Wistful Thinking (Anna/Markise)

[Annabelle Hennessy]

Anna shook her head, settling back in the grass. "It was a quiet boring summer here after the wedding. What did you do? I bet New York was far more entertaining than Hogsmeade." She looked at Markise with a hopeful eye, wishing that he'd had a far better time than she'd had. New York sounded so adventurous and she was hoping that he'd have some really interesting stories to share.

[Markise Sterling]

Markise's face heated immediately at the question, and he looked determinedly away from Anna, out over the water. He'd known from the time she sat down that she'd ask sooner or later, but somehow he'd hoped for later, and that she'd be in the middle of something else, and not paying attention to his answer. "I saw my friends," he answered carefully. His gaze dropped to the piece of grass he was now shredding into strips. "Got a job, stuff like that." Lived with my ex, dated an art snob, then got back with my ex anyway... He was suddenly very glad that he'd never told her much about Ariel.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

“Come on….” Anna pleaded, her hands absently picking at the grass as she spoke. “Won’t you tell me about it? What did you do? What are your friends like? Where did you work? Surely you don’t expect me to be satisfied without some sort of tale.” She knew Markise kept some things to himself, but it was unlike him to be quite SO tight-lipped. His lack of sharing only made her even more curious to hear what he’d done all summer long.

[Markise Sterling]

"I worked at Starbucks®," Markise said without hesitation. "So I'm hooked on coffee, and I don't know where I'm gonna get it." He forced a genuine-looking smile and continued steadily decimating the pieces of grass his fingers found. "My friends are cool, we hung out together, normal stuff. Just... what we do every summer." Except that one of his friends had finally been exposed for the bastard he was, and he wouldn't have to deal with him again. And except that he'd dated, and that they knew it.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

Anna leaned in, interested as he started, only to be disappointed when he cut the tales short. "Soooo...." She prompted, wanting to share in everything she'd missed out on. It had been so dull the rest of the summer that even a normal day working at Starbucks seemed more exciting than her own day working her bookstore. "What type of stuff did you do? You know, like what would a day bring? What places do you go? New York must be so different from here. Did Brindle hang out with you too?" She'd thrown a whole mess of questions out, hoping at least one would spark some type of storytelling.

[Markise Sterling]

Markise rolled his eyes, exaggerating the motion a bit in the hopes that she'd take it as playing. "I woke up, put some clothes on to work out, ate, went for a run, came home and showered and got dressed for work..." Markise would go on for as long as Anna would let him, continuing with a subway ride to work, working, a subway ride home, hanging out with his friends, all in the same matter-of-fact tone he'd begun in.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

"Stop it." Anna said over him with a smile and a playful shove at his arm. "You know perfectly well what I meant. You're killing me with your generalizations! Come on, the less you say the more curious I become....or did you forget?" She teased him and tried to plead all at once. She wanted to share in his summer and the little crumbs of information didn't even begin to satisfy. She'd missed him and wanted to make sure the isolated feeling she'd had all summer disappeared now that he was back.

[Markise Sterling]

Markise made a face of displeasure, giving up tiptoeing around for now. "You really don't want to know about my sex life, Anna," he said. There, he'd told her, and he'd managed not to give Ariel away doing so. "I grew up in New York, it's not that exciting, it's just a place." Not something she'd want to hear, but what could he tell her? That he'd gone to the movies a couple times? An art gallery? He wasn't telling her he'd hustled golf.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

Anna dismissed his disclaimer of New York, thinking that anywhere was exciting as long as it wasn't Hogsmeade. Her eyes went wide at his revelation of what he was hiding from her. Her normal blush appeared, as it always did when anything along that line was brought up. It wasn't that she was grossed out about the subject; she reacted equally pertaining to both gay and straight intimacy. She'd grown up in a house that didn't talk about such things, so the subject had always had the feeling of being taboo.

"It's far better than talking about mine." She partly mumbled, her envy of her friend for at least having one worthy of talking about showing through. She cleared the thought from her head and focused on him, "So you met someone in New York then?" She asked, interested in any relationships Markise may have had, even if she wouldn't mind the details being left out.

[Markise Sterling]

Markise's eyes skipped away from Anna's, and he found himself toying absently with his hair, a habit he was trying uselessly to rid himself of. "Mhm," he hummed. Well, he had met someone in New York. "He dumped me, though. For his boyfriend." Let her make of that what she would. She'd probably ask anyway. And as long as it didn't get around to Ariel, everything would be fine.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

"Oh. Ouch." Anna winced at the image. "Sorry, guys can be such jerks, not counting you in that statement of course." She offered Markise an apologetic look. If she had thought it was something bad like that she wouldn't have rubbed salt in his wounds. She chewed on her lower lip, wondering if she should just change the subject for his sake. She didn't want him to think she didn't care, she did; so after a moment she left it up to him. "If you want to talk about it...."

[Markise Sterling]

Markise made a face again and glanced aside at Anna. "I wasn't that attached to him," he said. He'd been with Wynn for the sex, and to prove to himself and Ariel that he didn't need more than that. He'd been right, but it really wasn't Wynn he was thinking about anymore. It was the very next day that he and Ariel had fallen into bed together, and the rest was unbelievable history.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

"Oh." Anna said, feeling like a broken record when nothing else came to mind. "That's good then, I think. Right?" Was it a good thing that Markise hadn't been attached to this guy? It meant he hadn't been as hurt, and she thought that was a good thing, but she didn't know why he hadn't been attached in the first place. She was confusing herself, thinking in circles about something Markise might not even really care about. But this was the first personal conversation she'd had in too long and she couldn't help but over analyze everything that surfaced.

[Markise Sterling]

"I guess," Markise said. He was quiet then, looking out over the water as he thought. Finally, he decided he might as well tell her part of it. She knew, and pretending she didn't was a waste of energy. "I haven't drank since we broke up," he said. It was the only time he'd gotten really drunk in New York, and he never would have stopped if Ariel hadn't blackmailed him into it.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

"Good for you, that's great!" Anna encouraged, recalling the few times she had seen him drunk or hungover and especially remembering the night that she'd witnessed his drinking at the club. She hadn't been particularly fond of him drinking like that, but since she didn't see it often she didn't know how big of a problem it had become for him. Once the initial reaction wore off, a hundred questions swam to the surface. Were you drinking a lot in New York? Had it gotten out of hand? Is that why you were with that guy? Why would you stop drinking for him if you weren't even attached to him? Anna chose the one that came to mind that she thought might answer the most of her questions at once, "So what made you stop?"