souffle_girlek | (no subject)

(no subject)

She knows it's late, but it's important, and...

Oswin pauses in front of the unfamiliar door, hand raised, and reconsiders.

It's very late. Or rather, very early. She shouldn't be a bother. She turns to go - she'll discuss this tomorrow.

Really.

No, she won't, and really, she ought to just... go talk about it. She turns on her heel again and marches up to the door and knocks on it, sharply.

And again, because she suspects she didn't knock loud enough the first time, that was rather hesitant.

...

And maybe again, it has been a while, maybe she's... out?

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"He wouldn't want to know that. He... doesn't like it when I'm not... when I can't..." She shrugs, half-turning away to study the art on the walls. "He worries, when I don't come downstairs."

Alana takes two mugs down from her cabinet, and starts preparing the tea balls with the standard Earl Grey leaves. "Does his worrying bother you?"

"No. I mean. He shouldn't? Because it won't change anything, and I can't... I can't not, so... It's just... he does. I don't know why. It doesn't hurt anything."

That... doesn't really answer the question.

"I see," Alana says, removing the hissing kettle from the stove. She pours the water into the mugs, and checks her watch.

"He worries about you, and you worry in turn," she says, lifting the chain of one of the tea balls. "Do you think your worry is hurting anything?"

Edited 2016-01-27 01:45 (UTC)

".... No." Says the girl who has woken up her therapist at o'dark-thirty.

"I mean, not really."

"Well, there's this, but otherwise..."

Alana crosses to Oswin and offers her one of the mugs. "I'm happy to hear that you haven't considered anything drastic," she says with a small smile. "And I don't mind being woken up."

She blows on her tea before sipping it, only to find out that it needs to steep more. "Have you been able to find pleasure in things recently, or has your worry for him invaded the rest of your life?"

"I don't think worrying about the one thing is much different than worrying about the other things." Oswin snorts. She won't lie, there are days she feels more normal. There's just... the rest of it. For most of the time.

"Do you feel any guilt wrapped up in your worry about him?" Alana says, resting her mug on a side table.

Oswin wraps her hands around her mug, absorbing the warmth.

"Well, of course - I knew what he was going back to face. I'm the genius, after all - I should have convinced him to be safer about the whole thing. Come here sooner. He'd be here, and... I wouldn't be doing this."

"It was his choice to go back," Alana says, lacing her fingers together in her lap. "Whatever you might have said or done may have fallen on deaf ears. Please don't blame yourself. Time passes more quickly here than it does in most worlds. He could have just been gone for a few days to him, whereas it's been weeks for us."

"And sometimes it's the other way around - this place is mad. I... have been thinking about it, after all."

She stares at her tea, as if it holds the mysteries of the universe.

"He planned to be back by Christmas. It's almost been a month since then."

Alana picks up her tea and tries it again. "It has, and I can see why you're worried about him, especially since he's missed the deadline by a month," she says. "If his calendar matched up with the bar, maybe he wanted to spend one last set of holidays with his family before moving in."

She knows what Alana is about - she's a clever girl after all. There's absolutely nothing anyone can do to get Autor back.

"Yes. Yes, of course. That must be it." She drinks her tea. It's a bit too hot, but... oh well.

"You don't sound like you believe me," Alana says, wryly amused. She sobers up quickly. "I'm sure the first thing he'll do when he gets here is check on you and the cat."

"Something to look forward to." She tries from more belief. She really does try.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what... it was just so..."

Not quiet.

Alana holds up a hand. "It's all right, Oswin, really. I don't mind being up," she says gently. "I want to be here for you no matter the hour. I just wish I could solve your problem. Give him more time. He'll come around, you'll see."

Oswin contemplates her tea.

"How do you do it?" She finally asks, softly, addressing the tea (evidently). "How do you not worry? Worry if he's alive, or not, or wishing he wasn't? Worry that if he somehow does survive, that when he comes back, he won't have done to him what the last war-like group I met tried to do to me? Subtract love, add anger - isn't that what war is?"

Edited 2016-01-28 07:26 (UTC)

Alana runs her thumb across the rim of her steaming mug. "It helps that I don't know him, so I can't attach a face to any worries I would have. You love him, clearly, and his absence hits you harder than it does me. When it comes to worry, all you can do is to put one foot in front of the other despite them. One way to staunch a worry is to get busy. Throw yourself into a previously not explored passion and make yourself too tired to think."

"That would have to be terribly busy." Oswin sighs. She... doesn't suffer from false modesty, no.

"And if you suggest I take up knitting or some other incredibly naff thing..." Well. She might be angry. But only until she realized she was and then would scare herself into... well. Not.

"I see," Alana says, blowing on her tea. "You don't have to take up knitting if it doesn't interest you. Does your tinkering with the little spiderbots make you forget your worry, at least for a time?"

"Well, I mean, there's different sorts of worry? I've been upgrading the spiderbots since that Security bloke with the looming problem threatened my cats."

Now they're her cats. Plural. She'll be damned if someone besides Autor manages to steal away Etude.

"Wait, someone threatened your cats?" Alana says, wide-eyed. "And he was on Security? What happened?"

"Somehow my search for Autor led to tall dark 'n' grumpy giving me a lecture on how I was being being mean to the cats by taking care of them instead of letting them run loose in a bar full of people who for all I know eat cats." Oswin huffs. "So now there's tasers."

...

Because Oswin upping the arms race is a good thing.

"Wait, I'm confused," Alana says, laying a hand on her cheek. "What tasers?"

"On the spiderbots. If he tries to come get those cats, he's going to eat lightening." Oswin replies, grimly.