RP post, family, wintergreen storyline

[sylph_fics]

There had surely been moments that he had been in a more uncomfortable position than currently being unable to trust either of the people he loved most (for justified suspicions on both sides), but, sitting on his couch with tension through the entire East Side penthouse, he couldn't think of a single one.

Wintergreen in the bedroom that had always been his, likely still on the phone, Adeline braced in the space between the bedroom and where he sat, Joseph hovering worriedly in the echoing space between the three of them... quite the situation for the little Martian telepath to come into.

Especially because his composure was barely a pasted-over thing on actual his mental state.

But they needed the girl's un-biased ability to test minds, to be sure that neither of them held a poisoned kiss without knowing it.

Comments

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

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.

[tm-wintergreen.livejournal.com]

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."

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

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.

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

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."

[tm-wintergreen.livejournal.com]

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.

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

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

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

"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."

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

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.

[tm-wintergreen.livejournal.com]

//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.

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

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.

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

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.

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

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.

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

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.

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

"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.

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

He shuddered again as Addie kissed his cheek, let him hold on to her, and her gentleness broke the next sob out of him, and the next, until he couldn't fight them down at all--not just for this, the tears, but for the agony of the loss he hadn't been willing to face (too much to do), for every wasted year he'd looked at only too late, and for this, now, that he'd caused them all this pain--and they broke out of him in waves as he curled tighter around her.

Somewhere in the midst of it all, he heard himself say 'he left again', but he couldn't hear her answer over the sound of his breath and blood in his ears.

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

At some point that is not now, I will take Slade's tears out of Wintergreen's hide. For the moment I simply hold him, letting him shake and weep into my hair, the skin of my throat. He is younger now than he was when I met him first, and his pain chokes me.

"It is not your fault." Only thing I can make myself say, and I am not certain that he can even hear me.

[masked-merc.livejournal.com]

He couldn't hear her, not with all of this turned loose, with every one of his controls shattered by their mutual rage, by too much loss and too many returns that it hurt to believe, by Everything in these last weeks that had boiled just under the surface too long, all broken by the not-silence of a door closing...

All he could do was shake in the waves of bitter grief and pain, and curl tighter around his wife's body as full-on hysterics ripped their way out of his chest.

[lady-kane.livejournal.com]

Yes. My immediate inclination is to accept his offer, ransack New York for something I can hurt and take out my fury on it. Nothing that has upset me is Slade's fault. I would only like it to be Wintergreen's fault. They are not appropriate targets.

But he had refused Slade's plea to stay. Here is not a smart place for him, any more than it is for me.

Slade cannot be left alone when he is so distressed.

And the insult stings, as Wintergreen had doubtless intended it to. "If your business is pressing, there is no need to put it off."