(no subject)

[moonshxne]

Happy families are all alike and every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. What a crock of bullshit. He didn't think happiness would befall their odd half-family at some point in the future but each passing day ushered in a new sense of defeat and the half-hope that there would be at least contentment to look forward to dimmed even more. Unhappiness is universal. Not that he was unhappy. Again, just...dimmed. The way he tried to rationalize it was that Temple might as well have been a kid. And sometimes he still saw her as the girl he first met by the university. Maybe it was her unhappiness that was universal.

With the concept of marriage came the ideal of home came the starting of a new family and thus a new branch of that universal unhappiness. Temple's unhappiness, he tried to tell himself, at least.

"You don't have much to say."

Surprisingly, it came out much more brusque than he intended, and in order to make this clear, Gowan released a slow sigh.

"The facade of domesticity goes a long way."

Comments

[clotting]

The true question is whether Temple is capable of happiness at all, if she has not been so damaged as to forget salvation and joy. These are questions separate from her marriage or the home she makes. Questions clutching like limpets to her heart, internal, pointed, traveling with her like a bad cough.

"Of course I could," she says, because how could she commit to the opposite? How could she vow herself to unhappiness?

She heads over to the bourbon again, not unaware of but apathetic to his own desires for intoxication.

[moonshxne]

"Can you put the damned bourbon down? Do cut it with this game of yours. I know what you're doing Temple."

As his words progressed they slipped from sharp vitriol to a tired disillusionment, a strained weariness, almost seamlessly.

"I'm doing what I can, Boots. Can you not do the same?"

He looked up at her again, slowly releasing a sigh.

[clotting]

She pours herself the alcohol, muttering angrily over her shoulder, like a child does when they're being sent to their room. And then she kicks back a mouthful.

"Can't I have a drink in our own home? Or is that yours alone too? It all has to be about you and your needs and you on the deed to this property, is that right?"

She turns and glares at him, eyes betraying the distraction of feeling the alcohol burn down her throat, and then they clear up and measure him like a cat deciding whether or not it'll allow itself to be touched.

"I married you. I'm not publicly embarrassing either of us. I'm doing all I can do too."