[ It had gone all terribly pear-shaped in the end. (It always does. No exception. They either leave, they move on, or they burn her. But sometimes, every once and a while, she thinks to leave first.)
Her tone attempts detachment and fails. ] Better him than me.
[ People talk to themselves, they use their cell phones, carry on halfbaked conversations with Waverly all the time. This guy (something Quinn, if she remembers his debit card right) seems to do it more often than most but she doesn't really mind; he seems nice enough.
Somewhere between the arhythmic beep beep of the check-out machine he mumbles something to himself and she stops. ]
Halfway, I guess. [ He doesn't broach anything further back than the last ten years very often and sometimes it shows. (Despite how old he is, in some respects he's still young.) ]
Though, y' know, it was more like falling a very great distance than burning up. Which isn't to say that that didn't happen, too.
[ She would, and so would he, if it came down to the line. There's not much to give up, to be honest — he's always made sure of that. But he'd set a match to it in an instant in her favor.
He doesn't say so — he never says much — but he offers up a slight smile, the expression still contained but undeniably warm. ]
[ It takes Stella a moment to register that anything has been said, being somewhat preoccupied by picking away the lace at the corner of her current picture frame. ]
Oh— oh. I suppose so. Better their bones than ours.
[ This sort of talk chastens her a little. For all that the two of them have no secrets, it's exactly as if everything's out in the open either. If anything, they operate on a system of knowing without saying, understanding without having to acknowledge. It means they've steered clear of some of the more painful, awkward conversations they could have had in the past, but leaves them needlessly unpracticed when one happens to saunter round. ]
Not sure whether or not that's the kind of situation where having company helps.
[ The general truth is that Dubhlainn Quinn is a nice man. But general does not mean complete and it is in that distinction that things start to fall apart. (She loves me, is the faulty murmur of his heart, is the root from which obsession has grown through his every nerve, an ugly, suffocating creature that causes him equal parts pain and joy. Joy each time she looks at him, each time she sends him a sign, and pain every time that little candle flame flickers out.)
He glances up upon being addressed, a sort of brightness flashing once across his countenance before his expression schools itself into something more neutral. ]
'S nothing. [ (Everything.) ] Sorry. Didn't mean t' t'row you off.
[ Funny thing (a shame some would say, though neither of them would agree), just how sentimental they'd both turned out to be in the end.
Iain never says it and neither does she, but there's no denying it. Kind of obvious, actually, once you get them in the same room together. (He smiles more and she smiles less, the excesses of each — too loud, too quiet — balancing one another out and meeting somewhere roughly in the middle.)
Marling stares at her husband's mouth and, for once, doesn't seem hungry, just smitten. ]
[ In general, Ruby doesn't like her siblings — her sisters usually on the receiving end of the worst of it. Unwarranted for the most part, but mother's children have never been known for even temperament. Being the girl in the vanity means that Ruby has plenty of faces, none (save one) are hers.
And so, a bitterness lingers about her, a resentment of all her beautiful sisters and the face they get to keep all to their own. Stella, though lovely, is one of the few who get a free pass. (If only for all the times she's come and swept up Ruby's bones after the fact.) ]
No one will miss them. Not really. But you— you'd miss my bones, wouldn't you, Stella?
[ Waverly doesn't mind her job; doesn't like it, but doesn't dislike it either — which, she knows from all of her friends, is a lot better than most people her age manage. Better than flipping burgers or waiting tables, playing check-out might put Wavery on her feet all shift long, but there's no heavy lifting, no needing to sing for her supper and no greasy-fryolater smell in her hair after a long day. All in all, a win-win situation, even when you take the occasional weirdo she meets into consideration.
Mr. Quinn, as far as she can tell, isn't a weirdo. But, truth be told, she hasn't really given him much thought save the occasional conversation as she scans his groceries or runs into him in the car park. Sometimes she plays a little game which involves fantasizing the lies of her customers just based on the things that they buy. If pressed, Waverly would say that Mr. Quinn's unmarried, with no kids and maybe not even a girlfriend. (It's sort of a shame; he's nice and he's Irish and maybe even a little cute, despite being hold enough to be her dad.)
She smiles at his apology, waving a carton of yogurt through the air before she scans it. ] No, it's cool. Don't worry about it, I mean— [ Waverly crinkles her nose and ducks her chin. ] —I could totally do this in my sleep. [ Glancing up again she offers a small smile. ] No big.
[ There's no blame in Claret's voice and there never is. Not when it comes to him. She shrugs, awkwardly, one of her shoulders lifting and then falling again as she picks at something underneath one nail. ]
Sometimes people can't help it— y'know? Doesn't mean it's their fault.
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