steelartisan | (no subject)

(no subject)

Piotr is seated on one of the rocks out by the lake. He likes the snow and the cold. It feels like childhood.

...that is a question that Destruction would dearly like to answer.

As it is, he just stares at Piotr. "And you're finding it necessary to tell me this?"

"I'm old fashioned."

He smiles, just a bit.

"If I tell her -- do you have any idea how she's going to react?"

Destruction seems almost amused.

"She'll be angrier at you, first."

Destruction shakes his head. "No. Well -- maybe. Only because I'll be the one who's there." He sounds remarkably cheerful about this. "But eventually -- it'll all be on you. You know why? Because you're thinking I've got any say at all over what she does with her life."

He snorts.

"I love her. I know her temper. If you tell her I'm planning to ask her, she'll have one more thing to bicker with me about when we're old and gray. No matter what we are to each other."

Then, he pauses and mulls over how to say this.

"You do."

"She does not talk about you. Like she does not talk about Doug. Or how it was with my sister and Rachel."

"That isn't why I told you."

He's not cheerful any more.

"You don't get it." And he won't explain the entirety, but -- "I could have some say. Maybe. But I don't want it."

The last child of an Endless that Destruction -- Olethros -- saw whose father had too much importance placed on his shoulders --

Kitty isn't Orpheus.

Kitty isn't going to turn out like Orpheus.

And Kitty sure as hell isn't going to pull an Orpheus for the sake of this lump.

"No, I don't."

"But, I know I would want to know. If I was a father. That's why I told you. You are her father."

"Even though she does not like it, you do matter."

"...let me guess." Destruction is looking at Piotr like he's a particularly interesting orangutan in the monkey house at the zoo. "She likes you because you're persistent?"

"No, she always had to chase me. I tried for years to get away." He smiles to himself at the memory then shakes his head.

"I've left her. I've broken her heart. I've died. We've known each other ten years."

"She is home."

Then, he shrugs.

"I don't know why she likes me, myself. I don't care."

The monkey house expression isn't going away. If anything, it's intensifying. "Can I suggest that you find somebody else to confess to?" Beat. "In that way where it's not really a suggestion?"

Piotr gives him a look. It's...amused.

In that moment, he can picture a much smaller man in a cowboy hat in Destruction's place.

"Vodka would make a much better companion, yes." He slides off the rock.

"Consider yourself lucky that I'm taking that as a compliment." Destruction says this with a reasonable amount of cheer.

He has that small smile again and waves as he heads back up the path toward the bar.

"It is, tovarisch! Good evening!"

"...yeah." Destruction is bemused -- and then amused.

'Comrade'.

They are not comrades. They will never be comrade. It doesn't matter who you ask (hello, Joe McCarthy) -- Destruction is not now and has never been a Communist.

"See you around."

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