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[mycursedface]

Medusa has never liked Milliways winters. Cold, snow, ice, cold. With living snakes combining with her mind, she feels herself growing slower, duller; with metal feathers growing out of her skin, it's only her preternatural healing that stops her from getting frostbite every time she goes outside.

It is morning, high mid-morning, with the sun streaming through the window. The very, very shut window - even Medusa's objections to lack of fresh air falter in the face of cold. The Gorgon herself is perched on a chair in front of the glass, staring out across the white landscape as her snakes absorb as much sunlight as possible.

(she is not alone, either; sprawled out in her lap and overcome with the bliss of constant petting is one Master Shreddie. Sun and scritches, nothing better in the whole multiverse)

Comments

[necessary_child]

Sam, startled, promptly turns, removes the kitten from the mug, and laughs even as he lightly taps the kitten's nose.

"Damn, he's going to be hyper now, isn't he?"

[mycursedface]

Long-suffering, "Yes."

[necessary_child]

"Bollocks." Sam peers at the kitten sternly, and gets a pleading look in return.

It isn't long before Sam's expression softens. To the kitten, suspiciously: "Have you been taking lessons from Cal in how to stop me being angry?"

MEW.

[mycursedface]

Medusa cocks her head. "Cal has magic, Lucifer-angry-no-more powers?"

[necessary_child]

His face stills a little and he puts the Shreddie down on the floor, well away from the remains of their food.

"More of a talent. But yes." He draws a warding circle around the tray to keep the kitten out.

"You've met him once or twice, haven't you?"

[mycursedface]

Sam will find himself the recipient of Medusa's full attention, and all of her intense gaze.

"A bit more than that. He understands the talking in songs."

[necessary_child]

Sam smiles a little. "Oh, he found someone like that? Good."

He looks up, then, meeting her gaze. "You know I love you, Beautiful, right?"

[mycursedface]

More puzzled than worried, "Yes, of course."

[necessary_child]

Sam frowns a little, sits up, kisses her shoulder lightly.

"It's just - I don't know. Our deal was that we could mess around with anyone, wasn't it? But that we were the only ones who were serious. And ... I'm not sure what's going on with Cal. How serious it is, or how I feel about him. But probably more serious than what you and I agreed. I didn't mean it to be, but..."

His frown deepens. "And so I'm not sure what to do about it. But I'm still in love with you, and nothing's going to change that."

[mycursedface]

She doesn't answer straight away, just frowns a little and thinks. Her snakes rustle and hiss, but given some of them stretch out to lay flickering kisses across his face, she's not mad.

(if she were mad, the snakes would be biting)

"I...can't really remember our deal," she admits, reaching up to let her snakes glide about her hand. "It was a long time ago." For her, anyway, and Medusa's memory is really quite terrible in the linear-time sense (she's a hunter; life is in the present, not future or past). "But I thought...it wasn't 'serious', exactly, just...we don't have our thing with other people."

Medusa bites her bottom lip, still frowning slightly. "But we aren't changing, are we?"

[necessary_child]

Sam frowns, too, one hand still and flat against Medusa's skin.

"I don't - I'm still just as much in love with you, Meda. But it - didn't seem fair to - I don't know what's going on with Cal. But it didn't seem fair not to tell you about it or to pretend that I don't feel anything for him. I don't know what you feel about that."

[mycursedface]

"No, no, it's...good you're telling me." She flashes him one of her quick smiles before frowning again, thinking.

"I...I like Cal. And I don't care what you do, as long as I don't get, um, forgotten or anything like that. What I don't like is...how upset Cal can make you. Does make you."

[necessary_child]

Sam's smile flickers at her. "Like I could ever forget about you."

He laughs, then, wryly. "Pissed-off is closer to it. Don't worry about him - he just gets frequent outbreaks of Being An Idiot. Mortals do that a lot, but he'll settle down."

Maybe.

Sam hopes.

[mycursedface]

Medusa...pointedly raises her eyebrows, snakes hissing.

"I'm not worried about him, I'm worried about you. And he's rather old to be settling down."

[necessary_child]

"That wasn't really what I meant when I said not to worry about him," Sam says mildly, over the noise of the snakes. "More that I'm more than old enough to cope with him. I had a pretty good idea what I was getting into when I started."

He strokes his hand down her arm, slowly.

"Though he isn't old, really. He thinks he is."

[mycursedface]

The hissing slightly dims at the caress, but she doesn't look convinced.

[necessary_child]

Sam shakes his head, unsure of how to explain.

"He's very young, in some ways. In a lot of ways. It's why the arguments - that, and I'm a stubborn bastard and I put my foot in it more often than I'd like."

And sometimes he consciously decides to.

[mycursedface]

Curiously, "You're not like that with me."

[necessary_child]

"You," Sam says firmly, "make far more sense than he does."

Cal, he sometimes feels, has turned incomprehensibility into an art form.

[mycursedface]

"Oh," she says, her smile oddly shy and pleased. "Well that's something."

[necessary_child]

He laughs a little, kissing her skin.

"I really do love you, you know."

[mycursedface]

"Yeah, I do," Medusa says, dipping her head to rest against his. "And I love you, too."

[necessary_child]

"Mmm, good." He nudges his head against hers, pressing a kiss to the bridge of her nose as her snakes settle back down.

"...You could come and join in with Cal and me sometime, if you wanted. It'd be fun."

[mycursedface]

A little sharply, "What do you mean?"

[necessary_child]

Sam shrugs a little.

"Whatever you're comfortable with, really."