[ He seems well beyond the margins of sobriety; unfocused. She knows the look of it well enough. She saw it so often, that prelude to snarling. The precursor to -

Well.

Treavor isn't that way, and doesn't deserve such memories crowding her, though they resound in this dreadful room. Though they press in on her until she thinks perhaps she'll turn, and Brom will be there. An unsteady stagger, a heavy hand. A flash of teeth. But.

Treavor has only been...well. Yes, inexact word to suggest, but gentle. An unkind comment here and there, to be sure, but thus far, hasn't he been harmless? (And doesn't he have the right to level those comments? Isn't this marriage a work of misery?)

There's no need to think he'll do worse than glower.

So, her answer comes with a gentle press of her hand. ]

A hope for companionship on a lonely evening.

[ Here, she tilts the book she holds, giving a sure-to-be blurred glimpse of its cover. ]

I could read to you, if you like. Or keep my silence - it doesn't matter.

[ Let those words sink in, let him process through the drunken crawl of his thoughts. Sure to be sluggish, sure to be fractured and drifting.

How hard it was to make Brom focus on anything at all, on those late nights. ]

May I stay?