Nick
A year can pass quickly, no matter how one measures it, in minutes or in days or in a collection of memories that flow one into the next. This one has passed so quickly that Nick did not realize he had not been to Phoenix until recently, and that recently provoked a paroxysm of guilt and before he knew it he was booking a flight and taking the meager vacation days he has saved up and asking Pen if maybe she'd like to come with him too he has frequent flyer miles saved up and anyway would she like to.
So here they are: October, with All Hallow's drawing near, and it still feels like New England summer here.
They're in Vivienne's spare bedroom and: Nicholas's sister is not present, at the moment. Tradition business, see, and not even that: House Business. They're here because Nick's mother does not have any space to spare. They got in here without triggering some sort of ward that'd leave them both screaming in a fit of psychosis, by virtue of passcodes and whatever his sister was able to do from afar. See? She wants them here.
Vivienne is Nick's sister, though. Why wouldn't she want them here?
So: it's dry today, and hot already even though it's early morning, and Nick unusually for Nick barely slept and so he is awake before Penelope. The spare room is well furnished but sparse in a manner that looks untouched: similar to a show room, perhaps. There are no paintings on the walls, just black shelves laid along it like bars and on top of those, a single (empty) vase, beautiful in its simplicity and utterly without adornment, blemish, or dust. This, and a pyramid of solid metal, gold or burnished brass or coppery depending on your angle.
It's a sparse room.
Comfortable enough, though. When Nick re-enters it, it's with care given to rooms that he might otherwise have looked into if only to cast an eye about, because he doesn't know where the wards still are or are not. He has one mug in either hand, and in the dry air the scents of coffee and black tea fill the room rapidly. He sets them down on the bedside table (square, also black) and sits on the bed next to Pen's sleeping form. He smooths a lock of hair from her face. "Hey. Are you going to wake up today?"
Elaine
Pen almost missed the plane. When she met Nicholas at the airport (
just in time), she met Nicholas haloed by ardent daring and her eyes circled by shadows and weariness in the careful line of her shoulders and her spine. The weariness was not a sagging, was not a wilting, was nothing that spelled defeat; it was only a singing clarity, a care and an economy whenever she moved or looked at him. Pen did not sleep on the plane, but read a book or talked to Nick of things it was safe to talk about on a plane in close quarters with who knows how many people around. She asked him if they'd go shooting in the desert where his crazy uncle lived. She asked him if he brought her sketch pad. She asked him if all the food was going to burn off her tongue if she wasn't careful. When they arrived at Vivienne's armed by pass-codes, Pen had wicked her Sight into being, studied what had been Woven into the Quaesitor's home. She'd texted Rob to tell him -- well whatever it is she tells Rob. She'd texted Ari too and eschewed a shower unless Nicholas wanted to take one together; eventually, and in spite of herself because Pen wanted to stay awake with Nicholas, exhaustion won and she slept.
Morning, now. The depression Nick's weight makes on the mattress beside her moves Pen; that is the only movement even when he liberates a strand of hair, which she might have choked on had it stayed, which might have gotten in her eyes if she ever opens them again. Nope. Is she breathing? She seems to be breathing.
And the answer seems to be 'no.'
Nick
Reality blurs when a person is exhausted, when the reservoirs of both body and mind become shallow. See, when Pen asked Nick whether the food was going to burn off her tongue: was that some betrayal of her lips, shaping certain words when her mind meant others and did she believe her real meaning was clear? Or was it an allusion to whatever Working she did? To Paradox?
Well, he will not know.
Here's what she saw last night in her half-awake state when she examined the Quaesitor's home. She found a watchful eye, always diligent, and she found the magickal equivalent of little baubles and bits of foil: look here see over this way. Lures. They're more rudimentary things than whatever she would have encountered at Lysander's, but carefully done and carefully laid and skillful enough to make it plain that Vivienne has a higher command of such things than either of them, just yet.
The answer seems to be no, and Nick debates letting her sleep. He has already let her sleep for a while, had coaxed her into showering with him last night mainly with the thought that she would feel better come morning, only now morning is here and arcing closer to noon than not.
So he gives her shoulder a gentle shake. "Pen? It's ten-thirty. I made you tea."
Elaine
There is a slender moment, a needle moment, between Nicholas shaking her shoulder so gently (and how she rocks with it, like a sailor on deck of a ship; well-used to the sea, unmoved by it) and the response. There is a response. "I am awake," she says, clearly and
(too) distinctly. Her voice is smooth as polished amber; it would taste like it, too, that ozone clarity. "Thank you."
And then she fails to move. A half-a-second. And then she rolls over, so her back is pressed against whatever part of Nicholas is near, and she reaches for the pillow he used and drags it close and hugs it. Says something muddled into the pillow.
Nick
Her voice is too distinct, too smooth, as though polished by dreaming. Nick gazes down at her back and as she drags his pillow towards her he swings his legs up onto the bed, sliding in behind her over the blankets and throwing an arm over her ribs. "What's that, Pen? I didn't hear you."
Elaine
[Let's see. How smooth are you when you're asleep? We'll do a Wits and Expression. Specialty, man.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN8 (1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]
Elaine
"I said," Pen says, after another slender, needle moment, and her voice is no more awake than it was before; perhaps she truly is awake, "'Nicholas Euanthês, Nyktiphaês, I will make you Kissokomês, I want to kiss you. Your voice is to me what happens when a match is struck. I am awake."
Under the covers, Pen is in a silk-satin little sleep number, something with shorts and a frivolous top: it is pink because she likes pink; she likes the dawn-hopefulness of it. There is lace around the edges of the shorts, and a pocket on the frivolous top, though who needs a pocket in something they sleep in?
Maybe she's awake. Certainly, people who are asleep don't usually make so much sense. Of course whatever she murmured into the pillow was a lot briefer than that. Pen cuddles the pillow and Nicholas's arm both.
Nick
There are plenty of times when Pen speaks and Nicholas hasn't the slightest idea of what she is saying; this is a hazard of being with a Hermetic, one supposes. Her nicknames sound like nicknames but they could just as well be words alluding to...just about anything, really. She still brings a quiet huff of laughter out of him and a smile to his face at what she says, and he squirms and adjusts if only because Pen has an arm locked around his and he cannot reach for his hair as he might otherwise have done.
"So are you awake enough to kiss me?" His voice is laced with amusement now: to this, too, he suspects the answer is no. "Would you like me to let you sleep?"
Elaine
"You let me sleep," Pen agrees, benevolent. "Kiss me."
He can't see her face easily because it is turned away; that pillow, his arm; two things to bury her head against. But maybe he can feel how her eyebrows tick together as if in concentration; her arms tighten when he squirms, because no escaping arm. None.
Nick
Were it not for her arms locking his into place, holding him there with her, he might have risen and come back later. There is, after all, no reason for him to force Pen awake today; he could just as easily go to meet his mother and return later. Now, though, now he is trapped and only waking her will set him free.
At least, that's the plan. That's where the plan breaks down a little. He's gone a bit drowsy again, and no sooner has he settled in, his cheek resting on the back of her head, than the sound of his phone buzzing brings him back to the world of the fully conscious. He glances up, and around, and then leans leaaaaans and with his free hand seizes his phone.
He gives her another shake, more vigorous this time. "Pen? Vivienne is going to be home in a little while. I'm going to need my arm back."
Elaine
"Hmmm? Why? It's mine," she says, very earnestly.
Nick
[Okay. I can lift you, kind of.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 2) ( fail )
Nick
Another vigorous shake, and ruefully he thinks of all the times Pen has had to wake him up out of a deep slumber. What has she done?
His other arm slides beneath her so that she is encircled, which she might at first accept as a second pillow. It isn't long though before he attempts to haul her up, to twist over so that she'll end up on top of him and out of the blankets and -
Well, he tries at least. It is another of the morning plans, foiled. There is a twitch of his muscles, a push-pull of his biceps against her weight, and another, and then he sinks back into her. If she is asleep, he can hide his shame. "Pen," he says again, and this is a little more urgent than before, "I need both of my arms back."
Elaine
"I took them. I have both arms," Pen says, and her voice is lower. His failed attempt to move her does have one result: she opens her eyes. Maybe now she is awake. Maybe now that her eyes are open and she is gazing forward, she is awake and alert! Maybe. She rolls back a little, to better flatten the arm he slipped beneath her into a more comfortable piece of pillow. Maybe she keeps rolling until she is facing Nick, then releases his arm to fling her own arm around his neck. Neck. Nick. Mine.
Nick
[Dexterity? This is the scene that so far has made me most regret physical tertiary.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 4) ( botch x 1 )
Nick
The sight of her open eyes evokes only dismay in him as he realizes that his attempt to move her perhaps did not go unnoticed. Or perhaps it did: he recalls late last year when she looked directly at him and spouted some nonsense (or prophecy?) about cinnabar bells.
He is about to try to encourage her to wake again as she makes herself comfortable, just before she flings an arm around his neck. "Pen? Viv is going to be home in a little while," he says, still urgent, because: this sister will not look in as friendly a way at both of them lying around until noon as Anna would have, if this were Anna's house.
When this does not yield a satisfactory response a second later, Nick begins to try to extricate himself: he tries to duck his head out from beneath his arm first, tries to wiggle his arm from underneath her, and somehow or other the movement of one arm or leg results in him getting tangled in the blankets Pen was tangled in, and so he doubles down on his effort to try to free himself before -
well, before long, his panicked thrashing at last breaks him free of Pen when he rolls off the edge of the bed and comes crashing to the floor. Hard.
And he stares at the ceiling and considers his life choices.
Elaine
[Let's see. Awake? Wits + Alert?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 4, 6) ( success x 1 )
Elaine
[Doo-dee-doo Dex + Ath.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Elaine
Pen wakes up all at once: an honest waking, a startled waking. The blankets pull; they pull with Nicholas's body's weight, and he hits the ground hard. Does he make a sound? He doesn't make a sound when he walks; surely his body, flung against - ? He might've been preserved, but the blankets: Pen wakes up all at once, startled, and immediately - (as she forces herself to pay attention to now) - draws herself up. This is: one fluid movement, graceful - how she pulls a knife out from the space where the mattress kisses the headboard; how she crouches, prepared to launch herself at: the enemy, of course. There might be an enemy. She is ready; readied, readying, and
awake.
But it still takes a second for context to kick in; Nick is on the ground in a pile of blankets, and her first instinct is concern. The concern is chased away by: "Why are you on the floor? Did I push you?"
Nick
[ :( ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Elaine
[O_O I AM AWAKE?!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (4, 5, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 5 )
Nick
The wind was knocked out of him when he crashed to the floor; she can tell just by the way he is lying there flat, his mop of curls spread out around his head in a wild dark halo. The blankets have fallen on top of him; one corner is still tangled around one of his legs, the other snaked around his back and one of his arms. She can see him as she leans over the bed with her knife poised and ready, staring back up at her with what tries to be a cool expression, and would be were she not lent some extra sharpness by the burst of adrenaline that woke her.
She can tell that in the split second before his answer he considers telling the truth, which is more shameful than what he actually tells her, which is, "No, you didn't. I dozed off and must have rolled off the edge of the bed." He says this because he cannot miss the concern and he loves her so much and doesn't want her to think she pushed him, but: the ease with which she went springing from her knife and rose from a dead slumber to both of their defense has embarrassed him somewhat.
Elaine
Pen's gaze - which is silver tarnish polished half-to-brightness, which is grail dark - hesitates on Nicholas's face and the cool mask she can see past. She sweeps him with a quick look and then, after a beat, she sinks back onto the mattress (the springs bounce), placing the knife aside and from her hand. That same hand is the one which rakes through her hair, pulling it up into a pile atop her head, and then she moves again: stretches out on her stomach and reaches down to take Nicholas's hand and haul him up. She attempts, gamely, to seem as if she hasn't seen through him, and redirects his attention this-a-way:
"What are we going to do today? Do you want to see your family first without me?" There is no hesitation or uncertainty in the question; it's just a question. Pen has many faults and many insecurities; meeting new people, whether or not people will like her or not, these things do not bother her, although Nicholas's mood might influence her own. "I can find something to do in the city."
She remembers nothing they spoke about when she was asleep, naturally.
Nick
Nick, once he has drawn in another sharp breath, reaches up to take her hand and use her as leverage to haul himself up off the floor. His foot is so entangled in blanket that he has to kick it free; the rest clings briefly to his shirt before slithering back down to the floor as though reluctant to release him. He slides back onto the bed, pulling the blanket back up with him and leaving it bunched at the foot.
"Vivienne is going to be home pretty soon," he says, cupping one of his hands over the curve of her knee. "I'm not sure whether she'll be in the mood to talk to us right when she gets home or not. If she's not, I was planning to go and see my mother. It's one of her days off, and I'd...like to introduce you to her, if you're ready."
Elaine
Now that she is awake, she is awake and alert. Not exactly bright-eyed, and rather more somber than she would have been had she woken up naturally, and when she meant to wake up, and in the manner she had meant it; but awake, and clear eyed, her lashes dark and her mouth soft and uncolored and her hair a tousled mess a nest for cinders and sunsets bloodied by battle. She is still on her stomach; she looks over her shoulder as he cups the back of her knee and tells her the story of their day and puts the question to her.
The question causes her to roll onto her side and, rather than sitting up immediately, she rests her head in his lap; and looks up and up.
"I will do whatever you wish me to do here; I came on your terms." There is a beat. "But I will at least introduce myself to Vivienne, whether her mood is good or not; it isn't right I should be in her house without exchanging names or a drop to drink."
"What is your mother's work again? Tell me about her, unless you think we don't have time."
Nick
Pen questions him, and had she not already rolled to her side and placed her head in his lap he would have eased back down next to her. Now his hand finds its way into her hair and he runs his fingers through its bloodied tresses, drawing them out and letting them coil down over his thigh. He is watching her, her face and her eyes as they gaze up and up into his own.
He does not miss the words she chooses, and the words she does not use, but he perhaps knew this about Pen already: that her own family is a distant thing to her, that her want of him does not necessarily translate into her want of who he used to be or where he used to live. "My mother?" And maybe he sounds a little surprised, to be questioned about her. Most people ask about his sisters, on the rare occasion he speaks of his family.
"She's a nurse at the university hospital. Getting close to wanting to retire, though." The lift of one corner of his mouth is not a smile, not quite. "She knows about the three of us and is usually pretty interested in it, so you won't have to be careful of your words."
Elaine
The shape of her mouth changes: the impression of amusement at the corners of it like a kiss. He is surprised she's asking about his mother? Pen reaches up. Her left hand travels his arm to his shoulder to his shoulder-blade. Her right hand just wants his unshaved face to test for a beard and to feel the slip-slide when and if he should swallow as said hand grazes his throat. He might think she doesn't want who he was and where he came from. He'd be wrong.
Her mouth is amused. Her eyes are (speaking: love, I love | I want | you | you) steady on his, and she hmms when he says that his mother knows and is usually pretty interested in it.
"Do you think she wishes she was Awake, too, and would use her Will to mend people's bodies?"
Nick
There is a rasp of stubble beneath her palm as her right hand moves over his jawline, over his throat and the curve of his Adam's apple. He has leaned himself down over her, perhaps not even conscious of this but she does this to him and always has.
Her question about his mother provokes a thoughtful noise, because even insightful people can miss things when they've become so familiar with a person, when history and their own desires and fears and secret hurts muddy the waters. This is why counselors strive for detachment, draw sharp boundaries around their relationships or should, but of course: that is by its very nature one-sided. Family is something else again. "I don't know." A beat. "I think, if I'm honest, that she's tired herself out so much caring for other people that if she were Awake she might just like to shape things into being for herself, or go places she's never been able to. I would hope that for her."
Elaine
"She can do that for herself now, or when she retires. You and your sisters can help her, if money is an object," Pen says, and he probably knows it already, but: then again perhaps not. "Does she have artistic leanings, like Anna?"
Nick
He probably knows it already: then again, Nicholas does still keep his own job, hasn't made any sort of arrangement for his bank account to appear flushed and full each month. "Vivienne is planning to arrange for that already, I think," he says. "Part of the reason she stayed behind here was to keep an eye on her anyway."
Pen's next question has his gaze diffuse, thoughtful. "I think she might have if she'd ever pursued it. I don't think she ever did." Then again: it is likely that Nick would have his own artistic leanings, perhaps, if life had taken him in a different direction. Perhaps it's like that.
Elaine
Pen doesn't say anything by way of reply. Pen only traces the line of Nicholas's throat down past his collar down past his heart down past his ribs down to his stomach down to his waistband down to her own lips. Then she kisses his stomach: neatly, precisely. Play bites, just for the fun of it. Then she pushes herself aright and weaves her fingers through Nicholas's fingers and one would not think that only moments ago she'd held a knife ready, readied, just in case: there is no danger in her now, with her clear gray eyes, their echoing warmth, their observant focus, the molten heat of some passionate avowal (promise [yours (mine)]) glinting behind like a trick of light like a jewel's setting. "I don't often speak to Sleepers who are in the know; that will be interesting. I hope - "
A pause; a smile, a heartbreak of a smile. Now Pen leans over Nicholas: as if she'd bear him down to the mattress again. She plants her fists on either side of him, rests her weight on them: this is how one might lean out of a parapet; this is how one might lean over a holy well; perhaps she is a handsome reflection: an image of red-haired potence.
"Can you guess at three things I hope right now?" Solemn, this, at the same time she is smouldery, she smoulders, embers of a moonset, "I think you can, but I want to hear your guesses."
Nick
He is easily borne down into the mattress when she leans over him, and against the pale sheets he could be a charcoal sketch, his hair a dark tumbling mess of curlicues, the lines of him stark and yet still softened by morning and maybe by her, too. This is how one might stretch out in the grass when stargazing; this is how one might lie while watching fireworks burst resplendent across the sky on a summer night, and maybe he too is a mirror.
There is a little point that springs up between his brows as he considers. "That they think well of you, and that you think well of them. And..." He laughs, then, though not loudly; it is half as much private as it is for her. "That we'll still get some time to ourselves while we're here, probably. Am I right?"
Elaine
Pen cocks her head to the side; it is a thoughtful little gesture, arrested - not stricken, quite, but snagged like a loose thread on something that what he has said has made her think. She is looking at him still; her gaze does not grow distant; the veil does not descent. But she is clearly thinking of something Other as well. The clear gray of her eyes; it is a trick of the light, how it darkens when her lashes sweep downward; it is a trick of the light, how it darkens when she cocks her head so.
She says to him, "Will you take me to your childhood haunts?"
It is not an answer; it is Penelope Mercury Mars, Oblique and Subtle Avoidatrix. She eases away; no longer leans and leans but means to look in the closet at what she hung up last night, or perhaps more precisely asked Nicholas to hang up, before she collapsed, exhausted, except no she was going to stay up with him, but exhaustion, and and -
She means to choose what she is going to wear. That's all.
crow
Last night he hung whatever clothes she asked him to hang up in the closet, alongside his own, and did it while she collapsed on the bed and slept. He did it with care though not always with an understanding of how to hang a dress so that it doesn't wrinkle or develop an odd crease or two; nevertheless, they are there and spaced out enough in the closet that Pen can make her choice.
There is a slight hesitation there, at her question. "Of course," he says. "I have...well, I'm not sure how scenic a lot of them are, anymore. But I would like to show you." If he remembers where they even are. He's been a long time away.
He did not miss (of course he did not) the way in which she seemed to be struck by something he said. Maybe he hasn't missed the way she sidestepped his question either, though they have not had as much time yet to grow comfortable with each other, for certain patterns of conversation to become familiar things. "What do you hope for right now?"
Elaine
"A steady heart, clarity of sight, and my lover's regard," Pen replies; she does not look at him. Repetition of the question has not uncovered whatever thought it was arrested her just a moment before. Even the very frank, the quite direct, are not always transparent: they are not simple. The only peace is death. She seems dissatisfied with the wardrobe before her; she frowns at it, but it is a distant frown, and she rubs her fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp. "What are some of your childhood haunts? A ditch behind school?"
crow
They know each other quite well, at this point. They spend nearly every day in each others' company, and he has some sense of how her magick works, how she shapes reality to her Will; yet he is not quite aware yet that what she was doing before she met him at the airport was a ritual. He has not been around her frequently enough to mark the exhaustion as something significant, even if it is unusual. He only smiles as she names the things she hopes for: and yet knows that there is something that has been left unsaid.
"There was an abandoned house we used to go into as teenagers," he says. "And I spent a lot of time in my room in my mother's old house, but I'm not sure what that neighborhood is like anymore. There was a park near her house that I used to go to a lot." His brows bow together, his forehead furrowing. "Will you show me yours, too, when we go back home?"
Elaine
Pen who almost missed the plane did not discuss what kept her until the last possible minute but she was exhausted. He might have felt her limned in it: the ardent edge of her, the suggestion of spell-work the way the air in a room will suggest a candle flame just blown out even after the smoke has dissipated.
This is the Pen he has this morning: almost noon in New Mexico, almost three pm in New England, and still she took some uprooting (somehow this took the shape of Nicholas, falling) - and now that she is awake with such an air of deliberation; of deliberate balance, and accidental grace.
Accidentally graceful, the sweep of the dress she finally settles on (it glisters when the dark touches it; starlight on water; light on milk), the swirl of it. Also accidentally graceful, not graceful at all really, the way she changes garment by garment fabric by fabric. They didn't bring that much, and yet it might feel as if they did. Pen has a way of making a closet seem endless.
And like it exploded.
"You've already walked some of my old haunts," Pen (Elaine) says, thoughtfully. "The cliff by the sea. The old Yellow House. Frankie's. The library. But if you want to see them differently, I mean as I did, I will show you."
He has met Aidan: months ago, now, perhaps. Aidan is still the only member of the Siddal family that Nicholas has met.
"We should plan a holiday, a true one: no family, no friends, no work. Next month?"
crow
"I do want to see them as you did," he agrees, and his voice is quiet; he is watching her dress in an idle way, his gaze thoughtful. It's without any particular hunger or lustfulness; there are times when he simply enjoys watching her move, particularly in times when she is not as aware of him. Is she aware of him now, as he maps the trajectory of her limbs as they cut the air, as he watches the play of light over the fabric of the dress she's chosen?
He only nods when she suggests a holiday: that is until he realizes she is not looking at him, and when he speaks his voice is quiet; shy, almost. "Yes, we should. I haven't ever really traveled much. Have you?"
His phone vibrates again; he spares a glance toward it, and then he reaches for it and glances at the screen. "Viv said she's about ten minutes away. She stopped for coffee I guess."
Elaine
"Whither the bathroom? I don't recall," Pen says, turning her back to Nicholas deliberately (that word again) once she has pulled the dress up over her hips, the teeth of the zipper tiny but wide and she holds her hair messily up top her head by long habit. When he zips her up, the zipper will only go just past her bra strap and it isn't very in danger of catching.
Once the dress is zipped, Pen grabs a toiletry bag about the size of a Pan Am stewardess's regulation bag and another swathe of fabric in dreamy greens and purples. Realizes she has forgotten all about shoes and drops the whole mess onto the bed, following it with a thunk so she can pull on stockings.
Then she realizes that he asked a question, Pen says, "No. Glasgow was my first ever real trip. I've been to Canada and other places for work. Florida once. There was an alligator - or is it crocodiles? I cannot remember - with a book written on its insides; we had to catch it. I did not enjoy the trip."
crow
He has become practiced at understanding what she wants from him when she turns deliberately toward him in this way; the very first time she did it, he stared off into space and continued talking, likely until she had to ask him directly (at which point he was slightly abashed and happy to assist.) There are occasional moments, small things that make it evident sometimes that Pen is the first person he has ever seen on a long term consistent basis.
Nevertheless, he neatly zips up the dress now, careful not to catch any remaining stray hairs in its teeth, and then leans back on his hands. "It's out in the hall and to the left," he says, of the bathroom. He watches her gather up the bag, then forgo the bag in favor of stockings.
"I would say we should visit somewhere overseas, but that probably requires more planning," he says, and likely more money than either of the two of them have to spare. Crisis center counselors are not well paid, after all. "What do you want to see?" Another buzz from his phone and he glances toward it once more, with only the barest flicker of annoyance. Vivienne appears to be providing a play-by of her approach back to the house.
Elaine
"Montreal, perhaps, or France. The Alps? The Czech Republic? As long as your passport is in order, I don't see why it should require any more planning than going to Florida to find a crocodile - alligator? Drat it - book."
The stockings go on quickly; the boots follow, less quickly. They're tall boots, knee high with a soft cuff at the top of the boot; they zip, those boots. The teeth of those zippers glint silver as they become seamless, invisible, a trick: hidden teeth.
Pen does grab her bag; rather than sensibly going around the bed to reach that cooling tea Nick brought in for her, she foolishly (she knows what she's about) rests her hand on his shoulder and leans and leans and leans standing unless she has to put a knee on the mattress to facilitate leans and leans against him to reach the tea.
His phone buzzes like a bee. Pen says, "She must be looking forward to seeing you."
crow
"The Alps," Nick says, and his voice holds a sort of dreamy quality that indicates that he would not have thought of this on his own, would not too long ago have even thought of it as an option. "I'll follow your lead. I've never really even been out of the country, other than a couple of weekend trips to Mexico."
As she leans against him to grab at the tea he brought in for her, he reaches up to steady her, bracing his hand against the small of her back. The tea, fortunately, is no longer so hot that it will scald him if this goes awry or if her faith in his core muscles is misplaced (which it very well might be.)
"I suppose she might be," he says. "I think she's just glad to get home. House Quaesitor sounds like the world's worst law firm, from what she's told me." He waits for her to straighten; he glances toward his bare feet, still as yet un-stockinged. "Did something happen before we left?"
Elaine
Pen straightens triumphant, tea in hand, but she still rests her weight on her knee, depressing the mattress alongside one of Nick's legs. Her hand stays on his shoulder until it strays to his neck then abandons his neck so she can run her thumb across his cheekbone and measure out the shape of his earlobe. She is sipping tea as she does; drinking it smoothly and steadily, glug, glug. The bag is now beside Nicholas where she dropped it. "Such a vague question, Nicholay, it would never pass muster with House Quaesitor." Her tone is amatory; burnished by, you see, the love she feels.
crow
There is a contented hum as her thumb traces along the sharp edge of his cheekbone, finds his earlobe. He tilts his chin up, up, so that he can look up at her and the way she is positioned now it brings his throat against her hip, his chin against the lower side of her flank. His eyes consider the underside of her jawline, the cast of her mouth, and if he is vague it is because he wants to leave her the space to choose not to tell him. "It seemed as though you'd done some sort of Working before we left."
Outside, there is the chirp of a car horn, the noise a car makes when it's locked remotely, as though bidding its owner farewell for now. Five minutes remain of ten: clearly Time is not one of the spheres Nick's sister commands.
Elaine
[Hmm. Notice the chirp?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Elaine
"Observant Crow," Pen says, or sighs, and then, "I'll tell you about it later. It sounds like your sister is home and I," from his earlobe to his hair to his temple to the arch of his eyebrows and the very edge of his eyelashes, "must use the bathroom."
The bag: snatched! And she abandons Nicholas to do just that, leaving him with her tea mug.
crow
Pen abandons Nick there, then, with her tea mug held between his hands like a beggar's bowl. He sighs and pushes himself up off of the bed, setting the mug once more on the nightstand. He eschews socks; it is warm here after all and Nick generally dislikes wearing socks unless he must, even in cold weather.
When she arrives in the bathroom she will find it to be more of the same: sparse decor, simple lines, that sort of dry untouched feel that one might get from a clinic, or a library, or a tomb.
His tread is silent across the tiled floor out in the hallway. Pen can hear: the open and shut of a door, and though she cannot quite make out words she can hear tone. She can hear Nick's greeting that verges on warmth because it often does, and she can hear shorter, more clipped tones. They aren't angry, specifically; that might just be Vivienne's voice.
Elaine
Pen turns the faucet. The water runs. Nick's voice and Vivienne's run beneath the water. The water is a white torrent. Pen: looks at herself in the mirror. Brushes her teeth. Puts on a light touch of makeup. Combs her hair once, although the Maenad-wild waves her hair has decided to set into in the night resist, the ruddiness of it is dark and bloody. Pen is glad Nick made her shower before she collapsed. She cannot even remember the shower, only the feel of it and the heat of it. She only remembers breathing a lungful of steam; she does not remember the shower. Pen meets her eyes in the mirror. What does she think of her expression? What does she think of herself?
Has it been twenty four hours since - ?
Pen, gone from the bathroom: the slinkstery light-shivery dress with a starlet's neckline baring collar and throat the skirt of which falls just above her knees and over that some billow-sleeved sheen-touched thing in the dreamy greens of a wood seen from the bottom of a lake or in a Monet painting, its lining a strike of midnight's purple and embroidery at its shoulders elbows cuffs and it longer than the dress except for the sleeves which billow but close around the elbows. She has a metal (bracer [cuff]) bracelet set with stones on her left arm. The stones and the metal all have significance: so do the lines inscribed beneath, which lay against her skin.
Five rings, today. Three on the right hand, two on the left. Asymmetry, even her earrings.
Pen: she stops back in the bedroom, listening sharply now (she is more likely to notice things, nuance or otherwise, when it involves her eyes; she sometimes forgets the significance of sound; it doesn't work on her in the same way), to make sure she has a knife in her boot.
But then she goes to find Nick and her host.
crow
Their voices carry back to her in the bedroom:
" - Work doesn't usually take me all the way out there. I suppose it...would be good to see you and Anna both at the same time, though. Your cabal is...?"
Nick's voice she can only make out in snatches; it is quieter, it carries less. She can hear her name, and the others', and she can hear Nick say something else and she can hear Vivienne laugh. Her laugh sounds similar to Nick's in this way that is clear, and ringing, and spontaneous.
She'll find them both in the kitchen, leaned together over the kitchen island and a pitcher of amber liquid (iced tea?): and the kitchen is much the same as the rest of the house. Small, but well organized, well ordered because that seems to be the order of the day. She can see the similarity between the two of them, though Vivienne's hair is straight (straightened?) where Anna and Nick are both lent to wild curls; she is wearing a pair of glasses and a sleeveless gold shirt, slinkstery in the way that Pen's dress is, and a flowing skirt that hits just above her knees. There are black tattoos on her forearms, delicate things that look as though Ari could've painted them on with a brush, one of her more delicate calligraphic artworks.
Vivienne's chin tilts up almost immediately as Pen enters. Her eyes have a tightness about them at the corners, either today or always; stress, perhaps. "Hello. Did you find everything you needed?"
Elaine
"All I needed last night was a bed," Pen says. She has crossed to meet them at the island and she holds her hand out to Vivienne. "You're kind to have me in your home. Thank you. Most people call me Pen, but - " The gesture is fluid: is easy as a flame in the clear air, as is (of course) the proper introduction that follows.
You know the names by now. How well they flow when Pen, deft, wields them. The rank and house which bind them together. How Pen does this and can seem natural instead of stilted or stiff; a poet instead of an academic; assurance and poise: nothing out of the ordinary in the outpouring of syllables. This is a name.
Anna might have been spared but Anna is a Disparate and Pen was not staying under Anna's roof when they met.
It wouldn't be right to say that all of Pen's attention went to Vivienne as soon as she found the Two of Three leaning around the kitchen island. Pen's attention is Nick's as water's attention is the sky's; he is in her eyes; and she is curious. But all the attention that isn't Nick's is Vivienne's; she is the same kind of wizard.
crow
Vivienne reaches out and takes Pen's hand when offered, and if there is some brusqueness in the gesture well, she only recently arrived home and Vivienne lacks the easy warmth her brother often affects when meeting new people. "You're welcome," she says, and as Pen offers her names she listens and ascribes whatever weight to them that she will.
The Quaesitor will then offer her own, and the first and the last and her House and rank (Adept of course) we know; the ones in the middle shall, alas, remain a mystery to us if not to Nicholas or Penelope there with her today. Hermetic names after all are murky things shadow Names, and Vivienne like her brother enjoys a good enigma or two.
Her eyes are keen, now, and as they sweep over Pen they seem to be taking some sort of measure, though who can really know what her interest means in this context. "So Flambeau, hmm? You're not what I expected, to be honest. Nick's been a little tight-lipped, other than that you're Hermetic."
Nick remains tight-lipped just now, if tight-lipped he has truly been; he's willing to let the Hermetics make their introductions and do whatever Hermetic things they do, for now. He's watching the two of them, though in truth his attention is Pen's as hers his for him, with what he has left for his sister, and so it will go.
Elaine
Pen's hand is cool and firm (like her eyes, see; cool gloaming gray, but steadfast [restraint]) and when her hand is hers again she rests it flat on the island's counter top. The light disappears in the bracer's stones; it gleams soft on its edge and its shadows are fish-scale luminous, this diffuse sort of half-sheen. Flambeau, hmm? Lick of easy good humor in her cool gray eyes; a deepening, a shadowing. Nick's name is an excuse to glance at him, side-long and up from under her lashes and there's this slight little cant of her head and the premonition of a smile.
But the glance is back to Vivienne ere the statement reaches its close. Statements about oneself, even leading statements, can be difficult to respond to when with a stranger. Pen replies, and here's the good humor that was in her eyes in her voice instead, "Ah. Alas, I cannot help expectations, but I do find it usually better to surpass or thwart them. I certainly don't want to thwart yours, so here's hoping to surpass them."
Beat. Earnest: "I believe," another glance Nick-wards, for confirmation or correction, "you're just getting off work. I just woke; shall we have brunch together now or get together later today?"
Nick is included in the question.
crow
Pen has returned from enough Order business at this point in her life to recognize relief when she sees it, even when it is masked under a veneer of politeness and desire to be a good hostess. She's returned home one morning after too little sleep and with her Will drained from her (these might in fact be the circumstances under which she met Nick to fly out here, even.) So: she sees something in Vivienne's expression ease as she sweeps some of her hair behind her ear.
"I was out of town, actually, and just got back in. I wouldn't mind meeting you both later on today."
Of course Nicholas could see it too; he and Vivienne are far more alike than either of them are to Anna. He has been listening to Pen and Vivienne speak with some uneasiness, the kind that might come over someone observing two cars narrowly missing each other at an intersection. "Do you want us to bring you something?"
Vivienne's glance flicks once toward her brother. "You're thoughtful today." She makes a shooing motion at the two of them, the tattoos on her forearms shifting in shape as the muscles move beneath. It's hard to tell whether the motion is playful or not, just as it's hard to tell whether her leading comment to Pen was teasing or not. "I'm all right. I'll see you both later. Though," and here is another appraisal of Pen, brief, "maybe you and I can go out later today or tomorrow and leave Mom some time with Nick to herself."
Here Nick looks sidelong at Pen, then back to Vivienne, then back to Pen. He does not concede that his mother would like this, though she would, because, well.
Elaine
Lysander would not allow Vivienne to escape like this. He'd see that easing and then pounce. He would press the advantage of an exhausted Quaesitor, whose will has potentially been drained; he would do so with deft courtesy and charm and maybe she'd never know for sure she was being trapped. Pen is Lysander's student, but they are not alike. Lysander does not make friends. He makes enemies and allies against enemies.
Pen makes enemies, too, but it is not her natural state, and it is never with malice aforethought.
Now, Pen:
is a collected young woman, even in the face of shooing and uneasy glances and difficult to read siblings of someone she is very much in love with. Perhaps she even seems impervious to uneasiness herself; she is not uneasy now, and means it when she says with the sudden and luminous flash of a swashbuckler's smile, "I will look forward to that."
"Nicholas, is one of your childhood haunts a very good place for brunch?" So: Pen abandons the island; reaches out for Nicholas's hand; will wind her fingers through his and squeeze when and if he takes hers, too; doesn't pull him toward the door (play with me) unless he is inert.
crow
When Nick has spoken of his sister to Pen it's sometimes with a vague air of regret, sometimes with this admission that the two of them are not close. Perhaps he hasn't told her at length yet much about how he grew up; there have been allusions, there have been statements that explained without ever encompassing the whole because Nick is bad at telling stories about himself and because Nick does not think to talk about himself very much.
Anyway, there are a lot of little ways that families hurt each other over the years. One interaction could be likened to the proverbial iceberg, with only a hint of what is there actually visible, or to a gun shot wound: such a small dime sized hole, so neat, that one could never imagine at first glance the devastation wreaked on flesh and muscle and organ and bone as it punches its way through the body. There's a lot left unsaid, is the point.
Vivienne's return smile is terse but perhaps she is lacking in will enough this morning that it is genuine for all that. "Have fun," she says, and she wanders over to one of the cabinets and retrieves one of the bags of coffee; Nick was unsure of when she would return so he made only enough for himself.
Nick's fingers catch Pen's and he doesn't have to be dragged; he comes along with her quite willingly after a backward glance toward his sister. "There's a cafe the three of us used to go get breakfast at when we had money to spare. Is it still open, Viv?"
"It is." The reply comes to them across a widening gulf of space, echoed off the cabinet she is still facing as she pours coffee beans into a grinder, and there is the scream of dozens of beans being ground to dust.
So they go.
Elaine
So they go.
Back to the bedroom. Nicholas isn't wearing his shoes, Penelope doesn't have her wallet, and while she can reach for it through space where ever it may have been left sometimes it hurts to do that: sometimes reality does not want to be pushed; she is still tired.
Back to the bedroom, and Pen (after a brief, rather longing look at the bed) says, "Is there anything I can do, my love?"
Okay, why feel longing and not give into it? Pen, fully dressed, just: curls up in the spot that she recently occupied. Oh; there's the tea mug; she picks it up again and takes another swig.
crow
As content as he would have been to leave the home without shoes, it's a thing restaurants frown on and anyway it's a risky venture in a city. He does need shoes. So he follows her back to the bedroom and leans down next to his suitcase so that he can find a pair of socks. He is straightening back up as she is curling up on the bed.
He looks at her for a moment, socks held in both hands, and then sits down beside her. It's a nice mattress; it doesn't creak as his weight depresses it there at the edge. "Just be patient with her, I suppose. That's all."
There is a beat, and he looks down at the socks in his hands. Returns his gaze to her, and instead of putting the socks on stretches out beside her on the bed. "You don't have to go out with her later if you don't want to, I don't think she'll mind. I think she's just thinking of Mom."
Elaine
He advises patience. Pen (who at this moment in her life struggles, still, with impulse; with brashness; he does not know the half of it) blinks at him. Nick stretches out and Pen immediately rolls into him and hooks her leg around his waist and nestles her cheek against his shoulder. "Nicholas," she says, and she pronounces his name slowly. "Do you not wish me to spend time with your sister?"
crow
Pen's cheek nestles against his shoulder and Nick's cheek nestles against the side of her head; he did not shave this morning and there is the lightest scratch of stubble against whatever portion of her skin it happens to rest against. She can feel the muscles in his cheek pull as she asks that question: a grimace, perhaps. "It's not that. She's just...she asks a lot of questions. And I think she thinks it's strange that I'm with a Hermetic. And you're the first person I've ever really brought home with me."
Elaine
"Meilichios," a quiet word; it is longing, given shape and restraint. It is a name; a nick name, like the ones she spoke in her sleep (does not remember speaking in her sleep). "What of all those things? What are you afraid might happen?"
crow
It's a nickname he does not recognize for a nickname; there are times when she speaks when really it could be anything, when it could be Enochian or Greek or old Norse and he would not know. He listens for her tone when she says those things, because the way in which a thing is said is sometimes infinitely more telling than the words themselves (and wouldn't that drive any Hermetic mad.)
"I just don't want it to be awkward for you," he says. Hesitates. There are a lot of things Nick is afraid of; he can sense it in others so well, after all. "I just...I don't want you to think differently of me, either. That's all."
Elaine
"How do you think I think of you now?" Pen asks, Quite Arch. "What do you want to stay the same?"
crow
There is another pull of the muscles in his cheek, another grimace though less pronounced; he is as uncomfortable as Pen is arch, at just this moment. There is hesitation and he still does not evade the question; this is a choice. "I want you to know who I used to be when someday you see it again in who I am now, and stay with me."
A beat. "I do want you to know Vivienne too. I just...I want it all to be the same when we get back."
Elaine
Pen is silent as she parses his first remark. It is a complicated one, and an unhappy one. And she has felt the pale edge of fear before, hasn't she? About Nicholas, and whether he will stay; about Nicholas seeing certain things about her past, and whither after? Pen presses her lips quietly to Nicholas's shoulder; listens.
And then props her chin on it; the edge of her chin will dig in, and it is uncomfortable. She does not mean it to be, but this is a truth about bones and nerves and flesh: being alive is sometimes uncomfortable.
"What do you think is in danger of changing? What do you think is in danger of changing it; you believe your sister has any power over my yearning for you, Nickolay? Come on; what is it?"
crow
He is glad for the moment that her lips are against his shoulder, that he is looking straight ahead toward the off-white wall in front of him rather than anywhere at her. He is even glad for the discomfort of the sharp edge of her chin meeting his collarbone; pain can ground, can brace with the reminder that one is bones and nerves and flesh, and sometimes it is what keeps Nick from fading away into moonlight.
For a moment he is quiet, and this is not like some of his silences in which he has to consider the answer. "I'm afraid that you're too good for me," he says, "and she's going to see that, and she's going to make you see it because she's trying to protect me. I know..." Beat. "I know you're going to tell me she doesn't have that power. That might be true, but I'm still afraid."
Elaine
"I wasn't going to say that," Pen says, with quiet dignity; there is something about her tone, though: it is molten; it is heated. "Although it is true that she does not." Pen lifts her chin from his shoulder and turns her back to Nicholas, like so, only to turn back briefly and wap him across the ribs with the back of her hand. "I was going to do that, but harder, except I do not want to hurt you."
crow
They haven't had conversations about greatness yet; he doesn't realize she's uncomfortable with the term, is unaware as yet of whatever may be threaded beneath the words they are speaking. He is insightful, but he still requires some level of knowledge to be able to infer completely, to lend meaning to what he sees; otherwise all he senses is a swirl of emotion without context. This is in part why he asks questions: it allows him to tether that whirlwind, to give that chaos form and shape.
Pen's brother was right about that, at least. As she turns from him he raises himself on an elbow, and this is how she finds him when she turns back long enough to wap a hand over his ribs. There is no sting except to his pride, which was already smarting from the admission. He folds his hands together somewhere in front of his stomach, hooking his fingers together tangling them. "I don't believe it. But you asked me what I was afraid of and that's one of the things."
He glances away from the wall down at the back of her head, casts about for wherever he put his socks. "Are you still hungry?"
Elaine
[Hidden Things. OoOOooo.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
crow
[Ooo, hidden things?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9) ( success x 2 ) [Doubling Tens]
Elaine
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )
crow
[Tiebreak!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 5, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]
Elaine
Her spine is stiff; her shoulders, too. Her back stays turned to him, but then he doesn't touch her; why should she turn back? He can read the line of her, though, even before he hears her voice and notes that it is still molten. Evenly controlled, just (she is tired), but molten just the same. She hates the idea that he thinks she's too good for him; it's quite the opposite.
"Yes I am. And the only thing I imagine might be different when we get back home is the color of my skin; I should put on sunscreen ...or do the Helios rote. I feel strange doing magick in another Hermetic's home, though."
Yes. Pen has a Forces rote to keep herself from burning as red as a lobster. What of it? It isn't frivolous; sunburns cause cancer.
She is just so angry.
crow
It is generally not a difficult thing, reading Pen and her moods; she's not made for that sort of subtlety. Except: sometimes the sun is so dazzling it blinds, sometimes the refraction beneath the clearest lakewater can make a person miss something that's just beneath.
That's not so, just now. He can read the line of her and hear the liquid heat in her voice, and he is not sure of its target or if it even has one. "I don't think she'd mind," he says, "especially if she knew that you burn." The three Hyde siblings are not given to such, cast a sort of pity toward anyone who is.
"Are you angry with me?" And he releases his grip on his other hand, brushes his knuckles against the small of her back with the hand he is leaning on. It's a light touch: not necessarily cautious, but careful.
Elaine
"Yes I am." Beat. "No I'm not." Beat. "Yes, I am."
Pen rolls so she is on her back; turns her head to look toward Nicholas. "No, I'm not," most apologetic, she sounds: her voice has cooled somewhat; the note of apology is real.
But so is the heat; she is not lying to him. She is angry with him; she is not angry with him. They're both true.
crow
She is, and she's not: and she'll find when her head tilts toward him that he is not looking at her at all but down, somewhere that might be at her hip, or at his hand resting there on the mattress between them, if his gaze hadn't gone diffuse. He's not looking at anything at all.
"That's all right," he says, and it's not really, and it's not even precisely what he means: what he means to convey is acceptance, and language is a strange thing isn't it? For a moment he is quiet; his mouth opens to ask one question, and then he thinks better of it and asks another. "What about what I said made you angry?"
Elaine
"Come," Pen says, brisk. His hand is between them; or she rolled onto it, when she rolled onto her back; likely it was trapped beneath her for a moment, before he reclaimed it; set it down. "You must know. I do not like that you are afraid that I am too good for you; it is too too wrong."
crow
"I think we all fear things that we know probably aren't true," he says, and he shifts his weight on his elbow, which is growing tired though he doesn't want to lie on his back, is too uneasy to recline fully on his side. "I wouldn't...I mean, I know even if it was true that it wouldn't matter. I have you, for however long, and that matters. So I..."
He exhales, tilts his head to look off toward a different wall, now. "I don't know what to say."
Elaine
"Don't say anything; kiss me."
There's a bit of an upward lilt when she suggests, becomes suggestive; of course she is still molten. She is tired; tired Penelope holds onto things longer, because she cannot think past them. But she's not angry at him at the same time she's angry at him; that's easier to move beyond. She isn't interested in apologies.
crow
Her request surprises him at the same time it does not surprise him, and so for a moment they are both suspended: and this entire time it has been difficult not to touch her and at the same time he had been unable to muster the effort to do so. He is suspended and so he does not respond immediately. Instead he searches her face, and whatever is there yields nothing beyond the heat that was in her voice already.
His hesitation probably seems longer to him than it really is; it is only a few heartbeats of yearning, count them, mark the time. Whether it's resolve or relief or simply the sort of internal acceptance he was seeking, his fingertips light on her jaw and tilt her face toward him as he leans down and kisses her.
She's not interested in apologies, and he does not make them; and for a little while he is not afraid.
Elaine
Elaine Siddal (Pen) could kiss Nicholas Hyde (or be kissed by) with ardent fervor until the sea drowned the moon. He wants her to stay after she sees whatever it is he thinks she might see in him but she is already staying, staid; she hasn't told him yet that she will never that she could never.
The sea does drown the moon: some philosopher's say that touch is a human invention, intentional touch, experienced touch, and it's better to touch and be touched than it is to be (only) angry, and she is honest: He'll kiss her, and she'll circle his neck with her arms, and he isn't afraid (who should be afraid? The sailors were afraid. Unless the song was in their ears. Philosophers argue about that, too) for a little while, but
--
A little while later and Pen's smooths her skirt back down around her thighs, and the room-light dusks and shivers on the jewels of her metal bracer and her mouth at least is tender and after adjusting her skirt and regulating her breathing she grabs her purse.
Time for them to go.
"I don't talk about my family very often," she tells Nicholas. Something he already knows; and a leading statement.
crow
He remains flat on his back for the span of a few breaths as she smooths her skirt and finds her purse; it takes this long for him to slow his own breathing once more, to pull the flush out of his cheeks. He tilts his head and watches her as she smooths her skirt, and finally he rises and begins to pull on his neglected socks.
Her statement draws his eyes from his feet and back up to her. He is pulling on a pair of leather oxfords, lacing them, and finally he stands and reaches up to straighten (ha) his hair. Or at least bring some semblance of order to the chaos.
"You don't," he agrees, though he is still looking at her because he recognizes this as a leading statement. He offers her his hand as they open the door to wander back through the rest of the house, back and away from the kitchen where they can smell the thick rich spicy scent of whatever coffee Vivienne set to brew. They can hear music playing too: what sounds as though it is (perhaps surprisingly, for anyone given to snap judgments) early R&B.
Outside it is hot already, what would be summer temperatures in New England, almost too hot to make Nick regret even the light cotton pants he is wearing.
Elaine
"Why do you suppose I don't?"
Pen takes his hand and follows his lead. New Mexico: so this is what you are. Her eyes are bright; she cannot help them being bright; because this is new air, new sunlight, new dust, new everything, even new heat: she is curious about; cautious of it.
After he met Aidan, after Pen came back from her walk (as far as he knows, and will ever know, dry-eyed; she did not cry she did not cry), she told him about how she kept her family separate from her now-life for their safety and her own, how she didn't want it to be too easy for them to be used. That doesn't seem to be the answer here.
crow
The neighborhood surrounding Vivienne's house is not dusty, not here; the lawns here are small but they are lawns, and someone must have wealth to have any sort of lawn in the desert, mustn't they? There is a distant mountain that looks nothing like the mountains Pen has seen in northern New England, ground to stumps by wind and water and time; it is high and straight and white-tipped like a knob of bone, like a child's drawing.
He leads them down the sidewalk. They will be walking for a few miles, but that is all well and good and they could probably stand to stretch their legs after being on the plane for so long yesterday and in bed for so long today. And he remembers how she looked when she came back after he met Aidan: she was dry-eyed and he was apologetic, both for whatever he disclosed to her brother and for whatever cruelty she may have glimpsed in him that day, however peace-bound and sheathed it was.
Her question gives him pause. "I thought...it must be difficult for you to feel like you have much in common with them, now." A beat, too. "I thought too that maybe after your brother died it was too painful."
Elaine
"No," she says, sharp as a sword; sure, it glitters, dripping lake-light and possibility - but it is sharp, too, can cut.
Pen does not feel 100%. She is drained, some parts of her body are sore, and now that they are stretching their legs it is occurring to her that she did not wake in time to go for a run or a jog. It feels strange.
"Nicholas, if you," a pause; an exhale, not sharp: suggestive of struggle. "I wish I knew what you want of me. Here, in your hometown."
crow
Pen's voice is sharp and it draws his eyes in that way that glittery things do, and oh, the way that sharp things do as well: there could be a flicker of something wary there, something surprised. She does not feel at her best, and it's a careful subject anyway and she was still angry not too long ago (is she still?). He means to ask, but he does not, because she is still speaking.
And here he is surprised again, in earnest. "What I want of you? I want you to be here with me," he says, and their hands are still linked and his fingers tighten around her own, briefly.
"Did I...did it seem as though I don't, or..." He trails off, and he too is struggling now. Uncharted ground.
Elaine
"I know you want me here with you; but what do you want of me? Do you want me to be new eyes, your support, yours when you want me, yours when you are visiting your mother, cousins, sister, but not - I just don't know how you want me to be around your family."
crow
"But not what?" He is looking over at her now, his eyes sweeping her profile. It's new air, new sunlight and new heat, and people look different sometimes in a different place: light see it changes perception, and he always thinks her beautiful. Maybe the way he's looking at her is a palpable thing just now, something she can sense rather than see.
"I always want you." And here he hesitates, because Nicholas has difficulty stating what he wants; he will struggle with it years into the future, when he will begin to question it in earnest. "I want...I want you to know this part of me. I don't want you to have to worry about being a certain way for me."
Elaine
[Urgh. Perception + Empathy will help me, right? Nick what is your state of mind what do you want halp!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (1, 5, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )
crow
[Perhaps seeking Nick's emotional state will, indeed, help Elaine (Pen). Maybe it will just make her more confused; knowledge isn't always power.
Here, she can tell: Nicholas wants her. He never stops wanting her; there are times when it is below the level of his conscious thought and times when it rises more to the forefront as though he's been cut through, but it flows through him ceaseless with each heartbeat. He wants her to be here, too, but something about having her here has left him feeling very exposed, partly because being here already leaves him feeling exposed and partly because honesty does not come naturally to him.
He isn't sure just now what he wants. He's not very good at identifying those things anyway, and he really wants to know what Pen wants (or, perhaps more appropriately, he wants to know what she is willing to give him. He does not want to ask too much.) He does want her support. Being here may be making him think about bad times, and this in turn is perhaps making him think about what may happen if bad times come again: and he wants her to be unflinching.]
Elaine
But not what? Elaine (Pen) does not answer. Onward. She regards him sidelong, and she is collected but her heart. All at once, she feels it struck; a pang; a bell, and now it shivers with the resonance of that strike. Her breathing alters for one breath. He's still talking and she's still listening and her brows beetle together and she looks at him - with a fierce sort of perception, a moon dredging thing, his face his posture him, and her lips stay pressed together in a way that seems both as if she's about to say a word and might never say a word again: it's that poised precipice moment, it's intention. She sets their hands swinging, a pendulum, walks close enough to bump her arm against his: it is no accident, but she is no longer regarding him sidelong and so careful.
"I know. I don't: not - " pause; frustration: count. "It's just, Nicholas, I'm your guest; I don't want to use the wrong set of dishes, or go straight for the not-to-be-opened Scotch."
crow
There is an understanding that she can see when he looks toward her now, or perhaps more precisely a sort of clarity. "You shouldn't...Pen, you might feel like my guest but you can...I mean, anything you want to ask about, or anything you want, is yours."
He hesitates, and she is no longer giving him that careful look. He is not frustrated, precisely, or if it is it is with himself and not with her, it's with the fundamental imperfection of language and its ability to sometimes impede connection rather than facilitate it. "What can I do that will help? Do you want me to talk more about Vivienne, or...about myself and being here?"
Elaine
you might feel like my guest
"I am." Deliberate.
I mean, anything you want [so she leans against his side, drapes]
Want me to talk more about Vivienne, or about myself and... [Pen's breath scrapes out of her throat; it's too hot to lean but she leans anyway. Helios shines differently here- ]
"No. I just want to," a pause. "I want to make you happy; if it will make you happier, or more easy in your heart about Vivienne and me hanging out without you later, to tell me anything about yourself and being here, please do. But I like you always; the past is part of that, whether or not I know it, because it helped shape you; because - "
And Pen shrugs, expansively; un-leans, keeps Nicholas's hand but holds both of hers out leans away to sketch out the shrug.
crow
It's too hot for Pen to be leaning, but he is glad she is leaning, and he leans into her too because she is like this for him, magnetic. "I want to make you happy too," he says, and this with a short laugh. But she is still talking, and his breath is caught at the top of his chest, somewhere above his lungs but below his throat; he can feel it stick there.
As she leans away and sketches out a shrug, a flick of his wrist is intended to bring her back, the way it would if they were dancing together here: which they are not. It's too hot for that. But he wants her there at his side nonetheless. He watches the sidewalk ahead of the two of them, not so far ahead that it's where the heat shimmers where it begins to blur real and not, but just there; he sighs. "We grew up only a few miles from here," he says. "I'm always surprised Vivienne hasn't ever left."
Whether or not he is surprised: here she is. "She stayed here to look after our mom. She has periods where she does better and periods where she does worse. I always felt...I think it was hard on her that Anna and I left. I think about that, but I don't think Anna does very much." A beat. "But I'm a lot like my mother. I think Vivienne is worried about me being like my mother. She's just been angry for a long time, and I was worried that being around her would be uncomfortable for you. That was all."
Elaine
"I don't often feel uncomfortable in social situations, however uncomfortable they actually are," Pen says. Her tone of voice is spare; almost bare. She means it; was resolved to it. "Did you know that about me?" Quick flash of a smile; she bumps into Nick's arm again and finds herself gone almost concave with hunger wishful suddenly of the ability to step from one location to another. She doesn't know where they're going; that makes it feel longer; unmoored from location, new city, new land.
crow
She finds her smile reflected back at her, almost, and this is an almost because there are nuances: he is thoughtful, and he is pensive, and those two are different howeverso they may be confused one for the other. "I knew that," he says. Of course: a person can know a thing, or suspect that one knows a thing, and still doubt. "We're not far."
And in those next few steps there is his own precipice moment, wherein his feet carry him but he feels as though he has not moved at all because the air is so still, because his footsteps are silent and his hands are steady. Then he says, "I tried to kill myself a few times when I was a teenager. I was just...I wasn't well, from about eleven on. Our mother mostly stayed in her room and I started having memories, like..."
A furrow of his brows. "I think - I believe - that it was who I was once, and I would have these memories like...my fists shattering through bone, plague in the country. Her lover, once. I knew things I shouldn't know. Her Traditionmates killed her eventually, I think, so I remember - anyway. I remembered that, and it was a lot. I didn't know whether I was gay, or if it meant I wanted to be a woman, or if I was just crazy. I didn't tell anyone, I just...I thought that if that was what life was, if it was what I had to look forward to, I didn't want it."
Their hands swing slightly in the still air, and hot air rises so maybe they are buoyant, maybe that is why he feels as though he is drifting and far away and she is a tether. "So I tried a few times. And then when I was fourteen I tried to hang myself, and I...I think I did die, for a little while. I don't know what happened. Vivienne found me, and then I was in the hospital for a while." A beat. "Jonas thinks that's when I really Awakened, actually. But I don't know. And it doesn't matter."
Elaine
Pen (Elaine) clasps his hand tighter and her ([water-clear] luminous gray) eyes find his face and her mouth stays closed. Their hands were swinging; he keeps it going, becomes the force behind it. They've spoken of lives past already, crumbs. That Nick was disturbed as a teenager, but now context. The least important thing is what she first replies to.
He says it doesn't matter; Pen makes a sound of agreement. And then responds to the least important thing, "Jonas is sometimes wrong."
Brief pause; but rash and impulsive as she is does not mean she just does things, thoughtlessly, says anything. Daring, as expressed by Penelope, is daring greatly--not recklessly. Daring for a chance. "None of that has any bearing on how good you are. Do you know that?"
crow
"Sometimes," Nick says, and these are the words he speaks but the notes layered beneath say: Jonas is often right. Perhaps he is both and at the same time; Nicholas is not sure of when his Awakening truly was, even if he thinks of it as having happened later in life.
He is not looking at her, when her eyes find him. His eyes (amber, alternately opaque and clear enough to see eternity past and future crystallized in one moment depending on how the light hits them) are still looking ahead. He is not rash, or impulsive, or daring; he is none of these and so when she is it always catches him off guard a little. It's a difficult thing for him to empathize with, see, because it's just not in him, and envy blinds.
She says that, and his brows pull together and he laughs once, and it's surprised and without mirth. There is hesitation, his reflexive answer suppressed in favor of the more honest one: "I...I suppose I don't. But I should." He bites the inside of his cheek; they round a corner, past a hedge that emits a heavy green scent as they pass, cooking slowly as it is in the heat. "I've just always wanted to avoid her mistakes."
Elaine
"I've never noticed a curse woven around and into you. I feel as if somebody I know might have told me if it were so and they saw it; is it so?"
crow
"A curse?" He looks to her now, and the sunlight seems to fragment in his hair, lighting along each strand and breaking like a fractal. "No. I don't believe myself cursed. But there's...it would be a waste, to have the gift of the memory of all of that experience and to not learn from it. I'm not her, but I also am."
Elaine
[Ooo, time to hide a thing.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
crow
[Mrrr?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]
Elaine
[C'mon, dice. Why do you string these out?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
crow
[Contesting!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 ) [Doubling Tens]
Elaine
[Dice!!!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
crow
[Again, because the dice love suspense.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 6, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]
Elaine
He doesn't believe himself cursed and, look, look closely (or with a naturally astute pair of eyes), and it's easy to see a spark of envy (hidden [sheathed]) around not being cursed. He doesn't believe himself cursed; that isn't quite the same as not being cursed, but Pen thinks he means it in that respect. She says, "Exactly the point I was going to draw, or near enough to it. As long as you're not under a curse, it is I think foolish to believe you'll make all the same mistakes again; she was then and before; you're now and later."
crow
"Life is cyclic," he says, and for a moment she might think that is all. They are nearing a cluster of buildings now, and there are scents that comingle here and hang in the stagnant air: cooking meat and onions the sweet scent of bread. The windows are a little foggy with age, and as they approach Nick is glancing about: he has not been here in a long time.
"I don't believe that they must necessarily repeat themselves, but they could. But I...I understand what you're saying."
Elaine
Elaine is still angry and angry at herself for being angry, and hunger has begun to thread a dull ache behind her eyes and she is half-sick of shadows and half-sick of obfuscation. The light is generous and bright and the air is still and clear and the ground is scorched and blasted and Elaine (Pen; but she is both) lifts her hand and Nick's to rub at her eye. His hand gets to come along for the ride, unless he takes it away from her.
She doesn't say anything for a little while. He might begin to wonder whether or not she's going to say anything at all, but she does.
"Anything could happen. Almost anything. There are only a few immutable truths."
crow
He knows she is still angry. How can he not know that she is still angry? Nick himself is angry so rarely, and he has never been at her; there are times when he is sad, or hurt, but it does not often show up this way and so he does not know what to expect, is less sure of what to say. He does not pull his hand away as she rubs at her eye.
He is quiet at first, when she says what she says, because: the cyclic nature of existence is one of his immutable truths. He does not say so, not now. Instead what he says is, "It was hard to tell you this. I didn't...sometimes people haven't reacted all that well. Not that I thought you would react badly, just..."
Elaine
Elaine stops walking.
Maybe it is abrupt enough that he keeps going for a step, two. She keeps his hand; she measures the length of his arm with her other, wrist to shoulder. Her eyes are shadowed; an illuminated manuscript, bleaching but vibrant; and then she presses herself close to him (cleaves to him) and buries her head where his neck meets shoulder. Takes his other hand; squeezes it; then wraps that arm around his shoulders.
"I'm here with you and for you and because of you. Yesterday. Five minutes ago. A minute ago. Now. A minute from now. Five minutes from now. Tomorrow. After that."
crow
He has made one step past her and is starting on the second when he notices that his hand, and Pen attached to his hand, these are not moving along with him. They are less than a half a block from the restaurant where they were headed, or rather from the little cluster of buildings where one can assume the restaurant is. He looks back over his shoulder at her and this is before she presses herself close to him; as she does there is an exhale long enough that she can feel his chest deflate, hollow out.
His arms find their way around her almost instinctively, as second nature, and there is a stillness to him after she speaks. For a moment he doesn't answer. "That's all I want," he says. "Don't worry about how I want you to be around my family. I just wanted you here."
Elaine
[>.>]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )
Elaine
Elaine does not sigh and does not groan. Her breath does not catch and clot in her throat, untangle afterward, tangible proof of her frustration; caught. Elaine does not sigh at all; she turns her face into Nicholas's neck and inhales. Slow she is about it, slow and careful.
And then, her voice low, banked fire, quiet thing: "I'm not worried, Nick. "
"I just don't want," here. Brief pause; what word would work for him, for right now, for what she means and what she wants? Inadequate, but: "to make a faux pas. I want to pay due respect."
crow
She does not groan, and fortunate, that; she can still feel a rigor in his muscles, because still does not always mean relaxed, it is not always a reflective pool. She can smell a faint whiff of soap when she inhales, that and the distinct smell that fabric tends to take on in this sort of baking heat.
"I understand," he says then. "I...what do you need from me, in order to feel comfortable? I want you to be able to talk with her without feeling like...like you're stepping through a minefield." A beat. "She might only talk to you about the Order, for all I know, but..."
Elaine
"I will also be deciding what we talk about," Pen says, bright as tinfoil metal bright bite dim as tinfoil bright metal edge; it is an edge. The air is a kiln; it makes the blood languid, breeding ground for salamanders. "I like to talk about you. Because I adore you more than an astronomer does stars. Because you feel good on my tongue. Because it's the next best thing to being near you and because you are always in my thoughts. I've already told you: I'm afraid I am obsessed. I want breakfast."
But she doesn't make any move to leave the circle of his arms or to cease being pressed against him close cleave as two pages in a book.
"I'm not worried about talking to her, Nick." Beat. "So I'm the first person you've brought home? I never brought anybody serious home."
crow
Nicholas makes a noise that is similar to a hum, something dredged from deep in his throat though it doesn't rumble and it doesn't rasp. It's only just there, at the base, the cord nearest his heart, and the sound is resonant and content and pleased all at once. He wants to stay here cleaving and cloven to and he would rather be back in bed tangled up with Pen than out here beneath the harsh glare of the sun, but they both want breakfast.
"I'm all right with it, if you want to talk about me with her," he says. His fingertips trace over the warp and weft of the fabric of her dress, trip over the zipper as they find the skin of her back. There is a roar of a semi as it passes them on the busy road, a gust of air that cascades over them both and smells of dust and baked asphalt and diesel, and he barely notices.
"Anna and Viv have both met people I've seen in the past," he says, "but it was always just kind of coincidental. I wasn't serious with any of them." Pause. "Why haven't you ever brought anybody serious home?"
Elaine
"Brothers," Elaine says, and that is one part true. "Easier not to. Jeff and Mom always had strict schedules, too."
She is getting too hot; it isn't fire-heat, molten-heat, which she can stand; it is sunlight and another body; it is relentless. The grit from the even-warmer gust of air - she notices it; shuts her eyes tight, a butterfly sweep.
"So this street is a street you used to come to? Tell me about this street and the breakfast place we go towards."
crow
"Our old neighborhood is a few blocks from here," he says. The street that they are on: it is lined in storefronts, and some of the storefronts are empty, fronted only by fogged glass and signs promising something to come or saying that they've moved. What places are there seem to be firmly entrenched, have aged paper signs up for display, might not have changed much since the mid 90s. "It's a Mexican place, kind of, and kind of a diner."
He can feel how his hair is full of sunlight, how it is so warm that the heat has permeated each coil of hair, all of it from root to tip. He shrugs, now, and adds, "The food is good and we used to come here a lot when we were kids. The three of us would get breakfast together before school sometimes if we had some extra money. Or on weekends."
He inclines his head down the street; he is waiting for Pen to decide when they move on. "There's more down that way. The store we used to go to for groceries and a bakery and a pottery place Anna liked."
Elaine
Elaine is waiting for Nick to decide when they move on; she is doing so stubbornly; she wants to move on but she will not.
"Mm?" Beat. Then, "What did you want to be before counselor?"
crow
Will they stand here stubbornly, until their feet take root in the concrete and until the city crumbles to dust about them? Perhaps. Sometimes that is the way of things, when two people each wait for the other to move first, when there is a mix of uncertainty and desire and will. He does not move just yet.
"It would change sometimes. Sometimes I wanted to be a nurse like Mom, and sometimes I wanted to be like one of my other uncles who was a truck driver." There is a quirk of his mouth here, perhaps for how ill suited, perhaps because this is easier to say than that for a long time he did not think he would become anything.
"Did you always think you would become a famous poet?"
Elaine
"No. I was going to be a playwright or a fisherman," Pen says. Her stomach growls a warning; it is not impressed with these shenanigans, and wants her to find something for it right now. Stubborn; she does not move. Drained, too; she probably cannot outlast her own impulses today, for very long.
crow
Nicholas, he's perceptive, and while this often means he has a keen eye for body language and tone and small shifts in expression, sometimes his ears too are keen, and he hears her stomach growl. This is when he gives her a last squeeze, tightens his arms around her however briefly, and almost reluctantly lowers them back to his sides. He takes hold of one of her hands, waiting until she straightens before he begins walking.
"You could have been a playwright and a fisherman," he says, and the sidelong look he gives her is affectionate. "After breakfast I can show you some of the other places I used to go."
