#terminatingdeterminate

Without realizing it, she had found a home and a family.

It was a Tuesday when she caught the first flash of something so incredibly beautiful it took her breath. She was tucked into the corner booth by the chalkboard and had been toiling away at an article on the Meat Packing District's revitalization when she heard a crash that echoed off the brick and settled with a heavy thud. Looking up from her laptop, she was already moving to help clean up the mess when she caught a flutter of movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her head instinctively towards it.

Brick was leaned back against the counter with his legs crossed at the ankle and talking animatedly at Gray. There was a careful kind of intensity that lived in that brand of familiarity that you couldn't fake. Gray was listening, head down as he cleaned the flour off of Brick's glasses with the hem of his shirt. He was tilted towards Brick with the toe of his sneaker touching Brick's instep. Lina tipped her head to the side and watched for a breath and then two while Gray handed Brick his glasses back and crossed his arms over his chest. His face was calm, lines settling quiet and eyes soft where he tracked Brick's face, and she was sure for a second that she could feel the world turning under her feet.

It was simple, really. Love? Everything she'd ever wondered about how to love somebody was wrapped up in the slight tip of Brick's chin when he turned his head down to watch Gray from over the rims of his glasses. It was summed up in the way that Gray rolled his hands on his wrists before touching the slip of skin showing over Brick's watchband and under the hem of his sweater. It was there in the looks that the other didn't see. They were soft eyed and affectionate but more than anything, they were present. 

She watched for half an hour as they moved together through the space, like atoms circling in the same orbit at different speeds. She liked how animated Gray was, how he was always reaching for something or finishing a task to move onto something else. She liked the way that his slightly frenetic pace was tempered by Brick's quiet, by the deliberacy that he moved with. It was like watching tempering and when it was all said and done, she was left warm and comfortable.

Love wasn't patient or kind. Love was boastful and proud. Love was two people taking two lives and making them more than just one, making them everything and all encompassing.

[Do not want.]

Wot.