Work Text:
When dusk comes, Espresso feels alive.
It’s hard to describe the hazy ambience of how an empty beach feels at the end of the day, but something about it dredges up within him an emotion even more nebulous and difficult to hold. All at once, the tides sing like a choir and the wind sweeps its feet like an orchestra, yet all he can feel is relaxed, rejuvenated, looking forward to tomorrow despite a quarter of time still able to be spent in his hands. It’s a subtle change, one he only notices when he’s thinking about it in the moment instead of as it happens, but it’s nonetheless appreciated, nonetheless a needed break from his usual routine of thinking and strenuous analytics.
...Why does he think like this on vacation.
He leans back in his chair, clutching Madeleine who has fallen fast asleep next to him, cradled close with his white hair splayed out against the woven pillows. This isn’t a bed, and it’s only comfortable enough to be one with him, but that’s fine. It really is. He smells like a hard day being washed away into the sand, a kind of soap that could never be bottled up and reused as much as Espresso wishes it could.
He stayed up all night to get them here. It was a miracle they were even here in one day at all, given how Madeleine was prone to underestimating the relationship between time and distance. But here they are, here they are, this house is theirs now, and their vacation is their own now.
Espresso kisses his forehead. Madeleine stirs just a bit but keeps him clutched close.
The house is quiet, not a sound to be heard within it. No machinery, no vials, no kicked up feet, no talked grandeur. It’s a little thing Madeleine had built himself with his own two hands over the course of some years after the two had finally left the Republic for good and with it everything good and bad they had stumbled into there. It stood much sturdier than any expected, stood the test to even more expectations, and now it seemed happy to be enjoyed.
It seemed happy to be lived in. Had Espresso ever felt that way about a place he‘d inhabited before?
...
If Madeleine was awake, he’d be asking about the house and Espresso’s thoughts on it. He didn’t actually build it all himself, but he thinks he did, and he’s proud of it like it was. It’s a good house, nestled in a good place, a small white thing intermingled with accents of brown, blue and gold along the interior and exterior.
It doesn’t look like something his parents would build. It looks like Espresso’s old apartment back in the Republic, stripped of all its desperation and scrounged together living. It twists and turns despite its even outside, with hallways just small enough for comfort, ceilings as high as ladders, and golden wood stairs that seemed in desperate need of being carpeted. It’s a bizarre maze of standardized planning supposedly alien to relaxation, and yet is nostalgic enough to call home and geometric enough to invoke an aura of closeness instead of claustrophobic unease.
Espresso sighs. The waves crash into the beach as they always do. The horizon is streaked with orange, a dark blue descending fast from above to close in given due time.
The air smells like salt the same way his old home did, but for the first time it does not remind him of hungry faces and nameless paces. Sand is less of a boiled eyesore and will surely be nicer on the feet tomorrow when he and Madeleine go for a walk, something he wished he could get in the Republic back then before he truly lost himself to his work.
He leans against Madeleine in the chair and kisses his hand, wondering if...no, when he’ll be following him into slumber.
Even if it’s never in the realm of tonight...they have this house together now.
That’s really all he could ask for.