Sometime Sunday, sometime after noon (because even sober, Sera does not arise with the sun. No, instead she's like to wait to greet it personally before crawling off to bed with... whomever. Except she's not crawling off to bed with anyone right now, so.), Sid receives a text. Really, Sid receives a series of texts in succession, which begin with:
You looked gr8 last night but
I think u need more than 1 shirt that fits.
There's a lull, then:
Itinerary: Buffalo Exchange Annex, Pink's, Common Era. 1 hr?
SidThe reply is not immediate. If Sera knew where Sid was she might be able to imagine the lanky redhead curled up on a beanbag chair having to put her finger between the pages of some text found in the chantry's library in order to shift, seat groaning beneath her weight, so she could get her phone from her pocket.
Of course, Sera has no idea where Sid is when she texts her, so what she actually imagines only the Ecstatic would know.
But Sid is in the chantry's basement library when she gets the text, and she does have to put her finger between the pages so that she can get to her phone, which means she has to get to the end of the passage first. It's a few minutes of waiting before Sera gets back:
Thanks. I'm broke, though, so we can look but I can't get anything until Friday.
SerafíneSera is never broke. And no one really asks where that money comes from: for the alcohol and the drugs, for the parties and the cab fare home, for the endless supply of new fishnets or striped lace thigh-high tights or ridiculously doddering shoes or any of it.
People make assumptions: Dee and Rick assume that Dan supports her, because Dan does work, in that little not-quite-studio they have in the music room, and for people other than himself and she's up there with him sometimes, and somewhere in the chaos of her room is a wrapped leather journal where she writes notes about her dreams, the prophetic ones and the hallucinations rather than the hunger-starved ones but: they are all the same. Sometimes you don't know prophetic from nightmare until the world has reoriented itself and you've woken up in a warehouse made of ashes.
And, others assume she sells a bit. On the side, to her friends, to someone else because they've never purchased anything from her, just smoked a bowl or maybe even started a trip or, more rare still, perhaps they've done a line with her, that bright and zippered thrill racing up the spinal column.
The parishioners of the Church of the Good Pastor, those candle-lighting abuelitas, they quite simply believe she's a prostitute.
Regardless, it just doesn't come up, except when it does like this:
I got this. Got a residual check on world's-worst-song. From a detergent mfr, wtf. Pay me back Friday.
It's easier to lie in a text, but also: that her stories about residual checks for songs they've sold are true. They arrive, smaller than she pretends they are, and she and Dan cash them and life moves on. So the lies are virtually indetectable, because they are also: true.
ONE HR.
Sera doesn't know where Sid is and she may not care: or rather, she figures if Sid were busy she would just say, no, or NEXT TUESDAY, or not even respond to the text, which happens, even to a girl like Sera. Sera never takes such things personally.
The Buffalo Exchange Annex is walking distance from Sera's house, so she's there long before Sid can arrive from the country, wandering through the aisles, rattling through the racks, earbuds stuck in her ears, the long winding stem of the wires white against her her loose white tee, which she has paired (of course) with black lingerie, because of course that is the choice she makes on a daily basis:
lookatme
lookatme
lookatmesee.
SidSid is broke, but there's potential there. She works at a university now, part time but for more an hour than she's made before. It's her first real job that doesn't have her wearing a uniform or a name tag or trying to stand up against people who are having a bad day and they want to take that bad day out on the furniture that breathes in the stores. The employees, of course.
And she's doing well there. Her superiors are constantly surprised by her scientific knowledge; one professor has already been pushing her to apply for the fall semester even though Sid hasn't been working at CU Denver long enough to get the tuition waver. It'll take time to get there, just like it's taking time for her to recover from a month or so of unemployment that was preceded by years of working for a pittance in retail.
Again, she does not immediately reply to Sera's text, because she has to think about it. She's still paying back her roommate for taking care of her while she looked for a job. Owing Sera will keep her in debt for a little while longer but...
Ok. 1 hour.
It should take less than that for her to get back into the city, but she wants to finish this chapter before she reluctantly puts the book away. Though she slept in a bed last night, she hasn't officially marked the room as her territory yet, so she still has to gather up her belongings and cram them into a bag.
Fifty-six minutes after her last text to Sera, Sid is walking into the Buffalo Exchange Annex. She pauses inside the door to look around the shop and locate her friend. From her position she does not yet know that Sera is wearing lingerie as outdoor wear again, but at this point the only way Sera's wardrobe could surprise Sid is if she showed up in a cardigan and unflattering khakis. The Orphan makes her way over, and Sera can see that Sid is still not trying to hide herself away anymore. Her thick red hair has been scooped up off her neck and twisted into a clip, exposing her slender neck. Her t-shirt is pale yellow with some kind of logo of words on it and fits snugly enough to show that Sid has a fantastic rack, and jeans that ride low enough to show she has nice hips and a fine ass, as well. The figure between and beyond these points is athletic and lean. The only old and faded things she's wearing are her bag and her shoes, which were next on her list of items to replace.
She cuts her way around the racks quickly, walking a little taller than she would have a month ago, her shoulders a little more squared.
"Hey," she says when she reaches Sera.
SerafíneSera has... an armful of items already pulled from the racks, so Sid might still be in the dark as to Sera's underwear-as-outerwear decision this lovely Sunday afternoon, because those clothes she has piled into her arms are virtually covering Sera's torso. She's also shorter today than she often is, wearing her Docs rather than some version of her heels, maybe because the fasting is starting to make her a bit unsteady on the heels sometimes. Maybe she just really takes shopping seriously. Maybe she likes to mix it up sometimes.
As soon as Sid 'rounds the aisle Sera takes her in, up and down, and there's this strange sort of antipodean contrast in the look with which Sera favors Sid which is: both objectively-aware-and-approving of new clothes and new (returning) confidence; and also, perhaps surprisingly (given her own sartorial choices, all that look at me energy she exudes into the universe, and, well, her tendency to sleep around. Rather a lot, when she's not fasting): not particularly objectifying. In that, Sera would probably admire Sid's rack if Sid decided to show it off, whether society found it fantastic or otherwise.
Still, laughing -
"You look fucking fantastic!" Which she does, this great sliding grin spreading across the Cultist's mouth, wide enough to show wide teeth "Jesus Christ," marveling, really, over a transformation that seems so very sudden to Sera, because she hasn't inhabited it the way Sid has. "what the hell? Fucking amazing." - absolutely delighted.
And she doesn't mention the night before, not at all, just swings into motion, the earbuds falling out of their own accord as she jerks her head back toward the dressing room and turns on her heel. "C'mon, I've got an armload of stuff picked out for you. Dressing rooms are this way. You help me figure out what you like and we can divide and conquer.
"Maybe we should hit the Goodwill next instead of Pink," cutting a glance back over her shoulder as Sid as she walks. There's a little black clutch wrapped around Sera's torso on a silver chain. The leather is studded with crystal-eyed skulls. The piece cost almost three grand. Not quite the price of a church roof.
But close.
"I mean, if budget is a thing, right?"
SidIf Sid's shyness stemmed from some sort of ugly duckling syndrome she might duck her head, blush, try to hide her face or otherwise look uncomfortable at Sera's loud declaration of how fucking fantastic she looks. She might even go so far as to deny the woman outright or call her a liar. But Sid does no such thing because she didn't see herself in a mirror one day and suddenly say to herself Oh wow I am pretty! She's been deliberately disguising herself all this time, trying with all her might to downplay her looks, not using make up, not styling her hair, wearing large, frumpy clothing until it dissolved into tatters (though that was mostly due to a continued state of poorness).
She accepts it compliments easily, and lets Sera's astonishment roll over her. For the Ecstatic this is a transformation. For Sid, she is All Fur, Allerleirauh. She has removed her ragged furs and scrubbed the dirt from her face to reveal the shining being beneath.
The only thing that's changed about her, really, is the way that she presents and holds herself. As she trails after Sera like a taller redhaired shadow, Sid's eyes scan the shop. She is still wary and watchful, still aware of her surroundings with an almost hyperaware paranoia. When Sera cuts a glance back at her Sid's gaze snaps to her, brows lifted all Hm? Then she nods. Budget is a big thing.
Sera doesn't bring up last night for whatever reason. Sid does, though.
"Sera, I have to tell you something. It's, it's about last night."
SerafíneSera has maybe a dozen hangers - or more - wrapped up in her arms. All styles, though not so many sizes. She could guess easily the right size, look at a piece of clothing and gauge it for Sid's frame at a glance in every aspect except, potentially, length. 'Course Sera likes her dresses short-and-shorter and Sid has rarely seen Sera wear anything that did not show off her own legs.
Maybe she's one of those girls who freeze to death in the winter. So, budget's a consideration and Sera is mentally rearranging their itinerary and starting to do that thing one does with an armful of possibilities in a thrift store, straightening the garments and doing a mental count of what she has and flashing Sid a quicksilver all-at-once grin, which is curvilinear and a little bit ironic, all Goodwill-it-is and she's paused because someone else is crossing the aisle and Sid has to tell her something about last night and Sera:
says, " - oh, man. I'm so sorry for dashing out like that. Roller derby emergency, you know how it is." And: Sera is sorry for dashing out like that, so it is one of those things that is as much true and intently felt as it is a deflection.
But she changes gears, her energy banking a bit, her eyes direct and clear and inviting when she turns back to Sid. Quieter, this faint smile at the edge of her mouth.
" - what'd you need to tell me?"
SidSera deflects, and if Sid hadn't seen the look on her face before she left she might believe her. Her lips, a thin cupid's bow, firms onto a line bit she doesn't call her on it. Sid knows alllll about deflecting and keeping people from poking too close to the sensitive places of the psyche.
She nods her head as though she accepts, except, "You can talk to me. About whatever." The corner of her mouth quirks, and she says, "I can keep secrets I've got a lot of practice."
Which sombers her expression a little. "Which brings me to last night." Her voice is quiet as it usually is. "I know I haven't been very open. I...I'm trying to change that. That's why I agreed to meet Hawksley. I wanted - want to face some things that I've been running from.
"It's hard, though. I...I was ready to talk to one person and suddenly you and Justin were there and I," she stops, sucks in a breath, lets it out on a sigh. "It threw me. What I'm trying to say is...You don't have to run interference for me. Not if it's someone like Hawksley."
By now the aisle and their path is clear, bit Sid doesn't move to continue toward a fitting room. She watches Sera, a slight tension between her red brows as she waits for her response.
SerafíneThis level look from Serafíne in that moment, the faintest curve of her mobile mouth, all quick and wry.
"I appreciate that, Sid," Sera returns, acknowledgment without confession. Of the generous offer, and perhaps even her acceptance of it. But: whatever that was last night seems to have receded. The only lingering echo of it in Sera's face is the drawn fineness that is as much a byproduct of sobriety and fasting as it is anything else. "I'll keep that in mind."
Still, something serious about the way Sera responds, right down to the faint tip of her blond head.
--
And Sid's expression darkens a bit; grows more somber. There's a stitch between the redhead's brows that Sera can read as easily as anything else, and for the moment the Orphan has her full and complete attention. Partway through Sera cants her head like an animal, nods in echo or encouragement when Sid finds herself searching for words. When she's trying to find and frame the right ones to say what she wants to say.
"I'm sorry." Sera's apology is immediate and whole. "I wasn't really running interference with Hawksley? It was more Justin and me. I figured, you were there for a reason and if you'd wanted us there it would've been on more than my whim to investigate that dream I had about you two the night before.
"Did I tell you about it? You were on top of a cliff flicking like, mushy peas onto the valley below. With him. Using butterknives, actually.
"So that's why I did it. Not because I didn't trust you to talk to him, or trust him to - "
Sera pauses, shrugs. This little movement of her shoulders that makes the oversized t-shirt fall down off her left shoulder and show off the strap of her black bra. The gesture is not surrender but close to it and the wry awareness has not left her dark and steady eyes.
"And I'll try to keep that in mind, but - I'm not always gonna get it right, Sid. I've seen you in such pain, such physical pain that - " Sera pauses, flicks a glance away from Sid, around the second-hand clothing store. " - that it's hard for me not to want to protect you from that. I mean, I left you out of the loop with Leah after -
"I mean, if John Brogan had hunted you down the way he did me," a sharp and sudden pause, because that was not something she meant to say, but out it came and it will not be unsaid. So Sera forges onward, as she always seems to do. "He would've hurt you. He would've taken pleasure in it.
"He would've taken you apart.
"But fucking self-determination right? So it's hard for me too, because that instinct to protect you is pretty ingrained by now, and I'm gonna fuck it up sometimes, and it might even come across as patronizing, though I won't mean it that way.
"So have patience with me, okay? And I'll remember that you're not as fragile as you look."
SidWhen Sera says it was more herself and Justin she was getting between, Sid's head lifts a fraction and an energy builds around her features like she might say something. But her mouth never opens. She keeps her silence.
Because there was a dream of Sid and Hawksley flinging mushy peas over a cliff, to which Sid can only look confused and a little amused by the image of it that flashes in her mind. She nods, though, accepting the explanation.
Her brows come down low over her dark eyes for what comes next. Not that Sera's not always going to get it right, Sid doesn't expect her to. It's been too soon, too sudden a change, one that Sid hasn't talked to her about or explained to anyone. Maybe she thought no one would ask.
No, the change of expression, the deep worry, the flare of sympathy, it's for the subject of Leah and John Brogan. Sera tells her she's seen her in such physical pain and Sid crosses her right arm beneath her breasts to wrap the hand around her left forearm. She feels the bump of scar tissue beneath, the long fat straight line on the outside of the arm, and she knows that Sera hasn't seen her in that kind of pain before.
Sid's gaze drops to follow the curve of one of the hangers in Sera's arms before it lifts again to her face, to the features that are all the more striking and sharp from the fasting.
"I get it. I feel the same way about you and everyone else." Her eyes flit down to the tip of Sera's nose when she quietly says, "And, there will always be people who will enjoy taking us apart." She's not thinking of John Brogan or people like him. She's not even thinking about a moment from her memory, her last memory before everything changed forever. She's thinking of a tall giant in a park.
Looking up again and her head tilts slightly. Licking her lips, which then curve only a little, she says, "But you don't have to protect me from our friends. Especially..." She shakes her head and her smile becomes a little crooked. "I told a lot of people a lot of different things because I didn't want anyone to get close to me. But you stubborn bastards, you did it anyway. So I'd like to straighten things out where I can."
She gives a small shrug of her shoulders. "I'll be patient with you if you're patient with me, too. No," she interrupts herself, remembering something from last night, "I'll be patient with you. I hope you'll be patient with me, too. There are still things I can't talk about. Or that are too painful still. But I'm trying."
Serafíne"Sid," Sera begins, this mildly ironic curve to her mouth. "I could kiss you right now." It sounds like a pronouncement, official-ish, and there's both a certain irony and a certain strength that lingers in her tone. "Except then I'd drop all this shit," a rattle of the hangers and second-hand clothes in her arms, " - and the hangers'd get all tangled and we probably would spend so much time sorting them back out we'd never make it to Goodwill."
The expression in her blue eyes is: full, intent, living, and bright, like a flame kindled behind a twilit sky. She takes in a breath, Sera, all between her teeth, "You don't really have to straighten things out with me, you know. I couldn't care less about what stories you told. I fucking like stories, whether they're true or false. I mean, that's why I ask questions. That's why I talk so goddamned much.
"You don't have to confess or like, bare anything. You just have to be, you know?" And her head cants all aslant, and as drawn as she is now, the expression makes her look rather sparrow-in-winter, doesn't it? "I mean, if you want to talk about something, anything, right? I'll listen. Wanna share pain, I'll fucking share it.
"But joy, too, right? Because that's out there, sometimes tucked away into places where things are dark and darkest, still. Here and now, right? That's where we are.
"All I ask is that if I fuck up, push in the wrong damn place, you don't shut down on me. Or, if you do, you find a way to come back later and let me know. 'Kay?
"Now, to seal the deal, why don't you tell me something. Some memory that you love - "
- and the aisle is clear, and unless Sid stops her Sera will start back toward the fitting rooms, throwing back over her shoulder.
" - I mean, I don't care if it involves frog pencils. Just: something."
SidThere is a moment, a second, a fraction of a second after Sera's declaration that Sid looks pleased. Warmed. And something else, too, but it flickers away too fast because then she's sort of almost smiling again.
"I can take some of those," is all she says, hands reaching out for a portion of the assorted clothing. "Or all of them." Since she'll be the one trying them on, after all.
Sera says she just has to be, and for a second Sid thinks there's supposed to be more than that. Be open, be honest, be crazy, be something. But no, Sera means the thing that caused the first crack in Sid's armor. People letting her be. Not pushing her, not pumping her for information, not trying to pry. Her smile widens a little further. It brightens her face a little more, making it harder for those glasses to disguise her natural beauty.
Like they ever really could.
Sera offers to share in her pain and in her joy. Sid nods, of course she wants that. She'd offered it, too, hadn't she? Wait, did she?
"I'll try," to not shutting down, and, "And you know sharing goes both ways." There, now she's offered.
She follows after Sera, maybe with her arms full of clothes, maybe with only a few. Then Sera throws a look her way and Sid's attention snaps back to her. "Skateboarding. You know, Jake said he used to sell skateboards, I was thinking of asking him for a recommendation for one when I could afford it."
SerafíneSera has indeed more-or-less dumped the entirely of her armload of clothing into Sid's arms, somewhere between the racks and rows of gently used and vintage pieces and the no-doubt ever-so-hip fitting rooms. So now instead of an armload of clothes Sera has her arms free to shop even more though mostly she's pretty content to lead the way, sweep them past whatever employee is there and expecting to count their items with a bit of Sera-magic, which involves no real magic at all, just the sort of sleight of hand common to bright-and-charming people everywhere.
"'Course," is Sera's flash-fire response to Sid's offer that sharing goes both ways and it is pretty much entirely sincere. There's a certain living light in Sera's eyes even now, with all that banked hunger inside her, and it sparks and brightens and lingers but doesn't go out. A certain way her gaze hangs on Sid, over her shoulder as they walk. Whatever dark things slide around inside her are just not there when she doesn't think about them. That moment last night is already a fever dream."Seriously, Sid. I'm pretty A-okay. Or will be once this fucking juice fast is done for fuck's sake."
The fitting rooms. Oh, Sera sweeps open the curtains with a flourish. Picks the largest one for Sid and breezes in, piling the clothes from Sid's arms to the hangers, talking all the while: "Skateboarding? No fucking way."
Because she does not believe this, Sera. Is all incredulous. Then, "You know, there's probably a skateboard back at the house. Come over next week and we'll plunder the garage."
Even if there wasn't before, there will be by the time Sid comes to plunder the garage, see. Just like an anonymous donation shows up when the roof at Pan's church starts to leak. Just like -
- a wink, and Sera's slipping out of the curtain. There's a reproduction Queen Anne chair by the three-way mirror that Sera commandeers for herself as she leaves Sid to the changing room and the clothes with an, "Alright. Let's see if my eye's as good as I think it is!"
SidSid, who is so scared of seemingly so many things (that really all spiral down into the very same source). On a skateboard. It can't be an easy thing to imagine. Even now, in her better fitting, newer clothes with her spine a little straighter and her chin a little higher. But there was a time before this, a time in which Sid was freer, when she did more, lived more. It's hard to imagine Sid the lion when you've only ever seen Sid the mouse.
But it's obvious she means what she says, because when Sera, all incredulous and disbelieving, says there's probably a skateboard waiting to be unearthed in her garage Sid's brows lift and her eyes light up and she looks hopeful. It shines, flares brilliant for a moment before she tempers it, banking it without extinguishing it. She does not know that Christmas is about to come early to Sera's house.
Sera charges into the fitting room and starts piling and arranging clothes, and Sid, once she can see what's been picked out, immediately starts plucking out certain articles of clothing. Shorts, skirts, dresses.
"No," she says quiet and firm, but she offers Sera a slight smile. "Unless you can find knee-high boots for cheap, or socks. Those would work, too."
And thus begins the movie makeover montage.
Serafíne"Yeah," returns Sera, who is standing framed by the curtain and the lights in the little hallway outside the fitting room, with a swiftcurrent sort of smile, " - see, the time to buy knee-high boots and whatnot, cheap, is springtime, early summer - when people are cleaning out their closets and pulling out their sandals? I care fuck-all about sandals," Sid has seen Sera wear boots and heeled boots of many varieties and fishnets or lace tights all summer long, "but that's when you find the good stuff.
"Or maybe in the fall, when they start pulling out the old boots and are like, hey, these make me look like an intergalactic space prostitute, also they don't fit.
"And you definitely do not want second-hand socks - but I'll go prowl while you try those on."
Cue movie makeover montage. It takes a bit for Sera to understand why Sid is avoiding the most adorable dresses or even keen to thought that Sid is wants to cover her legs, but there's a moment and -
- even if there aren't cheap knee-high boots to be had, Sera pulls pants this time instead of shorts and short skirts, so that Sid should end up with another pair-or-two of jeans that fit.
Sera even finds herself a pair of yellow denim cut-off smiley-face shorts. Because of course she does. And then she finds a pair of pink ombre ones in the same motif so now she has two.
So Sid tries on the dresses over her jeans and Sid loves the linen dress and Sera loves the polka-dot dress on Sid and they put both in the keep-for-now pile, and then there are shirts and that silly cat-eye glasses shirt that Sid loves that makes Sera laugh and a couple of hipster t-shirts that Sera never would've touched because the only t-shirts she wears are t-shirts from 1980s post-punk bands, seriously, or mostly-free ones from bars, and a couple pairs of jeans and Sid may have time in the dressing room to read the price tags but mostly Sera gets her in-and-out as quickly as possible and is shoving new things at her and being generally very Sera, and then there are neighbors and friends and strangers-that-she-knows also shopping the Buffalo Exchange Annex on a Sunday afternoon and Sid gets introduced to a few of these, which in turn earns her a handful of invitations to come out to our opening or I'm playing open mic Wednesday night or pop-up show or whatever and when it comes time to check out, Sera tells Sid that she's got this go bring the car around so they can get to the Goodwill before it closes -
- and not long later Sera emerges from the Buffalo Exchange Annex with two new reuseable shopping bags that she had to purchase because they no longer use plastic, waves down Sid in that old truck and climbs into the passenger's seat and hands over the receipt and it's less-than-Sid thought it would be and if Sid questions it Sera's all I think there was a sale or something don't ask me about numbers.
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