14. marmoreal

[exnihilo]

[Private to Iris and Simon, text]

thank you for trying


[Private to Mal, text]

What happened to you?

[After you saw me.]


[Private to Luna, voice]

Do you like pancakes?


[Spam for Mickey, Helena, Cassel, and Stephen]

[Sometime in the night, she breaks into their cabins, quietly. She just wants to watch for a while. Just wants to see that they're okay. If they wake, they might find her perched nearby, scribbling in a notebook. Or maybe just staring, small and still, chin on her knees.]

Comments

[americasdirtiest]

[Mickey is a different person when he sleeps these days. Awake, he's a tightly-wound coil on the verge of springing; when Mira caught him sleeping back in Amsterdam, he was no more nor less than your average sprawling, snoring teenage boy. It's probably not a surprise that at Ian's he's softer, sweeter, happier. If she's ever come here before she knows that this is the way he sleeps every night: shirtless, his arms wrapped around a pillow and his back pressed against Ian, comforted by the warmth of his skin and the safety of this particular routine.

He's not sure why he wakes up at all, except that some sixth or eighth or tenth sense twigs him to another presence in the room. He stirs silently, starts to open his eyes slowly, and then opens them suddenly wide when he realizes they're not alone. He goes rigid.]

What the--

[Mira, he realizes, which offsets the panic but not the tension. All at once he's a live wire again. He disentangles himself from Ian hastily and crosses the tiny room to her, whispering.]

What the fuck are you doing here?

[exnihilo]

I wanted to see you.

[Not visit. Not talk to, particularly, although she is not averse. Just. See.]

[americasdirtiest]

[He realizes, belatedly, that asking a question means getting an answer out loud. He pulls a face when she speaks, glancing back towards Ian, then makes for the bedroom door. There's a narrow hallway on the other side and a set of aging stairs going down to the living room; he leads her as far as the stairs, then turns to her.]

What's up?

[Now that they're out of the room he's more intent on her, concern wrinkling his brow.]

[exnihilo]

[She follows, spare and silent, keeps approximately the same distance.]

Do you know how long we were there?

[It sounds - distant, not quite wistful. She had no way to measure the time at all.]

[americasdirtiest]

I dunno. A couple of days, maybe? I woke up in the middle of it. Why?

[exnihilo]

I was a statue. I couldn't - tell.

[americasdirtiest]

What do you mean, you were a...

[He trails off, blinking, suddenly dizzy. He shakes his head and sits down on the top step.]

What statue?

[exnihilo]

I was in an open hall, with other statues. Winged ones and interlocking wheels and - strange things. Everything was stone except the eyes.

I could see but not move or speak. People came and went. Some of them fought snakes or got chased by a hulking artificial keeper. And I just - stood there.

[She looks drawn, sounds bleak. Horrified and unable to even probably give voice to it. She crouches, reaches out a hand to him, doesn't quite dare to touch.]

Are you...?

[Okay. How does a person care.]

[americasdirtiest]

I'm fine. [But he's staring at her, horror dawning on his face, because--]

I was in that room. The statue room. I didn't see you anywhere. You were...

[He shakes his head.]

Fuck, Mira.

[exnihilo]

I didn't panic much. No biofeedback.

[She stares at her own hand in the air, watches it slowly curl into a fist. She moves.]

I don't know what to think about it, really.

[americasdirtiest]

No what?

[But it's a distant question; it's not really important. His gaze follows hers and he stares at her hand, too, at a loss for words for neither the first nor the last time.

He hates this: it feels almost as helpless as facing off against Andrew or Jerry in its own way, never knowing what to do or what to say or how to fix it. He hates problems he can't successfully hit his way through. He swallows, then reaches out and hesitantly tries to touch her wrist, completing the circuit she'd opened a moment ago.]

[exnihilo]

[She starts, minutely, but doesn't pull away. She doesn't know whether she expected to be stone or smoke, but - it still surprises her, plain human warmth. Her pinched, perched shoulders, hunched like something off a trim medieval gargoyle, unknot a little bit.]

The things your body does when you feel things. Breathing, heartbeat, muscle tension.

[A low murmur, and . It's a much easier thing to explain than herself. She twists her wrist, slight and slow, until she can curl her hand, fingertips brushing his wrist back, like the shy echo of a handclasp.]

[americasdirtiest]

[It clicks in an unpleasant, unexpected way. He shakes his head slightly and circles her wrist with his fingers, tugging her lightly down to sit next to him.]

Not always. Not when you're a vampire.

[He gets being changed, he means. He gets looking out on the world through eyes that should be different but aren't really different enough.]

[exnihilo]

[She nods, slow. Stares at her hands. Shame is foreign to her, but there is something cold and bitter in the pit of her stomach, curdled and reminiscent.]

I've liked being held down. But it was - different.

[americasdirtiest]

[He lets go again and hugs his bare knees loosely, staring down the steps into the warm living room below.]

It's... yeah.

[It's the difference, he thinks with a shudder, between not fighting because you don't want to and not fighting because you can't. But he doesn't say that, or anything else; he's not sure what else to say. Maybe the silence, mournful but companionable, is enough.]