ArchivedLogs:Ache
| Ache | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
|
2013-04-03 ' |
| Location
<NYC> Sunset Park Playground - Brooklyn | |
Tucked away in a run-down neighborhood in Brooklyn, this is a park, at least nominally. It's a playground; a sad rickety sort of jungle-gym connected to a splintery wooden castle by a rickety swaying rope-and-planks bridge. A pair of swings, chains rusting. A see-saw at one side of the mulch, one of its handles half broken off. The basketball court's asphalt is cracked and breaking up, and the hoops have long since lost their netting. This is the saddest park in the history of parks. Even the introduction of one (1) ginger teenager with a proclivity for being energetic and loud and all of that fun stuff has not been able to return even one iota of pep to this park. It is getting late, and chilly, and Shelby has dressed for that. She's in skinny jeans, her fake-Uggs, a hoodie on underneath her puffy black jacket, /both/ hoods pulled up. She's also laid claim to the castle, because in a year or two, she'll be a little too old to even ironically climb around in a splintery wooden castle and she has to take advantage now, right? Even so, the mood of the area has finally had its way with her. Crawling around has been taken over by sitting with her legs dangling over the edge of a doorway--the doorway that leads to the fireman pole, not the doorway that leads to the slide or the missing rope net--while keeping an eye out for Bastian. Stretched across her lap is a skateboard, and she announces her presence by idly spinning the wheels. Whrrrrrrrrrr. Whrrrrrr. Whrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Sebastian's presence is announced by a hurried beat of sneakers on concrete. The skinny blue teenager is sprinting for the park, a paper bag clutched securely under one arm and a very large styrofoam cup held in his other hand. /He's/ dressed in bright purple corduroys, chunky grey-and-pink sneakers, a Fluttershy hoodie (complete with pony ears) worn under Shane's rather more /dapper/ black peacoat. "/Shelby/ I got, um, a couple carnitas and some carne asada and a few fish." He is clambering up the other side of the castle to come around and join her by the pole. "/Um/ and I think I spilled horchata all over my hand. Oops." Running? Running is no good! Shelby is on her feet in a flash when she hears /that/ style of approach, the board set to one side and her hands hooking over the ramparts to get a good look at what's coming this way. Sebastian is recognized immediately but instead of lending a hand up--as one does--she squints into the gloom /behind/ him. "What the fuck?" she asks in lieu of greeting, still staring off into the distance as he makes the climb /all by himself/. Only when she's certain nothing is going to emerge from the shadows to try to eat them does she transferred a frowny look to him. Oh, and reach out to take the bag from him. "You okay? ...what's horchata?" "I'm -- yeahno I'm -- I'm good I just there were -- I'm fine," Sebastian assures her with a quick closed-lipped smile, flicking a brief glance back into the gloom, too. "People are just kinda obnoxious sometimes, you know?" He lifts the (kind of sticky, now) cup in indication, tipping it towards her to offer the straw. "S'a drink? It's like -- sweet? Kinda milky, kinda ricey, mostly /sugary/. Also kinda all over me." He stoops to drop down to sit beside her, dipping his head forward to swipe his tongue against horchata-sticky knuckles. Oh. Shelby's expression darkens ominously with her next glance back the way he came. All she says, however, is, "Fuckers," before she settles down beside him. God help whomever should they appear, though! For now, she will set the bag carefully aside, its precious cargo unchecked, and reach out to take Bastian's hand. If most of it is on him, she will taste it right from the source. Just...carefully, also. Proper-way, not scratchy-way along his knuckles, with her tongue. Om nom nom. "...yeah, that's totally sweet. Worse than Mountain Dew, wow. How come I didn't know about this shit?" "I don't know, it's kinda awesome, isn't it? I can't drink it from everywhere some places put milk but sometimes s'just with almonds and then it's /great/. And cinnamon and vanilla and my p -- Jax makes it really tasty." Sebastian quiets, a faint shiver rippling up him when Shelby's tongue swipes against him. He waits for this to finish so as not to scratch with movement, then uncurls his fingers to brush against her cheek. His own cheeks colour, slightly darker. "I, um. I got some salsa on the side cuz I didn't know how spicy --" His eyes drop. Then look back to Shelby. "-- Can I kiss you is that a -- is that okay?" "Your pa," she says firmly, breath gusting over his knuckles. Once she's done with making him shiver, she lets his hand go but only so she can loop her arm over his shoulders. Shelby's head tilts towards brushing fingers and her eyes close, ever so briefly. She's no softy but. "I like all the spices. Super hot. I'm...um. I'm from Arizona, see." This is not something shared before. Perhaps it is bait, of a sort, though it comes with an equal colouring of the cheeks that is followed by a faint half-smile. What comes through, mind to mind, is a deep, bone-shaking /yearning/. The sort that builds up over /weeks/--which for a teenager is like, forever. What she /says/ is, "You still want to? Shane was...I think he kinda took that Jim shit seriously. And you guys...you took off. So fast." "I mean, he's not really -- he was just my foster dad and now he's not even --" Sebastian fidgets uncomfortably, looking downwards. He glances back up, though, leaning into the arm she loops around him. He reaches for the bag, but doesn't open it. Just holds it in his lap. "I've never been to Arizona. They make things hot there?" This prompts a further blush as he looks Shelby over. "I --" In the hesitation that follows he's -- jumbled. Aching-longing, unhappy-reluctant. Tired. "Of course I -- but I didn't know if you -- I mean last night /I/ didn't know if you were -- all this stuff in my head gets really confusing, you know?" His brow creases. "But /I/ still want --" His shoulders droop, slightly. "Yeah. We -- I'm sorry. I should've told you -- sorry." "He's your dad," Shelby reiterates, her tone of voice every bit as stubborn as the mind-bump that follows it. She's had a little more time to get used to this telepathy stuff than he has. And when yearning is answered by longing, she reaches up to curl a finger under his chin, holding his head just so to allow her to dip in to fit her mouth to his. All of that wanting /has/ to be answered. The babbling less so. And lest he think she's just trying to shut him up, there's an echo inside of his head that's timed to her pulse: << Kissmekissmekissmeallthekissesyoucan'tgoawaystayandkissme >> Sebastian's eyes widen. And then slip closed, his (still horchata-sticky-sweet) hand lifting to fit against the back of Shelby's neck. The mental thoughts he summons up are harder to read, his default-internal-monologue running in Vietnamese, but the /feelings/ behind it are easy enough; a rush of happy twined with a rush of /ache/, desire twinned with worry. But it all levels out to his mouth pressing back to hers, deeper, softer. His arm curls around her waist, sliding closer on the splintery cold wood. One day, she will have enough Vietnamese to decipher Bastian's private thoughts. For now, Shelby is happy--more than happy! Ecstatic!--with emotion alone. In many ways, it serves better in situations such as these. Rather than dampening the ache she's feeling, his thoughts just heighten it even as it takes on a different note. Answered and fanned into something a little more...bonfire. It's been one of those months. So she kisses him back, fiercely enough that she hardly notices the sting of pressing too hard against the teeth hidden behind his lips, until she's forgotten that breathing is good, or the chill, or the so sad playground. And all the while, her mind is spinning a siren song at him. << Don't go, don't go, B, stay, come back, you can't go, I'm right here and I wantwantwantwant. >> Sebastian's gills are flaring, slowly open, slowly closed, his breath intermittently forgetting to /breathe/ through this. His arm tightens, pulling her closer, and the sting of teeth on lips draws, a moment later, a flicker of tongue brushing against Shelby's lips. A moment later, a soft sound hums in his throat. There is a definite note of /hunger/ mixed into his thoughts, too, and now /his/ kiss grows more intense, more fierce. Probably more toothy, in the process. Oops. Oops is right. Shelby can handle the gills, her hands are already on a course to do the stroky petty thing that makes sharks go all melty. Tongue-tip touching that little cut? She's fine with that too because she is pro-tongue when it comes to kissing--it earns a low twist of voice deep in her throat too, harmonizing with that humming. And hunger! Yes. She answers, echoes and encourages all of these things. As Sebastian's arms go around her, she is on a course to leaning her weight back so they can do terrible, terrible things in this playset. But with more intense kissing, and more teeth, things become a little more difficult to control and the next sting goes deeper. << ...ow >> comes half a second before she turns her head to the side to break the liplock, fingers leaving his neck to touch her mouth. Sebastian /does/ go as melty as expected, relaxing into Shelby with the touch. He is even /going/ with the leaning, body pressing down against hers. At least until she breaks the kiss, and his eyes widen, his head turning aside, too. He straightens, slightly, though his arm is still curled around her. There is a stretch when he is quiet; that hunger isn't /fading/, and his nostrils flare at the tang of blood. He draws in a slow breath. Lets out a slow breath. "Oh -- oh, gosh," he manages eventually, quiet. "Shelby, I'm sorry, I -- I'm sorry. Um. I -- /sorry/." His knuckles press to his lips. He finally does open the bag, a little stiff, a little awkward, to start laying foil-wrapped tacos on the wood platform. << ...huh? Why? >> But puzzled is short-lived, even for a hormone-foggy brain. Shelby straightens with him and when realization strikes, her arm tenses to prevent...no wait, he's going for the tacos. /Damn/. Her brow rumples as she knuckles at her lip, probing the same spot with her tongue afterwards. "It's not that bad, Bastian. Done worse to myself biting my cheek," she insists--but she does force her arm to relax to be less...clingy. "I...it's kind've...I dunno." Her mind supplies the concept of excitinghottobewanted but she fails with the words. Sighing is better, so she does that and reaches for the taco bad. To take it away from him. "Look. Hey. Are you gonna look at me?" "No," Sebastian says, looking down at -- well it used to be the taco bag, now it's just his lap after Shelby relieves him of it. His nostrils flare again, and he draws another slow breath which does little to quell want-desire-/hunger/ churning inside him. "I mean, yes. But. Um. Only after I stop wanting to --" His cheeks flush darker, his gills fluttering. "Justum, give me a -- a second? I didn't, I don't. Want to hurt you. Er. More." Shelby is probably not making it easy, with her own wantwantwant still pulsing inside of both their minds. But she does what she can to respect the request, tucking her lip in and under her teeth to suck the taste of blood from it. Her hand creeps out too to run fingers down fluttering gills. He /did/ mean for her to just shut up, right? Was touching off limits too? Oops indeed. But she's quiet on the outside, at least, and slowly her breathing comes back under control. Sebastian closes his eyes, tension bleeding out from his posture with this touch. His breathing comes more regular. His neck arches slightly, gills flattening as he presses slightly into the touch. Eventually he manages a smile; eventually he turns to look back at her again. The feelings from before are not /gone/, really, but it's -- quieter. The blood is less distracting. Though /Shelby/ is plenty distracting all on her own, and his blush darkens. "Sorry," he says again, though this time more sheepish than mortified. "I'm still, um, I need to get better at -- that. -- Do you want tacos?" "/We/ do. It's just gonna take practice, B." The reassurance in her brain is a lot more emphatic than the words themselves. Turns out Shelby's mind is a lot better at being expressive than her mouth, for all that she runs off at the mouth all the time. Check out the roll of affection that follows, as her hand continues its soothing/not really soothing strokes. << Want you >> slides in under, "Sure. Tacos...that'd be good. All the salsa." Her eyes are on the blush rather than the food. She licks her lip again. "You're not gonna leave me, are you?" Sebastian shivers, melting a little further as Shelby's hand runs against his neck. "Right. The salsa's in the bag there's three different -- mmmm." Mmm petting and notsomuch mmm tacos, although he is handing a trio of tacos to Shelby. Who knows which of the three meat-types is inside. They are not labelled. Just foil'd. "I -- no. I mean not -- not in a breaking-up -- no. I'm not going --" His nose wrinkles. "Any farther than Brooklyn. I guess maybe Staten Island again. But hopefully not. That place /sucks/." Blessedly (or maybe not!) Shelby has to stop with the petting in order to take the tacos. Fingers spread wide to hold all three in one hand while she peels the foil away from one. Meat-type, not a concern. /One/ sort of hunger is going to be fed, at least. She's doing her damndest to push the other back to a far corner where it can be kind of ignored. "How come? Jim said...he said you should've been home by now. 'Cause of all the newspaper stuff. He went to that party and everything 'cause of it, you guys...you should be with /him/, not in Brooklyn. Or fucking Staten Island, ugh." "Staten Island is pretty much a pit." Sebastian picks up a taco, unrolling it and then making a 'gimme' hand at the bag that Shelby had CONFISCATED. Because salsas. He's sort of /also/ trying to focus on tacos to distract himself from other wants. "You're in Jax's class this term, right?" he says, instead of answering. Fine, he can have the bag. But she's going to take a bite out of taco first, without the salsa. /Then/ she passes the bag over to be plundered, cheek bulging as she pushes the bite there so she can talk. Of course. "Yah, me'n'Rasa's in it togevver," she mumbles. "Why?" "I mean, have you seen how he -- /I/ saw --" Sebastian hesitates. He unwraps a taco -- carnitas -- and pulls small plastic tubs of salsa, red and green, out of the bag to tip a bit of each onto the taco. "We've been talking to him pretty much every day. I saw his -- new -- boy -- person. Man. Friend. Boyfriend. At your show. Pa danced a lot. He looked pretty -- happy." Shelby extends her taco so it will receive equal treatment, lest it become jealous of Bastian's being more colourful and spicy. "Okay?" she prompts, clearly not getting it. "That's a good thing, right? You kinda want your dad to be happy, don't you? I mean, when your dad isn't a fucking << disappearing act / bully >> asshole. Jax is like...the happiest person to happy." "It's a /great/ thing." Bastian tips the tubs over Shelby's taco, too, streaking it with spicy green and spicier red. "I just --" He frowns, slightly, at his taco or maybe at something heard, and bumps his shoulder up against Shelby's. But then -- "Look, if I tell -- you can't -- can't tell Jax, okay?" She likes Jax. She really does. But it is immediately apparent that Shelby's first loyalty is to Bastian, in this case. She takes all of a nanosecond to consider and say, "Yeah, I won't tell him." Sure, during that nanosecond, she considered lying--she's that fast!--but in the end, what she says is truth. Strong enough truth that rather than chomp down on the taco afterwards, she lowers her load-bearing hand to her thigh and just looks at Bastian, waiting. "We're not going back cuz we told our caseworker we didn't want to go back," Sebastian says, "and I don't know what they tell /him/ then but we -- Shelby, he's /happy/," he says, and there's an almost desperate edge in his voice. "He's been painting like every day and getting his schoolwork done and there's /Micah/ and he /sleeps/. You know when we were there he was thinking of dropping out of college? And he hadn't dated really since our /other/ -- well since his last partner -- and he slept two or three nights a /week/ at most. And I can't -- we can't --" He swallows, his gills fluttering rapidly as he takes a bite of his taco. "You did /what/?" Desperation should be met with something other than shock and profanity but Shelby cannot help it. She is broadcasting what the fuck on all channels. Loudly. "Jesus /Christ/, Bastian, don't you...oh my /god/." The taco drops to the woodchips far, far below--plif--as she reaches out to seize Shane's nice peacoat with salsa-dappled hands. At least she doesn't shake him? Just grabs. "Do you /know/ what /assholes/ workers are? I mean, /seriously/? They're /never/ gonna let you guys get out of the system now. And what about Spence? You...you can't...you..." Bastian just lowers his hand to his lap, taco clutched tight as he is grabbed. "I know," he says, and a little more raggedly, "I /know/, but. But he's /happy/. He was happy. He was happy and he was having a /life/ again and he had /time/ and /energy/ to /have/ a life again because /we/ weren't -- aren't --" His words cut off, voice breaking off into silence as his gills just keep flaring. It does not come naturally for Shelby to wade through the omgargh reaction to look after someone else. She wants to flail, to gesticulate, to spout more creative phrases. Instead she bites her lip, causing /almost/ the same sort of cut Bastian had, and forces her hands to slowly relax. They peel away from his jacket. They shift to carefully smooth the gills down. "Maybe. He was stressed. About the raid. And people dying," she suggests through gritted teeth. "/Fuck/. Why did you guys do that. They're /never/ gonna let you go. Now. You'd have to. You're like...damn it. Was that Shane's idea? It was, wasn't it?" "Yeah, but even /before/ all that he never -- he didn't --" Bastian quiets again, and looks away abruptly, inner eyelids shuttering over bright-glistening eyes as his head turns. "Maybe," he allows, to her last question. "But he's not /wrong/." Shelby is going to kick Shane's ass. Even as she is realizing this, she is also realizing it is probably wrong and B will not like it but oh man, she's going to kick that little blue ass so hard. First, however, she's going to bend towards Sebastian and press her forehead to his shoulder and breathe in, breathe out. "He's not /right/ either. I'm like...the /master/ of running away. It's what I /do/. And I wouldn't run away from Jax. Jesus, B..." Slightly more selfishly, she mumbles, "I joined that stupid school 'cause you were there." Sebastian cannot help the fierce /surge/ of protectiveness that flares in him at even the thought of kicking Shane's ass. But it quells -- perhaaaps at the somewhat more entertaining mental image of Shelby /trying/ to accomplish this -- and instead of saying anything he just lifts his hand, resting it on the back of Shelby's head as she breathes. "It's still a good place. And we'll still be -- /here/. I just don't -- want to --" He swallows, and rests his cheek against the top of her head. There are tears trickling down slowly, against his skin to drop onto her hair. He is very steadfastly trying to pretend that there are not. "Not hurt anyone. Yeah, I know." And she is gutsick with knowing this. And with knowing that he is crying and trying to pretend she hasn't noticed. Shelby's arms slip around him from the side. She no longer wants tacos. Nor does she really want to talk about it anymore. But she breathes out in a whoosh, warming his arm, and says, "You don't stop hurting people by hurting them /more/." So proclaims the runaway. After that, she is squeezing him fiercely and carefully tilting her head. This time, she presses lips to gills instead of fingers. << Don't cry. God, don't cry. >> Bastian's arms curl back around Shelby. He holds her tight, his eyes closed, his breathing slow. "I don't -- think there's good choices here," he says quietly. "Just the least terrible ones." And then his head is tilting, slightly, allowing the kiss; it comes with a slightly tighter squeeze of hug. There's no more pretense of NotCrying, now; the touch to his gills comes, too, with a hitch of breath, a shake of shoulders that does not /stop/, even as he's similarly urging himself: << Don't cry oh god don't cry >> but it's pretty much useless. "Sorry," he whispers. "Shut up," Shelby whispers back. Shaking she copes with simply, just by tensing her arms around him until there is little chance of escape. Then Shelby settles in to hold him. He's allowed to cry and she's cool with letting it takes its course. If he can forgive the undercurrents of thought that are ruminating on how best to solve this--getting him to /talk/ to Jax is the current favorite--she will continue to hug Bastian close until the tears are done. It might be a while. But. At least afterwards there will be tacos. | |
