#bergen_county

"Is that why you got sick?"

"Shit, I think we let the cupid off easy..."

He stoops to pick up a curl of wood and turns it over in his hands a bit. "Dagmar, you and me... we're friends, right? You're my best friend. We're partners, yeah? And nothing could ever change that?"

She brightens and smiles. "Yeah!"

He takes a moment to glance around, ensuring that no one is around. "I'm gonna say something really stupid, okay? Dags... I... like... you."

She tenses a bit. "Uh.."

He thinks for a second, and winces. "No, I didn't mean it like that! Not that it's stupid. To like you. I mean that I'm stupid! Not that I would have to be stupid, I'm just - uh.. uh. Shit."

Blink. Furrow.

"Was it.. delayed cupid stuff? It wears off."

He hesitates, seeing a way out! But then, he remembers.. Gwydion. Maybe she would take pity on him and pretend not to notice?

"I think I've felt this way a long time. But then I get hit by this thing... and it's supposed to make me... like someone? And I look at you, and I just... you know? I feel the same way I always have. It's just... clearer."

She flushes purple.

"Symon, I... you're my best friend..."

"Let me... just let me finish, okay? Or I'll never get to say it. P-please?" He is also flushed, and stammering, in a way that he hasn't in years, when he was the shy, stuttering teen who had first moved to Bergen.

"Ok..."

"I never thought... I mean, I figured, it was just that we were friends, right? Because I never wanted to... do stuff. Like..." He's blushing, that unpleasant purplish pallor that looks like a bloated corpse, as he searches for a word that won't get stuck in his throat. "I never wanted to... " "I never thought of you, lustfully."

"It's not that I didn't feel that way about YOU. But about anyone. Like - pictures? Videos. Other girls. GUYS, for that matter. Even those magazines, the magical ones - I thought it was busted because I never saw... you know, nudes in them. So I figured, it can't be that I -LIKE- Dagmar, or I'd want that stuff. But I didn't, not for anyone."

"I thought there was something WRONG with me."

"So.. so, like.. you're ace?"

A hesitant nod. "I didn't know that was... a thing. Fuck, I feel stupid. I can just... never mind." He shakes whatever thought out of his head, and continues.

"But, what the cupid... or the aftermath of the cupid, made me think is that.. maybe I don't HAVE to want to... by physical, h-have sex, to like someone. To want to be with them. To think they're the m-most wonderful p-p- per--person in the world. To want to sp.. sp.. sp... to want to be with them? Share things, and... and all the rest."

"You aren't stupid." Defensive and stubborn and loyal. So - Dagmar.

He sighs, and some tension seems to go out of him, a release from having said it, and he looks over to her.

"I don't tell you think because I expect anything from you. Or think you ... I don't know, owe me something just because I feel... what I feel. I want you to know because you're my friend. And I trust you. And I don't want to keep secrets from you. Even if that makes me the... worst fuckin' sluagh there is, right?"

"Your tea is pretty heinous, to be fair."

A blink, and he rasps a small laugh. "Straight from the mouth of Madame Grey." The amusement fades, and, "I'm sorry, to make you listen to this. It feels like... I'm not trying to burden you... I mean... it doesn't have to change anything. That's the last thing I want, is to fuck up what we got going. But I felt like - I had to tell you."

"That much I think is from the Cupid, at least."

She rubs the back of her neck.

"Well, you matter a lot to me, too."

"But not... not like, that way."

"And it's kinda... good? Nice."

"You're... family, or as close as I know it."

"You mean that you like me, like... a brother?" He asks, though the question he asks doesn't seem to be exactly the question he means.

"Love you like a brother, yeah."

"If that's... okay?"

It's not a spoken lie, so her Gywdion-radar is silent, as it has been for this entire conversation... but something on his expression flashes with pain for just a moment, before disappearing.

"Like... I didn't HAVE real family before I came here... but, I mean, I'd die for CJ, or Tove, or Jaymes."

"Or you."

Her expression falters, shifting to worry.

It takes a moment, but he nods. "You mean more to me then anyone else in the world. I wouldn't give that up, for anything. I wouldn't trade it for any relationship, any -lover-, any corpse bride or trueheart the dreaming might promise, because they wouldn't be you."

"Of course it's okay. What I feel... it wouldn't have meaning, if what you felt wasn't just as important. If I only liked you because I thought you felt the same? That... that would be some sort of conditional bullshit." He says slowly, but seriously... and it seems that perhaps he is just realizing this himself, at the same time as he says it aloud.

"I mean.. I.. you're not my parents, but it.."

"I..."

"You're Symon."

She flushes again. "And I just.. I never wanted to... you're my best friend."

"I'm sorry." Guilty, certain she has somehow said something wrong.

"Why are you sorry?" He whispers, looking up over at her.

"Because brother isn't right? I don't know. I said something wrong."

"It's not right because it's not what you meant? Or because you think it's not what I wanted to hear?"

"Because it hurt you?"

"Because.. because I don't know."

He hesitates, then reaches out, setting a hand on top of one of hers. Smaller, greyish pallor, and clammy, thin and bony, but compared to the winter air, still a bit warmer than a corpse.

"I'm Symon. You're Dagmar. We're friends. That hasn't changed. That never has to change."

"We're a team."

"Right." He straightens up a bit. "Does it... bother you? What I said?"

She shakes her head.