faderift | we smash like glass

He looks up from a stack of notes and gives her a slightly wry smile. "How do you define good?" That's never a good question, really. Something always follows it... but there's never avoiding what follows it either. It just gets more complicated.

"Come in, take a seat. Let me switch to something I can do while talking." There's plenty of tasks like that. Sure enough, there's a request for more antivenom potions for a certain kind of snakebite, and Anders pulls the ingredients off the shelf and starts laying them out.

"There. I'm set. So. Did you make bracelets, and try them on someone, and their hand is about to fall off?"

"Actually, yes for the first, no to the latter." She holds up her own wrist, the braided leather bands made on days when she was in need of distraction and just to practice doing something careful with her hands that didn't involve temperamental device elements. Or temperamental element devices, for that matter. Artificing: a journey in trying not to lose any digits.

"First of all: how are you?" She's not so completely absorbed in her own thing, and she worked in customer service long enough that she appreciates that the question is an important one." She takes a seat as she speaks, and then proceeds to have a three second internal crisis. What am I doing?

"I need to talk to you about something. There's like a three part approach that might be necessary? I think. Maybe more or less parts." Huh. Oh God, Ruby, just stop talking. "Forget the thing about three parts."

He blinks, stopping work for a moment to look at her again.

"I'm... I'm well enough, and I meant the friendship bracelets you offered, but as long as that's not stuck permanently on your wrist then that's good." Three part approach? What? He doesn't follow, and then a possibility strikes him and he swallows. Taking a breath, he now meets her gaze directly.

"If you've questions about my past, you don't need a special approach. Just ask. I'll, I'll do my best to answer them." This was only a matter of time. At least she'd given him a chance by getting to know him first, which always, in his opinion, helps.

"Your past?" What? Oh. "No, your past is your past. I know you now. There's stuff in my past I'd rather people didn't drag into the present, too." She didn't blow up a Chantry but the Wolf did eat some people, and she doesn't know enough about spirits to judge.

"No, I wanted to talk to you because Adelaide and I are involved."

Well, at least she's said it, even if she's not sure how this will go.

Edited (Typoooos) 2016-09-13 00:25 (UTC)

That... Now he doesn't stop for just a moment. His hands still entirely and he breaks eye contact. That hurts. That hurts a lot, and he'd not been prepared for it at all.

"You said, you..." He's lost, and he needs to wait on talking until his thoughts are a little more straightened out. He'd known she had a crush on Adelaide. Her words had made it seem like it was just that, though, a passing fancy.

"Where there's life, there's hope," Anders repeats. "Except if you decide there shouldn't be hope even though you've just given it? If you'd said... I asked if everything was all right. I asked, and you left me thinking that I could risk hoping."

His voice isn't angry, but it's very confused. Not often did he dare risk that. He knows how things tend to go for him.

"Hey," she starts, brow furrowed though there's no heat in her voice.

"I said to be honest with her. I couldn't exactly lie to her myself, after that. I thought I was doing her the courtesy of knowing why I needed space for a while, not that there was any chance she'd feel the same way."

A little shrug, and she rubs her forehead. "We could both have hoped and wanted and she might never had that kind of interest in either of us. I just-- didn't want to lie to her. Leave her thinking she'd done something wrong when I put some space between us. I didn't mean to... to crush your hopes, or something."

Ruby sighs, props her elbow on the arm of the chair, and lets the tips of her fingers press hard against her temple. "Not that it'd make it suck any less for you. This isn't about me, though."

Edited (My phone is terrible, a novel by me) 2016-09-13 01:49 (UTC)

He can't argue with her point, even if the emotional side of him very much wants to. He wants to throw a fit, indulge himself and say something stupid and hurtful, if he could find anything... and he knows full well he'll regret it if he does, and that she doesn't deserve it.

Once Adelaide had held that sort of interest in him. And then his past had come into play, and his lying, and now this. He swallows, hard, and his shoulders slump before he nods. Already he has more than he'd imagined possible. Wanting more had been stupid. Greedy, too, but mostly stupid. He'd just lost sight of reality for a time.

Ruby's sitting there still, and Anders doesn't know what to say. He shakes his head, trying to find words. He doesn't like showing when something hurts.

"Is this when I threaten you against hurting her as if she wouldn't take care of that herself?" The joke is weak to his ears, but he's making the attempt anyway. He's fine. He'll be fine. Already he has more than a Circle mage was ever supposed to have. He just... needs to keep reminding himself of this instead of focusing on what he doesn't have, and what's failed yet again.

Ruby slowly exhales and her head falls back, allowing her to make a study of the tent.

"Believe me, nothing terrifies me more than the thought of hurting Adelaide somehow. But," and she makes herself straighten up, "that's probably the last thing you need to hear me go on about."

She sits in silence for a moment. This sucjs for him, and she knows that even as she doesn't want to apologise for this piece of happiness that she's somehow grabbed hold of. It already feels too likely that some strange power out there will realise she has something she shouldn't and take it away.

"Are you okay?"

She's asking him that, and she even came to tell him. She could have let him find out. The rumor mill around Skyhold is pretty fast-acting, and she beat it.

Anders turns, finds his cup and takes a hasty drink of water. It would be the work of an asshole to rain on her joy, and he doesn't want to be an asshole. After a moment, he grabs another glass and turns back, holding the cup up in inquiry.

"I don't... I don't have tea on. I have water, though, if you want water, or if you want to wait for tea." It's not quite an answer, but it's the start of an approach to one. "Tea would take time. And that's... Time. I will be in time. I want her happy."

And if she's found that, despite how the shape it has taken doesn't match the shape he'd hoped, he needs to adjust. Anders looks over at Ruby again, hoping she understands what he's trying to say better than he's actually getting it out.

"If you're making tea for yourself, I'll take it. Otherwise water is just fine, promise." She's more of a coffee girl, at heart, but she is learning a greater appreciation for tea in Thedas. It was a horribly depressing thought for her espresso-lined arteries, but she'd deal.

Ruby weighs him up carefully, with that. Not so much looking for something backhanded, as simply one person who is used to saving things are find when they aren't, who tries to smile her way through everyone, trying to weigh her knowledge of those moment and lies against the picture Anders is presenting now.

"I'm glad, to both you getting there and to wanting Adelaide happy." Another thing they have in common, really.

Hiding is the reason for the cup. He's never been great at controlling his facial expressions, never been great at hiding hurt. Sipping water hides a part of his face and gives him reason to not be looking at her so much.

At her words, he simply fills another cup with water. Tea is fast enough, but he's not making it for himself right now. Honestly, he wants something harder. After all he's done, he doesn't deserve to want anything for himself, but even that knowledge doesn't ease the tightness in his chest. Dreaming is for people who aren't murderers. He's utterly wrong to dream.

"That's the... the key of it. Her happy. Her being happy." And he'll still see her, at least. He'll have lessons coming up, there's constant work in the tents... it's not like he's losing her. It's a door closed and he should be used to that.

we smash like glass

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