No, please. Don't bother him. He's done enough for me as it is.
[ and tim can't decide between his head and his heart, can't decide if the pull in his chest is toward hawkins fuller all over again or is telling him to run. (why does it feel broken either way?) ]
And press or not, I'd rather the CIA detail not see their boss's assistant hurling all over the Vice President.
[ ... sappho? peter and wendy???
color tim surprised, and pleasantly so. ]
Oh. Bring both? Or I can arrange for them to be picked up and delivered. If you don't mind. I don't want to put you out. What is your favorite? Of Sappho's. You don't have to share.
i'm pretty sure he wants to be there. definitely more than he wants to be sitting in meetings with me. not that i'm ever excited to sit in meetings, so hey, i get it.
why would you arrange for my books to be picked up and delivered from my bedroom when i'm already on my way over? it's no trouble. i've been meaning to check up on you anyway. want me to bring a bottle of something, too? i'll read you my favorite line when i get there, then you can tell me yours.
I don't know about all that. I barely know him. He's doing it for President Colchester, would be my guess.
[ and it hurts to type that. to fall back into the roles hawk carefully drew for them when tim returned and fell unceremoniously into the whirlwind of presidential ordeals. ]
Do you read before bed? I'd never sleep if I did that. I could read forever. But Sappho. Peter and Wendy. You must have a beautiful nightstand - they're both lovely. Sappho's like to break your heart, though.
Oh and if you're stopping somewhere - milk? Just. Have a craving, I guess.
weird. he doesn't even work for president colchester. ash does inspire the best in people, but hawkins doesn't seem the type susceptible to that kind of inspiration.
i do, sometimes. i read whenever i can, which isn't as much as i'd like. i read a lot more before i was elected. i managed to read a lot in the army, actually.
[ his head in ash's lap on threadbare beds, reading aloud from battered copies of sappho, hamlet, king arthur. those crystalline moments in the middle of a war glitter in the darkness of his mind. ]
oh, and i have this bad habit of reading in the shower so my paperbacks look like shit.
milk? ok. i'll see if i can at least find it in one of those glass bottles.
[ the milk thing again. but hawk barely knows him? sure tim. ]
It's that, or he's making sure to keep you away. He appears to be very serious where you're concerned. But you're doing great, so it's strange he's going to all the effort for someone who is fine.
[ tim, panicking, but tim also carefully setting his sights on embry. i can tell someone's lying - yet being tim he won't bring it up. not now. not when everything is raw and angry and hurting.
later. ]
I read a lot in the army, too. I try to read now. I'm not as successful. You have all the time in the world and no time at all, somehow but
... wait. Did I read that right?
[ his readings were old, dog-eared books hawk had bought him. stories that, at every page, somehow reminded him of hawkins fuller. ]
Wait.
The shower???? Embry what that's how they You didn't ruin a good copy of Sappho did you????? It better not be an early edition translation, I
Oh. No it's it's not important. The bottle, I mean. Just maybe orange juice instead.
[ ... wow, what is that weird ache in his chest? the feeling of something missing, handed to someone else - he likes glass bottles. ]
[ he decides not to answer, because tim is getting perceptive. embry is not exactly fine overall; however, he is presently fine, because morphine works wonders. he can't feel a thing, really, which is his personal preference anyway, unless there's a warm body rubbing him just right. which there isn't. so numbness it is, as he goes shopping for milk.
the medical wing is quiet when he enters, swiftly directed to tim's room by the familiar staff. he holds up a paper bag in one hand and two books in the other, both of them dog-eared but one of them wavy-paged — the poems of sappho. ]
I found it in a secondhand shop in Portland. It was already like this. [ ash claims it was not. ] Still good, though.
[ he pulls up a chair when he enters, lifting out a glass bottle of milk and setting it on the bedside table. he leaves the flask stashed in the inside pocket of his blazer where it is, for now. ]
You look good for someone who was snatched. [ he grins, flipping the book open. embry might feel like shit, but he cleans up well, his hair in a dark tousle, his clothes hanging like a model's off his lean body. no one can see the bruises blooming across his ribs. ] You'll be outta here in no time.
[ when embry enters, tim's chewing on the pad of one thumb, the old pair of faded blue spare glasses pushed atop his head making a mess of his hair and drawing attention to the fact that his nose scrunches when he's focused - he's reading on his phone. press, gossip. his eyes light up when the door opens, and he can feel his cheeks fill with heat the very moment the glass bottle of milk is left on the bedside table.
how men like embry and ash make everything look so easy and effortless, he'll never know. tim could never guess that they'd just gone through hell to find him, to save him. embry looks windswept, an elegance meant for some parisian fashion show. ]
Don't tell anyone my secret. [ he gestures to the glass bottle of milk. it's a lame joke considering he did need get snatched up. ]
But this - [ he points to the wavy pages of sappho, dropping his phone to his lap. ]
This is a travesty. I'm not sure I believe you bought it that way. There's something very naughty about all this - but I think Sappho herself would understand wanting to read her work in the shower.
[ he gives a one-shouldered shrug, which is an immediate mistake, if the face he makes is anything to go by. ]
I would, anyway.
[ his mouth pulls back into a half smile, his nose wrinkles again - he hasn't pulled his glasses back down. the prescription is a few years too old and it's just not worth the additional headache than the one he has already. that, and it will keep him from looking too close at embry - from feeling the bite of worry, guilt, and shame he's been chasing off for the last couple of days. ]
You didn't have to do this, really. I know you're busy.
Edited (took out a narrative line about his phone eyyy) 2024-01-31 02:34 (UTC)
[ it seems silly to dance around it. hawk is embry's aide, and for all intents and purposes his fucking babysitter, because embry is the sort of man that needs a babysitter at varying stages of his life. hawk's sudden absence from babysitting duties has been noted, and it's all because he can't seem to unglue himself from tim's bedside.
it's achingly comical, in a way. he wonders if he and ash were so obvious, when there was still anything between them. embry likes to think they were far more discreet — not that any of it matters now. it's what he wanted, anyway. ash is safe from him, because there is no them at all. ]
Well, I am the naughty one. Ash is the one who never gets into trouble. And stop trying to get rid of me. You're in politics now, you don't have to be this nice.
[ the book falls open to a familiar page, the spine broken as if embry has read it again and again. he has. he's read it aloud to ash while nestled in the warm glow of being freshly fucked, and then far more times alone while ash was happy and whole with jenny. his throat feels suddenly tight, and he decides he doesn't want to read it after all, but he turns the book around and offers it to tim, the passage underlined, and pulls out his flask instead, flashing a grin as he uncaps it, but he watches tim's eyes as he scans the page.
honestly, i wish i were dead. keeping many tears, she left me and said, “alas, how terribly we suffer, sappho. i really leave you against my will.”
a generous swallow braces him, and then he holds out the flask to tim as well. ]
Want some? Gin and milk isn't the best combination, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?
hawkins fuller, the man a veritable tower made up of discretion and disguises, has shown a weakness in the form of a glass bottle of milk. tim blinks a little dumbly up at embry and foolishly tries to shrug one shoulder. it makes him wince. tim wonders just what hawk has shared with embry save for the harrowing night of the rescue. what has their life looked like as vice president and aide - has it been anything like he and ash? a selfish part of tim hopes not, and yet, in a way, he does. it's clear that neither hawk nor embry deserve the strange, lonely bars they both keep round their hearts. ]
I'm not trying to be nice. I'm not new to this, you know. But if kindess is all that bad, then yes, let me thank the man who led the crusade to save me by being a complete asshole to him. You need sleep and a good shower, and never mind -
[ but there's the water-ruined book and tim takes it up, finding it apt that of all the times for embry moore to go quiet, it's this one. but he reads the poem, and well.
he understands. he's through a second pass, and without glancing up he hums in agreement, assuming it is the milk that embry is offering. color him surprised when it's the flask he grabs.
tims head whirls up. fast enough to make him dizzy for a few seconds, a burst of color before his eyes. it doesn't stop the accusatory squint, the pinch of his brow. ]
Seriously? It's one o'clock in the afternoon, Em. You're unbelievable. How's that for nice?
[ but, stupidly? he takes a swig. it brings him up coughing a little on the bitterness of it before he offers it back. the medical aides will kill them both at this rate. tim much prefers sweet, creamy things to the sharp, bitter taste of expensively crude spirits.
it does bring a warmth into his chest that is pleasant, though. he'll regret it later. but for now, he thumbs through the water stained book. when he finds the poem, he pauses, fingers tracing over the words. so much has changed in the last few days.
he reads it aloud: ]
It's no use Mother dear, I can't finish my weaving You may blame Aphrodite
soft as she is
she has almost killed me with love for that boy.
[ his mouth pulls to one side, his fingers tracing the words idly still as he considers them, then: ]
Not as beautiful as the one you chose.
Edited (html ruined my dialogue) 2024-02-03 06:51 (UTC)
[ hawk has shared too much with embry and yet nothing at all. his body, sure. embry gets drunk and hawk gets mean and it works for them, because embry wants to be punished, and hawk seems to want something just as bad, even if embry hasn't been able to define it. but embry has years of history with ash, years of love and heartbreak and running and wishing, so it hadn't taken him long to put a few jagged puzzle pieces together.
he's not going to take it out on tim. he's not even going to air out his suspicions any further. it seems unbalanced anyway, when tim's actually nice, and hawk's actually a fucking absent asshole. ]
It was no big deal. It was hardly a crusade. [ he shrugs it off, just as bad of a decision because it pulls at his ribs. they both should just stop moving. ] It was like being back in the army. Piece of cake.
[ tim drinks, and that's satisfying. tim's funny when he drinks, and embry has never minded babysitting him to make sure he doesn't end up flat on his ass, because tim makes a much better dance partner than dead weight in the backseat. he takes back the flask for his own swig as he listens to tim read, and — yeah. no fucking discretion at all.
but it's sweet, in a way, the way tim wears his heart on his sleeve. he can see why hawk likes him. he can definitely see why ash gravitates toward him, because tim is leaps and bounds sweeter than embry, and probably takes orders way better too, and overall just deserves ash's love on a much grander scale than he does. ]
I can't believe you're pitting Sappho fragments against each other. [ he caps his flask with a laugh, ignoring the pang in his chest. ] There's something real fucked up and decidedly unfeminist about that.
[ is there a need for discretion with a man like embry? maybe. the landscape of american politics is a slippery slope, booby-trapped for even the most careful of travelers. it's not any different simply because they work in the same office. he'd be naive to think so.
but he knows a little himself - to know the poem coupled with the gin-tailored silence shows a card or two close to embry's chest. or maybe it is only that tim knows ash so well that he has also started knowing embry, in a way. ]
It's a big deal to me. I know the rest of you are better built for it all, but I served for two years. I'm not a decorated war hero by any means, but I know that it wasn't all cake and tea parties. Maybe you should accept that I'm allowed to be grateful for you. Well, and for the gin.
[ all seriousness, but topped with a biting little joke at the end. he knows better than to be all business with a man like embry moore. he looks back to the sappho again, flipping a few more wavy pages, stopping on a piece titled: to an army wife, in Sardis.
he hears the cap on the flask, and he shouldn't even consider drinking another, but he holds his hand out, jaw tipped in something defiant and stubborn - the sweetfaced angel that is tim laughlin has wings made to be razor sharp when needed. a silent demand of you take a second, and not offer me the same? ]
I'm not sending Sappho to war with herself here. If anyone is real fucked up and decidedly unfeminist about Sappho's work, it's you. You read this in the shower, Em. It even smells like your body wash. That stupid, expensive stuff. It's soap.
[ tim, a collector of details. it makes him very good at his job. anyone else hearing this might question their relationship, considering it's a shower he's talking about. but oversleeping after a drunken night out, cleaning up in your friend's shower using their stuff, and running into the office with said friend's tie does need a lot of data entry.
tim snorts a little. the gin's beginning to creep beneath his skin, warming him. ]
You're in politics now, Embry. You really have to look at the big picture before you point fingers.
You've conveyed your gratitude. You can buy me a shot the next time we go out, once you're all better.
[ he glances down at the page, reading it upside down. there are old pencil marks, underlines and scribbles in the margins, and there's no telling which ones were there when he bought the book and which ones embry himself might have added. he's not sharing, either. ash was his finest sight, and now he has to watch him move on without him. it's what he wanted. it's what he chose. he forced ash's hand, after all, so he doesn't even deserve to be bitter about it. he still is, though.
his brow ticks up, handing over the flask. ] It's not like it matters if you get drunk, right? You're already in bed. Impeccable logic, if I say so myself.
[ early afternoon drinking makes for the best naps, after all. he would know. ]
I'm very pro-feminism, Mr. Laughlin. I've had plenty of women in my shower.
[ he's had tim in his shower too, though it was completely innocent and he'd been half-asleep in bed listening to the water run while tim was in his bathroom. embry has always liked having company. solitude doesn't suit him, even though he's spent years trying to force it upon himself. ]
Giving me lessons now? You sound like my mother. She's terrifying.
It does matter if I get drunk - but I won't rat you out. I'll tell them it was Hawk. He deserves it.
[ he shouldn't drink, considering he's still in hospital, and still injured, but it relaxes his mouth, too. oh well, one more sip won't hurt, no matter how dangerous that thought is. but sleeping soundly is something he hasn't come by in the near week of being here - and while he shouldn't chase away the demons with this? well. there's a time and a place. he takes a brief drink from the flask, caps it, and hands it back on a wince. ]
But that is awful. God. [ he coughs a little, unashamedly wiping at his mouth when he's passed the flask over. he lets himself fall back against the raised bed, head sinking into the pillow. he huffs a little laugh. ] Both that gin, and that you think women in your shower means you're a feminist.
[ he closes the sappho, smoothing the warped cover between his palms before he uses it to playfully swat at embry's arm, then extending it to him as a peace offering. ]
I'd like to get you to put that I'm terrifying in writing, though. That's a good one. But no promises on teaching you any lessons, mister Vice President. Only one I'll give you is that instead of sitting in your apartment with this bad gin by yourself, you can always call me. Or come here. I'm in this place another week for "security purposes" so trust me, I'll be desperate for any kind of company.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ and tim can't decide between his head and his heart, can't decide if the pull in his chest is toward hawkins fuller all over again or is telling him to run. (why does it feel broken either way?) ]
And press or not, I'd rather the CIA detail not see their boss's assistant hurling all over the Vice President.
[ ... sappho? peter and wendy???
color tim surprised, and pleasantly so. ]
Oh.
Bring both? Or
I can arrange for them to be picked up and delivered.
If you don't mind. I don't want to put you out.
What is your favorite?
Of Sappho's.
You don't have to share.
no subject
definitely more than he wants to be sitting in meetings with me.
not that i'm ever excited to sit in meetings, so hey, i get it.
why would you arrange for my books to be picked up and delivered from my bedroom when i'm already on my way over?
it's no trouble. i've been meaning to check up on you anyway.
want me to bring a bottle of something, too?
i'll read you my favorite line when i get there, then you can tell me yours.
no subject
I barely know him. He's doing it for President Colchester, would be my guess.
[ and it hurts to type that. to fall back into the roles hawk carefully drew for them when tim returned and fell unceremoniously into the whirlwind of presidential ordeals. ]
Do you read before bed?
I'd never sleep if I did that. I could read forever.
But Sappho. Peter and Wendy.
You must have a beautiful nightstand - they're both lovely.
Sappho's like to break your heart, though.
Oh and if you're stopping somewhere - milk?
Just. Have a craving, I guess.
no subject
ash does inspire the best in people, but hawkins doesn't seem the type susceptible to that kind of inspiration.
i do, sometimes. i read whenever i can, which isn't as much as i'd like.
i read a lot more before i was elected. i managed to read a lot in the army, actually.
[ his head in ash's lap on threadbare beds, reading aloud from battered copies of sappho, hamlet, king arthur. those crystalline moments in the middle of a war glitter in the darkness of his mind. ]
oh, and i have this bad habit of reading in the shower so my paperbacks look like shit.
milk? ok. i'll see if i can at least find it in one of those glass bottles.
[ the milk thing again. but hawk barely knows him? sure tim. ]
the lion the witch and the audacity of this bitch
He appears to be very serious where you're concerned. But you're doing great, so it's strange he's going to all the effort for someone who is fine.
[ tim, panicking, but tim also carefully setting his sights on embry. i can tell someone's lying - yet being tim he won't bring it up. not now. not when everything is raw and angry and hurting.
later. ]
I read a lot in the army, too. I try to read now.
I'm not as successful.
You have all the time in the world and no time at all, somehow but
... wait. Did I read that right?
[ his readings were old, dog-eared books hawk had bought him. stories that, at every page, somehow reminded him of hawkins fuller. ]
Wait.
The shower????
Embry what
that's how they
You didn't ruin a good copy of Sappho did you?????
It better not be an early edition translation, I
Oh.
No it's
it's not important.
The bottle, I mean. Just
maybe orange juice instead.
[ ... wow, what is that weird ache in his chest? the feeling of something missing, handed to someone else - he likes glass bottles. ]
no subject
the medical wing is quiet when he enters, swiftly directed to tim's room by the familiar staff. he holds up a paper bag in one hand and two books in the other, both of them dog-eared but one of them wavy-paged — the poems of sappho. ]
I found it in a secondhand shop in Portland. It was already like this. [ ash claims it was not. ] Still good, though.
[ he pulls up a chair when he enters, lifting out a glass bottle of milk and setting it on the bedside table. he leaves the flask stashed in the inside pocket of his blazer where it is, for now. ]
You look good for someone who was snatched. [ he grins, flipping the book open. embry might feel like shit, but he cleans up well, his hair in a dark tousle, his clothes hanging like a model's off his lean body. no one can see the bruises blooming across his ribs. ] You'll be outta here in no time.
no subject
how men like embry and ash make everything look so easy and effortless, he'll never know. tim could never guess that they'd just gone through hell to find him, to save him. embry looks windswept, an elegance meant for some parisian fashion show. ]
Don't tell anyone my secret. [ he gestures to the glass bottle of milk. it's a lame joke considering he did need get snatched up. ]
But this - [ he points to the wavy pages of sappho, dropping his phone to his lap. ]
This is a travesty. I'm not sure I believe you bought it that way. There's something very naughty about all this - but I think Sappho herself would understand wanting to read her work in the shower.
[ he gives a one-shouldered shrug, which is an immediate mistake, if the face he makes is anything to go by. ]
I would, anyway.
[ his mouth pulls back into a half smile, his nose wrinkles again - he hasn't pulled his glasses back down. the prescription is a few years too old and it's just not worth the additional headache than the one he has already. that, and it will keep him from looking too close at embry - from feeling the bite of worry, guilt, and shame he's been chasing off for the last couple of days. ]
You didn't have to do this, really. I know you're busy.
no subject
[ it seems silly to dance around it. hawk is embry's aide, and for all intents and purposes his fucking babysitter, because embry is the sort of man that needs a babysitter at varying stages of his life. hawk's sudden absence from babysitting duties has been noted, and it's all because he can't seem to unglue himself from tim's bedside.
it's achingly comical, in a way. he wonders if he and ash were so obvious, when there was still anything between them. embry likes to think they were far more discreet — not that any of it matters now. it's what he wanted, anyway. ash is safe from him, because there is no them at all. ]
Well, I am the naughty one. Ash is the one who never gets into trouble. And stop trying to get rid of me. You're in politics now, you don't have to be this nice.
[ the book falls open to a familiar page, the spine broken as if embry has read it again and again. he has. he's read it aloud to ash while nestled in the warm glow of being freshly fucked, and then far more times alone while ash was happy and whole with jenny. his throat feels suddenly tight, and he decides he doesn't want to read it after all, but he turns the book around and offers it to tim, the passage underlined, and pulls out his flask instead, flashing a grin as he uncaps it, but he watches tim's eyes as he scans the page.
honestly, i wish i were dead.
keeping many tears, she left me and said,
“alas, how terribly we suffer, sappho.
i really leave you against my will.”
a generous swallow braces him, and then he holds out the flask to tim as well. ]
Want some? Gin and milk isn't the best combination, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?
no subject
hawkins fuller, the man a veritable tower made up of discretion and disguises, has shown a weakness in the form of a glass bottle of milk. tim blinks a little dumbly up at embry and foolishly tries to shrug one shoulder. it makes him wince. tim wonders just what hawk has shared with embry save for the harrowing night of the rescue. what has their life looked like as vice president and aide - has it been anything like he and ash? a selfish part of tim hopes not, and yet, in a way, he does. it's clear that neither hawk nor embry deserve the strange, lonely bars they both keep round their hearts. ]
I'm not trying to be nice. I'm not new to this, you know. But if kindess is all that bad, then yes, let me thank the man who led the crusade to save me by being a complete asshole to him. You need sleep and a good shower, and never mind -
[ but there's the water-ruined book and tim takes it up, finding it apt that of all the times for embry moore to go quiet, it's this one. but he reads the poem, and well.
he understands. he's through a second pass, and without glancing up he hums in agreement, assuming it is the milk that embry is offering. color him surprised when it's the flask he grabs.
tims head whirls up. fast enough to make him dizzy for a few seconds, a burst of color before his eyes. it doesn't stop the accusatory squint, the pinch of his brow. ]
Seriously? It's one o'clock in the afternoon, Em. You're unbelievable. How's that for nice?
[ but, stupidly? he takes a swig. it brings him up coughing a little on the bitterness of it before he offers it back. the medical aides will kill them both at this rate. tim much prefers sweet, creamy things to the sharp, bitter taste of expensively crude spirits.
it does bring a warmth into his chest that is pleasant, though. he'll regret it later. but for now, he thumbs through the water stained book. when he finds the poem, he pauses, fingers tracing over the words. so much has changed in the last few days.
he reads it aloud: ]
It's no use
Mother dear, I
can't finish my
weaving
You may
blame Aphrodite
soft as she is
she has almost
killed me with
love for that boy.
[ his mouth pulls to one side, his fingers tracing the words idly still as he considers them, then: ]
Not as beautiful as the one you chose.
no subject
he's not going to take it out on tim. he's not even going to air out his suspicions any further. it seems unbalanced anyway, when tim's actually nice, and hawk's actually a fucking absent asshole. ]
It was no big deal. It was hardly a crusade. [ he shrugs it off, just as bad of a decision because it pulls at his ribs. they both should just stop moving. ] It was like being back in the army. Piece of cake.
[ tim drinks, and that's satisfying. tim's funny when he drinks, and embry has never minded babysitting him to make sure he doesn't end up flat on his ass, because tim makes a much better dance partner than dead weight in the backseat. he takes back the flask for his own swig as he listens to tim read, and — yeah. no fucking discretion at all.
but it's sweet, in a way, the way tim wears his heart on his sleeve. he can see why hawk likes him. he can definitely see why ash gravitates toward him, because tim is leaps and bounds sweeter than embry, and probably takes orders way better too, and overall just deserves ash's love on a much grander scale than he does. ]
I can't believe you're pitting Sappho fragments against each other. [ he caps his flask with a laugh, ignoring the pang in his chest. ] There's something real fucked up and decidedly unfeminist about that.
no subject
but he knows a little himself - to know the poem coupled with the gin-tailored silence shows a card or two close to embry's chest. or maybe it is only that tim knows ash so well that he has also started knowing embry, in a way. ]
It's a big deal to me. I know the rest of you are better built for it all, but I served for two years. I'm not a decorated war hero by any means, but I know that it wasn't all cake and tea parties. Maybe you should accept that I'm allowed to be grateful for you. Well, and for the gin.
[ all seriousness, but topped with a biting little joke at the end. he knows better than to be all business with a man like embry moore. he looks back to the sappho again, flipping a few more wavy pages, stopping on a piece titled: to an army wife, in Sardis.
he hears the cap on the flask, and he shouldn't even consider drinking another, but he holds his hand out, jaw tipped in something defiant and stubborn - the sweetfaced angel that is tim laughlin has wings made to be razor sharp when needed. a silent demand of you take a second, and not offer me the same? ]
I'm not sending Sappho to war with herself here. If anyone is real fucked up and decidedly unfeminist about Sappho's work, it's you. You read this in the shower, Em. It even smells like your body wash. That stupid, expensive stuff. It's soap.
[ tim, a collector of details. it makes him very good at his job. anyone else hearing this might question their relationship, considering it's a shower he's talking about. but oversleeping after a drunken night out, cleaning up in your friend's shower using their stuff, and running into the office with said friend's tie does need a lot of data entry.
tim snorts a little. the gin's beginning to creep beneath his skin, warming him. ]
You're in politics now, Embry. You really have to look at the big picture before you point fingers.
no subject
[ he glances down at the page, reading it upside down. there are old pencil marks, underlines and scribbles in the margins, and there's no telling which ones were there when he bought the book and which ones embry himself might have added. he's not sharing, either. ash was his finest sight, and now he has to watch him move on without him. it's what he wanted. it's what he chose. he forced ash's hand, after all, so he doesn't even deserve to be bitter about it. he still is, though.
his brow ticks up, handing over the flask. ] It's not like it matters if you get drunk, right? You're already in bed. Impeccable logic, if I say so myself.
[ early afternoon drinking makes for the best naps, after all. he would know. ]
I'm very pro-feminism, Mr. Laughlin. I've had plenty of women in my shower.
[ he's had tim in his shower too, though it was completely innocent and he'd been half-asleep in bed listening to the water run while tim was in his bathroom. embry has always liked having company. solitude doesn't suit him, even though he's spent years trying to force it upon himself. ]
Giving me lessons now? You sound like my mother. She's terrifying.
no subject
[ he shouldn't drink, considering he's still in hospital, and still injured, but it relaxes his mouth, too. oh well, one more sip won't hurt, no matter how dangerous that thought is. but sleeping soundly is something he hasn't come by in the near week of being here - and while he shouldn't chase away the demons with this? well. there's a time and a place. he takes a brief drink from the flask, caps it, and hands it back on a wince. ]
But that is awful. God. [ he coughs a little, unashamedly wiping at his mouth when he's passed the flask over. he lets himself fall back against the raised bed, head sinking into the pillow. he huffs a little laugh. ] Both that gin, and that you think women in your shower means you're a feminist.
[ he closes the sappho, smoothing the warped cover between his palms before he uses it to playfully swat at embry's arm, then extending it to him as a peace offering. ]
I'd like to get you to put that I'm terrifying in writing, though. That's a good one. But no promises on teaching you any lessons, mister Vice President. Only one I'll give you is that instead of sitting in your apartment with this bad gin by yourself, you can always call me. Or come here. I'm in this place another week for "security purposes" so trust me, I'll be desperate for any kind of company.