"Remember what I said the other day?"
Xerxes Break doesn't want to remember, but according to his frustratingly contrary nature, that means he remembers all the better. "I don't," he lies, anyway. "What was it again?"
Reim sighs, crosses his arms, scowls; none of it means anything. Break isn't the type to care about what he does at this point. Break isn't the type that has to see it or hear it to care. He knows.
Reim knows he remembers, too. He can tell from the way Xerx fiddles with an old candy wrapper and how he doesn't mind when Emily slips from his shoulder to slump partway over his back. Reim waits.
"You aren't going to keep me waiting all day for this, are you? Come on, tell me again." Break stares into the fire and avoids eye contact, enjoying the searing heat in some masochistic way- it's he deserves it, sort of, for not wanting to hear what Reim is going to say, because he knows too well.
"I did tell you three times at least," the March Hare huffs. Break has to stare intently into those flames to prevent a small smile. It's just like him to be all frazzled and almost upset about something like this. Something that would seem too minor to someone else is too important to both of them. Something like...
"You need to be at the holiday party this year."
"No." The answer flies from his lips and he doesn't care how sudden it sounds, how abrupt it is, how angry it might seem. "I said no already."
"If you remember that, then why didn't you remember me asking?" Reim sighs.
"You ask me every year. You should've given up by now."
He's being too serious, Xerxes decides. He needs to be sillier. Stupider. Anything to prevent the heavy mood he senses coming. Anything but this horribly solemn mood, but the thing that he says next doesn't help.
"And didn't you plan for me not to be there?" he says lightly, finally turning away from the fire to look elsewhere, at the March Hare. The dark of the room as compared to the fire leaves him a little blind, but he makes do with the silhouette- the bowed head and the guilty set of those shoulders tell him he's won a point. "You already made up an excuse, didn't you?"
"So what if I have?" Reim snaps, and this time he's the one turned away in remorse. "So what if I already arranged things this year? You can't run away from the Lady's death forever."
Break jerks back at those words. Only his sharp reflexes prevent Emily from falling into the flames. Reim hears the screech of the chair as Break moves and knows he's done damage.
"You can't run away from the Lady's death forever," he repeats softly, but from the way Break turns back to the fire, from the way he hunches his shoulders, from the way he closes his eyes Reim knows that Break wants to believe he can.
okay so the story is on the premise that Sharon's mom (Shelly) died around the holidays, and as a result Break never properly celebrates them. Reim will always arrange for Xerx to be on an assignment around then :/