❤ for Colin and ⊗ for Meryl
❤ Does my muse ever daydream about a life with someone?
For many years he wished he could be closer with Johnny. They were good friends already, but Colin saw that Gat loved Aisha and knew that he would never forgive himself if he tried to come between them, so he just stayed quiet, taking some pleasure from how happy Johnny seemed whenever he talked about Aisha.
And then the Ronin… happened, and Colin felt terrible because Johnny’s pain was his pain, and no matter how many of the yellow-clad gangsters they slaughtered afterwards, it didn’t help wash away the guilt Colin felt for not having done anything more to keep her out of harm’s way. In private conversations, Johnny revealed that it’d be a good long while before he would feel he could move on, and so Colin said nothing about his own desires. Johnny had changed, but he was still the Boss’ best friend and by his side, so Colin figured he could wait and see.
And then the Syndicate-… He’d run out of time, and he should have done something to prevent it from happening, but he hadn’t. He didn’t have time to properly mourn or think things through afterwards, so to make things easier on himself he tried to just lock away everything related to Johnny deep within. Better to just bundle all that mixed raw hurt away than to go through the painful process of sorting out his feelings. And thus soon he would try not to talk or think about Gat anymore, because every time he did, it poked at those messy feelings and he shied back. So daydreaming about the man came to an abrupt end.
Colin only began feeling a longing for alt!Colin some time after ending up in Meryl’s universe. Sure, he’d started missing him almost as soon as he realized that getting back “home” wasn’t going to be as easy as just poking the machine again, but that feeling had more to do with plain homesickness, because he missed everyone from his own world. But when he’d finally gotten relatively settled in Meryl’s Saints, when he’d come to accept that he might never get back at all, it was then that he’d started getting occasional deep pangs of regret at not being able to see the blond again. He found it odd and a bit disconcerting how weeks might pass with barely more than a few thoughts about Faulkner, but then something reminded him of the man so vividly that he could barely keep from tearing up. If asked by Meryl or Sean if he (had) loved Faulkner, he wouldn’t know what to say.
⊗ Describe your muse’s laugh!
Hmm, I’ve never actually had to describe someone’s laugh, especially one that’s only in my head. Meryl is one to show her pleasure, appreciation and excitement through laugh a lot. From quiet little giggles and ‘hhreheheh’ chuckles to bright roaring chortling until she’s doubled over and sucking in breath in between gasps of ‘oh my god’. She can definitely end up wiping her eyes afterwards because she’d just been so into it. Her laughter is sort of nasally like her voice I guess, and occasionally there can be a single snort which sounds weird and funny.
She doesn’t really cackle, and her vicious laugh is usually a low two-syllable chuckle, sort of ‘hah-haah’ (by contrast, Colin’s cruel snicker is a single deep hummed exhalation, like ‘hummmmh’).
