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[allgotrabies]

Hey, it's Annie, you know what to do.

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[allgotrabies]

"I think so." He'd been calmer when she'd visited him the next morning, more himself. Not so frantic or wild. "It seemed like it did."

Until the Admiral got involved again.

[madaboutit]

He nods again. That's something at least. Even if had been brief and not remembered now, at least he'd had it.

"Good," he murmurs, then adds a bit louder. "Thanks." I guess. If only he could remember. Why did he need to before?

He's still for several seconds before it comes to him in a wave. Not all of it, but enough. Wednesday's dead, Dead Wife's not. His Coin is lost. That's why.

"Oh." He frowns at himself. "Sorry." The more he remembers things, the less eager he is to talk about them.

[allgotrabies]

She lets him have that quiet, doesn't interrupt it even with any movement other than the slow brush of her hand over the grass.

"Why sorry?" She isn't.

[madaboutit]

Sweeney isn't sure. He just knows he should be. That's strange. He'd given up apologies a good while ago. Of all the shit he carries, that's not something he wants in his life. But still, here they are.

He shrugs and slowly strokes a blade of long grass. His eyes linger on her. "Prob'bly shouldn't have done that ta you." His lips tighten. "Usin' ya like that." Even when he was frivolous with sex, he rather all the parties be in it for the same reason.

[allgotrabies]

Just like that it's like the ground shifts beneath her. She nods, biting the inside of her cheek, and looks away. "You know, no one's ever said they were sorry about that before."

Not once. Not ever. And she has let herself be used in a hundred ways since she was too young to be offering anything worthwhile.

[madaboutit]

"Yeah." The word is soft as he reminds himself of his sin. And all the ones before. The worst. The recent. The one that carried the heaviest price.

Sweeney's lips tighten, and he shifts so he's sitting more properly with his knees up where he can rest his elbows on them.

"We're all cunts." It's not as much of an apology as a statement of fact.

[allgotrabies]

"Yeah." Everyone is. "But you're not the worst one I know. Not even bottom fifty."

[madaboutit]

He exhales sharply, somewhere between a scoff and a short chuckle.

"S'ppose that's a blessin' then." He reconsiders with a small shrug. "Fer one of us at least." Even accounting for hyperbole, he doubts there's not some truth in her assessment.

Sweeney thinks. His tongue slides over his lip as he blinks his gaze askew. "Can't promise it," Obviously. "But I'll try not ta do it again."

At the moment, he doesn't want to be another cunt. He's just not sure how to even start being something else at this point.

[allgotrabies]

"I didn't feel used," she insists gently. "I still don't. I knew what it was when I kissed you back, and if it helped you then I would've been glad." She doesn't know if it did or not. It's impossible to say.

"The fact you apologized to me though is..." Dammit, she has to break off, breathe a quick breath. "Thanks. For caring. Even if you didn't hurt me."

[madaboutit]

There's something in her assurance at least. He doesn't feel like he's not a cunt, but at least she doesn't seem to resent him for it. Her thanking him makes him increasingly uncomfortable though.

Enough of that.

His tongue runs along his teeth beneath his lip. "So...yer okay then." He realizes she could probably use more context. "Overall. With...the Breach an' e'erythin'." And the sex, but she seems to have covered that pretty thoroughly.

[allgotrabies]

"Breaches are complicated." She never likes them, never looks back wishing she could relive them. She doesn't even really hang onto the relationships forged in them.

"I'm just glad it's over. I'm learning to sail, right? In the real world. Or, whatever we call the Barge. Crozier was teaching me about those big ships..." She misses him and her cheek twitches slightly with the effort of keeping her expression neutral. "So it just makes me wish he was here. He would've been a great pirate."

[madaboutit]

Sweeney watches her. Listens. But he doesn't know who the fuck Crozier is, so he's not sure what he's supposed to say. He doesn't give a fuck about him or pirating for damn sure.

Instead, he falls to the logical back up, and his fingers tighten to find themselves wrapped around the neck of a new bottle. The other remains on the grass nearby. Sweeney sets to opening it and is relieved once the task is done. He tips the bottle to her in a vague gesture of toasting.

"Fuckin' over." To that, they seem to agree.

[allgotrabies]

"And we'll never have to go there again," she says, saluting him with a cigarette. "...How often do you sleep?"

[madaboutit]

He knows what she means, but she's just wrong. He'll go there again. Countless times feel the ache, the fear, the desperate relief when he feels the touch of that sleek fur against his fingertips. Sweeney frowns and studies the grass.

It takes the question longer than it should to process. He shrugs, not looking up to her as he gently rubs a blade of grass.

"Fuck if I know. Ain't somethin' I schedule."

[allgotrabies]

She wonders if he remembers the last time he did fall asleep and hopes it wasn't the time she left him passed out in his bed. Even leprechauns need to let their dreams sort themselves out, surely.

"Can I ask what you're feeling?" Because she can tell, and she simultaneously can't. "I know that's a fluffy question. I'm just...worried."

[madaboutit]

His lips thin, and he looks briefly to the bottle. Running his tongue over his teeth, he lets the silence hang. Everyone wants to know what he's feeling. What he's thinking. What he wants. It's all so fucking tedious.

He blinks slowly and takes a swig.

"I feel like the coffee cup that was a bit too close to the edge and fell off the counter. E'eryone rushin' ta see how bad it's broken. If it's just chipped or needs some fuckin' super glue or just to be thrown out."

It's shit to say out loud, but at least it gives him an image to focus on. He sits the bottle down between his legs and takes a cigarette down from behind his ear. He sets to lighting it without looking back to her.

[allgotrabies]

Yeah there it is again, that little twinge in her chest.

"I know you've been fucked over. More than I understand. Probably more than I'll ever understand. But you've never given me bullshit." She tucks one knee up under her chin.

"You've got a lot going on in your head. And I'll never push when you say stop. But," a small shift in her tone, from thoughtful to something not quite human. "I'm never going to throw you away. Doesn't matter how you shatter."

A human could say the same thing. A human doesn't, cannot, have the sort of loyalty a wolf queen does. This one, anyway.

[madaboutit]

His eyes shut as they roll beneath their lids. They only open enough of a sliver to look at the grass past the tip of his boot. Sweeney knows she means it. But she's also stupidly young. Time wears down everything eventually.

He doesn't know how to convince her, what he could possibly say to get through. She's got that stubborn idealism that seems too be rampant here. Nothing really to be done about it in the now. She'll just have to come to it naturally in her own time.

"Alright." It's a simple acceptance of her feelings, but there's also not much more he can do but that.

Sweeney licks his lip and pulls a hearty swig from his bottle.

[allgotrabies]

"I saw that," she smirks. It doesn't bother her that he doesn't believe her. She has the advantage here: she might be young but she has learned how to be unshakably loyal. And then there's the fact that her lifespan is shortened, that she can earnestly say she'll care about someone until she dies.

"You don't have to pretend you believe me," and she means that earnestly, too. She doesn't need his belief to keep on doing and feeling what she does.

"What's something you've never done before?"

[madaboutit]

Sweeney sets the bottle in the grass and takes down a cigarette. The silence dangles as he holds it to his lips and digs out his lighter to breath it to life. A long drag; his eyes sliding up the glass ceiling.

"Die of old age," he offers, pushing the answer past the smoke in his lungs. Its tendrils flee him after the words have gone. The reply is given in deadpan sincerity, and his focus drops to her promptly after.

[allgotrabies]

"Well that's a goal," she says, eyes mischievous. "You already got a couple gray hairs."

[madaboutit]

"Like fuck, I do."

His eyes roll shut again, and he takes another drag. He's certain he hasn't actually aged; his degrading is more about the mileage, but still. Would he even know? He does his best not to look at himself whenever it's avoidable.

Sweeney's doubtful that old age's something he's interested in working towards, but at this point, who the fuck knows.

[allgotrabies]

"They're at the back," she says, positively impish now. "But it's okay, you're still fucking sexy. So don't go shaving your head like Bruce Willis."

[madaboutit]

Strangely enough, her explanation reeks no less of bullshit, and his expression speaks to that point.

Sweeney sets his elbow on his knee so he can put his head against his hand, and he presses two fingers to his forehead to brace as his thumb rubs at the joint of his jaw. A long sigh escapes him.

"What is it ya want, luv?" He's tired, and he doesn't have enough mind left to chase hers around.

[allgotrabies]

She came to check on him but it doesn't seem like a thing she should say. "To trade a cigarette for some booze. You know- I hang out at the library like, every day around 4. If you ever want to come find me."

Since he can't come to her home anymore. That still galls her.