#(( OHHHHH THENMN. THEY MAKE ME SAD. ))

[slaughterlocked]

i know things have been really tough lately, but i want to work things out. / hi have random angst from jules bc listen !!!!!!!!

HE HAS TO LAUGH. OH, JULES, FOREVER THE OPTIMIST. It's not a nice sound he greets her with, but the harsh short scoff of a man who feels he's lost the world he had ( forgetting, of course, that he's still got her, and them, and that life goes on ). " Don't you always, " he says, cynicism layered too deep in his voice to be anything other than sarcastic, " honestly, Juliet. There's nothing to work out. "

Nothing that he's willing to share with her, anyway. Nothing that she'd understand. Because it's eleven in the morning and he's four whiskies deep into his research, his own scrawling handwriting blurring before his eyes. Scribblings of a madman, maybe. Rambling notes about death and resurrection, hastily - copied passages from library books about reincarnation across differing religions and beliefs. Torn up journal entries. William's office is a disaster zone, not in the eccentric, absent - minded way it had once been; sweeping one broad hand across his work to hide it from his wife, a tired smile dripping of derision painted bone - deep into his face.

She thinks he's mourning. They both are, in their own separate ways. But she doesn't understand ! -- LIFE WILL NOT GO ON UNTIL HE MAKES IT. Until their child is back with them and he's proved to her ( to everyone ) that he can fix this by himself. Put their family back together again.

When he stands, he sways; caught off guard by his own intoxication. Still, William plants one hand solidly on his workbench, heaves himself upright to meet her eyes. Her presence is drained, but warm. But his own soul is brighter than ever, brilliant and burning, and he doesn't think he has much room in him right now to appreciate her comforting existence.

" If you want to stop arguing, then so do I. " He says flatly, but emphatically. Voice comes out wrong, a little too drawling and defensive. Shouldn't be drinking - even when he chastises himself, he gets more worked up. Using his free hand to gesture around him, he declares: " But if you're going t' ask me to stop working, you're wasting my time. " 'My time' had once been 'our time'. It's lonely with a broken home. He knows it doesn't show in his voice, how much he misses her deep down. Or at least, how much he misses missing her. He doesn't have much time for pointless grief, these days.