Post by Matt on Sept 25, 2022 16:20:54 GMT -5
…“We are the youth, we'll take your fascism away
We are the youth, apologize for another day
We are the youth and politicians are so sure
We are the youth and we are knocking on death's door”…
Anthem For The Year 2000 - Silverchair
******
“You know, they say that nobody is perfect.
…but man, you two make it really hard not to believe that sometimes. Honestly, from the outside looking in it could be argued that you two lovebirds are really as close as it gets.
Young. Beautiful. Successful. Talented.
You both hit the lottery of life’s jackpot so hard that even God was standing around scratching his head wondering just how he managed to fuck that up. Seriously though, you’re both so incredibly gifted that you legitimately left nothing in the millennial gene pool for the rest of us… Have you seen some of the people wandering around calling themselves wrestlers? All those great hairlines, straight teeth and oozing charisma had to get drawn from somewhere, after all.
It’s borderline disgusting really.
Don’t come for me like it's jealousy though- I haven't got the time or energy to worry about what anyone else has when I have a hard enough time finding pants long enough to fit me. For serious though guys, one could argue that you both have it all…
You’re living the quintessential Barbie dream experience with all the vapidity, vanity and astounding social obliviousness that you could dream of. It's actually quite the wonder that you can even see straight with the ever lingering fog of self-importance that shrouds you. I'd have thought you might trip and fall over yourselves the moment the ‘real world’ presented its uglier face towards you but here you are… Upright and elitist as ever.
If anything it's quite a wonder how two people so multifaceted and perfected like sentient diamonds could otherwise be so… Boring. Banal. Bland. So otherwise meh given the outward promises of influence that radiates like a ripple through a sewage pond.
At least there's no nasty surprises, no underlying motives and agendas cause it's real tough to be anything other than what it says on the label when you realise that the only thing beneath it is an all-consuming void of self-loathing and inward antipathy.
A personality gravity well, complete with an intricately crafted facade and a vast over-expectation of success- or as better known… Sebastian Everett-Bryce.
I like to think this is the point where the indignation kicks in and you start wondering just who the fuck I might think I am to come and tell you what I think you are- and you inwardly cringe as you realize I’m not nearly as far from the truth as you’d like. Let’s be real here, just below the surface of under-expressive facial twitches is an aging Englishman in a three-piece suit with a pair of nail scissors trying to nip at the emerging weeds of doubt and insecurity that threaten to crack that eloquently airbrushed veneer.
It's no secret that I haven’t accomplished nearly as much as you have- that I’m firing shots from well beyond my station and hitting far more often than I have any right to, however my inexperience doesn’t make me blind… Or stupid.
You aren’t the first boy with almost as many issues as numbers in his bank account that I’ve had to distinct displeasure in spending time with. I get it, success is genetically engineered into your DNA Seb, your surname carries a weight where people have to inhale before the terms of your legacy are spewed forth. It's no secret around here you have a resume that reads like a menu without the prices- if you don’t already comprehend that it's out of your range, you probably shouldn’t have bothered in the first place. You have the kind of career that should have Shane and I quivering with self-doubt and chemically imbalanced hysteria as our precious Power Gloves are put on the line, seemingly as if we just won them…
Oh wait.
Unfortunately for you, Jenga never really did get my hands shaking.
Here’s the thing that you’ll no doubt gloss over as you rattle off all the reasons why you and the Sugar Plum Princess are going to be accessorising on your way out of EXP 31- we never built this house with the fear that it might be torn down, everything we’ve done since we walked through the door came with the proviso that we should never have made it in the first place.
We weren’t supposed to succeed Seb, everything we’ve done is on borrowed time and we get that better than you know… Our legacy as Multiplayer Champions is built on the edge of a crumbling cliff face, it has an expiry date and eventually- an end.
I’ll be fucking damned if it's in our first defense though.
I know enough about this industry and been around people in it long enough to understand that the first defence is always the toughest, it's the most pressure and the greatest odds that we’ll crumble in the newly assumed spotlight. I’m not gonna delude myself into thinking that it gets easier from here.
That being said- you’re an Everett-Bryce. You’ve been around the block a few times and the truth is, the pressure isn’t on us cause we don’t necessarily have to win. YOU have to beat US, not the other way around. It's your name on the line, just as much as it's our Power Gloves, it's your reputation as a high roller in this company and it's the expectation of success that you’ve fundamentally bred to be associated with your name.
Everything you have in this company is tied to your successes, you can’t simply untangle yourself from this Gordian Knot of doomed expectations and you won’t draw a blade for the sake of the noose that is slowly cinching around the base of your throat.
It's our gauntlets vs your name, your reputation and everything you are known for cause be fucking damned that someone like you loses to people like us, right?
We EARNED our place at the top of the multiplayer food chain, we’ve eaten more shit every step of the way than you’ve ever had to experience in your whole career- so if you think you’re sweeping in and we’re just handing these gauntlets off like they might be owed to you, cause your resume is printed on sheets of gold bouillon and the contract clauses are scribbled by Mother fucking Theresa herself… You have another thing coming.
When it comes down to it though, really, if you aren’t champion Seb… You’re a failure.
You don’t really want these gloves in truth- you want them to ease the tightening around your throat and maintain a falsetto reflection for your lady love to admire. You want them to take a deep breath before the expectation shifts exponentially towards something you aren’t in the mental and emotional position to attain.
Part of me wishes I could pity that feeling, that I could feel bad for someone who’s name is both a blessing and a curse- truth is though, the only thing my name ever got was some side-eyes, ridiculous name-calling and called out for multiple detentions.
What it will get me though, is a lot further than the anchor that you’re forced to carry on the end of your legacy.
Of course, a name isn’t always everything… Is it, Sloane?
From one supposed prodigy to another, I have to ask… Does it ever make you sick?
Not just a touch of the vapours as you laze across a sun lounge, but truly sick… As though there's a rot through your guts that seems to creep outwards, a deep pit that you dare not look down for fear of being swallowed by an abyss of your own creation.
You should- given all the gifts from the get go, a path cleared for you to make it and you still fail to appreciate ANY of it. You looked the gift horse straight in the mouth and decided you wanted it's fucking teeth too.
Let’s be real here Sloane, I think you’re a stunner and as talented as I might dare admit before I vomit black sludge across your crystal white carpets. If there is a gift in this industry to be had, you were born with it and you’ve proven that you know how to use them- provided the path to success is neatly paved and well maintained.
There was never a doubt that you’d make it, that you were destined to do wonderful things- and no one denies that for a moment. If they do, you’ve proven time and time again that you know how to make them pay for their dismissiveness and determined ignorance towards your abilities… I do wonder though, in my heart of many hearts.
If you had it as hard as anyone else did, as hard as I did… Would you ever have made it this far?
Of course the simple answer is yes, ‘cause savants find a way to be successful. Chips fall, puzzle pieces magically mould and merge to create the picture that was envisioned before the scattered image ever hit the table… However in your case, you found success through others, because of others being willing to forge that path for you to begin with.
Would you have seen the way if it were obscured and overgrown, would you have been willing to tear yourself to ribbons in hopes that whatever might lie beyond would make the scars somehow worthwhile. You glided your way up a gilded path and never once questioned how many broken bodies lie beneath those pavers, what anyone before you did so that you might ascend like the god damn fucking angel that you portray.
Don’t get me twisted chicky, you’re as good as anyone in that ring. Maybe better than most, but you’ve never once shown anything that resembles a killer instinct- you’ve been mad, you’ve been upset and hurt. You’ve done terrible things but you did so as a consequence, as a reaction.
Somehow nurtured those feelings and fed them to you like a fledgling bird, then you regurgitated them and called them your own. You took the approximation of what you were told you should do and feel, then mimicked them cause without context they’d have never made sense.
I have no doubt in my mind that you might just be brilliant, but you aren’t capable of being brilliant alone.
As for me, it's no damn secret anymore how I found my way into the business. I have no issue admitting that I had some attitude problems, that I had a temper and that I followed my moral compass a little too literally when it asked me to step due north through whichever piece of shit messed with the balance I’d so carefully developed.
I’m not a good person like you Sloane, forest animals don’t follow me as I sing and flowers don’t bloom around my feet, but be damned if I don’t need to be pointed like a weapon in whichever direction I’m being told I’m supposed to move in.
I came up through one of the best and worst rolled into one, I learned that my gifts and abilities didn’t just automatically make me special or entitle me to any form of success- they earned me a target on my back, they earned me a role being sedentary when those I trained moved on to where I should have been. They earned me nothing of what you were given, and for that I’m beyond grateful.
See, we’re two very different sides of the same coin. Young upstarts with a bright future so long as we do things the ‘right way’. Of course, the right way is only for those who play nice with the right people, who smile for the cameras, who can shake babies and kiss hands while keeping up with their skincare routine. It's for those with private aircraft and expensive cars, a taste for bubbles and black ties. It's for fine dining rather than scrabbling for a missing tooth in a gym in hopes the dentist might be able to put it back in on the cheap if it doesn’t get too dirty, it's for having everything and knowing that rather than never knowing what you have and fighting for it anyway.
There is no right or wrong to success though, Sloane, as you’ve continually eloquently proven. There is however, a glass ceiling for those who don’t have the audacity to want to break it. Just keep tapping away though, eventually Prince Charming might hear you on the other side- in the meantime I’ll gladly shower in those shards and dance my bloody fucking hands all over everything they always thought you’d win before me.
You and Seb might have a special relationship- one built on trust, respect and love… but Shane and I, we’ve got two things that you’ll never have that makes us an innately better pair than you.
Each other, and a nice pair of Power Gloves.”
******
Undisclosed Hotel Room
Many rhymes had been made across the years extolling the virtues and dangers of not mixing drinks such as ‘beer before liquor never sicker; liquor before beer, you’re in the clear’ and ‘wine before whiskey before beer, before whiskey, before rum, before beer, before tequila… I’m an idiot’.
What those wise words had failed to mention was that there was a certain efficiency that came from simply drinking whatever the hell was on offer and simply dealing with the consequences after your stomach had been thoroughly pumped by a very nice, albeit frazzled paramedic concluding 27 hours on the clock.
Avalon, unfortunately, hadn’t had the benefit of meeting such a nice paramedic and was therefore currently engaged in a tense yet silent negotiation with her stomach contents about the merits of gently rolling onto her back without causing a sudden, messy upheaval not unlike a deconstructed long island iced tea- if it also contained bile and possibly some uneaten room service left out by the occupants four doors down.
It had, like most of the celebrations the night before, seemed like a good idea at the time.
Tangled in the mess of sheets, trying to ignore the puddle of drool soaked into the pillow in a dampness that crept up her cheekbone, a groan of indignation escaped the younger woman's parched lips. Memories danced in a technicolour blur behind eyes scrunched painfully closed in protest to whatever light sources were trying to bombard her fragile senses. Only the familiar feeling of a glove that sat a little big on her hand managed to bring a pained half smile to her face- the reason they’d celebrated.
No, she’d celebrated.
It still didn’t seem quite real in truth, so many waited years… even decades… for their first true taste of glory. Some went their whole careers without ever knowing the feeling of being champion, and Avalon? She’d done it within 4 professional matches. No one had warned her though, that she had listened to at least, that the hangover would be greater than the climb… that the adrenaline didn’t last nearly long enough.
It didn’t matter though, they’d done it. They’d fucking gone out and done it.
What else she had done though, was more of a mystery.
Another groan passed her lips as the sound of a door just beyond the bedroom closing shot clean through her system, if she had the capacity to scramble without emptying the contents of her stomach- then she might have however instead had to settle for a squinted death stare.
“Well well, look who has decided to join us in the land of the living.”
Shane Donovan's cocky, knowing smile was enough to rankle her stomach further. If he laughed, she was sure he might end up wearing it for his decided indiscretions but for now, Avalon could only try to draw the covers up further in some vain attempt at modesty despite still being entirely dressed.
“The fuck are you doing in my room…”
In an attempt to sound offended, Avalon only managed a bratty whine of annoyance which only served to fuel Shane’s growing amusement.
“Your room? Ha, you really don’t remember last night then… This is my room Ava, you kicked down my door and drank out my minibar. Twice over, it looks like. Don’t even know where you got the rest of it actually…”
“Well, what if I hadn’t been decent?”
Shane scoffed loudly, louder than Avaon deemed necessary to the point she was almost sure it was deliberate.
“Decent? Since when… it's already hard enough to make you put pants on most of the time.”
A small chuckle escaped as his attention fell to the shopping bag dangling at his side, a brief glance back to Avalon and then a decided nod as though an order of events had been set without consultation.
“Not that it matters, whenever you’re ready… or able… I’ve got some stuff that might help with that raging hangover of yours.”
No guilt, no shame. No disappointment or lectures about reckless behaviour as a new champion and role model. Just a smile, a mutual understanding and the warm embrace of silence.
We are the youth, apologize for another day
We are the youth and politicians are so sure
We are the youth and we are knocking on death's door”…
Anthem For The Year 2000 - Silverchair
******
“You know, they say that nobody is perfect.
…but man, you two make it really hard not to believe that sometimes. Honestly, from the outside looking in it could be argued that you two lovebirds are really as close as it gets.
Young. Beautiful. Successful. Talented.
You both hit the lottery of life’s jackpot so hard that even God was standing around scratching his head wondering just how he managed to fuck that up. Seriously though, you’re both so incredibly gifted that you legitimately left nothing in the millennial gene pool for the rest of us… Have you seen some of the people wandering around calling themselves wrestlers? All those great hairlines, straight teeth and oozing charisma had to get drawn from somewhere, after all.
It’s borderline disgusting really.
Don’t come for me like it's jealousy though- I haven't got the time or energy to worry about what anyone else has when I have a hard enough time finding pants long enough to fit me. For serious though guys, one could argue that you both have it all…
You’re living the quintessential Barbie dream experience with all the vapidity, vanity and astounding social obliviousness that you could dream of. It's actually quite the wonder that you can even see straight with the ever lingering fog of self-importance that shrouds you. I'd have thought you might trip and fall over yourselves the moment the ‘real world’ presented its uglier face towards you but here you are… Upright and elitist as ever.
If anything it's quite a wonder how two people so multifaceted and perfected like sentient diamonds could otherwise be so… Boring. Banal. Bland. So otherwise meh given the outward promises of influence that radiates like a ripple through a sewage pond.
At least there's no nasty surprises, no underlying motives and agendas cause it's real tough to be anything other than what it says on the label when you realise that the only thing beneath it is an all-consuming void of self-loathing and inward antipathy.
A personality gravity well, complete with an intricately crafted facade and a vast over-expectation of success- or as better known… Sebastian Everett-Bryce.
I like to think this is the point where the indignation kicks in and you start wondering just who the fuck I might think I am to come and tell you what I think you are- and you inwardly cringe as you realize I’m not nearly as far from the truth as you’d like. Let’s be real here, just below the surface of under-expressive facial twitches is an aging Englishman in a three-piece suit with a pair of nail scissors trying to nip at the emerging weeds of doubt and insecurity that threaten to crack that eloquently airbrushed veneer.
It's no secret that I haven’t accomplished nearly as much as you have- that I’m firing shots from well beyond my station and hitting far more often than I have any right to, however my inexperience doesn’t make me blind… Or stupid.
You aren’t the first boy with almost as many issues as numbers in his bank account that I’ve had to distinct displeasure in spending time with. I get it, success is genetically engineered into your DNA Seb, your surname carries a weight where people have to inhale before the terms of your legacy are spewed forth. It's no secret around here you have a resume that reads like a menu without the prices- if you don’t already comprehend that it's out of your range, you probably shouldn’t have bothered in the first place. You have the kind of career that should have Shane and I quivering with self-doubt and chemically imbalanced hysteria as our precious Power Gloves are put on the line, seemingly as if we just won them…
Oh wait.
Unfortunately for you, Jenga never really did get my hands shaking.
Here’s the thing that you’ll no doubt gloss over as you rattle off all the reasons why you and the Sugar Plum Princess are going to be accessorising on your way out of EXP 31- we never built this house with the fear that it might be torn down, everything we’ve done since we walked through the door came with the proviso that we should never have made it in the first place.
We weren’t supposed to succeed Seb, everything we’ve done is on borrowed time and we get that better than you know… Our legacy as Multiplayer Champions is built on the edge of a crumbling cliff face, it has an expiry date and eventually- an end.
I’ll be fucking damned if it's in our first defense though.
I know enough about this industry and been around people in it long enough to understand that the first defence is always the toughest, it's the most pressure and the greatest odds that we’ll crumble in the newly assumed spotlight. I’m not gonna delude myself into thinking that it gets easier from here.
That being said- you’re an Everett-Bryce. You’ve been around the block a few times and the truth is, the pressure isn’t on us cause we don’t necessarily have to win. YOU have to beat US, not the other way around. It's your name on the line, just as much as it's our Power Gloves, it's your reputation as a high roller in this company and it's the expectation of success that you’ve fundamentally bred to be associated with your name.
Everything you have in this company is tied to your successes, you can’t simply untangle yourself from this Gordian Knot of doomed expectations and you won’t draw a blade for the sake of the noose that is slowly cinching around the base of your throat.
It's our gauntlets vs your name, your reputation and everything you are known for cause be fucking damned that someone like you loses to people like us, right?
We EARNED our place at the top of the multiplayer food chain, we’ve eaten more shit every step of the way than you’ve ever had to experience in your whole career- so if you think you’re sweeping in and we’re just handing these gauntlets off like they might be owed to you, cause your resume is printed on sheets of gold bouillon and the contract clauses are scribbled by Mother fucking Theresa herself… You have another thing coming.
When it comes down to it though, really, if you aren’t champion Seb… You’re a failure.
You don’t really want these gloves in truth- you want them to ease the tightening around your throat and maintain a falsetto reflection for your lady love to admire. You want them to take a deep breath before the expectation shifts exponentially towards something you aren’t in the mental and emotional position to attain.
Part of me wishes I could pity that feeling, that I could feel bad for someone who’s name is both a blessing and a curse- truth is though, the only thing my name ever got was some side-eyes, ridiculous name-calling and called out for multiple detentions.
What it will get me though, is a lot further than the anchor that you’re forced to carry on the end of your legacy.
Of course, a name isn’t always everything… Is it, Sloane?
From one supposed prodigy to another, I have to ask… Does it ever make you sick?
Not just a touch of the vapours as you laze across a sun lounge, but truly sick… As though there's a rot through your guts that seems to creep outwards, a deep pit that you dare not look down for fear of being swallowed by an abyss of your own creation.
You should- given all the gifts from the get go, a path cleared for you to make it and you still fail to appreciate ANY of it. You looked the gift horse straight in the mouth and decided you wanted it's fucking teeth too.
Let’s be real here Sloane, I think you’re a stunner and as talented as I might dare admit before I vomit black sludge across your crystal white carpets. If there is a gift in this industry to be had, you were born with it and you’ve proven that you know how to use them- provided the path to success is neatly paved and well maintained.
There was never a doubt that you’d make it, that you were destined to do wonderful things- and no one denies that for a moment. If they do, you’ve proven time and time again that you know how to make them pay for their dismissiveness and determined ignorance towards your abilities… I do wonder though, in my heart of many hearts.
If you had it as hard as anyone else did, as hard as I did… Would you ever have made it this far?
Of course the simple answer is yes, ‘cause savants find a way to be successful. Chips fall, puzzle pieces magically mould and merge to create the picture that was envisioned before the scattered image ever hit the table… However in your case, you found success through others, because of others being willing to forge that path for you to begin with.
Would you have seen the way if it were obscured and overgrown, would you have been willing to tear yourself to ribbons in hopes that whatever might lie beyond would make the scars somehow worthwhile. You glided your way up a gilded path and never once questioned how many broken bodies lie beneath those pavers, what anyone before you did so that you might ascend like the god damn fucking angel that you portray.
Don’t get me twisted chicky, you’re as good as anyone in that ring. Maybe better than most, but you’ve never once shown anything that resembles a killer instinct- you’ve been mad, you’ve been upset and hurt. You’ve done terrible things but you did so as a consequence, as a reaction.
Somehow nurtured those feelings and fed them to you like a fledgling bird, then you regurgitated them and called them your own. You took the approximation of what you were told you should do and feel, then mimicked them cause without context they’d have never made sense.
I have no doubt in my mind that you might just be brilliant, but you aren’t capable of being brilliant alone.
As for me, it's no damn secret anymore how I found my way into the business. I have no issue admitting that I had some attitude problems, that I had a temper and that I followed my moral compass a little too literally when it asked me to step due north through whichever piece of shit messed with the balance I’d so carefully developed.
I’m not a good person like you Sloane, forest animals don’t follow me as I sing and flowers don’t bloom around my feet, but be damned if I don’t need to be pointed like a weapon in whichever direction I’m being told I’m supposed to move in.
I came up through one of the best and worst rolled into one, I learned that my gifts and abilities didn’t just automatically make me special or entitle me to any form of success- they earned me a target on my back, they earned me a role being sedentary when those I trained moved on to where I should have been. They earned me nothing of what you were given, and for that I’m beyond grateful.
See, we’re two very different sides of the same coin. Young upstarts with a bright future so long as we do things the ‘right way’. Of course, the right way is only for those who play nice with the right people, who smile for the cameras, who can shake babies and kiss hands while keeping up with their skincare routine. It's for those with private aircraft and expensive cars, a taste for bubbles and black ties. It's for fine dining rather than scrabbling for a missing tooth in a gym in hopes the dentist might be able to put it back in on the cheap if it doesn’t get too dirty, it's for having everything and knowing that rather than never knowing what you have and fighting for it anyway.
There is no right or wrong to success though, Sloane, as you’ve continually eloquently proven. There is however, a glass ceiling for those who don’t have the audacity to want to break it. Just keep tapping away though, eventually Prince Charming might hear you on the other side- in the meantime I’ll gladly shower in those shards and dance my bloody fucking hands all over everything they always thought you’d win before me.
You and Seb might have a special relationship- one built on trust, respect and love… but Shane and I, we’ve got two things that you’ll never have that makes us an innately better pair than you.
Each other, and a nice pair of Power Gloves.”
******
Undisclosed Hotel Room
El Paso, TX
August 30th, 2022
Many rhymes had been made across the years extolling the virtues and dangers of not mixing drinks such as ‘beer before liquor never sicker; liquor before beer, you’re in the clear’ and ‘wine before whiskey before beer, before whiskey, before rum, before beer, before tequila… I’m an idiot’.
What those wise words had failed to mention was that there was a certain efficiency that came from simply drinking whatever the hell was on offer and simply dealing with the consequences after your stomach had been thoroughly pumped by a very nice, albeit frazzled paramedic concluding 27 hours on the clock.
Avalon, unfortunately, hadn’t had the benefit of meeting such a nice paramedic and was therefore currently engaged in a tense yet silent negotiation with her stomach contents about the merits of gently rolling onto her back without causing a sudden, messy upheaval not unlike a deconstructed long island iced tea- if it also contained bile and possibly some uneaten room service left out by the occupants four doors down.
It had, like most of the celebrations the night before, seemed like a good idea at the time.
Tangled in the mess of sheets, trying to ignore the puddle of drool soaked into the pillow in a dampness that crept up her cheekbone, a groan of indignation escaped the younger woman's parched lips. Memories danced in a technicolour blur behind eyes scrunched painfully closed in protest to whatever light sources were trying to bombard her fragile senses. Only the familiar feeling of a glove that sat a little big on her hand managed to bring a pained half smile to her face- the reason they’d celebrated.
No, she’d celebrated.
It still didn’t seem quite real in truth, so many waited years… even decades… for their first true taste of glory. Some went their whole careers without ever knowing the feeling of being champion, and Avalon? She’d done it within 4 professional matches. No one had warned her though, that she had listened to at least, that the hangover would be greater than the climb… that the adrenaline didn’t last nearly long enough.
It didn’t matter though, they’d done it. They’d fucking gone out and done it.
What else she had done though, was more of a mystery.
Another groan passed her lips as the sound of a door just beyond the bedroom closing shot clean through her system, if she had the capacity to scramble without emptying the contents of her stomach- then she might have however instead had to settle for a squinted death stare.
“Well well, look who has decided to join us in the land of the living.”
Shane Donovan's cocky, knowing smile was enough to rankle her stomach further. If he laughed, she was sure he might end up wearing it for his decided indiscretions but for now, Avalon could only try to draw the covers up further in some vain attempt at modesty despite still being entirely dressed.
“The fuck are you doing in my room…”
In an attempt to sound offended, Avalon only managed a bratty whine of annoyance which only served to fuel Shane’s growing amusement.
“Your room? Ha, you really don’t remember last night then… This is my room Ava, you kicked down my door and drank out my minibar. Twice over, it looks like. Don’t even know where you got the rest of it actually…”
“Well, what if I hadn’t been decent?”
Shane scoffed loudly, louder than Avaon deemed necessary to the point she was almost sure it was deliberate.
“Decent? Since when… it's already hard enough to make you put pants on most of the time.”
A small chuckle escaped as his attention fell to the shopping bag dangling at his side, a brief glance back to Avalon and then a decided nod as though an order of events had been set without consultation.
“Not that it matters, whenever you’re ready… or able… I’ve got some stuff that might help with that raging hangover of yours.”
No guilt, no shame. No disappointment or lectures about reckless behaviour as a new champion and role model. Just a smile, a mutual understanding and the warm embrace of silence.
