etrayalogs | tomorrow is here

It’s freshly noon when Sciel gets back from doing the shopping. (If you can call picking things up and walking out with them “shopping”, anyway.) It’s as if she’s lived an eternity here already, or at the least tumbled headfirst into this place and gotten back up on her feet with a full schedule: up when the noise around the apartment kicks up, meditations, breakfast with Gustave and Maelle, tidying, a run that turns into a wander around the city, back for lunch, on and on and on. It’s easy, this life. Near weightless.

It must be, given how much space they all need to decompress. Gustave most of all, but he has Maelle at his side much of the time, and Sciel is not inclined to think anything is gunning for him. Verso, on the other hand, needs some sort of tether, lest she find him off his rocker in a cave somewhere.

So: here’s Sciel, flip-flopping her way down the hall in sandals, one hand wrangling a paper shopping bag and a six pack of beer, and the other arm balancing a flat cardboard box with a lid that sags slightly in the middle. It’s left a warm, reddened spot where it presses against her bare ribs.

Knock knock, Verso. Or rather, kick-kick, as she doesn’t have a free hand to knock with; a drum with the edge of her sandal will have to do.

Verso has been doing his own wanderings at dawn. He sleeps about the same as he did back home -- an oppressive void instead of dreams. But at least, when he is awake at night, he plays soft and soothing melodies rather than anything that would disrupt the sleep of others in the apartment. During the day, when he's done with his aimless wandering (and encountering others), he returns to play some new songs -- sometimes a faster, louder one.

He told Maelle once that his heart would almost break from the beauty of the notes; he finds peace in the playing that he does.

Drawing his hands away from the keys, he tilts his head at the knock at the door. Although, he has to admit the knock sounds a bit off. Shifting around, he pulls the cover down and pushes himself up to see who it is. Still odd to have a door. A thought that he doesn't think he should share with anyone.

Pulling it open, he blinks in surprise at all that Sciel is holding. He's opening the door wider so that she can get in -- and holding his arms out so that he can take some of what she's carrying.

"If I knew you were bringing me so much, I'd have come a little quicker to answer."

A wicked little smile curves its way onto her mouth, and she feels pleased to catch him off guard.

“I’ll forgive your tardiness, given how rusty you are.”

Sorry, Verso, she already knows how often you’ve been indoors in recent memory.

She deposits the box onto his waiting arms. The cardboard is sweating from its contents and a walk through the hot sun, and it smells hearty — cheese, basil, garlic.

“I found this little place, some kind of brasserie, selling these big sauced up breads, so I got one. I thought, ‘surely my adventurous friend Verso would try a pizza with me!’”

"I honestly am thinking of keeping it unlocked. Saves us all some time."

The corner of his eyes crinkle in amusement as he takes the box in question. He pauses to give it a sniff - not like he had to, but the action itself seems like it would be amusing to them both.

"I surely will be willing to try something so adventurous." He steps back to walk back into the apartment to set it somewhere they can eat. His head only lifts as he realizes that he left the door open -- and gives it a frown -- but decides leaving it to Sciel to close is equally fine.

Consider her amused, and she tosses a brief grin at him before turning to press the door shut with her now-freed hand. She doesn’t bother locking it, either.

“It’s a lot of effort to answer doors,” she says, mock-serious, rejoining him.

She sets the beers down with the pizza with a heavy clunk, and the paper bag, too. It rests soundlessly, but weighty.

“And not too fancy for beer, I hope?”

"I will have you know that with my previous abode," Which was a shack, yes, "it did have a door. But I realized how pointless that was living so close to Gestrals."

He uses his index finger to flick the top of the box open to glance at the pizza. A little laugh follows not so much at the sight of the food but the question about beer.

"It's not being spit up by Esquie, but I can still drink it." Turning his hand round, he makes a gesture for her to sit down with him. 'Course his eyebrows lift, he thinks he should go look for plates or something -- but well, it looks like something they can eat with their hands, so.

"I'll at least look for something to wipe our hands with, hm?" He's going to get up to locate just that, at least. "How have you been finding this place so far? I've heard we can really do whatever we want between missions."

Sciel slides into the seat opposite him, comfortable as can be.

"Next thing you'll tell me is that you had a proper bed, with a frame and everything," she says, amused. Continent is strewn with a million armoires and comtoise clocks and bergeres, but scarce few beds, and she cannot imagine the Gestrals caring to build their own, wooden as they are.

She tugs two of the beers from their cardboard sleeves, and without a second thought, catches the ring of her index finger against the underside of the crown, breaking the seal. One, then the other. She watches his retreating back as she does, faintly surprised; it hadn't occurred to her to eat it with her hands, and it seems like a greasy affair. But there's something novel about it, so she smiles.

"It's not home, but there's enough to see and do that I can't imagine growing bored of it. You? Gotten up to any more trouble?"

"Sadly, I must break your heart and tell you I did not." He rests his hand over his chest as he delivers the bad news.

Verso, for a second, stands away from the table as he mulls over where to get the aforementioned items to clean one's hands. He snaps his fingers like that helps him -- dramatics, theatrics -- as he wanders into the bathroom to retrieve two hand towels.

He tosses one for her and sets the other down for himself. Scratching the side of his beard, he looks over the open beer. "I'm glad to hear it." That she doesn't see herself growing bored, that she'll always have some new adventure to enjoy.

And he blinks first at the question. "I've been good. Getting myself much needed hair products." His smile widens on his face as he continues to joke around. "My vanity and ego both need to be fed constantly, I fear." This conversation is easy, he finds, but also feels he'll eventually have to address something of importance. Yet he doesn't see why that has to be the first thing said.

Lifting the can, he holds it out to her. "So, to a new beginning and chance. Cheers."

She catches the cloth and sets it to the side, with a little grin.

“Cheers,” she repeats, raising her own beer and dinging it off his just hard enough to risk a slosh. “You know, I thought when I was coming in, I’ve never seen him so clean and handsome, but I didn’t want it to go to your head. But since you know you’re an egomaniac, I suppose there’s no harm in you knowing.”

She reaches for a piece of pizza.

“Anything else? It can’t all be staring at the aisles of the department stores.”

She knows a dodge when she sees one, after all.

Elbows on the surface, his smile is seen around the can as he takes a drink. As she speaks, he lifts and lowers his eyebrows teasingly as he agrees with her without saying anything. The can is set down as he swallows what's in his mouth.

He gently rest his mouth against his hands. His fingers gently rubbing over his top lip as he visibly seems to think. However, he does drop his hands down. "Been also thinking about --" Flicking his hand between them. "-- us."

Reaching out, he takes a piece of pizza.

"Which sounds more serious than what I think it should." His head does its usual bounce as he folds the piece in his hand. He looks over what he has - propping his elbow on the table, yet again. The fingers of his free hand, flex and curl into his palm.

He lifts his gaze back up to Sciel. "But I've been thinking about that, and them."

She watches him think, as if the deep churn of thoughts in that lovely head of his could spill out his ears and pool out for her to see. She’s not sure she’s ever seen someone look so troubled even with a smile on his face. Such real pleasure, too. She wonders if he knows that; who has ever held a mirror to him so plainly?

She shifts in her seat, waiting for the drop, tucking one long leg up onto the seat with the rest of her. Comfortable, even with whatever this is about.

“Us,” she repeats, thoughtfully, her eyes fixed on his, her smile a little mysterious. “And them? Do tell.”

He still is holding the folded pizza. As she gets more comfortable with how she's sitting, he takes a bite of what she brought. His other hand covers his mouth, lightly drumming his fingers against his cheek.

The piece is set down in the open lid. His eyebrows lift and he points to his mouth to indicate that it is good. Casual, easy motions before he answers her -- or rather, before he talks about his thoughts.

It is a needed beat of levity, so he thinks.

"Well," Verso starts as soon as he swallows, "I wondered if it is fair to Gustave for us to be casual with each other."

He feels the two of them ended on a good note but would it make things odd for him that Sciel and he are friends with very good benefits. Should they cool that down? For how long? Doesn't he himself also make things complicated?

"I shouldn't put it all on him but... does it complicate things that I do have some feelings for you?" A beat. "Yes, it obviously does. That is a stupid question."

Oh, good, he likes this. This would all be so silly if he said something like that after making a sour face. She laughs near soundlessly, pizza still in hand, and stretches out her free foot until the table until she finds his calf to nudge him.

“What are you talking about? He’s one of my dearest friends, not my father or some old boyfriend,” she remarks, deeply amused. “I’m sure it’d be a little surprising to him, but what does he care? He might even like that you’re a romantic instead of a philanderer.”

She is being funny; she is another man’s wife, dead or alive. But it’s so sweet of him to worry, just the same. She has not, even once, considered a romance with this man, but she can’t deny that leaning across the table to look into his eyes makes her remember what it’s like to have one. It puts a little curl of intrigue in her, some long-lost sensation flickering to life in her body after a long hibernation.

It’d be easier if he just wanted to get between her legs, certainly, but crushes come and go.

“So as long as you don’t have any plans to––“ What’s a funny scenario? What grandiose display of puppy love can she conjure up? Ah. She rolls her eyes, theatrically. “I don’t know, leave a hundred roses at my door, it’s our business, not theirs.”

Just like it was back at camp, a shred of normalcy –– a different sort of stranger in a different sort of bar, slotted in around real life’s worst acts. Lune politely looked the other way as long as neither skipped out on their duties to the Expedition, and the rest of their party remained oblivious, willfully or not, unbothered by base, human messiness.

And she adds, a little wry: “Besides. Maelle is the one who would judge. It’d be like the wine all over again.”

Verso exaggerates how he's nudged; he rocks himself slightly in his chair.

"You do have a way of uncomplicating things that I feel are complicated." His smile softens. "It's--" He taps his fingers on the surface first. "--what Renoir did, too." But he breathes in and reiterates what he said already to himself. Sciel has a way of uncomplicating what he feels is difficult.

Besides, his feelings for her don't necessarily stop him from flirting or being with other people. He's not asking her to only be with him, either. He isn't sure he can knowing what he knows. He isn't sure he could ever ask something of that of anyone, honestly. But he does know that he still cares for Sciel; his heart softens when she's around.

Her heart belongs to someone else, but maybe someone here could steal it.

"Oh, well, I have an order I have to cancel, then." He gives her a bright, teasing smile as obviously he had not done anything of the sort. "But you're right. It's our business."

He clicks his tongue slightly, less out of annoyance but more in agreement somehow. "It certainly would. Probably worse." His eyes roll up as he feels his throat tighten, more theatrically than nervously. "Yes, it's probably best to keep her oblivious about us." He feels his mouth twitch slightly into a smile before it fades.

"Guess that matter's part of the closed pile." He reaches out to pick up his beer, holding the can at its top to turn and take a drink.

A little laugh slips out under her breath.

"No, not closed! We've only gotten started," she says.

They're all fair points, they're in agreement, and she does so love to banter their way through a half dozen points in mere seconds, but she wants to languish there for a moment longer.

She lets her foot along the side of his calf, right down to his foot, which she traps against the floor playfully. No tipping over, now.

"What's on your mind? Tell me."

"Oh boy."

An exaggerated response as he once more picks up the piece of pizza that he set down. It's folded again so that he can take a bite. Chewing, savoring, swallowing does give him a second to think of what he is going to say next.

"Playing footsie?" He turns his other foot to lightly tap the top of hers. But he understands -- it's easy to just put a bandaid on something with the hope that whatever is underneath will heal eventually.

Only he knows what's underneath and it won't heal right.

"I already am trying to make right with Gustave, but--" He frowns; the area around his eyes twitches. "--I hadn't intended to lie to him. Yet I decided it as soon as we started talking. I didn't know what he remembered. I didn't want to have him not think he survived and just needed to get back home."

Verso tilts his head slightly in her direction. "I didn't want him to distrust me by saying who I was, because I wanted to help." A beat; he fills it up with taking another bite. As before, it helps to break up some time between what he's intends to say and what he actually will say.

"The fact I wouldn't been able to hide it isn't why I knew I had to tell him eventually." There is a lot he has to tell him one day. Things that only he knows. It'll break something; it might mean Sciel will never look at him as she does now; Maelle will hate him. But maybe all of that is for the best.

If he says that, they'll probably cut ties with him. Perhaps, they won't learn anything else. They're already living well; finding something for themselves; finding hope. Maybe, he can slip out the back and not intrude further on how they're healing, recovering, grieving.

Yet a churning sensation in his chest stops him.

"I just think it's better for me to be away until we're all sorted out."

Her gaze drifts over him, the way his jaw moves when he chews, the little flex to this throat as he swallows. She gently presses back against his other foot with hers as he does, her smile momentarily crinkling her eyes. Yes, this is footsie. With affection: Idiot.

She just listens, attentive despite continuing to play with her foot between his.

"Alright," she says.

It all weaves together smoothly enough for her to see where things went wrong, but also where things are slowly correcting themselves. She's not sure why it's tripped him up so much, why this, of all things, is making him anxious. It makes her worry for him.

"Is this your way of saying you don't want to sleep together until you feel comfortable with Gustave?"

His head gives a small little shake "no." The area around his eyes twitch and tense as he thinks that the better answer is "yes," but not for the reasons that she knows.

"Well, you also didn't know he was my father before--"

His head tilts to the side. He feels that odd clenching feeling in his chest as he wonders about the many ways that he's betrayed her.

"--I wondered if I hurt you then, too."

Their situation has always been breezy and fun. Regardless of his feelings, he knew there wasn't anything serious between them. Yet he decides to ask a question that he had hesitated on.

"Our business is our own." He repeats what she said; he realizes he's using a lot of her words lately. "It just all seems to come together and I worried about all the times I trampled on your heart only to realize it later."

Not exactly a rousing refusal. Her foot stills, though she doesn't pull it from contact with him. She does set down her beer.

"I was frustrated that you didn't tell us, but I already knew the kind of man you were," she replies. It's not something she has to think about; she didn't dwell on it then and she won't dwell on it now, not with everything that's happened since Old Lumière. "You are not your father, nor are you responsible for what he did."

The Expedition was massacred, and Gustave murdered, and compared to that, any truth Verso has skirted around feels remarkably small. Her gaze drifts over his face, up the scar over his eye, and her smile grows a little sad at that.

It's like he wants punishment. But what, between them, has warranted it? They've had little disagreements, little tensions. Banter can pinch the wrong spots, he can push for stories he hasn't earned, but what does any of that matter? Little stumbles are the price of getting to know people.

"I'd tell you if you'd ever crossed a line with me," she promises. "I like our business, and our friendship."

One day, Verso believes she'll find out the kind of man he is. She may think that he's worse than his father could be.

However, there is far too much unknown about what is to come. He cares about her, about them; even though he doesn't have any right to feel that way. If he speaks the truth, he won't be able to watch over them, either. That may be an excuse, but the word stick in his throat and he still can't say them.

"You promise?" That she'd tell him? "I like it, too."

What has happened can't be changed. He hopes to be able to help them all at present. It seems they're still wondering if they should even try to return if everything is gone. Perhaps, living here is a possibility.

"Those are really all my thoughts on that bit." He's only been eating with one hand, picking up his beer with one to drink. It's so he would have the other able to reach out to rest casually on her thigh, sliding so his fingers gently rest on the inside in a small, gentle touch.

"But... living apart might be good just for..." His eyes roll in an exaggerated manner, like he's searching for the words. Fingers gently drumming against her. "... keeping things our business."

Oh, Verso.

“I promise,” she repeats, seriously. She knows her word is true and sincere, and she can forgive the man of an apprehension of that. Even with a few dark and personal stories under their belts, they’ve much to learn about each other still, and she has her own fears about what he might think of her truths.

But what matters is he’s tried, evasive as he can be, and now they have nothing but time to get to know each other more.

And then his palm slides over her skin, resting right on the warmth of her inner thigh, just inches off the hem of her shorts. She takes a swig of her beer and the smile blossoms on her face again. She leans in his direction, shoulder pressing against his, looking at him through her eyelashes.

“It is an added perk,” she agrees. She adds, sly: “Should I give you my thoughts, since you’ve so generously shared yours?”

Rather than responding further to her promise, his smile only softens. It soothes something in him to hear; it adds a little more weight on his shoulders.

His fingers gently stroking the skin, playing with the hem of her shorts.

Leaning closer, he lowers his voice like they're sharing some secrets with each other. "I'd feel bad if I was the only one sharing my thoughts, actually." He tilts his head so that he can look at her properly -- his expression shifting to something a little more serious, little more sincere.

“Mm,” she hums, not breaking his gaze even as she takes another sip. All of the strife of the past few days feels lighter than air when they get like this, and the look in his eyes is softer than his usual blustering charm.

“I think even if you did want to stop this, I would have to insist on doing it in a bed at least once, before the end. For the novelty, of course.”

"That can be easily arranged." Verso leans in close as soon as she's done taking her sip. But he doesn't move to kiss her lips instead he places a quick, little peck on her nose. It seems to be his go-to when he's wanting to tease her.

"But is that all? Everything that you've been thinking?" He makes a small gesture with his other hand. "About everything?"

She chuckles, lifting her chin as if she could follow his mouth for a proper kiss, but she just lingers close, breathing in his air.

“It’s not all, no,” she replies. “But I have thoughts on everything, so you’ll have to be specific about what you want to hear.”

@verso, knock knock

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