Photo album spread out on my bedroom floor...

[almost_knightly]

There was nothing remarkable about the day when Break got up this morning. There was nothing remarkable lying in wait in his bathroom, and nothing remarkable between himself and the kitchen, and nothing remarkable between the kitchen and the library.

The library, however, held something new today. It was lurking on the bottom shelf, easily missed but for Break's habit of crawling around on the floor -- a large binder, sedate red leather and several inches wide.

Break knows that binder.

Fingers shaking, he snatches it up out of the shelf. He fumbles it, and it falls open, and the first thing he sees is Faneuil Hall at Christmas, covered in snow. Below that is a photograph of Shelly, his own Shelly, dressed in winter clothes and laughing with Sharon when she was still small, and there's his ponytail in the photograph next to it because no one could ever get him to look at the camera that first year and he's seen these pictures a thousand times --

He slams the book shut, suddenly unable to look. A cruel gift, in a way; there are days that he wonders if he'll ever see this place and these people again. But on the other hand, now -- now he can show people, he can let them see things he's only described. It's as precious as it is mean.

Gathering the photo album up close to his chest and clutching it as though he's afraid it'll vanish, Break leaves the library, in search of some of the people he trusts most.


[ooc: Locked to hadengineered, retraced, of_murder, standstilltime, smallkindnesses, info_barma]

Comments

I lied, 3/4

[candycoated]

*the one at home knows, of course, and he's at least somewhat resigned to it by now. He's resigned to the fact that he couldn't get it past Liam, to the fact that confessing to Sharon was the right thing to do, that -- that all the people he knows insist on poking at his weak and embarrassing spots and it... makes them happy somehow, fulfills them somehow, so he can sort of live with having to share a little bit.

But he knows it caused them all pain and worry and doubt. And no one is supposed to be -- worrying about Xerxes Break. No one is supposed to be looking after him. That's his job, dammit. He's supposed to be the strong one, the one putting himself between all these stupid kids and the world, watching over them--

All this touchy-feely-ness he's slowly getting sucked into lately is just ruining his image, honestly, and he--

If he can be one less worry for Gilbert, for Sharon and Liam and anyone else here that cares about him, even if it's an inevitably temporary arrangement -- then he wants to be. He wants to keep on being "that Break who can see". He wants... to lighten Gil's burden, when he can. He's put enough on the boy's shoulders over the years without starting to add his every little health problem on top of it.

If he were with Gilbert-from-back-home, his subordinate would certainly yell at him some more for thinking like this, but... well, what's new? Gil yells at him all the time. Sometimes it's even rather charming.

...It's not like... he isn't trying to learn to lean on them, just a little. He just-- doesn't want to stop being that person they can all lean on in return.*