bakerstreet | (no subject)

"Yes, she kind of stupidly is. I'm sorry. Thank you."

Her voice is muffled because once she's pulled close, she buries her face in his shoulder. She doesn't put her arms around him, instead raising her hands to rest on the front of his body, clearly happy to be the one held for once.

"It all just kind of hit me at the news agent's when I picked up the paper and there it was, you know?"

She doesn't need to cling back. It's important, now and then, to simply be cwtched close and not asked to do anything but breathe.

She deserves that. She more than deserves that. It's lovely to be able to be even a small piece of giving that to her.

"There it is." His arms shift comfortably, pull tighter. "It'll stop feeling so overwhelming. You'll see."

"No, I know." One hand closes gently around a fistful of the front of his shirt, and she moves to tuck her head under his chin.

She can just breathe now. He may think he's but a small part, but he's been more than that, for so long.

"I think I'm just having some 'oh God what if I can't actually do it' anxiety." Which is ridiculous this late in the game, but feelings are funny things sometimes.

"Not so ridiculous."

It was part of the nerves of being creative, after all. You could be entirely certain of your work--completely sure that it's exactly what you want--and still be thrown into a pit of despair over even a wonderful reception of it. There was no accounting for it.

And no need to account for it. Just a need to curl in somewhere safe while the first swells of anxiety worked through the system.

Her posture softens, some of the tension in her body starting to slowly melt away as he holds her. Her hands drop to his sides, resting lightly at either side of his waist.

"I'm so glad you understand." It's bad enough having these moments of doubt and worry, of feeling like maybe you're a giant imposter after all, about to be found out. (Completely untrue--but maybe that's the down side to so much ambition and drive, is the occasional bout of unwarranted nerves.)

It would be so much worse if he didn't understand. What it was like, what she needed right now.

She closes her eyes, just leaning into him for the moment.

"Just glad I was here."

This sort of things felt that much more terrifying when you tried to survive it alone. That didn't start to bleed away until there was another heartbeat to focus on and regular one's own.

"Me too."

She'd tried to tough out episodes like these on her own; they weren't fun. But having him here, his arms securely around her, feeling his chest rise and fall with his breaths and her own settle into that calmer pace, already had her more calm. More ready to start examining what the hell else was going on besides Oh my God what is happening.

"...Can we go back to bed?" Calm enough, too, it seems, to try to settle back into the usual Sunday morning ritual.

The slow relaxation means he can unlatch one arm, smooth his hand gently up and down her spine. The gentle breathing means he can rock them both, just slightly, as she comes back from the edge of exhausting nerves.

"We can. We should bring the piano."

Or, you know. Not-piano. They'd already skipped off the edge of the routine; why not make the whole morning something just a bit different?

Finally, finally, as his hand moves up and down her back, she takes a deep breath, lets it out in a soft hum. Her shoulders drop, no longer tensed up from nerves.

"Bring the--? Oh." The tablet. "Yeah, if you want. It's not that great, though, I'll warn you."

There she is. There's the proper relaxation they'd been missing. It's reassuring to feel in her spine beneath his fingers.

"It'll be fun."

Or not so much 'fun' as 'something to keep the faint distraction going while reality settled in properly.' Those were important.

Another deep breath in, another soft sound out, this one a sigh. Her brain and emotions are still mildly scattered but her body isn't holding them anymore, she's unwound enough to let that go.

Enough to lift her head, and smile up at him. "Okay." Her hands squeeze his sides for a moment and she gently pulls away to collect things: the requested tablet; only one copy of the Times, from the top of the stack rather than the entire stack of newspapers. She hands him the paper bag and one of the cups of coffee, and she picks up the other.

"Ready?"

She's amazing, really, when she pulls into herself. Like a heroine in some dramatic act, steeling herself for battle just before the height of--

Well. Their life isn't an opera. Not yet.

"Ready."

More ready after taking a preemptive sip of coffee.

"Lead on."

For once she can't take his hand and crawl into bed with him in her immediate wake. Not with her hands full, not with that cup of coffee. She heads for bed, making sure he follows, rounding the foot of it to reach her side. She sets the coffee down on her bedside table, and slides into bed, taking the tablet and newspaper with her.

But as usual she does settle in the middle of the bed, stretching out as she waits for him to join her. "Do you want to see?" She asks, separating the front section of the paper from the rest.

It's not as light, as natural and easy, to have to sit first and set coffee beside the bed rather than just flopping down happily with her.

But it's still, at the end of things, curling up in bed with her. It's still settling into a spit that's his against the headboard, reaching to pull an arm around her shoulders while he reaches to lift his coffee again.

"Am I allowed?"

"Of course." She curls into his side, bringing the section of newspaper along with her. Once she's settled, she rifles the top corner with her thumbs, until she finds the right page.

"It's not the front page. That's pretty much always world news and politics unless you break a huge story." She opens the paper, then doubles it back upon itself, smoothing out the crease. "But it's the first page of the national section."

And there it is, where she rests a finger to show him: a small section near the bottom of the page, a description of charges laid against the emergency room nurse, the barest beginning of the story she's been poking at for a while. Under her name.

"This is... not my usual section, or editors." Therein lies some of the nerves, then. "I wasn't expecting this to land here."

She's so efficient with newspapers. It's wonderful to see. He's long lived in the realm of completely hopeless with papers in general; it's another minor area of competence that makes his lips twitch up into a crooked smile.

Little bits and pieces where they fill one another in.

His lips briefly find her temple as he reaches for a corner of the paper to hold it where he can read. It doesn't take overly long to scan over it thoughtfully. "...it's unfair, you know, making people enjoy reading about horrible things."

"Oh, just you wait," and she manages a laugh, "I'm going to send it to my mother."

That, then, explains the extra copies.

There really are so many ways in which they fill in the bits and pieces the other one needs. She's good with words; he's good at letting her speak, taking it all in without judgement. And at understanding that even though it looks so different than the creating he does, that there are still a lot of ideas and processes in common.

She's never been so grateful or glad for these things as she is right now.

"I think this means when I write the follow ups, the rest of this story as I dig it up... It'll be here again. And, like... I've talked about this so long as something I was going to do. Now it's something I'm actually doing and I'm sort of terrified."

There's a soft tsk as she falls, just slightly, back into fretting. His head bumps lightly against hers as he continues to let his eyes flit over the words--her name on this vaunted page of the paper.

"Understandable." And yet. "We're going to have to get you desensitized to it, now that it's going to be the norm."

She sets the paper down beside herself and she shifts, getting properly curled into his side. She drapes one arm across him, as much for finding comfort for herself as it's affectionate.

"I know I'm being ridiculous. I'm sorry." She rests her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes. "But I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you understand." Or at least, she's glad he doesn't think she's entirely crazy. This will pass.

"Not unreasonably ridiculous." His arm settles more comfortably around her shoulders, free hand reaching again for his coffee. "By the tenth, twelfth installment-- then it's ridiculous."

Understandable, but ridiculous.

"No, no, I'll be over it by then. Promise." She's already improved from when he came out to find her picking at the fake piano keys, mildly stunned. He's always been good for her, always been a calming presence; this is probably when it's been most obvious but it's always been the case.

"I don't think it'll go to-- well, maybe it could go to that many installments, I don't know. I'm supposed to follow it for the next year. Dig around in his background and other employment and see what comes out." But the first hurdle's been cleared, the initial joy and worry and shock of everything I've worked for is starting to arrive please God don't let me fall on my face going for it soothed by his understanding.

"But you should eat your breakfast so I can have that paper bag. I might need to breathe into it." But she's grinning faintly as she says it, nerves starting to fade, her usual good humor slowly coming back.

"And now we move toward ridiculous, Liebling." Which isn't to say, after another sip of coffee, he won't do just that.

Breakfast balancing is the best sort of balancing, after all.

"Why piano, then?"

"Are we? Oh. All right."

Best not to mention, probably, that she emptied the wastebasket under her desk just in case of nerves-induced throwing up, then. (She was having A Moment, you see, when she arrived.)

Which was why she didn't come back to bed. Why the piano. "Distraction." She shrugs, as best she can, still curled into his side. She'll have to get up in a moment to eat but surely she can linger a few more moments. "I needed one for a minute. But I've also been missing it a lot lately. I miss playing."

Possibly he's been an influence, what with having him and music around all the time now. Look what he's done.

She can have as many moments as she wants. He's got no objection, even, to her eating here against his side and covering them both in crumbs.

It's not ridiculously effective, but it seems like there are probably worse ideas in the world.

"What d'you miss playing most, then?"

"Everything." She reaches for the paper bag, tugging it closer but not sitting up just yet. "I don't know. It's been years, I miss playing at all anymore. I hear things on the radio when I'm in the car and I think I could learn to play them. I can't quite on the tablet; it's not a full keyboard and I miss the weight of the keys, too, the feel of them under my fingers."

She starts to straighten up, pondering how to best juggle a pastry and the desire to stay close at his side while showing him the piano all on the tablet. "Maybe I should look into getting a keyboard with weighted keys or something."