Chapter Text
>dave: lie to her.
(the cinematic orchestra - to build a home)
He stands in her greenhouse, counting clouded breaths.
She insists on wearing the dress, the fancy one that pulses with starlight and supernovas, makes her look like she's draped the whole of creation around her. Never worn anything so nice, she'd said with that little smile of hers that he hates right now, crimped lips as she sucks in badness like a black hole. I want to, at least once.
It goes unsaid, the rest of it. He can't bring himself to say it, mouth dry and clumsy, and she never would for all he wants to take her by the shoulders and shake her. The way she dances pitfalls in her language is almost elegant. It's mostly infuriating.
He wears his black suit. They look like they're going to a funeral.
She gathers up dead flowers in her arms, cradles them; frosted tulips, amaranth curling up against its name, lolling tendrils of love-lies-bleeding. Her rounds take five minutes in silence and so many breaths and she comes back around to him, shoulders shaking, arms full of deep red flowers. “I grew these for you,” she says, and doesn't cry--not like he had when he'd realized, bridge of his nose pinched and tongue clamped until it gave beneath his front teeth. Her world isn't ending, not like his. It never started.
His hand finds the curve of her cheek and he leans down to press a kiss into her hair. It doesn't seem to matter much now, the peacock posturing and the rampart raised between skin and skin; she nuzzles against his palm and he lets her, pulls her in, crushes the flowers between them, rests his head on hers. “You ready?” His voice feels like steel wool and cracking leather.
“Not really.” A hiccup of a laugh. “Not just yet.”
“No rush.” He pulls his head back, watches everything in her rally for something so simple as smile. His thumb presses at the corner of her mouth, coaxes one out of her, but there's resignation in it that hurts his chest like bruising and he wishes she wouldn't smile at all. “We got time.”
They don't. They won't. They never did. They take some anyway, his arm snaking around her waist, hand splayed on the small of her back. The fabric of her dress feels cold like space does.
She sways to music that isn't playing. He follows.
“It's going to be fine,” she insists without insistence, convinces without conviction. It reminds him of lit class, reading passages aloud, where no one ever meant it or felt a damn thing. “We're going to be fine. We'll all be together again and we'll win next time.”
“New game plus.” His smile is wry, humorless. “Keep all our best shit, curbstomp all the bosses, and speed run right on through. Second playthrough is always a joke.”
“Only if you remember what happened the first time around.”
He's not John; he's no noble optimist, no believer, no moral obligations beyond a few grey rules scribbled in his margins. He'd like to say he hates lying to her, but he doesn't, doesn't even regret it when the bitter taste of it washes his mouth like communion wine. He'll say anything if it makes him strong.
“I'm gonna remember you, Jade. Count on it.”
He could pave a road to nowhere with all his broken promises, but he's not sure how much it matters when they're already there.