08-15-2013, 02:28 PM
At two-twelve in the morning, Hawksley is unconscious. There is a mostly-empty glass with an entirely-melted ice cube in it on the windowsill next to the still-pretty-full bottle of scotch. Yes, somehow, it seems that there should be a rising sun seen in the corner of that window, illuminating the amber liquid, but everything outside is dark and the only light hitting Hawksley's face is whatever the moon manages to get through the branches and light pollution and shades and shadows.
Sometime while Sera is texting Sid, Hawksley half-wakes. He sees her moving around, her face partly illuminated by the gleam of her phone, and without opening his eyes all the way or moving his head or speaking, he watches her for a few seconds before he decides to let sleep drag him back under for another nine minutes. Because his mind is closer to the surface than it was before, he wakes easily to the hand on his shoulder, blinking and breathing in, his chest expanding, his face turning up to look at her.
She tucks back his hair, which is entirely unnecessary, since his hair is too short to stay and just slips back from the curve like a child jumping off the bottom of the slide to yell <i>again, again!</i>. All the same, the gesture breaks his heart with tenderness, and both the intensity and the insubstantiality of that emotion play clearly and quickly through his eyes. His heart cannot stay broken for more than a moment.
And she leans in, and he rolls his brow and her brow together gently, while she whispers to him that sleeping in the armchair can't be comfortable.
"You don't know my life," he mutters sleepily, fondly, self-amused. His mouth has lolled into a half-grin, but he takes her hand and lifts himself from the chair, leaving phone and keys and wallet in the seat, hoping all the clothes he took off that chair don't crawl back up and cover it once more and bury his belongings forever. Or devour them.
This is the sort of thing he thinks about at two-thirty in the morning, half-awake, as he's letting himself drop to sit on the edge of Sera's bed, taking off his shoes and taking off his t-shirt and he didn't wear a belt so he doesn't take one off but he does drop his shorts and since he's a guest and someone taught him at least some modicum of manners, he keeps his boxers on even though this is decidedly not how he normally sleeps.
If he knew Sera wanted to find him, Justin, or Pan, or whoever him is in her thoughts, he would do it for her. Or tell her there are other ways, or something. He'd help. But he doesn't know a thing about reading thoughts, and as he's reclining back in that enormous bed like he's been here before, like he owns the place, like he belongs here, Sera tells him that the latest texts were with Sid, and Sid is coming over.
He huffs a soft little laugh and rolls onto his side, facing the middle of the bed, his back to the window the garden the scotch the moonlight. "Good thing you have a big bed," he murmurs, getting comfortable, folding one arm under a pillow under his head and one arm around Sera until her back or her side or, hell, her front is against his chest, which is perhaps the first nope sorry going to hold you now hope that's cool gesture he's made, and it is as slow and steady and free of panic as his arrival in Garfield Park.
In the quiet that falls between them he lowers his voice. He whispers, finally:
"What happened?"
And finally, Sera tells him.
Sometime while Sera is texting Sid, Hawksley half-wakes. He sees her moving around, her face partly illuminated by the gleam of her phone, and without opening his eyes all the way or moving his head or speaking, he watches her for a few seconds before he decides to let sleep drag him back under for another nine minutes. Because his mind is closer to the surface than it was before, he wakes easily to the hand on his shoulder, blinking and breathing in, his chest expanding, his face turning up to look at her.
She tucks back his hair, which is entirely unnecessary, since his hair is too short to stay and just slips back from the curve like a child jumping off the bottom of the slide to yell <i>again, again!</i>. All the same, the gesture breaks his heart with tenderness, and both the intensity and the insubstantiality of that emotion play clearly and quickly through his eyes. His heart cannot stay broken for more than a moment.
And she leans in, and he rolls his brow and her brow together gently, while she whispers to him that sleeping in the armchair can't be comfortable.
"You don't know my life," he mutters sleepily, fondly, self-amused. His mouth has lolled into a half-grin, but he takes her hand and lifts himself from the chair, leaving phone and keys and wallet in the seat, hoping all the clothes he took off that chair don't crawl back up and cover it once more and bury his belongings forever. Or devour them.
This is the sort of thing he thinks about at two-thirty in the morning, half-awake, as he's letting himself drop to sit on the edge of Sera's bed, taking off his shoes and taking off his t-shirt and he didn't wear a belt so he doesn't take one off but he does drop his shorts and since he's a guest and someone taught him at least some modicum of manners, he keeps his boxers on even though this is decidedly not how he normally sleeps.
If he knew Sera wanted to find him, Justin, or Pan, or whoever him is in her thoughts, he would do it for her. Or tell her there are other ways, or something. He'd help. But he doesn't know a thing about reading thoughts, and as he's reclining back in that enormous bed like he's been here before, like he owns the place, like he belongs here, Sera tells him that the latest texts were with Sid, and Sid is coming over.
He huffs a soft little laugh and rolls onto his side, facing the middle of the bed, his back to the window the garden the scotch the moonlight. "Good thing you have a big bed," he murmurs, getting comfortable, folding one arm under a pillow under his head and one arm around Sera until her back or her side or, hell, her front is against his chest, which is perhaps the first nope sorry going to hold you now hope that's cool gesture he's made, and it is as slow and steady and free of panic as his arrival in Garfield Park.
In the quiet that falls between them he lowers his voice. He whispers, finally:
"What happened?"
And finally, Sera tells him.
my whole life is thunder.