"I'm fine," he parrots, though there's no acid behind his words. He knows the Hargreeves family mantra better than anyone. Fine means anything but. Yet he doesn't press, instead he returns to his coffee, drinking deeply from the mug with a satisfied sigh.
The motel room feels like a blur, feels like it was nigh a decade ago, with Hazel and Chacha standing over him, beating him senseless. But a pang of guilt courses through him when Diego mentions Patch. The woman is the only reason he's still alive, really, and it had been his fault, however indirectly, that she had died. The whirlwind that followed the motel attack has made details of that day foggy, but he definitely remembers her.
He idly wonders if he could conjure her, but the thought makes his stomach twist sickly. That's for another day, another time, when the world isn't on the brink of ending the wounds aren't so fresh.
"Don't threaten me with a good time," he wiggles his eyebrows when Diego speaks of the burger, an idea so far beyond the moment they're in, that he all but laughs. It's the question about California that surprises him, eyebrows raising, surprised. "What? Oh." He looks up in thought, wiggling fingers as he tries to count. "Shit, I don't know. Claire's about to turn seven, so anywhere from six to seven, yeah. Turns out Allison had people keeping an eye on me. One nasty hospital trip and a hotel stay later and she whisked me off to California."
Now that feels like decades ago, a life that seems so distant and surreal now. Who was the mess of a man back then, that everyone expected to waltz through the door? A man afraid of himself, afraid of the world, unable to find a place in it without the numbing effects of drugs and alcohol. "Saved my life, probably. Hard to say. I'm a little too stubborn to die fruitlessly. Whatever would the world do without my greatness?" He laughs, nose wrinkling, the sound deflating into a sigh. "Time passes so quickly, doesn't it?"
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The motel room feels like a blur, feels like it was nigh a decade ago, with Hazel and Chacha standing over him, beating him senseless. But a pang of guilt courses through him when Diego mentions Patch. The woman is the only reason he's still alive, really, and it had been his fault, however indirectly, that she had died. The whirlwind that followed the motel attack has made details of that day foggy, but he definitely remembers her.
He idly wonders if he could conjure her, but the thought makes his stomach twist sickly. That's for another day, another time, when the world isn't on the brink of ending the wounds aren't so fresh.
"Don't threaten me with a good time," he wiggles his eyebrows when Diego speaks of the burger, an idea so far beyond the moment they're in, that he all but laughs. It's the question about California that surprises him, eyebrows raising, surprised. "What? Oh." He looks up in thought, wiggling fingers as he tries to count. "Shit, I don't know. Claire's about to turn seven, so anywhere from six to seven, yeah. Turns out Allison had people keeping an eye on me. One nasty hospital trip and a hotel stay later and she whisked me off to California."
Now that feels like decades ago, a life that seems so distant and surreal now. Who was the mess of a man back then, that everyone expected to waltz through the door? A man afraid of himself, afraid of the world, unable to find a place in it without the numbing effects of drugs and alcohol. "Saved my life, probably. Hard to say. I'm a little too stubborn to die fruitlessly. Whatever would the world do without my greatness?" He laughs, nose wrinkling, the sound deflating into a sigh. "Time passes so quickly, doesn't it?"