occultigen | IC Inbox

[He nods again. Yes, yes, yes: Yes, he understands just how "normal" just means "unquestioned;" yes, he wants to get married; yes, yes, yes, nothing could lessen the love between them--the love they are. If nothing else, that will always be a surety.]

Yeah. For me...

[The thought's still taking shape, and he pauses for a moment, tracing the shape of her cheek for a moment like it might lead him to the conclusion he's looking for. Somewhen, they became each other's maps, these two. He lifts a hand to tuck a curl bend her ear.]

Marriage didn't even seem like a real thing I could do, growing up.

[In some ways, growing up didn't seem like a thing he could do, growing up. Sure, maybe he'd get older--maybe he'd get bigger, stronger, smarter, find a way to stand his own ground--but why should anything ever have to change the way he and Bro lived? It was the way things always had been, before SBURB.

After SBURB, for some reason, the whole concept seemed ridiculous. Having a future, that is.]

When--when we do, it'll be... It feels like I'll be putting that all behind me, forever. Really... really stepping forward into the life I want to live with you.

[Live, she ordered him, like she somehow understood he wouldn't know how on his own. Because she did; because she knew, and knows, how hard it is, still, to trust that the steady chain of tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow won't suddenly snap on them.]

If that's what being married is, then I feel weird about doing it here, when... when I want forever to really mean forever. Especially a forever with you.

I see, yes. As though...we're burying the past, in a fashion.

[She's clearly tentative about how she phrases this, having arrived at a thought but not entirely sure whether she wants to voice it, and if she does, in what way.]

Isn't it? Setting aside the old Dave and the old Meridiana...and here, like this, we still are the old Dave and the old Meridiana, a bit. Aren't we?

[She hesitates.]

Not because being married will make it easier to sleep on Thursday nights or...or make either of us stop jumping at knives and washing machines and staircases. But this isn't home. And — it should be both. Home where you are, and home where we're both going to stay, together. And this isn't that, not yet.

Yeah.

[Marriage is a gesture, but there's a magic about it, too; a promise embodied in words, rings, and a kiss. If they get married here, and then forget... that's the thought that scares him. Not because the gesture would be meaningless or even the time, but because he doesn't want to forget something that big.

And still, he remembers Rosalind's words. 'That's all providing a secure and stable future truly requires: knowing that the other person is there for you, no matter what.']

But. It could be, eventually. Because...

[He loosens his grip and lets his hands fall, but only until they can meet hers.]

Anywhere you are. That's my home.

And whatever place we pick to put down our roots...even if we do it a hundred different times, it's still always home, because it's where we are together.

[And there's something to that notion, perhaps — the way that, in some fashion, they're refugees of their own circumstances, Dave from his destroyed universe and she herself slipped out of time. For them there is no deliberation between "mine" and "yours", the merits of one or another, because all of their attachment to either is dead and gone, and so the only thing that's left is what they choose to adopt for themselves.

This could be home, if they wanted it to be. Impermanent, fleeting — but it could still be home. Kalos became home in the same way, by their mutual decision and their conjoined investment.

Anyplace could be home, she muses, and there's something about that notion that warms her. Where once the thought of drifting unattached to a native locale might once have terrified her, now she finds a freedom in knowing that home can be anywhere for the both of them, so long as it is the both of them.

She tips her chin up, radiating that warmth at him in a smile.]

Perhaps we ought to start telling people who ask — we'll be married when it's in the cards that it's time.

[She winks, amused by her own little invocation of their two respective bailiwicks.]

That's really what it is, isn't it? When you know and when I know, and not a moment before.

[He responds to that smile before he even knows what it is he's responding to, before the words have time to permeate. It grounds his feet, gently presses the tension out of his shoulders, loosens the muscles around his eyes. Before he knows it, he's smiling, too, at first wondering like a child, and then bright and delighted and irrepressible.]

Yes.

[Yes to all of it. Yes to her. Biting his smile a little, eyes crinkling behind his sunglasses, he lifts her hands up to hide his face behind them, peeking at her over her ring.]

Christ, Meridiana, I love you... [So much, he could eat a dictionary and never have the words. He ducks behind her hands completely, then kisses her fingers, lets go so he can brush her hair back again and kiss her forehead.] I love you.

[He touches his forehead to hers a moment, lets the understanding between them settle and grow roots all around, keep them safe. When he feels it, he kisses her softly, gratefully.

Whatever--wherever--they build, it'll take something of him and something of her. Covalent bonds: that's something in science, isn't it?

'Besides, it needn't be a waltz just like I remember. One that's half mine and half yours would suit just as well...don't you think?'

'Well. Maybe three fourths yours and a quarter mine till we establish I know what I'm doing a little.'

He keeps smiling, feeling right--in place, safe, loved--all the way down to his toes.]

If you wanted to get married this literal second I probably wouldn't say no.

We've not yet buried the past yet.

[And maybe they won't, not for a long time. Maybe they won't do it here. Maybe they won't do it consciously, or by any sort of design. But one way or another, they'll lay the past to rest, and there'll be a future waiting when they do; that's something they can both believe in.

And so she leans up softly, kissing him, and murmurs like a secret against his mouth: ]

But say "I do", anyway, just for me. Because I do, too.

[He breathes in her words and lets out something between a sigh and a silent laugh. Something in his chest rolls over, like the sensation of a fall while knowing he's safe, safe, caught up by arms that love him.

In her same murmur, with the same earnest urgency, Dave says:]

I do.

[It rolls through him to say it, a shudder except good. He swallows, then smiles, wide and a little crooked because it's a smile he can't help.]

"Happily ever after." [He whispers it, moves down so his eyelashes brush against her cheek and he can nuzzle her jaw.] Where doing this, man.

Mmhmm. Just so...

[She doesn't open her eyes. She doesn't need to, not when it's so much better to feel him close and lean into the comfort of it and relish the sensation of her own smile starting to blossom on her own expression.]

Where making this "hapen".

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