intheblanks | ➹BEEPER

[ The ocean is more comforting to her than she ever realized. It was marred, for a time, by the nightmares used to be there. A shared and instinctual fear amongst all the Reanimates, a communal memory that one could see in any of their faces as they gazed down the alleyways and sloping streets towards where the water touched the city. Even still, its languid roll had created a sound in the dead of night, a gentle susurration that made the darkness less empty. Even still, the nightmares had made her feel something less than dead. Perhaps that was why they had offended Barbet the way they did. Or was it her crying. Her need for consolation.

She's taken up one of many apartment that faces the water; near to the boat. There is food in the cupboards, but the rest is bare except for where the wood soaked in her blood and left a stain, a large blot that runs out into the middle of the main room, illuminated at all times by whatever light comes in through the tall windows that face the sea. The rooms would not be so different from the vapid safety of the ward, if it were not for that. There is no scar left from the episode, the angel took it from her and there was an unexpected relief to that: to have a burden lessened. She feels no need to recreate the scar, there was nothing there to commemorate.

There is still nothing here to commemorate, and she can only spend so long staring at the floorboards before she loses faith again. There is a line between giving up and giving in, and she heads down to the water in bare feet, kicking off her jeans to make it easier to swim. It's getting darker earlier and earlier each day, visitors driven off the beach by the colder nights. It doesn't trouble her, and she wades out. She feels a brief spark of terror that does not drive her back up onto the sand, and then she strikes out. She's giving up for tonight. No more questions or uncertainties, she'll hide underwater and swim until she's tired, then she'll try to let the ship rock her to sleep. ]

[It might be no coincidence that his routine has shifted by small but definite degrees since the prow of the Iris first hove into view, nudging up against the jetty and casting its shadow over the few clustered smaller boats that bobbed in moorings around it. Small, definite degrees, arcing his footprints across to where the sand meets stone at the harbour wall, until each day now takes him past the boat, along that quiet street by the water's edge, not too far down from where he, still, keeps a house on the beach. As an investment, a security. As a memory. It's less rough edged up here where the skyline bleeds into the cracks between apartment buildings, identikit lego blocks stretching to the skyline. The views from inside, at least, must be great.

Chase watches the water and not the road. He doesn't count the apartment lights as they start to flicker on to stare down the encroaching evening. He casts glances out towards the boat, searching for a light there, and watches the moonlight spill white across the water alongside her.

He's seen the light, once or twice. And run by.

This time it's the shadow across the moon he catches, and it stops him long enough to watch the water disturbed by long, reaching arms just under the surface, cresting the small breakers that lap the boat before pulling down again, another swimmer's stroke.

This time he doesn't just watch and go on. He waits for the silhouette to rise and he whistles, a long piercing tone in two dischordant keys. It's a sailor's whistle, a signal to souls lost at sea.]

[It would be a lie to say that nowhere in her mind had it occurred to her that he might find her here. A lie to say there wasn't even a small desire for it, although what she intended by that desire might turn out to be just as dangerous as a lie. The voice was a small one, and a conflicted one. One often ignored because she did not like the tone of its whimpering, but it knew full well that he comes here when it's dark and he can have the sand to himself.

She ignores the whistle, when she hears it, lingering on her back for a moment to stare up at the sky before she rolls and disappears under the glass again. There's no call to resurface, not until her feet touch the bottom and she can walk up out of the shallows. From the scent she catches, she suspects it's him, but ignores that as well, moving slowly as she goes to gather her jeans up and sluice out her hair.

Twice now, they've met here. She told him she didn't need a spotter, on both occasions. She's done little but prove herself wrong.]

[He's seated when she reaches him, on the stone steps that cut the way down to the harbour. The days aren't warm anymore and the nights are colder, and sweat turns to chilly little rivulets in the creases where his shoulder meets his neck, the bend of his elbow. His skin prickles with it. But he can't be as cold as she is, before and after the water. His pulse is slowing to a languid level but still pushing warm oxygen through his blood stream, carrying it back when it turns cold to be reheated in the chambers of his heart. This is what being vitality means.]

I thought you'd turned to sea foam.

[He says, of her long stint under water. (And what price an eternal soul?)]

[She pauses, looking at him sideways, angled towards her ship because she doesn't want to trapped here with him.]

You don't need to prove you're poetic to me, I'm not a fan.

It's not poetry, it's a fairytale. I'm sure they don't impress you, either.

[a miserable fucking fairytale but how is that not apt? If the connection made had traces of the poetic about it, it's through some synaptic glitch: no fault of his own. His artistry has only ever come through science - the architecture of the body and, earlier, the mathematics of a music stave. He looks up, studying the way she doesn't watch him.]

Not going to sit down?

[They don't impress her, but maybe they occasionally frighten her.]

I don't know if I want to track the extra sand in.

[He leans across to brush his palm over the stone surface of the step beside him, scattering invisible sand, too dark to see.]

Better?

[Sigh. It's not better, but she sits. Her ship is still right there, an easy walk.]

Alright.

[He finds something like a smile at her exasperation. It's a reasonable facsimile.]

I've always liked you for your enthusiasm. [And that's admitting something, anyway.] How's your head?

[She always liked herself for her enthusiasm, but that's been worn down by time and trial. She's tired. She was tired when she came down here, before that too. Her hands curl loosely between her knees.]

My head? [That's certainly a question.] Sometimes it's noisier than others.

[He nods at the concept, if not the specifics.]

There's not much noise out here to contend with it. What's it about, the noise?

[There's just silence there, without much noise to fill it. What's it about. There are so many voices that shriek at her.]

There's nothing wrong with you except not being somebody else. And the only one in this place who knows that, is you.

[Yes, that was a quote. Yes, she heard it when he said it, though it had taken its time sinking in. She shrugs. That sums it up, doesn't it?]

[Yes, it's a quote, and he sits back as though she's shoved him physically with the words, as sure a tell as any that he recognises them too. Hidden by the new, downward tilt to his head, his lips form a tight line, a crease working its way in between his eyebrows.]

Maybe I should have shut up after the first part.

Edited 2012-10-04 00:57 (UTC)

I would... say it doesn't matter, if anyone knows.

[And here is the problem: what she would say and what she can say. What's true now.]

But maybe it would be easier to find a place if I understood where I stand in relation to anyone.

[Her tone is flat, self-denigrating because she hates having this conversation.]

[Everyone he knows in this city last knew him three years ago - back when he was a completely different person. He could write a book on not knowing where he stands.]

I don't think you'd find many people who'd feel the same way as you do, about who you were before. People who don't want to see you tearing yourself apart now— but that's not the same thing.

[He lifts his chin, enough to look up at her.]

Have you tried asking?

No one ever did. It didn't bother me until it was Barbet.

[She glances back at Chase reluctantly.]

It bothers me that I still need that.

[So, no, she doesn't really ask. Except with Saya who might be the worst possible resource in this situation.]

[Saya is brutal, honest or not. And she's many other things Chase wouldn't like to have to define.

Comforting? Perhaps only to him.]

Is that why you make it so hard for anyone to know what you want.

Beyond sex, what do they need to know about it.

[It might be a legitimate question, even if she won't phrase it like one.]

And you wonder why I don't sleep with you.

[Don't mention when the resolve slips. It does take resolve.

He shifts from his seat, running shoes scratching against the sandy steps as he turns to kneel on the one below, facing her.]

Because sex, enjoyable as it is, is a cheap fix. And if you do it often enough, with enough people, you kill off the few chemical elements that relate it to bonding, and it starts being a way to distance yourself, instead. Nobody in their right mind wants to do that with someone they care about.

You asked me if I liked almonds. You have some idea what it's like to want to know more about a person than what they can do with their tongue.

I don't wonder. But I can differentiate between a recreation and an investment.

[An investment of what? Her head tilts slowly, eyes drifting off. Time, attention, maybe emotion. Respect was the most likely culprit, actually.]

And I only asked you that because I was cursed.

You only asked me because you were cursed. But you weren't cursed to want to know.

[He tugs down on a corner of his mouth, catching lip between teeth.]

Not wanting to need anyone in your life doesn't make you look strong. It makes you look scared.

I am scared.

[There you are.]

I know.

[He reaches for her hands as he sits down beside her again, shoulder-bumping.]

The only people who aren't are idiots.

Or they don't have a reason to be.

[Because she's always clinging to that. That she can find that reason (She can hurt herself far worse than anyone else can, that's safety, right? That's bravery, right?) Her mouth twists, hands twisting uncomfortably under his too.]

I'm not one of them.

[She bites that out perfunctorily, an admission that disgusts her absolutely.]

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