[OPEN] Moving

[graveling]

Who: Angel and Y'all
What: Moving Day and the Surrounding
When: Early December
Where: Yeah!
Warning(s):

1. So take your shaking bones
Eddie leaves on the ferry on a cold misty autumn morning, and Angel spends longer waiting for him to return to the farmhouse than it'll admit to afterwards, keeping a kettle warm on the stove for afternoon tea until the water's all boiled away and it's clear that how many lumps Eddie takes in a cup is irrelevant now, irrelevant ever again and Angel still doesn't want to admit it until it has to.

It has to.

And taking care of the farm, the bees and the temple all by itself just isn't going to be possible, it's not, even if its heart was hale and whole and beating in sync with Eddie's still, so something has to give.

Something has to.

Angel decides that it is going to move.

There are appointments with town hall to discuss possible new houses and apartments and townhouses (not homes, yet), and discussions of its beehives being transported into town, and paperwork to be filled out in a heavy, stiff, blocky hand as it figures out the work of transition, hoping that living in the city will be a replacement for the bustle of clucking hens and the nagging goat and it's going to need to get a stable situation set up for Arcadia, if the horse will forgive the relocation.

Angel is alone.

This is not work to be doing alone.

And that's before we get to the process of packing, of sorting through the debris of a life and a love and the twinge that reminds it that it can't cry every time it comes across a favored book or a shirt that still smells like Eddie, and that twinge is deeply painful enough to make it stop moving for seconds, perhaps minutes before it finds something to push it past inertia, even as it feels like some vital spark inside it is guttering and dimming.

This is not work to be doing alone.


2. And step out on your own
A sign on the bulletin board:

HELP WANTED MOVING. STANDARD PAY OFFERED: PIZZA AFTER WORK COMPLETE


3. Oh, the winter never stops
[This is your wildcard. It was meant for you.]

Comments

[graveling]

Angel takes the offered hand, his grip oddly cold. Like a corpse!

"I'm Angel. I priest at the temple." That's allowed to be a verb, right? He doesn't care if it's not.

[not_a_traitor]

It can be now! Gaeta won't object. He frowns slightly at the cold, but doesn't comment; just gives Angel's hand a firm, professional shake before withdrawing.

"Pleasure to meet you officially, then." With slight embarrassment, "I -- don't get out that way very often, but I've passed by. A friend of mine works there too."

Onward to the kitchen. He grabs an empty box and a few old newspapers en route.

[graveling]

"Degas or Mulcahy? Both could use more visits from friends. Both get lonely."

As if Angel doesn't. As if it won't, now that it's going to be living alone.

[not_a_traitor]

"Mulcahy," he says, and there's a brief smile to go with it: small, but unmistakably fond. As he opens the cabinets and sweeps an assessing eye of them to decide what needs packing up first, "And yeah, I do my best to check in on him. He's good company."

The type of company Gaeta needs more often than not. Quiet, thoughtful. Free of judgement. The sort where even if all you do is sit shoulder to shoulder with your tea, the simple presence is enough.

[graveling]

"Good. I'm glad. Thank you for helping him." His tone of voice is soft and fond. Clearly he worries about Mulcahy often enough that this is a genuine relief to hear.

[not_a_traitor]

"Of course." Quiet, and simple, like it's a given that Gaeta would help Mulcahy however he can.

(It is.)

"He's a friend of yours, too? Outside of work, I mean."

[graveling]

Angel hesitates rather than answering immediately, at least partly for a mild grapple with words.

"He's important to me." It's complicated, and his tone of voice indicates that. It's hushed and serious and honest. It's not like he's being vague to conceal some more direct truth, it's just...there aren't easy words for what is.

[not_a_traitor]

He feels the weight behind those words as if they were another dish in his hands, waiting to be bundled up. Gaeta glances up from his work. A slew of calculations rush through his mind, but they don't settle on anything definite. (Do they even need to? What's the point?)

"I'm glad," he says at last, not much louder. "He needs more people like that."

[graveling]

"He does. Does he know how much you're worrying about him?" That's approval, not admonishment, backing the question. But it is a question, because it has to be. Because he isn't sure that Mulcahy lives in the certainty of how much he is loved.

[not_a_traitor]

The sound of that approval gets a quiet, wry laugh out of him. "He does, believe me," he says as he bundles up a few more plates for the box. "Half the time we talk, I'm worried I'm fussing too much."

[graveling]

"Fussing is a sign of love." Angel gives a wry little nod.

[not_a_traitor]

Love. Angel might as well have kicked Gaeta's prosthetic leg out from under him, with how that one word throws him off balance. He stops midway through crumpling up a sheet of newsprint, staring down at the half-filled box for too long.

Is that what it is with Mulcahy? It can't be. Can it? There are too many days where all it feels like is a collection of selfish impulses -- offering kindness in the hope someone will return it, support so he has an excuse to hold himself together. Like it's all a great trick he's managed to pull off that'll come crumbling down any second. If it were love, then Gaeta wouldn't have thoughts like that, would he?

This is really not the sort of minor crisis he needs to be having in a stranger's house. Slowly, he resumes crumpling the paper. His throat feels as dry as the newsprint when he swallows.

"So, um." He selects another plate. "How far are you moving, from here?"

[graveling]

"Into town, near the temple. Less of a commute, and I can't keep this place going all on my own."

Angel definitely noticed Gaeta's reaction to the one word, but he's polite enough to look away and find something else to busy himself, even as he shows his own heartwound; this was a home, once, not just a house to be packed up and abandoned.

[not_a_traitor]

That earns another pause, albeit much shorter than the last.

A little quieter, and gentler, "You weren't alone before?"

[graveling]

"Eddie lived with me. He took the ferry home, though. So now I am alone."

The lack of tone behind those words is worse than audible grief might be. It's like he's reciting a story that happened to someone else, not his own heartbreak.

[not_a_traitor]

"Ah, frak."

It's more exhale than word. He lets his forearms rest on the top edge of the box, all his attention on Angel. "I'm sorry. That's..." He debates whether or not to say the rest, then forges on. "It's always felt exceptionally cruel, that people can still vanish like that even though we can't die for good."

[graveling]

"I know he wouldn't have left without a reason. I don't begrudge him for having reasons." Angel shakes his head. "But I'm going to miss him. A lot."

[not_a_traitor]

"Of course," he murmurs. With a sigh, he lets his gaze drift around the kitchen for a moment before it resettles on Angel. "Is this the first time you've lost someone like this?"

He doesn't want to presume. But, well. If there's one thing Gaeta knows too well for his own good, it's loss.

[graveling]

"Yeah, it was. It was also my first time having anyone."

[not_a_traitor]

He sighs out another tired curse. This frakking place. Over and over again, the illusion of a soft landing, followed by the vicious reminder that for all its trappings, Marrow Isle is anything but.

"No one should have to go through that simultaneously." Gaeta rubs a hand over his face. "I... don't think it gets easier, exactly. Or smaller. People say it does, but they're lying. It just gets layers of sediment washed over it so it's less immediately noticeable."