[Closed] Tea and the Times

[justice_is_blond]

WHO: Anders, Petrana
WHAT: Overworkers unite
WHEN: Current
WHERE: Petrana's office
NOTES: We'll see.

He knocks on the open door to her office, giving her the usual smile when he comes over with his teapot.

"I'd say we should stop meeting like this but I rather like meeting like this. Is now a good time for a tea break?" As much of a break they ever take. There's an overwhelming amount of work to always be done, sometimes to the point where it feels tangible. Which is why he comes over for tea, or part of why. The company is also welcome.

Comments

[justice_is_blond]

"It truly must be done."

That's probably one of the easiest things to agree with he's come across in his life. The Inquisition needs to succeed in taking down Corypheus, and she's taken on important work here.

But the thing about important work is that there is always more and the importance has an almost tangible weight that can drag you down.

He stirs his tea, looking into it before looking back up at her.

"But it can't be all done at once, and the more you focus on it, the larger the task feels. It's not even small to begin with. I'd like to help." The serious expression turns wry after a second. "Not... with the particular task at hand, of course. We've established I'm shit at diplomacy. I'd like to help you. Support you. Be there."

There is no need to point out that she's a rifter without family ties here. That sort of a thing never really leaves one's awareness, and he's been in a similar place - the outsider with no family and no shoulders. Even with Hawke nearby there'd been no one there for all of his first time in Kirkwall.

[ipseite]

“I understand,” she says, quietly; she understood what he meant, and for a few moments that's all she says, because what else can she? That she's terribly grateful but it'd be nice if he'd just let her choke on it in peace the way she has been?

It can't last, she knows that, but God; the alternative. Something like screaming claws at her throat and it is the empty place where her child was and it is the heavy weight of Marius's ring upon her hand and it is her stomach twisting, guilty, every time someone speaks of homes to go to.

She had no family ties before Thedas, just a chain about her waist-

“It is so kind of you. To think of me.” Her lips press together for a moment, and she offers, “You are here for me.”

Can this not be enough?

(She knows it isn't.)

[justice_is_blond]

Kind. It's a polite word, a nice word, and he understands it. The question is what is kind after this point? Is it staying neutral and keeping the conversation safe? Surface?

With some, yes. Those who have plenty of people around them, who are not constantly surrounding themselves with work. They likely take the time and opportunity to lean on those around. He doesn't think she does and the way she'd so lightly spoken of loss a few weeks before, mixing it into the conversation, reinforces that thought.

After a sip of his tea he sets the cup to the side and offers out his hands, palm-up.

"I am," he says quietly. "You spoke of something not too long ago and I wasn't sure if you needed to speak more on the topic, or you hoped I would forget it by the time an opening rolled around that wasn't quite as chaotic and charged."

He'd done both before, let something slip that he wanted someone to care about, and let something slip that he hadn't meant to reveal. There are even a couple of things he's never told anyone. It's never been the right time.

[ipseite]

It means a great deal to her that he asks - that he cares.

She allows that feeling to sit for a moment, if only a moment, her own hands closed firmly around her teacup, conscious of the press of her wedding ring between flesh and porcelain. What had she hoped, then, as she had spoken? God, how to even know. Too many things happening, too much to juggle, so much bubbled close to the surface where it didn't belong. Where it does no one any good.

“One day,” is all she says.

Not today.