hate_gettin_older | (no subject)

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milliways

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He's gotten his old clothes back from wherever they vanished to, clean and folded and repaired in a few places. They still look dingy and ragged next to the clothes the room's been providing, but he's not going to throw them away, is he?

The socks, though ... there's very little left of one sock but a network of holes, clinging together. And you don't really need to wear socks in multiple layers here, it's too warm for that -- but that sock's not worth wearing by itself.

So Edgar's sitting cross-legged on the floor next to his hammock, carefully cutting what's left of the sock into strips that can be twisted into twine. Maybe he'll make something out of the twine later.

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"Do I need to go and ask Miss Queen of Mars about her intentions? Cause, I mean, if you're not telling me anything --"

"Hey," he says, lifting his head so he can point at Edgar, "from what I heard, you already pulled that shit, you don't get to do it again -- "

"So you were with her just now, I fuckin knew it --" Edgar's halfway to laughing by now.

DAMMIT.

"Nothing happened," he says, gesturing so emphatically that even his stump lifts a couple inches. "We had tea. We talked about the arm. We, uh..."

Kissed? Twice? And it turns out Dejah's a pretty fucking phenomenal kisser? Shit. If Curtis starts turning red on top of the uncontrollable grin, he's gonna need to go to the gym just so he can punch something.

"You uh?" He clamps down a bit on the incipient laughter, but it's still there in his eyes. "Does this uh explain how come you're fuckin glowing? Cause I mean, that's the part I'm wondering about."

"I am not glowing."

Right, Curtis. And Earth's full of tropical saunas and beachside resorts.

"Man, you're like a window. I had to shade my fuckin eyes when you came in."

"Oh, hey, hang on -- "

Curtis strips off the sock on his bootless foot, crumples it up, and says, "I think you need to go make some more string," before flinging it at Edgar's face.

He bats it away, cracking up again.

"If you could see your face, man. Seriously."

"What, that it's gorgeous? You're admiring my face instead of working on your string? I'm so ashamed."

He shakes his head in mock dismay.

Edgar snickers. "Oh I better not start admiring your face, somebody might get jealous."

"Oh my god," Curtis mutters again, struggling not to laugh as he goes back to picking at his bootlaces.

That unthinking grin, that stifled laughter, is one of the best things he's seen here; less magical than the blue sky and green grass, maybe, or the water-polished pebbles he's been collecting, but all the more satisfying for it.

Edgar grins down at the twine forming between his fingers, and says nothing for a few moments.

"I don't know if it's even...you know. Gonna be a regular thing."

He finishes prying off his other boot and drops it to the floor.

"Still figuring that out."

"Yeah?" He glances up, his fingers still doing their work on their own.

"Yeah."

He doesn't want to go into detail about it: how Dejah's looking for so much, how Curtis can give maybe a fraction of it, if he's lucky. Instead, he opts to say, "She's kind of intense."

Not in a bad way. Just. You know.

A tiny snort of amusement. "Just a bit, yeah."

Another good-natured eyeroll. "Could be worse, though."

He swings himself the rest of the way into the hammock, starts drumming his fingers against his chest.

"So ..."

That's a bit tentative.

"You think she's good people, then. For real."

"Yeah." Softly. "I do."

The fire she carries, that warms everything she touches...that's not something you can fake. If this were part of a long con, Curtis would've noticed by now.

(Wouldn't he?)

He nods, slowly.

"I get the feeling maybe you're right."

Edited 2015-05-26 18:54 (UTC)

"You didn't give her too much shit when you talked, did you?"

He glances over.

"Nah," he says.

... not terribly convincingly.

"I mean, not too much."

"Uh-huh." Dryly, as he returns his attention to the ceiling. "Well, she didn't seem too pissed about it, so thanks."

Which means Curtis won't be too pissed about it, either.

He's quiet for a moment.

"I told her some about life back in the tail." He turns his attention back to the twine in his fingers. It's coming out a little uneven, thicker in some places than others; he can do better.

"She was going on about some shite, I don't even remember what, but ... some joke about playing the violin. And I told her about Gerald and Doris."

Curtis breathes out.

(BLOOD, said the red slip he unfurled in the classroom car. He still doesn't know if the string that broke on Gerald's violin was intentional; a signal, as prophetic as those little capsules, for the shooting to begin.)

"What'd she say?"

"She was angry."

His voice is quiet, his brow furrowed slightly in concentration as he untwists and retwists a length of the string, smoothing and evening it out.

"Never seen anyone get so mad just from hearing a story about somebody they never knew."

Curtis nods, absorbing that in silence.

"That happens a lot," he says, not much louder than Edgar. "I've told her a couple things, too. And...every time, she gets so furious. Like it's shit they did to her personally."

"Right? What even is that?"

He winds the length of string around his fingers a few times, puts it aside, starts on the next bit of former sock.

"I've got no fucking clue," he says wryly. "I think she's just got this idea about how you're supposed to act if you're Front, and if you don't do it, she gets offended."

And by 'offended,' Curtis means 'ready to go back in time and light the fuse on Nam's bomb herself.'

"... Yeah."

Rrrrrip.

"She said something like -- if she acted like our Front-sectioners did, her people would have the right to kill her."

Another nod.

Quiet, "She actually knows how to lead."

Like you.

He knows he can't say that. But it's true.

"Looks like," he murmurs instead, starting on the next length of string.

Curtis nods. Studies the ceiling for a few moments, thumb absently tapping against his chest.

Then he swings himself back out of his hammock and says, "I'm gonna hit the gym. Want me to grab anything while I'm out?"

Looks like he's not going to wind down by lounging around here after all.

"Nah," Edgar says cheerfully, "I'm good. Have fun." He waves, one hand temporarily free, and settles back to his work.

And starts humming under his breath, tunelessly and half unconsciously, as Curtis makes for the door.

Curtis is almost to the elevator before he realizes he forgot his boots. And he's missing a sock, thanks to chucking one of them at Edgar.

Dammit. Oh, well. Not like he's in danger of literally freezing his feet off anymore.

(...He might be grinning again. Maybe. Whatever the fuck his afterlife's becoming, it may not be so bad after all.)

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