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There were a million things Sylvain had wanted to say. ‘I’m sorry’ was probably a solid place to start, but he was pretty sure at this point that he’d used up his allocation of those fifteen years ago, and was about as believable as the sky being green. ‘Thank you’ was probably also perfectly reasonable, but it seemed entirely shackled by the implication of expectation, of entitlement to Ingrid’s aid. ‘You didn’t have to’ was also a very likely choice, and close to the truth, but he knew her well enough to know that—at least to her—she did.
After all, who else would clean up his mistakes, if not her?
He sighed, resting his head against the cool window, the small bumps of the road offering something almost soothing. If nothing else, he supposed this was probably the least troublesome he’d been in a while. It wasn’t like Ingrid had needed to drag him from the grip of some jilted boyfriend or older brother who wanted to pummel him, and he’d not yet gotten himself banned from the place, and she wasn’t paying for damages for something out of her pocket.
She was just. Driving him back to his apartment. From a place two hours away. In the snow.
“So. Do you have a plan for how you’ll get your car back?” Ingrid asked, her voice surprisingly soft, even as she shattered the uneasy silence. Maybe it had to do with her utter pragmatism—that she wasn’t even considering the rest of the nonsense swirling in his head, favoring instead the next steps to be at least an imitation of a normal, functional adult.
“Mm?”
“Your car, Sylvain. How are you getting it from—from there—and back home?”
“Oh.” He blinked blearily, exhausted. “It’s already home. I…had a ride there.”
“Two hours away? Are you out of your mind?”
He smiled, though he didn’t miss the way Ingrid’s fingers gripped tighter around the steering wheel. “I mean, the car’s at home so that’s a win, isn’t it?”
“You were in the middle of nowhere—so, no, it isn’t.” Her gaze flicked to him, lips already curling into an impressive frown. “What would you have done if I wasn’t able to come?”
Sylvain shrugged. In truth, he had a pretty good idea.
He’d initially thought that it would be simple; rideshare apps worked just about everywhere, and it had been perfectly fine when the snow hadn’t been that deep this morning. The mid-day snowstorm had been a bit of a surprise, enough that he could only reluctantly accept that the app just shut down all rides to the area. So, with that completely out of the question, he knew he’d have to lean on a friend. Of course, Felix and Dimitri were entirely out of the question for very different reasons when it came to snow driving, though the fact that he actually wanted to survive the ride remained. He’d actually half-expected Ingrid to just leave him there, if only in the sheer hope that it might actually teach him a lesson. And anyone else, well, it would have depended on just how much they’d wanted to put up with.
But Ingrid agreeing to help had cut off finding out.
“Sylvain.”
He sighed. “There was a store a few miles away. Could have just walked there if I got desperate.”
“In a snowstorm? Are you out of your mind?”
“Oh, come on, Ingrid. We’re Faerghans. We could sleep in a snowbank all night and be fine.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You would literally freeze to death.” He was lucky that she was a good driver; he wasn’t sure he could take her withering look for more than the one second her eyes were off the road and on him. “Tell me you’re not that reckless.”
“Jury’s still out.”
She groaned, her fingers curling even tighter around the steering wheel. He was making this worse—lots worse. He could see it in the stiffness of her spine, the tension on her shoulders. The crease between her brows made it pretty clear that she was just tempted to stop the car and throw him out, but she hadn’t quite given up on him yet.
Why hadn’t she given up on him? Why wasn’t this one more straw on the massive pile of final straws that finally made her decide that he just wasn’t worth it?
It was a mystery, and yet…and yet it made him adore her all the more. It was hard not to love someone who was willing to do anything for him, even if she shouldn’t. Even if he didn’t deserve it.
Ingrid sighed, the sound soft and utterly exhausted. “What were you even doing out there?”
Well, here was one more thing to add to the pile. “Meeting with a girl.”
Yeah, there was the rage he was expecting. It flared bright across her cheeks, eyes practically glittering with a fury that he knew would end in a sore ear or smarting pride if she hadn’t been driving. There was still time that it would, once the car was no longer moving. “And you couldn’t stay there?”
He offered a smile, hardly surprised that it made that crease between her brows even worse. “You know me. I think you could guess and be right in your first three.”
“Ugh. I can’t believe you.” She rubbed her face, her gaze flicking across the horizon. “You can’t even behave just so you don’t literally freeze to death.”
“It’s a curse.”
“You—” she bit down on her words, her expression shifting. To Sylvain’s surprise, she pulled off the road, lacking any sort of elegance as she turned off the car.
Maybe she had had enough.
“…Ingrid…?”
She inhaled slowly, eyes closed as she visibly centered herself. When she looked at him, her gaze was full of a determination that was both terrifying and thrilling all at once. “Get out.”
Sylvain’s stomach sank. Well, that was his answer. After all of this, this had been his last chance. He wondered if it was the drive or just his flippancy that had done it.
“Out, Sylvain.”
He forced a smile. “Yeah, yeah okay.”
It was a bit hard to keep his smile level as he grabbed his bag from the floor, his fingertips trembling slightly as he reached for the door. He’d always known that he was playing a dangerous game, that it would eventually bite him, but it had also always provided a sense of safety, too. To an extent, a part of him thought that Ingrid might not have understood, but at least she accepted it. That she hadn’t rid herself of him because he wasn’t just—
“The storm’s getting worse,” Ingrid said, hardly as hesitant as he as she pushed open her door and stretched. “The heater won’t be able to take it. We’ll wait it out and get a meal to pass the time. Which is going to be your treat.”
Sylvain blinked, pushing open the door and trying his best to be subtle as he looked around. And there it was—the reason for their stopping, placing them in the middle of a narrow parking lot almost entirely obscured by snow. The little restaurant that was barely bigger than a house, only a half-lit sign and windows surrounding the entire perimeter the only hint of what it was. Sure, the windows were shuttered enough that the restaurant looked closed, but the dull green of the ‘Open’ sign implied otherwise.
It was probably that soft glow that attracted her attention in the first place, since it definitely wasn’t the building itself.
“Come on,” Ingrid said, her fingers curling into the sleeve of his coat and tugging insistently. “Consider it part of your ‘thank you’.”
Well, at least the coffee was decent. And warm.
Sylvain sipped from the mug as he watched Ingrid nibble at her fries, her burger already entirely devoured. It was actually rather fascinating to watch—the ritual with which she dipped each one into her ketchup in almost perfect uniformity, bringing it to her lips and consuming it always in two bites, regardless of fry size. And, this whole time, she wasn’t even looking at her plate, somewhat unfocused as she watched the storm outside the window. His gaze caught as she would sometimes lick the salt from her fingers, grateful enough that she wasn’t paying attention enough to lecture him for staring.
It was his staring, it seemed, that had him completely ignorant to his phone insistently buzzing on the table, again and again and again with each new message that lit up his screen.
“Let me guess,” Ingrid sighed, glaring at his phone, “you were supposed to go on a date tonight.”
He shrugged, definitely making a bold move by stealing a fry off her plate. They were cold, the salt too strong without the heat to serve as a distraction. Which was weird; Ingrid’s fries never survived that long.
Then again, the restaurant still had a slight chill to it, even if it wasn’t as cold in here as outside. Even the fogged glass was frosting at the edges just from two people sitting here, even his breath crystalizing against the glass as he leaned close to it. It wasn’t hard to imagine that warmth—even inside—just didn’t last as long as it usually would when facing all this.
“Sylvain.” Okay, judging by her tone, fry theft was currently unacceptable. Going for a second was definitely not a good idea. Which was fine; he was sure he’d be ordering another plate for them both before the snow let up enough to get back to the car.
“I mean, maybe?” That wasn’t a lie, at least. He might have had a date or something planned for today, but that went pretty low on his priorities when he had a good risk of freezing to death on the walk home. “Let’s be realistic; I doubt anyone is surprised. Probably not even—”
“I can’t believe you!”
“Really?” At this point, he kind of expected this to be normal—hated, sure, but normal. At the very least, he was sure it was something Ingrid could reliably predict, that would serve as just another reminder that he was barely worth her time. “I’d say this is—”
“Why are you—” Ingrid inhaled sharply, frustration burning in her voice. “Why can’t you just be honest for once?”
Huh. He was pretty sure, of anything, this was the one thing he assumed she thought he was always honest about. She’d always seen him as irresponsible, a degenerate, a complete mess—why was she mad about it now?
His gaze flicked over in hope that he would decipher it—only to land on the one thing that had his heart sinking into his stomach. Because there, in her hand, was his phone—and on its screen was a series of long and wordy texts, all from one person.
All from Bernadetta.
Sylvain swallowed, his lips curling into a slightly-fragile smile. He tried to be casual as he reached for his phone, but there was no hiding the panic in his expression as Ingrid snapped her hand away.
“’Did you get home safe? The storm is really really bad.’” Ingrid said, her voice pitching up to barely emulate Bernadetta’s.
“Um.”
“‘Thank you again for helping me out I wouldn’t have been able to get through this without you.’” Ingrid’s gaze flicked up to his, a wrinkle between her brows as her lips curved even more into a scowl. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Um. I was…on a date with…Bernadetta?”
Okay, that one was a flop. Even if he didn’t see her face, it would be pretty stupid to pretend otherwise.
“Well, you see,” he cleared his throat, “I figured it, uh, didn’t matter? I mean you were still stuck out here when you didn’t need to be. So like, out here to woo a girl? Out here to spend time with Bernadetta? Same thing. Still a trip you didn’t have to make.”
Ingrid’s jaw set, her eyes narrowed. “I don’t get it,” she snapped. “Why wouldn’t you go out there with your car? You always drive to visit.”
He smiled, stealing another fry in hopes of a distraction. And…that didn’t work, either. “Does it really matter?”
Ingrid looked at him flatly. “I could just ask her.”
“You don’t even have her number. I’m pretty sure she has you blocked.”
“No. But I can ask her on this.” She tilted his phone, looking satisfied but not even a little pleased as he reached for it again and failed. “Or. You just tell me.”
“It’s not—”
“What? What could possibly be so important that you can’t tell me?”
“It’s not your business!” he snapped. Why couldn’t she just let things be? Why did she have to keep pressing, hoping for him to be a better person than he was? Why did she have to keep pretending that there was anything else but the expectations she had certainly grown to know for years?
Ingrid’s scowl only deepened. “Considering I’m the one who is spending half my day driving you home, I think it is.”
Sylvain scowled, his fingers curling tightly around the mug that had now grown cold. She was right; she’d put up with this because he couldn’t handle it on his own. He stared down at the mug.
“Bernie called me while I was in the office, okay?” His voice felt too quiet as he pulled the truth from his chest, but it wasn’t like there was anyone else here to muffle it—no reason why Ingrid couldn’t hear it on her own if she was so damn interested. “She had to submit her manuscript today and it wasn’t done and she was two seconds from a panic attack. So I just—I got a ride and didn’t think about this stupid storm. And,” he groaned, “you’ve heard how her dad is. If he caught me there he might start sending wedding invites and nobody needs that, least of all her.”
Ingrid was quiet. In his periphery, he couldn’t tell if it was an angry or understanding silence, if she was only angrier at him or if this eased her concerns entirely. He’d hoped for the former.
But he also couldn’t take the quiet. “She can’t drive so I thought the apps would be okay. Didn’t realize they’d not risk it with the storm. Which, you know,” he shrugged, “I get it.”
A scoff was not exactly the response he’d expected, but he wasn’t wholly surprised. “What? Couldn’t hide in Bernadetta’s closet overnight?”
He offered a wry smile. “I think we both know how that one turns out.”
Okay, she wasn’t amused by that either. And she wasn’t getting angrier, either. He couldn’t win. All he could do was watch as her expression slowly felt, downcast in a way he couldn’t stand on her face. “I just don’t get why you wouldn’t tell me.”
Sylvain let out a breath as he looked away, though it didn’t keep the expression from already being burned into his mind. “Because then you might not actually be mad at me.”
Wait.
Ingrid groaned. “Why would you want me to be mad at you?”
“It’s easier, isn’t it?” He needed to shut up. Why wasn’t he shutting up? “Nice and predictable. Keeps things as they should be.”
“And how exactly is that?”
“Well, I mean. You get to reluctantly suffer with me while still filling that need to take care of people. And I get to pretend that you like me enough to actually care. You know, without those messy strings attached.”
“Pretend?” Ingrid’s voice pitched higher with the volume, her knuckles turning white as fists clenched against the table. “Do you honestly think I don’t care about you, Sylvain?! I literally drove all the way out here because I was afraid you’d get yourself killed walking in the snow!”
He laughed weakly. “Who in their right mind would care when they constantly have to do dumb things like drive out this far because her friend the idiot forgot his car?”
Ingrid darted to her feet—not to leave, but to curl her fingers into his shirt, dragging his face as close to hers at the table between them would allow.
“Listen to me,” she snapped. “I care about you, Sylvain. Yes, you do stupid, self-destructive, absolutely absurd things, but,” her fingers slowly uncurled from the fabric, expression softening as he settled back against the chair, “you’re still a good person. You didn’t have to come all the way out here to help Bernadetta. And you’re not so stupid as to not consider the consequences. You knew—you just wanted to help her more than you wanted to keep yourself safe.”
His breath caught in his throat; he knew he had the wrong expression for looking at her right now, but to hear this—even if it was a lie, even if she didn’t mean it in the way he hoped—he couldn’t help it.
“You know,” she continued, “you probably would have done something dumb like walk home today…if you didn’t think I would worry about you when you didn’t show up tonight.”
“…Show up?”
She sighed, settling back into her chair. “Potluck? With Mercedes? Or…did you forget that, too?”
His lips twitched, gaze flicking to a waitress who looked only a little bit concerned. Well, he was sure he could order truce-fries while she was here, anyway. “Well, now I feel a bit bad. That’s way worse than missing a date.”
Ingrid sighed, at least now seeing his plea for mercy in the words he wasn’t saying. He was sure he wouldn’t be spared from it for long—but at least it wouldn’t be now, or in the restaurant. “You’re impossible.”
“But predictable, right?”
There was her smile. “Yeah. Unfortunately it seems so. Kind of like you buying me another plate of fries.”
He couldn’t help but return her smile. Maybe he’d like being predictable.