The ambient temperature in Denver was just slightly above freezing. Cold enough to still feel like winter (or at least, the end of it,) but warm enough that the mass of dark clouds overhead was just as likely to mean rain as snow. When Ian arrived at Washington Park earlier in the evening, the air was still dry. But the threat of precipitation loomed over the city like a blanket. He was running, like he often did on this particular trail. It was becoming a habit.
The path took him on a loop around the park before he cut inward toward the lake, loping past a handful of slower runners on his way toward the gazebo (where the girl with the odd resonance had been two days earlier.) That, of course, was then the rain hit. Slow at first. Delicate pin-prick droplets that left specks of wetness on the ground. Soon it built into a light rain. When a drop of it managed to hit the back of his neck and crawl icily down his spine, he exhaled irritably and jogged into the cover of the open gazebo. Once there, he stopped to catch his breath, hands on his hips as he looked out at the darkened sky.
Light rain tended to come in sporadic shifts. Possibly, if he waited a few minutes, it might let up.
(Possibly he'd be running back to his car in the freezing rain.)
Alexander[Because he's been trying stuff out, and because he had time to kill... Sensing heat, Arete 1. TN 4, -1 for taking time, 2 succs to last.]
Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (1) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
Alexander[Extending,
Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (4) ( success x 1 )
AlexanderThere were a lot of reasons why people were in the park, and a lot of them tended to be shared. To exercise, running along the trails through the park. To meet, the occasional couple walking closely together through the early evening light. To walk the dog. Or just to pass through.
One figure, sat near the lake, is waiting for a friend. There are no plans to meet, no exchange of text messages or voicemails or phone calls. It’s just that this is the spot where they had met twice before, and it seemed like the most likely place for it to happen again. It had been months since that last time with no signs of a certain scarecrow appearing again. But, then, there hadn’t been any warning before. So he comes and he watches and he waits for his friend.
As he waits, he plays with a lighter. It flicks open, lights, close. Flicks open, lights closes. At one point, Alexander stops to feel the heat radiating off the flame before the same cycle restarts. Only afterwards he’s looking at more than just the lake. His vision glows with the sensation of heat – or the lack of it. So he sees the slight cooling in the air just before the rain starts and it suddenly seems like a good time to find cover. The single drops multiply into rain and he runs to the nearby gazebo. He’s not as prepared for weather today as usual – rain hadn’t been on the forecast – and so a little cover while the rain (hopefully) blows itself out seems to be a good idea. There was that gazebo not so far away.
So head ducked down, he runs under cover. And then he notices that he’s not alone. “Oh! Ian. Hi.” Awkward? Quite possibly.
Ian[Awareness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 2, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )
IanHow long had it been since the last time they'd seen each other? Not since that night when Ian had played Kiara on the basketball court. He hadn't spoken to Alex then - nothing beyond a brief greeting. The truth is, they'd seldom spoken to each other at all. At least not about anything that wasn't some immediate threat that they were in the process of eliminating. They'd played soccer once. There hadn't been a lot of conversation then either.
But that was probably just as well, as far as Alexander was concerned. They hadn't exactly started things off on the right foot.
Ian hadn't really expected to see him. But then, it was a public park. And with the rain, there were bound to be other people heading for shelter. He didn't notice Alex's resonance right away. At first it was just this quiet note of winter lingering in the background. But when he caught the sound of approaching footsteps, he glanced over his shoulder toward the sensation and matched it with Alex's face. It took slightly longer for Alex to notice that he wasn't alone. Ian's mouth twitched with amusement at the sudden greeting.
"Hey."
He'd clearly been out for a run, judging by his clothes. Drawstring sweats and a sleek black windbreaker. His hair was a bit damp from the rain. Absently he ran a hand through it, pushing the wet strands off his forehead.
"Enjoying the weather?"
Alexander[Awareness too]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
SerafíneAWARENESS!
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 6 )
AlexanderAlexander glances around the gazebo quickly, seeing if there was anyone else unexpected there, before returning his gaze to Ian. Their first meeting hadn’t been the best on record – Alexander coming away with an impression that he was being being played with in some kind of game that only Ian knew the rules to. But then there had been other times that they had encountered each other. Almost half of which involved fighting and shooting and, oh yes, someone getting decapitated.
It’s the little things that can make it hard to relate to someone, although the tide of chance had been remarkably reluctant in bringing the two of them together anyway. Who knows, maybe if they had gotten off on a better foot, maybe managed to be sociable a little more than the time stargazing outside the Chantry with Sera, maybe maybe maybe.
But that wasn’t the case, and Alexander still doesn’t quite get the other man. And so he steps back to lean against one of the rails running around the edge of the gazebo and crosses his arms across his chest. Maybe he’s cold? Or maybe it’s out of some unconscious statement of the barrier between them. But, then, our Alex isn’t all that metaphorical.
“It was better dryer. Cold I can handle. Wet when you’re not expecting it is just nasty. How about you? You don’t really look like you were expecting it either.”
He looks out into the darkening park, towards its closest edge, and nods in that direction. “Shame the sky isn’t clearer. The three of us could have looked tried to find those nuns on a carousel again.”
IanIan made a low sound of agreement, following Alex's gaze across the landscape of the park. "I was hoping it'd be cold enough for snow."
Alex's posture was distant and protective. Maybe it was the cold, maybe it was the company. Either way, Ian let his eyes settle on him again, seemingly thoughtful for a moment. His own posture felt more relaxed, shoulders moving with the steady rise and fall of deep breaths. His pulse was still coming down from the run, beating a quick rhythm within his veins. He wet his lips as he settled next to Alex, leaning back against the railing with his palms propped up on either side. There was enough space left between them so as not to make Alex feel intruded upon.
He did smile though, tentatively, when Alex mentioned the night they'd spent stargazing.
"You left out the orgy." After a beat he asked, "How've you been?"
(Did he actually care, or was he just making conversation?)
SerafíneThe three of us?
Yeah, Sera's out there. She's not jogging in the park and she's not looking for the sending of a long-dead Archmage of the Celestial Chorus and she's not actually dashing to get in out of the rain and they can feel her: Alexander vaguely and Ian a little more sharply though neither can feel her as well as she can feel them. They are burning bright on the periphery of her senses, distinct enough that she shivers when her attention slips toward Alexander's chilly resonance, that the muscles flanking her spine tense when her heightened awareness slides to the sense of Ian in the air - bracing against the sensation of something - well, at the edge of the predatory.
--
See, ,there she is. Cresting this little knoll, which curves gently against the horizon, framing the view of the boathouse from the gazebo. The spare frame engulfed by a too-large leather jacket, cigarette a signal-flare in the gathering gloom, face turned up toward the sky as that light rain - that drove them both to seek shelter - continues to fall.
She's not really beelining in their direction, thought she is sort of wandering that way.
Alexander“Maybe it will be, once the sun finishes setting.” Ahh, the weather. The nice, safe conversation topic used the whole world over when it’s not really clear what else should be discussed. Next up, so, any holidays planned this year?
Alex snorts, amused, when Ian reminds him about the missing orgy. “How could I have forgotten about the orgy? It would be a whole other constellation without that.” He looks Ian over, taking in the running gear and the slightly heavy breathing, and turns, still leaning on the railing but looking out – and up at the clouds and falling rain– instead of in. “I don’t think we’re going to be seeing any of that tonight though.”
How’ve you been? Now there’s a dangerous question. The answer starts, “I’ve been fine,” and is followed by a pause. Maybe a moment to consider whether to stick with that safe, stock phrase that lets the questioner gloss over things? He glances back to Ian, turning his head to do so. “I wasn’t. Now I’m ok. You?” His gaze returns to the park, looking to where a faint red glow – of the cigarette, or of Sera’s body heat – slowly comes into view.
“How’s Sky?”
IanI don’t think we’re going to be seeing any of that tonight though.
"Oh, speak for yourself." There was a wry lift to his tone, a cant of his head as he regarded Alex. And maybe he was being serious (it was Ian, after all - who the hell knew what he got up to on Friday evenings,) or maybe he was just playing to the obvious joke. He could feel the visceral pull of Sera's resonance moving steadily closer at his back, but he didn't turn to watch her approach. Waited instead for her to either pass them by or join them beneath the sheltering roof of the gazebo. For a moment the rain picked up, pattering more insistently against the wooden boards above their heads. It wasn't long before it lightened up again.
Alex answered his question with short, honest words. When he turned the question around by asking about Sky, Ian looked at him with what might have been surprise. He didn't immediately respond.
"I wouldn't know. Haven't seen him in a while."
(After all that? Interesting.)
"I'm doing fine though. Except when I'm not. I think that's true for all of us." After a beat he added, "Haven't had anyone try to kill me recently."
(Implied but not spoken: I haven't had to kill anyone either.)
SerafíneI can intuit things about emotional states in this very gazebo!
Awareness-as-empathy?
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )
Ian[We shall see (subterfuge)]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1
SerafíneThe rain is light enough that it never endangers her cigarette. The odd droplet hits the dark blue paper and the splashback is enough to make the cherry hiss sometimes, but never comes close to putting it out. Makes her smile, the sound, this smile that is somehow both contained and outflung, open-armed, tinged with -
- well, what the fuck would they know what it is tinged with, two dozen yards away in the gloomy, cloud-banked twilight.
--
By the time Sera reaches the gazebo, her face is wet. The scattered spatter of raindrops streaks down her sharply drawn features. The high cheekbones, angular nose, the fine jaw - even her elfin ears. And smiling like she's remembering someone or something she loves. Her hair is a damp, tangled mass of curls that she has pulled away from her face, twisted over her left shoulder. She's allowed some of the shaved fringe to grow in a bit - so the usual fine dark fringe has a bit more texture, the beginnings of a bit of a pincurl, which makes her look softer even though she isn't - ever - soft.
Sleeves of her leather jacket are pushed a bit up her forearms, revealing the leading edge of the tattoo on her right forearm - the angular crow's skull - and all the dark ink on her hands.
She smells (more than) a little bit like pot. Beneath the leather jacket, a damp white t-shirt clings to her torso - this hint of a black lace bra so clear beneath. She's paired that with a crushed red velvet micromini thigh-high lace stockings, seamed up the back, garters and combat boots, as you do.
Gives Alexander a little finger-wave and Ian a much more contained smile.
Doesn't interrupt. Does put out the cigarette before she joins them beneath the shelter of the gazebo.
She smells so fragrantly of cloves.
AlexanderThe awkwardness that Alexander’s been feeling is still there, but it does seem to be less than it was a few minutes ago. So far he’s not feeling like something to be toyed with by the man with the air of the feline around him.
Alexander smiles and gives another amused snort, looking over to Ian again as he does. “Oh? You’re off to the planetarium later?” He knows what Ian was suggesting – and it wasn’t stargazing – but he tries to keep the joke going a little longer anyway.
The moments stretch out before Ian answers the question about Sky. Alex studies his face but can’t read anything more into the words than their own, simple meaning. “Oh. Ok.” The reaction – after the effort than Ian had gone through to find Sky, and to free him – was indeed interesting. “I got the impression you guys were close?” Their precise relationship had never been discussed – it hadn’t really been any of Alex’s business at the time anyway.
I think that’s true for all of us. Alex nods, looking back into the rain again. Then his smile fades as Ian adds on the part about nobody trying to kill him. There’s a moment followed by a breath. “I have. It wasn’t personal though. Just some bastard who thought he should have some peace to beat up his wife objecting to being interrupted.” There’s another snort, without the amusement behind it this time. “He’s learning the error of his ways.”
He turns, leaning back on the railing again, as Sera arrives. She gets a smile, warm if restrained. “Hey. We were wondering if we’d get to see nuns having orgies again tonight.”
Ian"Closeness is a fluctuating state," Ian replied, somewhat cryptically. "He was just a guy I slept with a few times. I didn't want him to die, and I'm glad he didn't. But we have different lives." It was an honest, if overly simplistic explanation. Probably more than he would have given Alex (or Sera) a few months ago.
Had anyone ever mentioned to Ian that Alex was a cop? Surely someone did, at some point. Maybe he saw something. Recognized the gun that Alex carried. Maybe not. Alex himself had never mentioned it. As he related his story, Ian watched him - taking in the way that he spoke. The details of the circumstances. He made a soft sound in his throat. Ambiguous enough that it could have meant a lot of things.
"Lucky you were there."
(Lucky that the man didn't succeed.)
And there was Sera. Softer and quieter than Ian often saw her. His gaze turned to survey her for a while, returning her contained smile with one of his own. "Rain suits you."
And then, to Alex, "I'm pretty sure that's the title of at least one porn film."
SerafíneSera isn't precisely keyed in to the memory Alexander and Ian had been riffing on - the night stargazing, her one-off comment about nuns and orgies. Maybe she was high then. Maybe she's high now. Maybe she's always high,
always fucked up,
always celebrating something, somehow, somewhere, somewhen.
And she's wandered into the middle of a conversation to which she was not wholly privy, the details are lost in her current haze and that's okay. She's lets the cold drizzle and its dampening noise swallow them. The air feels close and strange.
"If someone's still a nun in this day and age she probably takes her vows pretty fucking serious. Or she had the world's shittiest home life." This near little shrug, strung through with the tension she forces into her shoulders to keep herself from shivering. "I could probably find you something, though. An approximation, at least. If all you wanna do is watch."
Then Ian tells her that rain suits her and she flashes him another glance. This one is rather more seeking than the last, and just as easily deflected. Sera smiles, to herself this time, and closes her eyes.
He's right. The rain does suit her. Paints a damp, gilded light over her sharp angles, folds her back into her skin. "I'm just stoned," she counters, or perhaps demures. Which is also true. She is just stoned. "I have another joint if you want some."
Alexander“Tides.” Alex pushes himself up so that he’s say on the railing rather than leaning against it, leaning forwards so that his elbows are resting on his knees, before continuing his own rather cryptic statement. “We’re pushed together, then we’re drawn apart until we’re push together again.” He shrugs. “I’m glad he’s ok though. If you do happen to bump into him, tell him I said hi.”
Lucky you were there. Alex shrugs. “The neighbour called. Turns out the noise was drowning out America’s Next Top Model and they wanted it stopping. I get there with my partner, no answer at the door and the fight still going on. One broken door, one broken arm and a fair bit of bruising later and suddenly trying to assault officers doesn’t seem like such a great idea.” There’s another shrug and he meets Ian’s gaze. “Shit happens.”
But then he’s cringing at the thought of a porn movie about… “That has got to be the biggest turn-off ever. Or clowns. Are nun clowns a thing? Drifting around silently in their big shoes and red noses, just waiting to pounce on the sinners?”
He smiles, laughing quietly and looking at Sera after her offer of a joint. “You think I need a joint if I’m coming up with ideas like this?“
Ian"Sure, if you're offering."
He probably shouldn't be smoking anything so soon after running. When his body was humming with endorphins and his lungs still pulled in breath at a slightly elevated rate. But it was Friday, and he didn't have anywhere to be except here. In a fucking gazebo at twilight in February with two people whose feelings about him were ambivalent at best.
It could have been romantic, in a slightly different set of circumstances. Instead it was cold and wet and a bit awkward. But that was alright. Sometimes cold and wet and a bit awkward wasn't the worst thing.
"You know I was on that once. Not as a contestant. Just... in the background. But I remember them shooting while I was doing a thing in Shanghai."
Apparently Alex found nuns to be about the opposite of attractive, and Ian glanced at him with a laugh. "I'd totally fuck a nun. If she was hot. Hell, I'd probably do it for the story alone."
(Of course he would.)
SerafíneSera gives Ian this lovely, vague smile when he accepts, if she's offering. Of course, she's offering, she's always offering, she has a bag slung beneath her leather jacket and over her t-shirt and slings that around and digs inside and pulls out a pack of Kreteks and finds within the kreteks a single joint, tightly and expertly rolled. Taps it out and offers Ian both: the joint and her lighter unearthed not from the little bag, but from the right pocket of her leather jacket.
Glances back at Alex as he cringes over the thought of a porn movie about... and gives him a neat little shrug. Sera doesn't really watch porn. It's way to impersonal.
Then Ian announces that he would fuck a nun. If she was hot. Or just for the story, and Sera gives him a sharper glance, sidelong. "That's a shitty thing to say. Is it true?"
Glances back at Alex, then. "Who's Sky?" Quietly, and still unexpected.
AlexanderAlex doesn’t make any move when the joint comes out and if it does happen to head in his direction he’ll just pass it on.
“A thing? A dancing thing?” He’s not really expecting much detail, even if there is an answer. It’s something to ask, something to talk about. Something to… if not draw them together, maybe not keep them apart.
Ian talks about sleeping with a nun for the story. Sera’s not sounding happy about it, and Alex? He stays quiet and looks back down at the floor of the gazebo. He agrees with Sera, but isn’t quite sure whether Ian is cracking a tasteless joke or not. The guy is pretty hard to read, after all. So he lets it slide and doesn’t comment.
Who’s Sky? Alex takes a breath and looks up at Ian, wondering who should answer. He can, at least, start the story. The short version, at least. He looks down at the ground again as he starts. “You remember the thing with the spirit down at the reservoir last year? Sky was caught up in the whole thing. We – and Alyssa – got him out.”
Alex looks back up at Sera – not even glancing at Ian now – as the last part goes unsaid. The first time I saw Ian behead someone.
Ian"I've done worse things," he offered in reply to Sera, though to his credit, he didn't sound especially proud of it. He took the joint and the lighter from her hand, putting the latter to his lips. There was a low gust of wind that swept past, and he used his hands to shelter the small flame of the lighter. When he was done he handed it back to her, pulling in a slow, shallow drag of smoke. It'd been awhile since the last time he'd gotten even remotely high, and for a moment the taste of it distracted him.
"I probably wouldn't tell, if I did," he admitted. "At least, not like that." He didn't know if that was the part Sera was objecting to, but it was the part he personally found the most distasteful (the idea of violating someone's privacy.) "But would I sleep with a nun if she offered? Yes. Theoretically."
He let Alex relate the beginning of the story about Sky, going quiet for a while. He took another drag off the joint and offered it to first Alex (who passed,) then Sera, if she wanted it.
"He's a Verbena I used to know. Someone we helped once."
Ian[Edit: putting the former to his lips. (Really, I know english.)]
Serafíne"I don't remember that," Sera tells Alexander quietly, and it's true. She doesn't remember the thing with the spirit down a tthe reservoir last year. Maybe she wasn't involved. Maybe she was never told the story. Strange how the things that are absolutely central to our lives can be so peripheral to those we are close to or at least tied in to. She's watching Alexander when he looks back up at her, something significant beneath the weight of his gaze that she cannot quiet absorb, which makes her want to go and kiss him on the temple and murmur to him that yes, yes, he'll be okay, except that she does remember his reaction to her touch so she swallows down that impulse. It is just a momentary tension in her left temple: the urge and its erasure, or at least its burial.
Ian takes a drag of the joint and offers it to Alexander and then to Sera. By now she's leaning back agains the railing, one hand wrapped around its frame, head tipped back so she can see the leading edge of the twilight sky and she takes a hit from the joint and hands it back. Neither of them understand why she thinks that Ian was pretty awful just now, but that's okay. Sera hardly understands. It was just a reaction she had: visceral, gut-formed.
"What's worse?" she asks Ian. Some things, a person just needs to know.
Ian"It was a modeling gig. The thing in Shanghai. I used to be a model."
AlexanderThe joint moves and Alex just passes it between the other two, if it makes the movement easier. Drugs aren’t his thing – even this – so it’s all theirs.
At least, not like that. Alex watches Ian again at that point in his reply. Whether the privacy violation or the thought that the woman would be used simply for the amusement value of the story is worse isn’t quite clear in Alex’s mind, but does it really matter. In Sera’s words, both are particularly shitty things to do to a person. But then it seems that Ian may well have just been telling a particularly tasteless joke.
Alex meets Sera’s gaze for a few seconds. He’s not a particularly hard person to read most of the time. There was a time that he wasn’t ok. But then everything he’d been holding in had exploded when Grace and Eleanor had tried introducing him to the existence of Ginger. And didn’t that go well. But now? He is alright about what happened. “Not everyone survived.” He shrugged, water under the bridge. They had their peace now.
His gaze moves from Sera back to Ian again. “Thank you, by the way. For the advice.”
Next time, don’t hesitate. He hadn’t.
IanIan's eyes cut to Alex when he thanked him for the advice. His eyes had a distant expression. Remembering, maybe. (Or maybe it was just the pot.) And then he made this soft sound, and for a moment he almost looked... pensive? Sad?
"It's a shitty lesson to have to learn. I didn't want you to die. I don't want any of us to die."
When his attention traveled back to Sera, his mouth quirked into a slight grin. There was an edge to it that didn't feel entirely humorous, though perhaps that was a holdover from the other parts of their conversation.
"Would you like a list? Because I think that would take all night." After a moment he slid down to sit with his back against the gazebo wall.
"I cheated on my first girlfriend with my foster sister. That's a pretty shitty one."
Serafíne"Alexander," Sera murmurs, voice quiet, her body language still and contained but away. There is a rhythm to the way she smokes the joint, the puff, puff pass is familiar and meaningful if one impbues it with meaning, like communion. Believe giving gravity to the ordinary.
The thought passes through her stoned head like a zipper and makes her smile. Her eyes close and threads her fine fingers through the slats of the railing framing the gazebo, leaning back and back and back until the rain hits her face aain. Long coils of damp blonde hair spill backwards.
When Ian offers her a list she straightens - stands upright, the end the elegant curl of her arched spine - and looks at him, this damp and quiet flicker of her eyes, dark in the rainsoft evening.
"When did you decide monogamy wasn't for you?"
Alexander“We didn’t.” It seems a little strange to Alex being the one telling someone else the equivalent of it’ll be ok, but it was true. If he’d hesitated, maybe Victoria would have been able to hurt or kill her hostage, or any of the others who had been there to stop her. Much like the unknown Hermetics who had made their attempt not so long before theirs. “We’re all alive.” Had they known each other better – had Alex known whether Ian would appreciate touch or not – Alex might have moved to make contact.
But they don’t, and he doesn’t, so it ends with the words.
Something there may have been more of, except for a buzzing coming from one of his pockets as his phone springs into life. Mouth open, just on the brink of speaking again, it closes again as he pulls the phone out and checks the screen. “Excuse me, I need to take this.” With that, he steps out of the gazebo – resting a hand on Sera’s shoulder for a moment in passing – and finds cover behind one of the supports of the gazebo, under the overhanging roof, where he would keep relatively dry.
[And fades into the dark, as it’s early and I think I need to sleep.]
SerafíneWAIT. IAN ARE YOU MAUDLIN!
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 6 ) [WP]
Ian[Subterfuge +2 cause high and also depressing conversation topics]
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (2, 4, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
IanThere was so much more to that story that he'd left out. So much that would have made it sound... different. Sadder. Less callous. Sera, perceptive as she was, felt the weight of it hanging in the air. All of those things that he hadn't said.
Maybe he wanted to sound callous, though. Maybe that was why he said things like I'd fuck a nun if she was hot. Which had not been a joke at all, actually.
There was a heaviness to him that settled in. This deep, abyssal thing that he could not have opened up at that juncture even if he'd wanted to. He didn't have the stamina for it. But Sera noticed the way it pulled at him. The way it threatened to engulf him for a moment, the way that old memories sometimes do. The way it just made him so fucking sad. There was a stark note of guilt there, making his chest tight. (Making him want to say more callous things.) But he was high, and the mood didn't quite settle. Slid off of him a little - the way the rain beaded up and slid off of his jacket.
When did you decide monogamy wasn't for you?
Something about that question - maybe the way she'd phrased it, maybe the fact that it came so close on the heels of his last revelation, maybe just the fact that the pot was slowly starting to sink into his system - struck him as suddenly, strangely funny, and he uttered this odd little laugh. For a moment, it almost sounded like he was about to fucking unravel. But then the laugh mellowed - became this warm, amused thing. And he looked at her with softer eyes.
"I don't know, high school? I think relationships in general aren't for me."
Alex bid his goodbye. Offered that simple point of reassurance, which Ian accepted silently. If they'd known each other better, maybe a lot of things would have been different. But... they didn't. So Alex left to go answer his phone, leaving Ian and Sera to their own devices. Ian passed her the joint and leaned back against wooden beams again, resting his head as he listened to the sound of the rain on the roof.
"What about you?"
SerafíneSera makes this noise some noise behind her mouth, beneath her tongue. Wrapped up in her throat and it isn't anything, precisely, just a noise, like a click, like a lock, like a key. She's watching Ian through half-slitted eyes (he's below her now) but lifts her chin, tilts her head backwards ass Alexander has to take a call and has to take his leave, offering Ian reassurances she really does not understand either the eight or the gist of.
Strange how that happens. Strange strange strange.
The joint. She takes a hit, passes it back, and bends down briefly to offer Ian this drunken benediction, kissing him on the crown of his head. There's magic in the air: her own. Her awareness of place and heartbeats, of moving minds and they way they tangle. Nothing sharper, nothing directed at him no. Strange how someone who feels the way she feels can be so thoroughly, entirely tender: her hand curved behind his skull, her mouth tangled in his hair before she lets him go again.
Sets him free. Straightens and takes the joint and leans back, bracing the palms of her hands on the railings.
"I think relationships in general are absolutely for me. Just not way other people inhabit them, you know? I guess I think -
"I don't know what I think? I've never really had, a boyfriend though. Or a girlfriend. Not like that."
IanSera bent over to kiss the crown of his head, tender and reverent. Ian closed his eyes and exhaled a long cloud of smoke. It dissipated into the cold air, curling up to wind its scent into the damp tendrils of Sera's hair. When she pulled back, he turned his head to look at her, neck craned at a slight angle.
"What would your version of a relationship be?"
Serafíne"I dunno," she returns, with this quick, darting little smile that makes her cheeks curve, sure. She's feeling bright and flushed and open and that I dunno comes from the place in her that refuses definitions and refuses labels and perhaps even refuses language in favor of -
of -
of -
everything else there is.
"Mmmm." She inhales. She's stoned, the world's lovely. The rain falls, attuned, syncopated. Cars rush passed, all those strangers, all those kindled lives, all those living flames, each one blood and bone and muscle wrapped around a beating heart. "I have alot of them. Friends, who are lovers, who are family. Strangers who aren't strangers for a night. I don't like when it changes, sometimes -
"But it's gonna change. Sometimes that hurts.
"But I'd rather hurt than - " Stops. Arrests herself there. " - never open myself up in the first place."
Pause, quiet as she hands the joint back to Ian.
"Did your girlfriend every find out?"
SerafíneManipulation + Subterfuge, also. (To conceal tears.)
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Ian"Yeah."
He didn't elaborate. Didn't say if she found out because someone told her or because she caught him or just because she was perceptive enough to know that something was wrong.
"I think that's a good way to be. Letting relationships just be these... organic things. People come and go. You relate differently to each. Everyone has something different to offer. And it's all constantly evolving. Trying to box it all up in these predefined categories... and all of the fucking rules and expectations that leads to... is so self-defeating. It's just a lot of people walking around trying to conjure up their dreams in another person and inevitably being disappointed."
Ian handed Sera the last of the joint, passing it off in a way that felt like he was done with it. "I probably don't know what the fuck I'm talking about though."
After all, he hadn't been in an official relationship since high school.
Serafíne"That's not really what I mean, Ian."
Sera takes the joint back.
Pinches off the cherry and glances at the bit of pot left in the roach and decides to leave it somewhere, in some nice dry ashtray, a present for whoever combs through looking for half-smoked cigarettes to augment whatever they manage to bum or the loosiest they buy for a quarter.
She manages to hum, thoughtful, stoned, the words alive in her and the park too. Open, and it is gentle the way she corrects him. She's smiling around the words, though he cannot really see that. It's dusk maybe, or dark, and he's below her and she's standing, leaning back, rain on her face, in her lashes. That smile is rather immoderately sad.
"There are always expectations. And dreams, and disappointments. I wouldn't wanna be closed to any of those things.
"That's where love comes in."
Sera looks away. The rain hasn't lightened, it has intensified.
"I'm gonna go. It was nice getting high with you."
IanIan hummed gently. This low, thoughtful sound. His eyes slid away from Sera to take in the exposed beams of the gazebo's roof. Briefly caught up in the way they fit together. The pattern of the wood. Noting the places where cobwebs formed.
"I don't know shit about love."
Because that was all he could say, really. It came out sounding gentler than usual - maybe just because he was stoned. But he didn't try to debate the matter, whether or not he agreed.
"Try to keep warm. You don't take care of yourself enough."
That part sounded gentle too. This flicker of worried affection that might not have showed if he'd been paying more attention to how he spoke. He watched her go with a little nod of goodbye. And after a while, he gave up on waiting out the rain and jogged back to his car.
