for Adam

[formicine]

With Adam spending a lot of time at Ronan's place, these days, and between work for her and school for him, Blue sees a lot less of him than when they were all living in Hywel and taking up each other's space all the time.

It's added a sweetness to getting together to a purpose. Maybe a bittersweet sort -- they're not all in each other's lives the same way they used to be, and sometimes it aches -- but it's good getting time with just Adam, uninterrupted except sometimes by Cabeswater.

And it's good too, doing this. It helps Adam, of course, and that's good, but Blue quietly doesn't want to admit how much she's missed all these tools and cards and voicing things she instinctively knows as a Sargent. It's home, no matter how far away she gets or how much she hated them at one or another point in her life.

Persephone-the-cat jumps up with a little huff on the bed; deaf, she doesn't meow much. "I guess we're all here now," Blue smirks a little and looks up.

Comments

[incognoscibilis]

Adam laughs and reaches out a hand to Persephone. He doesn't see himself as a cat person but she doesn't seem to know that. "Not quite," he says, nodding towards the door where Copper stands, tail knocking against the door like she can add a tempo to the proceedings.

It feels a little bit like 300 Fox Way's phone-cat-sewing room, which is oddly comforting for someone who once spent two days comatose on its couch.

Adam's cards, made by Blue, sit in a neat stack between them and the wooden scrying bowl he'd fallen into when arriving in Darrow is empty but within reach.

"Where do we start?"

[formicine]

Persephone sniffs Adam's hand and then bumps her head firmly against it, wandering under his hand to forcibly get petted before sitting down and regarding the scrying bowl with interest.

Blue smirks. "Let her in," she says with a smile. "I can train her to bring you back from Cabeswater. Service dog." She's pretty sure Copper would not approve of anything resembling the lengths she has needed to go to to bring Adam back to the real world, and it's probably a good reason to keep the dog out of the room, but the two of them are a pair at this point.

"Where do you want to start?" Blue asks, sensibly. "We could do a one card draw like my mother used to do. Or I could talk you through anything you're wondering about the deck."

[incognoscibilis]

Adam's mouth twitches but he manages to restrain a remark that's likely to derail the practice. Service dogs are for broken people. No matter his useless left ear and the thousand, tiny ways he constantly adjusts his behavior, Adam hates to be thought of as somehow broken. Even if Copper already strays to his left side to protect him, nudging her head against his thigh. It's not something he trained her to do.

"I don't really have any questions for the cards," he admits. There are things that trouble him but he can't actually figure out how to phrase them for a good reading. "Maybe I should try and read for you."

[formicine]

Blue can see him start to say something, and she just watches him, patient and challenging, until he stops himself. She's not sure what it is that he's on the verge of, and maybe it wasn't the right joke to make given that he's actually disabled in a way and doesn't like to deal with it. But then again Adam's never had to watch himself totally gone, and she thinks she gets to apply some humor to her role in these situations.

She looks down at the cards, wondering what she would even ask them. Maybe he'll pull something useful about her future; right now it feels like a wide, blank space she can't map. Being able to exist day to day, be happy with Ellie, plan far enough to keep the shop open -- it's better than it has been at times in the past -- but she always seems to find herself wanting something, things she can't always name, some things she can, some she just doesn't want to.

"That makes sense," she says simply, and tries to read his expression as he looks at the cards. "Go ahead."

[incognoscibilis]

He catches the expression ready to form on Blue's face almost as surely as she'd caught the one on his. The myriad possible versions of the conversation pass unspoken through the air and reach their natural conclusions. None of it actually gets said aloud so none of it starts a fight.

Also because he does have to admit that Copper would be ideal for the task if Adam ever were stupid enough to scry alone. And someday he might be; he's done stupider things. For now, he chooses not to acquiesce the point and let Blue know she's right. She'll figure it out on her own soon enough.

Adam shuffles the deck and then hands it back to her to shuffle too. "What are you asking?"