta isn't taking it for granted that she'll stay that way. Neither of them have found the past week or so all that restful. In fact, Saoirse crawling into bed with her in the wee hours has been common enough that Greta left a note on the pillow before settling herself outside, not wanting the poor lass to just find the bed empty and assume the worst.

Greta knocks back the last dregs of her toddy. It's cooled and over-sweet from the honey resettling near the bottom, and she grimaces a little as she sets the mug down, and then deliberately pours herself a few fingers of straight whiskey. No more mucking about now that company's arrived. "Come on, you've got catching up to do."

[onlythebranch]

"Yes, ma'am," he says and snaps off a salute, hoping to get a smile out of her, knowing it might not be possible right now. There's a heaviness covering the yard, a sense of oppression he can't pinpoint the source of, but as he sits across from Greta and lifts his drink, he finds himself hoping it's not the little one.

With a sigh, Sweeney knocks back half the whiskey and feels the pleasant burn sink down his throat and into his belly. Whatever luck he's been giving her, it's turned lately, that much is clear. Not by his own doing, not intentionally, but he can't swear it isn't him.

"Can't sleep?" he asks. That's not what this is, but if she wants to tell him anything, he's not going to coerce her into it.

[andhiswife]

A salute. It registers as out of character before it registers as an attempt to cheer her up. Because he knows she needs cheering. Is that the extent of it, though? She watches him down half the glass, waiting to see if a more specific acknowledgment is brewing. But the question he levels is decidedly vague, and she drops her gaze to her own glass.

"Thomas is gone." She punctuates it with a gulp of whiskey, so she won't have to see Sweeney's expression, and so she'll have an excuse for the wince that follows as she sets her glass back down. It's getting easier to say the words, but she still doesn't like them, or the responses that tend to follow in their wake. But after a moment, she lifts her gaze to meet his, daring him to pity her and really hoping he won't.

[onlythebranch]

Though he knows better than to say such a thing out loud, he feels worse in that moment for Saoirse. She's just a bloody kid. Greta knows loss, he has no doubt she's been through harder losses than this, and for all he doesn't want for her luck to have turned in such a way, it's still Saoirse he thinks of in that first moment.

Then he closes his eyes, breathes out a sigh, and wishes luck wasn't such a fickle thing. Wishes Darrow wasn't either.

"Well, that's shit, darlin'." There's not a whole lot else that can be said of it. People don't want pity when they've lost someone. In the aftermath of death, no one likes seeing that expression, that pinched and worried face everyone seems to make because they can't fucking help themselves, and the disappearances here aren't unlike death at all.

Thomas isn't here anyway. And not by choice. It's all the same, Sweeney figures.

[andhiswife]

Greta exhales, then nods. That's as accurate a summary as anyone could ask for, and the blunt acknowledgment is easier to bear than pity would have been. She slumps back in her chair, relieved of at least one subset of the tension she's been carrying around with her ever since he disappeared.

Well. Died would be a more accurate term, but it's not one she intends to share. It's enough of a burden for those who might know; she won't saddle anyone else with it. Not least of all because it's something they had in common, and she doesn't want Sweeney -- or, heaven forbid, Saoirse -- to know what it would mean if she were to be sent home. Let them at least have the opportunity to comfort themselves with the idea that she's gone back to something.

"It is," she quietly agrees. With a grimace and a glance up at the girl's darkened window, she adds, "She's taken it hard. Naturally."

[onlythebranch]

"Yeah, I fuckin' bet," Sweeney agrees, looking toward the window as well and then away, down at his drink in hand. He finishes the rest in one long swallow, never having been the type to savour a drink when there's always more to be had, then sets the glass back down on top of the table. He thinks of the memories he's been having lately, things that come up out of the blue, all misty and grey, as if they're not fully formed or bits or movies he saw a long time ago. He's not always sure they're his memories or if they come from somewhere else, but there's a lot of loss in them.

Even so, it sure as fuck isn't something he's prepared to deal with again. Something beyond fucked up would happen to him now if Spike were to go and he knows it's possible. They both know. Everyone here knows.

"You, uh... ever need a break," he says. "Me'n Spike can look after her for a bit."

[andhiswife]

It could be some small comfort that she still has a father waiting for her back home, but it probably isn't. Saoirse made no real secret of the fact that she favored Thomas (nor could Greta blame her, going off the stories the girl had told her of her family). If anything, that probably just makes it worse: a little guilt to go with the grief, that she should miss a man who was no blood relation more than she misses her own father.

More father figures probably wouldn't go amiss, but Sweeney's offer still surprises her. She blinks at him, and then actually manages a smile. It feels a little creaky, but it's genuine. It's also not the least bit incredulous; she doesn't think he's simply offering to be nice, nor does she think they'd do anything but take excellent care of her. It's just that she's met Spike, and the mental imagery of him and Sweeney babysitting together is hilarious.

"She'd like that," Greta can safely say, though she cants her head as a bit if vampire lore occurs to her. "He can't go about in daylight, though, can he? Were you suggesting a slumber party?"

[onlythebranch]

"'Course she would, I'm a fuckin' delight," he answers as he leans back in his chair a little and hooks one hand behind his head. If nothing else, he figures the two of them would be a distraction for the girl. Creatures of myth, of stories, just like she is. She and Sweeney can speak of home, she and Spike can do something else, Christ knows, but his man is good with kids. He knows that.

Doesn't know what to make of it half the time, but he still knows it.

"He's got ways to move around during the day," he tells Greta. "But either way. You need some time on your own, you just let me know."

[andhiswife]

Greta snorts quietly, then takes another gulp of whiskey as she considers the idea. Truthfully, she hadn't considered whether she might need time spent alone. If she had, her answer would probably have been a resounding 'no,' if only because she doesn't know what she would do with guaranteed privacy except fall to pieces. Setting aside the more immediate, reactionary reasons for her and Saoirse to cling a bit more tightly than usual, she still appreciates the excuse not to wallow or sulk or indulge any dramatic impulses that the girl's presence supplies.

"I don't know how much good that would do me," she admits, setting down her glass, and then nudging the bottle toward him in implicit invitation. "It's rather useful, having someone to... to hold yourself together for." Not the most elegant phrasing, and she flaps her hand loosely; he'll get what she's driving at.

[onlythebranch]

"Yeah, but that shit won't last," he answers, pouring himself another healthy glass of whiskey before he tips the bottle invitingly toward Greta. She needs more, too, no sense in denying herself when there's so much pain to be had. So much more to go around.

"You keep doin' that, it's all gonna fall apart in front of her," he says. "Which ain't the worst thing, so long as you don't let it become a fuckin' flood. That'll scare the shit out of her."

He's the last person to talk about holding things in, being reticent, but Greta's a better person than he is. She deserves better, too.

[andhiswife]

He may have a point.

But then again, Greta doesn't think she has any truly dramatic hysterics brewing, and it's not as if she's refrained from tears up until this point. If her real worry was that Saoirse might catch her weeping, that ship has long since sailed. What she hasn't done is indulge herself; beyond a certain point, it's always time to pick herself up and pull herself together and stop wasting time. And she still doesn't really believe that's wrong.

She's so bloody tired of being miserable. The thought of scheduling a spell of misery for herself is anathema, not to mention mortifying, since if she asked Sweeney to take Saoirse off her hands now, he'd know exactly why she was asking. Or he'd think he knew. Ugh.

"I'm not about to get hysterical," she insists, accepting another measure of whiskey, knocking back a portion, and making a face that's as much in response to the burn of it as it is to the idea of having a meltdown in front of her terrified child. "I'm too bloody exhausted for that. I just..." she huffs out an impatient breath, motioning vaguely with her glass, "I just want it to be over."

[onlythebranch]

"Keepin' your fuckin' cool all the time is overrated," he answers, simple as that, but leaves it alone for the time being. He's hardly one to talk, because it's not as if he's any good with the genuine emotions. Even after having been stabbed by a bloody demon, he'd hardly been able to tell Spike he loves him and every time following that it's been in Irish. English feels too goddamn intimate, so he falls back on a language barely anyone here can understand.

"Ain't that easy, though, is it?" he asks. "Shit like that..."

He trails off, lost in a memory that isn't a memory. There's a girl, small and red haired, and he's there, too, covered in dirt, his hair snarled with twigs. It's gone as quickly as it had risen and he shakes his head.

"Shit like that lingers."

[andhiswife]

It's childish, but Greta rolls her eyes, anyway. There's rather a large spectrum of losing your cool, if you ask her, and she's certainly worked her way through part of it. Just because she hasn't collapsed to the floor in a flood of tears doesn't mean she's been completely unflappable.

"I'm flattered you think I've actually managed that so far," she deadpans, polishing off the contents of her glass and pouring herself another. She'll probably regret this in the morning -- or even in the next twenty minutes or so -- but that's a problem for Greta-in-twenty-minutes.

She doesn't particularly want to hear from someone as long-lived as Sweeney about things lingering. Her eagerness to change the subject (or at least to steer it away from the loss she's currently drinking to forget), combined with the loosening of her own inhibitions, has her taking more blatant note of the way he trails off, and the odd, distant look in his eyes.

If she were entirely sober, she wouldn't touch it. It would be some fey business, and none of hers. But she isn't, so she peers shrewdly at him over the rim of her glass. "Where did you go, just now?"

[onlythebranch]

"Don't know exactly," he admits with a shake of his head. "Lately things have been..." He trails off and lifts his hand, wiggling his fingers to signify something that goes beyond words. Though it's in his name and he's aware he went mad, the memories of that time when he was at his worst are muddled and distant, and everything before that is murkier still.

But this feels like the days before the madness was at its worst. He may not remember much clearly, but he does remember that. How it felt to be grasping at things only half there, people and faces just beyond his reach. How the woods and the trees had felt like the only escape.

"There are memories I don't know that I've had in a long bloody time," he says. "It's fuckin' weird. Don't much like it."

[andhiswife]

"That's encouraging," she huffs, setting her glass back down. The words are more flippant than her expression, which is genuinely concerned. "I thought the city just mucked about with ages and genders, not memories."

Well, she supposes the memories could be tied with age -- someone waking up younger than usual and not realizing where they are or who most of their friends are to them -- but that's a sudden and total shift, from what she's seen. Darrow doesn't spend weeks coyly hinting and what it might do to you.

But the alternative is that there's simply something wrong with Sweeney, and she doesn't like that idea, either. Now that he has his coin back, everything ought to be fine.

[onlythebranch]

"That ain't quite true. Know of a person or two who's woken up one day and remembered things that happened after they arrived here," he says, dragging his finger around the rim of his glass. "But don't think this can be blamed on Darrow. Got a feeling this is all just me."

He shrugs and leans back. "Maybe it's time for me to remember. Brân only knows how all this works. A curse might not last forever and Ronan's long dead. Perhaps shit like that just wears off eventually."

But it isn't that either. He's looking for explanations to give her when he knows he has none, only because he thinks she wants to have something to blame. But whatever's happening to him isn't because of Ronan and it isn't because of Darrow, it's just these memories of something long past that are finally surfacing and he doesn't know what that might mean or what it might lead to.

[andhiswife]

"Oh, that's right," she says, slumping sideways and propping her head up with one hand. It'd happened to Biffy, hadn't it, around when Robin showed up? If she were entirely sober -- and not trying to avoid thinking about her myriad losses -- she might've remembered. "But it's usually an all-at-once sort of thing."

Which isn't what Sweeney's describing.

"Are they, er... good... memories?" she asks, more than a little uncertain. She rather doubts it -- the brief reverie he'd slipped into hadn't looked like a happy one, and optimism is a hard sell at the moment.

[onlythebranch]

"Some," he answers. "And some not so good. Like anyone's life, yeah? Not everything can work out all the time."

And the longer a person lives, the more shitty memories they have. That's just unavoidable.

"Funny thing about it," he says slowly, weighing his words in a way he usually doesn't bother. "All of this... shit just comin' in seems to imply I might be a bit older than I've been figuring all this time. These memories, they're from before. Before I went fuckin' mad, before the curse, before the battle. Before that whole life, I think."

[andhiswife]

"From when you were a King," Greta says, remembering that detail. The other funny thing about it is that she'd sort of assumed he did remember -- or how would he have known to tell her in the first place? But it was all rather long ago. Perhaps he only knew he was a King in the way she knows she was a newborn baby once upon a time: because that's how it was, not because that's what she clearly recalls.

"How old do you think it makes you?" she asks curiously. "Whatever the answer, you've aged marvelously," she adds, thinking the jot of levity might do him good.

[onlythebranch]

"Always been a handsome fucker," he agrees, smirking over at her before he shakes his head, a touch more serious. When he tries to reach back, he can't quite touch it. The memories come when he's not trying, when he isn't waiting for them, so he tends to mostly just leave it alone and let it happen when it happens, but that means he's not doing a very good job of working it all out or making sense of what he's remembering.

"Don't know exactly," he admits. "Couple hundred years maybe. Maybe more."

Or maybe he's wrong about all of it. Maybe these aren't his memories, but something else that Darrow is doing to him. This place is a clusterfuck of magic and power, so he wouldn't even be surprised to discover none of it is real.