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filament-fine

Summary:

On the nightstand was another lamp, and debris that people had never cleared up. A very old watch. An empty glass. A filament-fine silver bracelet with no clasp. A shallow, greasy glass dish full of grey stuff like ashes.

Gideon the Ninth, Chapter 19

Notes:

A motif I cut out of Swim Good but liked so much I wanted to put it up anyway. It's purposefully a 222-word ficlet, for the Second House. Both & and / relationship tags, because it could be read either way. Unbeta'd, because we're just getting silly with it.

Work Text:

~

He had lost track of a lot of things when he left Canaan House behind, first among them the little silver bracelet he had given Pyrrha: when he had finally identified the only style of jewelry she would tolerate wearing because of its wirelike fineness and complete lack of weight on her wrist.

“I work with my hands, handsome,” she would say—she amused herself by calling him “handsome” and “baby boy” and sometimes just “baby”— “I can’t be losing rings and breaking the solid-gold watches and shit you give me. Can’t break your heart like that.” Flippant, teasing. “Not again.”

Early on, goofing around in the sparring room with Valancy, she had indeed cracked the gemstone of a heavy signet ring he had given her. He hadn’t thought his face revealed anything when she showed him the broken stone, but she slipped the ring off quickly and squeezed it between his hand and hers, and kept it in her trouser pocket ever afterward.

She hadn’t been wearing that silver bracelet, the day they ascended; he couldn’t remember why. She had taken it off beforehand, maybe. So he wouldn’t have to see a piece of himself on her.

He wouldn’t mind having another piece or two of her on him. On him, he has not one piece of her, except her eyes.

~