Mouthful of Forevers
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Summary
“Is she a friend?”
He shrugs, though it’s a stiff movement. He knows he should just say yes, because it’s not untrue, because it’s the easiest way to explain what Karen is to him. But it also feels wrong, because friend seems like such an easy word to hold the complicated swirl of emotion he feels when he thinks about Karen. It’s both too much and too little to describe what she is to him -- a person who has been ally and advocate and antagonist all rolled into one, whose name has been both an invocation and affliction, whose memory sets off a warning light behind his eyes and a low, steady burn of longing across his veins.
Frank Castle, after.
Series
- Part 1 of Mouthful of Forevers
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Ellison looks at her – the sallowness of her skin, the haunted look in her eyes – and sees yet another hostage situation, she’s sure. Just another time when the shit has hit the fan and she’s been at the center of it.
But what she actually needs to recover from is this: a quiet moment of intimacy that smells like gunpowder, tenderness from hands stained with violence, a goodbye that cracks her chest open and crawls into her veins.
Karen Page, after.
Series
- Part 2 of Mouthful of Forevers
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What he means to say next is: you look well, and then grin because he knows she’ll catch the allusion; or else, it’s good to see you, because it is – even if those words seem wholly understated for this moment.
What he says instead is: “You look beautiful,” then freezes, because that’s exactly what he didn’t mean to say.
The words roll off his tongue easily, like he’s said them a hundred different times. He guesses that, in a way, he has. Has imagined saying it to her dozens of times while lost in a daydream, has dreamt saying it to her in countless different dreams. He thinks his mouth can’t help but say it now that she’s here, standing in front of him, as though all his imagined scenarios and dreams have only ever been practice for this moment.
Frank and Karen meet for coffee after eight months apart.Series
- Part 3 of Mouthful of Forevers