08-18-2013, 11:52 AM
While Sera talks, Hawksley listens. His breathing is steady and his heartbeat is steady and he closes his eyes and every word she says is infused with the scent of strawberries, which is unfamiliar but not unpleasant and super girly he thinks, but that is strange and surreal and oddly macabre set against the things she's telling him. Of moths and vengeance, blood and broken antiquity. This is the first time Sera has told him of a dream she's had like this -- he doesn't know about the one where he and Sid sit on a cliffside eating mushy peas, flinging them into the sea, and he would have laughed at that one but he doesn't laugh at this one.
She shivers, and his arms tighten a fraction, a response to the shiver though one might not strictly call it a squeeze. It's good to know she would have just left, that she's compassionate and she's not a shrinking violet but she's not a fucking moron and she doesn't have something to prove and she doesn't let a Sense of Duty interfere with the Instinct to Survive or any of that. It's just a shame she didn't get a chance to do the smart thing, the sane thing, and run.
Her description of what Papa Pan was doing is instantly recognizable in Hawksley's mind, and he has Thoughts that spin out from that awareness but he doesn't voice them, it's really neither here nor there right this second. He learned painfully, some time ago, that there is a time and place for his particular brand of innocent-ruthless, brutal pragmaticism and that time and place usually does not intersect with the times and places for other people's faith, other people's belief, other people's fucking magic or fucking emotions.
Like many lessons, he learned that one well, just too late.
--
So: Hawksley keeps his damn mouth shut and he listens and he focuses on what she's saying and not on his own thoughts that spin out into curious directions or on the fact that she is very small and very worn out and ack. He puts his face along the curve of her skull as she tells him what she did, brilliant really, when you think she doesn't know magics that directly wound she doesn't carry a .45 in her handbag she doesn't have a whole lot of physical power to thump something on the head and cave in its brain but oh, by god, you are still a weapon, shining and bright and clever and he wants to tell her that, too, but he might later. Just not right now, not when she keeps shivering like that and even her voice sounds hollowed out.
And: Hawksley kisses her scalp through her hair, eyes closed, breathing in her scent beneath the scent of strawberries now that the scent of fearful sweat and other people's blood and her own blood is all, all gone.
He slides his arm from where it holds her to her hand, palm to palm, fingers laid together. He can't think of any other touch between two people that feels quite so solid, quite so steady, as this one. So that is what he does.
--
Downstairs, Sid lets herself in and then lets her mind open, and she would know he's there even if she didn't see his Porsche parked outside. Upstairs and around the bend of the stairwell and in Sera's room, she feels as though the roof must have been torn off and the wind and birds and everything are flying, flying through the air up there, dipping and diving and lifting again. It is easy to breathe like that, feeling like one is not falling, is incapable of falling, and everything bloody and painful and carnal on this earth can be risen above and forgotten
or at least escaped.
He hears a soft knock, some time later. In that meantime, there is just Hawksley holding, Hawksley's hand with Sera's hand, and he is tired and it is the middle of the night and what exactly the fuck is he supposed to say that might be useful or helpful or comforting right now so he's not saying a damn thing. And in that mood, where Getting Up From Sera is not an option and speaking seems sacrilege, Hawksley just wants to lift his hand, snap a gesture into the air, and adjust the pressure of air on one side of the door to nudge it open.
Instead he sighs softly, exhaling into Sera's hair, and whispers to her -- as it is not his damn room to invite anyone into anyway -- "Sid."
She shivers, and his arms tighten a fraction, a response to the shiver though one might not strictly call it a squeeze. It's good to know she would have just left, that she's compassionate and she's not a shrinking violet but she's not a fucking moron and she doesn't have something to prove and she doesn't let a Sense of Duty interfere with the Instinct to Survive or any of that. It's just a shame she didn't get a chance to do the smart thing, the sane thing, and run.
Her description of what Papa Pan was doing is instantly recognizable in Hawksley's mind, and he has Thoughts that spin out from that awareness but he doesn't voice them, it's really neither here nor there right this second. He learned painfully, some time ago, that there is a time and place for his particular brand of innocent-ruthless, brutal pragmaticism and that time and place usually does not intersect with the times and places for other people's faith, other people's belief, other people's fucking magic or fucking emotions.
Like many lessons, he learned that one well, just too late.
--
So: Hawksley keeps his damn mouth shut and he listens and he focuses on what she's saying and not on his own thoughts that spin out into curious directions or on the fact that she is very small and very worn out and ack. He puts his face along the curve of her skull as she tells him what she did, brilliant really, when you think she doesn't know magics that directly wound she doesn't carry a .45 in her handbag she doesn't have a whole lot of physical power to thump something on the head and cave in its brain but oh, by god, you are still a weapon, shining and bright and clever and he wants to tell her that, too, but he might later. Just not right now, not when she keeps shivering like that and even her voice sounds hollowed out.
And: Hawksley kisses her scalp through her hair, eyes closed, breathing in her scent beneath the scent of strawberries now that the scent of fearful sweat and other people's blood and her own blood is all, all gone.
He slides his arm from where it holds her to her hand, palm to palm, fingers laid together. He can't think of any other touch between two people that feels quite so solid, quite so steady, as this one. So that is what he does.
--
Downstairs, Sid lets herself in and then lets her mind open, and she would know he's there even if she didn't see his Porsche parked outside. Upstairs and around the bend of the stairwell and in Sera's room, she feels as though the roof must have been torn off and the wind and birds and everything are flying, flying through the air up there, dipping and diving and lifting again. It is easy to breathe like that, feeling like one is not falling, is incapable of falling, and everything bloody and painful and carnal on this earth can be risen above and forgotten
or at least escaped.
He hears a soft knock, some time later. In that meantime, there is just Hawksley holding, Hawksley's hand with Sera's hand, and he is tired and it is the middle of the night and what exactly the fuck is he supposed to say that might be useful or helpful or comforting right now so he's not saying a damn thing. And in that mood, where Getting Up From Sera is not an option and speaking seems sacrilege, Hawksley just wants to lift his hand, snap a gesture into the air, and adjust the pressure of air on one side of the door to nudge it open.
Instead he sighs softly, exhaling into Sera's hair, and whispers to her -- as it is not his damn room to invite anyone into anyway -- "Sid."
my whole life is thunder.