Let me call you sweetheart...

[scotch_egg]

Who: Alec & You
What: Valentines Event
Where: Anywhere
Warnings: Who knows



Alec cam be found anywhere, looking more cagey than usual. Find him in his office filling out endless forms or answering calls curtly, or in a bistro or cafe with a single cup of steaming tea, or even in the park bundled up against the cold day.

More to the point he has a box of Valentine's Day candies with him that he cannot seem to stop eating. It seems almost unconscious. However this meeting turns out is going to be an interesting ride.


[[ooc: feel free to chose the words of the heart that he eats and put it in the subject. Or leave it up to RNG]]

Comments

[not_as_i_do]

It's a frigid day, the temperature dropping close to the zero mark ... and the wind makes it seem even colder. Martin is on his way back to the office from a private client call, when the sight of the cozy little cafe and its amber lighting draws him away from his route to the subway. Bundled in a camel-colored wool coat, a deep red scarf wrapped around his throat, he pushes the door open and exhales the last of the chill from his lungs.

He takes his place in line, rubbing his hands together to warm them faster, and glances around idly as he waits his turn. Is that....

"Alec?"

[scotch_egg]

Bloody camel coat. It made Alec double take until he saw who it was. He sipped his tea and rested his chin on his fist, staring back out the window.

"Whitley."

That was all he was going to get-- the vague hint to go away.

[not_as_i_do]

It wasn't as though Fell had exclusive rights to a certain range of colors, after all. But at least the surliness confirmed that Martin hadn't mistaken Alec for his cousin.

Alec may have thought his tactic worked, but only as long as it took Martin to order his own cup of tea and get it in hand. Once that was accomplished, he strolled over to Alec's table. It had been a while since fate had shoved them together in his cabin, and he found himself hoping it was Alec's usual surliness and not any sort of remaining discomfort. But leading with asking after his ankle was bound to get him chewed out. He angled for another tactic.

"Not teaching, today, I see...?"

[scotch_egg]

He grunted. No one in his life has ever known or cared about a hint. He was used to it at this point.

"Not doing that anymore." And hadn't been for a while. Not that Whitley should be expected to know that. And since he was here anyway and there was no getting rid of him. "Alright?"

[not_as_i_do]

"No? You say that as though you don't miss it terribly." He sets his tea down on the table, but isn't so brash as to help himself to a chair just yet.

He considers giving him the standard 'just fine' sort of answer, but ... he draws in a slow breath and puts a hand to his sternum, wincing slightly. "Got a rather unpleasant, er, reminder of something the other day."

[scotch_egg]

"I wasn't any good at it." They were better off without him, really. He frowned as the doctor winced, putting a hand to his stomach, and wondered whether it was a bad memory or something he'd forgot he was allergic to. He was willing to be the former.

"Me too." He sighed and folded his arms on the table. "Want to talk about it?"

[not_as_i_do]

He wondered why, then, Alec had decided to teach at all, but decided it was a question to come back to. "You, too?"

At Alec's invitation, he does pull out a chair and settles in. There's no lid on his tea since he got it for here, and he watches it steam for a moment to spare Alec the awkwardness of staring at him while he gathers his thoughts and tries to figure out a way to say it...

"Remember when I told you I have a son? In these other memories?"

[scotch_egg]

"Yep." However vaguely. "Something happen?" He hopes not but he wonders if something had, feeling a twinge of dread. A terrible life is bad enough, but it's even worse when children are hurt.

CW: mention of stabbing

[not_as_i_do]

"I'll say." Martin lowered his voice, as one tended to do when discussing things that weren't meant to be public knowledge. He wasn't sure if he could say what he was about to at full voice, anyway.

"... He stabbed me. With ... I think it was an awl or an ice pick. Not a knife." He tapped the spot on his chest - just below his heart. "I woke up with a very fresh scar, too. I don't even know why ... I just know ... there was another person with us. A woman. She was begging him to stop. And all he said was 'He's right. It's the only way', before he ... just drove it straight into me."

Martin blew out a shaky sigh. He could still feel the pain, hear his own scream and the buzz of electronic locks, his knees hitting the hard concrete with only a threadbare rug to break the fall. "I don't know who that other 'he' was, or why stabbing me was the only way. Or what it was the only way to. I don't even know if that's how I die. I just know ..."

He paled. "For some reason ... I wasn't afraid. I was just ... proud."

[scotch_egg]

Alec winced. He wasn't sure if that was better or worse than his own past. And something about your own family member doing something so horrible-- it sent a chill through him, something terrifying that he didn't want to look at too closely. And he wouldn't. Not now.

"I suppose you love your children no matter what. Even if they hurt you." Though even as he said that he knew it wasn't true. Well, it was true for some parents but it wasn't bloody universal. Too long in the school system and...that other place...left its impressions on him.

Anyway it was a platitude and for Whitley it felt right somehow.

"Did you-- I mean-- Do you think that was it?"

[not_as_i_do]

He nodded a little at Alec's comment, though he couldn't really say whether or not he agreed. Parenthood was something he'd only had the briefest flashes of in these reclaimed memories, after all.

"I - I don't know." Martin frowned and chanced a sip of his drink, hoping it had cooled enough to not burn the roof of his mouth. "... If only there were some way to keep track of the order of these damned things."

[scotch_egg]

Him too but he felt it in his bones. Maybe because he'd taught school and kids were in his bones. Though he couldn't imagine he'd have been any better in the other then than he was now.

"Maybe you could keep a diary. Put some glitter on it perhaps. A few rainbows." He teased him, hoping to lighten the mood-- cheer him up a little.

[not_as_i_do]

He chuckled, seeing and appreciating the intent behind the teasing. "Glitter and rainbows, eh? Then people might really mistake me for Fell." He gave a little eyeroll. "A journal, though, that's not such a bad idea. I think I still have one my niece gave me for Christmas a while ago, tucked away somewhere. She was in a journalism phase and was convinced we all needed one."

[scotch_egg]

He snorted. "Try tartan and tea. He's fay but not that fay."

He rested his chin on his fist and regarded the man. "You haven't told me about your niece."

[not_as_i_do]

"Hm? Oh, I haven't seen her in ages, not since she went off to college. I keep having to stop myself from calling her 'little' Ainsley, she's probably old enough to drink, now. Sharp as a tack, stubborn as anything." He chuckles a little as he realizes the perfect anecdote.

"One Christmas, she and her brother were playing hide-and-seek... I was getting ready to head home since everything was said and done, and only he came out to say goodbye. We tore the house apart for an hour and a half until we finally found her, pleased as punch because she won."

[scotch_egg]

"Sounds like a handful." A faint pained smile. "I bet you get on really well." And he suddenly misses Daisy almost painfully. It's like an empty place inside of him he never noticed before had begun to ache. But he pushed it to the side. That was complicated and he likely hadn't done much for her if she'd even existed.

"Not really interested in kids myself." A blatant lie-- but what would Whitley know?