Welcome to Gaia! ::

be yourself

His door was flung open and she didn't bother closing it, instead flinging herself at him with giddy abandon. She would always, always be angry mad about the risk he took choosing these missions. But it would never matter while he was here, the relief and simple happiness at his presence overwhelming any lingering resentment until the next one was upon them.

painted lady

Laying on her back, feet in his lap and awaiting their new coat of polish, America read the latest Cosmo aloud for their mutual benefit.

"And now for horoscopes, listen up these are important." Clearing her throat she went on, "Scorpio: You could have some super-exciting work breakthroughs this week. Oooooooo, see? Hella important. It also says you should spend time with folks you love on Thursday and that your spirit emoji is an umbrella."

She hummed thoughtfully and then read her own, "Looks like I'm gonna have an exciting work week and that I should try and be diplomatic instead of emotional. Oh, and I should spend Thursday with someone I love too." Glancing up, she gave him a solemn look, "An my spirit emoji is a honeypot."

wounds

He came back restless and grimy, wanting a shower; he suppressed the urge to sigh when he saw her miserable posture and realized that he'd need to take care of this first, knowing immediately why she was there.

He'd meant it when he'd said he wasn't angry, but he wasn't ruling it out for the future of this conversation, either. He hung his coat on the back of the door before sinking onto the bed next to her, prodding her gently in the shoulder.

"I think it's possible she's gelatinized," he informed the cats solemnly.

fair trade

He walks his fingertips against hers as though there’s glass between their hands, and at the apex of the imaginary climb closes his hand around hers, gentle but insistent.

“Anyway,” he finishes, “obviously my mom won, so Taym it is, no matter what the birth certificate says.” He’s barely above a whisper, and although he’s always quiet he’s been markedly more so, since forgetting and remembering. He talks like he’s afraid a loud sound will break something, or pull something down on his head; he’d dropped a book earlier and flinched like a gun had gone off in his ear and fallen totally still for several seconds, paralyzed and tense. “Bit of an anti-climax, sorry.”

His hand isn’t shaking; it’s cold but steady as he draws hers up against his neck, not an invitation or a request but just a thoughtless effort to feel the heat of her skin against his jaw. “Secret for a secret,” he suggests, and he wonders distantly if she’s got any left, isn’t sure whether he hopes she does or doesn’t.

wounds

Wobbling obligingly, the girl made a quiet, discontented sound before maneuvering closer to him without actually getting up. Voice muffled in his blanket she finally asked conversationally, "How was work?"

fair trade

She makes a noncommittal sound, and settles into the quiet, into the textures of skin and bone and Obadiah But Very Much Taym Thompson. Eventually, she answers softly, "Used to pretend they were my mom." She gestured with her fingers instead of arms and hands and it was like she was whispering in this way too, with the whole of her body muted down to fingertips. "When I was real little, it was like she was there in the house. Just...hiding. Shy. Later I thought they were her ghost, maybe, that she was still watching over. Let the thought of go for a long while, though, right up until the recruiter told me what they really were."

She didn't sound particularly sad about it, but there was a sort of quiet resignation in her voice.

wounds

"America," he said, worried and exasperated and prodding.

Fair Trade

He's quiet for a while to consider this, to soberly turn over the fact that Taym, who had never really known loss or tragedy, had seen the shifting dark as nothing but menace, but America, who had had an absence carved into her life before she was even old enough to realize it, had found some comforting story for it.

In the end though, he's selfish, and he thinks about her father. "Did you ever talk about it?"