What Victory Brings
Log Info
- Title: What Victory Brings
- Emitter: Andelena
- Place: Andelena and Dolan's apartment
- Summary: Andelena and Dolan are home from ridding the world of Kol once and for all, which means Andelena's giving Dolan a cup of tea and making sure he's warming up from the cold. The two Daeusites talk about the possibility of starting a family, as well as Dolan relearning how to fight. Both Sunguard and Redeemer find themselves needing to sleep, and Andelena helps Dolan into bed, where kittens await them.
The soft pitter-patter of light sleet and rain falls down onto Alexandria, tapping on the windows of Andelena and Dolan's apartment. Inside, there's two kittens curled up with each other on the bed, asleep in a pile of fur and purrs, and there's Andelena, tending to a pot of tea that's just begun to sing. She pours a cup and brings it over to the sofa.
"It's the good shit," she tells Dolan as she sits down. "The stuff we like." In other words, not the tea that both of them have been drinking for weeks at the Temple of Daeus, although Zeke's tea was drinkable enough. She'd gotten him out of the cold and into dry, fresh clothes. Next step: warm tea, warm arms, and warm blanket.
The end of the affair had not been kind to Dolan. From the teleport into the flesh-and-stone scene of half of his worst nightmares, to the teleport back out into the winter chill, to the trip back without shoes on - no, it wasn't fun at all, but he's at least into dry clothes, his back pressed to the freshly-upholstered sofa, grinning weakly at her. It is perhaps telling that he's not moving that left arm hardly at all, not yet.
He reaches up now to take the cup in the single hand - he'd been watching her with a quietly satisfied smile on his face. "Have I told you lately what a blessing you are, baby?"
Andelena smiles at that, pulling the blanket that typically hangs haphazardly off the couch off and putting it into both her lap and his. "Just trying to do the best I can," she says. "Because you deserve my best, and you always have."
She leans and kisses him on the cheek tenderly. "More than anything, I am grateful. So goddamn grateful. That you're here, home with me. That we have... one less thing to worry about."
It's said like she's still registering that as fact. Her eyes, her face, look thoughtful.
Cup in hand, Dolan snuggles close to Andelena, his entire face turned to study her with that adoring gaze. "I didn't used to be so much fucking work," he laughs at himself, self-deprecatingly. "You're the best thing I've got, and it could have been so, so much worse."
A shudder ripples through him, and he leans his head on her shoulder. "You're right, though. The Knight was right. And we've got one big less thing to worry about. What's on your mind?" He picks his head up and looks at her, curiously, turning his whole face towards her.
Andelena wraps an arm around Dolan as he snuggles into her, the smile finding her lips again as he looks up at her with that adoring gaze. "You're not 'work', babe," she reassures him. "After all, I have too much damn fun with you." That gets a wicked grin on her face.
She pauses for a moment. "... Speaking of which," she says. "I, uh. Remember when we talked about us having kids, someday?"
Andelena then realizes how that sounds. "And for the record, no, I'm not pregnant. Just to clear that right the fuck up. I just... I don't know. I thought I had issues with the idea of being a mother and told you 'maybe, later on', but... I'm sure as shit not opposed anymore. I want to keep being in the field and doing the Knight's work, but--fuck me sideways, Bry, I want to have kids. I want to love on them and give them good, good lives."
Finally, Dolan wraps both hands around his teacup as she snuggles close and wraps an arm around him. "Well, to make that happen, baby, I have to fuck you straight on," he quips, his face splitting into an ear-to-ear wicked grin, despite the not-quite-subsided howling in back and shoulder. After the quip, though, the grin softens, although if anything, it takes on even more joy. "You mean that? I -" His flesh and blood eye lights up and softens as if she's given him a priceless treasure. "You want to give them a better life than those poor kids had. I'd love to. Maybe when we're done with the Guild, done with the totems, done with all this, yeah?"
The smile fades a little as he looks down at the shoulder snuggled up between them. "I'll keep going as long as I have to, baby. I'm not going to stop, or let this stop me. I've still got the Knight's work to do too. But - when we're done. I want kids, too."
Andelena can't possibly help but laugh, and laugh she does, followed by a kiss to Dolan's cheek. "You shithead," she says affectionately, in only the way Andelena can. "Of course I mean it. I just--even after everything that man did, my heart fucking hurt seeing those children. Seeing those graves. I was so damn worried all this time that I wouldn't be able to love a kid the way they ought to be loved, because I sure as shit didn't get that from my mother, but... You saw what happened back there."
She nods, just a little motion. "We aren't doing this whole 'charging in and swinging swords' shit forever. We just aren't. And when you've decided you're retired, so am I. We'll settle down and have our family then. How's that sound?"
"No, baby, we aren't. I'll do it as long as I have to, to get us enough money to set us up." Dolan's still chuckling wickedly too. "Guess ain't nothing we can do is as bad as what some people do to their kids. We give a shit, baby. We don't have to be perfect. Mama and Papa weren't, but they loved us, and that's what mattered. It's like you said. We just have to do our best, and actually care. The rest'll come."
He wears a pensive frown, though. "I just hope I can get it to where I can pick up the greatsword again," he admits.
"I'd sooner become a Tarienite than I would ever mistreat a child, let alone our own child," Andelena remarks, shaking her head. "I would love our kids so much. So fucking much. Maybe Deliverance'll get her wish and I stop cussing entirely." There's a thought indeed.
The subject of the greatsword gets Andelena to pause in her thoughts. "You'll at least be able to fight again, Bry," she says. "Longsword or greatsword--I know you can do it. You're the most driven man that I know in this world, and that's part of why I love you so damn much. Gods' truth and all."
"I hope you'll love them enough that when they need a whoopin', they'll get one." Dolan's farmboy roots come out in his accent and word choice, from time to time, and this time is no difference. "All you gotta do, baby, is always have a reason why, and make sure they know what that reason is. Papa always made sure I knew why I was in trouble."
He sighs, his face turning towards the greatsword in the corner. "That's sweet of you, baby, but-" He reaches up to rub gingerly at the loose shoulder. "No," he says suddenly. "It's not all going to be for nothing. I'll get there. With that bastard out of the way, it won't happen again. I'll find a way."
Andelena smiles warmly. "There you go, babe," she says, the hand that's wrapped around him rubbing affectionately on his arm. "He's gone. We made him go. And I'll help you find your way, any way that I can."
The smile on her face widens. "You know this already without me saying it at this point," she says, "but I walk with you. What we did is proof of that more than anything."
She reaches up to smooth his hair down. "Now--the kids? Yeah, of course I'm going to discipline them if they need it. But I'm never gonna do anything like what happened to those poor kids. There's discipline, and then there's cruelty. Some people don't know the fucking difference, and that's where the trouble starts. That's how you get people like him."
"Yeah. Guess I just -" Dolan lets out a long breath, wincing at the rub on his arm, and sets his teacup aside so that it's not in the way. "You'll be a wonderful mother, Andie. I've got no doubt of that. "You me and the Knight make a pretty damn good team," he murmurs as he leans his head on her shoulder, still breathing slowly. "It's gonna be a while, baby. I'm glad I've got you. But, if I don't want to sleep here-"
"Then we gotta go join the ladies in bed," Andelena says with a grin. "I'll give you a massage too, for the pain."
There's a look on her face as she realizes that the mere concept of going to bed sounds like it's the best thing put on Gaea since the concept of cats was willed into being. She helps Dolan up from the couch, taking his teacup. "C'mon baby. I gotta move the girls off your side of the bed, anyway."
Which is true. Both the older and the younger kitten happen to be warming Dolan's pillow, but it doesn't take much effort to persuade them to be elsewhere when, as Andelena puts it to them, 'Daddy's home'. And maybe in the coming years, that phrase will be said to more than just little calico kittens where Dolan's concerned.
There is rest. There is tranquility. These are the gifts that victory brings.