hit the walls [cordelia]

Michael had excused himself to wash his face and realised, halfway through, that he didn’t have a washcloth at Cordelia’s. He attempted for thirty seconds to let himself drip dry, stooped over her sink, before his back started aching and he stooped to using the hem of his t-shirt instead.

Weeks ago, he had stashed a spare toothbrush and cup in her bathroom, with the excuse that he had been stockpiling toothbrushes in a number of places, so why not here? He kept a toothbrush in his own kitchen to save himself the trouble of walking twenty feet to the loo. He wondered idly if he ought to just leave a washcloth here with his toothbrush, but a washcloth felt less impersonal. Maybe it just cost more money.

Bathrooms brought out the nut in him, was what it was. They set his skin crawling and his stomach turning and his mind on a hamster-wheel. Even now, with Cordelia waiting on the balcony, he was tempted to look under her sink for isopropyl alcohol so he could wipe the mirror down. Instead he wet his hair and slicked it down.

“‘Lo,” he said, joining her at the balcony. She was smoking, but Michael thought just now that a cigarette might make him sick; he propped his elbows on the rail and tried to follow her gaze, to guess what she’d been looking out at. (Cordy did that sometimes -- just looked out -- but he didn’t want to ask her about it. She’d done her share of leaving him to his idiosyncracies, and the least he could do was pay her back in kind. He knew where his crazy had come from and he had an inkling about hers.)

He tilted his head toward her; the night wasn’t getting any younger and restaurants would start closing soon. “Are you hungry?”

@Cordelia Leighton

Her flat has problems. It's a walk-up, for one. It's small, and moreover it’s cramped now that she's filled it with furniture and knick-knacks and half-filled notebooks and novels she meant to read two years ago. In theory, she could have three, maybe four people over for dinner here, but more often than not it was just Cordelia at home.

Well, and Michael. Of course Michael, for the last half a year or so, was here too, with his neuroticisms and his scars and his.... Michael-ness. She had nothing to prove to him, which made him - well, not more attractive, but certainly more fun to keep around. She liked him, to her own surprise, and still liked him after months where others had gotten too close and she had to bolt.

For a summer night, it was uncommonly cool outside. She pulled her robe closer to her skin, fumbling for her wand as a cigarette dangled from her lips. “Incendio”, she whispered, holding the tip of her wand to her cigarette. The muggle lighter was easier, of course, but she had gotten the hang of making the movements of the spell minuscule, of saying the incantation out the corner of her mouth, of holding the wand in the middle instead of the end (burned less eyebrow off that way).

It wasn’t a very picturesque view - no London Eye, no Big Ben, the window was the wrong way anyway- but even without a “view” there was something peaceful, almost like meditating, just looking away into the smoggy horizon. Focus on the streetlights dotting the roads like low hanging stars. Breathe in the nicotine. Let the constant whirring of her own paranoia out with the smoke.

Michael finally emerged from the washroom, maneuvering through the clutter to join her outside. She lazily waved her left hand at him in greeting. Finishing her drag, Cordelia took care to exhale over the balcony, away from Michael - she could never tell if he was up for a cig or not, there seemed to be no pattern with him - and let it dangle from her right hand.

This was their routine - company, take-out, talking about everything and nothing at all. It was so… comfortable. “I could eat,” she said after a moment, stubbing out her cigarette on the black metal railing and letting the ash fall to the ground below. Cordelia turned her face to Michael and reached out a hand for his. "Come warm me up for a second, before I get dressed?"

Cordelia exhaled over the city and Michael watched the smoke snake into the dark and disappear; he exhaled too, just in solidarity, and rubbed his mouth with one hand. I could eat was a lackluster but elegant way to avoid answering the question, so he raised his eyebrows but accepted it. “We could also just drink,” he suggested; he’d brought vodka. “Or I can go downstairs and pick something up.” He sort of suspected that the nearest restaurant was a front for a money laundering operation, but the pasta was very good.

He took her hand and moved closer, leaned into her in case that helped with heat conduction. The night wasn’t quite quiet -- it never was, though the city traffic and bustle was reduced to a mildly annoying buzz from here -- but it was still and lonely. Michael let Cordelia’s hand slip out of his and wrapped his arm around her shoulder instead, looked back at her shitty view of London.

It came easily to him -- and it always had, boyfriend stuff. Closeness and familiarity and warmth (which she was now leeching from him, he thought.) There were infinite stupid intimacies with every girl and he lived for it -- leaning on her when she was cold, or sharing her cigarettes, or letting her fuck with his radio or whatever. Nothing more real than their bodies, or the smoke, or the static; nothing that would scare her off.

Or vice versa, he reminded himself. (Did it matter either way? Historically, Michael didn’t blink first.)

Michael shivered; he was suddenly conscious of his long legs and bare arms, goosebumpy with cold. He scratched at his cheekbone -- he needed to shave -- and blew out a long breath. She’d put her cigarette out, so he was stuck just looking out at nothing, the way Cordelia always seemed to.

“I’m going to open the vodka,” he said after a moment. It would make him hungrier, he thought; if he was lucky it’d make him sleepy too.

“Oh, good. I think I have a box of juice left in the fridge.” She let the offer of deliciously dodgy Italian food tempt her for a minute. “Doesn’t downstairs do delivery? Let’s call them up. I have some birthday money left.” Exchanging Galleons for pound sterling was a nightmare, specially since Harri didn’t work at Gringotts anymore, but the Leighton side of the family was not hurting for cash to give to their favourite wizarding granddaughter. She was the only wizarding granddaughter, but still.

Cordelia loved when he wrapped his arms around her like this. It felt safe, not in a dull way but in a solid way. She breathed him in - Michael always smelt of pine oil, fresh and clean. This whole thing - Michael, dating Michael - was like coming home to freshly laundered bedsheets. It was nothing surprising, but how could you keep from wrapping yourself up in it?

He shivered and pulled away from her, and the chill of the night set in. She needed warmer robes, or another cigarette. “Make me a vodka cran, would you?” Cordelia stepped over the doorframe, twirling her wand absently in her hand. “Lysander sent me the instructions for a phone calling charm, let me find the letter and we’ll order.” It was somewhere on her desk, which was “clean” but certainly not sorted. There was a copy of her time off request, draft ideas for the California article title, a menu from the last time she had gone for pasta. Buried among it, a letter from her dear brother and a charm. She grabbed the letter and menu and went to meet Michael. “Here, in case you want to change your order.”

Michael smiled, eyes narrowed fondly out at London. “Delivery,” he said, only mildly taking the piss. “Fancy.” As far as he knew, Cordelia didn’t own a telephone, which would complicate the ordering process; he was unwilling enough to go down and up the stairs that he didn’t mind oblique methodology, or using Cordelia’s birthday money, even though he had always felt like muggle money was for special occasions. (He had no muggle relatives to give him money; he had to queue at the bank with the masses.)

“Vodka cran,” he repeated. Impulsively he pecked her on the cheek before he headed inside. His sweater was folded on his briefcase; he paused to worm it over his head.

Cordelia came up behind him, and he was grateful in an instant that she was so talkative just then. He did not want to change his order -- he barely looked at the menu before he said, “I’ll just have the chicken alfredo, but with farfalle, not fettucini.” Eating noodles had always made him feel like he was slurping some pasta monster’s entrails, which had less appeal now than it had when he was eight.

He turned around to give her her drink, and had a sip of his own. “Do you hold your wand like a telephone, then?” he said, intrigued. “Which end is the -- talkie end?” He held up one fist, thumb and little finger extended, as though this would illustrate his meaning.

He leaned back against her counter, his head bumping against the cabinet behind, and waited curiously for a demonstration of the spell: “Lysander’s the gobstones bloke, right?” Michael, as deeply entrenched in recreational Ministry gambling as he was, had crossed paths with Cordelia’s brother even before he’d started dating her. (A weird fellow, condescending as hell; Michael liked him.)

The slight brush of his lips on her cheek warmed her. She couldn’t stop herself from smiling if she wanted to. How embarrassing, to be so melted by his affection every time, but the only person who could see her flush seemed not to mind at all.

Cordelia only half-listened while Michael rattled off his order. No change, of course. She laughed. “Did you even look?” It was a rhetorical question, of course. Cordelia took the menu and chucked it over her shoulder. “One of these days you should try something new.” Not that he would, but it was easy enough to tease him. Maybe, subconsciously, she was looking for reassurance he was content with things how they were, not with the pasta, but with her.

He put the glass in her hand, and she took a slow sip. “Mm, perfect.” Cordelia raised herself up on tiptoe, kissing him lightly on the lips. “Thanks, babe.” She paused, ran her hand quickly through his hair, just for kicks, before turning her attention to the spell.

“Oh, stop it, it doesn’t have a ‘talkie end’, ‘course it doesn’t.” She laughed, playfully batting at his “phone” hand. “It’s like,” she squinted, “oh, it’s pretty much like the Amplifying Charm, I wonder why it took so long for them to develop it.” Lysander’s longhand had not improved since school - the diagram of wand movements was smeared - but she could just about make it all out.  “Dittany’s under the sink, in case this doesn’t work.”

She straightened her back, imagining herself back in Flitwick’s class at school. Proper form made it easier for a first spell (not that she had been particularly gifted at Charms, but she had gotten well enough along). Bring the wand up, perpendicular with the ear, whip it down and point at the throat. “Vocationem Enzo’s Italian,” she chanted, stepping backwards in alarm and surprise when the ringing began, horridly loud in her right ear.

“Hi,” she yelled when she heard a human voice shouting in her ear. “Spaghetti puttanesca and Chicken Alfredo with farfalle, for delivery, can you hear me?” It seemed like there were connection issues. After another couple moments of shouting Cordelia seemed to get the order and her address across. She dropped the spell with relief.

Michael was leaning on the counter. Must have been entertaining to watch. She shrugged, as if to say what did we expect? and came over to lean next to him. “Yeah, he’s been a gobstones nut for years. Never grew out of it, I guess. Look,” she gestured to the record, “he takes the time to tell me his scores for the league still. He knows I don’t care.” A chuckle. She wasn’t as close to Lysander as - she wasn’t that close to Lysander, but Cordelia still appreciated the frequency at which he wrote to her.

“No,” said Michael, “Absolutely not.” Cordelia threw the menu haphazardly over her shoulder, he watched it flutter to the floor bleakly but forced his gaze back up to her as she sipped her drink, made an overdramatic sound of satisfaction. “Well thank you,” he said wryly. “Got an O on my Potions O.W.L., you know.”

She threaded her fingers through his hair; he gave her an indulgent smile and put his drink back down so he could fix the damage, flattening it back down blindly. His hair was still a little damp from putting his head under the sink; he dried his hand on his shorts and picked his drink back up, swigged half of it and made a face. (She liked juice with her drinks; he liked the nostalgia of drinking straight vodka, like he was still sixteen at home alone, even though it was objectively vile.)

He grimaced -- hopefully they wouldn’t need dittany, just the smell made him nauseous -- but he watched with interest anyway, as she frowned down at her brother’s letter.

Unquestionably, magic needed to catch up to muggles, in a lot of ways -- this had been a major belief of his dad’s, in the years before You-Know-Who had come back -- but it felt rare that anybody explored muggle applications in charm development. Once Michael had wanted to study and experiment with magic, in a vague teenage way -- it was one of the myriad fields of study he’d brought up during career counselling in fifth year. Now he was curious how Cordelia’s career counselling had gone -- his year he’d heard a few stories, ranging from the mundane to Dean-Thomas-saw-Harry-Potter-flee-the-scene-as-McGonagall-and-Umbridge-had-a-shouting-match.

The Carrows would have made much less pleasant witnesses, he imagined. The thought made him chilly.

Michael let himself watch Cordelia shouting into her wand, focused on her raised voice. She pronounced farfalle the same way he had, which made him suspect neither of them knew how it was actually said. When she ended the call, she caught him looking at her, his mouth turned down with amusement.

“Gobstoners,” he said sagely, but he shrugged -- he had been through his share of blinding, consuming obsessions, and knew what it was. “It’s nice that he thinks to share it, I guess. My sisters don’t write me.”

“Hm, easy for you, you had normal classes your OWL year,” Cordelia said, not really thinking through the implications of references school until the words had left her mouth. They were, what, two years apart in school? What a difference two years made, during the hell years of Mr. Potter’s career. At least Cordelia had had two normal years at the end. Or normal as possible at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and War. Looking at Michael’s face, scrunched up as the vodka burned his throat, and that dangerous train of thought evaporated as she laughed.

The very loud, very angry Italian woman on the other end of the spell seemed offended at her pronunciation of “farfalle”, which Cordelia had picked up from Michael anyway. Her cheeks warmed with the tiniest embarrassment, but the order seemed to go through with no other problems. Michael wasn’t laughing - it took a bit to get more than a chuckle from him - but he was clearly amused. “Was the other end not out loud?” She asked him, rubbing her ear. “That one is a doozy, I don’t recommend it.”

”Gobstoners,” he said, so deadpan she couldn’t help but laugh again. “Gobstoners!” She exclaimed in agreement. “I will never understand.”

“Your sisters are, what, fourteen?” Cordy asked, taking another sip of her vodka cran. “It’s a big gap. I wasn’t close with Lysander at that age, either.” That age… dangerous territory. So was siblings, in general. Stories about Luke started to rise from the haze of memory, so she downed the rest of her drink to drown them. “Plus, what do you want to hear? What boys they’re kissing?” She made a face. “Sometimes it’s better to hear nothing.” A lie, that was, but to her or to Michael? She couldn’t tell.

Had Cordelia even taken her O.W.L.s? When had she taken her O.W.L.s? Michael had never asked, and he didn’t want to ask. (Though, of course, now he wanted to know.) It wouldn’t do any good to mention that he’d cocked up his N.E.W.T.s -- doubtless she had guessed as much already. It was suddenly unbearable to look at her, to ponder what she was thinking about, while they were standing in her kitchen and talking about her fifth year, or his, or both, or neither.

He was relieved for the drink in his hand, for an excuse to screw his eyes shut, to focus on the dizzying spots that her kitchen lights had left on his eyelids. He was a little more relieved to hear her laugh; he cracked one eye open and grinned. “What?” he said, half laughing. Cordelia took more delight in little things than Michael ever had; he envied that almost as much as he loved it. He was the other way round; little things unduly disturbed him.

She laughed again, whether at the word or his tone; he shrugged. “I think the appeal is that nobody understands the appeal,” he mused. There was a strange satisfaction in the sanctimony of feeling persecuted -- Michael had always relished being a misfit, at least until he was eighteen and he’d been actually, personally persecuted.

“Thereabouts, yeah,” he said. Cordelia was right, of course -- it was a significant gap in age, and a more significant gap in experiences, and they hadn’t even grown up together -- but he loathed radio silence, had loathed it even before the dome had imposed it.

“I wouldn’t mind hearing about boys,” he said. “Pretty sure I’m obligated to know who they are, in case I have to threaten to beat them up.” He crossed his ankles and finished the rest of his drink, picked up the bottle and held it out in a silent offer to repour hers as well. It was late enough that he didn’t feel like Apparating home; they’d been not-mentioning the war enough that he didn’t feel like being alone; her kitchen was cold enough that he didn’t feel like being sober.

A chuckle, from Michael, and a full smile too.  What a treat for her to witness. Her face light up without her telling it to - or maybe that was the vodka, making its way through her veins. She hadn’t let herself feel this happy with a bloke for this long in…. In ever. It was intoxicating, the security of it. “Seems rather lonely, doesn’t it? At least with Quidditch or some such, you can chat with anyone.” There were few universal topics for wizards, it seemed: Quidditch, the war… no, that seemed to cover it.

Imagining Michael Corner beating up a lad behind the Hogwarts courtyard made her giggle again. Everything made her laugh now. It felt almost like cheating, or stealing, to be able to laugh this much in any lifetime. “I’m sure you would absolutely terrify them. That’s probably why they don’t write.”

Memories bubbled up from the year from hell, unwanted and unbidden. Witnessing horrors inflicted on a younger version of the man in front of her. Fear sitting deep in her gut of the same happening to her, or Ari, or any of the other insubordinate children in Hufflepuff. Her wand trembling in her hand during a late night run to the Room. Sometimes she remembered that Michael was a war hero, as far as the Hogwarts Front was concerned. Usually she tried to forget. They didn’t meet then, and if they had, it wouldn’t have mattered - they were both different people, now.

He held out the bottle and she offered her glass in return, her hand trembling slightly as she watched the alcohol pour in. Dangerous, vodka was. It looked like water, flowed like water too. If she wasn’t careful, she could drown in it. As soon as he pulled the bottle away she went in for a long gulp. “You’re staying over, yeah?” She tried to keep her tone light. If he was going to go, he probably would have by now, but she needed the reassurance.

A loud knock suddenly rattled the thin door. Cordelia jumped, part of her drink sloshing out the sides of the glass. “That was fast,” she managed, laughing nervously. “Would you mind getting it? I’ll, I’ll just dig out the cash.” She rushed to her desk, pulling some bills out of a hidden drawer, hurrying back to press them into his hand. “I’ll be right back,” she said, spinning around and rushing for the bathroom. Breathe, Cordelia.

Just a year ahead of Esther, any of the hypothetical boyfriends would know Michael by reputation; he smiled ruefully -- “Definitely,” he said, a touch too quiet. A not insignificant percentage of his generation had watched him be brutalized in the Great Hall; this meant that a not insignificant percentage of his generation that would probably never find him intimidating.

Cordelia had been there for it too; Michael sometimes caught himself wondering whether she still thought about it, or what she thought of it. Maybe it didn’t matter, he mused bitterly; what little he remembered with certainty was that he had taken it pathetically. Either she'd fooled him into thinking she thought highly of him, or he’d fooled her into thinking he deserved it. He could never decide which was worse.

She drank deeply, not even bothering to add juice, and Michael averted his gaze, feeling suddenly intrusive. Her voice was softer when she spoke again. “Was gonna,” he said, and reached for her hand, squeezed it slightly. It sounded like she wanted him to say so, but he could never convince himself that it wasn’t just wishful thinking. He could only stomach his own neediness if it was mirrored back at him; he didn’t trust himself not to be making up signs that it was. Something made him ask, “Is that okay?” in case it got him a straight answer.

He wouldn’t have given her one, so he couldn’t mind either way.

They both cringed at the interruption, and Michael set his glass down too loudly on the counter. When Cordelia laughed he made himself follow suit. “Shite,” he said, “Shite. It’s fine, I’ll get it.” She rushed out for her money and he took the moment alone to lean down and pick up the takeout menu, where she’d discarded it earlier, and leave it on the counter. He had to undo both of her deadbolts to answer the door.

Transaction carried out, he rapped gently on the bathroom door with two knuckles. “Pasta’s here,” he said, and hesitated; she had looked a little upset but they’d built a tradition of not saying so to each other. “Are you sick?” he asked instead; if she had to, she could blame the vodka.

[tw: emetophobia]

Michael squeezed her hand, anchoring her for a moment. She nodded, acknowledging his intention. “Yeah, yeah”, Cordy replied, looking at their interlocked hands instead of his face. “I wouldn’t mind.” There was a tremor in her voice that she couldn’t shake out. “I’d like that.” That was more vulnerable than she had meant to be. Shit.

Michael could figure out the pound notes and the tip, he didn’t need her around for that, so she felt only a tiny twinge of guilt as she shut the bathroom door behind her. Merlin, what was with her tonight? Cordelia had been sure she was getting better. Not that she was putting any effort into it - she hadn’t seen that grief counselor since before seventh year, and it had been a Muggle counselor, anyway. Too much truth had to be censored and rewritten for those sessions. She couldn’t have gotten any good out of them if she had tried. Not that she had.

She leaned over the sink, trying to get her breathing under control. In for five, out for seven. Remember the war is over. Has been over. Five years over. This was no way to live, looking at anyone alive who had been in school that year and wanting to vomit. That wasn’t fair - they, she and Michael, were usually much much better at avoiding all this. Tonight had just spun a little too close to the whirlpool of memory.

A knock at the bathroom door, this one so much softer than the one at the door just minutes ago. She could smell the pasta from here. Her stomach did not enjoy the conflicting signals and threatened to empty itself. “Might be?” Cordelia called through the door. “I just - need a second.” Open the toilet. Nothing came out on its own, so she stuck two fingers down her throat until it did. Christ, why did that still work? After a few more dry heaves, her stomach settled.

She rinsed her mouth with mouthwash and wiped the damp from the corner of her eyes. “I think maybe the cran juice has gone foul,” Cordelia said as she opened the door, trying to fake a smile to go with the lie. “Let’s eat, yeah?”

Michael rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb, suddenly at a loss for how to respond. For months they’d been a little less honest with each other than this -- they dealt in if-that’s-okays and if-you-wants and I-don’t-minds. More stiffly than he’d intended to be, he said, “Then yeah, of course.”

She sounded sick, not just upset. He put a reasonable distance between himself and her door once she started retching, sat on her bed with the pasta next to him to wait for her.

It might have been the vodka -- his tolerance was higher, since he had more experience drinking straight vodka and she weighed less than him -- but it probably wasn’t. Michael folded his arms over his chest and tried to determine where they’d gone wrong -- they’d been talking about how he’d beat up his sister’s boyfriends, because they’d been talking about how she wasn’t so close to her brother at that age. Maybe they just had to stop talking about siblings, or that age. He’d brought it up earlier, too, gloating about his Potions O.W.L.

This was unreasonable, he knew -- her brother or his O.W.L.s or their adolescence would eventually come up again -- how could they not? They were important. They were painful, but important.

She emerged, with a wan smile and an excuse -- “I’ll throw it out for you,” offered Michael, getting up, picking up the pasta. She was pale; with his free hand, he lifted her hair off her neck and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, tried to remember anything comforting his dad used to say when he’d been sick as a kid. “There, now,” he said, which was fucking meaningless; “All right.”

He put the pasta on the table, straightened the little plastic containers so that the injection-molded seams lined up parallel. He wasn’t very hungry either, suddenly, but Michael knew when he had to eat -- and he’d eaten on less of an appetite than this, he reminded himself. It was the world’s cheapest motivator, thinking of things he’d already done. Not so insurmountable, this, is it? He couldn’t think what to say to her -- but that was not so insurmountable, was it?

He managed to eat half the dish before he came up with, “Er, you have extra washcloths anywhere?”

She stared at the washroom mirror, looking at herself like she hadn't seen her reflection in years. Her eyes were red, course they were after that. Her hair felt oppressive on her neck, thick and tangled. Cordy ran one hand through the front of her hair, pulling strands away to reveal the scalp. If she squinted, she could see the scars just above the hairline, from a glancing hex or a falling stone, she couldn't remember which. There was no point in applying any scar cream or potion to it, it was hidden well, but there was a bottle in the medicine cabinet just in case one day she changed her mind.

This was not sustainable. This wouldn't - couldn't - work if she didn't get her shit together. Months of talking in circles and walking on eggshells with each other, how was that meant to go on? Cordy had fooled herself into thinking that they could avoid this forever. That he would want to, that she would be able to. He had already just started to pull away, she was pretty sure of it. The tension in his voice when Cordelia had asked him to stay.

Fucking hell, they hadn't even said "I love you" to each other or anything. She wanted him to say it first, but it was clear that Michael was apprehensive of it the same way she was. Plus, did she? Or was she confusing love for stability, love for comfort, with love for another person?

Micahel accepted her sad excuse about the fruit juice, but unexpected drew close and wrapped her up in an one-arm embrace. She let her hands float to his chest, breathing in the smell of his aftershave and sweat. "Thanks," she mumbled into his shirt. Whether it was for the offer to toss the juice or for the hug, she wasn't sure.

They ate the pasta in silence - it was delicious, of course, but the taste of mint on her tongue was at odds with puttanesca. She stabbed at it, eating slowly. Worst thing could happen was maybe having leftovers, right? She glanced up at Michael every so often, who was staring down his plate with determination.

Oh, washcloths. "There should be some in the drawer -" she paused, stuck out her index fingers and thumbs like she was seven and learning directions for the first time, "right side of the sink, second drawer down." Course, the ones in there would be pretty threadbare. She should really get some new ones.

Michael rubbed her back, another nice, meaningless thing his dad had done. It’d made him feel better, but he’d also been young. “Welcome,” he murmured, anyway, and stroked her hair with the hand that wasn’t holding the pasta, let his hand still on her shoulder. He didn’t like to be touched so much when he felt lousy; it’d taken him some time to figure out that she did, and a little longer to get used to it.

“Second drawer,” he repeated, “Good to know. I’d’ve started bringing my own.” He’d probably never have asked, he thought with dry amusement, if they hadn’t been sitting in silence and he hadn’t been thinking about it earlier. But now he was out of conversation again, unless he caved and started talking about work, which he hated doing. Cordelia was a writer by trade -- maybe she wasn’t writing what she wanted to write, but she was writing for a living. He could rarely stand to bring up that he cleaned up after people -- or, worse, animals -- for a living. It was embarrassing.

He set his fork carefully down, perpendicular to the edge of the table; he wanted another drink, but she had just been sick and probably didn’t. “I’m going to make tea, do you want a cup?” he offered instead, looking up again; she still looked troubled, like she was still thinking about whatever it was that’d made her sick. (He couldn’t help a twinge of pity for her -- he’d spent the better part of his late adolescence ruminating his way into indigestion, especially after you-know-what, and knew what it was. But he had trained himself out of it and, clearly, she hadn’t -- it made him wonder if she hadn’t tried to stop, or if she just did this to herself less often.)

Whichever it was, he’d be no help; he stood up stiffly and went to put the kettle on, to lean back against the counter and look back at her, forehead still pinched with worry. He had to avoid anything they’d already talked about, since it’d made her sick -- this ruled out school and family and Gobstones, and left him with work, so he surrendered and said “So did the paper get you an invite to this Cali party, or did you engineer that yourself?”