They said their farewells to Lena at the door, and at the bottom of the stairwell Sid offered Jim a ride if he'd like. There's room enough for them all in the cab of her truck, mostly. It's a little close, the three of them sitting all in a row, Sid behind the wheel. If it wasn't them, Jim and Sera, Sid would have the window rolled all the way down, the better to get air in her face and keep her from losing her mind in the small cramped space. But it is them, so she's comfortable.
The truck's too old and Sid's too broke to afford a nice stereo system. Her truck has a radio with the old tuner dials, and a tape deck. For, like. Cassettes. She doesn't have one in there, though, so they're stuck with what passes for Denver's alternative station unless one of the others decides to change it up. Other than that, the old vehicle is in pretty good shape. At least the air conditioning works (YES JOEY STOP ASKING ME).
JimJim had been inside a truck with Serafine and another before.
It had been Pandejo's, and his eyes had been similarly plastered out the windows as they are now, taking in the outside world through the lens of a window, hand out feeling the cool breeze from the AC, and arm resting on the sill of the window.
His other hand picks at an open sandwich laid out and autopsied on its wrapper, and he pulls strands of meat and cheese form it, plopping them into his mouth as they drive into the night.
"I like Lena. I hope she'll feel more comfortable dropping by the chantry," he says when his mouth idles between chewing and swallowing.
SerafíneOutside, in the warm dark night, they pile into Sid's truck. Sid, Sera, Jim. Sera's pretty willing to crowd into the middle whether it is a bench seat or a console, since that seems to be where a girl like her is supposed to go. She hasn't touched any of Jim's sandwiches, no matter how good they smell, and still has that lidded cup with her no-more-than-half consumed protein drink in hand.
"Dude," when she sees the empty cassette deck, " - there's this place on Broadway where you can get old cassettes for fifty cents each. Sometimes you can find cool shit. Like the Pixies or Echo and the Bunnymen. Remind me and I'll pick you up a few - "
Otherwise, Sera's quiet for the first couple of blocks, letting the city pass by the dark windows, not discussing their plans for the next few days - nothing about which they had spoken in Lena's apartment. What more needed to be said?
But there's something about the way Sera's attention lingers on Sid's profile; the pale cheek, the milk-white skin, the sweep of dark red hair against her jaw. Not precisely her profile, though, something firmer beneath that view that has her both thoughtful and a little bit disconnected.
The faint lift of her chin when Jim says that he likes Lena. "You staying out there? At the chantry?" Sera's voice is low; mostly she's ignoring the protein drink. " - or do you still have that hotel room?"
Then she cuts another glance back to Sid, superimposed over their pale reflections in the dark driver's side window beyond. "You ever been to Connecticut?" Back to Jim, " - or, like, England?"
As if she were just making conversation.
Serafíne(Also for Sid: Perception + Awareness-as-Empathy vis-a-vis the place names. )
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 2 )
Sid[uh, no! ¬_¬]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
SidShe's appreciative, of both the suggestion of a place to get cassettes and of the offer to have some gotten for her. It's been so long since Sid was able to listen to anything other than the latest chart topper on endless loop occasionally interrupted by commercials or a DJ's over exuberant voice.
Then her eyes are on the road, watching for the cars ahead, the traffic, the lights. Occasionally she, noticing she's being studied, glances sidelong over at Sera, sitting in the middle of the bench.
"She's nice," she offers when Jim says he likes Lena. The compliment is warm, though her voice is quiet in the close quarters of the cab. And then, when Sera asks Jim about him staying at the chantry, "I thought you had a place in Lincoln." It's not a question. She's slept on its floor, slept seated against a wall across the room from a sleeping consor while Jim meditated in the darkness.
Sid is not a liar in general. She is not prone to untruths or even half-truths. She's honest about most things, until the conversation cuts too close. And Sera's casual question? It cuts close.
"No," says Sid, her eyes fixed on the brake lights in front of her, and she's careful to remember to keep herself relaxed, to tilt her head a little to the side as though she's studying the bumper. Her left arm shifts to rest the elbow against the window as the fingers slide into her hair. "Have you?"
Jim"I hustled a good rate," obviously not in Lincoln any more, shaking his head. "Help the guy's kids with their homework now and then. Fix the security cameras. Help out cleaning the rooms. Somebody picked up the month after we were there. And it's better than that apartment I was in," trailing on in a feigned attempt at sounding sagely...
"Off the grid and sometimes that's the safest place to be. Good to unplug. People there are nice enough. Kind of have to be when you all share walls," he answers, more to Sid now that she's said she thought she knew where he lived. Almost an apology, because Jim isn't one for secrets either. Even omissions. His cooled hand comes up from the AC to press itself against his forehead, and it's almost like he can feel condensation forming on his pores. It's a little thing that makes him smile.
"Most of the time I'm at the chantry. Been reading up on things," and, like he's just thought of it, he looks over at the two of them, finally peeling his eyes off the outside world. "You two oughta join me one of these nights. Grab a few books. 'We're having class outside today'-style. There's something I miss about college," smiling again, and then she asks her questions about Connecticut and England.
"Nope and nope," he says, but chimes in a moment later, "I dated an Scottish chick this one time. She threw a kitchen knife at me," he says with a shrug, a bit of shame at the person he'd been that had made that happen, and his eyes go back out.
[ Sid you lying? Don't worry Jim'll keep your secrets. Perception + Empathy. ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Serafíne"Books. You people and fucking books," the brief and sudden flare of Sera's grin in their peripheral vision, something like laughter in her voice beneath. "Christ. That chick Grace I was telling you about? She's a fucking writer. I don't really read.
"'Cept for poetry. I've always liked poetry." Wry here; and some native brashness to cover whatever chagrin she might feel over her own - well, call it what it is: ignorance. "In XANADU did Kubla Khan /A stately pleasure dome decree: / Where Alph, the sacred river, ran / Through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea." The recitation is quiet and sure and intense, and something about the cadence and rhythm suggests that Sera could recite a good deal more of the piece.
"Sister Bernadette had a fucking thing for Coleridge. Sister Simon Peter was more into Keats." A narrow little shrug. "Only thing I was ever good at, so you're gonna have to promise me that class won't involve rulers broken over knuckles or endless decades of the rosary as punishment for a wandering attention and maybe I'll join."
Then, England. Sera lifts her chin, her shoulders twisting into another little shrug.
"The day I turned eighteen, I stole my passport and a fuckload of benzodiazepines, right?"
There's no headrest in the middle seat, but somehow Sera still gives the impression of lolling there, in the middle of the truck. Something about the way her blond hair spreads over her shoulders, more the left than the right, of course. When Jim glances back at the two of them, he has a view of her profile, sharp, the shaved fringe of her hair, the black triangle tattooed behind her right ear.
"Sold them to these chicks. Were they on the beach? I think they were. Some other people too, 'til I had enough for a plane ticket to London." A little bit far away, there. Doesn't even remember the plane touching down.
"Anyway, you know those schools they have there. Oxford and Cambridge. They have these boat races, right? Every year at like, Easter, on the Thames. Everybody comes out and watches, all this pageantry. People ride their bikes along the course to follow the boats. The skulls."
Serafíne(Perception + Awareness-as-Empathy)
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Sid[fml SHE KNOWS lie lie lie]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
SidThey come to a rest at the corner of some semi-major intersection, their wait at the red light prolonged by the passage of a group of pedestrians hoping to get from one place to another. Jim doesn't live in Lincoln anymore, well, it's a good thing Sid pointed the truck toward Cap Hill, thinking she'd drop off Sera first.
She's listening to them while she waits for the light to turn, head angled to take in the movement of Sera's face as she talks about her time in Catholic school, before she ran away. Something shifts behind Sid's dark eyes, but she looks away because oh, the traffic is moving.
And here's the thing. Sid is good at this part, she's practiced at hiding these things. She told them once that she didn't remember before her Awakening, in that hotel room where Jim is now living, and it got through, that lie. Jim knows better know, knows she remembers at least the events leading up to it, but he doesn't know how far back her memory stretches. None of them do.
Because, as has been mentioned, this deception is old hat.
Except that Sera is more attentive. Sid builds up her walls high and Sera still manages to lift herself up to peek over them, to glance down at the things that Sid is hiding. She can see the subtle tension that's shifting into Sid's posture, tightening her hand on the wheel, shifting her left leg to press her toes hard into the floor, the knee lifting.
"Oh?" she says, sounding genuinely interested to the novice sleuth. "I've heard of the schools, I think. The princes went there or something, I guess. To one of them."
Jim[ Again. ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 7, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
JimJim remains on the edge of blissfully unaware and utterly engrossed. The sad thing is it's more on Serafine's side of the conversation.
Which would only be sad to benevolent and omniscient outside observers, of which Jim is neither, so the story of Serafine's travels is only an interesting and enthralling one. One that he leans his back into the door of the old truck this time, trusting in its latch or at least the safety belt as a second precautionary measure, as he continues listening to the story.
"Like in that movie," he says. The Social Network, he means, but who knows what he really means. It's more interested, like he wants to know more. Hear more of the story. "Sounds like a trip. In more than one way. Good place for someone who likes poetry to visit too."
Serafíne"Eh," this glance back to Jim, her eyes gleaming in the interior lights. "I like the French poets better. The guys who spent their lives fucked up on absinthe, right? Like Baudelaire. Paul Verlaine. Those guys. You know, Les Fleur de Mal, right?
"My darling was naked, and knowing my heart well, / she was wearing only her sonorous jewels. Have to read them in translation though? Since I never fucking learned French."
And Sera's smiling here, and her smile is really rather sad, because there are strange and terrible layers at work right now - of ease and dis-ease, of deception and counterpoint that make her heart ache in her chest. Sid, wrapped up in her own panic, in her own long-practiced lies, with both eyes on the road may not be able to see this in her, but Jim can, now assuredly. This is no casual conversation.
Not even for Sera.
They're in Capitol Hill now. Dark and quiet residential streets, tree-lined.
"Hawksley went to Oxford, Sid." Sera's swimming gaze is back on the Orphan's profile. "He recognizes you from somewhere. He doesn't know where yet. But today, you didn't look like you were just - I don't know - gaining confidence for the first time.
"You looked like you were returning to your old skin.
"And it made me think. Made me," a brief, thoughtful sigh, remembrance, strange and almost bittersweet, " - made me remember him saying, that he remembered you from somewhere.
"I'm not trying to pry. To get you to tell me anything. It's just - " the click of her tongue against the soft palate of her mouth. " - you might want to talk to him. Let him know.
"I'm pretty sure he'd respect your wishes."
Sid[WP: are we willing to open up tonight, Sidicus?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 2, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Sid"I," she starts, but doesn't finish, the single vowel strangling off, because it's hard to break years-long habits. It was hard to tell Jim things from her past, and she left things out, snipped out sections of the fabric of the tale and stitched the hole expertly closed. Maybe. Maybe he noticed, maybe he didn't. Now she's not sure.
Her past is threatening to come crashing back all around her, and she doesn't want it. Sid doesn't want those memories. She doesn't want to be reminded of the things she can't have anymore. And yet.
She doesn't speak again until she's pulled over to the curb outside Sera's house with its unclaimed unicycle and its untended gardens.
Sid puts the car into park, and she puts her hands on the wheel, and she stares at that wheel, frowning. Remembering.
"It's not," she starts, and stops, turning her head away. "It wasn't a lack of confidence. I don't...think I'm not awesome," she says, remembering Hawksley's words out at that other cabin. Or maybe it was here. Maybe it was at the Four Seasons. She turns then, just her head, to look down a little so that she can see Sera's face. Her own is ghostly pale in the dim light of the truck's interior. "I'm scared." Her gaze lifts, up over Sera's head to look at Jim before drifting back away again.
"I'll think about it," she says, eyes slanted toward the dash, not sure if she's lying yet, not sure if she's telling the truth.
JimThere is the edge, and despite how carefully Jim has been walking it these past few days-turned-into-weeks, Serafine's words make him lose his balance. Waver. His hand comes down from his forehead, warmed again from contact to it, and sits on his lap. Gets folded into the other, but soon crawls up to wrap around his wrist, a thumb feeling at the bristled hair on the back of his arm. Along its grain and then back and forth again.
Well, it's like months ago when he'd first met Sid. Like some new skin had been shed yet again, and again it might need some time to toughen in order to bear the gaze of another. He looks to the radio, out the front window, at Serafine, but only fleetingly.
And then focuses himself again. Finds his balance. Finds that edge and walks its line.
He doesn't look away for long, not this time, because he looks back to Sid by the time she's giving her answer. Or at least he feelings, sewing them into a quilt of words with some meaning. And he's glad because his eyes are there when she looks past and at him.
She'll think about it.
He doesn't disturb her thoughts, but, when he realizes... He'd been looking elsewhere... But when he realizes they're at Serafine's place, he looks past Sid to be sure, and then back to her.
"I can stay with you. Drive with you the rest of the way. Make sure you get home... Okay?" No, not get her home okay, but asking her permission, is what that request means. "I can get back from there. I like walking at night."
Serafíne"If you want me to talk to him, Sid," this while she's nudging Jim with her elbow, when he opens the door, she'll climb over the Disciple to slide out of the truck, " - just ask him not to say anything, I will.
"I'm not gonna pry," and then she's climbing out of the car, into the warm Denver night. Quiet, steady, a little bit raw. " - just let me know."
SidJim offers to stay with her, letting her drop him off at her place instead of his. Sid's brows quirk and she looks like she might smile at the same time as she wants to frown at him, but she nods. Grateful for the offer, and granting him permission because of course.
Sid watches as Sera climbs out of the truck, over Jim if she has to in order to get outside, her gaze sliding away only briefly. She frowns then. Nods her head, but then shakes it. The corner of her mouth quirks into something that's not really a smile.
"I'll let you know. And," her chin lifts and she looks across Jim to look at Sera directly. "I want to tell you, but it's..." she trails, and shrugs.
JimJim melts back into the seat a bit for this, having already done so to allow Serafine room to climb across him with entangling themselves in one another. By now the Cultist has folded his sandwich way, dropping it into the open bag with its now-larger brothers and sisters at his feet.
Serafíne"It's okay, you don't have to tell me anything," Sera returns; she's on the sidewalk then, out on the street. Her gaze is steady, through the passenger's window as she reaches up to close the door. The briefest wreathing smile. "We all have secrets, Sid.
"Sometimes they hurt."
Then the door's shut, and Sera's crossing the street, walking up the lawn to the front porch, alone. Someone throws on the porchlight as she climbs the front steps, and the light is brief, and bright, and brilliant, then she's gone.
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