body and mind fistfight

Tuesday, December 23, 2042. 11:07 am

Elliott Fix was standing in his wife's restaurant's kitchen without meaning to be. He blinked. He'd been standing at the window in his office and then he was here. This was....fairly big magic to be doing unintentionally. He COULD apparate out of his office, obviously, that is what had outed him in the first place! But Briar's restaurant was supposed to be impenetrable to apparition. Yet here he was....accidentally.

He'd been thinking about her. But then, when HADN'T he been thinking about her recently? Or ever? There was nothing particular about this moment that should have made him want to be near her more than any other recent moment. Maybe it wasn't about him. Maybe it was her.

His back was to the wall beside her office; he wasn't deep enough in the kitchen to be noticed but he was enough in the kitchen to notice her. She was in his line of sight. She was doing some kind of prep work with Noah. Side by side, working in tandem- it could have been dancing. He'd always kind of thought that, and before detainment he'd immediately cut in and ruined their flow every time he caught himself thinking so. But for once he simply kept watching. He finally had the patience.

The patience and the emotional fortitude... His feelings about Noah were often difficult, and bizarrely Briar seemed to enjoy that fact. He'd mostly found Noah easier to swallow ever since he'd fallen head over heels for Ana and married her (even though neither of them were willing to expat for the other). But even that had been kinda ruined when he'd walked in on him fucking a barista from the coffee shop on the corner (in the very office he was standing next to). He wasn't friends with Noah, so he'd had to take Briar at her word when she'd said he and Ana had an open thing going on.... Said it so breezily, like 'duh of course, why wouldn't they.' Well, he wouldn't have! He couldn't imagine fucking anyone who wasn't Briar.

But he did imagine Briar fucking people who weren't him... Kinda often. Usually Noah. Especially since the barista incident. Tall and always in her space and basically acting like a dog resource guarding at all times when it came to Briar. That was another thing Briar said breezily - never directly to Elliott, just in conversations he was close enough to overhear - that there had never been that kind of attraction between her and Noah.

Elliott easily believed she'd never felt attracted to Noah. He knew her well; attraction worked differently for her. Hell, she'd forgot she was attracted to him until tabloids had reminded her.

But she was very wrong about there being no attraction between her and Noah. There was. It was just one way. She wouldn't have had to explain it away five hundred and eighty-two times if Noah was better at hiding it. She shouldn't have tried to explain it away so many times; it really gave 'the lady doth protest too much.' They'd never fucked - a thing he'd also heard her say to other people - and he believed that, too, because fucking Briar was generally the thing that convinced her that there was real attraction there. Okay, sure, kissing probably worked too. So they'd done neither, obviously. But Elliott didn't know why.

He knew why it wasn't happening now, obviously, but why hadn't it before? He kind of wished it had. If she'd been fucking Noah she almost certainly would have missed Jamey. See, this was why he imagined it so often. It was so easy to! He was right there and one dip of his head and brush of his hand and she would have had a Noah phase instead and it would have been a lot better for everyone. Her and Noah fucking would have solved so many problems! 'Oh, yeah, we used to date- we were young, you know?' was a lot more plausible than what she usually said about Noah. At least with how he treated her. How he looked at her.

How he was looking at him now. Shit. Where had Briar gone?! It didn't matter, he couldn't look for her, he had to hold Noah's gaze the instant he caught it because that was the instant Noah started walking towards him and he knew what was coming.

"You know it's about to be lunch rush," Noah scolded.

"I'm standing against the wall, not interrupting: as instructed." For the first time EVER. But undeniable he was.

"If she saw you I'd be doing lunch alone!" Noah rolled his eyes. "She told me in excruciating detail what you did to her this morning- I never used to hear about shit like this-"

"-you're welcome." Elliott deadpanned.

"-I need her functional." How strange it was to be berated for being found hot by his own wife.

"Well, I'll need her twice after lunch then, so you'd better keep her talking."

"What-"

"- I don't personally talk about cunnilingus with my colleagues at work-"

"She-"

"But then, there's no one there I've imagined going down on. But you've imagined it quite often, haven't you? Can't really help it with all those details, I expect.

"Do you think she'd let you touch her, if she got worked up enough? If she had to wait too long? Tell her I'll be here after lunch... Maybe I'll be late."

He disappeared before Noah could respond. Because holy shit and what the fuck: what had actually come over him?! He needed to be functional the rest of the day, too! And HOW had he gotten there and back?! It hadn't even felt like apparating. Maybe it wasn't? He tried to go back and absolutely could not. The way was blocked like it was supposed to be.

He took a deep breath and looked out his office window. Like he had been doing before he'd kidnapped himself! He pulled out his phone and texted Briar:

Then WHO was he supposed to text about the wards? Colin or PJ? They were PJ's wards, but Colin had coordinated....Colin, then.

There was a sharp knock on his door and then Charlie's muffled voice: "The middle distance will always be there to stare at, but your diary-"

“-and then he-“

Jesus Christ, how was there more- did Very Important Wizards get hours tagged onto their mornings?? How’d there been time for all of this?! Briar’d beat him here! And he’d been like ten minutes early (for once)! Noah had to cut her off, it was enough already. “Hey, Chef?” He didn’t stop working- there wasn’t time which was why he needed her to fucking focus on the task at hand. The dining room might’ve been relatively empty, with the shit London weather and it being nearly Christmas. But they had catering orders on top of catering orders… his fault, admittedly, for overbooking them. Although in his defense that was usually Briar’s job and she’d been on leave. Boning her hot husband for the last few weeks of it, apparently, while they all drowned in her absence! Good for her, shut the fuck up, please!

He wasn’t actually cross, but he was stressed out, even more so because he’d gotten the kitchen into the mess they were in currently and hadn’t even been playfully scolded. She was supposed to swirl her cape and whip everyone back into shape! With sort-of-mean-kindness! That was what Briar did, but apparently she was unbothered by ANYTHING ANYMORE! They were not doing well under recently-returned Briar- none of them! That motherfucking suit broke their boss; she was no bark no bite, out of nowhere, and it was FREAKING EVERYONE OUT. Okay well no, it was freaking him out. It was turning the rest of them motherless- the line cooks were leaving tape rolls everywhere like heathens and he’d caught the dishwashers taking shots on their break earlier. A ten AM break! This was not his beautiful boss! This was not her beautiful kitchen! Blessedly though, Briar did let herself be cut off.

“Chyeah, Chef?” Briar was, as usual, clueless to the tension she was creating, “Taste this.”

“So Chef-“ Noah made a face, sidetracked by the unexpected need to take a spoon out of his mouth, “Why is it so sour? Briar-“ But that was a mistake. Names were for Real Serious and he was skipping steps. Chef?-yes-Chef? was a bit and a bit kept Briar on the line, inevitably, when she’d occasionally lost her senses in the past. Unfortunately he knew what worked. Fortunately… he was pretty sure she wasn’t secretly on the brink of despair this time. Because, again unfortunately, he could recognize that in the early stages these days. “Chef. Why the fuck have you made the strawberry jam sour, and how- have you not been right next to me this whole time?” It certainly felt like she’d been in his ear all day, but.

Briar took a second tasting spoon from under the bench to see for herself. “By god, Chef, that’s revolting.”

And then she just… wandered off?? Nothing she’d find in dry storage was going to fix this- they’d have to shift and do apricot instead. But she wasn’t there to tell, so! Noah looked around incredulously, hoping for ANY validation that she was acting like a fucking lunatic, but heads were down across the kitchen. Everyone but Briar understood this was crunch time, eviden- “Oh absolutely not,” he muttered, eyes lighting on a presently unwelcome figure. Elliott was the last thing the restaurant needed right now. Briar included, being the human embodiment thereof. Noah was determined to get him out the door before she came back to notice he was there.

Briar wasn’t sure what she was looking for… something weird to fix something weird, she’d know it when she tasted it. She curled her tongue inside her mouth and tried to keep the off-putting sourness on her palate while she scanned the shelves. A very specific kind of sweet was called for. Honeycomb ended up being wrong, but it reminded her that she’d let her pastry chef convince her to bulk order bee pollen- pregnancy brain had really cost her an arm and a leg there towards the end, but so it went.

“Uhhhh, Chef?”

Briar turned to look down at Noah, for once, from her somewhat precarious stance at the tippy top of their tallest step ladder, one foot balancing her against the wall. “You wanna get up here with your freak arms and do this for me don’t you, Chef?” He looked shellshocked, which was a LITTLE dramatic, come on. She’d had a baby, not all four limbs amputated- she was allowed to be on a ladder.

Noah was shellshocked, just not for the reason she assumed. It took him a second to react- he blinked hard like he was trying to wake up, then shook his head and closed the door behind him. “Are you good, Briar?” He hadn’t been worried-worried before, mostly just miffed… the Elliott encounter though? Uh. Troubling? Deeply worrisome? He’d never had real qualms about Elliot- yes, for a while he’d been… angry was the wrong word. Ragefully disgusted? Closer. His leaving for Harvard like he had was what’d opened the door for Jamey to come creeping in, and Noah wasn’t sure he didn’t still blame Elliott for all of that. Not for leaving, he wasn’t unreasonable, but for abandoning Briar.

Noah had been there, trying to keep her safe without pushing her further into the abuse, on the phone at three in the morning when she didn’t know why she was hysterically sobbing, picking her up from bars when Jamey turned mercurial and ditched her alone, forcing her to eat something, lying by omission to a concerned Eoin because she‘d begged him not to say anything. It’d been awful. Just a totally helpless position for him to be in, and he still didn’t know if he’d done more harm or good in the end, even after all these years. Where had Elliott been? Not calling regularly. Not checking in on her. Some best friend. So no, he hadn’t been overly impressed when it’d finally happened. It’d always been inevitable, Briar and Elliott, but that didn’t mean he loved it. Lots of things were inevitable- the polar ice caps melting, the sun burning out. Anything GOOD? Not that he could think of off the top of his head, no. Cursed things were inevitable.

And now Briar was being weird. Not… it wasn’t exactly like before. Obviously. She just… tended to lose track of herself. More easily than most. And in spite of her alleged/repeatedly professed enjoyment, he couldn’t help but wonder if she was being talked into things yet again. If perhaps it was possible she was yapping about the sex nonstop because she was trying to talk herself into it. Noah didn’t actually want to be worried about her at all, especially not about this. This was the fun era of their friendship! No more babysitting each other’s emotional states or acting as each other’s guard dogs- they were supposed to have moved on to actual babysitting and… dog parks, or something! He was meant to be off the hook once she was married, and yet that had not as of yet come to pass.

He could not imagine she had any idea that her husband was going to proposition him on her behalf. Noah knew himself to be Off Limits. Had always known. There was no Noah and Briar before Briar and Elliott, and she’d been in love with Elliott from their day one. No room left in the inn by the time he came along, and that was glaringly obvious to everyone but the fated pair. Or at least was obvious to Noah. Why else would she keep dating people she’d have a terrible future with if she wasn’t holding out for one with Elliott? Easier to end things with someone she didn’t have deep feelings for, should he return to England single and finally interested. Noah’d never stood a chance specifically because he did. Did she have any idea that’s what she’d been doing? Nooooooooo way. Obvious from where he was sitting, though!

Was she beautiful? Undoubtedly. Did she light up hidden rooms in his soul? Sure. Were they in love? Platonically, always and forever. The seeds of something else had always been there, but neither of them had shown them any sunlight- there was no sprout, let alone anything with roots. He hadn’t felt bitter about it while he’d been confident she’d gotten everything she claimed to want. …he didn’t want to feel bitter about it now, either, but. He would never treat her like this. And he honestly was at a loss now- how the hell did he broach the topic? ‘Uh yeah Chef your husband basically just told me to warm you up for him Chef how do you feel about that Chef.’ It wasn’t a joke! But she was SO stubbornly resistant to vulnerability- he didn’t know how else to handle her.

“HelLO?” Briar frowned at the top of his head- he’d been staring into the middle distance for like… a full minute. She didn’t think he’d even heard her reply. “Are you alright?” she returned, backing down the ladder cautiously without taking her eyes off of him. She was starting to worry something had happened… was this not exactly how he’d act if there was like… a bomb threat at Parliament? Or… no, she didn’t actually want to consider why he was being so strange, she just wanted him to tell her.

“I…” Noah hesitated, then decided to be honest, “No? I don’t think so.”

“Ooookay.” Briar stayed on the second step from the bottom so she could meet his eyes straight on. She waited, but that was all he offered, so she prodded. “Is it because I didn’t yell at you for quadruple booking us like a fucking idiot?” she asked hopefully, “I can, I was just in a good mood, sor-“

“Yeah no, so Elliott actually stopped by-“

“What, NOW? Is he insane?!” She thought she had him pretty well trained- stay AWAY from the hours of 11 to 2, only cooks in the kitchen during rush. “I’ll go tell him to leave.”

Well that was a good sign she hadn’t been body-snatched or brain-wiped at least. He grabbed her arm to stop her. “He already did. Pretty sure he HAS gone off the deep end though… unless you just forgot to mention that you want me to fuck you while he watches. Might’ve slipped your mind, lot on it these days.” He meant for his tone to be light, but he missed the mark big time and he knew he’d fucked up when he saw how huge her eyes were. “It’s… fine, Briar,” he reassured her unconvincingly. “I mean… no, not happening, but I guess I’m honored to know I star in his fantasies.” Better. Almost the cadence of a joke. But she was still frozen in her initial reaction, he couldn’t even be sure she’d heard anything after ‘watches.’ “Hey- really, it’s not that big of a deal.” It was, but he regretted saying anything now and wished to backtrack.

Time restarted then, and Briar twisted her arm away. She was out of dry storage and halfway across the kitchen by the time his twice-long strides could catch up to her. “Strawberry’s dead- apricot!” Noah shouted towards the line as he opened the door to the alleyway for her, saving a dozen boxes of scones from a tragic fate. “Make it work!” he ordered over the grumbling about wasted time. He followed Briar out, but kept his distance while she paced from one brick wall to the other, posted up behind the door so she could have an uninterrupted breakdown. If it was one. Always hard to tell with her, no one had ever bothered to teach her emotions.

“I don’t-“ she drew a ragged gasp and spun to look at him, panicked to realize just how tight her chest was when she finally tried to talk.

“Yep,” Noah agreed, taking hold of her elbows and hoisting her arms over her head. He didn’t say anything else, just kept breathing until she eventually matched his even rhythm and the panic left her eyes. “You’re good, you can breathe,” he reminded her gently. How many times had they done this? How many MORE times would they do this?

Briar let her arms fall to hug herself and just stared at him, stricken. Noah waited because it seemed like she was trying to find words, but in the end she just shook her head.

“Do you want me to bring him back?” Elliott was NOT Jamey. Asshole or not, he wasn’t actual danger and he was who Briar clearly wanted; she hadn’t moved in for a hug- and Noah didn’t offer one either. Everything was weird now! He didn’t feel like he COULD.

She hesitated, then nodded. She didn’t keep her phone on her, it stayed in her office. There was no message that couldn’t wait on her to have a break, and no serious emergency that wouldn’t bring a wizard straight to the sidewalk outside to deliver the news, bodily. But she couldn’t go back inside right now, she was… needing several minutes. She sank onto one of the wobbly plastic chairs the smokers kept there for their breaks, folding her hands on top of her head and closing her eyes while Noah texted her husband. She didn’t know how to name what she was feeling, but she did know it wasn’t entirely Now that she was feeling it. Which meant Elliott was the only one who could fix it. …she was always okay once she remembered he was himself, this would be no different.

Noah was trying, ardently, to avoid reacting more than he already had. Couldn’t keep his irritation out of his text to Elliott, though: hey you fucking twat, come back your wife needs you. for nonsexual reasons before you get horned up again

Elliott used his phone a lot at work, so he was already looking at the screen when Noah texted him. Noah didn't generally text him, so red flag one. And he called him a twat and accused him of unchecked horniness, which, HELLO NOAH HAD BROUGHT IT UP (but red flag two)?! But he didn't really care about that; he cared about why Briar suddenly needed him there. She was not in any physical danger, he would have heard about that in a very different way....

He replied: omw

"I'm taking lunch early. Now, actually," he said to Charlie, seemingly apropos of nothing.

"No, do ten jumping jacks and stick to the diary," Charlie didn't even look up from what he was doing.

Elliott blushed in embarrassment because, okay, wow, called out. BUT NOT THE TIME. "This is NOT that," he snapped at Charlie undesservedly. Noah deserved that snap! Not Charlie! "Noah just texted and said Briar needed me."

Charlie did look up then. "Oh, should I...let Ada know?"

Elliott shook his head. "I don't think so. I mean, she's not....it's a text from Noah, not a call from an auror. I'm still going, though."

"Right. I will be evasive yet charming in your absence."

"Thanks," he slipped back into his office, shut the door, and apparated two blocks away from the restaurant. The closest he could get! He started off in a sort of half walk, half jog.

He was very annoyed that this message came from NOAH. He thought he'd given him a pretty big FUCK OFF actually. 'Yeah, yeah, I know you want to fuck my wife go torture yourself thinking about it since you clearly can't stop thinking about it' had NOT BEEN HIS BEST MOVE but Elliott had been shocked to hear that Noah had heard...anything about anything! He knew Briar and Noah were close but he didn't think she was TELLING HIM INTIMATE DETAILS ABOUT THEIR SEX LIFE. They'd barely told their therapist about it! Just that it was back, or rather, more than back. But the details?! It made sense she wanted to talk about it, HE wanted to talk about it, but he would have NEVER talked about it with someone BRIAR DISLIKED. Did Briar know he disliked Noah? She knew he didn't like him. That they didn't like each other. Maybe not the same as active dislike. He did actively dislike him at this moment, though: worried about his wife and half jogging in a suit and dress shoes without a coat in Notting Hill in late December.

He turned the corner into the alleyway and was mildly startled to see both Noah and Briar there already. "Hey, hi," he said, a tiny bit breathlessly. It made him even angrier at Noah that he was just THERE. "Shouldn't you be unfucking your catering disaster?" he directed at Noah, who was doing the thing he most hated Noah doing: guarding Briar. Noah wasn't some fresh off the line chef so Elliott had imagined pretty much since he'd first heard Briar complain about it that the overbookings were intentional on his part. Keep Briar at the restaurant more through weaponized incompetence. He didn't know WHY Briar hadn't made him just CANCEL the overbookings: he could use a lesson in eating crow and it was less insane than overworking the entire kitchen right before Christmas. But! Not his business? Sort of? He...didn't really feel that way anymore. They'd need to talk about that. Her being overworked WAS his business especially if it was for STUPID reasons.

Plus! The Iron Curtain between their work lives was supposed to be going away. Or at least they'd done a lot of planning about how to get her more involved with his... and he was just now realizing it seemed like reciprocation was not a part of that and he didn't really know how he felt about it. What did he know about commercial kitchens: almost nothing, he was generally banned. He didn't need to be involved, she wasn't a public figure....it was fine except....fucking Noah.

He sat down in the other rickety chair beside Briar and put a hand on her shoulder. "What's going on, Darling?"

Noah didn’t give him a reaction- he was focused on Briar, he was always focused on Briar. But he backed against the door again to give them space when Elliott sat down. He’d leave when she told him to and not a second sooner. It was too late for him to not be involved! If he had eyes on her, he could at least make sure she was alright. Which she plainly was NOT.

Briar had calmed down- easily, even (therapy!) but she still felt… unsettled. She’d made Noah repeat exactly what Elliott’d said; when was actual reality ever worse than the one anxiety constructed? Well. The exception proved the rule. Because that hadn’t sounded like the Elliott she knew, like, at all… and sometimes it didn’t take much for reality to start shimmering like a mirage. She’d have liked solid things to remain so! She was using every tool she had! But she couldn’t make her image of her husband map onto the scene Noah’d described. And she didn’t think he’d colored it unfairly just because he wasn’t Elliott’s hugest fan… Noah’s reaction was part of why she was feeling so thrown. Launched into the past more than thrown. He hadn’t been worried about her like that in a long time, and he’d been right to be every other time. She wasn’t sure this time. He wasn’t sure this time! But clearly he noticed things about her that she didn’t, and the introduction of the question (whether she was okay) had made her wonder.

She’d thought so! …had she really taken a second though? There was a difference between feeling good and being made to feel good- she knew that. Unfortunately. It’d been easy enough to separate what she was doing with Elliott (consensual! fun! mutually rewarding!) from the other stuff (none of the above!) but two-facedness was… triggering. She knew Elliott didn’t LOVE Noah, but he did know she did, and he’d always been at least minimally respectful if not exactly interested or friendly. Apparently though, if she wasn’t there, politeness went out the window- he’d been beyond crass. And at her expense, which she… didn’t know how to feel about, either.

Noah noticed her sharp intake of breath at Elliott’s question- he knew why even if she didn’t, and his weight shifted automatically to send him to her. He stopped himself before he’d lifted his foot from the cobblestones, but not without effort; his jaw twitched from being clenched so tightly, every muscle in his body a spring at tension. How the fuck was Elliott going to waltz in like he had no idea what’d happened? HE had happened! …not his fault (not ENTIRELY) that he’d been metaphorically sat in front of a Jenga tower with its entire middle pulled out; Briar would’ve had baggage with or without her dating history- she had SHIT parents. But DEFINITELY his fault that he’d reached for another block! What was he THINKING?

“Actually?” Briar returned in obvious disbelief. …she wanted to be mad. Would settle for hurt. All she was currently was spinning. “Why don’t you like each other?” This wasn’t even the question she’d wanted to ask, it was just the one that bubbled up. She let her hands fall to her lap before they fell asleep on top of her head. She didn’t shrug off Elliott’s grip, but she didn’t lean into him either yet. “Why don’t you like each other?” she repeated pointedly in Noah’s direction.

SHE knew why! She wanted to hear what THEY thought their beef was about! Ironically, the reason for their mutual dislike of one another was also mutual: Noah’d been there, was still there, when Elliott wasn’t. So stupid. Men were so stupid! Wasn’t SHE the one who deserved to have the biggest feelings here? She’d been the abandoned slash in-need-of-rescue one! And she just had to pretend like she was oblivious to the asinine feud driving a wedge between two of the only people she trusted because THEY WOULD NOT ADMIT A FEUD EXISTED- kind of an insult to her intelligence. “It makes me so-“ she struggled for the right words for a second then gave up and made a frustrated noise instead. “Upset!” she settled for, imperfectly. Understatement of the century.

Well.

This was NOT something he wanted to discuss in front and/or with Noah but WHAT CHOICE DID HE HAVE REALLY. Noah had clearly already been a rat fink and told Briar what he'd said and yeah: it was not great! He'd known immediately after he"d said it! Probably why he'd immediately disappeared back to his office, but he still had zero idea or control over what THAT had been, too. Just a fucked up day all around!

Briar clearly hadn't seen his texts yet either, which were supposed to have told on himself in a sort of light-hearted way but he was sure now didn't and wouldn't come off that way. He had called her mean and yeah, definitely told her to just let Noah go down on her if she was going to tell him all about it! His feelings were hurt! He'd been stupid about it! WHY was this man getting to be a third player in his marriage WITHOUT HIS CONSENT. SHE DIDN'T LIKE IT EITHER, SEE!

No, okay, no, he did have a choice. "Look, I'm not sure the solution to involving Noah in the intimate details of our marriage is to continue involving him.... " He should be saying this to his past self! He glanced a glare at Noah. Read the room slash alley and LEAVE ASSHOLE "You're not wrong, though, we obviously aren't keen on each other and I've never really tried to be. I'm sorry that hurts. I am... Willing to be more vulnerable about this... without Noah in the audience." Ooooor he was willing to be in the audience while Noah fucked her. If she wanted that! Two solutions! WHAT kind of freak was he?! A freak who thought it would feel worse for his wife to sneak around than to have his blessing.

EVERYTHING he felt about Noah was a projection of how he felt about himself, he was mostly aware. Mostly that made it worse.

He kept his hand on Briar's shoulder even though she seemed indifferent to it at best. He needed to hold onto her even if she didn't. He wasn't about to be flung an ocean away from her again; even if it was his fault.

Briar could not have frowned any harder than she did in knee-jerk reaction to Elliott’s answer; she looked back to Noah, hoping for a more authentic one. “He’s a politician,” Noah responded with a raised eyebrow that clearly communicated case in point. He DIDN’T even! Not like Elliott! He was perfectly fine in a vacuum, perfectly polite. But Noah didn’t entirely trust perfect civility, which meant no, he did not like him for Briar. She could do without the double-speak and pandering… but that was only HIS opinion; he knew it felt like home to her.

He’d ignored Elliott’s death glare, but he was reading the room perfectly fine: alleyway behind restaurant, restaurant Briar’s, Briar in charge of alleyway. Obviously. This was neither a sporting/arts event nor Altrincham/Sale West; MP Fix had no authority over HIM here. Although Noah wouldn’t have responded to passive aggressive SILENT DEMANDS even if he was the goddamn Prime Minister of the whole country. Who the hell did he think he was?? Who the hell did he think NOAH was?? Some kind of pawn, apparently! A pawn without a conscience or a clue!

And what if he WERE?! The man Elliott seemed to imagine he was would have no qualms about fucking another man’s wife at his request; …and okay, to be fair, Elliott HAD once walked in on some extramarital activities, but he was CLEARLY missing important facts. Everyone involved in that situation had been AWARE OF THE SITUATION! And not as a result of BAMBOOZLEMENT! SOME PEOPLE WERE CAPABLE OF MATURE CONVERSATIONS AROUND SEX! Neither of the two people he was currently looking at now! Clearly! A CHIEF REASON HE’D NEVER BEEN TEMPTED TOWARDS A CASUAL HOOKUP WITH BRIAR! He could’ve had her if he’d wanted to… not for real, not forever, but in the way that was currently on offer? Before they were married? Absolutely, and he wouldn’t have needed permission from anyone but Briar then either. And he knew Elliott knew that. That had to be part of the problem.

He’d be a less complicated character to hate, in Briar’s story, if he’d ever taken advantage of her vulnerability when he’d had the chance to. He’d never so much as kissed her though… she’d needed a friend, not another man who secretly wanted to sleep with her giving her advice that would eventually lead her to his bed. So he’d never let himself want to- not even in his own thoughts, no matter that she couldn’t read them. Hard to paint him as a villain when he’d done literally NOTHING to deserve it; Elliott was stuffing a straw man- it was no wonder Briar was confused. NOAH was confused! And he was pretty sure he was seeing the whole thing clearly from his outside perspective! HE wasn’t enchanted by Elliott Fix, wasn’t even regular-charmed by the charisma: his eyes were open and he was NOT impressed.

Briar wanted to scream. Interesting. Her usual impulse was to withdraw, but her body wasn’t telling her to run at the moment. …she wanted to fight. She didn’t even feel badly for calling Elliott back in the middle of his workday- it was the middle of HER workday, too, and had that stopped HIM from interrupting?! Decidedly not! And now she was being MANAGED?? Had she woken up in 1955 without noticing?! CLEARLY they needed to have a conversation, because the ones they had DURING sex were only making muddy waters murkier.

She hadn’t agreed to THIS- to him infiltrating her professional life by propositioning her SECOND IN COMMAND. Jesus Christ. She’d made -AN-offhand comment about how hot Q was, within his earshot, years ago, and THAT had been totally unacceptable. But apparently it was completely fine to come into her kitchen and CREATE CAUSE FOR HER TO HIRE AN HR REP. WHAT ACTUALLY HAD HE BEEN THINKING. It was lucky, for ELLIOTT, that Noah loved HER too much to be petty. …because he did NOT exactly have a favorable opinion of government, writ large- he’d generally be thrilled for an opportunity to launch an ethics complaint. Elliott was a PUBLIC FIGURE, he couldn’t go around sexually harassing people! If her husband was so convinced Noah was a slimeball, he should’ve been panicking about him selling the story to the press or calling HIS bosses, not shooting daggers at him with his eyes.

Mad was good though, at least she knew how she felt. Rage was a verb if she let it be. And she was supposed to let it be! They could fight now, when it made sense to and everyone was working with the same information, or she could let it fester and erupt in an unrelated setting months to years from now. The latter had NOT been effective, historically, and she was supposed to be trying. He obviously wasn’t going to let her, though, not while Noah was a witness. Hence the instantaneous placating. Only one public embarrassment at a time, she supposed, and to credit his intuition: she was not feeling especially kind at the moment. Noah probably did NOT need to hear her dressing down of a man he was already suspicious of.

Elliott’s REASONS for wanting him gone were misled, but he did need to go. Things weren’t going to improve if she handed over an arsenal of ammunition; right now, Elliott and Noah were close enough to strangers to each other that their intended slights and emotional blows rarely landed with force. Did she want them to know each other? Desperately. She had VERY few people in her life who she cared about like she cared about the two of them. But she was glad, at the moment, that they didn’t understand how to hurt each other without hurting her. That was… unfortunately an effective guardrail; both men plainly felt badly for crashing into it this time. BRIAR FELT WORSE! But evidently she wouldn’t be allowed to rail against both of them at once now that they were ~too embarrassed~ to be in each other’s company. So much for time management.

She might not’ve been in charge of Elliott, but Noah could be counted on to follow an order without arguing. Didn’t even need an order, actually. They’d been working together a long time. …nearly as long as she’d known Elliott, and their lack of tension had allowed a secret language to flourish. A lot could be said with a glance across the kitchen if you were never wondering whether you were just being covertly checked out. They’d never wasted a look on flirting, it always MEANT something to intentionally catch each other’s eye- a reminder of a private joke, or a silent cry for help when teenaged front of house staff came in to chat, or ‘if this plate gets sent back one more time I’m adding arsenic.’

She had to stare at him harder than usual to make him notice- Noah’s attention was usually divided, leaving plenty for her, but at the moment it was fully on Elliott. Studying him like he was just waiting for a signal to attack. He… did this. A lot. And not without reinforcement; it made her feel safe, knowing he was paying better attention than she understood how to. But her husband wasn’t a leering delivery driver or an overly familiar patron; he wasn’t anything like her parents, or Jamey, or even Kevin; he was not a threat and she did not need to be protected from Elliott Fix. And maybe she’d needed to clarify that sooner and more forcefully than she repeatedly had done since the wedding, but… maybe part of her hadn’t been all the way sure it was unnecessary until fairly recently. Elliott was capable of hurting her in new and surprising ways, and he had, repeatedly over the years; it didn’t matter that his intentions and methods weren’t cruel, all Noah ever saw was the aftermath and all he ever heard was her side of things (BECAUSE HE AND ELLIOTT WERE INCAPABLE OF CONVERSING BEYOND BASIC PLEASANTRIES). Maybe she hadn’t been all that convincing until she’d been convinced herself.

Things were different, and better (much; significantly), but still new. She couldn’t really blame Noah for being slow to accept the memo… and maybe all the details had made things worse. She’d been trying to reassure him that she was good! She’d never given him many specifics when she’d been doing things she was embarrassed of… not freely anyway, although he’d eventually wheedled them out of her. She thought it would’ve been obvious, then, that she wasn’t embarrassed about the change in dynamic between her and Elliott. …that she was happy, finally. Her bad for consistently projecting manic serenity in the midst of deep despair- thaaaaat was on her. How was he supposed to know she was being genuine this time!

The trouble with protesting too much, when things had been truly (and very) bad, was that now she couldn’t protest at ALL without Noah being suspicious. And he’d been essentially trained to guard her from threats she was too punch-drunk to notice, so… of course he saw himself as on-duty right now. She didn’t blame him. She WAS cross with him too! But in ways she could recognize were more about her own actions than Noah’s.

She wasn’t going to explain that or defend him to Elliott in Noah’s presence though, that would only make him more certain she was in need of rescue. And would only make Elliott more upset, too, which Briar cared about even more although that was difficult to keep in mind at the moment. He was obviously unhappy about Noah’s continued presence, and she wasn’t going to bulldoze his request to continue the conversation privately. She WANTED to be dramatic about it, but she fought that impulse down with a considerable amount of internal grumbling; even if she HAD wanted Noah to leave, that feeling would’ve immediately left her body after being told to get rid of him. Elliott could inspire a real brattiness in her, so maybe Bridget HAD been right to label her as willful and uncontrollable… she certainly had the capacity to be.

Noah finally noticed that she was trying to get his attention, flicked his focus in her direction, and IMMEDIATELY rolled his eyes in response. He shot a look back that very clearly conveyed ‘I WAS THROWN INTO THIS MESS AND YOU’RE NOT EVEN GOING TO LET ME DEFEND MYSELF??’

Briar rearranged NO part of her face. Didn’t have to, she’d been clear the first time: ‘go fix your CATERING mess (NOW) or I WILL be carted off for double-homicide.’

Noah grimaced at the unspoken threat… he wasn’t NOT scared of her when she got like this. On the rare occasion she reminded people where Ruby’d come from. And he was, actually, relieved that she was angry; none of the alternatives were positive, any reaction but the one she was about to explode into would’ve meant he was correct to be worried. She was right, she didn’t need him to demonstrate an appropriate reaction to her treatment so she had something to mirror. She was having an appropriate reaction all on her own. Baby’s first, as far as Noah was aware. And he didn’t need to be there to see it unfold (although he’d have paid good money to watch invisible from the sidelines). Better she didn’t have witnesses in case she decided to go for the single-homicide. …what a time to be walking away with her training wheels in his hand, Jesus fucking Christ. She couldn’t do anything without Everest-high stakes.

“Hope to see you at Christmas,” he shot smugly at Elliott, yanking the door open behind his back without turning.

“Fuck OFF, Chef, thank you!” Briar commanded, scowling in a way that Noah (correctly) interpreted to mean ’or you can enjoy your sad beans on toast alone in your flat you unbelievable twat, I love you and I will end you if you don’t GO BACK TO WORK AND LET ME HANDLE MY OWN MARRIAGE-

how would you even know how to help when your marriage is a sham and we all know it- if it wasn’t you’d be calling YOUR wife to complain about your insane boss’s creep husband’s attempt to orchestrate an EXTRA freaky three-way, not loitering in an alley vaguely hoping it might still happen.’ …okay maybe the last half to three-quarters was pure projection, it was POSSIBLE her eyes hadn’t said all that. He tipped her an apologetic nod and stepped backwards into the drone of the kitchen. …FUCK. “DID WE NOT SAY APRICOT? She’s going to flip out- no, go fold boxes and rethink your career did you even taste the strawberry before ignoring me?? It’s like licking a goddamn battery-“

The door clanked shut behind him and left the alleyway eerily quiet. The streets were never EMPTY in the middle of London, but they were about as close to as they ever got. Briar stood up to start pacing again, crossing her arms over her chest to clutch opposite shoulders- partly because she was so angry that she was afraid she might want to hit him if he opened his mouth again, but mostly because it was FUCKING FREEZING. She’d walked out on autopilot but once that had turned off she regretted not stopping in her office for-

The door opened again, but only far enough for a disembodied hand to shove her parka through the gap. Not Noah’s hand, but his doing she knew. Briar grabbed it in a huff without saying thank you (there wasn’t an opportunity to even if she’d felt like it, whoever the hand belonged to clearly wanted to see/hear NOTHING and the door instantly slammed shut, with force). She didn’t put it on right away, now impossibly even MORE irritated- she couldn’t exactly be taken seriously in the rant she’d been gearing up for after being handed her coat like a fucking toddler. Why wouldn’t they BOTH just STOP TRYING TO ANTICIPATE HER NEEDS AT EVERY TURN!

“I’m a grown woman!” she objected, to Elliott because he was the one who was there, and the announcement was relevant to him too! She tipped her head back and let out a cry of frustration, then begrudgingly put on the jacket, struggling immensely as a result of so grumpily forcing her arms into the sleeves. She shook it off again, a bit stuck actually, and let it fall to the ground. She felt hot enough now anyway. She couldn’t behave like this at home, even when she wanted to; Ruby needed NO conflicting notions about acceptable behavior for civilized people, and Will was fully un-actualized so… maybe he still had a shot at functional emotional response coming naturally if she didn’t fuck it up for him too.

“It feels like you’re punishing me, and I don’t know what I even did.” She sounded whiny, to her own ear, but she couldn’t muster shame for it at the moment. He wanted her to be more vulnerable, well here it was; she’d never promised to give it gracefully. She didn’t know how to DO this- just… sit with unpleasant feelings instead of immediately burying them, or deluding herself so she could be soothed out of them. WHY had he come in the first place though? She couldn’t work out what had prompted the drop-in, but she assumed it was her fault somehow; it usually was, when people were unhappy with her in vague and unknowable ways, her fault. It wasn’t fair that he hadn’t even tried to address it, whatever IT was, with her first though… recognizing that was progress even if she was still missing the mark elsewhere. She might probably deserve punishment, that was… easy for her to believe, but she did ALSO deserve fairness; the latter was a new and still developing understanding, and this was kind of throwing a wrench in her comprehension.

There they were, communicating clearly and efficiently without even using WORDS he was so insanely jealous. Had acted insanely about his jealousy. There she went, slipping out from beneath his fingers. God, had things really been so fragile? Yes, obviously. GREAT. GOOD.

It wasn't even funny watching her with her coat; it was just upsetting. Maybe their non verbal communication wasn't perfect but he knew she'd murder him if he tried to help right now, so he didn't. Just sat with one arm across his middle and the other stimming in his hair. Watching her and doing nothing, like the asshole they both believed him to be.

That was... Not what he thought she was going to say. He was prepared to answer the 'why do you hate Noah' question, that was incredible easy to answer right now. So rhetorical then. She probably didn't need answers to things that were obvious.

He tried not to think about wanting to disappear because he was afraid that he would. All he really felt right now was shame and that was almost certainly his least favorite feeling. He had to admit to himself that his reaction to Noah... Was meant to be punishing, yes. Mostly to Noah! But hadn't he just thought to himself 'see how you like it' so, yeah, no, he'd been... punishing her, too, for telling Noah too much and making him feel allowed to comment on the too much that he knew.

He took a deep breath. He was pretty sure he was just going to be accused of being a politician and anyway, HE WAS, but he was going to try and explain anyway. He and Briar needed words even if Noah and Briar didn't.

"I am upset with you, but I wasn't upset when I got here the first time I was just... Staring out over the Thames in a real moment of pure contentment... Charlie accused me of staring at the middle distance, but I wasn't. I was just... Happy and thinking about you," he confessed, miserably. He felt the opposite of that now. From on top of the world to down at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. WHAT THE FUCK ACTUALLY. Noah should have STAYED IN PARIS his life was GREAT until Noah was back in it daily.

"And then suddenly I was staring at you and Noah looking perfectly in synch and before I could even try to wrap my mind around how I'd even gotten there Noah had his laser sights on me and was scolding me for simply being present and then berating me for getting you off because apparently it made you non-functional and I snarked back at him pretty harshly about how obviously he'd like to be doing to you what you'd described me doing. Which is the only thing I'm upset with you about, why the FUCK are you telling him the details of our sex life, that's about the last person I want to have that information and with good reason- he used it against me the first chance he got!

"He doesn't know how to treat me as anything but a threat so you know, I did, this time, I guess, meet his accusation with something I knew he'd actually feel threatened about. I was hurt you told him about our sex life without my consent, confused about how I was even there in the kitchen in the first place, mad that he was chastising me...I went too far. I'm sorry." He was sorry. For saying it and for at least part way meaning it! Still!

"I'm going through some kind of magical-" he almost said puberty but thought better of it, all things considered, "awakening, I don't know. I didn't mean to be here earlier; I'm sorry I was. I wasn't going to interrupt. I was only watching and trying to figure out how to get back." Exactly what he felt like he was doing, now, too. Watching her and wanting to get back to, oh, twenty minutes ago if you please. Maybe if he wished that hard enough he'd get that.

Embarrassment prickled uncomfortably across her whole body; that was… not what she’d assumed, and now she really did feel like she’d thrown a fit for nothing. She’d had no actual reason TO assume Elliott was suddenly or secretly a TRUE fucking creep. She hated the leaps of logic she was prone to but she didn’t know how to stop making them. One thing reminded her of another and reason just went out the window. Of course he wasn’t playing some kind of twisted mind game. Of course not. …he DID like those, apparently, but she shouldn’t have confused this for that. Silly. When he was mean like this (not that he’d ever been an asshole in QUITE this way before), it was usually reactionary. Or impulsive. So yes. Appearing in the kitchen (where she’d been thinking about him all day) because she was on his mind felt much more on-brand than where her head had gone.

She chewed her lower lip while he talked, and let him finish, then wordlessly bent to pick up her coat. She held it out to him and turned around with her arms outstretched once he’d taken it from her. She needed a minute. And she needed to need him. She could tell because she was mentally resisting both- she wanted to respond immediately, had wanted to interrupt him while he was talking, wanted to keep shivering stubbornly so her outsides matched her miserable insides. She’d feel better less cold though. She’d feel better if he made her that way. It wasn’t a test, just a low-stakes trust fall. She still needed those, constantly, which was why it was INSANE that he’d proposed what he had in anger. Or embarrassment. Whatever it’d been.

He COULDN’T have really thought she’d react positively, so why hadn’t he just… left. He could have told her he didn’t like her sharing private details of their sex life- which would have given HER the chance to clarify that they weren’t doing anything she was ashamed of. And to explain why being secretive about it might make her feel weird after concealing abuse, how it might make NOAH act weird if he suspected she was hiding things again because he was so hyper-vigilant about her safety. Or he could’ve made the same comments directly to HER without it turning her stomach- honestly she’d probably have found it hot. There was something about the implied threat in how he’d actually done it though. Or something about it being an indefensible power play- she was reminded of the way Ruby played board games: until she decided the fun was done, at which point -everyone- was done having fun. Or else.

…this had been equally childish, only given the context Briar found herself kind of disturbed. It really was like he’d chucked the whole board on the ground so he could feel like he was on top… only he wasn’t really, he was just sitting alone at the table smirking while she and Noah picked up pieces. He didn’t… seem to consistently understand what bothered her or why. He hadn’t even known why or that she was coming down from a panic attack when he came back- he’d ASKED what was going on! There were things he didn’t know because she couldn’t talk about them, fine, she was responsible for her triggers and doubly so if she didn’t share them; but she wasn’t sure she should have to explain why soliciting her best friend to perform cunnilingus in order to send a message might sent her reeling. Because shouldn’t a decent person just… not? Do that?

She turned to face him again, shoving her hands into her coat pockets just for something to do with them. She made herself meet his eyes even though she could feel her skin prickling, still and anew. This was SO uncomfortable for her to talk about with him; she’d never known how to without sounding like she was blaming him for being the butterfly who set it all into motion. She didn’t want to blame him. It wasn’t his fault, not in any real or direct way, friends drifted apart after university all the time. Objectively… that was all that had happened when he left for America.

They’d slowly stopped talking every day, and then the weekly check ins had to be pushed around all the time because their schedules were EXTREMELY opposite, and then they only saw each other when he visited his parents at the holidays. Normal. But during that same time, she was spending ALL of it with Noah… really, their friendship had been the most consistent one she’d ever had, largely due to forced proximity alone. That… hadn’t really changed when Elliott moved back to London. His diary had only gotten more jam-packed, and they both had hyper-jealous significant others, it had never been like Oxford between them again even though they’d spent relatively regular time together once he was home.

Why was it SUCH a problem that Elliott wasn’t her ONLY friend? He knew firsthand that she was perfectly capable of not mixing sex and platonic relationships- not only capable, but REPELLED BY THE CONCEPT. She and Elliott had had PLENTY of opportunities to fuck casually after the first time, and had they ever?? Not until the romp that ended in her leaving Kevin! …wait was THAT it? If she’d done it once she’d do it again? Understanding deflated what remained of her anger almost instantly. Shouldn’t have- what a stupid thing for him to think! …well, if he did think so anyway, she wasn’t trying to make assumptions but in this case it was improving her ability to empathize, so. Whatever worked. She made a face, then tried.

“I’m sorry I shared things you’d rather I hadn’t, I wasn’t trying to embarrass you and I’m sorry I did. I’ll address it with Noah. I’ve just never- I guess- had… anything to… share. Before. It was nice to just be excited and not… worried about getting in trouble. Ironically. I just-“ she trailed off and didn’t immediately pick up again, “Give me a second.”

And she took several, focusing on his shoes so she could think properly. He was too good at talking… she always felt disadvantaged when they were in a verbal disagreement. She used to let that make her feel, additionally, rushed to say something, anything. Used to. But this one thing she HAD explained, and because they’d talked about it, he’d been doing so much better at waiting for her to find words instead of trying to offer her the ones he thought she wanted. She wasn’t, it’d turned out, entirely incapable of stringing a complete thought together out loud. She wasn’t QUICK like he was, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know what she wanted to say. Jokes were one thing, feelings were different- those didn’t just jump out of her.

“I don’t think- no.” She knew. “I don’t like that your response to me oversharing, within the context of conversations with my best friend-” Hello? That was… extremely normal. Okay or maybe normal for kitchens? What ELSE did people talk about?? Just because she’d never had anything to contribute didn’t mean the conversation wasn’t in constant cycle around her. Noah’s reaction, she was almost positive, had nothing to do with the SPECIFIC details and everything to do with the fact that she HAD BEEN USELESS ALL DAY WHILE RECOUNTING THEM. It was NOT her fault that Elliott’s context for opposite-sex best-friendship was PATIENCE JANE, perpetual virgin mother. Yeah, it would seem like wildly inappropriate information to hand out from that perspective! But she’d seen Noah line up blow on a waitress’ ass! …she had on occasion, long ago, BEEN that ass! Decorum was different in restaurants!

“-was to… I don’t really even know what to call that, I mean… harass him? I guess?” She swallowed hard because she didn’t really want to say what she was about to say, but it was true. “It kind of scared me to hear. Like, I know you’re… important. Powerful. Whatever. But I don’t think I’ve ever really seen you… like that. I couldn’t… it was hard for me to visualize what he was telling me happened, like you didn’t… fit. I couldn’t picture it, not the way I know you, only… it did happen that way, I guess. I’m sorry I gave him too many details, I can understand your point and I didn’t mean to cross a line. But if I cross a line… you can’t long-jump over twenty just to teach a lesson. And HE didn’t consent to be taught a lesson at all. I don’t think you’re a cruel person but I do think that was legitimately the meanest thing you’ve ever done to me. It was humiliating, and now Noah is freaked out- he’s seen me be so self-destructive, Elliott… he was just worried I might be slipping. But now I’m pretty sure he’s worried you WANT to watch him fuck me.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “He’s my best friend. I don’t understand how sleeping with him is the proof that would convince you I only want you. Am I not… doing enough?”

Oh no, he did not deserve her. There she was, asking for his help when she didn't need it, but knew he liked giving it. It was too fucking cold to cry, so he didn't, but he wanted to. Just stood up and helped her into her coat. Kept his hands on her biceps because she seemed to let him... He wanted to hug her but she did still seem mostly disgusted with him so: no. And actually, that was enough for him to drop her arms, too; he shouldn't touch her if he was disgusting. So he just stood at her back and waited.

She turned and faced him and for once he had a hard time holding her gaze. He wanted to interrupt, but knew better than to do anything else impulsive. He had patience: she was just wrong. He wasn't embarrassed that she'd told Noah... he wasn't ashamed... Or at least wasn't at the time. He very much was now so maybe it didn't need correction; it had become true even though it hadn't started that way.

She asked for a second so he gave it, saying nothing, staying still. Ish. He was tapping his toes inside his shoes but what was new: he was always doing that. But then she was staring at his shoes so he stopped. He didn't want to look impatient. He shoved his hands in his pockets and pushed back his cuticles instead.

Yeah okay, he was a deviant, he got it! Message received, loud and clear! Noah was allowed to make him feel bad about sex but he wasn't allowed to dish it back, nothing new! He agreed he'd gone too far, anyway, and had already apologized and meant it. He blushed with embarrassment and shame. He did want to watch Noah fuck her! He'd been mean like that BECAUSE it had been so close to the surface. No deep digging required! He was just a freak accidentally provoked into saying too much. Way too much!

He wasn't going to get any chance to defend himself, though, because he didn't deserve it anyway and Briar somehow came to the conclusion that she wasn't doing enough. She did too much! She knew he thought so!

"Briar, come on. Of course you're enough. You're everything. You're... you're not any kind of problem." Was he allowed to just sit on the ground right there? No, probably too selfish. "I'm the problem.

"I've been trying so hard to just play nice with Noah that, yeah, a decade of bad feelings erupted all at once. I'm jealous of him and always have been and you just think it's stupid that I am... So okay, I'm stupid and jealous," and a freak! "Maybe I shouldn't be, but he knows your whole story and I don't- you don't ever have to tell me if you don't want to, that's always been your decision. But you don't get to dictate how that makes me feel, either." Unworthy. Helpless to avoid her worst triggers. Insecure. Desperate to feel differently but unable to without things actually being different. Stupid, because she thought he was. Maybe he was going to cry after all.

"I love you. I love you. I always have and always will and I can't keep talking about all this in a cold alleyway, Briar: there's too much. We can talk more tonight after the kids are in bed, alright?" He hoped 'alright' because he COULD NOT continue like this.

She winced at his ‘come on,’ but didn’t say anything. She knew he had to be tired of convincing her she was enough, but that wasn’t what she’d been asking this time. They were… figuring things out. Sexually. And if he wanted things she hadn’t been giving him… she wanted to at least know. How was she supposed to consider whether she wanted the same things if the only time she was confronted with new information was DURING sex? Or by complete surprise, like just now. That wasn’t… making her feel more secure. She didn’t FEEL like she’d done anything, so far, that she hadn’t VERY much wanted to, but she also knew herself to be suggestible. Especially where praise or approval was at stake. If there was more she could be doing, in bed, because he wanted to try it… now was clearly a bad time. And she’d clearly asked in a way that sounded pathetic (which was how she was feeling) or he wouldn’t have misinterpreted it as a request for reassurance. Fairly misinterpreted. She could acknowledge that- she still felt too raw to control her tone, she could hear how she sounded and didn’t like it; she was at least partly aware that that was going to be a problem if he let her keep talking.

She looked away while he continued… she wasn’t sure she had much control over her face either. She didn’t want to make things worse by making him feel worse than he already did. But if she’d been putting in less effort, he’d have earned a COME ON of his own. It might’ve FELT like a gargantuan effort, the way he and Noah handled the relationship they’d been thrust into because they both loved her. But neither (none) of them had been ‘trying so hard.’ Fuck off. Elliott had been ‘trying’ at this the same way she’d formerly been ‘trying’ to be a good wife: like a moron. Without meaningful input, so without meaningful stakes or vulnerability. A spinning-your-wheels kind of effort that left you feeling righteous exhaustion even though in fact you’d done nothing and gone nowhere… and now everything was covered in mud, so congratulations, another thing to feel sad and sorry about. Which… was the real end goal of this kind of ‘trying’: expanding misery and helplessness to absolve you from the guilt of not succeeding. She knew! She’d practically invented it!! But because she knew how it felt to erupt out of time and context… she stayed quiet, and worked to keep her expression neutral.

Harder once he’d said something that didn’t feel fair. …she didn’t think she was trying to dictate Elliott’s FEELINGS at all. If she had been, she would have tried to force a friendship between him and Noah. Or at least confronted him about the fake-polite bullshit. She could be sad they WEREN’T friendly without telling them they HAD to be… without even trying to dupe them into a relationship (which she was pretty sure she could’ve!). But feelings only got this barbed and overgrown when they were IGNORED! The eruption hadn’t (and never did) come out of NOWHERE! He could have whatever feelings he had, but he couldn’t use them to justify OBJECTIVELY INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR. Especially when his PERSONAL refusal to address said feelings was the root cause! His corresponding ACTIONS were the bit she was primarily concerned about, not the feelings behind them!!!

Jealousy made sense- FEELING it made sense, but it WAS stupid to continually dig your heels into a sentiment you claimed to not want to experience anymore! What had Elliott ever done to try to move past it? Not let it go- MOVE PAST. He didn’t really allow Noah to be anything other than an intrusion on their (his and Briar’s) private life… he didn’t hang out past greetings and pleasantries when Noah came over to the house; he NEVER went with her to his flat (there was always some too-busy excuse); he had such reluctance to engage that Briar hadn’t even felt like she could ask him to text Noah from the hospital for her after Ruby and Will were born. Noah was a structural beam in her support system… Elliott not being able to really accept that meant she was getting less than she needed. SHE had been the one trying! To just let the two men she cared about prop up separate wings and stay away from each other, but the center wasn’t holding anymore. She needed both of them, differently and for different purposes, and for two people who claimed to bend over backwards for her… they sure were unwilling to put effort into GETTING OVER IT. The ONE THING SHE ACTUALLY NEEDED.

She wasn’t asking THEM to be best friends! She just needed them to not actively hate each other… it was making it so she couldn’t really lean on EITHER of them. She had to do too much self-editing and tiptoeing around to ensure neither of them got upset with the other in the abstract. Elliott wanted to know more, and she wanted to tell him- it would be so nice if they could avoid upset more intentionally, which she knew wasn’t possible with his current gap in data. She wanted to share, but she COULDN’T- the more he knew, about what had happened to her while he was away, the more he’d understand how much Noah had done for her. And he couldn’t even tolerate the CONCEPT that Noah had been there when he hadn’t… so how was she supposed to trust he could handle specific details?

Plus… Noah remembered better than she did; she wasn’t sure she even COULD talk about all of it without his input- she hadn’t really been… all that in her body, back then. Which made memories weird and jumpy. If Elliott wanted to take better care of her, SHE was the wrong person to ask for advice, she was famously VERY BAD AT TAKING CARE OF HERSELF. If he wanted to know so badly, there was already someone who recognized what it looked like from the outside, when she started sliding out of herself and into the past. But how in the world was she supposed to say ‘the prospect of walking you through my whole sordid history is both terrifying and overwhelming can you please get Noah’s notes so we don’t have to start from Step Zero?’ She wished she could! She didn’t think she was wrong to intuit that she was not allowed to do that though.

“Yeah,” she agreed halfheartedly, still looking at the ground. Waiting to talk was a double edged sword: she didn’t want to be on the verge of tears next to a dumpster in the snow either, but he’d come back to the topic prepared to articulate his points. And she knew she’d lose whatever more-even playing field this wildly out of character outburst of his had put them on. But fine. She knew better (a recently internalized lesson) than to try to force the conversation to continue after he asked to be done. He’d already been mean (the un-fun kind), and she didn’t need to push him to do or say anything he’d feel worse about than what had already come out.

“Can you hold me for a minute before you go? Please?” She let out a slow breath and then added an explanation… she could do that, when something specific came up. Not as daunting as trying to list everything wrong with her. “I sometimes just… float out of my body. When I’m panicked or overwhelmed. My nervous system has been fed confusing messaging about what danger looks like, and it just… happens, when something seems like it may be a threat. It helps to get squeezed back in.”

She didn’t say anything else, just let herself be pulled close and buried her face in his shirt. The tension she’d been holding relaxed, slowly but surely, but she wasn’t going to move until she was sure she was settled. “Can you bring dinner home?” she asked, muffled but unwilling to move to make herself heard more clearly. She knew feeling useful was grounding for him… this ask was mostly for his benefit, being upset had never been a reason for her not to cook. But not HAVING to tonight would also mean she could give the kids (Ruby) more attention, which usually sped up bedtime. So. Not only for him, just mostly.

He grit his teeth at her half hearted 'yeah.' MAYBE HE SHOULD JUST CANCEL THE REST OF HIS DAY. It wasn't much, it was their last in office day until after New Year's. But, no, she still had a whole overbooked day to get through so it didn't matter. He could solve that, too, with a few phone calls. But she was a grown woman, so. So no. She'd obviously already considered that and decided not to.

He was cold and he always wanted to hold her so he didn't hesitate when she asked him to. His arms were moving before she'd finished asking, and squeezing at her 'please.' He didn't want the eggshells to be back, though he very much felt like they were... so he pushed through and acted like they weren't. "Sorry my arms weren't fast enough," he said into her hair.

Her explanation was... useful, in the general sense, he supposed. But felt devastating in the personal sense. HE was the threat she needed squeezed back into her body about. So holding her did not relax him like it did Briar. He was wound tight and didn't really see an immediate fix for that.

What had he learned today...40% more mean was definitely not safe, Noah was allowed to be inappropriate towards him and he wasn't allowed to fight back, it was Noah's job to keep Briar safe from him and he'd decided he was a threat so she had, too.

Good deal: no way out then. Two against one, he was toast. For thinking of her wistfully during a slow moment at work and then 'yes, and'ing her friend who was looking for reasons to be right for mistrusting him.

"McDonald's, then," he deadpanned. Ruby loved it, anyway. Dinner was her thing, so it was her thing to give up, but it did feel... Like she didn't actually want to. Wasn't that the heart of the issue, ultimately? Isn't that where her fear came from? That he might be making her do things she didn't want? Seemed like it. Like she and Noah were concerned he was going to somehow FORCE them to fuck?! OBVIOUSLY NOT!

THEY were allowed to be casually crass, he was not. THAT was what restaurant culture was like (he had been told) and HE was banned from hers (mostly). From a place she'd created and cultivated and he'd loved from the first time he'd set foot in the dining room. It was SO HER. He missed it. She didn't care.

He USED to be allowed there, he used to be able to sit in a booth and eat soup and catch glimpses of her in her element as he looked up from reading 62 page historic bridge reconstruction proposals and Eoin brought him six coffees. Then he'd married her and Noah convinced her to ban him from the dining room and he was shut out from that part of her life. Was not allowed to complain about it, that got him more restrictions (he'd learned the hard way). Couldn't even think about it fondly. Fuck.

"I'll be home early, I only have bullshit left today." He squeezed her a little tighter. He wanted to tell her he loved her again, but she already hadn't said it back so.... It felt like fishing, to say again. So he didn't. He let go of her and shoved his frozen hands back in his pockets and resumed destroying his cuticles and walked away.

------

Back at home, he'd put Will to bed and sat on the couch. He MADE himself sit on the couch instead of at the kitchen table. Kitchen table felt safe, she couldn't really sit close to him there; it wouldn't feel like she was avoiding being close to him. Or like he was avoiding being close to her. She'd asked to be held, after all, so he knew he was probably the one afraid to touch her. So he was brave and sat on the couch, like usual. No work, though, he was only waiting for Briar.

And there she was! "Colin thinks I was bilocating. Earlier. He thinks I never left my office and it was like...a magical projection of me at the restaurant. Which is why the wards didn't keep me out; I wasn't really there." Colin said he could possibly practice and do it on purpose if he wanted to but... No, he didn't want to. He wanted to be normal, thanks, not some magical freak of nature even among magical folk. It WAS too late for that and the magic WOULD come out (obviously!) so he'd have to do.... Something. He'd levitated snowballs for Kryptonite after work: that had been his pathetically best idea today.

He felt like he was back in detention and must have been thinking that fairly intensely because he just now noticed he was flicking sparks off the ends of his fingers on his left hand. GREAT, TOTALLY NOT THREATENING. His face felt like it was burning with shame. He tucked his hand under his opposite arm like it might prevent him from doing anything else absent mindedly. FAT CHANCE OF THAT. He was obviously out of control.

Briar didn’t wait to watch him walk away; she was going to cry if she stayed out here, alone, where no one could interrupt to ask if she was okay. She was NOT. But what could be done for it? Nothing at the moment. She knew she wasn’t going to stop feeling- she hated not having a better word than Bad. Bad, though. She knew she wouldn’t feel anything else until she and Elliott had a proper conversation. The only other way she knew how to remain functional (which she needed to be) was to just… dissociate. And if she had to choose between THOSE options, it was an easy choice, especially under these circumstances.

Autopilot was, if she was being honest, probably her default; there was a reason all of this was just coming up NOW… how could she have addressed it with Elliott without even letting herSELF address it? Therapy had been a gift and a curse- all the boxes she’d shoved uncomfortable memories into were being systematically opened, contents scrutinized and relabeled. She’d wrapped them up so neatly! She’d thought she’d KNOWN what to call them! And now they were all tangled up with each other and strewn about in messy piles and the boxes had been SET ON FIRE so what the hell was she meant to do now? HARD WORK?? Hadn’t her life already been hard enough? Nothing was fair. Nothing was fair!

Noah approached hesitantly while she was scrubbing her hands raw at the sink. “We’re down to the final two, I think we’ll make it.” He didn’t ask if she was okay- she was obviously not- but he did turn off the tap and pass her a towel, because she seemed stuck in the middle of that sequence of steps. He could at least save her hands.

“Good. And next time an office manager with nice tits bats her eyelashes at you?”

“I’ll tell her to fuck off.” He caught the frown she shot him- okay, heard, they weren’t doing banter, she was being his boss. “I’ll check the books and follow the scheduling procedure you wisely and thoughtfully crafted.”

“Right.” Briar tucked the towel into her apron and went to check on progress. She knew she’d been cross with him in the alley, but she didn’t feel anything now. Autopilot on. That would probably freak him out, but blessedly, she could not have cared less. Couldn’t have cared more either- what WAS caring? They only had necessary communication for the rest of the afternoon. The whole kitchen was running at an eerily low volume, everyone’d been put on edge by her mood… she didn’t notice. She held it together for exactly as long as it took the last dishwasher to clear out, then went to her office and closed the door.

Noah knocked, waited, then went in after her since she didn’t tell him to fuck off. He shut the door gently behind him and sat down on the sofa. “I’m sorry I overreacted.” He meant it. He felt it might’ve lost some authenticity owing to the fact that the apology was delivered to the top of her head. “Genuinely sorry. From the minute he showed up… I was a crazy person.”

Briar sighed and lifted her forehead from her desk so she could look at him. “You couldn’t have overreacted if I’d stopped letting you… you know, REact. I should have years ago. And I’m sorry too, that I let you be in this position. I think it’s time to hang up that particular hat, Chef.” That was too serious. They didn’t do earnestness like this when they were sober. “I have that whole gang of aurors now, never safer.” Had to bring it down a few notches or he’d think something was really wrong.

“I think so, too, yeah.”

She hadn’t expected him to agree without hesitation. That ended up being the thing that finally set off the tears she’d been on the brink of before she’d pressed pause on feelings for the past several hours. She put her head down again; she was exhausted in every way. “We’re okay, right?” she managed over the tightness in her throat.

“Briar. Yes. Always. And YOU’RE okay- I’m… really sorry, I think this is my fault for suggesting you might not be.”

She sat with that for a while, then nodded slowly. “I think you might be right.” He usually was. Not in general (see aforementioned catering nightmare), but about her. Elliott’s behavior probably still would’ve alarmed her, but it at least would’ve alarmed her from a rational, present-day headspace if Noah hadn’t confronted her in a way that felt like a literal repeat of history. That had colored everything else. “But I also get it.” It was triggers all the way down. All three of them were so unbelievably fucked… it’d just been a ricochet effect from the outset.

“You and Elliott are okay?”

Briar nodded, then shrugged. “I mean no, but we always are eventually. …I think I really hurt his feelings.”

“You don’t think he’s more worried about yours?” It wasn’t a criticism, it was an observation. “…I’m pretty sure he jogged here. In a suit.” He’d been a little useless once he’d gotten there, but the jogging counted for something. He DIDN’T hate Elliott, he just thought it was ridiculous that he kept making Briar cry. He knew it wasn’t on purpose! Would’ve obviously hated him if he thought it was on purpose. But did he just… not look or listen? Anyway… the jogging, in the suit, in the sleet, made him realize… how often did he even see Elliott to know what kind of effort he was or wasn’t putting in? Maybe he WAS trying. Briar insisted he was. Noah was- there was definitely a grudge being held; he didn’t know how to let go of it, but feeling bad about it might help… the fact that it’d made Briar this upset definitely would. Trying a LITTLE harder to give Elliott the benefit of the doubt wouldn’t kill him. It wasn’t even the most impossible thing she’d asked him to do today! And he’d accomplished the other one!

“Yeah…,” she answered miserably, wiping her face on her sleeves before sitting up again. “But my feelings were that he was being scary and you know I conveyed it… badly.”

Noah groaned. Yeah okay. “That’s hard to do in the moment, but you’ll apologize and it’ll be alright, like you said. It’s not like he doesn’t know it’s not his fault.” He eyed her warily, not loving the guilty expression that had taken over her face. “Cheeeef… you’re not letting that man walk around blaming himself for hurting you.” He didn’t want to ask it like a question; he didn’t know the answer, but he wanted to hope he did! He might not be Elliott’s biggest fan, but he didn’t deserve to think Briar’s reactions had anything to do with him. …he did recognize the irony, given that he’d literally done the exact same thing she was. And with much less legitimate reason! Fuck, maybe they were BOTH twats. THE most seemingly random things triggered her- he only knew how to steer around most of them because he’d been paying close attention. For a LONG time. And they were together MOST of every day- that was an unfairly massive head start and okay yes he was also a twat then, of course Elliott was trying. He wasn’t going to catch up overnight.

“Not on PURPOSE!” she insisted.

He sort of felt a responsibility to get more information from her now… because he knew her. Maybe he could help her figure out how to explain it differently. “Does he just… not get that it can’t always be avoided?” That would make sense. It would be easy to take it personally if you thought it WAS possible to maneuver around every unseen obstacle. That… would feel like failing.

“I don’t, um,” she trailed off and Noah stared at her until she kept going. “I don’t think I’ve explained things very well to him. I don’t… know how. There’s just so much.”

Noah rubbed his hand over his face, understanding dawning on him… the sun had been cresting the horizon for a few minutes now. Jesus fucking Christ. Well. No wonder Elliott hated him. He was over here with a Briar manual and Elliott had to try to get information straight from the source; he might as well have been trying to get water from a rock! Briar was a TERRIBLE source of Briar-related knowledge! He’d thought she just married the world’s biggest asshole- WHO couldn’t recognize the aftermath of a spouse’s panic attack when their panic attacks were a regular occurrence? SOMEONE WHOSE SPOUSE HADN’T PROVIDED ADEQUATE DETAILS. Sounded like Briar for sure. Now that he’d calmed down enough to think about things again. “Sounds like we both have something to work on, then.” He had to get out of here; he needed a drink. He stood up and held his hand out. “Good luck, Chef.”

Briar grimaced. She… would need the luck. She shook Noah’s hand with mock-formality. “Thank you, Chef, same to you.” She wasn’t only grateful in a jokey way. But she knew he knew that. Some shortcuts were allowed with friends that weren’t with husbands. She had to save the vulnerability for later… that was a precious resource.

———————

“That was a really fun day.” Both of Ruby’s parents had been home early. They played in the snow. Will looked like a tomato because he was only a head sticking out of the zipper of their mum’s jacket and that kept making her laugh. Krypto ate floating snowballs. THEY ATE MCDONALDS. No notes! The only better day was birthday parties, IF there was a gift bag.

“It was,” Briar agreed, kissing Ruby’s face three more times for good measure before gathering up that night’s bedtime books and standing up. It had been a… weird… day. The kind that felt like two or three separate ones smashed together. But the part that had happened at home, yes. They’d just finished bundling up to go out in the snow when Elliott had gotten home (early, as promised) with dinner (also, unfortunately, as promised- ugh). And it had just… been such an obvious opportunity to redo that awful fight they’d had in the paddling pool. She gave him a kiss hello and helped him find his boots and wrapped him up in one of the PJ-made scarves that were collectively owned by the family (one-size-fit-anyone who was willing to loop and loop and loop until the ends were finally off the ground). And when they’d come back in, they’d eaten magically reheated fast food and Ruby’s glee was definitely worth her own gustatory suffering.

“I love French fries,” Ruby yawned, nuzzling her face into her pillow.

Briar laughed from the doorway. “I know you do, love. I love YOU.”

“From McDonalds,” Ruby added dreamily, “Okay good night.” And that was that, powered-down for the night.

Briar didn’t check in on Will- Elliott had probably just finished getting him down, and if she opened the door while he happened to be awake the whole thing would start over. She hadn’t even sat down all the way when Elliott started talking. “What?” …she hadn’t even thought about HOW he’d been at the restaurant. The first time. She really should have wondered… what if it HAD been the wards? Elliott staying out of the dining room WAS keeping down the number of threats the aurors had to follow up on. But they still definitely needed the wards! She plopped down next to him and curled up to shove her feet under his legs to warm them up.

Her eyes flicked to his hand- the sparks had caught her attention from the corner of her vision, so focusing on them almost caused a double take. She reached her hand out between them, palm up like she was asking for something. She was! She wanted to see that again. “So you were… two places? How does that work, are you like a ghost in the second place or do you have a body? Do you think you can do it again? …that’s kind of cool.”

Elliott gave Briar an incredulous look. She was just going to casually sit by him and warm her icy feet under his legs like she HADN'T called him a scary creep with too much power?! Sure, she'd kissed him (a peck! Nothing especially telling!) when he'd arrived home so maybe that was a clue that her opinion had flip flopped. But he'd thought she was just trying to be normal for Ruby. That's what he'd been doing! And it was WORTH IT; Ruby had so much fun!

He gave her an incredulous look on top of his already incredulous look. WHY would he want to do it again? It had gone horribly the first time! "Colin thinks I could do it again with practice...I think the odds I'll keep showing up places I shouldn't be stay low if I just leave it alone. My feet felt like they were on the ground, so he thinks I was fully corporeal both places... I think he's probably right." He thought she was bullshiting about thinking it was cool. The only magic he could remember her actually admiring was whatever he'd done to keep Will from ever getting sick aaaaaaand anything he'd done in bed: end of list. She was not generally interested in his magical abilities.

He very gently pushed her expectant hand away. "I'm not doing that again; I didn't mean to do that, either." Not exactly in the same way as his bilocating episode. He at least knew he could make sparks (he'd spent months doing it in detainment!); this was just ADHD. Weird brain and weird magic, just another way he was not normal.

He was too confused to keep paddling down the river of denial with her so he stopped letting her take him for a ride. "I thought you were afraid of me?" There was no accusation in his tone, he was genuinely confused above whatever else he was feeling. He was afraid of making her more afraid, now, if she had reason to be! And she'd been pretty insistent: scary and unrecognizable was what he was! (He didn't think it was especially fair to be called unrecognizable for ONE over reaction- if that was the case, who was she supposed to be?! (But that would have been a very mean thing to say and he didn't want to be mean to her at all; he wanted her to feel safe with him. She was putting on a pretty good act. Maybe it was just him now: just afraid again to be all the way himself around her. Only parts of him seemed consistently safe for her and it and was a short list)).

“Alright…,” she returned cautiously, knowing disagreeing would only make him defensive. Not always. Not even usually! But when his feelings were hurt? Yes. If he wanted to keep his magic in a chokehold, she guessed that was his business, anyway. Did ignoring it tend to WORK? Not, at least, where their daughter’s magical outbursts were concerned. Did that method ever work for ANYthing? But what did Briar know about repression. Clearly not enough. “That must’ve been kind of alarming for you… I’m sorry I didn’t understand what you meant earlier, when you said you hadn’t meant to be there.”

She took her hand back reluctantly and sandwiched both of them between her knees so she wouldn’t reach for him again. He was allowed to not want to be touched, too. …the logic of that did feel different on the other end, she had to admit. But it was also complicated by the fact that he VERY rarely didn’t want to be touched. She couldn’t actually think of a single time, but there had to have been at least one…. It was hard not to feel it as rejection right now. But she was trying- he was, too, he’d been gentle about it. Trying was easier now than it’d been at the restaurant; she’d had time to calm down, and to think.

“I was… sort of. Not afraid of YOU, exactly, it was complicated and I don’t know exactly how to explain but,” she took a deep breath, then let it all out at once before continuing, “I’m going to regardless.” And here was the trouble once again because where did she even start? She’d been scripting all afternoon and hadn’t figured it out yet. “It was a domino effect within a perfect storm. I haven’t asked Noah for his perspective, so I’m making some assumptions, but… I’ve been acting pretty out of character lately. And you know I kind of… do that… when I’m hiding something. I think I unintentionally made things worse by giving him details- not- no one in a kitchen would be scandalized by the SPECIFIC details, I think you have the SAME worries actually. Just… that it’s hard to know, sometimes, if I’m really wanting to be doing what I’m doing.

I don’t think he’s worried about YOU… I think he’s worried about ME- like… you wouldn’t… necessarily have to be a bad man to be taking advantage of me, because I tend to… kind of invite it. But he can’t, you know, be angry with me without feeling like an asshole. So. There you are, in his kitchen… watching me lovingly, but unfortunately you aren’t the first man who’s enjoyed keeping an eye on me at work,” around Noah, especially, “And given everything else… the perfect storm of it all,” her weird behavior, the stress of the final day of their Christmas rush, Elliott’s generally unfriendly attitude towards Noah, “I think he had the same kind of experience I did next.” The first domino. “Jamey would- I hate talking about this so much, I feel like there’s a threshold for details and if I cross it you’re going to think of me differently.”

She didn’t let herself pause even though she wanted to give him an opening to soothe her. That… wasn’t always the most helpful. She needed to get more comfortable with discomfort… her therapist KEPT saying so. “He had a lot of access. Or well. I guess… has, probably.” That was… unpleasant to consider. “Important.” Ugh. She knew she had a type, it was embarrassing in context. “And it wasn’t my kitchen to tell him to leave, even if I’d like… had the presence of mind to. He didn’t really like me to have friends. And if he knew everyone I worked with, he could make sure I didn’t, really… he was good at… manipulating opinions.”

She grimaced. “Anyway. Being a distraction to me isn’t the only reason Noah doesn’t like you in there… but it’s not really about… you. Unfair, I know, and I’m sorry. So when he told me what happened… and he was like… visibly upset about it, I think it threw me back to all the other times he’s been worried about me. For… good reasons, you know? And then it all got away from me and I was spiraling and the WAY he’d described you did scare me- in the moment, because I was already on my way to a panic attack. And because Jamey used to… ugh, there are like ten more threads and I don’t-“

She sighed and, realizing she hadn’t been meeting his eye for any of that, looked back to him. “Thank you for not letting me talk earlier… I was too activated, but I’m not sure I noticed that I was and I don’t want to hurt you. I love you. I wish there was a way for you to just know all of it, but there isn’t, and how am I supposed to explain… everything- there’s too much, Elliott.” She was glad she’d already cried or she might’ve then- she wasn’t even sure she was upset with him anymore, all she felt was overwhelmed and embarrassed.

He shrugged at her apology. How was she supposed to know what he meant when he hadn't even known what he'd done? He didn't care about that. He cared about her guard dog going off with ZERO provocation!

He needed a break from Noah. He was the personification of a barbed wire fence and Elliott was tired of being shredded to bits for simply approaching. He didn't understand how Briar felt safer around Noah (who Elliott knew had been in actual fistfights!) than she did with him (who had NEVER HIT ANOTHER HUMAN, EVER!!). Only one of them had a history of violence and it wasn't him.

Elliott's heart sank (whoooo knew there was yet a further point for it to sink to?) when Briar shoved her hands between her knees. He hadn't meant to make her retreat so obviously; he just didn't want to engage in displays of power around her when she'd told him his power was intimidating. He knew he couldn't suppress his magic all the time and he didn't want to (that's what the sparks were for!). Just around her. Though maybe he should have done it since she was asking for it pretty specifically....but whatever trust he'd had in her to be true to what she actually wanted had apparently evaporated in the aftermath of this morning.

He hoped it was true that she wasn't afraid of him; there did seem to be evidence building towards that conclusion. Her feet were still slowly thawing under his legs.

There was still further for his heart to fall, as it turned out. 'Acting out of character'- she'd been acting HAPPY. Which, yeah! In the scheme of things WAS out of character- hadn't most of their fights over the last few years been about her insisting she was happy when she obviously wasn't?! So wasn't it a good thing that it was finally true?!

He did know what she was like when she was hiding something, but she was, unfortunately, always hiding something from him. So he had to try and notice when she was hiding MORE. And then she'd get upset that he was paying close attention to her. There really was no way to win. Or there hadn't been before they'd been on leave together. There were ways to win, now! They'd had a winning streak!

For the first time he thought...this might just be a temporary setback.

Hope was a hell of a drug: he reached over and pulled lightly at her wrist until her hand was free and he could clasp it in his, resting atop her knee.

He did not love most of what she was saying, especially how much of her actions seemed to be based on Noah, but he wanted to learn and he could only do that by listening. So he didn't interrupt. He did squeeze her hand when she said she hated talking about it and that she was worried he'd think differently of her. He didn't really know what to make of that; he was always thinking differently about her. Had too! She was not someone you could have reasonable expectations about, generally. He loved her anyway.

He at least knew, however he reminded her of Jamey (because she was always looking for him to, just in case), there was good and plain evidence that he was NOT actually like him. He desperately wanted Briar to have friends! More friends, and good ones! So her relationship with Noah might actually have a chance to evolve into something less codependent. Or fade entirely (but he knew better than to wish for that pipe dream). He just...he had really good friends, more than just a few, and the way his family had been able to rely on them while he was gone was....priceless, totally. He had a village, and it had accepted Briar wholeheartedly. And he was glad! He just...god, he wanted her to have girlfriends she could talk to who weren't friends with him first! This NEVER would have happened if she'd had anyone other than Noah to spill her guts to.

He had to work VERY hard not to interrupt when she looked him in the eyes and thanked him for not letting her talk earlier. He probably looked like a deer in the headlights. Nooooooooooo thank you, he had not been trying to control her! He did NOT like that she liked it, he had been too activated HIMSELF to talk. Sure, he knew they both had been, but he was not In Charge of Briar, nope, no way. Sure, if Noah tried to murder him then she probably would drop him as a friend, but Noah might also succeed. He didn't want to be murdered for giving Noah even the slightest impression that he was 'not letting' Briar do anything. He was FOR SURE taking a break from Noah. A long one.

She said she loved him and that brought his focus back. Back to her, here, now. He loved her, too. Terrible past and awful best friend: he loved her. He'd keep dancing through her minefield and putting himself back together every time he blew up no matter how many times it took. The bombs would either run out eventually or he'd get used to it. Maybe he'd build himself better protection; maybe get quicker at the repair.

"A little bit at a time, Briar, that's how. We'll get through it, okay? There's not too much. I would have never been so petulant about visiting you at work if I had known you used to be maliciously surveilled there...I just liked seeing you do the thing you love." 'My bad ex used to watch me at work and control what I did so I'm not ready to have a partner around while I work' would have been a lot more kind to him than 'you're distracting, stay out.' But oh well! He was bound to be in for a lot of these revelations. He wanted to be thankful for having them, not regretful about the damage they caused before he did.

"We'll make time and we'll be better for it," he said, squeezing her hand. He did believe that. "I love you," he leaned over and kissed her temple. She liked being kissed there! He knew that about her. If she didn't want it right now, she could tell him. He had to trust her. Constantly second guessing her wasn't going to make her any more sure of what she wanted. But getting what she wanted when she asked for it might.

So he backtracked, even though it seemed kind of silly. A little silly had been good for them recently! "Sorry blew you off about," he lifted up his free hand and flicked out a handful of magical sparks, "this, earlier. It's just like static electricity to me- discharging built up energy. So I don't blink myself into two bodies or whatever else magic decides I should be unexpectedly capable of."

Briar was so relieved he was touching her again that she nearly used his hand to pull him closer. Didn’t though, he’d only given his hand. She nodded in silent agreement, trying to keep her thoughts organized. She closed her eyes when he pressed a kiss to her temple, smiling softly; it always felt nice to be known, but she liked that the collection he’d built about her contained mostly innocuous details. It would be hard to let go of that… but Noah certainly didn’t have room in his own catalogue to remember that she’d eat chicken nuggets without (excessive) grumbling if also supplied with honey. Or that she liked being kissed on the temple because it reminded her of people in love in old movies. He was too busy standing watch… she was a little worried it was the knowing that’d made him that way, because he hadn’t always been… so what if it happened to Elliott too? He made her feel sweet. She didn’t want to lose that.

“It’s okay… I was mostly trying to reassure you that I wasn’t afraid of you, I didn’t need you to show me right then.” She paused then added, “Wish Ruby got a light show instead of the storms.” She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to react- he wasn’t a child whose magical abilities needed to remain under wraps for as long as possible, but the only way she knew how to handle new powers appearing out of nowhere was the way she’d been told to handle it with their daughter. Via official brief. …because those there a thing they received now- so fucking weird to know there were people researching this kind of thing on their behalf. Anyway the experts said remain neutral, reflect observations but don’t praise. Briar wasn’t AFRAID of magic, but she was NOT currently allowed to be too curious: Ruby’s curiosity was already boundless, she didn’t need to be encouraged. Only this obviously was a different situation… and she wanted to ask questions, but she couldn’t tell if he really wanted to talk about it the way he kept bringing it up and flitting away from it. She figured he’d expand when he knew what he wanted to say… she didn’t usually have to participate for him to launch into a diatribe, and of course the one time it might’ve been interesting he was beating around the bush.

She reached for the sparks with her free hand- he wouldn’t have called it static electricity if it was going to hurt-hurt, so she wasn’t hesitant, but she did want to know if it was more like a shock or one of those purple orbs at the children’s museum before she got any closer. Okay so just a metaphor- it was a kind of buzzing she knew she might only be imagining because visuals had been supplied. Hard to be sure when she wasn’t magical and knew herself to be suggestible. Either way, she wasn’t going to get zapped, clearly. She slid her hand out of his to hold his elbow, not wanting him to think she was pulling away when she untucked her feet. Had to to crawl into his lap. She curled up against him and rested her head on his shoulder. She wasn’t worried about him holding her now, she wasn’t going to lose what she needed to say just because she let herself be comforted. That was… an old habit. She was allowed to change it. She could have both: he arms around her and his attention.

“I wanted you to be petulant. I think… sometimes… if I let you misunderstand, then you provided reasons for me to be upset. Like a concrete reason. But also one that wasn’t… entirely real, to me, because that made it… safer. And I really am sorry, I don’t like that I’ve done that to you, but-“ This she understood well enough to explain less hesitantly; there was too much shame attached for that to be possible though.

“I didn’t really know I was, originally, and now undoing all of it is…. I was picking fights with you because I don’t- that’s my nervous system’s BASELINE. I didn’t… know what to do with you loving me, because it made it clear no one else had done a very good job and I wasn’t ready yet to… grapple with… all of that. I needed the emotional turmoil to feel… normal… it’s still hard sometimes to trust calm all the way, let alone contentedness. There’s just been… a lot of gaslighting, not just Jamey- both of my parents, too.”

She’d come to terms with Bridget’s terrible parenting ages ago, but her dad’s involvement had gone uninspected until her therapist repeatedly brought it up. …her mother caused turmoil and her father soothed it, but without letting it be… real. Without acknowledging Bridget’s actions as hurtful; not exactly making excuses for her, but explaining WHY she was the way she was, which had taught Briar to empathize in unhealthy ways from virtually day one. Every time someone hurt her, she could imagine what she’d done to set them off. She could always make it her fault, some phrase she should have avoided using or an outfit that should’ve stayed in her closet or a second helping of a meal she should’ve saved for someone else. Jamey had taken that and run it off the rails. Kevin… had not helped, the whole secret double life of it all. Elliott had unfortunately been handed a real mess when he agreed to love her.

“I don’t do well with- when things are surreal or when people interrogate my feelings or push back against my experience of events in a way that makes me question my reality- that- Noah unintentionally did, and I wouldn’t have overreacted to you the way I did otherwise.”

“I like it when you’re mean to me! The fun way obviously. That’s… been helpful in real ways because I’m not just using you to hurt myself arbitrarily. I need to know when that’s what’s happening though please… because I’m interested in you having fun too, but I’m not… super likely to be agreeable when I’m freaking out. I can always tell when I’m looking at you, but when it’s texts or conversations with a third party where I’m triangulated…” she’d seen that he’d unsent messages and was NOT going to ask for specifics, this was just… information. Since he was listening and she was talking: rare, a golden opportunity, she knew she had to keep going until she couldn’t. …their late-morning encounter was RIFE with explainable triggers- she didn’t feel confused about WHY she’d reacted, just confused about how to organize the pieces so Elliott could use them.

“I still know. But I don’t always remember. You’re not always you when you’re not there in front of me. I’m… working on that.” When he WAS right there, he didn’t remind her of anyone but himself. The Elliott she saw when she looked at him was still on her window bench at Oxford. No kind of threat, just a promise. He could be as mean as he wanted (THE FUN KIND), she knew him to be a person who spontaneously broke into song- he wasn’t… scary. When she was looking at him. When she wasn’t?? As established: HE WAS TOO GOOD AT WORDS! Things that would be hot to her if she HEARD them were… a more complicated kind of hot (if they ended up not freaking her out) once they’d passed through her self-reassurance filters.

The hug in the alley hadn't relieved any of his tension: his fault- he hadn't let himself believe it. He had deliberately chosen to trust a few moments ago, though, and Briar crawling into his lap felt like proof he was right to and that she had chosen to do the same. He didn't hesitate to wrap his arms around her, pulling her into him before she could get there on her own. Perhaps finally fast enough.

Her confession both was and wasn't shocking. It had certainly seemed like she was picking fights, but it hadn't made sense for her to be... He'd gaslit himself about it!

He'd had a fairly charmed childhood and adolescence.... Emotional turmoil was not for him; he'd broken up with Portia over it. There wasn't enough baseline compatibility or love to work through it with her. But he had years of loving Briar before she'd treated him this way.... And there'd always seemed to be good reasons for Briar's behavior... She was pregnant when they got together, then post partum, then sick, then he was outed and locked away.... He supposed her trauma was just as good a reason as all the others. Just... Incredibly unlucky.

He felt.... Fairly numb to the revelation. He'd already lived through the worst of it, it seemed, and he'd just vowed to himself to build better armor. He must have at least partly realized there was nothing he could have really done differently. He'd tried so many different things! There had been no clear path. The only solution was Briar clearing the way herself, which she did seem to be at least trying to do.

And he did think knowing would help! He wasn't quite sure how it would help practically, but it would at least help him psychological. Not engaging never really worked, calling her out about bizarre reactions definitely didn't... Maybe it would work now, though? Now that she was more aware? But when she was activated like that... She was not really all that aware.

Fucking Noah! Elliott was glad his face was in Briar's hair; it could just react unobserved. The frowniest frown he'd ever frowned. He was not interested in learning more about Noah at this time. 'Unintentional' YEAH RIGHT. He hadn't liked how Briar was behaving and so he'd knocked her down to get her where he liked her: upset, and relying on the view of the world through his lense. Yeah, Briar, no wonder reality looked skewed! He doesn't even like being around his own wife, why would he think anybody liked being with theirs!

He sighed and leaned his head against the back of the couch. He had not been being mean to Noah for fun! He had been mean because unfortunately it was becoming somewhat of a default. He'd been mean to Charlie, too! He was 'Mr. Smooth Things Over' before he'd become 'Mr. No, Actually' for Briar and now he was fighting back as a first instinct when he would have NEVER in the past. To admittedly some good results: Bridget had very justly been under fire, and several terrible people in parliament. Noah had FULLY deserved it, sure, but ultimately NOT worth the cost so he'd rather have reacted as Pre-Mean Elliott (who never so much as barred his teeth at Noah. He was a Hufflepuff! Congeniality was baked in!).

It had never worked to try to be the Elliott she held in her mind. He couldn't match a picture he couldn't see, and the Elliott of her mind's eye seemed very unfairly idealized, anyway. If she could only love him while she was looking right at him, that... really fucking hurt, but what was he supposed to do about it? Stop talking to her friends, stop texting her anything outside of logistics... If he wasn't a PUBLIC FIGURE that might help some. But there were video clips of him on TikTok, photos of him on magazines at the grocery store check out (he had been told), THERE WAS A PODCAST ABOUT HIM (Charlie sent him sound bites it was...a whole thing).

If she was going to keep hurting herself over him... Maybe what she really needed was a real actual break from him. Not like detainment: detainment was the opposite of that- that was ABOUT him. He just wanted her to have the time and space to not be worried about him, or ANYBODY, at all. He'd be fine. He was always fine. But she was not fine, and he was no help.

He lifted his head back up and kissed the top of hers. "That sounds like a lot to deal with." He shifted Briar in his arms, moving her back so she would be able to look at him. "What would you think about a real break from it all? Maternity leave doesn't count: that was just a break from the restaurant. A retreat, maybe? Or something like it? Where you could have space to just... Not have to deal with a constant barrage of other people's opinions and expectations and concerns. Just... room maybe to feel what calm is like without anyone judging you for the experience, not even me." He brought his left hand to her face and pushed her hair behind her ear. Wasn't she tired of living like this? He was. He'd told her recently that he wanted to see her unburden. He didn't need to see it, though; knowing she might be able to get it would be enough.

Every muscle tensed against the urge to recoil; she didn’t want to, but her body didn’t know that. The wrongness of Elliott’s suggestion was so absolute that she reacted before she even had a fully formed feeling let alone a thought. “No,” she insisted in a tone that was equal parts firm and stunned. In what universe would she find a retreat relaxing? The idea of being isolated like that made her panicky in the hypothetical. They had two young children- even notwithstanding the fact that there were daily threats against all of their lives, they needed her. Her brother was still a bit of a mess, and Sorry was due soon, and they would need her. Her restaurant needed her- maybe not to the extent she let herself be needed, but she couldn’t just disappear interminably again.

“That’s not- I don’t want a break from my life. It’s finally getting good.” She couldn’t seem to make him understand, and she’d was trying hard not to feel defeated. A task made more difficult by the earlier events of the day, which had left her emotionally bruised and raw. She’d just told him she felt safest with him and his immediate response was to float a sanitarium? Was he a fucking moron or was she just that difficult to deal with? As soon as the thought entered her head, she wished it hadn’t; she could almost feel it burrowing like some kind of horrible clicking beetle.

He could tell immediately at her tensing that the suggestion was wrong and he wished he could take it back. It was something they hadn't tried before and what could be triggering when there were no triggers around? Except that being alone was it's own trigger, but he hadn't been thinking of it like that ... He just obviously hadn't given it much thought at all. He was desperate for solutions and stupid in his desperation.

Wasn't he supposed to be good at talking? Not to his own wife. He was not good for her. He was not Good in general; she and Noah had been abundantly clear about that this morning. He didn't want to care what Noah thought about him, but he had to, because Briar trusted Noah more than she trusted him. Probably deservedly, he was (as she kept reminding herself and everyone else) A Politician. Short hand in Briar-speak for "two-faced." No wonder he kept reminding her of Jamey.

Her 'no' felt resounding when she voiced it- he already knew so when she kept talking he just felt stupider. He didn't think she wanted a break from her life! Just from her triggers. Which, okay, yeah, simply came with living life.

He immediately started sobbing when she said life was getting good. He'd thought so! It had felt that way until this morning. He felt closer to her than he'd ever been, he'd felt safe to be himself and to even grow and change a little, if they both liked it! But he'd been wrong! It wasn't safe and maybe, maybe he could believe that she wasn't afraid of him ...but it didn't really matter because he was afraid of him, now.

He wished he'd cried earlier so it wouldn't have hit him so dramatically now, but there was nothing he could do about it. If he could change the past he wouldn't waste it on crying. Her body was tense and so he knew that he probably shouldn't clutch her closer, but he had truly never felt more heartbroken or desperate, what could he do to make anything worse? If this wasn't rock bottom then he'd get there soon enough. He fisted his hands in the back of her shirt and pressed his face into her shoulder and tried to not be so noisy. But he was gasping and crying; tears were pouring out of him, he could barely breath. He was a disgusting mess.

"Was it actually good?" He asked between heaves. He didn't know anymore. What she really felt. Or meant. What was he supposed to trust? Which version of his wife was saying what she truly felt? Morning Briar had two factor authentication: Briar and Noah united against his awfulness. And he must have been awful! To not even have the faintest idea of why she might be upset when he arrived in that alley! He didn't know how things could have been good when he was A Bad Person. He'd just two-faced politician'd her into thinking so. That's the only kind of talking he was really any good at: convincing.

”Oh-“ She hadn’t yet found her footing after his absurd proposal, so to have him suddenly weeping on her shoulder was…. She didn’t exactly know what to do with it. She knew what she wanted to do- it was already happening. She caught herself before she could shrink her feelings down to make room for his overblown ones, but it took her a moment to kill the impulse. Unfortunately, she had very little practice handling unpleasant feelings at their full size, having only recently begun, in earnest, her endeavor to suck less. They ballooned the instant she didn’t switch them off, until there was no more room, actually, for common sense or logic. The clicking intensified.

She rubbed his back somewhat awkwardly; she loved him, but she didn’t want to be comforting him right now. She wasn’t sure she’d been properly comforted… what did she do to so consistently invite people to decenter her? Weren’t they talking about her panic attack? How’d they so immediately ended up here- with her worrying about someone else’s feelings (his) instead of her own yet again. He’d just claimed it as a serious issue- serious enough that she may want to abandon her entire life to address it, and then, what, set about proving himself right? And of course he was right, she was worried and couldn’t even remember how she’d been feeling before this moment.

“I thought so,” she answered hesitantly. Honestly! But what did she know; she didn’t have to be lying to be wrong, she’d been wrong a million times in a million ways and, truthfully, only rarely right. She didn’t really understand where all of this was coming from, but it was a familiar kind of confusing at least. “Do you… need me to go away.” She almost wasn’t asking; she felt like she’d landed on something true. Of course there should finally be evidence that she was too much for him, wasn’t that a universal truth? She was Difficult. So she’d heard. She almost wished she could take back telling him, about any of it. It’d been easier to deal with his frustration over her opaqueness than whatever this was. It was her fault for doubting her first impulse; she’d known he’d think of her differently eventually if she opened up, and here it was.

She was clearly overwhelming him, and she knew that he loved her (that was not the issue) but she also knew he needed to focus on work, not be popping up at random in her kitchen or dealing with her trauma in the middle of the day. She thought he might be so overwhelmed because he loved her so much- that was something she could grasp after having to hospitalize Eoin. …he might not have the bandwidth. To handle her unpacking her past, and parenting, and his Very Important job, and the stress and danger associated with said job. She… could allow herself to be outsourced. If that was what he really needed from her. “I’d rather not,” she added, more for herself than him; she needed to hear herself do anything other than immediately acquiesce. She was all out of sorts, but only the Briar of the present day felt safe openly disagreeing, so disagreeing was grounding. “But I don’t… want to make you feel like this, either. So.”

God, maybe he would waste the opportunity to time travel on not crying. He was crying in relief (Mostly. He thought. He was mostly sure) and so didn't need the awkward comforting that Briar was attempting. His fault. He knew she was too tense to be held close and he'd done it anyway. He took a deep breath and loosened his grip from clinging to holding and then, fuck- cried a little more when she said 'I thought so.' He sat back, his face leaving her shoulder and he sniffed. "Alright, me too," he said hoarsely. "I thought- it was good."

He kept his left arm around her back and brought his right to wipe the tears off his cheeks. He was about to apologize for his absurd suggestion, but before he could Briar was asking if he needed her to go away. He was literally shocked into stillness, which was the only way she was able to keep talking for two more sentences.

He shook his head vehemently out of his shock and dropped his right hand to hold her leg and looked her in the eyes. "No. NO. I don't need or want you to go away. I'm sorry, I was just- desperate to protect you from your triggers and stupidly saying the first thing that came into my mind. Can't keep getting hurt if there's nothing around to hurt you, right? I knew it was stupid almost immediately."

"You're not making me feel- the crying was just- I felt the same way, Briar, the very same. That things were finally getting good, yeah?" He squeezed her leg. "And it was a relief to hear you thought so. I'm just- I was afraid. After this morning...that I wasn't seeing things how you were.

"And I know I don't- I don't often know how you're seeing things. But I would like to. And I'm thankful you're telling me. And I'm sorry I interrupted that with intense relief that had to be cried out of me. It was just good to hear that I was seeing that the same way you were."

”Oh,” she repeated, relief softening her tension. She melted into him and buried her face in the crook of his neck. “Thank you for explaining.” It was easy to accept his words as true because he showed her all the time that she wasn’t too difficult for him. For other people, maybe, but not for Elliott. He had, yes, occasionally acted like an asshole, even to her, but that was entirely different from being one. Now that she’d given him a shred of context for why she was the way she was, he’d started approaching her behavior less aggressively. Naturally, like it was almost nothing to make adjustments. Hard to feel overly burdensome under those circumstances. She was a little embarrassed she’d needed the reassurance, but she also found herself craving it less intensely when she accepted needing a little. Which meant she’d been acting significantly less absurd lately, too. Part of the ‘getting good.’

“This morning was…” she thought about how to continue before straightening up again to look at him. “It’ll probably happen again, I’m processing…a lot. But it wasn’t because what we’re doing has me confused. I think it’s helping make things less confusing, if anything. I like… that it’s made me less nervous to talk to you.” Trust was complicated in the abstract, but it turned out to be something practicable. Kink had introduced a framework for discussion and as far as she could tell, they’d both been running with it… this conversation would have been impossible even a few months earlier. He couldn’t have trusted her to speak her mind; she couldn’t have trusted herself to know it. Agreeing to talk it out later and then actually talking it out later, reasonably calmly and with no massive, world-shattering misunderstandings wasn’t nothing.

“I wanted you to come back today,” she added, “I’m glad you did.” She’d noticed that earlier, during all that thinking time. She had often… not. Wanted him. It was too painful and too difficult to want comfort and not be able to explain why she needed it. Only now she could explain, so she hadn’t stopped Noah from texting Elliott; hadn’t even needed to have a full conversation there in the alley to be held back from the brink, it had been enough just to be held for a few seconds. “It was nice that my brain and my body wanted the same thing instead of fighting… it’s kind of stupid that it’s working, but it’s working. For me, anyway. Do you… need me to reassure you I'm having fun more often?” She wasn’t asking judgmentally or sarcastically, she was just trying to determine if there was something to fix. If she was vulnerable, he was maybe doubly so… he could be not-very-nice. In ways she welcomed and enjoyed! But still, that was a different kind of mindfuck than she was experiencing, and maybe all of this could have been avoided if she’d been more reassuring. “Or in a different way?”

He tried not to let it feel like a gut punch when she said this morning would probably happen again. He'd already thought so himself! He'd already been trying to think about what to do next time ... Not how to prevent it, even (because he'd accepted that it was just going to happen sometimes regardless), but how to get through to the other side.

He was confused, for a moment, about what she'd meant when she said 'what we're doing.' Not for long; this morning had ultimately been about sex and so if she was talking about this morning.... She meant 'what we're doing in bed.' He was climbing through his own emotional wreckage about that still, but he could see through the rubble now a bit, he thought. She was sitting in his lap and telling him she didn't want to go away and that their life had been getting good.

This morning he'd thought she'd been pretty clear that she thought he was a disgusting creep.... So he'd kinda spent the rest of his day internalizing that. But she was telling and showing him now that, no, she didn't actually believe that. That her reaction had been mostly based on her trauma. If she still thought things we're good ... Then she didn't think he was despicable in a way that reached back and colored all his past actions, too. Hence, the crying. It WAS a huge relief that her opinion of him was largely unchanged. He'd begun to believe he deserved the judgement.... he didn't especially want to defend himself because his apology was sincere and he did believe he'd overstepped and he didn't want to detract from that ... But he did think Noah had GREATLY embellished.

He hadn't said anything to him about wanting to watch him fuck Briar, and he'd been too caught up with Briar asking if she wasn't doing enough to correct her about NOT ACTUALLY ASKING NOAH TO FUCK HER WHILE HE WATCHED. He'd only taunted Noah that he'd be thinking about fucking her now that he'd kind of been forced to think about it from receiving too many details! Nevermind that Elliott did want to watch that, he hadn't said so. Maybe Noah extrapolated from his 'maybe I'll be late' into 'maybe I'll be late and catch you in the act?' But Elliott had never meant it as a REAL PROPOSAL, he'd just thought Noah would feel kinda shitty thinking about it BECAUSE that wasn't his dynamic with Briar at all! The creep they had been treating him like DID EXIST INSIDE HIM, SURE. But he would have never SERIOUSLY told Noah to fuck his wife while he watched WITHOUT A REAL DISCUSSION WITH HIS WIFE FIRST. And also: HE HADN'T. But they'd both treated him like he had sincerely made such a proposition.... When in actuality, he'd asked if Noah thought she'd let him touch her if she got too worked up. THAT'S IT. Didn't tell him to actually do it, absolutely didn't say he wanted to watch it.

He shook his head at her question. "No I ... No, I believed you whole heartedly until this morning. I just thought... you know how when you get new information about a person and then you see everything they've ever done in a different light? I was afraid that happened to you, about me..." it was admittedly happening to him, about Briar, but in a positive way! He understood her past actions better, now! But he'd thought she'd be looking back on his in a worse way.

"But Briar, I don't think ... Look, I don't want to call your friend a liar," especially because he knew himself to sometimes misinterpret what he heard. He didn't like Noah, but he also didn't think he was maliciously lying about him. "... but I don't think he told you what I actually said to him. In the alley you said he was worried I...wanted to watch him fuck you and that you thought I wanted you to sleep with him to prove something to me...

"I didn't- I didn't say that... He got to that worry all on his own. I was an ass to him, and I did sincerely mean my apology, but I didn't... I egged him on about having to think about you like that, absolutely.... Because I know he doesn't, generally! But you were kind of making him think about you in that context with explicit details....I did not actually proposition him. I asked if he thought you'd let him touch you if you got worked up enough. Because I knew it would make him uncomfortable to think about! And I know he's a horny fuck" because he walked in on him behaving like one! "and would probably think about it even though he didn't want to! And then I pretty much immediately texted you and told on myself in a way I thought would tease you.... But he told you something different to what I'd said, so texts that I thought you'd find hot probably looked different in the new context... so after the alley I unsent them before you could read them and think even worse things about me."

He took his hand off her leg and brought it up to cup her face. "I was careless, but I was not carelessly offering you to another man. It's important to me that you know I'd never just put something like that on you out of the blue."

She nodded, because she did understand, but then switched to shaking her head. That wasn’t it at all; she didn’t know that he’d been nervous she was thinking of him differently… she thought she was alone in that worry. Who knew talking could be so fruitful- she was learning a lot from his explanations. She didn’t have a chance to interject before he kept going, but she also didn’t try to. She could wait.

She thumbed the collar of his shirt thoughtfully, letting these new details fill in the gaps she’d been left wondering about all day. His hand on her face brought her gaze back to his and her attention to the fact that she was blushing furiously. “I do know that,” she promised, leaning into his palm. …she’d still sort of needed to hear him say it explicitly. For the illogical part of her brain, which would inevitably take over again at some point.

“Noah knows that. I think you just… overshot the mark a little in your endeavor to make him uncomfortable and freaked him out instead. …and I don’t entirely understand, I guess, why you even wanted to make him uncomfortable? But I’m not… Alley Briar was having A Moment. The panic’s worn off. And the panic wasn’t about you, or that you were possibly trying to pass me off without my consent. It was… the opposite, I think, of the thing you were worried about- it wasn’t that my mental image of you had suddenly shifted… I know it was all just a big misunderstanding, and I knew that even before you just said so. That’s… why I still wanted you to come back; even in the middle of panicking, the idea of you felt safe and I knew seeing you would be grounding. I’m glad you unsent the texts whatever they were, I definitely wasn’t in a position to read them without it making things worse… but only because I felt temporarily severed from reality. I don’t… know if that makes sense. I wasn’t seeing you through a different light… I felt disoriented because it didn’t seem like you at all. And I think… my nervous system has just been primed to read disorientation as a threat because it’s been used against me intentionally in the past. I wasn’t really preoccupied with the particulars, there was zero high-level thought happening in the moment… but I am glad you clarified anyway.”

She paused finally, but only to think about how to ask a question. “You know I wouldn’t have, right? …let him touch me, I mean.” She recognized that this was somewhat loaded. Because she had, hadn’t she? She’d cheated on Kevin with barely a second thought. Which obviously… Elliott knew, having been the other party. Noah would never, his own moral code was rigid if unorthodox: relationship status was no issue, but knowledge of affair was. But if he HAD tried to touch her, because clearly Elliott thought he was the type of man who would at least be tempted to… did Elliott also think, on some subconscious level, that she would invite it? …it was CONCEPTUALLY hot, but when had that ever persuaded her to action?

Or maybe no, maybe Subconscious Elliott wanted to provoke her, not actually have her follow through. …he had qualified his statement; not ‘I’d never ask you to do that,’ but ‘not out of the blue.’ Maybe they just… needed to talk about it. “I’m yours,” she clarified seriously, taking his chin to kiss him sweetly, “I’ve never been anyone else’s,” another kiss, “I’ve thought of you with every other man I’ve been with and if you wanted to share me, that wouldn’t change. But…do you? Want to?” She hoped she didn’t sound nervous about his answer. She didn’t feel nervous, but her heart was pounding in her ears regardless. Vulnerable, she reminded herself, this was what it felt like to be vulnerable. Because she had also decidedly not shut it down. Conceptual hotness was maybe onto something, but she wasn’t all the way sure yet.

She'd let him talk without interruption, so it was only easy to let her, too. Especially since they were looking at each other while she spoke.

He loved looking at her. Watching her. The way she leaned against his hand. The shapes her lips made as they formed words. Her irises complementing the color scheme she'd chosen for the room. How she moved her fingers against his shirt. Her blushing cheeks.

He traced his thumb across the sudden bloom of color and smiled. He didn't really know why she was blushing, but he loved how she looked when she did. He loved all the ways he could bring color to her skin. He loved all the ways she was.

He wanted to answer every question she asked, but she didn't leave room for him to. Perhaps she wanted to make sure she got out everything she needed to say first. He could remember and answer when she was ready to let him talk. Explaining was going extremely well; he wanted to keep it going. He wanted to tell her anything she wanted to know. If they were able to resolve conflicts and repair this quickly... It filled him with a hope that felt gravity defying. Things truly were getting good.

He sighed when she said I'm yours and angled in to kiss him. He knew she was. Beyond all doubt. But it was lovely to hear regardless. More than that: it lit him up inside. Their lips met and the heat spread, even though the kiss was sweet. He'd needed sweet. He pushed his hand back into her hair and was going to deepen the kiss, but she broke it before he could.

I've never been anyone else's. He knew that, too. He'd never consciously thought it, but it rang so true it practically reverberated through him. He wanted to tell her, but she kissed him again and that was right, too. He tightened his arm around her back and pulled her closer. He slid his hand further into her hair and she pulled away again "Briar," he breathed out in mild protest. What else did she have to say?!

I’ve thought of you with every other man I’ve been with- "Jesus," he interjected, instantly ferociously hard (extra surprising, because this afternoon he was sure he'd been berated and shamed out of the ability to get it up again for awhile... Nope, solved with one well communicated conversation). -and if you wanted to share me, that wouldn't change.. Could she read his mind?! Wasn't that exactly why he thought it was so hot?! Because he knew he liked watching her (had known that forever), knew he would like to watch her having sex (and she knew he wanted that, too; they had already talked about recording) but watching her with someone else was only hot because in the fantasy ... she'd only be thinking of him anyway. Doing it for him. Enjoying it for him.

Except it wasn't just a fantasy! She'd just confirmed: those were her thoughts in reality. But…do you? Want to?

"I don't think it could rightly be called sharing since you're so thoroughly mine," he said as he pulled back to look at her better. Flushed and full lipped. She didn't look hesitant or nervous. Just very recently kissed, which she was.

He smiled at her again. Somehow not at all afraid of answering her. "I have always been enchanted watching you do... Anything. Everything. Since that first night we were alone together in your room at Oxford... Filling up your yellow kettle, drumming your fingers over jars of tea with blue tape labels... Sitting on your desk and pushing your hair behind your ear. It took all my willpower to try not to stare and I'm sure I didn't succeed... I wouldn't remember everything you did so clearly if I'd been looking anywhere else.

"How can I look at anything else when you're around? Even when you're not around it's what I want to be doing, Briar, I," he cut himself off to laugh absurdly "- I fucking remade myself all over again, rebuilt my body from spare particles in your restaurant so I could watch the back of your head while you worked today." He shrugged like he was adding a non-verbal 'no big deal.' Though they both knew that wasn't true.

He cocked his head to the side and slid his hand around to hold her waist and considered her from a different angle. "So, maybe, you could understand now why I wanted to make Noah uncomfortable." He straightened his head back up and let out a huff. "His prime fucking directive is keeping me away from you! I was only watching you prep and he accosted me. Told me off for being there at all and scolded me for your very good mood.

"And he's always treating me like that! Like I'm not allowed to love you how I'd like to. It was just ... Today, I couldn't let it roll off my back. I didn't want to. I shouldn't generally HAVE to," he did say rather pointedly. However Noah was acting, Briar at the very least allowed it. Elliott had seen him 'yes, Chef' at her plenty- he did what he was told! 

He briefly glanced away and licked his lips, ready for talking about this part to be over....but absolutely willing to talk about whatever she needed to for as long as she needed. He'd beat this horse dead fifteen hundred times if he had to. "I really didn't think that hard about what I said to him- I was careless- I just, for once, thought if he was going to dish it out then he'd certainly be able to handle having it thrown back at him." Not his best move, but he couldn't undo it.

"That's all that was. I didn't think he'd actually want to touch you after being asked the way I did, and I certainly didn't imagine you'd let him..." and then, with a bit of cheek, he added, "... in this scenario." He blushed and squeezed her side.

"I don't think you'd cheat with Noah.  Even years ago when I was sort of afraid you might because you had with me it seemed.... Ultimately like an irrational fear. One I did carry around for a while," he admitted. "But not anymore."

And then he took a deep breath and answered her final question. "...But... I do imagine you letting him touch you... if I asked you to. While I watched.

"Would you... like that?" He paused to finally let her have a turn to speak again.

It did have a different effect to hear him say it- that she was his. She knew she was, she’d just reminded him herself! But she’d felt sweet saying ‘yours;’ ‘mine’ was… hot. In a complicated way that had quickly become familiar. She’d been about to start chewing her lower lip when a smirk tugged at them- the only kind of smirk Briar’s face knew how to muster: a self-satisfied one. Her hand fell from his chin to his chest and she hummed in agreement, pleased he’d understood. It was suddenly very like she’d drunk a hot cup of tea; she was revitalized and soothed. And warm. Although tea’d never turned her on, which she decidedly was. Turned on. Part of the warmth was definitely not emotional; she hadn’t seemed to be able to get enough lately. But she could focus! Long enough to finish the conversation, surely… she was civilized.

He made it easier by immediately being very sweet himself, and she laughed softly, remembering easily because she was always thinking about that night. It’d felt magical. Of course there was no magic yet as far as she’d known, but she could distinctly remember feeling like she needed to log every detail in her memory, right then as it was happening. She liked knowing it was just as clear in his mind’s eye. As long as they both remembered, they’d always be there, on the window bench. They couldn’t stay… but they could revisit the feeling of it. This, she realized, was why she hadn’t been panicking all day: it finally felt like they could handle a bump in the road without falling off of it altogether.

Her eyes went to his shoulder as he shrugged. It was a big deal, obviously, but she always enjoyed when he acted like something wasn’t. For him. It gave the stupid part of her brain plenty of evidence that he was capable, when she needed it. And it was fun to think about how powerful he was… all that power that she knew he’d never use to hurt her. Most things that were hot to Briar were so because of layers. Sex was never just about sex, especially not with Elliott (and in particular since it’d gotten good). Everything was everything! She was a professional sensualist- all delicious experiences bled together.

She looked back up at him when she caught the motion of his head tilting, understanding he wanted her attention. She never really knew when she was reading more into his choices than he meant, but did it matter? Ultimately? She was focused on what he was saying again instead of just his lips moving. Because she wanted to be good. …that was really all she’d ever wanted. So… no. It didn’t ultimately matter, whether he’d meant to subtly direct her gaze back to his or hadn’t been doing anything but turning his head. Once again, and always, it only mattered that he was Elliott: a man who’d never minded that she tended to run away with the narrative, and indeed kept coming back for more.

Her blushing renewed at the pointed remark, but she didn’t look away, just nodded. It was only embarrassing because he was right- he shouldn’t be treated like an asshole, generally, even if he’d earned it a little today. And in the past. Which… was what made things a little tricky. Elliott and Noah didn’t have a window-seat. They had… half a decade’s worth of barely tolerant interactions. So Noah had perhaps been… a little slow to adjust. To her not… using Elliott as some kind of personalized self-torture machine. A period during which he HAD, frankly, been an ass- abandoning her because she hadn’t reacted properly to his proposal, steamrolling every step of the wedding planning, letting her pick pointless fights and digging himself into them because he could always win. Not without her significant negative input, but still. It was hard to blame Noah for working with outdated information, or Elliott for bristling against an unnecessarily chilly reception; they didn’t have any kind of shared history, there were only so many times two virtual strangers could circle each other. Truthfully… considering Noah’s propensity for minor violence, it was a small miracle things hadn’t gotten physical. That was how much he loved her: more than punching a politician in the nose, which was a lifelong dream.

Elliott was right, and she knew he could tell she knew; that was the important thing. She hoped he trusted her to sort it out on her own. She liked the way he loved her now that she was letting him without so many restrictions and hangups- she could make Noah get it now that she knew her first method (details) had failed. She nodded again, accepting that he hadn’t been thinking much of anything in the moment… that was usually when he was his stupidest, yes.

It wasn’t a surprise to hear that he’d been worried at one point… not exactly a surprise anyway. It was like a phantom pain to a part of her that didn’t exist anymore. It hurt in an unexpected way- no less real for reaching into the past to tap the severed limb. Just less… pressing. Less urgent. She didn’t need to wallow or repent, because the version of her that Elliott could’ve imagined being unfaithful was gone. They both knew she was his now.

So she let herself imagine it for the first time. Noah’s hands on her. Elliott watching. Her pupils were so enormous the lights on the Christmas tree had turned into hundred of tiny halos. “I-“ she had to swallow hard before continuing- not from nerves, but over a sudden surge of neediness. It had very little to do with Noah though- “-like it when you watch me. Do anything. It makes me feel…” but she trailed off, because there was no way to do the feeling justice with words. Not even a poet could, and she was definitely not one. “Precious,” she settled. Safe and cherished and guarded and adored. And and and. More than enough layers to be hot. “And I like doing what you ask,” she added, the smirk making a rare repeat appearance as the memory reel of evidence started rolling.

She gave his shirt a gentle tug so he’d lower his face for a kiss. “So yes, I think I’d like that.” She kissed him again, then laughed lightly, remembering a few facts of reality. “In the new year… after an appropriate cooling-off period has elapsed.” Because she also liked Elliott’s face and non-imprisoned status… either of which were potentially in jeopardy in a brawl with Noah (whose fists weren’t exactly a match for magic). “And not until you two can talk without me intermediating- I wouldn’t… be relaxed. Otherwise.” Navigating triggers was a decidedly un-sexy kind of layered, but it was what it was; she couldn’t be worried about the two of them bickering or being passive aggressive on top of the rest. She wanted to enjoy herself! And she didn’t want anyone to get hurt… she wanted that significantly more than the first thing.

“…and as long as you don’t get confused about why I might like it… I’d like almost anything if you were into it. But it’s… different than doing it for you, it’s not… self-sacrificial, I’m getting plenty out of it. To the point that it almost feels selfish to do things I think might please you… because it feels… like… profoundly good,” she laughed again- words were STUPID and not-enough, “Even just to think about what might make you feel good. Not… I guess maybe the feeling itself might be sort of sexual, but I don’t mean only during sex. All the time.” That mindset shift- towards centering his pleasure, had unlocked something for her. A peaceful, easy way to love. She didn’t have to waste brainpower on anxiety about making decisions or knowing what she wanted; there was time and opportunity to decipher her own needs while contemplating his… it took some pressure off, internally, and that had turned out to be the thing she most needed.