[ she recites to him lines from the collection of words he'd wrote to her, listening to them with familiarity but feeling them carry a lot differently when spoken aloud, when spoken by her. if asked his intentions, his meaning, when he'd wrote the poem, he wouldn't have an answer, because he usually never does. when he writes words like that, it's just from a moment, from a sliver of a feeling, and in the days following christmas, when he'd been trying to cope with what he'd just recently lost, he'd let himself dwell in what remained.

in the late hours of christmas, he'd sunk into whatever he had, in the alcohol, in the drugs, everything to just lose himself into the past, hardly caring what would be left of him, but he'd woken up to marta there, reeled out of the nightmares by her voice.

it'd have been easy to go back to what he was used to, to going on alone, to shutting it all out, but she'd kept him from it, from falling in to old habits, just by offering him a story — a small gesture, but enough. enough to convince him of what he needs right now.

a friend.

but to say it out loud, to explain any of that to her, he's not sure if he even could. so when she breathes in the smoke and redirects with a different question, he exhales a slow breathe, not even aware he was holding it, his fingers moving to continue tying threads around the doll. ]

Not really. Just hired like one. [ his voice speaks casually, as if never deferred for a moment by the subject of the poem. ] I have a certain skill that proves useful for figuring things out — Envoy intuition.