Closed Discussions of Love

[Stewart Maybank]

A year had passed. His shop had been running for a whole year. It had seemed impossible and certainly at the beginning even lasting a month would've felt impossible. But it wasn't, and the shop was doing okay a year in. They were making a tiny profit, but it was a profit and it was making things easier. The first thing he'd done was pay his assistant more, raising her wage, because really what he'd been paying her hadn't been enough. It was a little late in the day and he'd had an order for love potion and was trying to put it together. "I wonder what this potion would feel like," he said idly as he prepared the next ingredient for adding to the potion. Almost forgetting that Evan was next to him.

 

[Evan Whittaker]

Evan had fallen into a comfortable routine, and she liked to think she and Stewart were friends by now. She just focused on the shop- in turn, focusing on him, as well, and doing her best to keep the both up and going. The shop was doing fairly well, she thought. They were working on some new potions- she was getting pretty good at being an assistant, and was going over a few orders, sitting in the back with him before the shop opened for the day. "Probably like being drugged," She offered. Personally, she didn't believe in love potions. "Nothing real, I think."

 

[Stewart Maybank]

Stewie frowned a little, he didn't say anything immediately, he didn't know love at all, he didn't think he'd ever been in love or experienced love. Not that wasn't familial and strained because it was familial. The man sat back a little and looked at Evan, studied her for a moment. "What does real love feel like then?" he asked, wondering partly if she knew or if like him, she wouldn't be sure. Love and things of that sort had never been what he engaged with, always too busy and completely disinterested in stories about love.

 

[Evan Whittaker]

Evan shrugged, still doing her work. "I'm not sure," She replied honestly. "I'm not exactly a role model for working relationships." She thought back to the two she'd had. "I literally moved countries to escape one. And the other just didn't work, in the end." She shook her head. "Have you never been with anyone?"

 

[Stewart Maybank]

Stewie felt a little bad about asking given her response. He had known a little and should've maybe thought before he asked anything to her. But he hadn't. The man shook his head in response. "No, there was always something else to do," he said in response, he had never experienced love or a relationship, he wasn't sure he'd even ever experienced a crush. "Must be nice though..given that people do it often,"

 

[Evan Whittaker]

Evan shrugged. "I think people put more on it than it really is." She sighed. She'd stopped believing in that sort of thing a long time ago. "They always say that love makes everything right, makes it better. But really all it does is make you vulnerable. And most people are kinda horrible. And when they aren't, there's always something else more important that they'll choose instead." She sighed. "No one sticks around like that unless they want something. They need the money, or the intimacy, or they just don't want to be alone." She stood, giving him a small, almost bitter smile. "Trust me, you haven't missed out on anything." She walked a little bit away, looking over a few of their stores and taking down some notes.

 

[Stewart Maybank]

Stewie leaned back as she began speaking, talking about love and talking about what it did to people. He held his gaze on her for a moment, realising a little more about her. That she was fairly cynical about love and perhaps she didn't have the best opinion of it. Though he wasn't the best opinion of it either. He had never experienced romantic love, and certainly not enough to be able to disprove any of what she said. He knew his own complicated enough feelings about love were just because he didn't know it. Though he liked Evan. "I'll take your word for it," he said, "But if love is actually anything like friendship, like we kinda have, then it might not be that bad,"

 

[Evan Whittaker]

Evan gave a small smile. "Kinda?" She offered, only half paying attention. "I'd hope by now you'd consider us as for sure friends." She teased softly. "Keep talking like that and I'll have to send you to pick up dinner tonight." She was double-checking her work. "But I suppose you've got a bit of a point... if it was more like what we have, then I imagine it could be more worth it." She didn't want to compare, but she knew what she had with Stewie right now was different to what she had with her exes. The first one had been awful, something her parents had pressured her into, and the second... she imagined it had been more of a saviour sort of thing, the way he'd swooped in and protected her in a bad situation. It hadn't been enough to make the relationship last, that was for sure.