#lastlycoris

" 'Course I was. I'm sitting right next to you, y'know. "

[Martin says it so casually; it rolls right off of his tongue and the slightest shrug of his shoulder, careless like that. But Parsley is fairly familiar with the irritable sensation that sparks in his chest, a low burn as his brows furrow. He's familiar with the way Martin moves, always intentional. And he knows it’s a lie.]

" Yeah... I know. "

[They're sitting right next to one another, working on their own separate projects. Parsley, a recent case he's taken on that's proven to be more work than anticipated. Martin, with different scraps of cloth scattered around him in a frustrating halo of clashing patterns. Yet the lawyer can't help but eye the distance between them and feel its emptiness for the first time tonight. It only seems a larger gap to bridge when Martin sighs, heavy and pointed, and he finally looks up from his lap. Dropping the shimmery material he'd been fussing at. When their eyes meet, the businessman in him recognizes that look immediately. Parsley swallows thickly, an acknowledgment of the elephant in the room he can sense readying to charge through... and he already knows.]

[This will not be a discussion. This is going to be an argument.]

" Uh huh ... So what's with that look, then? I told you I was listening, didn't I? "

[It takes the whole of him not to flinch, not to let the sharpness in that question leave a scratch on his measured exterior. There's a wall that doesn't give beside him, with long red hair. Does he really want to get into that? Is it really worth the fight, tonight? For a long while, they just look at one another. Martin is still smiling, yet to a trained eye it's a grimace more strained and thin than usual. Disingenuous. His patience in this standoff is scathing, a silent opposition that hangs heavier in the air the longer he doesn't get a response. Parsley considers carefully whether this is an argument that needs to be had, and be had Right Now. It makes his stomach twist in the most GUILTY and slimy way that his gaze dares to tear away from Martin and dash towards the table, where his work sits unfinished despite the deadlines and expectations creeping closer towards it.]

[... He doesn't realize that he'd gone so rigid, back straighter than a ruler, until there's a noticeable slump in his posture. Until his whole body isn't readying for the confrontation it foresees ahead, and he doesn't look back at Martin at all. It's a reluctant retreat, but a retreat all the same. Reaching once more for one of the papers there on the tabletop, Parsley conveniently shuffles his body a bit further away from Martin on the couch in the process.]

" ... Right. Sorry. Just forget I said anything. "

[It's what he's good at, running away from the hard discussions. Still, it takes restraint he didn't think he possessed not to bite his reply out-- not to grind it from between his teeth, digging his heels into the carpet. It's a defeat that he can't surely describe, as if it were at his own hands, to bow his head and run away from something he started. It's shameful. And he's sure to remind himself that he chose that even as he dives headlong back into his work. That he chose this feeling, and more importantly, that he chose his career.]