(no subject)

[river_meimei]

What's the best place to read somebody else's files about things you would really, really rather not know?

If you're River, it's apparently underneath the kitchen table.

She's curled up with one knee to her chest and the other leg tucked beneath her, scanning down another text file on Kitty's laptop with tears trickling slowly down her cheeks and soaking into her skirt.

Comments

[river_meimei]

"Exactly."

She doesn't move towards him. But she doesn't pull away, either.

[steelartisan]

He looks down again.

"I'm sorry."

All of it. That he is still just Peter, the big, dumb farmboy, and he can't make sense of her, for upsetting her, and that Kitty won't let them help her.

She never wanted to be a princess in a tower, he thinks.

[river_meimei]

River flinches.

"All the swords are inside," she whispers, tear-choked.

[steelartisan]

He doesn't get the reference. But, he thinks on it, nonetheless.

"Da," he says slowly.

He can see his own pain and memories like that, swords pushing out of his own skin. He can even see himself in his mind's eye, hanging there among the bramble. He tries to think of Kitty like that, but it all comes to her externalizing her pain. With violence. She is much better at that.

[river_meimei]

"Vsyegda," she whispers, eyes closed. всегда: always.

(River doesn't speak Russian.

Technically. Or, at least, she didn't a minute ago.)

"Never stops."

[steelartisan]

He starts when she speaks Russian. River doesn't speak Russian.

He thinks on that one again.

And offers out his hand to her, palm up.

[river_meimei]

It's a moment before she looks at him.

Face bleak, sober and tear-streaked.

[steelartisan]

He reaches out and snakes an arm around her waist, pulling her close, and wiping at her cheeks with his free hand.

He doesn't say it will be okay, that everything will get better. But he does push her hair behind her ears and offer River his shoulder to lean on.

[river_meimei]

River doesn't resist. She closes her eyes, letting Piotr wipe at her tears while her face slowly crumples.

One shaking breath, a second, and then she slowly slumps sideways until she's collapsed against Piotr's shoulder, and sobbing helplessly.