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Tommy and Shen | Backdated to August 30
After Tommy comes back from Limbo healed, Shen goes looking for him. Nothing new gets resolved.
It was amazing how long two days could feel. Now that Illyana had patched him back together, his headaches gone and his arm unwrapped from its straightjacket, Tommy was taking full advantage of his re-found freedom. He hadn't bothered to go down to the infirmary to check in. There was nothing they could tell him that Illyana hadn't, and from what he could feel inside, everything was just about back to normal. Nice. He sped through the school, checking in on people, not being allowed to check in on others, until he wound up breezing through the cafeteria and loading a tray high.
He even grabbed some vegetables, to make Jean-Paul happy.
Eating inside made his spine tight and his shoulders itch, though. Too many people in the cafeteria, maybe, if 'too many people' was even a thing. He ended up on the roof in his old thinking spot, tray balanced on his lap and feet dangling over the edge. Outdoors was so much better, and high up the best. He could see everything from up here. Especially the road.
Those two days had definitely been among the longest of Shen's life. Once the adrenaline had faded down, she'd realized that the dull ache all along her side wasn't so dull after all. It had been a miracle she hadn't broken anything, she had very sternly been told. That, and that she would be staying at the infirmary until a healer could see her. Such extensive bruising wasn't to be taken lightly, etc.
It was difficult to take all that to heart, knowing that something was wrong with Jeanne-Marie, or remembering the state Tommy had been in when Billy'd brought him out. So she'd waited it out in the infirmary, on a whole lot of anti-inflammatory drugs, and some extra drugs so they wouldn't mess up her stomach. She hadn't wanted to go until all the captives were healed, because they had a lot more healing to do than her; might as well get the physical stuff out of the way.
Once she was healed, though, and able to breathe without everything hurting, and once she'd sat through a lecture on commotions, she eventually went looking for Tommy. If she was out, then so was he. She grew worried when she couldn't find him, but checking in with Billy assuaged her fears.
When she went flying to try and center herself - find her zen - she didn't expect her next pass over the castle to allow her to spot Tommy on the rooftop. She circled around, and came down for a much, much better landing than the first time she'd seen him up here, landing quietly on taloned feet, a few feet behind him.
If he wasn't stopping her, he was getting hugged from behind. Not only did it match the swell of feelings in her chest, but it would give her a little extra time to figure out words.
The winged shadow overhead gave Tommy plenty of time to spot Shen coming in for a landing. He didn't need to keep an eye on her to feel safe, not any more. (She hadn't come to see him in the infirmary, but she'd been on the rescue team. That part won by a lot.) He finished the chicken wrap in his hands, still relishing the ability to use both of them, and dumped the tray on the roof behind him as she made her approach. By the time she was hugging him - unopposed - he was waiting for it, fingers curled around the edge of the wall just in case.
He didn't exactly know what the hug was all about. The likelihood that she'd changed her mind about anything was so remote as to be totally impossible, so it had to be post-mission pity or something, but hell. It felt good and he'd take it. "I should get my ass kidnapped more often," he joked, leaning into her for a moment. "Girls are all over me now. Granted one of them was my sort-of-sister, but still."
Shen chuckled quietly, but it got stuck in her throat halfway through. "Shut up, Tommy. Just shut up," she told him, although there wasn't even a hint of hostility to her voice, just very obvious affection (and, maybe, a hint of her being choked up). She took this moment to appreciate the fact that he was leaning back into her. She hadn't even expected him to let her hug him, so this was... surprising. In the best way possible.
"Shutting up now," he replied obediently. Normally that would be a cue for him to get even mouthier, but he was riding on adrenaline and the warm wonderfulness of not being in pain anymore, and didn't actually feel like pushing his luck. Weird.
The hug went on for a while, until a claustrophobic sort of itch crawled up Tommy's spine. Not that it wasn't good -- it was just too much all of a sudden, a switch flipping from pleasant to pressure. He pulled away, turning it into part of him turning around to face her, his back against the big stone crenellation he'd been sitting beside. He wanted to ask her why, what the hug was for, but he dodged the impulse instead. "How're you doing?" he asked, giving her a quick once-over to look for obvious injuries or bruises. "Got back all in one piece?"
It was over too soon; but any time at all would likely have felt like too soon for Shen. She let go of him when he shifted, since she didn't want to impose unwelcome physical contact. She wanted that even less than she wanted to let go of him. She pushed a hand back through her hair, and gave him a smile. She could do this. Business as usual. "I'm good as new, give or take a commotion. You?" He looked... better, definitely, or she wouldn't have hugged him without a lot more caution, and a lot less force.
Tommy propped his arms on his bent knees, returning her somewhat hesitant smile. "Yana took me to Limbo and healed me up there, so I'm doing okay. I'm minus a broken collarbone, broken rib, a bunch of stitches and some taser burns, anyway. Gonna call that a rousing success." That was the physical tally, though it might not have been what she was asking about. He'd spilled his guts about all that stuff to too many people already, the pain breaking down walls he'd spent years putting up. There was a weird kind of freedom in that, though... or at least right now it felt that way. He'd probably regret a lot of that blabber-mouth stuff later.
"Definitely," Shen confirmed. She knew better than to show how much the thought of them wailing on him like that horrified her (and, in turns, enraged her to the point that she didn't really feel very Buddhist anymore). "I didn't know she could do that." Then again, what couldn't Illyana do in Limbo, now that it was hers?
"Yeah. Only in Limbo, not here, but that's cool. She's got dragons there now and they're pretty slick." But Shen didn't seem at all sympathetic about the crap he'd gone through -- unless the hug had been about that after all -- and he sighed dramatically. "Maybe I should have asked her to leave me some of the scars. I could have come up with a great story about knife-fighting bears or something."
"Well, you know, you could still come up with that story," Shen pointed out, coming to lean her hip against the ledge he was sitting on. "Just wrap it up with 'this kickass demon sorceress healed me up, good as new'."
Tommy stilled, his mood changing to something a lot more serious. "And let people know that she's out there and that she's got powers that would be really useful? Not on your life. Yana can take care of herself, but I'm not going to set her up so that she needs to."
Shen winced. "Well, that joking hypothetical got serious very quickly." She could never quite predict when Tommy would decide to take something seriously, but she always felt terrible when he did. (She felt terrible way too often around him, for reasons best left unexplored, all in all. He'd made his stance clear.) "It's not like I'd ever actually recommend outing someone," she pointed out quietly, trying to read his expression. Ugh, stop wanting to hug him already.
Tommy shrugged. "I can go back to sarcasm if that works better for you." It worked better for a lot of people -- himself included, most of the time. "It's been a strange few days."
"You don't say," she acknowledged, with a wry purse of her lips. The abductions, the rescues, the state he'd been in, Jeanne-Marie breaking down and all of that mess... Her gaze focused again as she pulled herself out of her thoughts. "I'm just - I'm glad you're - okay?"
His mouth tugged up in a wry smile. "Is that a statement, or a question?"
"Both?" Shen's mouth tugged down as she heard the questioning lilt to her answer. When had she stopped sounding more assertive? "I mean, both. I'm glad you're - I was just so -" She huffed out, unhappy with her own inability to phrase this in a way that would work for her, and her perception of what Tommy might take, coming from her. "Don't make me get mushy on you, Tommy. You know you won't like it." As if this was his fault, and not just her tripping all over her own issues.
"You never know," he lobbed the ball of awkward back at her, that funny semi-solemn mood still hanging over him. Putting words on things was never his strong suit, and figuring out what each funny twisted-insides feeling meant what was generally a waste of time when the only solution he had to any of them was to run. "Maybe my traumatic experience has made me rediscover the value of friendship," he added, only mostly joking.
Shen raised her eyebrows in a 'really? challenge accepted' kind of way. He had asked for it, and honestly, she felt better not keeping the sentiment quiet. "I don't know what I would've done if they'd done something worse to you," she said, completely serious, and completely genuine. "The state you were in already - I get why Jeanne-Marie wailed on that guard." She still felt so angry, in a definitely un-zen way. But the statement wasn't only fueled by anger; there was the whole mess of how she felt about Tommy, too. "I wanted to rush in and tear through them all."
Fortunately, there had been massive robots to take out.
Hunh. He hadn't expected her to actually answer seriously -- and he wasn't entirely sure how to take the reply. He'd come to terms with the whole 'people actually cared enough to come rescue me' part, but it had still been part of a bigger rescue op. This was different.
And part of him that was still hung up on things from way too long ago wanted to think- but that was all way behind them now. "Too bad you didn't," he said frankly, no pity in him. "Until you showed up I knew I was going to die in there this time. One way or another."
Shen exhaled a little shakily at the thought. "Not on our watch." That was a sort of promise, if he wanted to read it that way? She certainly did.
That same half-pained smile flickered across his face, memories of the cell, the guards, the beating that he'd been pushing for- all of it coming at him faster than he could easily deflect. "You say that now, but I can be really, really annoying when I want to be. You may come to regret not leaving me there," he made a joke out of it, capping it off with a broad wink.
"You are such an asshole," Shen said, with a small smile. Not really amused (it was a terrible joke in every way), but definitely affectionate. Tommy was always going to be Tommy.
"Like you're all sunshine and roses," he snorted, but not unkindly. "I just say the things other people think. It's my secondary mutation - no brain-to-mouth filter."
"I'm pretty sure your secondary mutation is being unable to accept that people care about you," Shen retorted with raised eyebrows. If he didn't want to hear that, then he shouldn't have implied that people would come to think they should have left him there. Yeah, she could be an asshole too; she knew how much he hated talking about feelings, and there she went anyway.
Nah. That one's just experience. But that was changing, somehow, even if a huge part of him still couldn't believe it, or allow himself to rely on it. Letting go and believing in things -- in people -- was supposed to be a surefire quick march to getting disappointed. Why that wasn't really happening now... he couldn't entirely explain it, but part of him really wanted to get used to it.
"We've all got our crosses to bear," he joked instead, a softer version of the same sort of feeling. "Though I think this place is having a bad effect on me. I'm not nearly as cynical as I used to be."
"Good," Shen said honestly, her small smile genuine. Her heart clenched a little, but she ignored it, and said, "Wynonna kicked ass."
Did Shen regret things? Was she maybe even jealous, just a little? Good. It wasn't the reason he'd done anything, but he couldn't help being perversely pleased by the possibility. "She's awesome," he replied, maybe a little too cheerfully, but hell. Wynonna deserved to have good things said about her.
"She seems it," Shen confirmed, holding on to her smile for a moment longer before letting it fade. "Anyway, I should let you get back to your dinner."
Okay, he'd been wrong - maybe she didn't care after all. "Already done," Tommy shrugged, "but don't feel obliged to stick around. How're things with Monica?" He asked pointedly, not moving from where he sat. He'd called that one how long ago? Is she enough to keep you happy when I wasn't?
Shen gave him an odd look, because the transition there was pretty obviously weird. "She kicks ass, too." She paused, then added, "We're not together, if that's what you're implying." Sure, they were making out, now and then. But they weren't even dating, just having fun. The way it should be, at their age, if you asked Shen. She was kinda worried about hurting Monica, but it was Monica's call. Shen wasn't forcing anything.
Was it that obvious that something was going on, though? That was bad on several levels.
That didn't feel like the triumph he'd been hoping for. If she'd said they were dating, he'd have been vindicated -- it had to have been one of the reasons she'd wanted to keep all her options open. He was still 100% certain of that. And if she'd confessed that she'd gone for it but that Monica had told her to take a hike, he'd have gotten to gloat. Except he was kind of glad that apparently wasn't the case. Mostly because, as hurt as he'd been, he didn't actually want to see Shen get hurt. Even if she didn't think he was good enough to settle for.
Ugh. He was better off when he ran away from his feelings instead of trying to understand them. They never made any sense at all.
"I wasn't implying anything, I was straight-out confirming," he said mildly. "I always figured that's where you went after me at New Year's."
Shen gave him a frankly disbelieving look. "I went to my room, after the pool." What, did he think she had a list ready and just went through it at parties? Ugh, boys!
He rolled his eyes. "Metaphorically speaking, then. I'm not blind." He was getting twitchy, though, sitting still and talking about serious things for what felt like hours. Tommy stood, grabbing the remnants of his snack. "Sorry it didn't work out the way you wanted."
"I don't even know what we're talking about anymore," Shen stated after a beat, although her wings had rustled unhappily at his comment about not being blind. Sometimes it was beyond her why she felt anything at all for Tommy. (But when she saw him smile, really smile, she remembered she didn't have to understand it; she just did.)
Keeping all of us on a string, he wanted to say, but that was wrong and unfair. Trying to keep me around, wanting and waiting and trying until you decide on someone else after all. Except that was the problem with any relationship, not special to Shen. And he didn't want to think about why it was different. Wynonna hadn't made him any promises either.
But she also hadn't said up-front that he'd never be good enough. Maybe that was the difference after all. Shen had seen through him and known that he'd never measure up. That she'd need more than him to be happy. (Wynonna hadn't figured that part out yet. Maybe it wasn't fair to her, but Tommy hadn't made her any promises either. He was just hanging in there until she caught on.)
"Yeah," he said instead of any of that, feeling the space between them grow even though he wasn't moving. Tommy smiled, but the funny twisting inside made it kind of... sad. Dammit. "I got that. I'm out - places to go, dishes to bring back - but thanks again for the save. I'm definitely too young and beautiful to die. At least not that way," he cracked as he headed for the stairs, finding his footing again.
Shen wanted to call him out on his bullshit, or just call him back. Maybe shake him (not zen), or maybe just hug him again. But she was exhausted. Emotionally exhausted. And Jeanne-Marie had to come first, before this stupid boy she couldn't help but have feelings for, even now he'd had a girlfriend for months.
Shen missed having her to curl up with. She desperately wanted that, just now.
"You have a good one," she said, trying to sell the nothing-to-see-here, all-good vibe, when she wasn't even able to come up with a reply to his flippant words about dying. They would never really talk again, would they? It would be more of this. Tommy hinting at stuff, and checking out of the conversation before it got too real. One more reason why they were a bad idea. So she climbed on the ledge and jumped, wings spreading and taking her up. Flying would help. Flying always helped.
He paused at the top of the stairs, feet itching at him to keep moving, start running, get far away from the riot of uncomfortable inside his chest. He stayed and watched her fly away anyway. It was always going to have been this way -- sooner or later, even if she'd decided to take the chance on him after all, he'd have been watching her leave him behind. It was better that it was like this, instead of after doing something dumb like getting invested.
It didn't feel better. "Shen!" he called out, but the wind whipped the words away from his mouth. She was too far to hear him anyway, and what would he have said? Tommy turned and zipped down the stairs, letting the door slam closed behind him.
It was amazing how long two days could feel. Now that Illyana had patched him back together, his headaches gone and his arm unwrapped from its straightjacket, Tommy was taking full advantage of his re-found freedom. He hadn't bothered to go down to the infirmary to check in. There was nothing they could tell him that Illyana hadn't, and from what he could feel inside, everything was just about back to normal. Nice. He sped through the school, checking in on people, not being allowed to check in on others, until he wound up breezing through the cafeteria and loading a tray high.
He even grabbed some vegetables, to make Jean-Paul happy.
Eating inside made his spine tight and his shoulders itch, though. Too many people in the cafeteria, maybe, if 'too many people' was even a thing. He ended up on the roof in his old thinking spot, tray balanced on his lap and feet dangling over the edge. Outdoors was so much better, and high up the best. He could see everything from up here. Especially the road.
Those two days had definitely been among the longest of Shen's life. Once the adrenaline had faded down, she'd realized that the dull ache all along her side wasn't so dull after all. It had been a miracle she hadn't broken anything, she had very sternly been told. That, and that she would be staying at the infirmary until a healer could see her. Such extensive bruising wasn't to be taken lightly, etc.
It was difficult to take all that to heart, knowing that something was wrong with Jeanne-Marie, or remembering the state Tommy had been in when Billy'd brought him out. So she'd waited it out in the infirmary, on a whole lot of anti-inflammatory drugs, and some extra drugs so they wouldn't mess up her stomach. She hadn't wanted to go until all the captives were healed, because they had a lot more healing to do than her; might as well get the physical stuff out of the way.
Once she was healed, though, and able to breathe without everything hurting, and once she'd sat through a lecture on commotions, she eventually went looking for Tommy. If she was out, then so was he. She grew worried when she couldn't find him, but checking in with Billy assuaged her fears.
When she went flying to try and center herself - find her zen - she didn't expect her next pass over the castle to allow her to spot Tommy on the rooftop. She circled around, and came down for a much, much better landing than the first time she'd seen him up here, landing quietly on taloned feet, a few feet behind him.
If he wasn't stopping her, he was getting hugged from behind. Not only did it match the swell of feelings in her chest, but it would give her a little extra time to figure out words.
The winged shadow overhead gave Tommy plenty of time to spot Shen coming in for a landing. He didn't need to keep an eye on her to feel safe, not any more. (She hadn't come to see him in the infirmary, but she'd been on the rescue team. That part won by a lot.) He finished the chicken wrap in his hands, still relishing the ability to use both of them, and dumped the tray on the roof behind him as she made her approach. By the time she was hugging him - unopposed - he was waiting for it, fingers curled around the edge of the wall just in case.
He didn't exactly know what the hug was all about. The likelihood that she'd changed her mind about anything was so remote as to be totally impossible, so it had to be post-mission pity or something, but hell. It felt good and he'd take it. "I should get my ass kidnapped more often," he joked, leaning into her for a moment. "Girls are all over me now. Granted one of them was my sort-of-sister, but still."
Shen chuckled quietly, but it got stuck in her throat halfway through. "Shut up, Tommy. Just shut up," she told him, although there wasn't even a hint of hostility to her voice, just very obvious affection (and, maybe, a hint of her being choked up). She took this moment to appreciate the fact that he was leaning back into her. She hadn't even expected him to let her hug him, so this was... surprising. In the best way possible.
"Shutting up now," he replied obediently. Normally that would be a cue for him to get even mouthier, but he was riding on adrenaline and the warm wonderfulness of not being in pain anymore, and didn't actually feel like pushing his luck. Weird.
The hug went on for a while, until a claustrophobic sort of itch crawled up Tommy's spine. Not that it wasn't good -- it was just too much all of a sudden, a switch flipping from pleasant to pressure. He pulled away, turning it into part of him turning around to face her, his back against the big stone crenellation he'd been sitting beside. He wanted to ask her why, what the hug was for, but he dodged the impulse instead. "How're you doing?" he asked, giving her a quick once-over to look for obvious injuries or bruises. "Got back all in one piece?"
It was over too soon; but any time at all would likely have felt like too soon for Shen. She let go of him when he shifted, since she didn't want to impose unwelcome physical contact. She wanted that even less than she wanted to let go of him. She pushed a hand back through her hair, and gave him a smile. She could do this. Business as usual. "I'm good as new, give or take a commotion. You?" He looked... better, definitely, or she wouldn't have hugged him without a lot more caution, and a lot less force.
Tommy propped his arms on his bent knees, returning her somewhat hesitant smile. "Yana took me to Limbo and healed me up there, so I'm doing okay. I'm minus a broken collarbone, broken rib, a bunch of stitches and some taser burns, anyway. Gonna call that a rousing success." That was the physical tally, though it might not have been what she was asking about. He'd spilled his guts about all that stuff to too many people already, the pain breaking down walls he'd spent years putting up. There was a weird kind of freedom in that, though... or at least right now it felt that way. He'd probably regret a lot of that blabber-mouth stuff later.
"Definitely," Shen confirmed. She knew better than to show how much the thought of them wailing on him like that horrified her (and, in turns, enraged her to the point that she didn't really feel very Buddhist anymore). "I didn't know she could do that." Then again, what couldn't Illyana do in Limbo, now that it was hers?
"Yeah. Only in Limbo, not here, but that's cool. She's got dragons there now and they're pretty slick." But Shen didn't seem at all sympathetic about the crap he'd gone through -- unless the hug had been about that after all -- and he sighed dramatically. "Maybe I should have asked her to leave me some of the scars. I could have come up with a great story about knife-fighting bears or something."
"Well, you know, you could still come up with that story," Shen pointed out, coming to lean her hip against the ledge he was sitting on. "Just wrap it up with 'this kickass demon sorceress healed me up, good as new'."
Tommy stilled, his mood changing to something a lot more serious. "And let people know that she's out there and that she's got powers that would be really useful? Not on your life. Yana can take care of herself, but I'm not going to set her up so that she needs to."
Shen winced. "Well, that joking hypothetical got serious very quickly." She could never quite predict when Tommy would decide to take something seriously, but she always felt terrible when he did. (She felt terrible way too often around him, for reasons best left unexplored, all in all. He'd made his stance clear.) "It's not like I'd ever actually recommend outing someone," she pointed out quietly, trying to read his expression. Ugh, stop wanting to hug him already.
Tommy shrugged. "I can go back to sarcasm if that works better for you." It worked better for a lot of people -- himself included, most of the time. "It's been a strange few days."
"You don't say," she acknowledged, with a wry purse of her lips. The abductions, the rescues, the state he'd been in, Jeanne-Marie breaking down and all of that mess... Her gaze focused again as she pulled herself out of her thoughts. "I'm just - I'm glad you're - okay?"
His mouth tugged up in a wry smile. "Is that a statement, or a question?"
"Both?" Shen's mouth tugged down as she heard the questioning lilt to her answer. When had she stopped sounding more assertive? "I mean, both. I'm glad you're - I was just so -" She huffed out, unhappy with her own inability to phrase this in a way that would work for her, and her perception of what Tommy might take, coming from her. "Don't make me get mushy on you, Tommy. You know you won't like it." As if this was his fault, and not just her tripping all over her own issues.
"You never know," he lobbed the ball of awkward back at her, that funny semi-solemn mood still hanging over him. Putting words on things was never his strong suit, and figuring out what each funny twisted-insides feeling meant what was generally a waste of time when the only solution he had to any of them was to run. "Maybe my traumatic experience has made me rediscover the value of friendship," he added, only mostly joking.
Shen raised her eyebrows in a 'really? challenge accepted' kind of way. He had asked for it, and honestly, she felt better not keeping the sentiment quiet. "I don't know what I would've done if they'd done something worse to you," she said, completely serious, and completely genuine. "The state you were in already - I get why Jeanne-Marie wailed on that guard." She still felt so angry, in a definitely un-zen way. But the statement wasn't only fueled by anger; there was the whole mess of how she felt about Tommy, too. "I wanted to rush in and tear through them all."
Fortunately, there had been massive robots to take out.
Hunh. He hadn't expected her to actually answer seriously -- and he wasn't entirely sure how to take the reply. He'd come to terms with the whole 'people actually cared enough to come rescue me' part, but it had still been part of a bigger rescue op. This was different.
And part of him that was still hung up on things from way too long ago wanted to think- but that was all way behind them now. "Too bad you didn't," he said frankly, no pity in him. "Until you showed up I knew I was going to die in there this time. One way or another."
Shen exhaled a little shakily at the thought. "Not on our watch." That was a sort of promise, if he wanted to read it that way? She certainly did.
That same half-pained smile flickered across his face, memories of the cell, the guards, the beating that he'd been pushing for- all of it coming at him faster than he could easily deflect. "You say that now, but I can be really, really annoying when I want to be. You may come to regret not leaving me there," he made a joke out of it, capping it off with a broad wink.
"You are such an asshole," Shen said, with a small smile. Not really amused (it was a terrible joke in every way), but definitely affectionate. Tommy was always going to be Tommy.
"Like you're all sunshine and roses," he snorted, but not unkindly. "I just say the things other people think. It's my secondary mutation - no brain-to-mouth filter."
"I'm pretty sure your secondary mutation is being unable to accept that people care about you," Shen retorted with raised eyebrows. If he didn't want to hear that, then he shouldn't have implied that people would come to think they should have left him there. Yeah, she could be an asshole too; she knew how much he hated talking about feelings, and there she went anyway.
Nah. That one's just experience. But that was changing, somehow, even if a huge part of him still couldn't believe it, or allow himself to rely on it. Letting go and believing in things -- in people -- was supposed to be a surefire quick march to getting disappointed. Why that wasn't really happening now... he couldn't entirely explain it, but part of him really wanted to get used to it.
"We've all got our crosses to bear," he joked instead, a softer version of the same sort of feeling. "Though I think this place is having a bad effect on me. I'm not nearly as cynical as I used to be."
"Good," Shen said honestly, her small smile genuine. Her heart clenched a little, but she ignored it, and said, "Wynonna kicked ass."
Did Shen regret things? Was she maybe even jealous, just a little? Good. It wasn't the reason he'd done anything, but he couldn't help being perversely pleased by the possibility. "She's awesome," he replied, maybe a little too cheerfully, but hell. Wynonna deserved to have good things said about her.
"She seems it," Shen confirmed, holding on to her smile for a moment longer before letting it fade. "Anyway, I should let you get back to your dinner."
Okay, he'd been wrong - maybe she didn't care after all. "Already done," Tommy shrugged, "but don't feel obliged to stick around. How're things with Monica?" He asked pointedly, not moving from where he sat. He'd called that one how long ago? Is she enough to keep you happy when I wasn't?
Shen gave him an odd look, because the transition there was pretty obviously weird. "She kicks ass, too." She paused, then added, "We're not together, if that's what you're implying." Sure, they were making out, now and then. But they weren't even dating, just having fun. The way it should be, at their age, if you asked Shen. She was kinda worried about hurting Monica, but it was Monica's call. Shen wasn't forcing anything.
Was it that obvious that something was going on, though? That was bad on several levels.
That didn't feel like the triumph he'd been hoping for. If she'd said they were dating, he'd have been vindicated -- it had to have been one of the reasons she'd wanted to keep all her options open. He was still 100% certain of that. And if she'd confessed that she'd gone for it but that Monica had told her to take a hike, he'd have gotten to gloat. Except he was kind of glad that apparently wasn't the case. Mostly because, as hurt as he'd been, he didn't actually want to see Shen get hurt. Even if she didn't think he was good enough to settle for.
Ugh. He was better off when he ran away from his feelings instead of trying to understand them. They never made any sense at all.
"I wasn't implying anything, I was straight-out confirming," he said mildly. "I always figured that's where you went after me at New Year's."
Shen gave him a frankly disbelieving look. "I went to my room, after the pool." What, did he think she had a list ready and just went through it at parties? Ugh, boys!
He rolled his eyes. "Metaphorically speaking, then. I'm not blind." He was getting twitchy, though, sitting still and talking about serious things for what felt like hours. Tommy stood, grabbing the remnants of his snack. "Sorry it didn't work out the way you wanted."
"I don't even know what we're talking about anymore," Shen stated after a beat, although her wings had rustled unhappily at his comment about not being blind. Sometimes it was beyond her why she felt anything at all for Tommy. (But when she saw him smile, really smile, she remembered she didn't have to understand it; she just did.)
Keeping all of us on a string, he wanted to say, but that was wrong and unfair. Trying to keep me around, wanting and waiting and trying until you decide on someone else after all. Except that was the problem with any relationship, not special to Shen. And he didn't want to think about why it was different. Wynonna hadn't made him any promises either.
But she also hadn't said up-front that he'd never be good enough. Maybe that was the difference after all. Shen had seen through him and known that he'd never measure up. That she'd need more than him to be happy. (Wynonna hadn't figured that part out yet. Maybe it wasn't fair to her, but Tommy hadn't made her any promises either. He was just hanging in there until she caught on.)
"Yeah," he said instead of any of that, feeling the space between them grow even though he wasn't moving. Tommy smiled, but the funny twisting inside made it kind of... sad. Dammit. "I got that. I'm out - places to go, dishes to bring back - but thanks again for the save. I'm definitely too young and beautiful to die. At least not that way," he cracked as he headed for the stairs, finding his footing again.
Shen wanted to call him out on his bullshit, or just call him back. Maybe shake him (not zen), or maybe just hug him again. But she was exhausted. Emotionally exhausted. And Jeanne-Marie had to come first, before this stupid boy she couldn't help but have feelings for, even now he'd had a girlfriend for months.
Shen missed having her to curl up with. She desperately wanted that, just now.
"You have a good one," she said, trying to sell the nothing-to-see-here, all-good vibe, when she wasn't even able to come up with a reply to his flippant words about dying. They would never really talk again, would they? It would be more of this. Tommy hinting at stuff, and checking out of the conversation before it got too real. One more reason why they were a bad idea. So she climbed on the ledge and jumped, wings spreading and taking her up. Flying would help. Flying always helped.
He paused at the top of the stairs, feet itching at him to keep moving, start running, get far away from the riot of uncomfortable inside his chest. He stayed and watched her fly away anyway. It was always going to have been this way -- sooner or later, even if she'd decided to take the chance on him after all, he'd have been watching her leave him behind. It was better that it was like this, instead of after doing something dumb like getting invested.
It didn't feel better. "Shen!" he called out, but the wind whipped the words away from his mouth. She was too far to hear him anyway, and what would he have said? Tommy turned and zipped down the stairs, letting the door slam closed behind him.
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Awesome log! But yeah. Sad.
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