#garrett x quim

[vhkingsink]

The hardwood floor offered questioning notes under Quim's feet, echoed by the quiet treble of his whistling. Garrett manages to loosen his shoulders somewhat. His arms are terribly heavy even as he holds out a hand to Quim. The moment their fingers touch, he feels a trickle of comfort flow into the undercurrent of his being. 

"Did I spoil the night for you too?" Quim asks quietly. "Or is there some other lover keeping your thoughts?" 

Garrett has been breathing, but the slight chuckle still feels dry and cracked. Quim doesn't have to sense his worry. Garrett's voice is not trembling when he speaks, but it is strained.

"To think, how I used to hope for this day, not having a clue what magic was."

"Speak to me," Quim says quietly, lacing their fingers together. "Tell me of it." 

Quim guessed he had an idea what Garrett was talking about. Maybe not the specifics, but Quim remembered their days as children, imagining what Sire Grey might do to protect others from the Emissary King's reach. It makes the corners of Quim's eyes burn.

"I had hoped he would die. It seemed...the kindest thing for him. My mother knew better though, and your mother knew she was right."

"Not with any certainty, but with unfortunate probability."

"Did she know, even then, that not even the Sire could stay my father's hand?" Garrett shook his head. "We met as two children at the birth of a war. And now two children will die to end it." 

The silence lasts only so long. Quim's lips purse, parsing an old dirge out of air thick with words they might never say to each other.

Garrett's shoulders rise with a weary inhale. He begins to hum in harmony, and the stinging fades from Quim's eyes. Instead the laughter lines fill, spill, and his lips tremble. 

"Fish-fish, now," Quim hushes with a small measure of self-reproach.

Quim shakes his head and pulls away. He stands behind the recliner that has held him on many long nights and puts his hands on Garrett's shoulders. He cannot hide the way his heart hurts for the man, but he also cannot let Garrett default to offering comfort. 

"You were still a child." Quim rested his forehead on the crown of Garrett's auburn hair. "And the safety you lost, the dangers you knew, all you left behind, were all too soon. I know you say you only carried the best parts forward, but you hurt too."

"What am I, but the sum of my hurt and hope?"

"What are we, indeed."