Ian was in the park tonight. It was spring, and the air was warm, and the smell of the grass and the lake and the trees made for a more appealing backdrop than the ever-familiar mirrored walls of the practice rooms at the dance hall. Certainly it was more appealing than the gym (though it certainly had its sights,) and the sharp, stale odor of old sweat that was always imprinted into those spaces.
It was late enough that the park was fairly empty. Most of the people occupying its spacious landscape were evening runners or couples out for a stroll after dinner. At present, Ian was occupying space on the open lawn in front of one of the lakes, moving across the grass barefoot and shirtless as he practiced movements that looked like they might have either been a dance or some kind of choreographed martial art. Behind him, the last warm rays of the setting sun reflected off of the water and lit a golden halo around his silhouette.
He was focused here, like this. Different that Serafine had seen him last. More withdrawn. Not thinking about how he looked but on what he was doing. There was an honesty to the body that was not there in speech. The way it moved and responded. The way his lungs drew breath. The way his heart beat. The way the grass felt beneath his toes.
[How graceful is he being tonight? Dex+Performance]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Ian[pfff, look at that roll. Apparently he's still on casual mode.]
SerafínePerception + Awareness
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 5 )
SerafíneHe must be lost in that dance. By the time Ian becomes aware of her presence, Sera behind him, seated on the spine of a park bench, her feet bare (except for her ever-present fishnets) on the splintering wood. Her combat boots are on the seat of the bench beside her feet, a small canvas backpack covered in printed sugar skulls sits rather neatly on the toes of the boots.
Sera is dressed in a short and rather sweet pink dress, with a small patterned print of tiny white daises and tiny yellow bumble dotting the cotton, though at some point she has become either overwarm or immodest, as she has stripped out of the bodice of the dress, and down to her bra. Which is naturally black lace layered over hot pink accents, with a smattering tiny pink bows. Her hair is loose and curling and blonde, and frames her face in a half-tangled waterfall across the left side of her face. The right, of course, is shaved and dark enough to demonstrate quite clearly that the blonde comes from regular applications of bleach or peroxide.
Sunglasses cover her eyes.
She's smoking a cigarette, which smells of spice as much as tobacco, and she does so with this negligant confidence that feels natural, physical, entire.
"The fuck is that, anyway." She asks - it is a question, though her voice does not rise at the end of the phrase - when his body language changes enough that she can guess that he knows she's there, and watching either him or the sunset or the sky and the way the sky changes, the city outlined against it as the day's warmth leaches away. Exhale, all this smoke. "Jujitsu or some shit?"
Ian[Let's see how alert he is tonight. -2 diff for acute senses.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (1, 1, 4, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Ian[And now, dancing. Trick move for the win? we'll go with diff 8]
Dice: 8 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 1 )
IanHe did, in fact, notice that Sera was there. Less in the forefront of his awareness and more as a peripheral side-note. He heard her approach. Smelled the spice-infused smoke of her cigarette. But he didn't stop what he was doing to look at her. Not even when she asked him what the hell he was doing.
The figure he cut was one of sleek elegance, framed as he was by the light bathing over his skin. But the movements weren't practiced. More of an experiment than a performance. He was trying things. Warming up and testing the way certain motions flowed through his limbs. It wasn't until after Sera mentioned Jujitsu that he pushed himself into a jumping spin that was much more ballet than fight choreography.
He pulled it off, but the ground was uneven and he landed bad on one ankle when he touched down. The line of his mouth tightened with irritation (less at her than at his own mistake) and he stopped to stretch his foot and roll the ball of the ankle to make sure that it wasn't injured.
He didn't actually answer her question.
"You know, I'm a bit surprise the police haven't issued you a citation by now. Not that I'm complaining."
He strolled closer to the bench where Sera sat with her boots and her backpack, regarding her with an expression of casual interest. Judging by the way he was dressed (in nothing but a pair of soft track pants,) the dancing hadn't been a spur of the moment impulse.
"It'll be a dance. At some point. Right now I'm just fucking around."
Ian[Edit: "I'm a bit surprised"]
Serafíne"A citation for what?" Sera is asking as she inhales another lungful of smoke, holding her cigarette with a sort of thoughtless elegant. She's leaning forward, dark glasses perched on her aquiline nose, elbows braced on her knees, which are knocked together. Her fishnets are patterned: intersecting diamonds that have not yet been torn - deliberately or otherwise - held up by black lace garters that dip down from beneath her short skirt.
"Fucking amazingly good taste in pretty much everything that matters?"
There is something about that posture that feels like a cake, collapsing in the rain. Something boneless in the way she holds herself. There is none of his feline sleekness to her, but rather something else: a kind of surrender to the world and all it brings her.
She is, at least, aware of him behind those glasses though. A moment later she's lifting her chin, dropping the cigarette off to the side to flick away the ashes as she asks, rather more quietly - "You okay? That looked like it hurt."
IanIan probably wouldn't have agreed that Sera had amazing taste in everything that mattered. But then, they were different people with different tastes and different ways of measuring importance. Sera was there in her half of a dress and her lace bra and her sunglasses, smoking a cigarette and holding herself like her very being existed in a perpetual state of blissful surrender.
And there was Ian, who typically dressed as though he'd just stepped off the page of some glossy photo shoot, and who had never once exhibited anything remotely akin to an urge to surrender. Not to the world, not to another person... not to anything. He was a creature of control. Even in the moments when his flaws showed, there was still this sense of calculation. That he was analyzing himself - running the moment over in his head and his muscle memory so that the next time he might reach a little closer to perfection.
They were different creatures. Both of them beautiful. Both of them elegant in their way. Ian looked a little less polished like this, but also more feline in the way his skin and muscles moved. The way his feet balanced on the ground.
"I'm fine. It happens a lot."
That's the thing people tended to forget about dancing: how much pain went into the final product. Sprained muscles and bloody feet and aching tendons. You had to be a certain type of person to embrace that as a part of your daily life.
He was sweating right now. And the sweat did not smell like cinnamon and rose petals, but it didn't smell bad either.
"Feel like dancing with me?"
Serafíne"I can't do that shit." The creature returns, mutters around the dark blue paper of the filter, really, before she takes her last drag and cranes herself back and down to stub out the cigarette on the stone frame supporting the wooden slats, before she flicks the filter into a nearby trashcan. This breath she holds closer and deep than any of the previous breaths, holds it until her lungs ache, if she she were getting stoned, then exhales it all in a cloud of something-like-laughter.
Glances down at her right shoulder as if she were surprised to find it there, or surprised by the shadow her body casts against the grass, or surprised by the grass, the fact of it, the way the concrete supports are set into the ground, the strange odor of teh night around them, which is green and quiet and dry and sunsweet and nightdark all at once.
"That twirly jumping shit. But sure - " and she looks up then, Sera. Right at him, though all Ian sees of her eyes is his own reflection in the glasses. "I'll dance with you."
IanThey had no music to dance to, but perhaps that didn't matter. It was almost night, and no one was around to watch them, and the sun made the lake glow burnished copper for a few more glittering moments before the light finally dimmed. It was a wonder that Sera could see at all past the dark lenses of her glasses, but in an open space like this one could navigate with other senses. For instance: there was a touch when Ian reached out and took her hand. A pull as he drew her to her feet and into his gravity.
"I suppose I can deal with that. Just try not to step on my feet."
The sound of his smile carried into his voice.
They had no music. But they hand the wind, and the lapping of the water, and the distant ambiance of the city. They had their heart beats, like a pair of living metronomes. Less controlled, but more vibrant. Ian led them onto the grass and raised their conjoined hands, giving Sera a slow spin like they were in a ballroom instead of a park. Then he dropped his hand to her waist and pulled her into his side.
Like a point of balance for her to move into and away from, Ian broke the contact and stepped away. Not far, but enough that Sera could move as she chose. Enough that he could dance around her without tangling their limbs.
[Ok dice, let's do this. Give me what you got.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 6 ) [WP]
Serafíne(oh, does she step on his feet? -2 dice. Difficulty 8!)
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 4, 7) ( fail )
SerafíneNothing is quite that smooth on Sera's end. She's on the back of the park bench, and half stands, half-stumbles off her perch as Ian offers her his hand. Her own is warmer than one would think, this brace of bracelets framing her spare wrist, a leather cuff wrapped with spikes that seem sharp enough to cut skin, and heavy enough to do real damage in the hands of someone with ill intent. A bicycle chain wrapped severally around her forearm. A scattering of multicolored bangles, all pasted mirrors and woven beads. A slim bronze ring on her forefinger, and a silver bar bridges her middle and ring fingers like brass knuckles, and she's inhaling, laughing a bit at the delicious absurdity of dancing on the grass in the park without music, without an audience, without reason.
God, she's drunk. He can tell that as soon as he hands her down from the bench, and she stumbles, not quite to one knee but stumbles into him, half-righting herself before he guides her into that spin.
If he smells of clean sweat (not cinnamon and rose petals), up close Sera smells like her cigarette, all sweet smoke, and something else that makes her rather deliciously liquid as she finds her feet somehow beneath her and somehow on grass and the world somehow spinning as Ian takes her hands and spins her around and then brings her in close to his side.
There's an art to partnered dancing and if Sera ever knew it - well. Blame the alcohol. Despite his admonition that she not step on his feet - she steps on his goddamned feet. Ian's lucky she's barefoot, and slight, because as soon as she realizes she's stepped on his feet she sort of wants to do it again! Because she's spinning and his feet are moving and her breath is catching in her throat and the world is all rapid, lurching movement and she just wants to keep spinning and spinning like a -
No wait. Her feet are planted and she has lost her (thankfully temporary) fixation with stepping on his as if they were not dancing but were playing some absurd version of whack-a-mole and she has stopped spinning she has stopped spinning she has stopped spinning - that seems quite nearly objectively true to her so she keeps telling herself that truth - as she stands in the center of the circle he creates and turns to follow the flashes of his movement as he starts to -
- Jesus what the fuck was that?
Oh, Sera is smiling. This lovely, drunken, I-don't-know-which-way-the-world-is-moving smile, and she's not really dancing because she only really dances where there's music to insinuate itself beneath her skin but she is moving, turning to follow his arc of movement around her, stumbling a bit, getting more and more dizzy as she goes.
"You're fucking incredible." She tells him. "I think I'm gonna puke."
IanThere was this moment... between the fluid playfulness of that little spin and the point when Sera had to stop dancing because she thought she might puke. This tipping point when Ian just... fell into his skin. Like it was that easy. Like maybe all he really needed was to stop over-thinking and just have fun.
(To just... surrender.)
There were only two things in the world that brought that out in him.
So when Sera stepped on his foot, he just gave her this challenging grin, like he knew she was playing a game and he wasn't about to let it knock him off-balance. Even messy like this, laughing and spinning and falling into him, she had this wild, drunken beauty. Such a stark contrast to the way he danced around her. The way his motions flowed with bone-deep instinct and natural grace. She stepped on his feet, and he used it, leaning into her and jumping away like it was planned. This was more the way he danced when he was at a club. Freestyle and hip-hop and just... enjoying the moment. But you could see the years of training in the way he held his core muscles. In the way every single bone and muscle in his body was held with purpose. Loose and flowing, but still so very elegant. When he swiveled his torso, the motion rippled side to side all the way up through his neck like a snake.
As Sera spun, he moved in counterpoint, like his attempts to avoid her spinning arms was all part of the dance. Bobbing and flowing and just...
Everyone had their own ways of being free. Maybe this was his.
But it was over all too soon, because Sera was drunk and spinning and of course that would turn out to be a problematic combination.
You're fucking incredible, she told him, and he caught his breath and smiled. Not self-conscious (one would be hard-pressed to imagine that he was capable of it,) but not cocky either. Pleased, maybe.
"There's a trash can over there if you need it," he offered, reaching out to steady her with his hand. "Maybe next time less spinning, more dancing."
SerafíneStamina?
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2) ( fail )
SerafíneSera has stopped moving by then. Right? She has stopped moving. Ian's steadying her and that is not difficult when she's flat-footed - bare-footed - on the soft grass. Up close she is slight enough that one could almost imagine her to be fragile. These sharp, spare bones, the straight line of her clavicles, the spare elegants of her scapulae like wings framing her spine. The odd hollows in her shoulder joints as she pulls her arms in close, not quite ready or perhaps not quite capable of making it to the trash can.
The back of her hand against her mouth as she fights down her gorge. As she struggles to fight down her gorge while simultaneously shaking him off or waving him off or something. No, she is waving him off. Here is his chance to make his escape.
There's a moment where you just believe that she's going to manage it. She seems so very determined, holding herself stiffly all through the shoulders, the muscles framing her spine taut, her arms a bit crossed, elbows bracing her flanks as her diaphragm starts to hitch.
Then she's on her knees, then she's on her hands-and-knees, no longer thinking anymore, nothing close to elegant, no thought of the trash can over there entering her mind, very little of her personal dignity left. Sera inhales sharp; and vomits. Inhales all sharp again; and pukes. Her body heaving with this absolute rejection of the remaining contents of her stomach.
Which are entirely liquid. Which may be the damned problem in the first place. Shaking, just shaking, as her body purges itself over and over again.
IanThis is how these things went, sometimes. Sera was drunk. For a moment everything was glittering and beautiful, and then, just as suddenly - it wasn't.
Ian pulled away when Sera doubled over and sank to the ground. His brand of solidarity was not the sort that involved offering to pull back someone's hair while they puked. And he retreated far enough that the wind at his back would offer a slight buffer from the acrid and unmistakable scent that suddenly filled the air.
But he didn't leave. (Maybe that said something.) He didn't outright abandon her there after luring her into over-exerting herself while she was drunk. Instead he just turned his nose in the other direction and waited, and Sera would be spared the sight of his patient but quietly disgusted expression.
"Need me to get you some water?"
PanFrom out of nowhere:
"There you are."
He doesn't teleport although as certain unreliable witnesses can attest to he is capable of doing so. Has done so. Would do so again in a heartbeat if he thought the situation warranted it. But the two are somewhat distracted by the propulsion of alcohol and not-much-else out of the Cultist's stomach and into the grass.
Ian can tell just by a glance at him as he strides in out of the distance that the man is a priest. It's the dark clothes and the steel in his spine and the sense of detached peace about him. Can feel his resonance even without looking for it. Like holy light so bright it could burn if it doesn't just wash away the sin. His hands are in his pockets right up until he reaches the scene.
To Ian he says, "I'll take care of her."
It almost sounds like permission to leave but for the edge that suggests he sees the disgust on Ian's face.
Ian[Per+Awarepathy - by 'take care of her' you mean what, exactly?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Pan[perc + subt: I DUNNO I JUST MET YOU]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Pan[He means hold her hair back while she pukes and then put her in bed and make sure her acid trip isn't awful duh]
SerafíneIan offers her water and it is only when he voices the offer that she registers his presence - that he has remained even while he holds himself, well, perhaps wisely apart and wisely downwind and wisely out of her immediate reach, right. Whatever she had tonight, she had enough to make her body reject it all and in the aftermath - stomach emptied - she is still drunk and now reeling and somehow lightened, purged.
Sera pushes herself a bit more upright, rocks back on her heels, and she cannot flush that away so she's flailing a bit blindly for a hand, hoping for someone to help her stand up or at least scoot away from the mess she's made. "And she's shaking now - from the purging -
"'s'a flask in my backpack," Sera is telling one or both of them, murmuring, and they would both be wise to ignore her because Jesus, Sera.
Shaking like the last leaf in autumn, but she still wants another goddamned drink.
IanPan wasn't exactly the kind of person you didn't notice. And judging from the way Ian looked at him, silent and cold and significantly more sober than Sera was, the fact that Pan both looked and felt like a priest did not in any way exempt him from suspicion. It wasn't antagonistic so much as wary. They'd never met before, and Sera wasn't exactly in the best state to be making judgment calls.
But then, Pan probably felt the same way about him. And at least, from what little Ian could tell, the priest didn't seem to be hiding anything.
"You know him?" he directed the question to Sera, ignoring her request. And if she confirmed that Pan was indeed a friend (or at least someone she trusted,) then he'd leave it there. Grab his bag and his water from the place where he'd left them underneath a tree and walk back to his car.
And probably Sera would be better off for it.
PanSo far as confirmation goes all Ian gets from the priest is the drawing of his hands from his pockets and the grasping of the backpack lain nearby. He doesn't take the flask from the pouch where he knows it to live but he does sling it over his shoulder with an ease born of familiarity. Like a father shouldering his daughter's backpack upon picking her up from the nurse's office at school.
It's up to Sera to verbalize some affirmative or another. Maybe she can't do anything other than wretch for a time. But Ian leaves and Pan stays. Even if she vomits for the rest of the hour the priest doesn't look as if he has anyplace else he wishes to be.
They'll learn each others' names and traditions later. So soon as he walks away he is gone from the priest's thoughts though. Sera is not of his flock but he tends to her anyway.
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