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 Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2010 6:10 pm
It was the weekend, which meant it was time for Tate to be staying at her apartment. She relished this--sure, Ivan was more likely to pop in later than he ought to be, but she figured he would loosen the grip and let go eventually. Tate was growing up, after all; she'd always have her uncle, and love him always, but she didn't need him to baby her anymore.
So, in an attempt to head things off, she had clambered out the window (leaving it open, just in case: this is for you, Ladon) and settled onto the fire escape, swinging her legs between the bars. Somewhere far off she could hear sirens, the wail distant and thready. Out there--she could pinpoint the direction exactly, which was sad--was Ladon's house. Tomorrow, Ladon would be here, helping her and Parker paint, and Tate smiled to think of it. Her two best friends would finally meet. She was confident they probably would like each other enough... but not so much they'd forget her, which was good.
Plus, she probably owed Ladon at least that much.
Now that she was out here, though, she could think of nothing to do. Well... She thumped her head on the iron bars. If my life were a manga... "Wolframite?" If it was a manga, he would hear her. She just... wanted to talk to him. It didn't make sense, really. Tate waited a moment, and then blushed. At least Parker wasn't here to laugh.
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Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2010 6:47 pm
There had been some worry that, as Wolframite, he had no explanation on knowing where Tate was moving. The last thing that he wanted was to seem as if he was stalking her, but he had little idea how else he could excuse the fact that he knew where she lived when it had only been a few days since she had moved in. Saying that he looked her up in the phonebook was out, and it wasn’t like he was going to lie and say that he had talked to Ivan. Waiting for her at her house sounded as if he had nothing else better to do, and he didn’t want to give the air that he was living off her every breath. What he wanted her to see in him was everything Ladon wasn’t. To be strong, powerful, suave, and maybe just a bit manlier than Ladon was normally seen as. As Wolframite, he had the opportunity to meet Tate all over, even though Ladon and the Lieutenant both met her by accident, and impress.
It was with a great wave of relief that he saw a note on her window back at her parent’s place, and he read it to find that she had left her address in a sort of ‘just in case you wanted to’ manner. It was thoughtful and it also told him that she not only was thinking about him, but was also inviting him to her place. He still remembered that she kept the flowers in her room.
Before he left for her house, he composed his attire as best he could. There was little he could do with his uniform, but he did rip off the bows on his boots, his sleeves, but left the ones laced up his sides that kept his undershirt together. As for the large bow, as much as he liked it as much as the others, he undid it, folded it, and kept it in his pocket. Arranging his collar in a tidy fashion, he then put on the finishing touch. A pair of black sunglasses.
Already feeling more mature, he thought he had done pretty well for himself, but found out the glasses were a bit much when he tried to hop a few roofs and nearly fell off one. Deciding he’d wait to put them all, he went all the way to Tate’s apartment and landed on her roof. If anything, he would just pass by and see if her light was on. If not, he was just patrolling to make sure that the senshi that had haunted her old neighborhood hadn’t followed her, too.
Just as he was about to make his way down to the fire escape, he jerked when he saw Tate and scrambled back up, peeking over the edge of the roof to look down. The high wind of the building whipped her ponytail, bundled in a black hoodie and tiny shorts. Sure to be mindful of rust, she worse sneakers and her slender, long legs hung from the side of the fire escape. For a moment, he was breathless, wondering what she was thinking at this time of night as she looked into the dark sky.
And then he heard his name.
He nearly fell over the side of the building but scrambled back as he clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle himself. She was thinking of HIM! Wait. Maybe she saw him? Sensed him?!
Compose yourself, Wolfy boy. Cool. Beeee coooll.
With that in mind, he slipped on the sun glasses and set himself on the ledge in the best, I-was-here-all-along-baby, pose. He hoped he pulled it off. “You called?” He said, in the smoothest voice he could muster. Too bad his voice never deepened as much as other guys his age.
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Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2010 7:15 pm
She had decided he probably wasn't going to show, and was having a good long (quiet) laugh at herself for entertaining the thought for even a moment that her life was anything like a manga. Sure, there were monsters and people who could reach into her chest for something or whatever, but that didn't make her life exactly animation central, yeah? Still, for a minute...
To her credit, she didn't jump when she heard his voice; she leaned back, palms resting on the metal grating, to look at him upside-down. Was he wearing... sunglasses?
It seemed so silly--she laughed. "Yeah," she said, "I did. D'you want to come down?"
Tate swung her feet through the ether, squinted up at him. She'd taken out her contacts, and her glasses were inside--she really didn't want to have to go in and get them. "I can't see you all the way up there," she added, like that would change anything. If he didn't want to come down, he didn't want to come down.
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Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2010 7:35 pm
She seemed happy to see him, and he beamed that his act was so well received. Still, he told himself not to be too overjoyed, telling himself to ‘be cool’ and ‘relax’ over and over again like a manta. He wasn’t about to get flustered or nervous like Ladon. Tate was a mature girl, with her own apartment, graduating, and living with another boy. If there was any chance she found him attractive, he didn’t want to ruin that chance.
Usually one to just slowly step down, he jumped instead, the metal shaking as he landed and noticing he had no pockets to put his hands not, held them behind himself and walked down the steps before he was beside her. As he watched her, bare legs shimmering like slivers of pink moonlight, he felt Ladon pip in and tell him that he should tell her to bundle up or she would catch a cold. This was NOT what he was going to say, as he knew cool people didn’t sound like a prude. So Tate wanted to be a bit of a rebel. He could be one too.
“Love the new place.” He set his hand on the wall to lean against it as he watched her. Ugh, it was a little grimy. No. It was fine. “ So what’s keeping you up at night, saying my name?” OMG! That sounded dirty! He hadn’t meant it – No! No. He could do this. Breathe. It was okay. Breathe. “Not another youma giving you a hard time?”
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Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2010 8:09 pm
Okay, so maybe she clutched the grating a little when the fire escape shook, pressing the gridlocked pattern into her hands. "Wait til we're done with it," she said, crossing her ankles; the metal had stopped feeling cold fifteen minutes before, and she thought one of her feet was falling asleep. She was grinning at him, unashamed for once--amused, even. Maybe it was just that before he'd lacked some of the blood essential to run his brain, but he'd been... sweeter, the last time they'd talked.
"Why're you wearing sunglasses," Tate asked, folding her arms on top of the bars; "It's dark out. Even I'm not wearing my cont--" The smile faded a little at the mention of a youma, and she tipped her head a little before turning to look up at the stars. She was loathe to admit she didn't know what a youma was, but if she didn't--
No. She was not going to admit she had no idea. "No... just indulging my curiosity." Man, she still couldn't properly see--but her foot was definitely asleep. "It's a harvest moon. Do you see it?" Tate pointed out the large yellow moon. She hadn't seen the moon quite so big in years.
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Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2010 8:39 pm
There was no logical reason he could give her for wearing sunglasses at night, unless he wanted to be mistaken as a Corey Hart fan. That not being his intention, he knew that saying that he was wearing them to look cool would be counterproductive, and any reference to a man in the Negaverse he sorta idolized was going to be lost on Tate. The only other reason was that he was hiding his eyes from her to throw her off the trail. After she said both he and Ladon had pretty eyes, he became paranoid and felt something needed to be done. Looking good while keeping her from making comparisons just seemed like the best idea, but telling her that would not work.
“I sometimes feel like wearing them.” He said, wondering if he would instead look as if he was suffering from a hangover. He hoped not. Adjusting the plastic rims, he turned and leaned his back on the wall, taking the time she as looking at the moon to dust the dirt off his hands on his pants and then cross them across his chest. Oh yeah, he was, as they say, rocking this look.
What was important now was that Tate wasn’t telling him about her other attacks, not with a certain Negaverser who tried to go at her chest, and he wondered why she wasn’t telling him. He would have been the best person to admit this too, but he let it go for now. They had just started talking after all. Looking up, he noticed that moon. The full effect of it’s radiance was diluted behind the plastic lenses, but he kept them there. As long as he didn’t have to move much, he wouldn’t need to take them off.
“Yes, it’s very beautiful. I tend to see many moons when I go out at night, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen one like this.” He looked up, but his eyes kept falling back on Tate. “I’m glad the weather is changing and the skies are parting at last.” It had been rather gloomy, and there had been rain to keep him away from Tate’s new place. It made patrolling hard at night when you started to get soaked through and through.
Struggling to find something to talk about that wouldn’t betray what he knew about her, he noticed the vase of flowers inside of her room and looked back up. “I’m glad you liked the flowers, though I wish I could do more. Can I ask – Do you always bring random strangers to your home to be patched up?”
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Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2010 9:52 pm
"Really?" She tilted her head a bit more, thumping it against the bars of the fire escape. He adjusted his glasses and leaned against the walls as she smiled at him, greenish eyes definitely amused. The brunette pulled her legs back through the bars and shifted to face Wolframite, brushing her hair back behind her ear. "Are you sure I'm not dazzling you?" She smiled, as if acknowledging the goofiness of the comment. Who knew Tate had read Twilight?
(Had Tate even read Twilight? Could have been she'd just read the Encyclopedia Dramatica article.)
She wrapped her arms around her knees and shivered a little. "Yeah, the harvest moon only happens sort of rarely," she said, gesturing vaguely with one hand.
There was a hesitation then, and she admitted, "No. But you saved me so I owed it to you, I think. You could have bled to death. That would've left me in your debt forever." Wrong thing to talk about, and the second she finished the last syllable of 'forever' she knew it. Tate grimaced, and launched into a new topic without really thinking about it. "Not like I only did it because I didn't want to owe you, it's just, it was the right thing to do, and--" Her smile was gone, replaced by uncertainty.
She shifted to her knees, brushing at the front of her white shorts carefully. The metal bit, so she leant more weight onto her feet, on the sneakers. "You said... that you were the good guys," said Tate, her greenish eyes cast towards her open window. "Someone attacked me, though--not a senshi, one of... your side, I think. Why would he do that, if he was on the good side?" A simplistic question, but hopefully distraction enough.
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Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 9:43 am
Was Tate…was Tate flirting with him? He could scarcely believe it, and yet here she was playing this little game as much as he was. Unlike Tate, he wasn’t really use to flirting at all, and he struggled to think of a good comeback to what she said, instead shuffling a bit under her intense, swamp-green eyes. As he raced to think of something cleaver, the time limit of his response was up and spent and she was already moving on. He didn’t blame her for feeling indebted after being saved, but adding on that she also thought it was right only confirmed that she had been a good person. Too good for this city with all it’s crime, and he felt more indebted to her than she probably knew. Now that he had time to look back, he might have died, but the gravity didn’t seem to sink in as it should have.
Just as he thought she wouldn’t mention it, she told him about the attack. It wasn’t a pleasing topic, but he was at least glad she wasn’t going to keep him from knowing. As Ladon, he couldn’t do much, but if he could show her that Wolframite could, then he could pay her back than any flowers could. As much as she trusted him to tell him about the slingshot boy, she knew a bit more about the darker side of his profession. One that he wished she would never learn, especially not through experience.
She hadn’t been the only one to ask these questions, and it had only been a short while that he had come to a conclusion that made taking a starseed tolerable. “Usually we go after the bad people. The ones that would, if they were caught by the police, probably be in jail anyways or put in the chair. That doesn’t mean that, like the cops, we make a few mistakes, and there are a few people in our group who aren’t the best. It’s sad, but we aren’t big enough to be choosy right now. We need all the help we can get.” The senshi were too large for them to take on. When he had been alone, he could encounter more and more senshi and barely brushed up against a Negaverser in all his time out. He hoped that the new teams would keep everyone else in line.
The Lieutenant shifted against, eyes hidden by the dark lenses of his glasses before, slowly, he pinched the rims and pulled them up to his hair. Looking at her, he moved over and touched her shoulders. Her hoodie had that worn softness to it, and felt warm. “You have something very valuable in you Tate, just as everyone else does.” He placed a palm on the center of his chest, as if he was thinking of a sweet memory that warmed him. “ It’s what he was after, and I want you to protect that under all costs, okay?” The starseed was the essence of her, and while doctors could help save a body, there was little anyone could do when a starseed was taken.
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Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 7:36 pm
Tate smiled at him, curling up a little more to rest her chin on her knees, but inside her head was turmoil. How could they know the bad people from the good? Everyone made mistakes, but Tate had done nothing even remotely construable as bad. She had bought groceries and gone home. Had the boy been watching her? But she'd not done anything overtly wrong. She hadn't stabbed anyone or even said anything particularly unkind. She'd been--herself--
With a deep breath, she lifted her gaze back up to his face. "Do you need it?"
She didn't know if she would offer to give up... whatever it was. The blue-haired boy's hand in her chest had hurt so badly; she never wanted to feel pain like that again. Still, if he asked... maybe, if he asked.
What could be valuable in her, anyway?
"All right," she said. "Hey... won't you sit with me for a little?" She tilted her head, and for a moment she smiled before taking his shoulders and pulling Wolframite down next to her. The grating made a weird noise, but she ignored it this time. He'd finally taken off those dumb sunglasses; she plucked them from his hair and tucked them into her own, smiling brightly. "Don't worry, I can take care of myself."
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Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 7:59 pm
His hands reached out for the railing as he was brought down, not liking the shaking metal. It had been challenging to make it up to the top of this roof, and he didn’t like the fact he could see all the way down to the street below. No matter how many times he managed to land without injury, he didn’t think he’d survive if he decided to leap off from this height, not that he was about to try it out.
Sitting down, Tate confiscated his glasses, and he touched his head as they were taken before setting his hands beside him. The glasses had offered him a cover, a way to hide his nervousness with talking to someone he wasn’t sure how to act around. It was already confusing to think of what exactly Tate meant to him, but he had more certainly as Ladon than as Wolframite, who couldn’t pin exactly what the two of them were doing together right now. While he expected Tate to be curious to want to know about a underground organization, something that had the appeal of being talked about but not confirmed by any real sources, putting her in the ‘in’ by being with him, he was after something a little similar. Wanting to know more, to touched a life and learn it’s dark corners, it’s private places, it’s other lives and uncommon rhythms must have made them both hungry for more. He was ravenous after their first encounter as a Lieutenant. In that short moment, she defended him, sang to him, and opened up in a much different way than she had with Ladon. Just as he wanted to know more about his friend, he found a new door open to him to explore the life of Tate away from friends and family. A private girl who watched the moon at night and sang lullabies.
It was a secret he wanted to learn all about, and felt empowered to know of.
It also terrified him that he was trespassing on a friend, betraying a trust, and possibly destroying her in the process. Destroying them.
“Need?” He thought about it, and wondered if he could say he needed starseeds. It was his responsibility and something he had to do to meet his goals. “Yes, I suppose in a way, but I make do.” He didn’t like talking about it for long. It was a bloody business, and he needed an escape from it more and more each day.
Settling on the grate, he watched her hug her knees. “Don’t worry about him. I’ll look into it.” He’d find the man who touched her and almost took her away from him. “Why are you up this late and calling my name? You just moved. Shouldn't you be happy?”
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Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 9:18 pm
She didn't know that making the offer of... whatever was valuable inside her... would be welcome. Tate didn't know what it was, or if it was important, just that he said she should keep it as safe as she could. Offering might make him angry, and after being body-checked by someone more than a foot shorter than herself, she didn't want to experiment. So, instead, she shifted enough that she could meet his green eyes easily.
"Thank you," she said, smiling--but it was a sadder sort of smile than normal. Than he might have otherwise wanted. She didn't want to have to be protected, but knew that there were some things she couldn't face herself. Giant centipedes, and midgets wielding slingshots.
Picking at a loose thread in her socks, she contemplated the question. "I think one of my friends..." She bit her lip, gnawed at it; winced and pressed her fingers to the welling cut. "I think he might..." An awkward topic, but it was most of what was occupying her mind. She drew her fingers away to stare at the blood, then continued: "He seemed... angry... when he thought I was keeping secrets. I don't mean to keep secrets, I don't mean to make him feel unimportant. But he seemed mad at me and I just..."
Tate lowered her voice to a whisper. "I wanted him to be mad. Isn't that sick? I wanted him to be mad so he wouldn't think about anyone else but me. I wanted..." Her voice died off, and she was gnawing at her lip again.
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Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 9:42 pm
A rising surge pushed up at the back of his throat, and he found it hard to swallow. It took him a moment to look away to keep his eyes expanding to dinner plates at what he was hearing, and he gripped the metal grates under his fingers, letting the worn rust chip into his naked palms, letting the cold, deteriorated metal eat into his fingers. Only moments ago, he was only speaking of the best about her, being pulled in, but this had been the first time he head her say anything that worried him about his friend’s sanity and her relationship with him. It seemed masochistic to him, and he wondered if she had wanted him to hit her. That wasn’t the type of healthy attention anyone should want. Whenever he heard a voice rise up against him, he naturally shrank and tried to calm the person down. Anger lead to aggression, and Tate had wanted that?
Looking back, he watched her mutilate her lower lip, and as she pulled her slender fingers away, noticed the blood collecting. His first impulse was to help her, but what if she LIKED the pain?
He had to keep himself from gritting his teeth, and looked up to the moon instead, breathing deep, calming breathes. Counting even till 10, and then speaking. “Did you want him to hit you? Is that the attention you wanted?” What would he do if she said yes? If she wanted that sort of thing from him, could he hit her, damage her, to make her happy?
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Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 10:42 pm
She shook her head, mutely. Wolframite seemed incredulous, and could she really blame him? It wasn't every day someone confessed preferring anger over a lack of attention. Tate bent her shoulders further inward. "I told you it was sick." Then she shook her head again. At least she had stopped picking at her lip, was just pressing her fingers against the tiny gash and staring through the brick wall.
It seemed like such a long time before he answered; he seemed angry, too, and her stomach leaped. In the light of his question she had to wonder if it was anticipation of his anger, or hope that he would-- "I don't," she said, "I don't want him to hurt me. I just... I like to be remembered. People never remember me when I'm being myself." Why wasn't he looking at her? Was he angrier than she had anticipated?...
"If it meant. He was only looking at me--" She cut off out of habit, but. Wolframite was safe--there was no way Ladon could ever meet him, no way Giselle or Ivan or Parker would ever see him for long enough for him to know that they were the people she was talking about. "--that I was what meant the most to him right then. I think I could take anything."
She sighed, looked at her bloody fingers again. "It's sick."
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Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 1:37 pm
It was hard to think of what to say as he stared off down across the fire escape and to the buildings farther away. There was a small courtyard further down, and he noticed that once in a while, a few of the tenants would pass by it. No one seemed to notice that such a heavy conversation, that two people from different places yet the same worlds were together here, having this sort of conversation that didn’t even seem real to him. Was it right to assume what he was hearing or was it hopeful thinking? Even now when he heard that she wanted him, Ladon, to pay attention to her, to be the one most important to her, to the point she would take aggression just to be noticed and remembered – it all sounded like he was making it up all in his head. Any moment now he would find out she hadn’t said anything at all, had simply been picking her lip, and that he had imagined the entire thing.
It was urgency that told him that this moment was too important to let go, and the window was shutting fast, maybe never to be offered again.
His heart felt like how it did when he went to the dance and stood right before the speakers. Hard, fast, to the point that it felt painful. There was no way he could tell Tate who he was, and there was no way he could reveal what he knew without he becoming suspicious. “It’s not sick. You like attention and being remembered. I think everyone wants that. The last thing anyone wants is to find out they didn’t make a difference when living and that living or dieing made no difference to the rest of the world.” He breathed deep, a tightness in his throat that felt like he was pulling a muscle. “You said that he got angry because you hold secrets from him. About the secrets about you getting hurt? I think if he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have gotten angry in the first place. It sounds like protection to me. I know that, if you have treated this boy in any way as you have treated me, he would want to see you live happy and well, and that you were very important to him.” The moon was quiet above, and the distant sounds of the city seemed to soften. “If he doesn’t remember you, I certainly will.”
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Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 2:10 pm
Tate didn't want to lose anyone, and it seemed like she had already frightened him away. If possible, she hunched down a little further, waiting to hear him leave; it probably looked a little weird, a tall and gangly girl like her curled up so tightly. She was still staring at her bloody fingers, sucking on her bleeding lip, when he did answer.
Huhn. To protect her?... but she was the one who wanted to protect Ladon. He acted like he could conquer everything, but he was still... young. Not a little kid, just... young. It struck her as a little silly that he wanted to look out for her when it was really she who should be watching out for him. After all, he did kind of look like a ***** delight sometimes. (Which brought up other concerns, but more on that later.)
The grate rattled as she clambered to her feet; she held out her hands to help him up. "I don't treat him good enough," she sighed. "I don't know. I want to think of him like a little brother, but it's just not working out that way, you know?" Tate laughed, the sound a little bitter. "I'm not good at this."
And then, his hands in hers, she smiled and winced as the expression pulled at her cut. "Thank you, Wolfram--can I call you that? Just, Wolfy sounds like a name for a kid, and Wolframite is kind of long."
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