[PRP] Every well he warned me of (America x Taym)

[Rejam]

With the festivities winding down and still faintly audible behind them, he'd insisted on walking her home, and he hadn't insisted on carrying her canvas bag full of loot but he was anyway, the other hand occupied with a cigarette.

There'd been a significant dearth of chicken-shaped beer koozies but he'd secured a little print of a semi-abstract and modernist interpretation of Monarch of the Glen that he had, he pointed out, nowhere to hang, and a needle-felted keyfob in the shape of a Neko Atsume cat clutching a fish (Pickles, as a matter of fact). At the latter booth he'd snagged a Peaches for her, too; he was replete with wine and expensive cheese (which he'd had a lot to say about; he'd gotten quasi-emotional over it, in fact, lecturing her the way of small and thoughtful bites, of paying attention and eating with intention) and at least one deep-fried Oreo cookie.

In this content state they walked in companionable silence for a while, until he spoke into the silence as his thoughts wandered to Borr and his thwarted intentions to stay on the move so many years ago: "Are you going to stay in that little camper the entire time you're here?" It was, maybe, a roundabout way of asking how long that would be.

lizbot

 

[lizbot]

She'd bought a lot of artsy little knick-knacks, a few that would be going down south, others that would end up gifts to people around town at some point likely in the...

His question echoed one that had been circling more and more lately, the same she'd come to town with. The same she'd left home with, nearly a year ago.

She picked at her cotton candy fluff, her one for the road of festival fare. She'd liked listening to him lecture, but she always did. It always felt like the was getting to dip her fingers in his head a bit, feel the tides of what he really thought and felt under the quiet, dry comments. It was nice to get pulled in a bit.

"Stayed in it a year now," she offered lightly, before bowing her head a bit, then tipping it back with a sigh made slightly less dramatic by the swipe of blue cotton candy on her cheek. "But I hear it gets real cold here in the winter."

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lizbot

And that was, of course, the thought he'd had too, as his options ran steadily lower and lower. He'd left another voicemail for his mom, another update, how many days it had been, I miss you, I love you, tell Grim and Tuesday I said hi and knowing she wouldn't. And this time, for the first time in a long time, he was hoping that if she called back she'd call back with money.

"Cold's no joke," he said. He didn't want to know how much of his background she might have extrapolated. He was good at making himself seem like a couch surfer. A pause, while he made a futile attempt to sort his thoughts and took a drag. "Does that mean you're still staying or has he rubbed off on you enough that you wanna fly South?" And then: "They don't, though. I looked it up."  

[lizbot]

She couldn't help the small huff of laughter, "You nerd." It was fond, as was the look she shot him. He'd looked it up. "I should learn more about them, shouldn't I? More'n just what to feed him, at least."

Eventually, she sobers a little, but not entirely. America is still bright with the day, even if the sun was starting to drop low. "I'm still staying. Something's happening here, and I'm gonna help when and where I can."

Smile turning uncertain, she added, "I'm staying, it feels right, but...I don't know what I'm doing beyond that. I have to keep reminding myself, magic is real, but so is rent. And figuring out if I want to go to school for something or other. And just...a bunch of other things." There was a weight in those last words, a sort of unhappy acceptance.

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lizbot

He digested it quietly. He was often the sort of person with lengthy pauses before he spoke, not that it seemed--to judge from the jumbled way his words fell out more often than not--to do him any good.

He dropped the cigarette and ground it out under his heel and only after a pause that suggested he'd normally have left it there he scooped it back up, absently field-stripping it and dropping the remains into a sidewalk bin as he spoke.

"Right now--like right this second--does magic and, and--and helping people, somehow, however you decide to do that--does that feel more or less real than... rent and school and a bunch of other things?"  

[lizbot]

"Neither feels real enough to touch at the moment. You and me talking right now, that's most real this very second." And even then, he's a bit of a distant entity, tied to her by a string of words and anchored with a canvas bag. She goes quiet again and their path gently alters course, toward Nowhere In Particular.

Her eyes trace the flight path of a now familiar silhouette above. "There's so many amazing places and people in this world, Taym. No magic required. Feels like it'd be easy to start to forget about that."

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lizbot

There was no sense in telling her that there's no magic required to forget about it, either; no need to say that it was easier to forget it than it was to remember, since she sounded like she knew it already.

He remembered, sometimes. Before Ashdown, he had--the old restless wish that he could somehow put a patch on the world bigger than the hole he'd made in it.

He noted the change of direction but said nothing and made no protest. She didn't feel real to him at all and by extension neither did their destination, or anything else but the niggling problem of how to ask his next question, the big question, the important one, without sounding like he was confronting her, or accusing her of something. He gave up, eventually.

"I don't--this is gonna sound--did you want to help them before?" And then, frustrated and clumsy as he attempted to clarify: "Because maybe if you didn't this won't--make you forget, it's actually--making you more aware of it. But maybe you did."  

[lizbot]

She's patient while he gets it out, but doesn't bother to suppress the snort follows. "I'm not some ******** saint or charity, hun. Not even gonna try to pretend any of that, it's not who I am." She's not angry or offended, just matter of fact. "But when I can do something, I do it. Before coming here I was considering maybe enlisting, maybe going to cop school, something like that. This seems like kind of the same sorta choice, just without..."

She shoots him a chagrined look, "...authority, professional training, insurance, a paycheck..." America rolls her eyes at herself, and kicks a rock in the path, sending it straight at a tree with fairly decent aim. "Probably should ask you to define 'help', or some s**t...but we've all got our own ways of doing it." And the smile she sends him holds a certain sort of gratitude.


He'd looked it up.

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[Rejam]

lizbot

Another long processing pause. He'd spent most of the evening wanting to hold her hand in public, not so much to do it as to be seen doing it, and there was no one now to witness it, so it was easy to retract the brush of his fingertips against hers and pretend like it was a mistake brought on by the wobble of too much wine (not so convincing, in him) or of thoughtlessness in the dark (entirely too easy to believe).

"You know that game," he said suddenly, clearly embarking on a stupid little story, "where you sit around with a bunch of people and you play if I had one wish, and there's always a bunch of stupid caveats--no wishing for more wishes, no going back in time to kill Hitler, whatever. We were playing that a few years ago and when it got around to me I said I wished--that when I died my net impact on the world would be more good than bad."

He hesitated. "And I thought that was ********' decent of me, especially for the time. And then my friend Alex pipes up and calls me on it: you selfish s**t, because if you really wanted to do something good you'd wish for world peace or something. And OK, Alex had wished for--for basically infinite money and a**--but he wasn't wrong. Why involve me at all?" His first wish, the one he hadn't said, had been more selfish still, because it wasn't even about the patch he could put on the world but on one person, the person he was ashamed to keep a secret, even now.

"Pretty sure it's still what I'd wish for, though." And then, automatically: "Don't be a cop. You're too good for them."  

[lizbot]

"For every bad cop, you need a thousand good ones, doing what's right." Her voice shifts as she speaks. Somebody's else's words but she means them all the same before shaking her head. "I don't know if I'm up for that now, but I'm not too good for that kind of duty. No one is, far as I'm concerned."

Of course she was biased in that opinion, but then he seemed much the same, just going the other way. It's a bit of temptation to ask what happened to him, but she's not about to put him on trial for having an opinion, not to mention one that seems to have more and more justification the past couple years.

She exhales, letting it go and switching her tracks. "Anyway, it's your wish. Course it should be a bit selfish, otherwise what's the point of you getting one?"

On high, the bluejay gives a hawk's cry and flies down toward Taym, landing first at his elbow before dropping down into the canvas bag he carried.

America scans the sky, wondering what spooked her blue boy.

"Waste of a wish, though. You can do that, no magic necessary. But you'll never know, in the end. That whole..." she waves her hands, trying to come up with it, "...the nail thing, in the horse's shoe. Or is it less the doing than just...being assured that you've caused more good than bad?"

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lizbot

"My answer to that one is selfish too," he said finally, not thinking that it was, in fact, a waste of a wish--thinking that at this point magic seemed like the only viable solution to the problem that was Taym. Or one of the only viable solutions. He dropped his eyes from where he was scanning the sky as well. "Tell him not to s**t on anything," he added. And then: "I'm glad you're--you're staying, anyway. It's a good reason to stay."  

[lizbot]

"I think he just has a thing for your neck," she reassures him with a cheeky grin. "It's a nice one."

A breeze picks up, bringing with it the crispness of nearby waters and her hand idly brushes his, enough of an accident not to feel even a little apologetic.

"And what about you?"

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lizbot

Taym, despite the fact that he'd gone out of his way to permanently ornament in it, had never--not even at his cockiest levels of self-aware attractive nineteen-year-old--thought of his neck as much more than a platform for holding up his head with varying degrees of success, and managed to keep from wrinkling his forehead in a perplexed analysis of this assessment and how much of it was sarcastic given that she'd also essentially just called it a toilet.

He doesn't answer her. Blue jays might not migrate, but waxwings--he'd looked that up, too--did, or at least (and this felt appropriate) they wandered incessantly in search of some more hospitable place.

In flocks of thousands, the website had said. He'd settle for one.

"I'm sorry again," he said eventually, "for being an a*****e. I wish I hadn't."  

[lizbot]

Her expression dims a bit at the lack of answer, but clears up after a few moments. It was nothing she was relying on, after all.

America turns a raised eyebrow toward him, "Well you should be. But..." a dimple peeks out, "...it was a good idea, to give you another chance. Whenever you leave, though, you'll tell me before, right? Not just..." She flicks her wrist and makes a whooshing sound.

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lizbot

ffs i almost had fiona heave an exasperated sigh out of old habit

He was a good liar. The pause was neither longer nor shorter than any other, nothing to indicate that he was wondering, guiltily, whether he was lying out loud to her or silently to himself.

"Yeah," he said. "Whenever it is. I don't guess I've got much help to give, here." Or anywhere. But especially here. The nowhere-in-particular is still nowhere-in-particular but it would be easy, with a turn here and then one up there, to turn them towards the shithole he was staying in, and he turned it over. It felt like a bad idea. "I know it's not cold yet," he said finally, "but if you wanted a change of scenery." And then, lest she get the wrong entirely correct idea: "I could sleep in the chair."