. broken bones .

[zelda atwood]

"Oh right, I forgot," she says. Embarrassed that she's so caught up in them that she's forgotten the chaos of the world right now. For a split second she wonders how detrimental the cab ride her was. Did she give the cabby the virus, or did he give it to her? Those thoughts are put out when her eyes find a picture frame facing face down on the fireplace. She feels her eyes begin to well and breathes deeply. She looks back at him and tries to read him. He's being kind but she knows it'll be shortlived. She'll have too much to drink and start bickering, he'll react, and she'll slam a door. For now, she smiles. "No, not really. Maybe a little snacky in a while," she rubs her puffy eyes and finishes her drink. "Do you want to borrow one of the dogs?"

[joel marston]

It was so strange to be in Austin, single. Though a Colorado native, New York was as much a part of his identity as his job was. Though he supposed even that was fraudulent now. There was a sense that he deserved all this, that it was karma for all his misgivings in life - how could he be Joel the New York PI? The colour had been sapped from his life, and not in the film noir way he preferred. He deserved to be Detective Marston with the Austin PD, investigating racist incidents in the police force that higher ups were keen to pretend didn't exist. Being single and dogless made sense. She looks so cute, her eyes still slightly glazed. It hurts to look at her. The question hits him like a kick in the gut and he can only shake his head. "No. Thanks." He doesn't know what to say, and the fact that it could be so awkward between them breaks his heart all over again. He sighs, leaning back into the couch and closing his eyes. Sparks swim behind his eyelids. "Fuck. Fuck!" It's an outburst he can't contain, and he fights the urge to push everything off the coffee table. "How the fuck is this my life?"

[zelda atwood]

Her fingers twist and pull on the piping of the sofa. This sofa has seen their entire happy and sad life in Austin. It's seen the passionate of their love and the blame of it. She regrets moving here. It changed him and it changed them, she didn't know if they'd make a recovery. Six months ago it seemed impossible and presently all she could see was the dust they collected. Zelda rests her hand on his thigh and runs it down to give his knee a squeeze. "I know," is all the has to offer. No words of comfort but an acceptance of the situation. She lifts herself from the sofa to the kitchen. She fills a glass with ice and opens herself another drink. "Here," she hands him the glass and fills it with his whiskey. "Honestly, he was the best dog. He is the reason I had a lid on my hamper and gave up on tablecloths. I'll miss the underwear eating table surfer. I loved him."

[joel marston]

When she left there was a poetic tragedy to it. He had left New York, the original love of his life, for her. Something he thought impossible, a move that had turned him inside out. But he had her and he had Schmidt and it was enough, and New York without them both just seemed impossibly empty. If only the Joel who made that decision then could see the Joel living with the repercussions now. He desperately missed his grizzly partner back at the firm, their cramped little apartment, the lull of the rattling subway and its insane inhabitants. He hated the heat and the cowboy hats and the deranged nationalism of this place, hated everything about it, And yet he stayed. Why was that? He knew the answer, and it wasn't until she quickly moved on that he really accepted what an idiot he was. He was waiting for something that wasn't going to come. He takes a long sip of the whiskey, trying to still himself, not wanting to fight. He didn't have the energy. "It's not just him," he said quietly, hoping the dog's spirit wouldn't be offended at him saying it. His throat runs dry and his eyes sting with the threat of tears, something he desperately wants to avoid. He can still feel the touch of her hand on his leg long after it's gone. "Your new guy," he says, voice hoarse and eyes on the ground. He pulls them up to her, wanting an honest answer. "Are you happy?"

[zelda atwood]

She knew him so well and it hurt to see him hurt. She wants to rush to his side of the couch and to run her warm hands over his neck to reassure him. It feels wrong not to share her comfort with the person she had been the most intimate with. Her eyes focus in on him and her brows bow. She knew it wasn't just the dog. She felt the backbreaking pressure of circumstance that had suddenly all accumulated on them. The isolation, the loss of them and then his best friend. She take aback by the forwardness of the question. Her olive cheeks blush pink as she's embarrassed of it, she wasn't the type to date high profile. She didn't even want it, she'd just fallen into it. "No," she takes a long sip of her drink, "I just needed the distraction."

[joel marston]

Zelda's kindness is evident in the fact that she's here, as well as in her tears. This is the Zelda he knew, who talked a big game about being blase but really cared deeply for those people closest to her. It had been such a comfort to be the closest person to her for so many years, to try to show her the support she so consistently gave him in turn. He couldn't reconcile the Zelda sat on his couch with tears in her eyes with the Zelda who left and shacked up with some old famous guy. It didn't sit right, it undermined everything he thought to be true. He wasn't just jealous, he was soul crushingly disappointed. He looks at her, searching for the Zelda he knew. There was a glimmer of it in the blush of her cheeks and his heart gets caught in his throat. As she speaks, he nods, looking away again. It's the answer he wants and it helps, but it doesn't revert things, not as much as he thought it might. He takes another sip of his drink, the taste of smoke on his tongue. "Well, I hope you were distracted,"

[zelda atwood]

Going for Leonardo (LOL) obviously hadn't been her plan. She left the apartment and balled her eyes out in her car. She cried until she thought there wasn't anything left. Then she went to her parent's ranch and she found more tears. She cried for a week straight. When her mother convinced her to attend a party she swore she wouldn't, she found herself nodding as he talked about climate change. She nodded her way right into a relationship, then onto the paparazzi's radar, then into an empty Austin apartment during a pandemic. With the way she'd handled them post-relationship, he should be bitter and it's clear that he is. "It's almost my birthday, I'm aging out of it," she jokes gently and takes another sip. She pulls her legs up onto the couch, her posture relaxing as she drinks. "Have you talked to Zara?"

[joel marston]

The increasing sense of honesty between them is chipping away at the awkwardness, even if he doesn't feel much better about it. Her joke comes too soon but he forces a wry smile in response, suppressing the anger he feels at the idea of this asshole seeing her as his latest young piece of ass. It was an angle he hadn't allowed himself to explore and it made his blood hot. He hadn't forgotten her birthday but her mentioning it makes it all the more real that they will be apart, that she'll be in some big mansion in a bathtub full of champagne and he'll be right here, drunk and alone, most likely in this very spot. Her question makes him flare up, but he forces himself not to react. "Not much," he says, wanting to add that it's because, obviously, there was nothing there. Obviously she had been looking for a way out and Zara had been it, and she should apologize for twisting something honest and good on his part. He still worries for his ex wife but his own sorrows had distracted him from his mission to save her. "Mia was in town before lockdown. We talked about Des, I forgave her for the whole abortion thing, figured it worked out for the best." He sighs. "We fucked, but it just made me sadder."

[zelda atwood]

He doesn't say much able Zara and she looks down at her hands. Zara was a sore point. Zelda had grown up with her and shared blood. But even though she had seen her through braces, she was like a Disney princess that Zelda couldn't live up to. Maybe she was blowing it out of proportion and the insecurity was all in her head, but the obsession with Zara had brought the relationship to the edge. In the end, Joel's stubbornness about it had pushed her out the door. She laughs awkwardly, "oh." Her back relaxes against the arm of the chair. The thought of Joel with someone else makes her ill and she has to look away from him to keep tears at bay. "You're right, it was probably for the best," another sip of beer and she's almost done her second one. It's 3am and she should think about heading home. "Do you miss me? Do we miss each other?"

[joel marston]

Thinking of Zara now, he privately hopes that she's okay. When the subject of her potential turmoil had initially arisen, there had been no question that they were both of them motivated by love and concern for her. As things progressed and the evidence thinned out, the fact that Joel's obsession deepened had been a noted cause for concern for Zelda, but what he hadn't admitted was that it was one for him, too. Was he dressing his jealousy up as concern? What right did he have to give a shit over what Zara was doing with her life? Since his relationship had ended it had become comically clear that this was not a real concern, that anything he felt for Zara was a residual, platonic love born out of so many years of knowing each other. That it could be anything else seemed insane. She doesn't react much and that stings too. He's surprised by all the novel ways he's found to hurt his own feelings over the course of this very brief interaction. Her question hits him hard and he takes a few moments to really accept that she's just asked him that. He laughs shortly, looking at her in disbelief. Lifting his arms, he gestures to the absolute cesspit that their apartment has become. "Oh yeah Zelda. I'm fucking thriving, can't you tell? Best thing that ever happened to me."

[zelda atwood]

She's getting hot, sweaty and a little drunk. Her hands lift her hair to put it in a ponytail, only to realize she doesn't have a tie on her wrist. She knows where she could find one here and she's so antsy that she gets up to go to the bookshelf to grab one in the glass container of bits. She gets a reaction from him and she stays quiet by the bookshelf. She picks up a book on Italy - which she owns purely for the aesthetics of the cover - and begins to flip through it absentmindedly. "It doesn't look bad," she says more out of kindness than of fact. The apartment looks terrible, if they weren't stuck in this moment she'd be taking a rag to everything. "Don't be mad, but I just miss you," she bites her lip and puts the book back on the shelf.

[joel marston]

She moves around the place like it's her own, which is understandable. He feels strangely defensive of the mess he has created, since it's at least his own. She's flipping through a book that definitely was her own, and he's wondering what he should do about this place. Did he legally have to hand everything over? Would she give a shit either way? He had kept things the same because he wasn't up for changing it, and again because he hadn't quite moved to the acceptance stage. As she seamlessly eases back into the space, she was not helping to get him there. He gives her a deadpan look, well aware of the fact he'd let the place fall into disrepair. As she speaks he feels a rush of affection so strong that it makes him dizzy. Groaning, he rests his head back against the couch, holding his hands over his face as as he tries to compute what she said. There was a moment of anger but it passes before he can act on it. Instead he looks at her, properly. "Come here," he says, gesturing to his lap. "I miss you so much."

[zelda atwood]

When she'd first left she didn't take anything because that felt too permanent. When the permanence became more clear, she didn't come back with a box because her bits and pieces didn't mean anything without Joel. Her stupid book on Italian architecture didn't mean anything without him poking fun of her for having it on the shelf. She knew that if reentered this apartment it would be hard to look at him and not feel heartbroken. And standing here with her arms crossed, she felt that was something she got right. She rests against the shelf and looks at him. She's afraid he's going to go hard on her and tell her off for it being her fault that she felt so empty. But instead he invites her in and she rushes to take that invitation. Her heart falls into her gut as she reaches for his touch. She pulls herself in his lap and her arms fall around him. "It's so stupid."

[joel marston]

When he first heard the news about her new relationship, it was because his brother Leon had called him. A call from Cole was a normal and expected thing, particularly once news of the split trickled through his family. But Leon was an egomaniac, wrapped up in his own world at all times. When he called and said he was sorry and offering a shoulder to cry on, Joel had genuinely expected to hear that Cole had died. At that point he had been keeping the apartment clean, making sure to save all the funny videos he knew she'd like for when they were inevitably back together. It took the news for him to fall into disrepair, and that disrepair and deeped irrevocably since he lost Schmidt.  There's a split second where he worries that she won't take the cue. In reality, she quickly closes the gap between them and her slight weight is in his lap. It's the most comforting thing yet, miles more comforting than even drunkenness and he breathes her in. "It's so stupid," he agrees, half laughing. Looking up at her, he takes her in, appreciating her beauty in a new light. "I love you," he says, and it has so much more weight than all the times he was saying it casually before. "I really, really love you."

[zelda atwood]

She'd wandered their time apart in a daze. Dressing up, going out for dinners and meeting new people gave her something to focus on. In times of quiet she felt bare and like someone had clipped her wings. Though Joel saw himself as black and white, she quickly realized that without him life lacked a lot of colour. She'd always thought it would, but it was different when it became reality. Zelda sits her weight evenly on him and sits back in his arms. "I don't know what I was thinking," she rolls her eyes, "I'm such a brat." He says he loves her and it's all she can take. She presses her lips to his and hugs him tightly, "I love you too, I missed you so much."