hi Silver! o/ because that fanart made me wonder - would you happen to know when/where Dick's stuffed elephant plush Zitka turns up in the comics?
GREETINGS CAM <3333 THAT ART WAS SO CUTE
Yeah, I think your instincts are right - it's a truly adorable bit of transformative fandom, but I'm 95% percent sure it's not comics canon. Barbara has canon plushies, but I don't think anyone else does.
I got kinda invested in the investigation (it's hard to prove a negative!) and I ended up typing out an entire History of Elinore/Zitka, so, uh, if you're curious, meet me below the cut for:
Where does Elinore / Zitka - the animal - appear in comics?
Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?
Where does Elinore / Zitka appear in comics?
We're gonna go in chronological order!
Dick's circus elephant friend was first created for practical reasons: in Batman 436, Marv Wolfman does a big expanded flashback to Dick's circus backstory as a way to subtly show us Tim before officially introducing him (so that we can have a technically-solvable mystery-of-Tim's-identity in LPoD). In this comic, there's an elephant named Elinore who loves Dick:
Aww. Such a cute elephant!
Batman 436 comes out in August 1989. New Titans 60 comes out a few months later, in November, and guess what? When Dick visits the circus, he is suddenly surprised by an unexpected blast from the past! It turns out that even though it's been years, Elinore still remembers him!
Here's the part where Elinore remembers Dick:
SUCH a cute elephant. I love her.
(Guess who else still remembers Dick even though it was so long ago. Guess which other character is about to be an unexpected blast from the past. Guess which character Elinore is directly paralleling guess guess guess sorry everything is about Dick and Tim in my mind but I can focus I swear)
Four years later, in 1993, Batman: The Animated Series retells Dick's origin story. They like and keep Wolfman's elephant, but they change her name to Zitka:
Wolfman doesn't return to the elephant beyond those two appearances, and a few years down the line, New Titans gets cancelled and Wolfman's not writing Dick anymore anyway. So the animal gets abandoned for a while, until Devin Grayson, a fan of both Wolfman and B:tAS, revives the Wolfman-era Titans team in JLA/Titans and then the ongoing series Titans 1999.
Grayson then brings back the elephant in a flashback to Dick's past in Titans 16 (Jun 2000), where she imports the B:tAS name. Sometimes I'm skeptical of TV-to-comics imports, but honestly, I endorse this one. You lose the alliteration, which is a shame, but IMO Zitka is a better elephant name than Elinore.
Here's Dick with the newly-christened Zitka in Titans 16:
Grayson also briefly references the elephant in Gotham Knights 20 and - in a final angsty callback - in Nightwing 88 (Feb 2004), where Zitka tries futilely to comfort Dick in the midst of his trauma conga line:
... And... honestly, I think that's it for comic appearances? The two Wolfman comics plus the three Grayson comics.
Both Wolfman and Grayson are writing multiple titles - Batman, New Titans, Titans, Gotham Knights, and Nightwing between the two of them, spanning a big chunk of Dick's post-Crisis canon - and both writers use the elephant for heartwarming moments of nostalgia, which means if you're doing a post-Crisis readthrough for Dick, Elinore/Zitka feels memorable. But I don't think she actually shows up that much.
For post-2011, I am not as well-informed - throwing this out to the dash? anyone know? - but I feel like Zitka the heartwarming symbol of Dick's heartwarming circus past is, uh, thematically very at odds with the Court of Owls evil!circus vibes, so my instinct is that this story element was almost certainly dropped in the reboot.
Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?
In WFA, yes; in main comics continuity, no. Technically, I have not read every comic ever published, so I could be wrong!! But I don't think so.
Below, find my rambling reasoning on the tonal vibes of pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and post-2011, and why this particular story element doesn't seem right to me for the first two.
Pre-Crisis (...okay, mostly the Silver Age): stuffed animal, yes or no?
tl;dr no, requires too much background knowledge on the part of the reader, plus the elephant wasn't a thing until later
Elinore doesn't get created until post-Crisis, but also just generally, pre-Crisis callbacks are more along the lines of this reference in Batman 129 (published in 1960), where, wow, Batman and Robin are hunting jewel thieves - and it turns out Robin recognized this strongman! BUT HOW?!
The comic goes on to recap Dick's entire origin story in flashback, on the assumption that you may not know it.
(BTW, if you'd like to know more about Haly's Circus throughout the years, nightwingology has a great post here summarizing a lot of fun plotlines and characters!)
Basically: Silver Age comics are very self-consciously episodic and kid-friendly; they're not generally gonna do overly-elaborate callbacks because they don't know what comics their kid readers may have randomly picked up or remember.
By the time of post-Crisis, comic books were being written for an adult audience buying from the direct market, i.e. readers who are collecting whole runs & don't need or want Dick's origin story to be recapped to us in full every time it's referenced. That's why in post-Crisis, we get stuff like "hey, neat, this particular soda brand is getting mentioned in several different books!!" or "in order to understand this story arc, buy SIXTEEN DIFFERENT COMICS in FIVE DIFFERENT RUNS and read them ALL ACCORDING TO A NUMBERED ORDER and also you better be following the individual plotlines and recognize these five minor characters who we don't bother to introduce!! Good luck!!" But the elaborate post-Crisis plotlines - and subtler worldbuilding like a stuffed animal callback to Dick's backstory - don't make a lot of story sense UNLESS you're imagining your readers as completionist adult fans.
So IMO a stuffed animal wouldn't be a pre-Crisis thing unless it was The Episodic Story Of the Week, and I don't think a stuffed animal is action-adventure-y enough for the fast-paced storytelling of the Silver Age. (Unless it, like, came to life and tried to eat you or something.)
Post-Crisis: stuffed animals, yes or no?
tl;dr: no, Dick's a manly tough guy, he's not gonna have a stuffed animal, that'd be lame, like something Tim might do
Part of the edgy grimdark adult vibes in 80s/90s comics is that some characters who used to be kinda silly & goofy & lighthearted - like Batman and Robin - get reimagined as Serious and Angsty and Edgy in a Tough Cool Manly Brooding Way. This massively affects characterization for Bruce, Dick, and Bruce and Dick's relationship.
(I obviously love this change & love the tense Bruce-and-Dick interactions, but plenty of fans of the earlier fluffy comics really disliked the edgy retcons of Miller / Wolfman / Starlin / et al.)
The upshot is that post-Crisis is a period when you could have a recurring reference like a stuffed elephant, but you wouldn't have a stuffed elephant, not for Dick. I think a toy like that would be too cutesy / childish / effeminate to give a male character in post-Crisis, unless you were poking fun at him.
Now, you could probably let Tim have a stuffed animal, because Tim is sometimes cool but also sometimes a tryhard loser who is faking being cool and not entirely pulling it off (see e.g. the Robin comic where he practices tough-guy faces in the mirror, or the Teen Titans comic where Conner discovers his cringy Enya CD, or when he's fanboying over Connor and it's awkward, etc etc.). A stuffed animal would be deeply embarrassing, and you'd have to be careful to compensate by having Tim do something cool afterward - but Tim's character concept allows for "he's kind of a loser sometimes."
But Dick isn't!! In post-Crisis, Dick's a tough / impressive / "cool guy" character, the kind of guy anyone would want to be, even in the flashbacks where he's Robin, and even in the stories where he's more lighthearted than angsty. It'd be kinda lame for Dick to have a stuffed elephant, so he wouldn't. I feel like Dick would be more likely to poke fun at it if someone had one, like when he's making fun of Wally for liking the Hardy Boys. Dick could have a Batman action figure, at most, and if he had one he would have it ironically.
Basically: in post-Crisis, a male character hugging a stuffed elephant feels more likely to be a punchline to me, not something poignant. (Even with Tim, Tim could have an embarrassing stuffed animal, but he couldn't hug it when sad - that's too far. Maybe Booster Gold might do this. Probably he wouldn't, but spiritually, he would. Sorry Booster ilu! <3)
Instead, Dick instinctively deals with his inner turmoil like the TORTURED ACTION HERO he is: by punching things and brooding and yelling and joining the mob and sleeping on rooftops and going on obsessive secret missions and acquiring Angsty Stubble!! Just like Batman!
(Technically I don't know if Bruce ever joined the mob but you know he would.)
Anyway as you know this is my favorite continuity and I am poking fun affectionately, but uh, yeah sdfsfdsfs. No stuffed animals.
Post-2011 / Infinite Frontier / Wayne Family Adventures: stuffed animals, yes or no?
tl;dr it's in WFA! Probably not anywhere else, but it could be.
Post-2011 stuff tends to be cutesier overall, most of all in the current Infinite Frontier era. So I don't feel like this would be tonally out-of-line with IF comics. Taylor tends to go for more meme-y references rather than fanfic references, though.
So the obvious best fit is WFA, which is aiming for a rough approximation of Silver Age family-friendly vibes - wholesome, episodic plots, Teaching Good Moral Lessons For The Youth, etc. - plus lots of Easter eggs for fanfic readers and some comic references.
And look, here we are:
Aww.
Whew - that's everything I could find!
Anyway as you can probably tell, I LOVE the elephant, so this was a very entertaining rabbit hole to go down, thank you <3
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Hob Gadling's First Execution
WARNING: GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE
“He was begging,” Dream said. Mud squelched all around them, but he and Death made no sound as they walked over the already bloodied field. “I heard it.”
“He was begging to live, you idiot!” Death said.
“How do you know?” Dream looked at Hob Gadling, kneeling before a hoard of soldiers. His hair and beard were coated in blood.
“He’s writhing away from the man with the axe, not towards him!”
“The specifics were unclear. His lips seem to be leaking, his words were obstructed. And there is only one logical thing to hope for in this scenario.”
Death shook her head. It had barely been a decade since they’d visited the White Horse, and Dream had repeatedly pointed out — as if she could have failed to notice — that the world had only become a less appealing and more brutal place to live.
“But look at him!” Dream said. “Such misery, my sister! Surely he wishes for his torment to be over.”
“This is his torment.” Death said. “And he wishes, I am quite certain, to avoid it entirely.”
She sighed, her eyes running over the line of men on their knees in the mud, hands bound. A few met her eyes with a glimmer of hope. One beamed broadly, even as he shook and panted, blood running down his face. Hob Gadling did not look over. Though he had squirmed when they were first dragged out to the field where the masked man waited to end their short, brutal lives, he was now still. His gaze didn’t scan the assembled crowd for support or mercy but looked defiantly ahead.
“But how could any sensible creature wish to continue to live in a world such as this?” Dream asked.
“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t,” Death said. “None of them do. Not in a world such as this. It doesn’t mean they don’t want to live.”
“Hm.” Dream nodded toward the man who had beamed at Death. “That one likes this world. He still dreams of the glory he may yet achieve through his sacrifice. He would continue on, dying a thousand deaths for his lord if he were allowed.”
“See?” Death smile kindly at the doomed man. “Some sensible creatures have found a way to embrace their reality.”
“I would not call that sensible.”
Death gave Dream a sad smile that said she knew very well his callousness was mostly an act.
Dream knew each and every one of these kneeling men. He had witnessed their final nightmares and bestowed, where he could, more comforting dreams. It was a balance that took a careful hand — something Dream had had to cultivate more and more as civilizations grew. Waking from a lovely dream only to face the executioner could be a torture, while waking from the horrors of night to face the end of torments could be a relief. Forbidden as he was from interfering in the lives of mortals beyond his own dominion, Dream did his best with the powers he had.
And to others — those who would walk away from this field — he gave harsher visions so that they might not forget the blood they shed. He hoped that one day the horror of such practices would impel their end.
Though he was still certain that the next few minutes would prove him right, Dream felt no pleasure. Parts of him would die today. Each of the men kneeling in the mud had lived rich lives within his realm. One who had dreamed of glory now only hoped for a swift end. Another only wished for heat as the chill rain soaked through his tunic and dripped from his hair. Several held friendly faces and warm hands in their daydreams. Others’ minds had gone blank with fear, all thought and creation already stolen from them. Their dreams would die today, and those parts of Dream, too.
Hob Gadling had slept little these last few days. Dream had busied himself with others, honorably not wanting to act in any way that would push his wager with Death one way or another. But now, Hob’s mind was unignorably full and active, daydreams spinning out, vivid and loud. He dreamed of—
Dream turned from the sight immediately.
His own face looked out of the daydreams of Hob Gadling.
“You are ready, my sister?” Dream asked, trying to cover his surprise.
She nodded. “This century’s looking to be nearly as busy as the last.”
As a soldier walked toward Hob, Dream forced himself to watch. He never enjoyed seeing his sister’s work, especially not when it began like this. Humanity had always been prone to fits of violence, but in its growing civilizations, their capacity to enact horror had exploded. Still, Dream had not expected to feel so sick at the sight.
#
Relief and fear gripped Hob in equal measure as the man strode forward to seize him first. He’d’ve preferred to die in battle, sword in hand, but at least this would be over soon.
Let us meet here again, Robert Gadling…
A slight smile brushed his lips. At least the voice he’d heard a thousand times out of memory, held closely in his heart, would accompany him to his end.
…in this tavern of the White Horse, in one hundred years.
“Forgive me, lord,” Hob murmured. “I shall not make our meeting.”
The pretty face shone in his mind as clearly as if he’d last seen it yesterday. His slender, black-clad stranger, the scarlet jewel hung over his chest no match in glamor for those petal pink lips dressed with a mocking smile. Oh, how Hob had wished to meet him again when they were both ancient and put a different expression on that lovely face!
Hob had been lucky. He was not yet old, but he’d made it longer than most. All his mates who’d laughed so heartily at his boasts all those years ago had gone to their graves, wounded or worn down, their laughter long gone. But Hob still felt like his brash, young self, defiant in the face of death. He even looked young. His body had held up remarkably well through years of battle and banditry and plague creeping back through England, and, honestly, he felt that he could have held up many more decades — if not forever.
But now his luck had run out.
Hob looked up defiantly at the enemy who had condemned him. He couldn’t even remember now why they’d been trying to kill each other. The political machinations behind the throne were too distant, and Hob didn’t care. A moment later, he was forced to his belly, pushed down onto hard stone, his face hanging over the river’s edge. He was not important enough for his head to be set on a pike, frightening others away from his treacherous deeds. He was a simple soldier, a common mercenary, just unlucky enough to take a coin for services rendered on the wrong side of the battlefield, — to be swept out of the way with the fall of the axe more for convenience than political statement. Hob’s mortal remains would fall into the river like waste.
He had not even been given the curtesy of a blindfold.
Hob shut his eyes. In the darkness at the end of his life, he looked into a moon-pale face with storm grey eyes. He ignored the final flashes of the life he’d led up until then, regretting only that he would never meet his pretty lord again.
Then agony shattered all thought.
Hob was falling.
Seconds swelled to years.
Warm drops that must have been his own heart’s blood splashed onto his face before the river tumbled him into itself and he was drowning, still feeling the gaping wound at the base of his skull.
Then cold, wet, darkness.
#
Hob woke, thrashing in pain.
He gasped and cried out as the air scraped over raw flesh. He flailed out with both hands and the soft mud was like hot stones against his skin. He flopped like a fish on the river bank, naked, every inch of him scorched with a pain beyond even the most brutal interrogator’s imaginings.
For a long time, Hob just writhed and cried.
#
Death had too much work to linger, but Dream had followed the severed head as it floated down the river. The body of Hob Gadling had been tossed unceremoniously into a pit with a dozen others. Dream knew that the life force that kept the foolish man alive would spring from the brain, though he still severely doubted whether there could possibly be any desire for such a life. Dream had seen uncountable last-second horrors of decapitated victims and knew the pain must be unimaginable, if (usually) brief. Now, he sat hidden in a grove of willows a little ways away from where Hob had washed up and waited for the begging to begin.
Death would not be too busy to return with her mercy.
#
Hob lay curled on the muddy river bank for a long time before he could really look down at the body that had, through some magic, appeared under his neck. It was tender as a fresh cut all over, but it looked like him. Slightly soft with hair over the chest and legs. Bound with the soldier’s muscles he’d had since he was a young man. The only difference Hob could see was that fresh skin had grown where old scars had once been. He hadn’t gotten any scars since his early thirties — not since around the time he’d seen his stranger in the White Horse.
His stranger!
“Oh you beautiful devil!” Hob’s voice was hoarse and it pained him severely to speak. But still, he laughed. “My wonderful, blessed stranger!”
In one hundred years!
He hadn’t just been challenging Hob to live. This wizard or saint or devil must have made it so!
“Oh my stranger, my beautiful lord!” Hob called out. His head tilted back to the heavens. But then he looked around, uncertain if that’s where his mysterious benefactor’s power had come from. He pressed his forehead into the mud, bowing to whatever unseen force had saved him. “If your hand were Satan’s own I’d kiss it!”
As soon as the words left him, he bit his lip — a sharp, torturous pain that made tears spring to his eyes. Hob sat up and looked around swiftly. Even in his glee, a thrill of fear ran through him. He didn’t wish to find out what it was like to be burned alive for consorting with the devil.
“From this day forward,” Hob murmured, his head bowed, “when I pray my Lord, it is to you I pray. Ever after, when I speak of thanks and mercy and forgiveness and glory, it is to you I speak. In your name, lord, though I do not have it. Thank you!”
#
Dream watched, dumbfounded, as Hob Gadling pushed himself up and limped naked down the river bank, grinning like an idiot.
Regretting the time away from his duties, Dream shook his head and turned away. He would be right eventually. This day had only served to vividly remind him him of the acute horror of this world. And Hob still had ninety years left to endure before their next meeting.
Dream was patient.
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Hello birdie 🖤✨
I've got something for the Life Interrupted AU.
Thena isn't feeling well lately and is considering to go back into this hellhole where she's getting drugged to unconsciousness. She's packing her stuff when Gil shows up. He's trying to talk it out of her.
(And I definitely didn't had this Idea because I'm stuck in one of those hellholes, lol)
✨🖤Hugs an Love🖤✨
"Going somewhere?"
Thena sighed, setting down one of her shirts and staring down at her bed. "I was thinking about it."
Gil walked further into her room, having just arrived. "Druig texted me. Really surprised me to hear from him, but he said you've been acting weird--wants me to 'talk to some sense into you'."
Thena let out a humourless chuckle. "I'm surprised he decided to entrust you with that task."
"Gotta say, I am too," Gil agreed quietly until he was standing behind her. "I have to agree--you seem a little anxious lately."
She had been nervous, jumpy, and Gil knew it. They hadn't been able to go out on a date in weeks because she felt on the verge of a panic attack at the thought of having to navigate crowds or risk running into someone. "Maybe...maybe I should consider-"
"Don't," he whispered, placing his hand gently over hers. Her bag was already half full. "Don't say you're going back to that place."
Thena squeezed her eyes shut, tears already burning the insides of them. "Where should I go, Gil?"
"Anywhere else," he concluded. He pulled her hand away from packing up as if she were sailing off into the horizon. He moved slowly and gently until he could sit on the chair in the corner of her room and look up at her. "Please, Thena, just talk to me."
When he was seated lower, she had no excuse not to look at him. But she stared down at his hands, holding hers so, so gently. "Druig and Makkari have been looking at places again."
Gil raised his brows. "That...that's good...right?"
It was. It was what she wanted. She wanted their lives to continue on after the ugliness of the last year. She wanted her brother to feel free to settle down and marry the love of his life. And he could do that without worrying about his sister, she was determined.
"He keeps asking me to see them," she admitted quietly, as if Druig had his ear pressed against the door and would be wounded by overhearing her. "He keeps picking rooms that he says can be mine--if I so choose."
"So," Gil prompted, giving her hands a little squeeze, "what's so bad about that?"
Thena shook her head, looking up around the ceiling of her room to keep her tears from falling. "I'm not some child he has to drag around with him. He should be choosing a home to suit him and his wife, not worrying about his burdensome sister."
"Come on," Gil whispered, his eyes drifting downward from the sheer weight of Thena's discouragement. "You know he doesn't think of you like that."
Thena sighed, pulling her hands from Gil's and plopping herself on the corner of her bed. She pressed them to her head, trying to keep them from shaking. "I know he doesn't. That is exactly the problem."
"Okay, so you don't want him worrying about you," Gil shrugged, turning in the chair to face her head on again.
Thena stared down at her knees. She wasn't wearing her work dress and stockings with a tight ponytail. But she couldn't bring herself to wear soft sweatpants anymore, opting for athleisure leggings and a cardigan at even her most comfortable.
"What else?"
She toyed with her fingernails. "I don't want to live here alone."
Gil nodded again, leaning back in the chair.
She hunched over herself more, despite her sore back. "It's not about the cost, it's...I can't be here by myself, thinking all these...things."
"Okay, so we'll find somewhere else for you," Gil leapt at the opportunity to suggest an alternative. He leaned forward again, even scooching toward the edge of the seat. "I'll help you look."
She smiled, although she still wasn't feeling the intent behind the action. "Druig offered the same. Even Makkari--but that's not the point."
Gil seemed to understand what she was getting at. And of course he did, it was Gil. He was sweet, and understanding, and he always seemed to know what she was trying to say, even if she didn't have the words. "You want to find a place for yourself."
She sighed, looking at her hands again. "I don't seem capable of anything these days."
Gil took her hands in his again, rubbing his thumb over her skin. "You know that's not true."
She wasn't as sure as he was. She never was--never had his confidence, or positivity. It was something she both envied and admired about him. She loved it about him. "Maybe-"
"No!"
She blinked, taken aback by his outburst. He was always so soft spoken, especially with her. She had never heard him so much as raise his voice. The only things he did loudly were laughing and sneezing.
"Maybe nothing!" he pressed, standing from the chair. "That place never did you any good. I don't think it does anyone any good! And I will not let you go back to that misery!"
Thena's eyes fluttered, her back straightening. Her heart began to squeeze at the sheer volume of things, but this was Gil--she was safe with him.
"Thena," he finally quieted again, kneeling in front of her. "You never have to go back to that place, okay? I don't care if you have a nervous breakdown--I'll take care of you. I'll take better care of you than they ever would in there. Just--just promise me you won't go back there because you're worried about burdening people."
She blinked, those tears she was trying to hold back finally falling. It was completely dark outside, her small bedside lamp offering minimal lighting. But it caught Gil's features in just such a way that made him seem so beautiful. "I don't want to go back there."
"Good," he nodded, turning her hand so he could press his lips to it.
"But," she gasped, her lip wobbling. She clung to him. "But what if I'm not me, anymore?"
"You're exactly who you need to be," he said without a hint of doubt in his voice. "You're Thena."
So completely unwavering, her Gilgamesh.
"You're my Thena," he repeated, softer this time, kissing the back of her other hand before pulling her up to stand with him. His hands slipped around waist to rest at her back. "That's all you need to be."
She wasn't sure who 'Thena' was, at times. At least, not as she knew herself before all this. Gil kept saying that the past year was a part of her, for better or worse. But she just wanted to leave it behind--to revert to the version of her that had existed before it all.
"Look," he whispered, still holding her so gently. "Maybe that's easy for me to say. I didn't know you before. But the Thena I know is pretty damn amazing."
She let another laugh, still not humoured in the least.
"She is," he chuckled, though, and he did mean it. He leaned closer, touching his forehead to hers. "She's this badass translator, works in a big, fancy office. She's actually pretty funny, if she's in a good mood. Kinda likes messing with me."
"I do not."
"Just a little," he contested, scrunching up his nose faintly. "But I think that side of her is cute. And she's tough--way tougher than she thinks she is. And she's an incredible sister, even when her brother is being a pain in our ass."
"Our?" she interrupted.
"Our," he confirmed, touching the tips of their noses together to silence her. "And I know he's just worried about you. That's why he keeps saying you can stay with them if you want. But I guess he doesn't really know it's stressing you out."
Thena sighed, dragged back into the depths of her problems like plunging into ice cold water. "How do I tell him?"
Gil skipped over that question, still busy holding her, almost swaying as his weight shifted from foot to foot. "So, this Thena--I mean, to me, she's the most incredible woman in the world."
"Gil," she sighed, trying to pull him from his reverent description of her.
But he nudged her head until he could kiss her lips, also gently. As gently as everything else about him. "She's the woman I love, plain and simple."
Oh, did she ever love him. She had gone from being someone who probably didn't really believe in love for herself at all to being head over heels for her sweet, gentle giant.
She sighed as she kissed him again, leaning up on her toes to loop her arms around his neck. Kissing Gil always made her feel more human--more grounded and real. It took away the buzzing in her head and replaced it with with a heavy and pleasant sedative that could spread through her veins.
Gil stayed close, his forehead against hers, lips still faintly puckered. "Better?"
"Hm," she sighed. She didn't need to explain herself--not to him. She ran her fingers gently through the hair at the back of his head. If only she never had to go to work, or take public transport, or go to house viewings where the realtor would look at her oddly. If only she could stay in Gil's arms every second of every day.
"Good," he sufficed to say, tapping his fingers against the back of her sweater. He moved his hand to her hip. "So, about this living situation-"
"Right," she sighed the heaviest she had yet (which was saying something).
"Hey," he nudged her gently, pulling her eyes up to him. "A unit in my building is going on the market for next month. It's the one above mine--sweet old guy is moving out to be closer to his grand kids."
Oh. Living that close to Gil--being neighbours?
"I can always ask him if he'd be open to a lease trade-off," Gil suggested, although he was unable to hide his excitement at the prospect in his smile. "What do you think?"
Being that close to Gil? Being his upstairs neighbour?
His smile wobbled faintly, turning sheepish as he looked away. "It's a little more modest than this place. But it's a one bedroom, and it's not a bad location. And-"
Thena stood on her toes, pressing her lips to his, even with a cliche 'mmwah' sound. He looked dazed after the firmer kiss, which made her smile genuinely for the first time that night. She leaned against him heavier, but he steadied her without a second thought. "I think that sounds perfect."
"Really?" he asked, beaming like a dog about to receive a treat with a wagging tail.
She took his cheeks in her hands, "it sounds wonderful, Gil."
"O-Okay," he laughed, sounding near hysteria. But he pulled her against his chest in his arms, even lifting her off the ground slightly as he spun them. "This'll be amazing, sweetie, I promise!"
He needed no promises. The thought of having him a mere flight of stairs away was already comforting, in a sense. And she had been to his flat plenty of times. He was right, it was in a good location, and it wasn't any further from her office than she was now, all things considered.
Gil set her on her feet once more. "I'll talk to him tonight."
"Don't get too ahead of yourself," she advised gently. It wasn't often she was able to offer a calming voice of reason these days; it felt familiar, even soothing. She toyed with some some stray hairs of his. "I may have to apply, like everyone else."
"Peh," Gil waved in dismissal again (making her laugh, again). "The old guy loves me. And that's before I tell him some sob story about wanting my girlfriend to move in so we can be closer."
Thena blushed softly, toying with the hem of her cardigan. Sometimes she had to remind herself that Gil wasn't just 'someone she was seeing', and actually the man she had known for more than half a year and had been dating for more than half that time, now.
"It'll be great," he whispered, pressing a kiss to her cheek. "We can carpool to work, I'll be right downstairs if you ever wanna talk--or cuddle."
"Gil," she admonished, but it came out as a light and air whisper as he kissed her cheek again, his five o'clock shadow against her skin.
He stopped nuzzling her just to look at her more solemnly. "You should tell Druig."
"It was your idea."
"Exactly," Gil made a face, shrinking somewhat. "He'll kill me."
Thena rolled her eyes, her spirits lifting by the moment. "It's not as if you're offering to shack up with me yourself."
He didn't laugh at her joke. He didn't even seem to realise it was a joke, just shrugged one shoulder. "I mean they're both only one bedroom units. Plus, I imagine you want some space for yourself for a little. Feel like you have some more control?"
Well, he was exactly right about that, as always. Although she hadn't expected his rebuttal to be that they would need a larger space if they were to live together. She just blinked, "precisely."
"So it's decided," he grinned again, and gave her another kiss for good measure. "I'll go talk to Karun, you talk to Druig. He really is worried about you."
"I know," she mumbled, feeling properly chastised. She unlinked her hands from behind his head and squeezed his forearms. "I'm sure he was desperate to call you."
"And I'm suggesting you move into my building instead of in with him?--he's gonna have my head."
Thena laughed genuinely for the first time that night. "Don't worry, I'll protect you from him."
Gil stared at her in a way that made her toes curl. He bent his head down to sneak into the crook of her neck under her jaw. "I know you will."
She shivered as he left a kiss on her pulse point.
But he left it at that, pulling away and standing to his full height again. It left her feeling chilly, needing to pull her cardigan tighter around herself. "Okay."
Thena nodded, letting him take her by the hand. She did have to talk to Druig--about everything. About moving and also about how she would be okay without him hovering over her shoulder. She would be okay without that hell hole and its medication and she would be okay even if she felt like this different version of herself, possibly forever.
Gil grasped the doorknob with his other hand, the door not fully closed and letting in just a sliver of light from the rest of the house. He held her other hand, giving it a squeeze. "Ready?"
She nodded, holding his hand tighter, just in case she needed it. But she smiled, "ready."
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