Cosima lays out all those various examples, including the ones he didn’t know about (Yseult is a walking mystery), and it’s all very reasonable and sensible and it dislodges a laugh from him. “Okay. Yeah. You make a good point.”
As a friend, Stephen thinks, and he looks at the familiar surroundings of the Provost’s office (slightly changed, rearranged, stamps of Cosima’s habits and affectations placed on it since she took up residence). This feels a little easier somehow than if it were Tony surveying him over that glass of wine, and he can’t even really put his finger on why. Maybe he was too-aware of Tony Stark as industry figure, face from the headlines, martyred hero, blood on Stephen’s hands.
He unconsciously mirrors her, taking another sip of wine. There’s some squirming flutter in his chest, and it takes him a moment to identify it, like diagnosing a terribly annoying symptom. Butterflies. Forty fucking years and his stomach still swoops at the prospect of saying it out loud, making it real outside of the private spaces he’d carved out for said person.
“Not that I’m trying to keep it secret or anything, in fact I’m trying to do the exact opposite, very clumsily, but— well, even if I were being cagey, it’s going to be the worst-kept secret soon regardless, considering I’m crashing at her place after my room blew up. It’s Gwenaëlle. Baudin.”
He doesn’t need the precision — as if there’s any other Gwenaëlle at the Gallows — but he’s precise regardless.
no subject
As a friend, Stephen thinks, and he looks at the familiar surroundings of the Provost’s office (slightly changed, rearranged, stamps of Cosima’s habits and affectations placed on it since she took up residence). This feels a little easier somehow than if it were Tony surveying him over that glass of wine, and he can’t even really put his finger on why. Maybe he was too-aware of Tony Stark as industry figure, face from the headlines, martyred hero, blood on Stephen’s hands.
He unconsciously mirrors her, taking another sip of wine. There’s some squirming flutter in his chest, and it takes him a moment to identify it, like diagnosing a terribly annoying symptom. Butterflies. Forty fucking years and his stomach still swoops at the prospect of saying it out loud, making it real outside of the private spaces he’d carved out for said person.
“Not that I’m trying to keep it secret or anything, in fact I’m trying to do the exact opposite, very clumsily, but— well, even if I were being cagey, it’s going to be the worst-kept secret soon regardless, considering I’m crashing at her place after my room blew up. It’s Gwenaëlle. Baudin.”
He doesn’t need the precision — as if there’s any other Gwenaëlle at the Gallows — but he’s precise regardless.