♫6

[both_neither]

[Gren is in the kitchen, enjoying an early cost-free breakfast. He's learned over the last few months to relax about the castle a little. Enough, at least, to help stretch his meager budget from his job in town.

He leans on the counter with a half-eaten plate of scrambled eggs near his elbow and a piece of toast poised in his mouth as he pages through the journal to get the latest news.

When, of course, a drop of jam falls onto the corner of the page. Automatically he goes to speak, but it's a bit muffled by food.]

Oh man...sorry about that.

[He wipes most of it away, but smears it around in the process, then a moment's pause as he takes a drink of milk and speaks again, this time much clearer]

Man, at least if you spill jam on your morning paper, you don't have to worry about getting it on everyone else's.

Oh, hey, while I'm at it, I was kind of wondering about the food situation in here. Is this is all wished up food, or does the castle refill it by itself? Do any of you bring in your own? I hope I didn't steal anybody's eggs...

[A short pause as something occurs to him]

And, uh, not that it concerns me, but where are the ghosts? They're usually hanging around in here. [He's had to shoo one away from taking his dishes away more than once.]

((Replies will be very slow through the weekend. Work is a harsh mistress...))

Comments

[both_neither]

[Gren shot him an equally perplexed look]

If I didn't care, why would I be here?

[nothingtobelieve]

I don't know.

[And maybe now isn't the best time to be figuring it out, but damned if he isn't curious.]

The question is, why do you?

[both_neither]

[He glanced away and shrugged]

I just do. You're my friend.

[Which was only the answer on the surface, though no less the truth]

[nothingtobelieve]

A friend? Your opinion of me seems to have risen a good deal.

[It hadn't been that long ago since they'd declared a truce, after all.]

[both_neither]

[His head fell back against the chair with a sigh. Of course Vicious would trap him in his own words]

Maybe it never fell in the first place. It would have been easier on me if it had.

[nothingtobelieve]

I imagine so.

[Given what he'd done, and what Gren had told him about what had come after, it would have been far easier to hate him, in his estimate. And yet, here they were.]

[both_neither]

[His eyes opened and stared up at the ceiling]

Look, I know it never mattered as much to you as it did to me. I would have forgotten about it if I could have. Hated you...if I could have. But I couldn't. Not completely. I never had much of a choice in the matter either way.

[nothingtobelieve]

[And what to make of that? It certainly wasn't surprising. He couldn't quite grasp caring that much about anything, but he knew how impossible some things were to let go.]

I could have left you to that scorpion. I didn't save you just to betray you.

[He had saved him. And he had betrayed him. But the two were not cause and effect. Titan hadn't been meaningless.]

We all have things we can't let go of.

[As much as he wished that particular human frailty did not apply to him, it was too self-evidently not the case.]

[both_neither]

['I didn't save you just to betray you'

Slowly his lips pulled into a smile, in contrast to the shimmer of grief in his eyes, caught as he was between elation and confusion. Finally there was a validation that all this wasn't just a ruse. That Vicious really might be able to see him as a friend as well.

He turned his head to look at the silver-haired man again]

I guess we do.