the correspondents dinner is the first time they’d seen each other since he left new york.   they’d said they would keep in touch ,   but.   well ,   everyone always says that.

Nobody’s using you, baby she had said. And maybe she thought she could mean it at the time — but Stevie is a drug user, and Spirit is a people user, and these are things that will always get in the way of just about anything else. 

Andrew wouldn’t let her do this. Droopy and drunk and rambling — he would tell her to say what’s really on her mind or just go to sleep, start fresh tomorrow. He wouldn’t let her sit in his lap, play with his hair. She rests her head on the curve of his shoulder, lets herself feel the warmth. Lets herself pretend. 

Even when she looks up at him, she is disoriented enough to keep pretending. 

And so she kisses him — perhaps missing his mouth on purpose to gauge his reaction, perhaps having awful aim. She kisses the left side of his lips once. Twice. 

          It’s been a long time since she’d last heard from Logan, but that doesn’t mean he’d completely fallen off her radar. Few of the people from Westchester had; she’s still just as nosy as she’d been before, and is arguably better, now, at finding information.

         So she knows he’d moved to Los Angeles some time ago. She knows he’s been married and divorced. Knows he works in the journalism sphere, though some might think the term too generous for what he specializes in. Knows he’d had a child, and recently lost him.

         And... she knows that he’d stopped writing her back sometime around when she and Theo had been up near the Great Lakes. For whatever reason. She doesn’t know if their friendship had just petered out naturally, given the time and distance separating them, or if she’d said or done something to offend him. Which is a distinct possibility.

         But it doesn’t really matter much in the grand scheme of things, because she’s found herself in Los Angeles, and she’d looked up his address, and she just thinks that maybe he could stand to see her for a little while if she comes bearing condolences.

         So she shows up one day, using skills she certainly hadn’t learned under Xavier’s tutelage, to let herself into his home well before Logan wakes to lay out an assortment of baked goods, and to start a pot of coffee for her old friend. All without so much as an inkling of permission from her unwitting host. 

         She hadn’t wanted to wake him. And breaking and entering is about as ingrained into her as her tendency to snoop.

@tahitiwoke

ONE. JAN, 2018.

is there anything you can’t do. he doesn’t frame it like a question, more like a statement of fact – he has already answered it for himself. you started a war. 

does it escape his notice, somehow? talk of carol danvers has fallen out of fashion, crushed under the weight of a ten second soundbite, under headlines she could never have competed against. AMERICAN JOURNALIST EXECUTED. claire buries the guilt down deep, pretends it didn’t hurt to do it. the hurt wouldn’t matter, not if she accomplishes what she needs to. RECORDED ICO COMMUNICATIONS RELEASED BY WHITE HOUSE. 

❝  you don’t approve. ❞  she thinks she’s said this to him before, long ago. he’s taller than her, and it is made more noticeable in the absence of her heels, some missing aspect of her armor that when they’d first met, she’d never have dreamt of greeting him without. there’s more missing, she knows, but doesn’t dwell on these things, content to lay her hand on his chest, a rare softness scraped from the base of her, glinting in her eyes in the moonlight streaming in through the window. ❝  no. ❞  she leans toward him and up onto her toes, her lips meeting his cheek with a soft, conciliatory brush, her hand slipping from him as she paces away and toward her bedroom, answering him though she knew she didn’t need to. ❝ there’s nothing i can’t do. ❞

TWO. MAR, 2018.

❝  i want it done before the month is out.  ❞  jane nods, pretending not to see the shadow of him haunting the window behind the resolute, holding her gaze as if there’s something more she wants to say, but she never gets the chance. claire’s attention has already dropped from her back to the plan laid out in excruciating detail, red stamped to indicate its importance. jane retreats and leaves only the soft clicking of the door in her wake, her absence keenly felt as phil asserts himself behind claire, his arm laid across the back of her chair when he leans in to read from over her shoulder.  her gaze wanders from the document to where his other hand is braced against the desk, his palm indented by the edge of it, his fingers pale and splayed against the wood. i’m sure she’s thrilled to be your hero on this. his tone is dark, and claire lowers the packet to the desk with a soft scoff, her neck twisting as she turns and looks up at him, the distance between them so small that his breath tickles over her lips when he offers a short huff of laughter in response, staring down his nose at her.  ❝  are petty remarks really the best use of your time? ❞  

there’s tension in the gaze, like he wants to reverse the judgment onto her, make her own the fault as she deserves to, but he doesn’t. maybe he knows that she is already ashamed, deep in the core of her. instead he bridges the gap between them, and his hand on the desk lifts to circle her throat. 

THREE. NOV, 2019.

her fingers pull at the strap of the sling, discomfort and annoyance evident in her every movement, resentment rolling off of her palpable waves. it isn’t long before her touch is replaced by a more patient one, readjusting where it is needed, his hand falling then to embrace the meeting of her neck and shoulder. the side of his index finger meets the edge of the freshened dressing on her neck, the sensation ticklish as he idly toys with the edge of it. she wonders if he is curious to see what it looks like. his thumb runs upward along the back of her neck, and she realizes faintly that her hair has grown longer than she prefers it. it tickles behind her ear as he displaces it, and she tells herself that she’ll have it cut tomorrow, the color cooled, her image reasserted as something unbreakable. they tried to kill her, and failed. she won't let them forget.

her back meets his chest as she softens her posture, and it occurs to her that she is tired, despite being confined to a hospital bed for the better part of a month. relax. she bristles somewhat at his suggestion, but it fades quickly as she feels his nose press into her hair, his lips soon to follow as he rests his hand across her abdomen and draws her nearer.  ❝  don’t tell me what to do. ❞  it lacks the bite it ought to have had, his hand drifts lower and she leans her head back against his shoulder, ignoring the inflamed ache in her own. 

FOUR. JAN, 2021.

happy inauguration, madame president. 

she smiles, and doesn’t bother to hide the deeper layer of satisfaction at his address. from time to time, she can be won by the little things – it certainly helps that she is already in a winning mood.  ❝  thank you, phillip. ❞ the champagne flute in her hand lifts a little, the mouth tilting toward him in salute before she angles it back to her own, keeping his gaze above the rim as she thoughtfully sips from its edge. when she’s had her fill for the moment it lowers, and she curls it in against her chest, her weight still resting against the edge of the desk. a smile of his own takes up residence on his lips, and he paces toward her with his hands in his pockets, coming right up to where his feet can frame hers where they extend and lay crossed at the ankle. it forces her to look up at him, but she doesn’t mind the position.  ❝  now the hard work can start. ❞ 

her hand stretches out at her side, leaving the glass on the desk as she pulls her feet in to stand, rising up and letting her hands cradle his face as she pulls him down to her. there’s something deceptively soft to this kiss, a tenderness she’d never cop to if he brought it to her attention, but victory makes her . . .  sentimental, at times. she parts from him with a whisper of a smile on her lips, and smoothly slides from his grasp, lifting her drink from the desk as she goes. ❝  enjoy the party, phil. i’ll see you in the morning. ❞

FIVE. DEC, 2022.

what’s this? one of his arms is propped beneath his head, his elbow sticking out from him like a wing. it’s amusing, almost endearing in a way, and so she is smiling as her hand reaches out to pluck the card from his fingers.  ❝  i don’t recall telling you to root around in my things. ❞  he doesn’t appear cowed in the slightest, and part of her wonders why she isn’t more irritated by the fact. she knows what it is of course, without needing to open it. still, she does, and for a moment, the familiar script gives her pause. my dear, nothing is forever. except us. she stares at it for a long moment, and then bends at the waist to tuck it back into the side table.  ❝  an old note. from francis.  ❞ 

he waits, then, and she assumes it is to see whether it will somehow fracture the moment, and reassert the walls she is so fond of leaving up in his presence even now, years into the endeavor. it doesn’t. as she settles at the edge of the bed her gaze drifts from him to the nightstand, drawn to the digital face of the alarm clock.  ❝  it’s midnight. ❞  her observation is blandly offered, blue gaze shifting back to him as the smile returns, more muted this time as it spreads.  ❝  hope i didn’t keep you from your new year’s kiss. ❞  there’s a beat of silence between them, before he pushes himself up from the mattress, the sheet falling away as his hand finds the back of her neck and brings her toward him, stopping short of her lips with a smirk. happy new year. claire. 

@wristful​  gets a short little thing.  

“I do not mean to offend you. But your phone — it’s been ringing ever since you sat down.” 

Cain stumbles and blunders his way into casual conversation — violating boundaries and perceiving things that aren’t his business — at the bars he frequents when he doesn’t want to go home, with Kieran — or when he doesn’t want to go to his home in the city, without Kieran. 

Alex’s rebuttal rolled off her tongue barbed, sharp — defensive, almost.  If Lena had meant for her choice of verbal ammunition to wound, she’d more than hit her mark.  She’d never forget the devastating force it’d taken to run Astra through in one clean stroke.  She’d never not feel the blood shed that night on her hands — or how shellshocked Kara had been, to watch the life fade from the eyes of yet another displaced member of her obliterated bloodline.  How crushed she’d been.

Perhaps Lena’s motivations had been born of pure intent, but her methods, backed by billions of dollars and an unequivocally brilliant mind still left much to be desired.

“ You planned to devise alien detection technology that would have forcibly revealed the identities of millions, ”  Alex returned.  “ You held Sam in a secret sub - basement lab, and didn’t tell anyone that she was Reign until it was too late. ”  

Squaring her shoulders did nothing to alleviate the weight that still seemed to bear down on her.  There was no sidestepping that Lena, too, had the consequences of her own albatrosses to reconcile with.  “ We have all done things that we’re not proud of, Lena.  And I know that you just want to help.  But that doesn’t make this any better. ”