(no subject)

[classic-palm.livejournal.com]

Time: August 8, 2000
Place: In the gardens, then the pool room.
Status: Public- Shadow, Pepper, others
Summary: Shadow mopes, then gets invited to play pool.

Shadow went beyond the regular part of the gardens and found a bench secluded off behind several thick rose bushes. He resisted putting his head in his hands, because it seemed too maudlin and cliché, instead leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees.

He stared morosely at a tree, feeling like shit. A part of him was disappointed in the way he had acted at the bar… but truthfully not a very large part. How else was a man supposed to act when suddenly faced with his wife’s murderer?

His thoughts drifted to another time when he’d been reduced to such rage for Laura. This one had ended better than that… the others had fought back physically (and one with a knife) and hadn’t had a small pregnant woman to come to their rescue. Shadow had paid the price for that… the price now was at once much less and yet, in a way, heavier.

He missed Laura. He missed the life they had had together before the robbery and he missed, too, his dreams in prison, when he had known that she was waiting for him.

He missed his rock solid belief in her love.

No. He wasn’t going to let anger with Loki ruin the peace he had made with that, and he wasn’t going to sully his memories of Laura with jealousy. He had forgiven her. She had loved him. She would have been there for him when he came home- she’d told him that she had broken it off. It had just been a fling. She had needed someone. She’d been alone and lonesome.

You were alone too, a small voice whispered in his mind. Shadow quashed the thought.

Comments

[playswithboys.livejournal.com]

Pepper had been pruning the rose bushes on the outer perimeter of a little secluded spot out back. She had supposed that the area was sectioned off for a romantic shelter along the gardens, but with thorns poking her in the legs and thick stems refusing to severe, she was failing to see the appeal of the place.

She heard someone walking nearby and followed the footsteps inside the little space, where she saw someone sitting and clearly having a good pout. It was the man from the library in London, the one who had helped her after she'd been attacked by War. She had been meaning to thank him for days now, but she hadn't been sure where to find him. Still, now that she had crossed his path, she wasn't sure she should break silence. He didn't look too happy at the moment. Which didn't seem right, as he was such a big, tough sort. Pepper normally stayed away from men like that on principle - they'd been her natural enemy since she was a child, after all. But there was something in his face that looked too crushed, too embedded. Wrong on a face like that.

He looked like he needed a friend. And there didn't look to be any about.

Sighing, she stepped forward a bit so that her toes came into his peripheral. "Hey," she said quietly, trying not to startle him. "You want to be up a tree for brooding like that. This place is too fuzzy and pink for deep, dark thoughts."

[classic-palm.livejournal.com]

Shadow grinned back. He liked this girl.

He watched the coin spin in the air a moment, caught it on its way down and slapped it onto his arm.

"Tails it is," he told her. "You break, I pour."

He opened the two bottles and deftly poured the Murphy's Stout he had chosen into the two glasses, then moved to join Pippin at the table.