sylph_fics

The woman he loved most was shaking with fury and (pain?) something else, and her voice was low and flat with danger and what had that child done? "Addie?"

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"Yes?" Something else I cannot do is staying away from him when there is such pain in his voice. A step closer, but I do not touch him. If I touch him I will not leave, and I must.

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silent_jericho.livejournal.com

Joe took one more look at the situation, and decided leaving was likely his best bet for sanity.

With luck, no one would die before morning.

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"Adeline." Wintergreen took on the voice of 'dear old friend', for its less-threatening tones. "Please...stay here. Consider it my apology for misreading the intelligence." He had noted Joe's exit, but said nothing about it.

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Swift, darting look of fury and what wants, very badly, to be a snarl at him for asking that of me. There is no one else in the room who could understand quite how badly I need to hurt something, and it would be too easy to make Slade a target.

I would regret that later, but it might not stop me.

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"What... what did she do, Addie, that you're both...?" He flicked his hands in one of the complicated gestures he'd picked up from Joe, signing distress and pain.

Control? He had none, at this point, not with both of them so furious, so hurt... He couldn't chose between them, not now, they both...

How was he supposed to deal with this?

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"She linked our minds." I do not wish to tell more than that, have to explain understanding the depth of Wintergreen's love for him, the knowledge that I will have to step aside. How much I do not want to.

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"Oh."

Slade went still, looking at both of them, at two such private people suddenly within each other's minds, when they had been so deeply suspicious of each other, with all of the complicated history between the three of them...

"I'm sorry, Addie. Wintergreen."

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"It was none of your doing." Difficult, but not impossible, to gentle my voice, rein in the anger still shooting through me enough that it might not be blindingly obvious to him.

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Wintergreen had picked up both his weapons, as they spoke, and now turned, before placing them in their holsters. "I pray, Adeline, that you and I find a way to reach a new friendship." //For his sake// is unspoken, but she knows it. "One that may, in truth, be far more open."

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Shock at what I assume he is implying has me turning away from Slade, staring at Wintergreen. Not now. Do not speak of this now. "... Perhaps." It is the most I can offer right now, with far too many emotions still locked behind my teeth.

I need to not be here. There is nothing here that I can safely hurt.

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Wintergreen read that anger, still coiled, and felt a bite of disappointment.

"Perhaps I should stay, seeing as you seem less willing to consider the other implications and their ramifications for people, rather than your anger."

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He'd mentioned a foxhole earlier?

No. A bunker would be much the more useful thing at the moment, but his penthouse had never been designed for that.

Wintergreen's voice snapped with rage, Adeline's coiled and hissed with the same, and he?

He stayed on the couch, settled against the armrest, and watched the two of them intently, trying not to listen to the doubled layers of that conversation--trying not to listen at all, honestly, because hearing the two of them snarl so at each other shredded something deep within him.

His son had definitely made the right choice when he left so quickly.

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A turn of my head away from Wintergreen is all I need to see the misery in Slade's tension. It is not what I had intended.

One step closer, another, and a deliberate gentling of my voice along with a hand on his shoulder. "Slade."

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Watching Addie gentle gives Wintergreen a bitter sense of satisfaction, and he resumes putting away his weapons so that he may leave them to work out whatever they will. He sneaks one more look at Slade as he makes sure his Browning is secure, and cannot help but feel a welter of pain and and lump in his throat.

So long, since there had been true honesty between he and Slade, where their feelings were concerned. And it would not start now, not in the midst of the honesty forced between he and Addie.

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Gaze snapped up to her eyes, skin jumping at the hand against his shoulder, breath a quick, sharp thing, "Addie?"

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"Easy." I am familiar with this, easing a startled thing back to calm. My hand in his hair now, stroking, keeping my voice gentle with my eyes on him. "It's all right, Slade."

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He pushed into her touch, listening to the gentleness in her voice, the easiness in the way her hand moved--she was still angry, but her eyes promised he wasn't the target of her anger //so rare, that//...

He didn't want to hear Wintergreen leave, and he forced his hearing to be a sense he could ignore.

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//That's it, Adeline.// It hurts, but at least she has the right beginning of what Slade needs right now. He tried to be as discreet as possible...an easy task now that his bones did not betray his every move, as he exited from the apartment, a rip in his heart for having retreated.

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I do not want to be here. I cannot be here. And yet with Slade so distressed, I cannot be elsewhere.

Very well played, Wintergreen. The thought makes me bite back a laugh, continuing to stroke Slade's hair.

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Slade reached up for her, hands catching around her waist... then stopped, and looked up at her again.

He knew that everything he felt, everything that had shredded in him as the door shut silently behind Wintergreen, was plain as the midday sun to the woman that had made him what he was now (all of the pain, all of the confusion and hurt and disbelieving dismay); and he couldn't try to hide it. His hands stayed at her waist, stilled, despite how badly he wanted to pull her down with him.

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It is easy to sit with him, though it tears at me to touch him when I cannot keep him. I could no more turn away from the pain and the grief in his face than I could walk through fire. His hands on my waist are warm enough to burn.

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Slade buried his face against her hair the moment she sank down into his hold, wrapped his arms around her until they crossed in front of her body and his hands wrapped around the lowest curves of her ribs on opposite sides, careful with the hold but holding her tight, taking very slow, careful, steady breaths of the scent of her hair, feeling her alive in his arms, when he hadn't eve--

The sob tore from his vocal cords without anything resembling his consent and he shuddered, struggled against the ones behind it.

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"It's all right," soft against Slade's ear. I am quietly angry with Wintergreen, that he should hurt Slade so and not be here to calm him, but it is one more anger to choke down for later.

I do not tell him to hush. Slade's grief is better let out this way than any other he might choose. His tears are wet against my hair, and I turn my head enough to kiss his cheek.

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