Resurfaced // for Harry

[loficharm]

September 17th, 2019


It'll be nice to see Harry again, apart from the novelty of spending time with someone outside The Archive. Things are moving along well enough, and he's... well, it feels a bit weird and in some ways quite awful to say it, but he feels happy. He and John have made good progress, both in terms of their own survival here and with their relationship, such as it is. And Martin's started making friends again.

Or, well, he's trying. He wasn't good at it before he fell in with the Lonely, and now, well, he's rather out of practice. He sees Eliot and Kat just about every day, and there've been a few others with whom he's having some regular contact, but it's still piecemeal. At least it's getting markedly easier to feel like it's something he deserves, something he ought to be doing. Having people in his life again. It is better than not.

As embarrassed as he is by how long it took him to follow up with Harry after their initial meeting, he's far more embarrassed about the botch he made of his overtures. Harry is, at least, terribly gracious, and agrees to lunch, so he must not have made too big a mess.

He's sitting at an inoffensive little place about an equal walk from Candlewood and Ocean View, a blandly pleasant sort of gastropub, if he had to describe it. He got there much too early, of course, and is now sitting a bit nervously with a beer that's steadily dripping condensation onto the table. There is no reason to be nervous, absurd texts notwithstanding; and yet, he is. It takes him a moment to parcel out that most of his anxiety stems from the fact that he's just... looking forward to this. Sitting down with someone and just having a chat, like all's normal. It feels like cheating. Like he shouldn't be allowed. But he is.

He smiles to himself and runs his thumb up the side of his glass, clearing a little line in the condensation, entreating himself to relax. This will be nice, and it's allowed. That's all.

Comments

[naturalmisery]

Harry would like to think that's true, but he knows plenty of men who would think otherwise. Who would be offended that someone felt as if they had to come to their rescue, although he knows Zoe isn't at all like that. But then, he reminds himself, he doesn't truly know what Zoe thinks of him. He believes them to be friends and is confident she would say the same, but whether it goes beyond that is something he can't quite work out.

"Well, I must admit my experience with women to be... limited," he says. "So I have little to compare it to, but I do believe you're right. Zoe seemed grateful I was there, although I had to wonder if it was an intrusion."

He had been unable to leave, after all. He'd been forced to sleep on her couch and while he still doesn't think she had cared, he had felt a bit like he was forcing himself into her space.

[loficharm]

If this Zoe has any sense, Martin thinks, she'll have found both Harry's so-called intrusion and his subsequent concern over it very charming. He hides a rather fond smile under another sip of his beer.

"Experience isn't everything," he says gently. "Speaking as someone who had very little for a long time, it... it doesn't really come down to men or women or whatever else. Every person is sort of their own experience, and I think if it seemed Zoe was grateful to you, and that she likes having you around, then... that's all you need."

He shrugs; he still feels like he's not the best person to be dispensing wisdom here, but when he'd been a terrified virgin who'd never even tried to get a boyfriend he thinks he'd have been grateful for a kind word, no matter how offhand. "You'll have to let me know how it goes at the party."

[naturalmisery]

It's kind of Martin to say so and Harry knows things have changed in the time that has passed between his world and this, but he still knows he's different from most others. His attraction to Zoe is undeniable and yet it had built so slowly, coming to him piece by piece as he had gotten to know her better and come to care for her as a dear friend. The same could be said of how he felt for Silence. The longer he was with her, the more he had found himself attached to her and then from that had grown the physical desire for her.

That is not how it is for most other men, he's seen. His brothers had teased him relentlessly for having never married, had finally, in his late twenties, purchased a prostitute for him, worrying he'd yet to experience sex. They had been right, of course, but he hadn't found the interaction particularly enjoyable.

He's never known what that says about him, what it means.

"Well, I suppose we'll see, won't we?" he asks, smiling faintly. "And I'll be sure to let you know, unless I make a complete fool of myself."