I'd forever talk to you but soon my words they would turn into a meaningless ring

[alan_shore]

Who: Alan Shore and Mycroft Holmes
What: Probably not bellyrubs :(
Where: A CONVERTED FARMHOUSE!!
When: Givdi, Rundaren 19th
Warnings: Honesty, existential angst, industrial strength stupidity.

Alan goes shopping. He calls it a day and leaves the office—he has a headache, or that's a way of putting it: his mind like a pencil twisting over and over again in a sharpener, every attempt at a thought another lead broken off. He feels groggy, unsteady on his feet, and that's in addition to the ache of remote but persistent loss that accompanies a friendship's flashing before his eyes.

“I need a small box,” he tells stall attendants, shaping it with his fingers, and there's something pleasing about the variety of forms an object so simple can take. The task, at least, suits him—suits his present mood and mental state. He peers into the snug, empty interiors of thirty or so containers, unveiling a seldom displayed solemnity for the duration of the search.

The next day, having dispatched a warning text an hour in advance, he knocks at Mycroft's door.

Comments

[diogenesis]

Mycroft, on the other end of the emotional spectrum, is feeling better than he has since before he arrived in Baedal.

The overwhelming effects of receiving his Answer had taken the better part of a week to completely dissipate, but he'd awoken earlier with a clear head and a newly-found sense of steadiness and certainty that, on some levels, surpassed even what he'd known in London. He's been pleased to find that as the day has gone by, this mindset hasn't wavered, and the early evening finds him relaxed and in a pleasant mood.

He's thankful for Alan's hour warning (if only everyone would do that), and when Mycroft opens the door, there's a confident calm about him that says he's perfectly aware he hasn't got a hair out of place. This feeling is a familiar one, though it's one he's happy to return to after a few days that largely consisted of not bothering with himself.

The polar contrast this creates against Alan's palpable malaise, however, is very nearly awkward.

“Mr. Shore,” Mycroft says quietly, stepping back to let him in, eyes flicking over him and picking out the details of his day, his week.

[alan_shore]

Anyone who's picked up a baseball—anyone, with no exemptions granted those who revere the game as one of intricacies, of the splay of one's fingers among the 108 stitches that run the seam of every grass-stained ball, of a vocabulary homespun and sprawling and, for all that, precise, of that yawning half-inch of air as the pitcher's foot leaves the mound, space enough for a would-be thief to bolt from first–has experienced the urge to simply fling it with all their might. To just chuck it, feel that inward lurch and wake the next day with the memory of the throw aching in their arm. Forget form, forget where it'll land.

Alan, standing at the doorstep, is still. And yet he's taking a hop step, arm drawing back, eyes flinching shut in anticipation of the release. Intent on seeing how many neighbors' fences he can clear.

It's this momentum that causes him to falter, if only momentarily. His gaze skims over Mycroft—not incurious but impersonal. “I won't be a minute,” he says, mustering his voice as he enters the house.

[diogenesis]

It's not that Alan seems cold, not at the moment, but Mycroft can see the front moving in—the abrupt drop in pressure, the shifting of winds. It's out of season. It's wrong.

The past week has been a haze, but not so much of one that he shouldn't be able to remember all of what happened. It's deeply unnerving when he can't recall or deduce a reason for Alan's present demeanor. There are signs of prolonged stress and worry, yes, and it's about Mycroft, yes, but why? The distance, the detachment don't belong. Alan hadn't even wanted to come in.

“Are you certain? You've come all this way,” Mycroft says (once his guest is far enough away from the door that he doesn't seem like an immediate flight risk). His mellow steadiness lingers despite his growing concern; in his voice and on his face, both facets are apparent, only fractionally as muted and masked as they normally would be.