apassingafternoon | between two points

between two points

The journey was largely uneventful.

They passed some angry yaks and Kaine's 'skirt' fell off and she squealed before she fumbled it back on but that was about the extent of things. It took the entire afternoon and the sun had long fallen by the time her home/little compound made itself known, even against the mountains. Just as she had thought the lights were on inside and her animals made their familiar, happy shuffling noises. Shivering, Kaine didn't bother to explain a damn thing just yet, no matter how many questions might linger on Alain and Cuthbert's tongues. She undid the strings to her gate to let them in and then quickly closed and retied it from the other side to help keep the wolves out.

As they traveled up the little stone path to her door Kaine could smell dinner and suddenly she knew with frightening clarity that Roland and Nariko hadn't gone anywhere. Maybe into town but returning to Roland's world wasn't currently on their mind. That didn't bother her but she knew it would only further aggravate Bert who was already in a shit mood and poor Alain who was in pain and shouldn't have been traveling at all.

Kaine opened her door and sighed even as she heard a gun unholstering and knew from its soft whistle that it was Nariko's.

"You're not shooting me in my own fucking house," Kaine said, raising a brow at her best friend. Her ex-lover. "... How did you even find a dress that tight?"

Because it was certainly that, a rich blue and figure hugging, paired well with her dark hair left down, too genuinely Nariko-ish for Kaine to believe this was some odd dream she was still having in the corners of her brain. They were here and Nariko was alive. Roland was alive. Kaine couldn't see the telltale ring on either of them. That crazy bitch-god had kept her word and brought her back, let Roland go find her. Kaine had never believed in anything but even though her expression remained deadpan she suddenly wanted to praise any God that might listen to her.

"Wei." Nariko answered but her voice was thin and uncomprehending. "Why are you - how?" Her eyes darted to Alain and Cuthbert as if unable to fully understand their existence, Kaine could clearly see her friend trying to puzzle out what the hell was going on but she gave up halfway through. Her gun went back to the table and Kaine gave up before she started and let herself be pulled back into those familiar, warm arms, the protective grip.

"I'm home." She didn't know if anyone heard it, didn't really care. Shit was going to hit her own fan, but Kaine earned these few seconds.

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With a little sigh of relief Kaine headed towards the stairs, wonder or not. By the time she reached the foot of them he had posed his question and the answer came without much thought. "Alain. He's knocked out so don't worry much about getting him up." They would probably be lucky if he was conscious for breakfast, come to think of it. She motioned for him to follow her, the very act halfhearted as she suddenly realized how damn tired she was.

Upstairs she gave basic directions, "That one is mine, the bathroom is here, Roland and Nariko are just before the other stairs, and Alain is in there." There were two other doors, both on the opposing wall, "The other one is the last guest room if you ever want it." And the final one was her parents room, but that wasn't worth mentioning. "Do you need anything else?" Because if not, well, Kaine had already placed herself in front of her own door.

He looked, for a moment, as if he might say something. Then he shook his head, turning to head into the room where Alain was sleeping. "I don't think so. Thankee, sai." He'd reverted back to a curious kind of stiffness that felt strangely foreign now. Why, he couldn't say. But he managed a smile for her, before vanishing into the guest room.

That words lingered in him wasn't her concern in the slightest. It had taken a good bit of time but Kaine was finally at the end of her rope. He went inside and she exhaled, half of her weight and awareness seeming to go with her breathe. For a moment her own door was considered but eventually she walked the short way over to another one and knocked very gently. If not for Roland she would have just gone inside but flouncing in on a couple, one that had been allotted their own space and both quick enough to shoot her head off? Shitty idea.

So she knocked and it was Nariko's voice that arched beyond the door that Kaine barely opened. "I almost have no idea why you didn't just say who you were before you came in." Almost, because Nariko was only an idiot about certain matters. Kaine's issue with Roland, her fear of 'invading' something, was not on the list of particular matters.

"Did I wake you up?" Even when she stepped inside Kaine was unnaturally timid. Her usual, stoic composure was nowhere to be found, and she looked at Roland doubtfully, as if he might snarl at her and demand she leave. He wouldn't, and they both knew it (the idea did make Nariko giggle, though).

Kaine's answer was the book in her friends hand, lifted up. The little desk lamp was one but the rest of her now shared room was bathed in darkness. If Roland wanted to pretend to sleep then she might as well help him, right? But Nariko didn't expect it to come anytime soon, even with her husband beside her, better to keep her mind busy than let it roam free.

"Can I ..." Kaine's voice trailed off, and again, she looked between Roland and Nariko. Stay with you practically begged to be spoken but it hung in the air, instead. It seemed Kaine was a little short on bravery, too.

Rolling over, Roland pushed himself up on his elbows and gave up on the facsimile of sleep. It wasn't, apparently, likely to save him from people talking, and since that was the entire point of pretending to sleep (well, that and the vague hope that pretence might become reality) there was no point in continuing the act.

"So far as I'm concerned, you can," he said, after a moment. "Did you find Bert?"

It was just casual enough to disguise his worry. Frankly, the fact that Kaine didn't look like she'd been punched suggested that either she hadn't found Cuthbert, or Cuthbert's mood hadn't been quite what Roland had expected. Either way, that didn't seem to bode well.

"He was on the steps, and he's with Alain now." Permission was all she had needed so Kaine crossed the distance, lifted the blankets on Nariko's side without any real sense of hesitation, not anymore, and took up the other side of her friend. The mattress could have easily held four people total, so Kaine's slimmer frame was nothing to worry about. She pulled her side of the covers up enough to reach her chest, and laid on her back. Nariko did not need to be asked to pet her hair, she simply went about it as her free hand kept a hold of her book.

"He called me a bitch in heat," There was the bitterness that Kaine had gripped onto until she could tell it to Nariko. "And then asked if he could stay with me." There was a defeated sigh, there, because even though she was upset it wasn't in her to really frame this incorrectly. "To be fair it was a choice between Alain or I." It sounded as if the effort to be fair was near physically painful for her. "That doesn't even make any sense."

"No one makes sense when they are upset." Nariko hummed in that thoughtful, considering way that Kaine had become used to. "But I'm glad you put him with Alain. I think that was the right decision, considering."

"I guess." And yet to the observant Kaine very obviously relaxed underneath that approval. "I'm so fucking tired."

"Lucky," Nariko commented idly, and turned a page.

Ah. So that was how he'd struck out at her. Roland actually relaxed a little at that; if Bert was being an ass and hitting out at people he cared for, that meant the world was probably still spinning. Even if it also meant there was going to be a hell of a mess to clear up for all concerned.

"I'd offer to slap some sense into him, but I'm not so sure I'm the man for the job just at the moment." Lying back down, he stared up at the ceiling for a moment before adding, "Alain may be able to talk him out of being quite such an ass, though."

"It's fine." Kaine huffed in a decidedly not-fine way and added, "Alright, it's bullshit and I feel stupid, but I mean that it doesn't really matter in the end. He's made the situation clear and I won't prove him right, either. It was what it was for a little while. Now it's nothing." And yet her 'nothing' was just about as valid as her 'fine'. She sounded like a downtrodden teenager attempting to cover the hurt with cool apathy because that was exactly what Kaine was doing, all she knew to do. At the very least it was a positive that she wasn't bursting tears everywhere but there was such a thing as being too exhausted to physically cry.

"... Thank you, though, for the would-be offer. I appreciate it." That much was spoken very sincerely and brought an immediate smile to Nariko's face. Roland and Kaine had barely spoken to one another and the latter had been overwhelmingly concerned about matters that weren't her place. But, now, through the oddest of circumstances there was more than a slim note of approval in Kaine's tone. It meant half the world to Nariko even if it didn't matter to the other two. "I should have listened and just let it be. Not bothered with anyone else."

"Right, because spending every waking moment of your life alone, without anyone to talk to, to even be mad at, is so much better. You were so happy living that way before that you hopped into another world just for shits and giggles. That's so ideal that your being here," In the bed, with Nariko and Roland. "Is just an unsettling twist in logic." Nariko's voice was a cross between Stern Parent and Utterly Deadpan, but Kaine only huffed in response again, and maybe poked at Nariko's side so that she would wiggle.

"We get our strength from those around us," Roland agreed, rather meditatively. "Trying to live life alone is like trying to build a wall out of one stone. It won't fall, but you won't achieve jackshit with it, either."

He fell silent for a moment, considering. At last, he added quietly, "I wouldn't hold too strong to anything he said tonight. Most of his strength came down with Gilead. You aren't the only one like to be thinking it would hurt less to stand alone."

And he knew that feeling very, very intimately.

Kaine thought on this for a long few moments and the initial flare of denial, the utter need to refute those words and that thought slowly ebbed into acceptance.

"I can somewhat manage that." It was too much to expect in a way, it was going to hurt and sting no matter what but Kaine didn't think that was what Roland meat. To lessen the force of her irritation ... She could do that. Yes, 'manage' was a good word for that. Nariko put her book off to the side and finally settled down under the blankets. Kaine took up one side, her head tucked just above Nariko's heartbeat. "I guess I just wish I could have been more helpful, but maybe I'm just not the right person for it."

She yawned, the desire to sleep thick in her voice, but it would be an extra moment before it really began to settle in her.

"I don't think it's that, sweetheart."

"You can only help those who want to be helped," Roland offered after a moment, closing his eyes. That was a lesson he was still struggling with, but that didn't mean it wasn't true. Sometimes, all you could do was let people know you were there. Sometimes, you couldn't even do that.

Sometimes, you couldn't be there at all. But that was a dark trail, one he had no wish to follow. That trail led to nightmares of falling walls and bloodied streets, fire and ash and desecration in the only place he'd ever called home. He wasn't willing to tread that path just yet. Better to focus on hers.

"It's not your duty to help him, anyroad. It's mine. And when he can look at me without wanting to spit, I'll get to it."

"Maybe it's not, but I wasn't trying because it's a 'duty', I was trying because I thought we were friends, and because he is important to me. Was. Is." That huffing noise, again. "Whatever. You get what I mean." Her eyes finally closed, her breathing slowed and Kaine hovered dangerously close to the border of conscious and unconsciousness.

When Nariko leaned over kiss Roland's cheek (she couldn't reach his lips without Kaine fussing, and the other girl was already making an insistent noise) it was gentle and sweet, and her free hand tried to find his.

"Thank you." He didn't have to let Kaine share their bed, of all things. For a man who insisted he wasn't kind Roland still found a way to disprove that, to enforce something Nariko would never be stupid enough to shove in anyone's face. He was as kind as the world allowed him to be. The only problem was that the world was never kind, but that only made her appreciate it to the fullest extent.

Roland took her hand, rolling onto his side to kiss her cheek in return. "For what?" Shaking his head, he turned onto his back, closing his eyes again, but didn't let go of her hand. "We all need our sleep. You should try to rest."

As if sleep was likely for either of them. He certainly couldn't feel it coming on. His arm was aching, and that was the most manageable of the pains he felt. But he lay there, holding her hand, and let his breathing smooth back out into low, shallow waves, and waited for pretence to become reality.

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