[FIN] sad friends (moms & jeremiah)

[azuredreams]

This time there was no present aside from a bottle of wine (and that was not so much a present as he always brought them a bottle whenever Nando and Ashley sent them care packages from Italy) as Jeremiah knocked on the door.

He was due, after all, to check in on a certain couple and their newest members.

Jeremiah's face was carefully neutral, not so unusual, but there was a subtle stiffness to him that probably gave him away to anyone who truly knew him.

0ibarium

sad friend times GO

 

[cibarium]

"Hi, Jer!"

Leila answered the door. She kept a respectful distance this time. This was the third time she'd opened the door of the new house for him, and third time was the charm, right? No fetches, no unwarranted hugs, no -- ********, he had the look about him, and she hadn't noticed in time to dial back her tone. "You know where the seats are, I'll go get some glasses out."

Julian and Lady were out, probably seeing a movie again or bumming around town with Thorne. Eve was at her now-usual spot with Clover on one of the sofas, a bowl of popcorn forgotten on the coffee table (nothing she liked worked with the were teeth) and an X-files episode of all things running on the TV. She was more than happy to pause it and offer Jeremiah a hand squeeze in greeting.

"Nice for you to drop by. You'll be better company than Mulder," she said, waving dismissively towards the screen. "How many glasses until you're ready to bring up what's on your mind?"

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Thanks." Jeremiah just gave Leila a grateful incline of his head, bringing the bottle with him while she went to get the glasses. Before he settled into his usual spot, he stopped at Eve to return that squeeze of hand and to press his familiar greeting of a kiss to her cheek.

His lips twitched briefly when he realized it was X-Files, mind drifting to that time they marathoned Buffy. That had been before things had actually started imitating the shows they had watched.

"Ah-" Blue-green eyes blinked at being caught but it was Eve and it was Leila and they had, more so than others, known him. "Probably not many? Though Mulder may be better company if I talk about it."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Eve sighed exaggeratedly. "Perhaps you have forgotten, Jeremiah, exactly how unbearable Mulder can be," she replied, giving him a serious look that was just barely sincere. Because Mulder is terrible.

"I don't know how you put up with him, wife," Leila called from the kitchen while shutting the cupboards. "Mulder's terrible. Do you want hummus?"

"With red wine?" Eve made a face. Jeremiah was probably making the exact same face.

"Fine, no hummus."

azuredreams

domestic banter for jer ;D

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah definitely made the same face and then smiled a little because the banter was comforting and familiar.

"I don't know," he finally replied, "I could probably give Mulder a run for his money right now with the newest levels of wallowing I've reached." Jeremiah rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the stiffness and ache but it stayed regardless.

"I could also ask what has the two of you slipping into watching X-Files of all things." There had been a joke on the tip of his tongue about just why Eve put up with him but it had gotten lost and that truly was just another sign that he was out of sorts.

Jeremiah never passed up a chance for banter about how Eve and himself were going to possibly run off one day. (Except they weren't and that was why it was humorous.)

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"Mulder doesn't wallow," Leila argued while setting glasses on the coffee table. "He whines. God, he's worse than Riker. Seriously though, why are we watching this again?"

Eve shrugged. She had no idea.

"I think it's the 'running off recklessly into danger' part you two have in common, though."

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Alg actually found that one scene where Mulder jumps onto the train while on the phone with Scully and sent it to me the other day." On the topic of running off recklessly. At least he did not whine about what he bad brought down upon his own head.

"Oh ... Since you've got the glasses now ..." The wine was set down on the table and his fingers pressed to it. A noticeable bit of frost spread across it, Jeremiah chilling the wine before he was dealing with the cork and pouring glasses for them.

"I'm not sure if you're aware but ... Heliodora has passed as well." It wasn't where he really wanted to start but it was easiest.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

That news led to a few moments of tense silence.

"That's three for three, isn't it?" Leila observed. It was a terribly insensitive way to put it, but it was the kind of professionally insensitive she got during an investigation.

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah wasn't bothered at all. If anything, it was more appreciated than anything else. A glass was held out to Eve and then one passed to Leila, the wine appropriately chilled.

"It is," he answered, staring at the wine a moment before he had a drink (but never before one of the wives did so). "Which meant my deal with Sunny was, is officially broken."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"And you're still alive," Eve observed. "What did she do, then? Are you alright?"

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"Aside from her hand in my chest and around my heart for a few moments ..." Jeremiah was surprisingly nonchalant about it but the line of his shoulders said otherwise.

"She decided it wasn't the heart in my chest that she wanted." Which, of all people, he knew they would understand that. Sometimes your heart was another person. He glanced over to Eve for a moment before he was leaning to set the glass down on the table. Jeremiah picked himself up and seated himself on the floor, in front of the couch Eve was on, and leaned against her leg.

It was old and familiar even if it had been a while since Jeremiah had been in a mood like this.

"She made me choose," he said quietly, "who it was and ..." A ragged breath escaped. "It's Zac," the words just roll out, "I cannot see him or touch him or hear him."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

It had been entirely too long since the last time Eve had seen this side of her friend, and so it didn't take more than half the story for her to understand something terrible had happened. No wonder he'd started with news related to his investigation. He needed the bridge.

"That's cruel," she declared, setting a hand down to rest on Jeremiah's shoulder. "You don't deserve this, dear. I hope you can believe that."

Meanwhile, Leila sat in silence next to her wife, the fingers of both hands wrapped around her wine glass like she was ill and it was a warm cup of soup. She could barely turn her head to look at them, let alone speak. Jeremiah seated on the floor just a few feet away was a strange sight. It wasn't simply because of how unused she was to seeing any kind of vulnerability from him, either.

It was because it was familiar.

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah turned and pressed his face against Eve's leg, hiding it a moment before he let out a breath and nodded when he heard Eve's words. As he lifted his eyes to look at her, to truly confirm, he caught sight of Leila.

It had him pausing for a moment, not entirely sure what was causing her to look as she did. Blue-green eyes cut to Eve and he finally spoke once more. "I don't but it somehow makes the ... failure all the more poignant." As now he was also failing as a father to Zac. There was nothing to be done, not that he had found. "He came by the house not that long ago and I couldn't even tell he was there. Zac was trying to speak with me, to get comfort, and-"

He shook his head, the words dying in his throat. Jeremiah reached for his drink once more.

"What is worse, I think, is that ... she's done this before." That Sunny had that level of cruelty in her to not only do it to him but someone else.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"Not to you, I hope," Eve guessed. She had no way of knowing, especially since she didn't know Sunny very well at all.

Leila sipped at her wine a bit but stayed quiet. Clover gave a melodramatic sleepy sigh, straight into the back of Jeremiah's neck.

azuredreams

 

[azuredreams]

"No, not me," he replied, a brief smile tugging as Clover snuffled at his neck. A hand raised up and scratched at her ears briefly before he leaned his head on the back of the couch to look at Eve.

His eyes flicked between both of them, lingering on Leila a moment before he went back to Eve. "It's Ezra; she said she had done this before to Ezra and his mother." Jeremiah looked away for a moment, his thumb twisting the bone ring on his pinky. "... which explains another thing I learned about him at the ball.

"That he is in constant pain," which was a given, "but longs for his mother's touch."

cibarium