emptynight | Do you ever get the fear that your perfect verse is just a lie you tell yourself to help you get by?

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Do you ever get the fear that your perfect verse is just a lie you tell yourself to help you get by?

They arrived in Chicago an hour before sunset and, surprisingly, it was Thomas who insisted they stop off at a mall. Within an hour or so, he had bought clothes and changed, and come out of a jewelry boutique with a small bag in hand. Prying Alice away from the shoe stores took a little doing, along with a pair of earrings from his bag.

The drive from the mall to Thomas’ apartment building in the expensive part of town didn’t take long, though by the time they got there the last rays of sunlight had faded from the sky. The doorman recognized him immediately and grinned, mentioning something about how good it was to see him again. Thomas swallowed his irritation and nodded back pleasantly, dragging Alice with him up the elevator before either she or the doorman could say anything more. Once inside the elevator, he pulled on his last purchase of the evening, a pair of fine, thin leather gloves.

The first thing Thomas noticed when he unlocked the door to the apartment was the scent of perfume, her perfume, bittersweet and familiar. Stepping inside, his eyes immediately went to the couch, where she sat waiting patiently to all eyes except his. Even without feeling her emotions, he saw the way her gloved fingers tapped against her leg, a tiny nervous gesture he knew as well as he knew his own hand.

Thomas’ laugh was weak as he practically stumbled down the stairs. Justine hadn’t even had time to move by the time he was down the stairs, falling to his knees in front of her, arms wrapped around her waist, clinging to her as if he could pull her into himself.

(Tag Alice!)

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She had heard the key turn in the door, and the next thing Justine knew was Thomas on his knees, clinging to her as if he could pull her into him through sheer force of will. She returned the embrace, breathing deep of his scent, feeling him whisper against her lap. Her eyes were a little watery when she finally let him go (too soon, always too soon) and looked up, offering the waiting woman a smile.

She would have stood up if she could, but it felt too good to make Thomas move. Instead, she gestured at the rest of the apartment and said, "It's nice to meet you, Alice."

Justine had wanted her here and Thomas had brought her and that had all made perfect sense up until they got to the doorman, which was when Alice started feeling butterflies. By the time she was actually at the top of the stairs, no matter how much she'd wanted to meet Justine and see Thomas finally at some sort of peace this was fully crazy.

Except she had a quiet guess why she was there, on top of wanting to meet and exchange gifts and fix things, and she didn't dwell 'cause, there was nothing for that.

"It's nice to meet you too, finally." One of the weaker Alice voices on tap but there it was, one of the many (mostly unknown) ways to render Alice speechless. She wanted to cry and leave and make everything better for both of them immediately but that was her inner drama queen and she fully wasn't going to indulge it.

Instead she clacked down the stairs and took in the weird linearity of Thomas' house, all sharp angles and solid colors. "I was kinda surprised you wanted to see me but, you know, I'm kinda surprised by lots of things lately so that's my new deal." She shrugged and offered what was for Alice a very tentative smile.

"I've wanted to meet all of you for a month now." While one gloved hand ran through Thomas' hair with a long familiar gesture, the other pulled a perfectly folded white handkerchief from her purse and dabbed at her eyes. "But, given that I work for Lara, that isn't really possible."

Despite the fact that she was near tears, Justine's voice was clear, composed. Just a product of years as Lara's assistant. She tugged at Thomas' shoulder, pulling him up, and he obliged, rising to sit next to her. Even as he did, he kept his hand on her, gloves and all, always touching and yet not, as if she were a mirage that would evaporate if he didn't. It was alright. She was doing the same.

"Won't you have a seat, Alice?" Another warm, inviting smile as Justine gestured to the couch. Over Thomas' otherwise occupied head, Justine nodded at the seat on Thomas' other side. Girl plotting. As if she'd done nothing of the sort, Justine continued. "I should thank you, for dragging this stubborn, pigheaded, obstinate idiot here." With every word of that last sentence, Justine smacked Thomas on the shoulder.

He couldn't stop looking at her, touching her. The words being exchanged were inconsequential, not when he had her here. Thomas drank in the sight of her hungrily. Justine. His Justine, wearing a tailored grey business suit that flattered her curves and still remained utterly professional. Her hair, pure white instead of that rich dark brown he had loved, held tightly up and out of her face by a pair of pearly hair sticks. There were subtle lines in her face marking the passage of time, but they only served to enhance her beauty, made her look lovelier, richer.

He could have stared at her forever, except she was now hitting him and calling him an idiot.

That was enough to break the spell, and perhaps she knew it, had done it specifically for that reason. Or, given the rare anger that he could sense coming off her like heat from banked coals, she really was just angry. "Ow! Justine!" The whine in his voice went unheeded as she rained a few more light, furious blows on his shoulder. Thomas could only hope Alice wouldn't take this as encouragement.

"I'm sorry, alright?" he said, looking peevishly at both women, though the way he clutched at Justine's hand, black leather against white silk, conveyed the truth of his statement.

A month she said, and Alice blinked. Right. They were back in the Bubble O' Time Weird, so it'd be- her head hurt just trying to think about how long it'd be. Either way Justine wanted to meet 'all of them' and that lumped her with a pretty important group as far as she was concerned. 'Cause if Alice knew, there was no way Justine didn't.

She took her cues like a pro even if it did surprise her again, sat on Thomas' other side and took in the gloves and the look on his face which made her heart break just a bit, but the hitting broke Alice's spell too, and she gave a tiny grin. Just for a second. The apology was the most sincere she'd ever heard Thomas so clearly this had been the right thing to do.

"I know you are." She patted his shoulder but left him untouched otherwise, the two of them clutching each other looked like a current she didn't want to interrupt or something, and anyway there wasn't much more to say about it she hadn't already.

"To be totally fair I didn't drag him physically I mean, I could have and I was fully prepped to go that far but he came on his own in the end and that's always better, you know?" She said it like she was talking about how to train a puppy which, not completely true, but the humor was helping and she was only totally relieved to hear it come out of Justine's mouth.

"And I've wanted to meet you for ages, I mean I thought about trying to last time I was in Chicago but it was kind of a whirlwind trip, yeah? Anyway this way we get to chat and stuff." If Alice gave her an anything look, it probably translated to 'you would not believe, get him now while the getting is good'. 'Cause Justine obviously had pull that no one else did, but Thomas was Thomas, and this window of wonder couldn't last forever.

Justine's smile grew fractionally at Alice's look, but otherwise she did nothing to acknowledge it. She knew Thomas even better than he knew himself, sometimes, and, just looking at him, she knew it would be like pulling teeth to get him to do anything. Sometimes he needed blindsiding. Hard.

"If you had just dropped in, things would have looked suspicious, unfortunately," Justine continued. If Alice had ever seen Thomas' future outside the house, Justine suspected the other woman would know just how carefully she and Thomas stepped around Lara. How meetings, phone calls, and letters were all scripted and couched in a hundred layers of meaning. "But you're right, now we can chat." She ignored Thomas' groan at the word.

Gently untangling herself from Thomas, Justine stood and walked over to the dining room table, where a small mountain of wrapped packages rested. Picking up the top one, a thin, pink garment box wrapped with a black and white bow, she returned to the couch and handed it to Alice. "First things first. For not pitching him off on the side of the road."

Even as Thomas grumbled in dark, masculine protest, he reached into the bag he'd brought with him and pressed a small package into Justine's hand. She glanced down at the earrings and smiled again, hand tightening carefully against his.

"Oh, thank you! I only considered it a few hundred times so I appreciate the acknowledgment but it's totally unnecessary, yeah? I mean- I got you something (http://pics.livejournal.com/manicpixydream/pic/0001bkb4) too, just you know, not for anything, just." Just for being Justine, really, who could be anywhere in the world and would still be a constant presence in Thomas' mind, and that was worth way more than just the necklace she pulled from her purse, but there were limitations on what even Alice was able to do in short spans of time.

And ok, so she'd been invited, but this was Justine's show and she was for once taking a back seat. It wasn't a bad seat, it just wasn't what she was used to. Hell, Alice wasn't sure she'd ever get used to being nervous. Living without her sight was more complicated than she'd thought.

Thomas was rolling his eyes at the display, and Justine resisted the urge to smack him. He was doing it on purpose and they both knew it. Jerk.

Instead, she hugged Alice as tight as a human could, whispering in the other woman's ear, "Thank you, for bringing him back." So she could fix him.

Pulling away again, Justine took a seat back next to Thomas. "I know you've been driving, so I took lunch off to go shopping for presents for you to take back when you go," she informed him. "I've been watching all day. You've got a lot of grovelling to do. Fortunately, Lacrimosa's kept your things safe so you don't need to buy another wardrobe for yourself when you get back." Justine's gloved hand patted Thomas on the shoulder, as if there was no question he's go back and stay.

Justine's words made Thomas' head snap up in surprise. Despite their conversation yesterday, from his reception, Thomas had thought... Wishful thinking, clearly. "I'm just dropping Alice off," he insisted. "Then I'm coming back here." With you.

Justine's hand slid down his shoulder to grip his, and he stared at their gloved fingers, entwined black and white. "Please, Thomas, don't lie to me," she said softly. "You want to go back. You want to make things right with Drusilla, and Lacrimosa, and Edward. You care too much to leave like this. It's alright. You should go." Left unspoken was the fact that even if he stayed, she wouldn't stay with him, because they had made their plans long ago, and it didn't involve her in this chic and uncomfortable apartment.

He still looked stunned, though the light of comprehension slowly dawned in Thomas' eyes as he looked from Justine to Alice. They'd both wanted him here for this one thing. He shook his head and laughed, a single dry almost bitter chuckle. "You've gotten too good at this."

Alice could have cheered, and it was only decades of practice that kept her from actually doing it. Justine was good, but then she'd seen that look on Thomas' face before when she'd corralled Jasper into some deal he'd been avoiding and realized he was cornered, so it wasn't a total shock. That was just how it worked.

Props on her for doing it without being able to tell the future though, jeez.

"She's not wrong Thomas, I mean- ok we've been riding around for weeks and you know I was first in line to get you gone, but everything's different now and besides, you do wanna go back, I can see it every time I talk about it." When he wasn't scowling or shouting and sometimes even then. And she was not going to bring up Dru. That was definitely Justine's job this time.

Justine's smile turned sad, as if Thomas' words had reminded her, had reminded them both, of just how much they've both changed. "I learned from the best," she answered, squeezing his hand tightly.

"Alice is right, and you know it." She was telling him things he already knew, because she could see it in his eyes, knew it even without laying eyes on Thomas. Still, he needed to hear it from her. Thomas had dropped his eyes to their hands and she caught his chin in her hand, tilting his face up to meet her eyes. "Look at me, Thomas," she said. "I told you yesterday that it's alright. That it's alright to fall in love again."

It hurt. It still hurt. And he would know, but he would know the truth of what she was saying too. "You should go back, because they make you happier than I've seen you in years."

He could feel her hurt, could feel that deep dull ache from Justine. Or maybe it was his own. But mingled with hurt was acceptance and a tentative thread of joy. His hand tightened on Justine's, unable to look away. Her face relaxed, knowing that he was reading her like a book, could read the truth in her emotions and understood with far more depth than mere words could express.

"It shouldn't be this way. You should be the one to get the happy ending, Justine. You deserve it infinitely more than I do."

He was out of excuses. He had been out of excuses from the second Justine picked up her phone. Maybe even before that. He looked from Justine to Alice and back again, the fear that he'd been burying finally on the surface. "I don't know how I can make things right again."

Justine knew, obviously Justine knew and ok that was less of a surprise than it should have been but no one was saying anything out loud, and that was ok. It was Thomas after all, things going unspoken was kind of the deal there. She could think it really hard. Thomas was in love with Dru and h'ed turned it into a massive clusterfuck but it was all going to be fine now because he was going to do something about it. And her stuff with Dru was for another day completely.

"By going back and doing it is how, and you take it from there, yeah? There's no one answer Thomas but there's a lot of little things and you know it's gonna be the little things that come to you later, when you're already back for good, and I'll help." In the places where she could, but again, another day. "The only way you can for sure screw it up is by not going back and trying."

She could almost see it sink in, her words, Alice's. Justine knew Thomas like the back of her hand, and she knew it was time to leave him alone, to let him work through the things he was too afraid to believe. "I brought take-out," she offered with a smile. "From that place you like down by MacAnally's. It's in the fridge."

Justine rose with a nod to Alice, gently disentangling herself again and running a hand through Thomas' hair. "Alice and I will go outside and gossip. Eat something for me, please?"

Thomas nodded, his face stunned and weary while his eyes nearly shone with pride and respect. "You've always been too good to me."

She shook her head again, and offered Alice a hand, leading the other woman through the spotless bedroom and out onto the balcony, where the view was spectacular.

"Just in case you were wondering, I came by after he left to pick up," she remarked, nodding behind them at the bedroom. Justine wrinkled her nose. "If I didn't, I'm sure the place would have turned into its own rain forest by the time he came back."

Edited 2009-10-16 01:31 (UTC)

"Yeah, it doesn't look super lived-in by much of anyone never mind Thomas, you could give him a pair of socks and come back to find a room piled high, it's kind of a bizarre superpower and I know from those, trust me." Alice leaned against the balcony, half-looking at the view and half at Justine.

"I'm not gonna lie, the stuff you haven't seen on TV wasn't great," she said finally, wondering if there was stuff she should for sure say, stuff she should leave out. It was pretty simple though. All she had to do was think of Jasper. "He's been hurting a lot and it was like punching through a bunker to get him to let me help, but you probably already know that, and you probably know it's getting better. Especially after he talked to you."

Justine's smile was sad as she listened to Alice. She pulled the thin sticks out of her hair and let the long white fall of it down, letting the wind carry it out of her face. "It took a long time for him to let me help. Years. And even then I had to figure out how his mind works," she said, staring out into the night. "The fact that you got him here at all without having to resort to tying him to the back of the bike says a lot."

She fell silent, thinking, staring at her gloved hands. Thomas wouldn't like her talking about him like this, laying him open, but someone needed to take care of him. Someone who cared, and Alice was here, while the others weren't. Her words were soft but came easily, betraying the amount of time she'd thought about them. "He thinks he needs the pain, to remind him that he loves people. And maybe he does. Maybe that pain keeps him from becoming like his family."

Justine laughed a little, sad and quiet. "And he won't ever talk about it, about being in love. About caring for people. Because he thinks it's a weakness. It hurts him and has been used against him too many times. I hope you won't blame him for feeling that way."

Alice had a lot of opinions and most of the time people heard them loud and clear, or at least they thought they did. There was plenty she kept to herself. Even Edward didn't get all of it poking through her head, just 'cause there was so much, and she knew where to hide things. And she knew she came off as the perkiest cheerleader, but she was as she had pointed out a hundred and frigging nine, and there was stuff she knew.

"I guess you know I'm married right, like it's pretty common knowledge. And Jasper's kind of the same way, only older and I wanna say wiser without sounding like a jerk. There's pain he's gotta keep cause it reminds him of where he went wrong, and pain he can't get rid of cause it just is, so you know, that part I get, believe it or not. Thomas wouldn't." She smiled just as sadly, secret shared between the two of them.

"I'm never gonna blame him for the stuff he carries around, even the stuff he thinks he needs that he doesn't, I won't. Blame isn't gonna help, you see that pretty quick with more than just Jasper. There's layers there though Justine, there are, he can still chip away at them, I mean if he couldn't I would've had to hogtie him and I didn't. There's still stuff he can have." Like a certain amount of happiness he was bound and determined to deny himself.

She really wanted to hug this woman and give her everything that she should have too, way more than she usually wanted to do with just about everyone. Justine deserved that. Alice just didn't have anything to give her other than what she knew, and what she'd do for Thomas.

"He's happier when he's with them."

Happier, but older and wiser. Different from the Thomas she had known and fallen in love with, but still the same. "He'll understand someday, that it doesn't make us any less." There were things Justine thought about, things that she wouldn't say, because they would hurt Thomas far more than they would help. But she had hopes. She hoped that, along with Harry, Drusilla and Lacrimosa and Edward would keep Thomas grounded and happy, that they would keep him cared for and loved even after she became little more than a memory and a name on a headstone.

But that was something you didn't say to someone you just met, not even if she was a psychic. "He's got time to learn. He's only thirty-eight, after all." Only. Compared to someone who was at least a century. That made her laugh a little.

Justine turned away from the view and hugged Alice, arms wrapping tight against the petite woman. "Thank you." When she pulled away, her eyes were teary again, and Justine pulled a glove off to wipe her eyes. No need to leave traces for Thomas to see. "Is there anything I can do, to make it easier for you to deal with that giant walking pile of stubborn?"

The only thing Alice could think of was to ask Justine to come with them so they could figure out a way around this burning crap cause what would that take, a few months tops? But relentlessly optimistic and painfully naive were different things, which maybe Thomas would get if he was around her long enough.

"I think you've done enough, more than, but you know you could slip in the whole buy Alice shoes thing if it comes up in conversation," she grinned, hugging Justine as hard as you hugged a human without breaking them. "He just needed to hear it from you which, you know, understandable. And listen, don't worry, I'm gonna look out for him, he's kind of grown on me and you know, I'm pretty tough believe it or not."

((Desquish on the balcony))

"Will you write me? It can't be through email because Lara's got access to all the servers, but she doesn't check every piece of mail that comes through, especially not since I have a secure post office box elsewhere." Justine slid the glove back on and began pulling her hair back into its bun. "He doesn't tell me things, you know. I just make good guesses."

Glancing through the big glass wall, Justine could see that Thomas was done eating, and she nodded towards the interior. "Should we go back in?" she asked. "I think he could use a little more feminine terrorizing." And there were still a couple of things she needed to be sure of.

Alice hugged her once more, just for the whole feminine terrorizing thing 'cause Rosalie never went in for that, just rolled her eyes and flipped her hair, and it was kind of nice to have an ally. Especially this time, when it was one who could drill right to the heart of stuff without all the agony she'd had to go through the past couple of and yeah, it'd be nice if she didn't have to do that again. Ever.

But wishes and horses and all that. "Sounds good to me, if you've got any tricks I should know about just to keep him in line a demonstration would totally not go amiss, cause you know I don't think he'd take to an actual leash." She grinned and slid the door back open, turning her smile on Thomas.

Justine had to giggle to keep herself from answering Alice's not-question. There were some things that Thomas would just not live down if she spilled. The giggle also had the bonus effect of making Thomas look up, wary in the way that men got when women were talking about them. She giggled again. "Don't worry, Thomas. I haven't spilled any more deep dark secrets of yours that you haven't done so already," she reassured him.

"I just want to make sure you know which presents are for whom. And I'm going to ship the others tomorrow. You can't carry everything on that bike." Justine hadn't labeled them; her handwriting would have given them away. But it didn't matter, because she knew Thomas, and if he had the time, he would have found similar things for each of them. And now that he knew it was alright to go back, she didn't want him wasting time, lingering in some mall.

She opened a pink box just like the one she'd given Alice, and inside was another dress, this one dark with a pattern of multicoloured roses. "This one's for Drusilla." Another box, another dress. This one was simpler, black with a detailed zipper. "For Lacrimosa."

Justine rolled her eyes at Thomas when he glanced at them and nodded, just long enough to see what they looked like, not to appreciate them. Men.

She pulled the last box open, this one long and flat, and showed him a leather and copper scabbard and belt, beautifully worked and flawlessly functional. "That's for Edward."

Food and quiet had gone a long way to reconciling Thomas with his fate, so to speak, but Justine's presents, all thoughtfully picked out, made doubt bubble up again. Especially the scabbard.

"We can leave that here," he said. "I don't think I'll be needing that one."

It was tempting to get mad at him again, but it wasn't like the whole not knowing how Edward was going to receive either of them hadn't been bugging her a little bit too, which, on reflection, kind of the point.

"Thomas if I can go back to that house after Edward basically threatened my life and expect stuff to work out eventually I'm pretty sure you can manage a present, especially one that well thought-out, I mean yeah he's gonna be angry but you don't know him like I do, stubborn and eternal are not the same thing." Her tone was light but emphatic, 'cause she knew what she was talking about. Edward was about a thousand times more likely to forgive Thomas sooner and more readily than he was to forgive her.

It was really tempting to pick up the scabbard and beat him over the head with it. As it was, Justine merely glared at him. "Alice?" she asked. "Can you hold my earrings?"

Thomas looked up at that. Even he knew what it meant. "Dru and Lacci cared enough to write, to send word, something," he said, the ease with which the words flowed belying how often he'd thought of them. Even when he hadn't believed himself, Lacci had. Dru, in her own way, had. Edward? Edward believed exactly what Thomas had done and nothing more, apparently. Believed the lie he'd spun for so many people. "I owe it to them to apologize."

Justine stared, struck speechless. She shook her head and looked to Alice, as if unable to believe what Thomas was actually saying.

"You expected Edward to write?" It came out before Alice could even try to stop it she was so shocked. "Thomas are you drunk? I don't even know how long it's been for them yet but I'm pretty sure like maybe a night and that's about long enough for Edward to figure out he has a feeling about something, never mind admit it, who the hell have you been rooming with?" She nearly did hit him. Men.

"I'll tell you exactly what's going through Edward's head right now cause I only lived with him for sixty years, yeah? He's gonna be scrambling for pretty much any reason to be pissed at you that doesn't have to do with giving a damn about you since you know, that's fully terrifying, plus undoubtedly the whole doesn't miss you at all floor show is probably in full swing by now, of course he cares about you, you giant flaming idiot, that's why he hasn't called!"

Ok, so maybe she'd gotten a bit worked up there. She shrugged a tiny bit at Justine. "Sorry."

Even as he listened to Alice's words tumbling out of her with frustration and disbelief, Thomas watched Justine's face. She had, by her own admission, been following the show all night. And her stunned disbelief flowing seamlessly into agreement with Alice held the ring of truth. It was just hard to remember that it had only been one night when he'd been carrying it for weeks. Didn't seem fair somehow.

Justine turned to Alice instead and shrugged. "You said it better than I could have," she replied before Thomas could come up with anything at all to say. In the silence, Justine put away the gift, wrapped it in its tissue paper and set the lid back on the box. "You're bringing them all back," she said firmly. Her expression softened once she had them all back in a pile. "For me?"

He couldn't help the smile then, touched with bitterness. It wasn't for her, and they both knew it. This was for him. For his idiotic mess. For whatever little happiness he could have. Always for him. Thomas breathed deeply, savouring the scent of her perfume, and nodded. Justine relaxed, and he smiled again. "I'll go back. And I'll bring it all with me." That. That was for her. All that had happened on the show, the relationships and friendships that had grown out of it, that was for him. But being there, being on television, was only the first step of something more. And that would be for her.

Thomas crumpled the take out container, tossed everything back into its neat little plastic bag. Equilibrium. "Happy now?" he asked irritably, shooting both Justine and Alice a look of affection tempered annoyance.

Sometimes she could swear there were parts of little boys that just never grew up, and ok it could be said for either gender, but men always seemed to find some circumstance where they got this look on their face like they were about eight years old and had been tricked into eating their vegetables, which they secretly liked anyway. It didn't matter if they were thirty-eight or a hundred and eight, they just went fine I'll eat my broccoli and waited for you to say something and Alice couldn't help it, it made her smile.

"Close to it Thomas, pretty damn close. You can ship 'em with my presents if you want, they'll all get there at the same time that way, or you know if you wanna keep it separate from me I get that too." Her nerves were going to take a lot more work on her part to keep quiet now that Thomas had been hauled over the hurdle, which was what they were going to do now, dammit. "Either way yeah, happy is the look on my face, and seriously, you're really gonna like broccoli eventually."

Ok so that was a bit random even for Alice, but hey, it was a weird night.

Grumbling, Thomas took the few steps needed to get to the kitchen and disposed of the trash. He would have been more irritated if Justine and Alice hadn't felt so damned relieved about everything. As it was he was mostly just putting on a good show for his own ego.

"Let us take you out for a drink or to a club or something," he said to Justine. "Help me show Alice around the city?"

She shook her head, a stray lock of hair falling into her eyes. Brushing it away, Justine smiled, calm and bittersweet. "I'd love to, but I need to get back to work. She knows how long it takes to check up here. I'm pushing things as is." Her voice turned brisk and businesslike for a moment. "It'll be safe to stay here tonight. There's no security and the doorman is trustworthy. But I wouldn't push it past that, and I know it's hard, Thomas, but try to keep a low profile?" She hugged Alice again, kissing the petite woman on both cheeks, before offering Thomas a hand. "Walk me to the door?"

Thomas nodded, nodding a silent 'I'll be back in a minute,' to Alice, and took Justine's hand, fingers twining, holding on as if he would never let go. She did the same. The walk up the stairs to the entry took too little time, and they stood at the door, silent and staring. Too many things to say, too few words to use.

The hand not clutching hers moved to Justine's cheek, brushing the familiar curve with leather covered fingers. He could feel her warmth seeping through it, and smiled. Her smile turned tremulous but her confidence never wavered as he leaned in close, a painfully familiar gesture. Justine. His Justine. Always his Justine.

The touch of her lips was like tasting the sun. Bright and warm and for a split second it was all there was, warm lips and overwhelming desire that he seemed filled with it. Warmth, and following on its heels, fire that scorched, that burned everything it touched. Love. Thomas could feel it burn, could feel the skin of his lips crack and split and blister, but he held on, pulling Justine closer, as if he could just have her if he tried hard enough, held on long enough for her touch to reduce the darkness in him to cinder and ashes.

She pressed against him, wanting and familiar for a long, precious moment, and then pulled away, silken fingertips brushing his face. "See? It's alright," she whispered, eyes filled with tears, fingers tracing his heat blistered lips. "I love you."

The words bubbled up, natural and wanting, but stuck in his throat. Like they always did. "I-- Drive safely, Justine." She smiled again, nodded, and opened the door. Thomas stood there for a long moment, wrapped in the lingering warmth of her touch, before he closed the door and headed back down the stairs.

As if nothing had happened, he walked into the kitchen and filled a glass with ice and water. Taking a sip from the glass, Thomas smiled at Alice, maybe a little slower than normal. "So, you want to go to the salon for a Cosmo or three?"

There was going to be absolutely no mention of the smell, or how it looked like he'd taken matches to his mouth, or even how unbelievably proud she was of him 'cause ok, maybe she and Justine had pushed him to the water but he had been the one to drink and that was something. And if she was still trying to work out a way around this idiotic burning crap well that was just 'cause she was Alice and defeat did not come easily, even when she opened the door and invited it in like the mature, confident vampire she was.

"I could drink, yeah, and I wanna see Mad again, maybe we can even catch a bit of the show." They were going to have to talk about that. How they were getting there and by what route because Alice already had ideas, hopefully the same ones now that he'd kind of come to his senses. She grinned. "But only if you do the accent, yeah? I've only been looking forward to that for ages."

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Do you ever get the fear that your perfect verse is just a lie you tell yourself to help you get by?

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