dear_mun | momchester finally made a bb account

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momchester finally made a bb account

You know they're just icons, right? [Mary brushes her hair out of her eyes and stares unimpressed into the... wherever it is she's looking.] There's really no need to obsess.

[She rolls her eyes and scoffs in an... incredibly teenage way.]

I don't even know why you made this account. It's not like there's a point. [squaring her shoulders determinedly, self-consciously aware that she looks a little silly.] My life will be way too boring for you to write anything about and that's just fine with me. Got it?

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[How many cursed his name for the choices he made? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Did it matter? In avoiding one predator, he'd jumped to another. In the end, that was all Mary had done. He wasn't going to judge her for that. So he kept his hand, rooted. Steady and solid.]

I know what happened yes. Although I didn't mean them specifically. As I said, things are not fair. You wouldn't have gotten to keep both.

I know. [She takes a shuddering breath that refuses to be a sniffle or anything that weak. She can't.] The demon wouldn't even let me choose. I didn't get a chance. He wouldn't even consider bringing them back.

If he had, would that have been a viable option?

[Still gentle. But there is a whisper of an edge to it. She can't go back, but he can make the path she is on now more sure. Smooth the way, a little. He can't change the Deal. He might, he might, be able to prevent what comes later. He certainly can't make it worse.]

Yes! [it bursts out of her suddenly, tears in her eyes that flash like lightning.] Yes! They're my parents, I love them, I miss them, I-

I know you do. I miss mine as well.

[He slides his hand just a bit, to cup her face a little more.]

Wouldn't you be more bound to them, to what they chose?

[Whatever respite her life with John had offered, she wouldn't have gotten it with her parents. So a Deal, and losing her way out?]

[That's almost exactly what the demon said. It leaned in with her father's face, touched her, slyly said her parents' deaths would set her free and that she should take the deal. It told her that that's what she wanted, and she took it. It's so close to truthful that she can't stand it, she can't stand that she might be the kind of person to accept her parents dying so she can be happy. She shivers when his hand moves, freezing for a fraction of a second before shaking her head, tears starting to fall silently.]

I could've gotten away. They didn't have to die. Mom would've let me go, they didn't have to-

[She takes another gasping breath, trying to get a grip.]

[Just the faintest pressure of his fingertips against her skin, subtle almost not there. Here, lean on me.]

No, they didn't have to. But you weren't given a choice on that.

[She understands that. Intellectually, she knows that her parents were murdered and she was powerless. But still, some irrational part of her young brain blames herself for their deaths, that she should have stopped it somehow. Shouldn't have brought a strange hunter to their home, who just made trouble and ruined their lives.]

But I would have. [Someone has to know. She needs someone to understand that she didn't want this. Nobody else knows what really happened and she just needs to confess to someone so she can stop burning inside like it's her fault.] I would've chosen them if I had the chance, I wouldn't have let them die.

[Her eyes slip shut painfully, holding back tears that she can't afford to cry in front of a complete stranger. As difficult as these months have been, as strange and isolated in her own head as she's been while processing their deaths, she's pushed John away now and then, and- it's so comforting, this simple human contact. She's been starved of it, and she can't help leaning into it, just a little. So slight she doesn't realize what she's doing.

A large part of her still wants to shake him off and leave, but she's cracking too hard to want to be alone.

Oh Mary. I know that. You needn't try to convince me.

[His hand is just that much more there against her cheek, increasing contact to match her, his thumb ghosting over her lashes, wiping away a tear that hasn't yet fallen. Steady and sure as the Earth beneath her feet, solid and real in a way she will never be able to feel - he knows what it is to be lost to a grief too big to wrap your brain around, and have to, some how, find a way to keep moving, regardless - so he's being a rock now, something strong enough to take the fall of her grief.]

[She sucks in a breath lightly, another shiver down her spine. The tears are falling, try as she might to hold them back, and nevertheless the contact is strange somehow. Rock-solid and so familiar... but no, nothing she recognizes, it's that he's acting familiar, and it strikes her as strange.

Strange, that someone should be so steadfastly understanding. Mary opens her eyes again, lashes brushing against his thumb, cheek warm under his hand.]

I don't even know your name. [She wants to know him. Know more about this person before she can justify opening up any more than she already has.] Or how you know me.

Michael. You can call me Michael.

[Yes, he's sticking with that. He gently wipes the tears away, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, carefully dabbing at her face.]

We met after you had a particularly rough night, chatted a while until you had calmed down and your family arrived.

[Sam, but she didn't need to know that.]

And have met for coffee a few times since, to talk. I've had young children myself, sometimes it's easier to lean on someone who has walked a certain path before.

Children?

[Softly. If she's had children, then that must mean she gets out. She gets out and stays out. Mary stays still, content to let him fuss over her, because it's kind of nice. He's a father, too. They're friends in whatever future he comes from.]

Well... thank you. I guess you're still helping me, aren't you?

Mhm. Two little boys in your case.

[He finishes, but hands the handkerchief over to her.]

I do when I can, yes.

[She sniffs and takes the handkerchief with a teary half-smile.]

Thanks. Do you have a last name, Michael?

[Gently, more a pat than anything else, squeezes her cheek. Good girl.]

Not really. Xavier is the last name of the family which adopted me, however.

[An innocent smile.] Well it's nice to meet you, Mr. Xavier.

Michael's fine.

[Michael he's gotten used to. Xavier he hasn't. And it's not really his name, regardless.]

Okay.

[She smiles sunnily, pretty despite the tears shining on her cheeks.]

That must have been some good coffee we got, if you know this much about me in the future.

[He smiles warmly, invitingly, and goes back to stroking her cheek.]

It was more than one cup of coffee but yes.

[His smile makes her relax a little, but then he's touching her again, that hand stroking her cheek, and she doesn't know what to think. It's a little odd, yeah, but she figures they must be really good friends or he's just like that, and in the future she wouldn't object to this. So she smiles back at him and doesn't move away.]

I can't remember the last time I could be this honest with anyone.

[Her little, fleeting wall of happiness cracks. She has to hitch her smile up again, only partly convincingly.]

I can imagine. I didn't grow up a Hunter, it's not a world I know much about. But I was a smuggler. And I made a career hunting criminals who fled justice and returning them for trial. I went decades with not being able to go three sentences without having to lie or redirect the conversation. I understand how difficult it is.

[Voice a low mummer, like a low, far off rumble of thunder promising a break in horrid summer weather.]

[And she's back to staring up at him raptly, wide eyes fixed on his impossibly blue ones as his words wrap velvet-soft fingers around her mind.]

How did you do it>

[It's so needy and plaintive that she'd be shocked if she could see herself, but she has to know, she needs it like air or she might drown. She has to know how he could suffocate for so many years, because if he tells her, maybe she can survive, too.]

With care. People who knew me, if they had known the truth, they were put at risk. Which I couldn't allow. It was lonely at times, which I accepted. It was safer for everyone if they didn't know. There is a surprising amount of comfort in that.

[His tone doesn't change. Survival is strength, but it has to be nurtured.]

But...

[But she doesn't want that life for herself. Mary swallows that down.]

...I. I need to know something.

You said you know me.. in ten years.

[That, more than losing her parents, is the price. That is what she has to accept - if she is going to break away, it means lying, to everyone, all the time. It isn't what he thinks is actually best, but it's a point he needs to drive home.]

I do, yes.

momchester finally made a bb account

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