They're coming up on their second winter together, Nicholas Hyde and Penelope Mars. The trees went bare a few weeks ago, and even the last few desperate clingers-on are earthbound now, scattered across carpets of grass that have withered in the subsequent frosts. The world has gone brown; soon it will go grey and white as ash and bone.
When they are both home, they are nearly always in constant sight of one another: they moved into Pen's apartment which is vast, open kitchen and open living room and their bed in the back corner. Anyone who steps in will be able to see the whole of their lives here, illuminated by the light that slants in from the west as the sun sets.
Nick is not in this cavernous expanse of the apartment today. Today, Nick is up in the tower because he is doing some reading, which is rare for him but occasionally does occur. It typically happens when he wants to peruse old lore and histories, and Vivienne surprised him by sending him a book she'd purchased from the saguaro library. Who knows how much (or with what) she paid for it.
He is thinking: it would be nice to return a gift to his sister, but he does not know what to send and he is afraid of how such a gift would be received. Their relationship is a complicated one.
Regardless, he is up in the tower and the apartment is quiet. There is the faint scent of tea left lingering throughout, from when he made himself a pot of it earlier and retreated upstairs.
Elaine
[Hmm. An intimidation, for the road.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )
Elaine
[Pft whatever.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
Elaine
There are retreats and there are advances. Nicholas retreated upstairs, into the tower. He might be able to get to the widow's walk from the tower, if he braved the cold, the open window, the weathered wooden shingles, corrosion from season after season, decade after decade. The weather is fickle today: rain has promised to attend, but it seems to be forsworn; the clouds scud, a visible pallor, across a star-spangled sky. They scud swiftly, though: they move with purpose. There are retreats; there are advances. Outside the leaves go rattling across the street in a line which spreads out as it goes, becomes diffuse, re-groups the next time the wind draws back and punches forward.
And the door opens. The door slams shut.
Voices. Both are familiar to Nicholas. The first one he hears is probably the least welcome. Here: the combative tones of Aidan Siddal, talking so fast that it's difficult to distinguish one word from the other at first. Then, slipping beneath Aidan's words like a letter opener will slip beneath sealing wax, Elaine Siddan's clear, self-assured voice, and Aidan's words trip, and then there's a query. A thump. An expansive, "FUCK ALL," and then - both the Siddals are easy enough to hear, "Why the fuck do you have a cock-sucking piece of rock in your apartment with fucking water?"
Nick's phone receives a text about this time. Are you home? Aidan's coming over and
"The rock has never to my knowledge sucked any cock," Elaine, as dryly as she is capable of,
"To your knowledge," Aidan says, insinuatingly,
P: Whoops, sorry!!!!
"And it is a fountain. I like it; it's like having a sliver of wilderness; check it out, Aidan. It makes a good mirror glass to gaze in, romantically."
Aidan's response is too low to be heard, but Pen laughs.
"Now you imagine the future as your present."
"I hate the word 'present.' It's like... Penny they just pop a squat over your mouth all the time and expect you to thank them for shit because it's the same color as chocolate."
P: Aidan's coming over and I don't think he's planning on staying very long. If you're out, can you pick up some more onions?
P: I had a thought earlier about divine numbers not my forte rlly I only wsh I was musical and ivy, which you know I imagine a crown for you.
"I'm sorry, Ay. How visceral! Who is - "
The refrigerator door opens, and then a cabinet. Another sound, something falling; breaking.
Elaine, and her voice is the flicker of white-lightning: "Aidan."
"It was ugly. I'm sorry, Elaine. I'll buy you a new one."
"It's Nicholas's, and you needn't concern yourself. I'll fix it."
"Oh." Aidan's Unenthusiastic tone of voice can only be rivaled by the enthusiasm Nick probably feels at the idea of engaging with his girlfriend's little brother again.
Another text. Nick, you might want to stay out for a little bit.
"Is that who you've been texting this whole time?"
"Mm… yes, just letting him know you're here."
"Why? He making you ask permission to have your family over in your own fucking apartment that you had first?"
There's a measured beat. And then, "Of course not."
Aidan's voice sounds louder to Nick now; he's coming closer to the stairs which spiral up into the tower and the library. He doesn't come up, though; he loiters on the threshold. "Heh. You know what, okay. I bet he's too much of a delicate flower. He looks like he's going to burst into Disney Princess tears every time I fucking look at him."
Whatever Pen says is muted by the tinny version of Who Let The Dogs Out which starts playing from Aidan's cellphone.
Nick
The door opens, and the door slams shut: Nick startles, draws himself up in his chair as he is snapped out of reverie. He'd been staring out the window after a bird, after a leaf drifting in the fall winds, waiting for rain and perhaps thinking about venturing over the widow's walk to finish his reading. His stomach is full of tea and sloshes at the sudden movement; he has left himself wishing he hadn't drunk it down so quickly.
His phone vibrates against his thigh and Nick doesn't even have to look at it, see, because he can already hear the two familiar voices downstairs. He knows that Aidan is here.
Nick presses his palms to his eyes and sucks in a breath. He is preparing himself to go downstairs despite his distinct lack of enthusiasm at seeing his girlfriend's brother again when -
and -
crash. shatter. Disney Princess tears.
Nick has risen from his chair, and though he is pacing back and forth see his footsteps are soundless and so it might as well be as if he isn't really here at all. He had thought about descending the staircase: he doesn't. He is too angry, and whatever he says will be angry, and he absolutely cannot lose his temper with Aidan in front of Pen. Or at all.
He thinks about just going to the widow's walk after all to let them finish their conversation, but his feet won't carry him there, for whatever reason.
Elaine
On the tail end of the ring tone and whatever it is she said, there's this brief up-swing of sound - what?
"Like that, huh?" Aidan says. Nick can hear the flash of a grin in the young man's voice. There's a certain similar dazzle to the two siblings, something which goes a little deeper than skin. "I've got more." Pause, then almost hastily: "Look. I'm just saying, why would you hook up with some sneaky emotional little shit head who looks like he doesn't know how to grip himself to piss in a straight line like he's fucking afraid of his own shadow, I'm pretty sure I actually saw him jump once when he moved his hand and his shadow fucking god also moved, so why would you hook up with him when you could get with anybody."
There's a muted thump; Pen's voice is louder and weary. "I don't know." Beat.
Aidan: "OKAY, SHIT, ELAINE, NOW WE'RE GETTING - "
Pen's voice seems less loud; less directed toward the tower; less as though she were sitting on the lowest step, flopped out and letting her head tip back, as she sometimes does, because she is dramatic. Still: it is assured enough to cut into Aidan's enthusiastic approbation.
"Who was calling? Do you need to take that?"
Nick
Things have been a little uneasy between them recently, remember: growing pains happen with all couples, and the fights they've had (or haven't had, in the case of the one that hung over them in Arizona) may strengthen them in the long term but in the meantime, growth is uncomfortable. Growth is painful.
And for Nicholas, it has left him with a seed of uncertainty there in the pit of his stomach, waiting to flower. It does that now, opens up inside him and threatens to burst out his mouth, through his fingertips, out of his eyes.
His restraint as he closes his book is very intentional, because the last thing he wants is to talk to Aidan right now; he shuts it, stands there a moment with his fingertips on the cover and then spins so that he can retreat up to the widow's walk. He might have left, but he cannot; for the time being he is trapped in the house.
November is warm sometimes but today is not one of those days; it has been cloudy and overcast and so there's a bite in the air, especially out on the walk, as he makes the few strides over to the doorway. It slams in the wind and because he threw it open perhaps harder than he intended, and then bangs shut.
He sits and he stares out the window and does not know what else to do other than seethe: and so.
Elaine
The widow's walk gives Nicholas a view of other roof tops, of spare trees, of winter-limned (this is going to be a bad winter) streets. November, but already there's frost some nights. Maybe later this night. Right now the cold just makes everything clear, including the cold stars between the clouds: there are less and less stars. Atmosphere. The moonlight is a smear of silver polish.
The widow's walk also blessedly removes Nick from hearing anything else the Siddals say to one another about him.
Pen and Aidan both hear the door bang shut from up above. Pen casts a startled look up the stairs, tipping her head back; Aidan makes a disparaging remark about Nick's ability to fix things, and then apologizes for the sexism. He is quick to blame Jeff for it.
Minutes pass, and then the door opens, and the window, and the way to the widow's walk. Elaine says, questingly: "Nicholas?"
Nick
Nick has still not checked his phone. Where it might ordinarily have occurred to him to do so, the vibrations he felt in his pocket while the two were talking downstairs were a fleeting detail. He has no thoughts now for anything but the ones that rear up at him again and again no matter how many times he counters them.
Minutes pass. The door opens. Nick's back is to the door, and there is moonlight in his hair. His hands are twisted together in his lap.
"What?"
His voice is a polished stone, smooth and hard and waiting in hand to be cast. A moment later and there is a flutter of his hand as he waves her away. "Don't let me interrupt time with your brother. It sounded like a productive conversation."
Elaine
His back is to the door and to her. He doesn't turn around. Orpheus, my heart is yours. The cold street is cold. Another scatter of brown leaves go skittering, go sweeping across the street. They eddy, they fall apart. The waltz is not a fairy waltz, to last forever; it is disordered. Pen pads over to Nick and, floompf, wraps her arms around him and rests her chin on his shoulder.
As she floompfs, which is to say drapes over Nicholas, languorous as any half-mad woman carved out of a poem - although she is less fashionably turned out than usual, having borrowed one of Nick's old man sweaters, anyway, as she drapes, she says, "I don't know why it did. Nick, it's as cold as the ring around the moon. Have you been up here hiding? He's leaving now; you can come back inside."
Nick
There is a moment where Nick's eyes flutter shut as Pen comes and drapes herself over him. She'll find his muscles rigid and unyielding beneath her, bereft of their usual warmth, though: it is quite cold up here on the widow's walk and he did not bring his coat with him.
"I haven't been hiding," he says, and whatever illusion his voice had of composure, of smoothness, threatens to slip: beneath it there are dark waves, treacherous stone. He pulls back, not entirely away from her, but now he can look her in the eye and regard her: she can see the whites of his, there at the edges. "But if you were going to talk about me, you could have had the courtesy to fucking leave."
His voice is still carefully measured: it too is a lie. "I could hear everything you both said."
Elaine
Her arms are wrapped around, her hands clasp before, and her chin - when he begins to shift - moves to the edge of his shoulder. Her head is canted at an angle, the better for them to be eye to eye. Her hold had loosened when he'd pulled away; she lifts her chin from his shoulder entirely when it's clear he wants to regard her.
Her brows had pulled together at the emphasis when he echoes 'hiding,' but her brow smooths just after: see, Pen's eyes widen (gray as November or a sea-grave or lake-light) and stay wide, she is that surprised at his tone of voice and feels that unhappy sharp-pang up through her ribs that he'd hear what Aidan said about him. Also: another word, to act as a snag; both.
"I didn't know you were here."
"And I didn't mean hiding like... well, I just didn't think you two... I'm sorry whatever you heard has roiled up your spirit."
Nick
"So if you had known I was here, you would have saved it for when I wasn't?"
Beat. His jaw works for a split second, and so do the muscles of his throat; it's his tongue moving, wanting to give voice to words on the tip of it though his lips remain stubbornly shut. Maybe that's for the better.
Nick stands up, surges to his feet, and paces: still soundlessly. There is a flush around his collar even though he has been up here a while, and he must be cold. "Do you agree with what he said? Because it sure sounded like it. But fine. I'm not going to - I don't need to cry to you about it. He said that shit and you didn't even say anything other than I don't know."
His words are rapid; even if she wanted to speak she wouldn't find the space to do so. "If you're tired of - why didn't you just say something to me?"
Elaine
[you would have saved it for when I]
"Of course that's not what I meant."
[wasn't?] Beat.
Her arms begin to tighten when Nick surges to his feet, and paces. He leaves her arms to do it; Elaine doesn't try to hold him; she [he paces once] has her hands up, swivels so her hips find the widow's walk rail [he paces again], almost she folds her arms, but instead her hands drift down to the rail. First one hand hits; then the other; her fingers curl with great deliberation, and look, [he paces a third time] her head is canted (lowered) at an angle, and if her eyes are still wide (concerned and astonished) she is quick to adapt or one to be whipped-up by the flow and carried by a current.
[Do you agree with -- ] "Agree with what?"
[--what he said? Because it sure]
And on, and on. Pen covers her mouth with one hand [don't need to cry to you] and her eyes glitter and she drags the hand down over her throat and it stays at her breastbone and she pales [didn't even say anything but I don't] and her eyes get even bigger; they dominate. The moon would drown.
[Why didn't you just]
Pen: flings both arms out, palms up. A loose, careless gesture; borderless, though it is coupled by her shoulders rising up. "Tired of what?"
[say something to me?]
"Hell! About what? If I'm tired of - I mean, I can think of a thing or two I'm really tired of right now, but I don't know why you're - I don't … Agree with him about what? Nicholas, I'm so sorry you thought I didn't defend you properly, I just..."
Nick
When Pen's eyes widen far enough that the glittering of them can be seen clearly, when it can be taken in with a sweep of his gaze in her direction, when they reflect back the moon and stars, Nick makes the mistake of looking twice. His tongue turns to a block of wood, and sits there heavily in his mouth.
While she speaks he just stares back at her, and it would be hard to give a word to his expression other than that it is miserable. It is too full, it is overflowing; and he blinks once or twice and sucks in a breath to fortify himself. "I don't need you to defend me," he says, and if he is arguing irrationally, purely out of reflex, well.
"Don't - I know you know what he said. All that - he calls me delicate and fine, I don't fucking care, I don't have to explain myself to your brother, he calls me a cocksucker and - look, that doesn't, it shouldn't matter because that's not - " He stops: strangles. "I don't care about that. I'm pissed because he's a dick, but I don't care. I just - he asks why you're with me and you say I don't know? What am I supposed to think about that?"
Elaine
[I shall not be crying.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Elaine
Pen is distraught; stricken.
"I do - " Pen bites her tongue; doesn't finish that phrase.
Ardent: "Maybe you're supposed to think that I don't always want to explain my feelings to my little brother; especially when he already knows them; when he has already heard - ; I don't owe Aidan an answer. Maybe you should have thought - well no you shouldn't have, you don't know him very well. Maybe if you're going to listen into other peoples' conversations you're supposed to listen carefully. Maybe you should have thought," she snaps her fingers, "shucks, hey, this alleged description doesn't really match; then wonder why I would ever engage with it as if it were true. Maybe you're supposed to think it's nobody's business except ours why we - "
Her voice falters; it doesn't break. Hitches; a caesura. It is difficult not to cry, but she is Elaine Siddal, Penelope Mercury Mars, and she does not want to cry; she chooses not to cry; she does not cry. She doesn't want to be a Disney Princess, either. She already feels far more wrong-footed than she likes; she does not know what to say, and it is uncomfortable: this sense of giving injury.
"I'm not hooking up with the man Aidan described. Ash and oak. Maybe you're supposed to - Christ, don't you know why I'm with you? Do I not show you enough?"
Nick
Mere seconds ago it would have been a struggle to imagine Nick's expression more miserable than it was then: but yes, as it turns out, it could get worse. He is watching Pen, listening to her voice falter and watching the deep pond-shimmer in her eyes. The flush at his collar is spreading, deep bloody red, up his throat and to the underside of his chin, and when it reaches his face it is there all at once, darkening his cheeks as though they've been struck.
He, too, is feeling wrong-footed; moreover, he knows he is wrong-footed. Whatever grips him is the part of him convinced, however foolish he knows it is, that strength means hiding his weaknesses. "I didn't mean to listen in," he says before he can stop himself. "I wouldn't have, if I had been able to leave the apartment."
His eyes flick away from her and toward the floorboards, dusty with blown and crumpled leaves from autumns past and beyond counting. "You show me. I just - "
The tightness in his throat and chest stops his breath: he has to fight to get sound out. It's paradoxical, this, since they are so tight because it is how he is keeping himself from screaming, from acting out, from things that he knows (believes?) would be unacceptable. When the words come, they are ragged. "If you're going to leave me, just do it. Don't talk to your brother about it where I can hear you. Christ."
Elaine
His eyes flick away and toward the floorboards, and perhaps that is a good thing. Because Elaine rolls her eyes, and her head drops back again and she casts her gaze up toward the weather-beaten eaves, and then out at the clouds. There's only one star, and the clouds sweep across it so she's not even certain the star is really there.
The next thing Nick says doesn't make her want to snap at him (self control) and roll her eyes (only so much self control). The next thing Nick says -- first have a picture: Her hands have come together again, fallen out of that loose open-armed expression of helpless what-the-Hell, and she has them folded at her collar bone, then at her neck, and she stills and stares, mouth slack expression unnamable, and then he tells her to just do it, etcetera, and Pen looks like she wants to shake him. This sharp, savage look; something lightning-laced, something that could burn for 199 miles across the heavens - and just like the flicker of lightning would be on a night like this if it did try to arc across the heavens, it's quickly subsumed by the darkness around it.
"I wasn't talking about leaving you! I didn't know - I'm s-sorry, you were, that you. heard. nofuckthat's - don't you dare take that as I don't mean it to be taken, but why don't you believe me? I'm sorry he says things like that, in that venomous, and I should have … but I, you could too have left the apartment. You just had to walk by us. Hell! What do you want me to do? I don't believe I do show you. What do you want me to fucking do?"
Nick
He is looking at her again, in enough time to have missed the lightning; perhaps this too is for the best. Or perhaps not: a sort of paralysis of the throat and tongue seems to have come over him like a wave. He flexes his hands a few times, and if she were to look she could see the bone clearly defined for a half a heartbeat, the bones and tendons in his forearms moving like piano wire.
"I don't know," he finally says. "I feel - I'm an asshole. I know you didn't - you weren't the one who said those things."
The fingers of one hand finally stop flexing and he rubs his palm along the back of his neck, twisting his head toward the window. The flush has reached his ears, his forehead, the dark roots of his hair. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't - I shouldn't have let what he said upset me so much. As much as it did. It's not your fault."
Elaine
[I'm still in control.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
Elaine
For an instant Pen's eyelashes flutter; she doesn't quite blink. Her pupils are huge; it is the dark, and the storm; she is self-collected and self-possessed even with wild energy evident in her frame; ardent is not an easy thing though to be ardent is as easy for Pen, and as inevitable, as to burn is for a wick given some (life) spark. When Nick looks out the window, Pen crosses the walk and flings her arms around him Nick again. The choose-your-own-adventure follow-up is:
(page 7) she kisses his temple if he keeps his head turned, if he won't look at her, and rests her forehead against his skull and speaks in his ear; (continue on page--)
(page 8) or she covers his mouth with hers and kisses him deeply, her brow furrowed, and she leaves off speaking for now in order to concentrate on this: how angry she is; how much she wants him to know that she loves him; how much she wants him to feel it: fucking feel it you asshole!;
(continue on the next page!)
or (page 11) Nick keeps her at arm's length (see Nick's version of this choose your own adventure for how! 9.99 at appropriate outlets) and she reaches out for his hand and speaks.
(continue on page)
Nick
[I'm cool. It's cool.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Nick
See: suspension. Nicholas keeps his head turned, if only because he does not know how to react or rather cannot decide on which feeling to act on. He wants her, see, and he wants her right now so badly it is blinding, and he also wants her to be angry at him, and he wants a more advanced understanding of Time so that he can go back and undo the past forty-five minutes of his life.
He also wants to burrow beneath blankets and shut the world out, as he might once have done a long time ago. Those parts of us are never gone.
So, he keeps his head turned and he won't look at her and he doesn't move, because she is giving him exactly what he wants and also nothing of what he wants or thinks he wants. She speaks in his ear.
Elaine
"No Nicholas you should, I mean you shouldn't have, you should though because, well because, I hate that you think I agree with Aidan about you I don't agree with Aidan I hate that you think I'd leave you I'm an asshole, I'm, I'm not fucking good at, it is my fault I should have told Aidan to shut up in our house, I'm so s-sorry, Crow, but," a quick sharp breath; she is angry at him as much as she is heart-broken and sad and feeling guilty as if she'd done wrong, "it's your fault too for, why don't you believe me it's like sometimes you want me around but you don't want around to be around or, but you can be around, and you want me to do whatever there is, just and it's because you think that - " and Pen, she kisses his cheekbone; she kisses his ear " - I don't care for you, that I can't or I won't and I just want you to fuckingknow."
Nick
She kisses his cheekbone, and his ear. She is near enough that she can hear how short and shallow his breaths are, can hear them crackle with moisture. "I always want you around," he says. "I don't - I don't want you to ever agree with him. I don't want you to see me like he sees me. I'm just - I'm afraid that - "
He sniffs, quick. It could go unnoticed. "This is my problem. It's not - it's not something you have to - " He loops an arm around her, finally, and it does not take long to tighten and hold her there. "You didn't do anything wrong."
Elaine
want you to see me like he sees you. I'm just - I'm afraid that -
"He doesn't even see you," Pen, she is leaning hard - nearly painfully so - into Nicholas, and her brow creases, and she (This is my problem) kisses the side of his neck, (not something you have) and his jaw. When he loops an arm around her, finally, she exhales sudden enough it sounds like a gasp.
"But it's the around, Nick, it's the around you don't, like with your sister, you didn't want me to talk to her you didn't, and you thought I was going to, that she'd change my, and I'm just sorry, I'm sorry you I don't feel for you so strong what do you think Aidan said that could even be, I don't want you to tell me I didn't do anything wrong and then be miserable because you feel like your f-feelings aren't, or are wrong, or- " Here: restrained violence (of emotion, naturally) in her tone; fierce, fierce, fierce; Tempest-fierce. " - what do you think I'm going to see you as!"
Nick
The pressure of her body against his is a welcome one, even if her shoulder is bumping against his collarbone; right now he wants that weight against him, he wants to be weighed down so he won't drift away. He can hear her exhale, and he can feel it too against his skin, and it prompts him to put the second arm around her.
"It wasn't that I didn't want you to talk to her," he says. "I just didn't want her to - I didn't want, I didn't want all of that to make you think it was just too much. That I was...more trouble than I'm worth." Whatever misery was in his expression before is leaking into his voice, now. For a moment when she asks him what he thinks she will see him as, he is silent: perhaps he hopes the question is rhetorical.
"I don't - I don't want you to see me as weak, or as a coward, or as a fucking burden. I want to deserve you," he says, and she can feel his muscles twitch as though he will pull back; he sustains a conscious effort, perhaps, to not do so. "I don't want you to think that I - that I just hurt people, that I'm some false messiah who - I'm not what people think I am, they trust me and then I hurt them because I can't hold my shit together. I don't want you to see me that way."
Elaine
[Such control. So good at it.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Elaine
Pen: she flung her arms around Nick. Nick: has - tentatively; hesitatingly - put one arm around her. And then the other. But Pen: she isn't still. She is yearning. Her body is yearning. Her voice is yearning. Her eyes, did he look at them, is yearning; yearning here is a synonym for imploring, for wanting. She isn't still: first her arms are tight; are fast; then her hand is pulling on his shirt; sliding around his waist; slipping up to find his shoulder blades; her other hand is at his throat; no, at his neck; the back of his neck; his shoulder; his arms. When he does put both arms around her, she becomes heavier; lets herself sag even more entirely; languish completely. If he did step back, she'd fall - well. She'd probably catch herself, but she'd have to catch herself.
"I don't," she says, still fierce, "I wouldn't. Aidan doesn't see you that way either. Stop it stop it stop it, maybe I want to deserve you, I hate it when you say that like this, I hate it you're worth any trouble anytrouble at all."
Nick
It would be easy for a person to look at the line of Nick's body, how it is tensed, to examine how hesitant he was in putting his arms around her and take from that the impression that he doesn't want, or yearn. His fingertips curl into the small of her back, and he turns his face first toward her and then bumps his forehead against hers. His eyes are closed.
There is a soft snort, humor (the sardonic kind: he is capable of it) when she says that she doesn't think Aidan sees him that way. "It only matters to me what you think," he says. "Not Aidan. I..." He opens his eyes, pulls back enough that he can look into hers. "I know this is - I know it's not good, Pen. It's why I don't talk about it."
Elaine
Pen searches Nick's face when he finally turns it to her. One might think she'd immediately kiss him, as she might have moments earlier if he hadn't turned his head away; she does not. She searches; searching becomes tracing the curve of his eyelashes over his cheeks, though their quarters are so close it is almost a strain to do so.
It only matters to me what you think; she touches her nose to his cheek, nuzzles up; hard. When he pulls back, look, she's just looking at him with such strength of sentiment, with such a care, and her open expression is forlorn and intent with an undercurrent (besotted, angry).
"Don't you, I mean aren't you supposed to talk about the not good stuff? You can, you can rage. And you... I mean, Nicholas, you aren't... Fuck."
Pen closes her eyes.
Nick
It is cold up here, and they have been standing up here for a while, and nevertheless Nick is still too warm: there is still a damp heat around the collar of his sweater from sweat, his cheek is still burning when she presses her nose against it. One might think Pen would immediately kiss him, and Nick: after he pulls back and sees her expression, after she speaks and closes her eyes, he beats her to it. It's helpless, magnetic, and over too soon.
"It doesn't make me feel better to talk about it. It just makes the people around me worry," he says, once he has pulled back again. "I don't...I don't like feeling this way. I know you don't like hearing it. I just want to be better so I don't put the people around me through it along with me."
Elaine
Her eyes open when Nick covers her mouth with his own. They close again as she pulls him into her, one hand in his hair, the other significantly lower but near enough his waist for folk music. Pen doesn't want to stop kissing him, so when he pulls back to speak she is breathless and shivery. She meets his eyes, though, smooths both hands up and over his chest. Twists his shirt in one hand. Her chin firms, don't cry, for a flicker; the flicker passes, and she drops her head and leans forward (falls; and falls) again. "It just sucks knowing that I can't help you. I like - like is a strong word, perhaps; need? - I like being pushed, no let's go with need, I need to be pushed about things I'd rather not talk about when they're there and relevant. Because keeping things silent from - well from you, other people I care for, it only depresses me; makes me feel like a half-person; the other half of me is dissolving like foam on the sand. Are you still mad at me? Do you want, did you want, to leave?"
Nick
"You do help me," he says. "Every time you - the longer I'm with you, the more it feels ridiculous to think things like that. I...I think I need to be pushed to talk about things too. I just...I hate thinking that talking about it will push you away, or - " His brow furrows as he looks down at her, at the part in her hair at the top of her head. "I never wanted to leave. It was never - I thought you might, I guess I heard wrong, I thought maybe you were thinking about it and I feel like we've fought a lot recently and I thought - I just wanted it over with, if it was going to happen. That's all."
Elaine
[So Hermetic, so self-possessed.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Elaine
He guesses he heard wrong. Pen's breath hitches. He just wanted it over with. Pen's breath stops. That's all.
Pen is quiet for a spell. She does not raise her head. She does open her eyes, and stares at her hands on Nick's chest, the folds of his shirt, the sharpness of her knuckles, their rings, the texture of his sweater (the one she's wearing) against everything, the lumpy perl-stitches and knit-stitches, once she is light-headed she swallows, breathes again.
Nick
Pen is quiet; she is holding her breath though it takes him a moment to realize that this might be intentional. Pen is passionate, and so he could be forgiven perhaps for at first thinking that it was emotional, that this was all.
"Pen?" His voice is tentative, now. "Did I - " Beat. He swallows; the muscles in his throat work. "I don't, I can't see myself ever wanting to leave. I thought you should know that."
Elaine
"What can you see then? Are you still mad at me?" Pen looks up; her voice is soft; it barely crests the sound of November's winds, unleashed and hungry through the streets of their New England town. The leaves, the leaves. The shadows, too, and a scattering of droplets as rain begins to come down; handfuls, thrown-pearls, almost nothing to notice at all; rain that wants to be snow, but isn't quite; slush, sleet. Before he answers: she kisses him hard and deep; it is one of those nights: where her passion wicks bright and demanding; she'd like to keep kissing him. She'd like (of course she wouldn't, but she would) to keep him from answering her; maybe he'll think it was a rhetorical question. And that will make her angry; and she'll kiss him with more fervor, but it will have a copper-dark undercurrent of anger. Maybe it isn't cold at all: the wind that whisks through the widow's walk and, intent on joining their play, rakes their hair and whips through their clothes.
Nick
Her second question has him shaking his head just before she kisses him. Wind cuts through the wooden slats that frame the widow's walk and slices through the perl knit of his sweater, and it has the bite of winter in it; he has to catch his breath. He does not answer her, though whether or not he thinks the question is rhetorical: this is left unsaid. But he at least can match her fervor.
His mouth has found its way to her jaw by the time he glances up and out into the sleet that is scattering across the rooftop like a handful of stars. "Do you want to go back in?"
Elaine
They talk a lot. Now; in the past; in the future, too. They talk about things they'd rather not talk about and they talk about silly things and they talk about important things. They talk about philosophy and games and music and food. They talk and they talk and they're good at it. They're good at falling into a rhythm, they're good at complementing one another's thoughts at bouncing ideas at spinning plans, they're good at disagreement and agreement, they're good at idealistic talk, at learned talk, at fair-minded talk, at dirty talk. They're good at talking.
He wants to know if she wants to go back in. Where his mouth has gone her skin feels flushed, candescent. And she has pulled the neckline of his t-shirt awry, and it doesn't want to loose its new shape - the long oval, a yearning collar. He wants to know - and Pen does not look at the sleet or the dark sky; Pen stares at Nick's profile, and she is angry that he doesn't answer, and she wants him more than she wants the answer, and the way she looks at him: drop a stone; it would be swallowed; it would never be seen again.
This isn't going to be a moment for talk. Magnetism: fisher, siren, lure; Pen catches and keeps his gaze again. The body has its own language; she uses that. She wants to know what he wants. She wants -
They don't stay out in the cold and the sleet.
And they do not speak; and the wind shakes the house.
