He stood at the window and thought about the person behind him making inventory sounds in the kitchen, and did not manage the thought, and found that not managing it was fine.
"There's soup," Alistair said, from the kitchen.
"Canned?"
"Cartons. Which is arguably worse but does not require a tin opener." He appeared in the doorway.
He was still in the clothes from the last few days— the careful, slightly disheveled, he had been wearing the same things for twenty hours and had not yet addressed this. "There's also bread and an unopened jar of something I don't recognize. And coffee."
"Coffee is adequate."
"There's also a blanket situation in the main room that suggests someone — Lucien's team, I assume — made an effort." He watched Tav. "And a second bedroom. Which I mention as information, not as a proposal."
Tav turned from the window.
"I know you mention it as information," he said.
Alistair's mouth curved slightly. "Yes. I'm just noting that it exists."
"I didn't come here to sleep in a second bedroom."
"I know that too." He crossed to where Tav was standing. He stopped very close. He met Tav's eyes with the honest,tired, warmth that he had run through everything and arrived somewhere. "How's the shoulder," he said.
"Manageable."
"Specifically."
"Hurting consistently, which is the expected pattern for this stage. Not getting worse." He met Alistair's eyes. "You've asked about it four times already."
"I'm aware of how many times I've asked." He fixed on the sling. "I'm going to keep asking." "I know."
Tav held his gaze. "I'll keep telling you the truth."
Alistair nodded.
He moved to the window and stood beside Tav and they both watched the sea. The grey November water and the sky above it and the thin line of the horizon where they met.
"He's coming tomorrow," Alistair said.
"Lucien."
"Yes." A pause. "He called from the road. Said forty-eight hours, which I'm choosing to interpret as tomorrow morning because I think he was being cautious about the arrival timeline."
"He'll be cautious," Tav said. "He's been cautious for five years."
"Yes." Alistair's voice had the quality it carried when he was thinking about his brother — not painful exactly, but inhabited by something that needed space. "I don't know how to—" He stopped.
"You don't have to know," Tav said.
"I spent five years—"
"I know."
"And he spent five years—"
"I know." He turned slightly toward Alistair. Not dramatically — a small orientation. "You've had the sameconversation in your head for the last twenty-four hours. Neither of you knows how to start.
You'll start the way you start things that don't have an obvious beginning — by being in the same room and allowing the beginning to arrive."
