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[weaponwithoutpurpose]

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[weaponwithoutpurpose]

He simultaneously relaxes under her touch and breathes into his tense chest. "Yeah, maybe," he mutters, but he's not up for defending Joseph today. Not after everything that's happening outside.

"Just - shit that shouldn't remind me of home, you know?"

[handleyourshit]

"I wish it were the same for me."

That she could think of home and not think of everything it is now. All the horrible things it is now.

She's not great at being an optimist. She's not great at looking past what is, at whatever's in front of her. But she tries.

She smiles, small and brittle but she tries.

"D'you know she had a wedding scrapbook? She'd been building it since she was fifteen."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

He smiles a little, glad for the distraction. He doesn't want to think of home. He doesn't want to think of Joseph and John right now because he has to.

"Yeah? Is that why she shot down his suggestion of lemon cake so quickly? And already had some color scheme picked out?"

[handleyourshit]

"Oh, he never stood a chance. She'd dreamed of it for a decade."

She brushes her thumb over his hand, over his knuckles, where a ring should be. At least a tan line, if not the band itself.

"I started mine at twelve."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"He really wanted lemon," he remarks and leans his head back.

"What were your colors?"

He hates how much that surprises him. That she had those dreams. She's talked about how different she was before it all happened.

[handleyourshit]

"She'd've folded, if he'd've pushed." But he wouldn't. She was normally better at recognizing that, but she'd been too much of a bulldozer for that one event, she knew then and knows now.

She shakes her head.

"What weren't my colors?" She sighs. "Red and gold and blue. Or pink and champagne and charcoal. Or coral and turquoise and sand. Or wine and silver and coffee. I had a section for each season."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"Oh you were organized!" he remarks, glancing to where the ring should be. Like her, he keeps glancing to it, feeling its absence heavily.

"What color is wine? Is that just red?"

[handleyourshit]

"Blasphemy," she snorts, faking offense.

"More purple. Not quite maroon. Like when you spill merlot on cloth."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

Jacob hides a smirk. "What's merlot?"

He doesn't actually know, but he can guess. He just likes seeing that look on her face.

[handleyourshit]

This time she scoffs openly.

"Heathen," she hisses, but it's closer to something with laughter in it this time. "It's a kind of red wine."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"If it doesn't come in a box or a bag, it's too fancy for me," he says and this time the laugh is more like a cackle than anything else.

"Never pay more than 10 bucks for wine."

[handleyourshit]

"Franzia makes a merlot, you know - bag in a box."

In truth, she's not a wine snob by any stretch of the imagination. She is in fact a hard liquor kind of girl, and always has been.

Not that it matters at the end of the world.

"I had a cake for every season, too. Lemon was for spring."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

He's thoughtful. "Eh, can't have a spring wedding," he tells her. "Allergies. Everyone's going to be sneezing. Ruins the whole thing. What about fall? What's the cake for fall?"

[handleyourshit]

"I don't have allergies, so who cares?"

Part of her balks at talking about this, at thinking about this - it doesn't matter anymore, does it? There are no weddings, there are no cakes.

"Apple spice."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

He brushes his fingers against her arm. "Yeah, well, I do," he grumbles, as if that matters. "And apple spice cake. God, that sounds good."

[handleyourshit]

"Then you shouldn't have a spring wedding. And it would have been amazing, because that's what cake tastings are for."

She hears how it could matter. How he might be thinking, why now - maybe.

Maybe.

She looks up at him, and says softly, "What is this, Jacob?"

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"Talking," he says, evasive and a little distant. He doesn't know. He doesn't want to examine it. It's too Big and too Scary.

[handleyourshit]

"Talking," she echoes.

"Did you ever think about getting married?"

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

An immediate shake of his head. "Nah. I mean, as a kid. But not seriously."

[handleyourshit]

"Never imagined having a family of your own? Besides your brothers, I mean."

She's not discounting them at all. That they are family still to him.

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

Jacob shrugs. "Raised my brothers. Got em candy when they wanted. Fed them supper when my parents were too drunk. Made sure that John got to school and that Joseph was doing his schoolwork. I wiped noses. Dressed them. Put bandaids on them. I was raising them before I was fifteen. Don't think I'm cut out for it now." He breathes in. "I'm afraid I might be just like my dad if I try now."

[handleyourshit]

"Not the question," she points out, though nothing he says surprises her.

He had his own family. There's a reason she's never directly asked him to speak against them, never mind the fact that it hardly matters now. They're here, and he doesn't want to go back.

"I'm sorry things went the way they did."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"Me, too," he admits. "But I uh...didn't really think about it once I got to juvie. Getting married, I mean."

[handleyourshit]

"You had a lot else going on."

And then he went to the place young men always go to stop having to think about how to do life.

"I know I'm difficult. I know... I'm a fucking minefield. I get that. But I need to ask one more thing."

[weaponwithoutpurpose]

"You're not difficult. Not anything I didn't sign on for."

He nods. "Ask whatever you want."