MAY MINGLE

[etrayamods]

WHO: Everyone!
WHEN: May 17th-31st
WHERE: On Etraya
WHAT: A mingle log!
NOTES\WARNINGS: N/A, please note any needed warnings in threads.

⏵ a hero's return ⏴ As champions exit the Labyrinth, they’ll find that their environment has gone through some fairly drastic changes. Where there used to be larger bodies of water is now thinner rivers going through land; the amount of bridges connecting landmasses has decreased, given what had been individual islands are now much more connected. In addition, Etraya is significantly more green; flowers bloom, birds chirp cheerfully, and there are numerous additional species of insects, mammals, and aquatic creatures throughout the lands. Baby foxes roam through forested areas, bees pollinate the flowers to spread them more thoroughly around the inhabited areas, and it feels brighter. Or perhaps that’s just in comparison to how the Labyrinth had been. There are more areas to explore, new facilities, animals, and Etraya feels significantly more settled than it had before. Aurora’s promise of renovations had been true. And if one looks up, they may notice a city bubble visible on the closest planet that hadn't been visible before. ⏵ coffee break ⏴ After hearing Clarke’s suggestion, Aurora sets up a new cafe close to the apartment complex, and sends out notices to individuals with mandatory coffee hour times listed for them to come to Corrine's Cafe and make a few friends. While the note does state that it is mandatory, there will be no follow-up from Aurora nor the companion bots to ensure those who receive notes do show. Given this is Aurora trying to take suggestions in mind and see how successful they are among the citizens of Etraya, however, following directives may not be a terrible idea. It's up like a modern-day, smaller cafe. One walks in through the front door, and is greeted by a companion bot behind the counter who offers a wave of their hand and a friendly “Welcome! Let me know when you’re ready to order”. The menu offers lattes, mochas, espresso, black coffee, several different kinds of teas, and a few drinks that are a little odd to find in a cafe; ale, canned sodas and coffees, numerous bottles of wine, but only pinot noir. Soft music plays in the background, impossible to place but it sounds as if it may be based on tracks that were popular in the early 90s. Tables and booths are set up to seat two to four, with packets of sugar and small containers of creamer set out towards the middle. There are charging stations set up at every table, which may seem strange considering phones and laptops aren’t widely available, but Aurora’s doing her best. There are also a few bookshelves full of the classics, a few historical fiction, and several written by H.P. Lovecraft. Each seat has a placard in front of it, with a name, and a ‘fun fact’. One might say “Hello! My name is Joe, and I like to paint!” Another may say “Hi, I’m Jill! My sister died tragically in front of me and I’ve never gotten over it.” ⏵ new horizons ⏴ Several of the new bridges found in Etraya now have signs posted just outside of them, and on those signs is a QR code that the earpiece’s HUD can scan. Scanning this with the HUD will bring up a scavenger hunt, listing several items and circling areas where they can be found. Some of these objects will be obvious: find Corrine at Corrine’s Cafe - the companion bot who runs the counter, find a delicious meal at Bangsan Market, break into S.T.A.R Labs, or find room 87 at Point Blanc Academy. Some will be less obvious, like locating a bat, becoming friends with an archer, find a pink shirt, open bagged milk without making a mess, or get a drink at the mutant-friendly pub. Please feel free to make up your own items to find around Etraya! ⏵ NOTES ⏴ Welcome to our mid-month mingle! Please feel free to use this to explore Etraya, put up wildcard prompts (you don't need to use the above!), or use the open prompts to assist in jumpstarting cr. This mingle covers the period from May 17th to May 31st. Our next mission (and next mod log) will not go up until June 7th. ⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Comments

ii. coffee hour

[equivo]

[ The cafe door chimes as Krouse pushes it open with his good arm, his left held stiffly at his side. He brushes his still-damp, too long bangs sideways as he beelines for the counter, his new oversized red hoodie left flipped up out of apathy more than intention.

It's been less than forty eight hours since he got out of the labyrinth, and he's spent most of them curled up in bed after his first shower to rinse off his patina of filth and loosen his stiff bandages. When he got this particular civic summons, he entertained a brief, dull fantasy of blowing it off, but forty-five minutes, a second shower, a cigarette, a change of clothes, and four ibuprofen on an empty stomach later, he's here. He accepts his mug of black coffee as the companion bot slides it over to him, then makes his belated first scan of the room.

When he spots a now-familiar shade of blonde, his stomach flips in a way that doesn't have anything to do with slowly dissolving painkillers. The jolt of relief catches him off guard in its suddenness and intensity, and he tightens his battered fingers around his coffee to ground himself.

Clarke's been a good ally. It shouldn't be surprising that he prefers seeing her in one piece. And it's not necessarily anything but a genuinely trivial coincidence they happen to be in the same place at the same time, given the presumably universally distributed invitations. The fact that he passes his name set down at another table on his way over to hers just affirms that. ]

Hey.

[ He stops behind the chair across from her, half-smiling gingerly to avoid reopening his split lower lip. There's a few days old shallow scrape across his left cheekbone like a fat highlighter emphasis of the hollowness of the rest of his face, the dark circles under his eyes as pronounced as if someone dug their thumbs in until it bruised, but his eyes lighten through their red-rimmed exhaustion as he takes her in. ]

Mind trying not to look so happy to be here? All the enthusiasm is really showing everyone else up.

[skaikru]

( there had been a moment while she'd camped packed up camp outside the exit of the labyrinth, reunited with the likes of rita mordio and natsuno yuuki, where she'd had wondered if perhaps she still ought to stay put. the supplies leftover in her jacket pockets had run out, but octavia blake was still out there somewhere in the thick of it and to ensure her safe return, clarke would go without water. and then also... she hadn't seen krouse exit. still had the weight of his gun in her pocket, and it'd been past time to check on his stitches. for him she could probably go without food for a bit.

but the thought had been fleeting. she and the other two had packed off for the city proper to rid themselves of blood and sweat and dirt; to cry if need be, but most likely share their various labyrinth escapades and subsequently compartmentalize all of it — another neat little ball of trauma to swallow. clarke had made good of her dream of standing under a stream of hot water and reveled in the fact no one had barged in to complain about her lack of resources instead of watching the way the water turned black and brown at her feet. then she'd ditched the cargo pants for the foreseeable future, right back into the old world's greatest invention: black athletic leggings and a long sleeved running top. today's is a dark shade of olive green, and on the wrist it bears the damp marks of a creamer cup having spit back when she'd tried to open it.

she is fussing when the setting stain instead of watching the door, because that's easier in this crowded space. hears the jingle of the bell and the general hustle of yet another body entering the shop and placing an order, but doesn't look up until someone looms on the other side of the table and outright addresses her. the placard across from her reads HI, MY NAME'S CLINT AND I LOVE COWBOYS and she'd been steeling herself to ask what are cowboys whenever the owner ever showed up. but instead of being face to face with a stranger upon lifting her head it's — oh. her mouth makes the shape of the word, and a few years melt off her face when both eyebrows raise out of their usual pronounced furrow. )

...hi.

( same method of greeting from the woods, but a different backdrop and a different crisis at their heels. but new layers to their familiarity, as clarke can vividly recall digging stitches throughout the layers of krouse's skin. new layers, as he takes a well natured crack at her, and she barely bats an eye. )

I'll try to tone it down.

( then her gaze maps an uneven triangle; dropping from his sunken, bruised eyes to the little bubble of a scab on his lip, then to the healing scrape across the arch of his cheek. and her eyebrows fall right back into their usual place, a concerned pinch as she tilts her head. )

What happened to your face?

[equivo]

[ All three times he's talked to Clarke in person before were under unusual circumstances. Locked in a room, out in the woods at night, trapped in a labyrinth. He's seen her caged and bloodied and exhausted, whatever engine keeps her going locked into high gear as she gritted her teeth and dealt with the situations at hand.

None of that prepared him for seeing her like this. Sitting in the warm, mellow light of the coffee shop, she looks - better, a word he substitutes for safer before he can finish the thought. Watching her go from guardedness to recognition to the budding cusp of almost seeming happy to see him loosens something winched tight to the back of his throat.

So when she rumples back into concern again, his smile broadens until it pulls uncomfortably at his scab. He touches the top of it with his tongue in absent habit, never really that great at not prodding at his wounds. ]

I fell down a well.

[ Delivered in tones of wry can you believe it? He cocks his head slightly to one side and tips his coffee in the other direction, a little show of reconsideration. ]

Well, [ his smile grows even more at his own lousy wordplay before he tones it back down a notch ] technically, this happened the - I want to say third? Time I fell down the well. It turns out they're slightly harder to get out of than you might think. Who knew?

[ He's not sure that the stone-sided cylinder he slid into from the top of a frictionless slope was actually a well, but a well sounds better. It makes however long he was trapped at the bottom counting water bottles and trying to bait anything mobile close enough to the edge he could use them seem like a funny story, and his failed attempts to climb the rough walls more like slapstick than growing desperation. ]

Speaking of, my compliments to your stitchwork. Not one pop. I'm impressed.

[ Which is adjacent to saying that he's fine. He twists his bad arm at the elbow to show off being able to move it, ignoring the pang of protest that comes with it.

On his hand's way back down, Krouse finds himself leaning forward so he can touch the top of the placard in front of the empty seat, two fingertips resting delicately on the crest of the folded cardstock. He tips it back so he can read it upside down, then glances back up at her face. ]

Anyone you're waiting for specifically, or...?

[ The note of uncertainty in his voice isn't intentional, and mild embarrassment finds a way to drag heat to the back of his neck. ]

[skaikru]

( sorry, he fell down a what?

the look of concern deeps severely in contrast to the light and airy way krouse explains away his plight. dire straits delivered as a funny little anecdote throw clarke for an absolute loop, to the point for a long moment she isn't sure if he's lying to her or not — then subsequently can't figure out why he would. a litany of follow-up questions flood her brain: and you're otherwise okay? and i don't understand, what part of that kind of trap was engineered towards teamwork? the forerunners to tipping over the edge of her tongue and being voiced aloud. she is of the quiet sort of certainty that climbing out of a well was probably just as difficult as she could imagine, because it sounds like it sucked. and her mind immediately flies to the various ways she could have helped if fate had aligned differently and she'd stumbled upon that scene.

had she packed a length of rope in her go bag? no, and that's an oversight that would need to be corrected for future missions.

but, can't turn back time. she couldn't have helped even if she wanted to, and at the end of the day krouse is still here and upright. he'd done well by himself, and clarke will try not to undermine that by allowing her face to reflect as much knee-jerk sympathy as she feels.

he carries on, does what she's come to expect and fills in answers for questions she hasn't even asked yet. but rest assured the faring of his stitches was next on the list; she perks up more at the good news than the praise, and busies her fingers with curling around the warmth of her coffee cup to curtail the urge to peel back his sleeve and check for herself. mobility looks good, and he's walking and talking, not dead at the bottom of aforementioned well. )

Good, that's good. Seems like you beat the odds against infection too. ( she smiles a little, just a tiny bit. and just as promised — ) I'm impressed.

( if it's awkward to hold a conversation while one party is sitting and the other is standing, clarke hadn't noticed it yet. she is vaguely aware of the way she has to tilt her head up to look at his face, but doesn't pay any mind the strain on the neck same as she ignores the faintly yellow fingertip shaped bruises on her throat in their final stage of healing. between the two of them, seems she's the one who had the luck here; not getting trapped in a well, making it out of the maze in a decent timeframe, and stumbling across not one but two healers that'd done their best to erase everything from rope burn to exposed muscle. but this is a fine reunion, she's happy to see him in one piece.

but when he tips the card and asks... )

Technically, yeah. ( the name is right there, they've both read it by now. the buckle around her lips and creasing in the corners of her eyes is vaguely apologetic. )

I don't know if you saw, but all of this is... because I asked for it. I meant instead of the labyrinth, but this is what we got. And now, I guess I've got to go with it.

( she thinks he'll understand. he's smart, and had scrabbled to repay her for that stitchwork with a protein bar and sour candy; he should get obligation, and that at least in this venture clarke's set on sticking to the rules. )

[equivo]

[ Krouse doesn't make out the imprints of those fading bruises just yet, shielded as they are by angle and shadow, but he can make out the deep ones behind her eyes just fine. The fizz of slightly cringey minor pride he took from her being impressed he's managed not to keel over with a blood infection, as if he did anything but pop antibiotics and get lucky, goes flat.

He gets why she takes this as something she has to blame herself for. Clarke and shouldering responsibility seem to go together like misery-inducing peanut butter and jelly. If some off-hand comment he made to their warden resulted in a mandatory group activity, he'd be unhappy about it too. He could tell her that this isn't the worst thing in the world, and he'll probably get to that, but that's not really the point. It's the cause and effect, one innocuous action rolling out into something she didn't predict and can't wind back. So now she has to sit here, waiting on her technically, because she got what she asked for, and so she'll take it.

He gets it. He just doesn't like it.

The coffee mug clinks quietly when he sets it down on the table so he can reach for the napkin dispenser, pulling out a rustling sheet with a twist to his smile and a slightly determined set to his dark eyes still trained on her face. ]

Is that so? [ There's an edge of challenge there that's not really for her. ] Oh, ye of little faith. Let me try something.

[ He unfolds the napkin with a flick of his wrist and drapes it meticulously over the placard, then picks both up between index and middle finger to hold them to his forehead. His eyes close as he knits his eyebrows together, letting out a short hum. ]

I see...of course, spirits of seating arrangements... [ He cracks his eyes half-open, regarding her with utter seriousness. ] Be right back.

[ Contrary to his words, he doesn't actually go anywhere. Instead, he spins in place, a swift pivot that only looks about ninety percent ridiculous as he balances mostly on one heel to pull it off. He comes to a neat stop exactly where he was and whisks the napkin-covered placard down from his forehead to set it on the table, and with a final flourish, whips the obscuring napkin away for the reveal.

hi! my name is krouse, and i never finished high school ]

Is this your card, or do you want me to take another spin?

[ It's a stupid, silly 'trick', one he's immediately self-conscious about, but the glimmer of giddiness sticks with him anyway. In the grand scheme of things, it's barely introducing a choice, but it's a choice, however small, she didn't think she could give herself a minute ago. And if all he's risking is maybe a slap on the wrist, he figures it's worth it. ]

[skaikru]

( clarke watches the performance of paper products and fingers, with no real concept of what's happening until it's already underway. and all in all, this is... ridiculous. utterly stupid. there is a time and place for all things performative, a flair for the dramatic works when making a statement to the masses, but right here? in the middle of corrine's cafe? right in front of her coffee? she tilts her head, like a bird confused by a streak-less window, and blinks in slight confusion until the final reveal.

at which point her mouth falls partway open, as if about to ask how on earth he'd managed that — before subsequently drawing the connecting line between placard and the corpses of mutated animals being swapped for live ones in the labyrinth. somehow that doesn't dampen the effect. actually the muscles in her face are waging a very visible war, unsure whether to delight or fuss. regardless, clarke braces her elbows on the well maintained top of the cafe table, crowds halfway across it and intones quietly enough the other patrons around them probably wouldn't hear: )

That's cheating.

( accusation? a complete facade. a weird sort of endearment that sparks in the back of her mind and carries down to nest in her chest? like a freshly grown fiber of pericardium, drawn taught and twanged. it actually kind of hurts — maybe he used those easy-as-breathing parahuman abilities to pull it off, but the spectacle of a well executed slight of hand... when was the last time she'd seen that? feels like forever ago — though clarke chooses to swallow that hurt before even properly examining it.

by way of reprimand, the sole of her shoe finds the lip of seat across from her, and all four legs screech slightly when pushed across the cafe floor. the backing either pushes directly into krouse's stomach, or at least catching him in the flank with a corner. but it also serves as quiet, unspoken invitation.

sit down before you get caught. )

[equivo]

[ The contact of chair to stomach coincides with one corner of his scab finally giving way to his grin. He slips into the offered seat with muted triumph and the slight heaviness of exhaustion, but his bones are the only thing about him that feel tired in the moment. He props his good elbow on the table and leans in to meet her, matching posture and conspiratorial hush. ]

It's only cheating if I get in trouble.

[ And she's not going to get him in trouble. It's one of his favourite parts of this kind of mild transgression: when he gets someone else in on it with him, carried along by the fun of thumbing their nose at some pointless implicit rule. The kind of secret that's shared like a pilfered popsicle from a garage freezer, sugary and bright, instead of another stain on already blotted palms.

All of this is a show he's putting on for her. Appreciation for services rendered, just another act in the ongoing performance that forms the shell he moves through the world inside of. But somewhere in the middle of it, he loses track of where the act ends and he starts. Something slips through the cracks like the sun through a shuttered window, turning dust into floating motes of light.

It can't last. It never does. The end comes this time in the form of him leaning back in his newly claimed chair, opening up his field of view from her softened face to take the rest of her in at a level angle. That's when he sees the other set of bruises, and reality snaps back into focus. Iron seeps into his mouth from the tiny trickle of fresh blood that escapes his lip, invisible from the outside. ]

But enough about me. [ His smile doesn't falter as he reaches for one of the cups of creamer. ] What about you? Any thrilling tales of misadventure? Reconnect with those wayward friends of yours? I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I think I actually missed small talk, so - catch me up.

[skaikru]

( it's true, it's only cheating if they get caught. and despite the knowledge they were all being constantly watched, the lack of aurora's detached voice suddenly booming over a loud speaker and announcing a rule violation feels a lot like getting away with it. short of echo finally making an appearance and leveraging the fate of her earth against this current coffee drinking arrangement, there's virtually nothing that would cause clarke to rat him out either. this is already so much better than waiting on a stranger that may or may not show up, or sitting here by herself.

and she appreciates — very deeply, after having had to recount it to several strangers already — that krouse at least doesn't go directly for discussing the apocalypse.

small talk. okay, she can small talk. )

Well, I didn't encounter any wells. And I didn't find the friends I went in with until we met up again outside the exit. I was chased by a dragon for a little bit, though; it burnt up my backpack but no new scars from that. I walked into a hallway with a bunch of talking heads mounted on the wall, then had to run away from a hoard of their beheaded zombie bodies that were trying to steal ours. I met an archangel, he gave me coffee. My friend Octavia fought a minotaur. Oh — and sirens.

Learned what those were, and spent like. Four consecutive days running into them.

( this is a sanitized recap, devoid of the air of perpetual peril that had shrouded her the entire time. there'd come a point where it felt like around every corner was just another monster waiting to make an attempt on her life, and delay her from reaching the exit. they'd succeeded in the former, but the only near death experience had been when she'd been strapped to a chair and awaiting the bite of a drill into her sternum. and, well... she doesn't need to share that just yet. )

[equivo]

[ The last thing Krouse figures anyone needs is further lingering on the apocalypse or apocalypses at hand. He's also just not that interested in following instructions, and 'utilitarian space colony' answers plenty of questions otherwise raised by the placard.

Clarke turns out to give him more than enough to think about as it is. She puts the same gloss on events as he did with his story, breaking them down into almost entertaining anecdotes. Dragons, minotaurs, and zombies reduced to tokens on a game board, near death experiences with flames flipped silver lining side out. He knows the drill.

But two things stand out instantly, both enough to cut through the facade of casualness at right angles. The first is that he knows the name of one of her friends already, and suddenly, with some dismay, thinks he has a very good guess at another. The second is four days of sirens. His face twists in disbelief, then bitterness, his mouth flattening to a hard line of control as he peels the foil top off of his little cup of cream like it requires all of his attention. ]

I hated those fucking things.

[ His voice has the quiet vehemence of bubbling acid. He tips the cream into his mug and watches it drop out of sight to pool unseen at the bottom, a single pale mark left behind on the black surface.

They'd explain the narrow marks on her neck, he thinks. But there's no way of knowing for sure except asking her, and no way to ask her without it seeming condescending at best, weird at worst. She's more than proven she can handle herself, and it's all over anyway. He just hopes she held onto the gun. If she got lucky, maybe she even found more ammunition.

He should've gotten her to take another clip, just in case. ]

But at least there was coffee. [ He looks back up, smiling like he never stopped. ] Angelic coffee. Somehow. I got cake, but who's keeping track?

[skaikru]

Oh. You had to deal with them too. ( she doesn't quite ask, as if he hadn't just spelled out as much in the space between his words with the freshly carved lines in his face when the muscles twitch and twist around his face. as if it wasn't painfully obvious in his voice. in the way his vocal chord pitch low, the quiet rumble of absolute hatred that is only earned through experience. clarke remembers the first moment that the spell of their song had been broken, when she'd looked over hannibal's shoulder and seen more teeth than delicate lips and pleading eyes. first she'd felt a cold sort of fear that had nothing to do with the temperature of the salt water. second, a righteous sort of indignation, which had been the main source of fuel when it came to tossing herself in harms way to save three others.

and in the end, she hadn't wanted to talk about it with the good doctor. hadn't felt it was her place to ask dean or fabian; hadn't needed to with lisa, but also'd never had the chance.

yet a little time, a little distance, a return to civilization, the warmth of the cafe contrasting those particularly chilly memories, a familiar face across from her and she's gotta wonder: )

Did yours look —...

( no. nope. slamming the lid on that line of questioning before it can even draw a full breath, though she subsequently chews the inside of her cheek because enough had slipped out. no, nope; she doggedly shakes her head and smiles like that'll be enough to completely erase the last five seconds. ) Nevermind.

( the cafe is warm and well lit. sunlight pours in from the glass windows, and quiet thrums of music she has no familiarity with tinkle pleasantly in the background. there is the hustle and bustle of life in the background as patrons enter, place their order, the little bell on the door rings again, conversations strike up, chairs scrape against the floor, and a percolator hisses behind the counter. being surrounded by so much vibrance and feeling the heat of her cup seep through into her palms makes it easy to temporarily banish thoughts of those long dead. lexa in all forms — dead, living, actively dying, drenched in salt water, an immortal savior, all teeth and challenging her — perpetually threatens to flood her dreams the next time she closes her eyes.

but that's what coffee's for. krouse is alive enough to bruise and heal directly in front of her, he deserves her full attention. so clarke drags herself back from the precipice and settles back in her seat with a sigh. reengages fully. )

What kind of cake? Anything less than chocolate and I still win. My angelic coffee came with a side of angelic healing too.

[equivo]

[ The warm bustle of the cafe gives Krouse no reprieve. It's brighter, in a different season, but the sounds and smells are still familiar. Clarke's half-finished question is all it takes to pull the trigger on already loaded memories. He barely hears her ask about cake.

All those warm brown eyes looking up at him wistfully from the water, an idealized, unscarred face repeated over and over. A quiet song full of unmet yearning that turned to keen fright as they pretended to drown, one after another. That was why he hadn't wavered. There's no universe where Noelle would have looked at him like that. No universe where she'd plead for his attention like it was all she wanted, and no fucking conceivable universe where she'd ask for his help.

Either Echo doesn't know him like they think they do, or that was the point. Another sick joke at his expense, taunting him with everything he used to think he wanted. The ugly, shameful ache rises up his throat to choke him anew, and he still doesn't know how to take it apart to understand it.

He doesn't know if he misses her. He doesn't know how he can miss someone he never wants to see again. The first thing he looks at when he wakes up and the last thing he sees at night is her face, the real one, caught in celluloid and shielded by glass. She has dark circles under her eyes, and a tiny spray of acne in the dry skin at the corner of her awkward smile. It's all he wants from her anymore, because it's all he can have that won't hurt her, and sometimes even that feels like just another thing he's selfish enough to take.

The last time he saw her, the first time this place dredged up her ghost, she told him she wanted him to have a life. He didn't tell her that he didn't know how, or that even if he did, he couldn't do it. He took hers away. He doesn't get to pretend that he deserves one of his own after that.

Would she be happy to see him like this, not knowing that? Sprung from a pit in the earth and having coffee with someone he hasn't disappointed yet? Would she think he was finally fucking doing what she asked him to, for once? ]

Birthday cake. Vanilla.

[ His mouth is still curved, but it doesn't feel like a smile. It's just something his face lapses into when he won't let it show anything else. All the colour has gone out of his knuckles where he grips the handle of his mug, but he doesn't notice. He should follow up on the angelic healing, drop a name, see if they have yet another acquaintance in common. Keep it moving, like she's trying to. ]

They did.

[ But of course, that's not what he does. He's never able to resist an opportunity to fuck things up when it counts. Because if Clarke looks the way she did when she almost asked, then she knows what he means, and he wants - he wants someone to get it. He wants it to matter. ]

I didn't think they could top the bloodthirsty mutants, but I guess I have to give credit where it's due. There's always something worse.

[ The gleam in his dark eyes is like broken glass under a flashlight, jagged edges waiting to cut. ]

[skaikru]

( birthday cake. vanilla. so she wins in the game of refreshments.

and subsequently loses in the game of casual conversation, considering how any trace of good nature leaks from krouse's smile and an unsettling emptiness bleeds into his eyes. clarke watches the darkening of his face with the attention she owes, having been the one to set him on this descent with a partial question. her expression doesn't change much, or at least she tells herself that as a measure to keep her own composure in check — there is the flex in the muscle of her cheek when back molars press together, and a rapid increase in blinking, like she could tap out in morse code sorry for ruining this. and then in answer to his pronouncement, she doesn't even bother trying to clear her throat of all the gummy sentiment, just rumbles with agreement dragged over gravel: )

Always.

( and what follows is a lapsing, miserable sort of silence. quiet understanding which sets them both apart from the soft bump of vaguely 90's music and the scent of baked goods intermingled with coffee grounds.

clarke's glassy gaze settles over krouse's shoulder on the coffee bar and she wonders exactly how many people find this setting so familiar and comfortable that they'll deceive themselves into thinking this place is safe. back on earth they'd all weathered the same extremes and even if a conflict left different scars on their psyche, no one ever walked away unchanged. on the serena eterna had been different; some woke up after being murdered in horrific ways and brushed it off immediately, perfectly fine whereas her bruises only deepened and darkened. by the end it'd been a task to even try to convince other passengers that their captor was their captor and not a friend. she doesn't know if she's got the energy to undertake that task again, but...

at least she has her friends here. they get it.

and seated directly across from her, francis krouse with that serrated set to his eyes. he gets it. she's just too tired, despite having tried to rest, to start off on another rant about hypothetical worst case scenarios this time. also too sober, and this place is too crowded. but it doesn't feel like she needs to speak aloud to properly communicate that this moment feels like a breath before being plunged back into the swell; the calm in the eye of the artificial storm, a manufactured space of time for them to recuperate before being tasked with something even more terrible — and if it's too early to call it an observed pattern, consider it a gut instinct — within the next few weeks. and here she was, one of but not the first to make it out of the labyrinth, now with absolutely no leverage to try and make the next time easier.

but at the end of the day, given how that'd played out for amy and dean, maybe it was for the best. clarke still makes bad choices. like opening her mouth again without truly knowing the boy across from her well enough to properly gauge just how deep the war within him runs.

gingerly, as carefully as she had cradled his arm before digging a needle into exposed flesh, clarke venture to ask, )

Do you... want to talk about it? ( hmmm, not it, but — ) Them? Whoever it was you saw.

[equivo]

[ In the days and weeks that came after the end, there had been people who wanted Krouse to talk about it. Timelines, logistics, observations - anything he could hand over to help them understand how something like this could have happened on their watch. The only times anyone asked about her, voices lowered in feigned sympathy, were because they wanted something out of him.

He'd made himself difficult every time they did until they stopped trying it. His kneejerk reaction to the question now is to dredge up bile and get ready to go on the offensive, but he curbs the impulse. It helps that he can see her face, almost as apologetic as it was before she painstakingly swabbed his open wounds clean. No handcuffs, no blindfold, no cell. She's just asking, one person to another, because it's the decent thing to do.

And that's what fucks him up, as surely as the warp of a water-logged frame can crack the glass inside it. The split spiderwebs through his eyes, grief beading at their seams like mercury. ]

Her.

[ The jag has slipped from his stare to his voice as he huffs out a shaky little breath after that, something between laugh and incipient bad weather. His knee bounces under the table as he leans over his coffee, rolling the mug between his palms. ]

She'd have hated it, too. The way they made them, it was like- it was everything that would have pissed her off. She wouldn't want anyone to see her like that. She wasn't like that.

[ He lets another breath out, slower, through the pursed circle of his lips. Then he shakes his head, dark fringe imperfectly veiling his lowered eyes. ]

Noelle. [ Her name, human and ordinary. ] She, um -

[ He can't do this. He absolutely cannot fucking do this. He was an idiot to think he could, and an even bigger idiot to think he should. He pinches the bridge of his nose hard as he tucks his chin closer to his chest, snagging the spiralling outer edges of all the things he's not saying to drag them back in for recompression. ]

Sorry. Fuck. I'm - [ he ekes out a miserable, miniature laugh ] - nnh. No. No, I don't want to talk about it.

[skaikru]

( clarke had ventured this line of questioning because she'd hope it helped. it sure is something to see the visage someone you cared about twisted, hurt, monstrous, dead or undead just to fuck with you. this had not been her first time, she still vividly remembers seeing the rotted corpses of her friends and family erupt from the sand in the desert to set upon her as a consequence of exiting the bubble of safety around the diner. she remembers seeing all their heads mounted on the wall, and natsuno fully decapitated with no sign of revival in her last labyrinth. she remembers finn's face in the shadows, so real down to the weight of his hand on the back of her knuckles as he helped her burn his body. it's very effective, it doesn't get old but it gets old.

and the only thing that helps is remembering them as their true selves. humanizing them, putting distance between who the person was and what they looked like as tools.

krouse indulges her, and she listens; eyes latched on his face and tilting her head, expression open and ready to absorb whatever he wants to put out. and for a minute it feels like this could be helpful, he obviously already knew it was a nasty trick of the labyrinth, but sometimes it helps to rage and rant about it. only he stops himself. stammers and slams on the metaphorical breaks, backtracks like he'd touched an open flame and snatches back his hand with a hiss to prevent the burn from worsening. )

That's fine, too.

( though, a weathered expert in biting her tongue and compartmentalizing, clarke "biggest hypocrite" griffin wonders if she ought to pry; wants better for him than digging his fingers into the bridge of his nose and curling in on himself. but there's no quick fix for the kind of raw misery rubbed in salt he's radiating, she knows that. just — )

...Mine's name was Lexa. She died.

( — a level of understanding.

she offers that last bit because... well, it's true. but also on the off chance that had been the word, the idea, the thought that krouse had choked on so severely he'd been forced to retreat. and yes, reminding herself that the woman she loved had been a human, a real life flesh and black blooded human, who had died from a gunshot wound meant to rip apart her internal organs helps clarke draw the important line in the sand between reality and the maze's little mindfuck. helps her remember those green eyes never reopened; those green eyes decomposed, or more likely been burnt in a funeral pyre, but she'd been too busy running to stay for any sort of ceremony. helps her remember that lexa would only destroy her for the betterment of her people, not for fun; never if simply hungry, she would have rather starved.

and she hopes it helps him. to potentially know this gut wrenching experience was not unique, but a burden that could be halved. if he ever decided he could talk about it again.

a beat silence lapses again after that. clarke takes a sip of her coffee, despite it being overly sugared and having lost any desire to eat or drink. her stomach is in uncomfortable knots that churn at the scent of cinnamon scones baking in the back, and the slightly offbeat rendition of ub40's (i can't help) falling in love with you grates more than it soothes. she chews the inside of her cheek for a moment, and turns out the tang of copper just makes coffee taste worse, but the slight discomfort grounds.

krouse had laughed a moment before, but it'd resonated like a nervous rattle after one realizes they can't swim and slips under the surface to drown. offering up lexa's name in turn might have been akin to throwing an emotional life preserver into the water, but it'd be kinder to drag him from the water completely. so, foregoing high school and the apocalypse, clarke purposefully, forcefully steers them back to even footing. )

Oh, I guess still need to give you back your gun, don't I? It's in my apartment. I think I have... ( she searches for a clock on the wall, but it's behind her and clarke gives up — pulling up her h.u.d instead to consult. ) 23 more mandatory minutes, then we could walk over if you want.

[equivo]

[ She died.

Two short words, with the end of one small world inside of them. Krouse isn't looking up yet when Clarke says them, and he's glad he isn't. If he sees too much of himself reflected in her now, there's no telling what he'll do about it.

Bad enough that he almost heaves his pulped heart on the table as it is. That he's already imagining a time when he could talk about this, to anyone, but especially to someone telling him in not so many words that she knows what it's like. There's a thing he can't say, a luminous and awful hook lodged in the roof of his mouth, and he can't unlock his teeth around it.

He makes another tight, almost-laughing noise, buried in the back of his throat, and lifts his head. A watery smile stitches itself in place as he drags the heel of his hand across one eye, then the other, wiping away the start of tears he can't really pretend didn't well up. He tells himself that it's fine. It's going to be fine.

Lexa. It's a nice name. She must have been something, if Clarke cared about her enough for the world to turn her into leverage. ]

Sounds good. [ He rasps, then picks up his still too hot coffee to take a scalding sip. ] Thanks for hanging onto it. And sorry. Again. It's just - guess it brought some things back.

[ Embarrassment chokes him like a vine. He'd prefer Clarke see him mauled a dozen times over instead of seeing this. The insides of his arm aren't as wetly vulnerable as the squirming contents of his chest. But there's nothing he can do about it now except try to mop up some of the mess, and if that isn't the story of his life, he doesn't know what is. ]

And I'm sorry about her.

[ His tongue aches numbly where the coffee scorched it insensible. He doesn't feel the words that slip off of it in quiet, trite condolence, just the thrum of anxious guilt in his pulse. Another of those right things to say that don't seem right when he says them, like he's always missing some crucial piece of the puzzle.

But he can't just say nothing to the look on her face, bottled up and cast out to sea. Or he could, but he won't. Even he's not that selfish. ]

[skaikru]

( and i'm sorry about here, he says.

and she can't just out and say me too back at him, because that would completely void the offer she'd extended back to normalcy in form of a gun and a plan to return it. the thought of lexa kom trikru in her glory and in her demise will always twist up a certain part of clarke's stomach — like the grief in her heart had metastasized and worked downward, made it's own organ in the empty space her kidney once occupied; she will always be sorry about her — but lexa isn't here right now. and lexa isn't in visible anguish directly in front of her, krouse is.

he's drying his tears on his sleeves. and those little wet patches on the cuffs of his hoodie seem like a greater tax on his person than the pools of blood that'd dripped down into the dirt of the labyrinth had been. he offers condolences within a breath of making his own need of compassion clear — and apologizing for it. guess it brought some things back. )

It's okay.

( i'm okay as a shameless lie, and it's okay that you're not as an unabashed truth — all in one fell swoop. and one of the hands she'd had wrapped around the warm base of her ceramic coffee mug drifts over until it rests on the table between them. the tips of her fingers twitch and slide with a small jerk from her elbow — an inch closer to krouse, a gentle invitation to reach for.

if he needs. if he wants. she's right there and she understands. could have offered him a napkin from the little dispenser on the table but instead offers the ridges of her fingertips and gun callouses of her palm. one of the only other visible reminders of clarke's time in the maze (a deep purple bruise from being viciously kicked in the right wrist by an angry blonde) makes an appearance as the sleeve of her shirt tugs up with the friction of the wooden tabletop.

at the same time, her sneaker squeaks against the polished floor from an aborted slide forward. like she was going to find the leg her nervously jiggled and slip the rubber toe of her off-brand nike's beneath the heel like a wedge, but curbed the impulse at the last moment.

what were they talking about? right, the gun. )

I'm sorry I probably used up the rest of the bullets. Hopefully you have more.

[equivo]

[ The world is a closed box around them. Everything not inside the scant square footage of this table is happening behind bulletproof glass, muffled and distorted.

So everything inside is that much louder, that much sharper. The hand Clarke skims across the table in offering has undue weight, and no matter how much she's intuiting about him she can only half-know that. The squeak of her sneaker at the same time makes him flinch almost imperceptibly as it slices into the weave of tension he's already wrapped around her fingers without so much as moving a muscle, and what a magic trick that is.

He'd been handling it. He had his bad habits pinned down. He'd made all the decisions about how far he'd let himself go in advance, so he couldn't screw it up on impulse, and most of those decisions were no. Keep things clean and uncomplicated, everything unnecessary excised and discarded.

They barely know each other. It's a polite gesture, made in the face of someone being a fucking mess out of nowhere. Just a reflex for lack of a script. All he has to do is leave her crooked fingers and her angry, vulnerable bruise alone, and they're fine. If she feels rejected or stupid about it, she'll get over it. She'll probably even be relieved. ]

Yeah. It's not a problem.

[ He flattens his hand where it's wandered off from his mug, a deeper breath than usual lifting his slumped shoulders. His fingers curl until his nails touch wood and flatten again. And for all that, when his hand slides across the table, it goes smoothly.

He's not holding her hand. That'd be weird, and fucked up, and a problem. His fingertips just slot barely between hers, skin hardly touching, his ragged nails and picked raw cuticles starkly humiliating all over again. He knows that because that's all he's looking at, the scuffs on his knuckles edged with pale dead skin flaking away. ]

At least I know you have good aim, and they're probably not all stuck in a fucking wall somewhere.

[skaikru]

( underwhelming and weird as it is, it still feels like it means something that krouse reaches out in turn.

it had not been difficult to snatch his hand and use that touch point to drag him through the twisting, claustrophobic confines of that back way the maze had opened up for them at the last moment before the hoard truly descended. even when his blood had leaked down past the buffer of his sleeve, intermingling with dirt and gunshot residue and sweat — arguably difficult to keep a hold of, yet somehow they'd managed. but here they are clean and fine and not in the middle of any sort of dire straits past the ones they keep dredging up in their own minds, and filtering through their teeth in measured assurances, apologies, and anecdotes. here his nails are noticeably ragged, though clarke cannot judge because the only reason hers aren't ripped and uneven to the point of bleeding is because she'd managed to keep her hands busy and away from her mouth. and hers still bear the faint shadow of dirt and grime beneath the curve of the keratin, because no matter how much she picks or how deeply she digs, she's never really spotless.

krouse isn't fully accepting her offer, and that's fine because on a logical level clarke hadn't put a name to what she was actually putting out there. but it's close, and it's enough. and if he chooses to maintain a hint of distance, she isn't going to be the one to force it closed. doesn't even spend all that much time looking at the tabletop and the awkward limbo it's hosting like a poorly blocked out stage-play.

clarke allows her gaze to drift, finding something mildly interesting in the crumbled lump of empty sugar packets she'd been piling up until — unconsciously, her pinky finger flexes and jerks a little at the mention of a fucking wall. )

Well...

( thread details tbd, but as it stands there is a good chance clarke ended up firing off the remaining shells at something other than lisa wilbourn. maybe directly next to her ear in an attempt to deafen and confuse, defuse. maybe sidelong in the middle of a scuffle, a bullet hole in the stone wall or floor of the ever changing labyrinth the only lasting monument to taylor herbert's aquatic facsimile. because like the doppelgangers, the sirens hadn't been real, right? not really, right? it's again okay to focus on the pain they'd caused rather than the act of putting them down? despite what other vicious blondes may have to say about it. )

I have fair aim. But in hindsight maybe I should have just saved the bullets for the dragon. That girl with the — ( clarke doesn't actually have the term "domino mask" in her vocabulary yet, and substitutes with vaguely gesturing at her own face with the hand not currently splayed across the table ) — eyeliner warpaint had already been bitten, and I just managed to piss her off more.

( and it still smacks a little. sure, there are lingering bruises from the encounter, but what rings like a slap across the face is that even in a relatively cut and dry instance of trying to save someone, she'd still not managed to do it well. why does she actually still try? )

[equivo]

[ As he studies the faint darkness under Clarke's nails, Krouse wonders if any of it is his. An unlikely prospect, given the length of time and frequency of hand washing he can assume between then and now, but it might not be impossible for a thin sedimentary ripple of his blood to be buried somewhere in there. There's something calming about the idea he decides he's not going to dissect here and now, like how he's not remembering the assured carefulness of her hands as she stitched him shut.

When her pinky twitches, his thumb follows suit, skimming the outside of hers in a tiny, reflexively soothing gesture. A spurt of fresh self-consciousness at that makes him lift his head, resolving anew to muddle through the next twentyish minutes without making a total spectacle of himself.

The timing's perfect to make sure he's put to the test on that almost immediately, his expression tightening as Clarke motions at her face to illustrate her description. Eyeliner warpaint doesn't have to mean anything. It's not exactly unique. Plenty of people must have gotten bitten by any number of things in the labyrinth. There's no accounting for how many of them might have been ungratefully reactive.

His thumb hooks around hers as he breathes in steadily, the spike of his pulse and dilation of his pupils notwithstanding. ]

You didn't shoot her, did you? That does tend to piss people off.

[ The joke creaks with strain, his focus too intense to pass off as casual. His next best bet is concern, which isn't even a lie. The trick is passing it off as some level of reasonable, for himself almost as much as for her. ]

[skaikru]

( krouse presses concern but it doesn't quite fit in with the way he's looking at her, and clarke's expression quickly sours. or rather, she flinches. )

Of course not, ( she says, bordering on insulted (or worse, hurt) that he would even think such a thing. as if they hadn't met for a second time when she'd been drenched in blood, the most well capable murder between the two of them.

a beat, and then...

like the hook of his thumb around hers, like this gentle point of contact that's not quite casual but not quite anything else serves as a key in some invisible lock. unlike some, clarke griffin had arrived here with friends. whether they proved a benefit or baggage really depended on whatever mission they were set on, and just because she hadn't sought them out to comfort her in the wake of the doppelgangers doesn't mean she couldn't have. she is not touch starved — she could fold natsuno or rita into a hug any time she needed, and even octavia had hugged her fiercely within the last month. but also she is — and this is new, a little too electrifying, a little too easy.

that should be quashed. and she almost wants him to know: )

...I thought about it, though. ( not bordering, but well over the line into guilty territory. like she ought to be better than that, seeing as that weirdly chipper blonde who flipped with the same hair trigger as krouse's revolver had still be a person, no matter how unreasonable in the moment. it's clarke's turn to drop her gaze and study the back of her free hand like there's going to be a test on the whorls and lines of her own skin in the next five minutes. in her peripherals, the liquid surface of her coffee is far too dark to evoke a strong remembrance of the lapping, blood stained siren pool but it's enough that it's wet. she had tried to talk to lisa first, and when that failed she'd gotten kicked and bent double. first she'd been scared, and then she'd gotten angry. )

She was trying to drown me. And I really didn't want to die like that again.

( and clarke sighs, a phantom of a death rattle. and again two things happen at once: she withdraws her wandering foot, hooks it around her stationary heel, and disentangles their fingers to slide her hand back across the tabletop to cradle the base of her coffee cup. )

It would have just slowed me down.

[equivo]

[ The wrong kind of joke at the wrong moment, a stupid miscalculation he should have known better than to make. Most people take shooting someone seriously. Something crumples in his throat like torn foil, disappointment surging up around it. At least it keeps him from trying to interrupt her to fumble some attempt at salvaging things, which is for the best, because it rapidly becomes clear that he wouldn't have had a chance.

He's had to revise his opinion of Clarke's general levels of compassion before. Someone could argue that's repeated here. A person so generous she wants to make allowances for everyone, however off-putting their behaviour is, and so selfless that admitting she was tempted otherwise embarrasses her. It's a flattering explanation, brimming with noble intentions and guided by a strong moral compass. Parts of it are even true.

But he sees the guilt first. Pervasive, internalized, like the kind of poison that builds up in the bones until they have to bury you in a lead-lined coffin. A guilt that says anything that happens to her is something she might deserve, and anything she does about it is something she should be ashamed of. The crumpled foil in his throat calcifies into familiar, hideous splinters.

When she tugs her hand away, he almost reaches after it. He has to press it flat again to keep it still, staring at her downturned face like he can drag something out of it with sheer force of will. ]

If someone's trying to kill you, I think you get a pass on thinking about shooting them.

[ His voice is hard, brittle only at the edges. His throatful of splinters, swallowed, burrow into raw nerves and already open wounds. ]

In fact, call me crazy, but I think that's one of the most reasonable times to actually shoot someone.

[skaikru]

( at some point it ought to occur to clarke that she's just irreparably broken, when even a reasonable sort of absolution does absolutely nothing to soothe the ache in her chest. but this is not the day that happens, all she can manage in the moment is pressing her lips together so tightly they blanche white and scowling at the wood pattern of the table like it'd done her a personal wrong.

krouse doesn't quite get it. he still doesn't quite know her.

thought about means wanted to, at least for a few seconds. and not for the reasons a normal person might be moved to kill someone in the middle of a fight, out of fear for the absolute and unknown oblivion of death. because she'd already taken the forerunner position in establishing they'd just come back here, hadn't she? it'd just been an utterly insulting notion that she'd die again so quickly, and for nothing but trying to do the right thing. and despite the failed foray into heroism (aka basic human decency), it'd more so been about the inconvenience. clarke had entered the labyrinth with two concrete lifelines to hold on to — keep her people safe, and get to the end first in order to have a say in what the next mission would entail so she could keep her people safe. only to fail at both, but she couldn't have even tried if doomed to spend 48 hours rotting and reforming.

in the end, the time she spends studying the table and chewing over her own shortcomings gives clarke the time needed to recompose herself. and krouse's attempt to mitigate her demons ultimately drags out a small smile by the time she tilts her face up to meet his gaze.

manufactured and pacifying, but so soft it almost passes for genuine. )

You're right.

( and he is. but this is also clarke neatly book-ending the conversation, a wordless reinforcement of i'm fine punctuated by pulling her coffee mug to her mouth and taking a measured sip. she's been in this seat for nearly 40 minutes, and her drink is bitterly lukewarm, but look at her — functional in the wake of the labyrinth, bordering on pleasant and casual. )

Still sucked, though.

( and she sighs with her whole chest, leaning back in her chair. the little pocket of air they'd unintentionally managed to build around themselves and their not-exactly-private conversation bursts the second she casts her gaze around at the coffee shop as a whole. it is busy and bustling, somewhere in the background a face she doesn't recognize enters the building with the soft jingle of the door bell and orders a black coffee at the counter. he cradles his cup like a baby near his chest, and will eventually move to sit in what was previously krouse, and i never finished high school's seat. corrine is bringing out a fresh tray of croissants. slivers of surrounding chatter flood into her ears alongside an off brand version of enjoy the silence by depeche mode bumps quietly in the background — words are very un-fundamental, don't get so sentimental.

clarke had momentarily lost her grasp on the passage of time, but figures she has 17 more mandatory minutes. and very abruptly doesn't care anymore.

and, like — if there was ever anyone around to enthusiastically break a rule or two with, krouse has at least long proven he can be discreet. her mug thunks gently against lacquered wood as she sets it down with emphasis, and the legs of her chair only mildly squeal as she braces her palms against the edge of the table and pushes back. )

Do you want to just go?

[equivo]

[ Krouse knows when he's being placated. His stomach flips with it, acid curdling with bile, coffee twice as bitter when he tastes it again at the back of his mouth. She withdraws and shutters so politely it's almost believable, if he'd just let himself believe it. It's not like it's anything he hasn't done before.

Self-loathing swells up like a burn-blister. He digs the balls of his feet into the floor through the soles of his sneakers, molars gritting and releasing in a twitch of suppression. He always does this. Someone shows him a vulnerability, and he says exactly the right thing to make them regret it. He doesn't even have to try, he's that good at it. But that doesn't stop him from trying, because apparently some lessons just don't fucking stick.

He sinks back in his chair to match her, palm skidding back across the table as he answers her soft smile with a fainter mirror. He should be able to do better than that, but should hasn't been getting him far.

Pivot focus and backtrack. He needs to get back to the material problem at hand, which is the only reason he has to care about the seams of Clarke's shell or anything that lies underneath. He's starting to formulate a follow up question about the girl with the eyeliner mask when Clarke, several steps ahead, makes a sudden, definitive decision. ]

- yeah.

[ He blinks, the shift enough to throw him all over again. He pushes back with his feet, not his hands, the screech of his chair a slightly louder counterpoint to hers.

Maybe he should be a voice of reason. It's not that much longer to have to sit. He could even offer to be quiet through it, if that's the problem. He is occasionally capable of keeping his mouth shut. But she wants to go, and he doesn't have it in him to tell her to stay anywhere for her own good. ]

Your place, still?

[ It's probably obvious. She wants to hand the gun over and forget about it. He just wants to make sure, as he rises to his feet, that he's not making another assumption. ]

[skaikru]

Yeah, unless you're letting me keep your gun forever.

( she knows him to be capable of silence. that stretch in the woods where she'd outright asked him to shut up, and the purposeful quiet of his movements around the little oasis in the middle of the maze when she'd pretended more than actually tried to sleep are proof enough. but the cafe is too bright and bustling to be considered quiet, and that's not even what she wants — would absolutely sit and listen to krouse prattle endlessly about nothing in particular if it felt like they could dig themselves out of this particular, multi-faceted hole of guilt. a well of emotion, if you would. another small factor may be the seed of delinquency he'd sown when switching the name tags; clarke had been sitting patiently in this cafe day in and day out as an open book, in penance for having subjected the entire populace to this silly little task absolutely no one was enforcing, and she's tired of it. a little rebellion does the soul good once in a while.

so they stand, and she doesn't bus her own cup this time. and they shift and shuffle and slide around the other tables in a loose, two person single-file line 'til reaching the door, where she pushes it open with the soft jingle of the welcome bell and holds it so krouse can walk through — after you. outside the sun is high in the sky, full and bright, with not a cloud in sight. it's the middle of the day, bordering on summer at best guess but with a slight breeze that still ushers in a cool, refreshing chill. the change of scenery does something to settle her nerves, a proper (if also temporary) book-end to their coffee shop conversation and the chance to compartmentalize rather than feel. clarke focuses on the smell of trees and the shrunken rivers rather than what the siren pool had tasted like when lisa thrashed beneath the surface and droplets of salt water had burned against her cracked lips; she listens to the distant trill of birds and prefers its sporadic nature over the perfect melody of the sirens' song. dodging around other pedestrians on the sidewalk is so easy compared to ducking out of the line of dragon fire, and there is no invisible, unspecified time limit hanging over their heads.

there is no small talk, but it's not a very long walk. just a couple of minutes at the easy but direct pace she sets. and if she ignores that they're still stuck in a bubble, it doesn't feel anything like traversing the dusty labyrinth hallways. the apartment building looms into view first, followed swiftly by the hospital rooftop. once inside the former, clarke does pause for a split second because she largely prefers taking the stairs — not being trapped in the small, enclosed space of the elevator even for the few seconds it takes to traverse floors, always with the option to turn around and run from a potential threat.

but it's just the two of them in the lobby for the moment, and krouse is... krouse seems like he had a hell of a time at the tail end of the maze, and since she'd skipped over asking how long it'd been since he'd managed his escape, clarke just rolls with the assumption that he still might be recovering from the aches of survivalism. she punches the button to call the lift, then the number four to trigger the soft mechanical whir of closing doors and engaging gears. her room is down to the right once they exit, second window from the left if looking up at the building from the street. she sighs a little while fiddling with the lock, every time she returns to this place just another reminder that it means nothing to her; a provided home that will never feel completely safe, even if aurora loosely promised she didn't always keep watch within. it's just another bit of set dressing, a place to sleep or not sleep, a staging area more than a comfort to return to after a long day. but it's what she has, and against her will, it'd become familiar.

the door swings open easily and even from the doorway a few things stand out. the lights are off, the curtains down; the air is stale, with the distant scent of hot soap leftover from this morning's too long shower. there's a bedroom door open and the edge of a perfectly made bed in line of sight, but the couch is a rumpled mess — obviously slept on. the coffee table in front of it is a bit of a mess, a disjointed array of items: two swiss army knives, a nonsensical newspapers or three, a lighter and a can of hair spray, a half drunk water bottle, an unopened bottle of liquor innocently set next to a fresh wash cloth, an open box of moleskin bandages, the wrappers of a few protein bars, a yellow legal pad splayed open — and more than a few pages ripped out and tacked up in the space around the window, a series of lists and thoughts and a hand drawn map of etraya on display. just inside to the left are three go-bags identical to the one she'd been wearing last they met; all heavy, and visibly over stuffed, lined against the wall and ready to go. beyond them the filthy, crusty, blood stained war boots, cargo pants, jacket, sweatshirt, and neon high-visibility t-shirt she'd worn in the labyrinth are just in a pile, obviously discarded and not touched again since she'd managed to trudge back here in the wake of finding her friends at the exit. and to the right, there's a relatively untouched little kitchenette with a jar on the counter full of liquid, something dark suspended within it —

oh fuck. )

Wait here one second.

( very abruptly — like for the first time in her life she's felt shame about her living quarters — clarke floods into the apartment and partially closes the the front door in her wake to obscure. a moment later, there's a subsequent scrape of glass against tile, a six second cacophony of cupboard hinges squeaking open, a thud of something heavy being stashed away, the thunk of a door closing, and then — )

You can come in.

[equivo]

[ He pulls a slight face at the idea of her keeping the gun, because that's the response that makes sense, but it's more automatic than calculated. As he trails behind her on their way out of the cafe, he's already halfway lost in his own thoughts, just present enough to give her another quick, knowing smile at her getting the door ahead of him this time.

After that, staying lapsed into quiet is unexpectedly simple. The pressure to say something that normally builds up in any undefined lull is redirected to thinking through his other problem.

Thinking through might be generous. Most of what he goes over is a string of crystal clear moments strung in sequence, starting in a rotted city with a skyline like a boxer's teeth. There's an old Greek myth about Prometheus' brother, who lacked his more famous sibling's gift for forward thinking. When the gods wanted to make a point over one slight or another, they sent him Pandora and her eponymous box, and it was really his fault that the whole world went to shit even though she takes all the blame. That part stuck with Krouse, eleven or twelve with a secondhand anthology of world myths, enough that he decided to remember the name.

Epimetheus. Titan of hindsight, the gift of knowing exactly how you fucked up only after the fact.

It keeps him busy into the elevator, which he doesn't stop to think might be for his benefit even while he vaguely appreciates skipping the stairs. He'll remember the path to her door if he ever has a reason to, one of those little habits of observation that never turns off, and he still manages not to really take in the implications of visiting the place where she lives until she opens her front door. Hindsight, again.

What hits him first is how familiar it is. Not the layout or the decor, which is an architectural curiosity that would normally be pinging his attention, but the parts of it that are hers. A cluster of lifesigns he's not going to call a mess, even if it might be one, and the conspicuous containment of nearly all of it to one small area. Notes on the wall, supplies on the coffee table, bags packed to go, the crumpled huddle of clothes she hasn't yet found the energy to deal with.

Clarke doesn't live here. This is just where she stays. He's walked into this room before. Richmond, Boston, New York, Brockton Bay. The city changes, but not the habits. He's stilled by it at the threshold, his shoulders held too level and face too schooled, as memory lands a clean punch right beneath his sternum.

The funny thing about her breaking the silence with a curse and rushing in to clean up is that if she hadn't, he wouldn't have had half as many questions about whatever is in the jar that's no longer visible when he pushes the front door back open at her invitation. ]

It's not that bad.

[ He smiles as he steps inside, sweeping a purposefully cursory glance around a fraction of the apartment before he looks down at his feet, his hands tucked into his hoodie pockets. ]

You should have seen my last place. [ A joke, obvious in tone if not content. ] Looks like you found the Swiss army knives. Have you noticed the tweezers sticking on yours? They do on mine.