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It was not supposed to be a thing.

They had talked about it. He didn't mind, he told her, that she never bothered to change her status to In a Relationship. It was not a thing.

It was absolutely a thing.

Sometimes it got a little weighty the attention Wendy got online and sometimes he absolutely wanted to say something to them about it. He didn't. Instead he would go dark online and be a non-presence. Wendy knew where to find him, how to find him, and by the time she did he would have pushed everything back away into it's box.

The perfect relationship without a relationship.

Cid had already been home, store closed early (the world was not ending, he was just in a mood), and he was dressed down as he hit Darlene's. Well worn jeans, an old favorite pair of comfortable shoes, and button-up shirt. The first thing that was probably worth noting was that he was quiet as he came up to Borr and just held his hand out.

"Let me see it, Borr?"

Cid just gave him a look.

He wasn't even wearing his glasses.

"The remote. Give it to me. I'll fix it." His fingers wiggled as his hand was still held out.

Cid, first, flipped the remote around the other way and then was immediately poking through the settings before he had most of the televisions flipped to the local news. At least for now, it was still set to something quiet. A couple were set to a sports game just in case.

"You heathens want something else, ask nicely," he told the two old men but they seemed appeased for now. Something about one of the news anchors was easy on the eyes. Cid did not care which one they meant - he didn't want to know.

"Eh, surprise me." Not even picking out his drinks, the world truly was coming to an end. The remote was offered back and Cid was heading to his favorite barstool to plop himself on. Which he did where he promptly just collapsed and laid his head on the counter.

Cid's head was down on the counter, forehead pressed to it and his hand reaching out to poke at the hard cider a bit. He raised his head, chin propped up and stared hard at the glass.

It was totally the glass that was at fault for all the things.

No, it wasn't, but he could pretend.

He snorted. "S'not a comic book thing," he took a swing, "s'Wendy thing."

Cid was ignoring the frown.

In fact, his attention was focused so very hard on his hard cider. No. Looking. At. Borr's. Face. Mostly because the man knew and had known him since he was little and -

- not thinking about little Wendy either. Why did she have to be so cute then too? Why did he have it so bad?

"Nothing new," he sighed. "Just the usual fanboy crowd online." His forehead hit the bar again with a thud.

Cid just growled, honest to goodness growled.

Which was more of a rumble from him than anything else but still!

"Yes but she's also everyone else's girl at the same time." Now he was definitely sounding petulant but also morose. Wendy have her personality and her persona and sometimes it bothered him just how far it reached because he did not want to ruin anything. Their relationship or her career. After all, he was just a comic book nerd and she was ...

"I mean ... have you read some of what they say? The s**t they post? It's - it's ... it isn't cool," he settled on. Apparently when really upset he did not even swear.

The hard cider was empty and he nudged the bottle towards Borr wordlessly.

Cid harrumphed.

"... which time?" A hand was raked through his hair, fingers pulling at it until it was curling in his face and then he had to shove it back. "Don't you remember that spat we had a couple months back?" It had been pretty explosive. They had not talked for two whole days.