(no subject)

[aimedforthemoon]

This is starting to be a habit. Not that Esfir minds - your homes are where you can relax, talk openly, not have to pretend.

Which is why when she leads Cal in and points to her bed (presently looking more like a sofa, with how she's arranged the pillows), she turns and locks the door.

Habit.

Comments

[isaysimplewords]

Cal curls up a little on his part of the bed, staring across the room at the wall and trying to sort out everything that happened. It's easier, a little, now that he's put words to some of it.

He listens to Esfir turn pages, and a sudden old memory rises, from when he was little. He'd been in disgrace with his parents - or with Mother, which back then amounted to the same thing - and was old enough to have learned to keep out of their way, and young enough to still want protection. Grahame had allowed Cal to sit with him in his study, as long as he was quiet. He was (far quieter than a boy of eight should be capable of), and he sat and listened as his uncle turned pages and wrote things down.

(Was that after Cal had started a fight in school, over some of the other boys picking on a kid for using crutches? It must have been. Cal can't think of any other time, any other reason, Grahame would have let him into his study at that age.)

(He might, just might, be wrong about that.)

Cal had forgotten all about that. It's been so long, and his relationship with his uncle became so warped, that it's difficult and always surprising to remember that there was a time when he was small, and Uncle Grahame was just his uncle and nothing more.

[aimedforthemoon]

Esfir, of course, isn't aware of his thoughts. Her own circumstances had been completely difference, and even her post-mortem contact with her family (if it had been that, and not just a dream) had been...

Well.

It was never her family that was messed up, and she does have to learn this alphabet.

Sometimes, she murmurs under her breath.

[isaysimplewords]

Cal watches her, a little, the combination of her quiet, reassuring presence and the surfacing of that memory serving to calm him enough to keep him from falling apart.

For the time being, at least.

[aimedforthemoon]

"Hungry?" She asks after a while (no telling how long).

[isaysimplewords]

Cal thinks about this, and realizes that, though he's no longer feeling the effects of the whiskey, it's still curdled in his stomach. Eating something would probably be a good idea.

"Yeah," he says.

[aimedforthemoon]

"Anything you feel like?"

[isaysimplewords]

"Nothing special," Cal says. "And probably not too much of it." He knows already he won't be able to eat a full-sized portion.

[aimedforthemoon]

She grins at him, getting to her feet (and wincing briefly at the loss of blood circulation).

"I eat a lot nowdays. We'll manage. I'll be back."

[isaysimplewords]

Cal sort of returns her grin with a thin smile of his own.

"Okay."

[aimedforthemoon]

She shuts the door behind her, and it locks automatically.

[isaysimplewords]

Cal hears the lock click, but it doesn't really register. He tips himself over onto Esfir's side of the bed, head resting on the book.

Just until she gets back.

[aimedforthemoon]

And she does come back, balancing a tray. Simple things, bread and sliced cheese and butter and cutlery, and a small bowl of soup because she feels like it.

Also two glasses for water - the water itself will just have to be from the bathroom.

"Cal?"

[isaysimplewords]

Cal sits back up - a little too quickly, as it turns out, making himself dizzy. He rubs his forehead.

"Uh. You need help with that?"

[aimedforthemoon]

She eyes her bowl of soup sternly.





"Da."

[isaysimplewords]

As soon as his head clears enough for him to move, Cal gets up and takes the tray carefully. His larger hands stabilize it a little more, making the soup situation less precarious.

[aimedforthemoon]

"Just on the desk, I have other chair in bathroom. And bread and things for you, first."

[isaysimplewords]

"Okay." Cal puts the tray where he's told, and turns to see if Esfir needs help getting that chair.

[aimedforthemoon]

She can manage the chair just fine. She also gives him a stern look.

"You. Eat something."

[isaysimplewords]

"You sound like my mother," Cal mutters.

It's truer than Esfir would probably be pleased with. On the other hand, the food is also a better idea than the whiskey was.

Also, Cal is already assembling a sandwich. He responds to that particular tone very quickly.

[aimedforthemoon]

"Your mother."

[isaysimplewords]

Cal glances up.

". . . Except nicer," he offers.

[aimedforthemoon]

"I am not nice. Except to friends. And family. Then I am nice."

[isaysimplewords]

Cal turns his focus back to his sandwich.

"Mother isn't nice to anyone. So you win."

His voice lacks the spark that would make the comment a real swipe at his mother.

[aimedforthemoon]

"It'd be too lonely."

Ah, Bar's soup. Not as good as Aunt Katya's, but close.

[isaysimplewords]

Cal pauses.

That selfish bastard, Mother had said of Grahame's - of Grahame.

Was that what she meant?

No. Couldn't have been. They didn't even like each other, even if they did have to spend a lot of time together.

"She wouldn't have noticed," he says aloud, looking at his now-completed sandwich. There is, possibly, the slightest hint of doubt in his voice.