Wrong Idea

Participants:

eve_icon.gif teo_icon.gif

Scene Title Wrong Idea
Synopsis She wasn't talking about sex. ^^;;
Date August 1, 2009

Staten IslandThe Garden

Situated in a copse several miles away from the nearest stretch of asphalt, the Garden is accessible via an old dirt road that winds snakelike through the woods and dead-ends at the property's perimeter, which is surrounded by stone wall plastered with wicked coils of rusty barbed wire to keep would-be intruders from attempting to scale it. Those with a key can gain entry via the front gate.

The safehouse itself is a three-story brickwork cottage over a century old and covered in moss and ivy. It slants to one side, suggesting that the foundation has been steadily sinking into the wet earth; incidentally, this may be one of the reasons why its prior occupants never returned to the island to reclaim their property when government officials lifted evacuation orders and re-opened the Verrazano-Narrows shortly before its eventual destruction.

Inside, the cottage is decorated in mismatched antique furniture including a couch in the living room and an armchair nestled in the corner closest to the fireplace that go well with the safehouse's hardwood floors and the wood-burning stoves in some of the spare bedrooms. A heavy wooden table designed to seat eight separates the dining area from the rest of the kitchen, which is defined by its aged oak cabinetry and the dried wildflowers hanging above them.


The weather has stagnated over the past few hours, since Delilah had come and gone, Minea departed with the outgoing truck shipment. The children have been bundled up, scrubbed by mothers— or tragic surrogates, stowed away into cots, under mountainous linens. It'll be a few hours yet, no doubt, before the giggling and pitter-patter of rebellious feet ceases completely.

This leaves Teodoro Laudani sitting out on the porch, a clumsy but wear-beaten slingshot hanging from his hand. He's staring across one kerchief of garden at a small cavalcade of soda cans, lined up and still bright despite that he'd shut off half the porch lights five minutes ago. The coffee might have been a bad idea, but he hadn't honestly thought he was going to get any sleep tonight, anyway.

"I'm sorry.." A voice calls out. "That I hadn't come to see you sooner." The female's voice says. Footsteps can be heard approaching the porch. "But I was.. busy with so many other things. I had no idea what had been going on with you until Gilly told me."

Out of the shadows walks a woman that Teo hasn't seen in some time. Her hair is trimmed but still long and the color of the midnight sky, light grey eyes are fixed on the man sitting there. She wears a long black dress and a long trench coat around it, like the PARIAH days.

"Things have been crazy lately."

Too fucking right about that. Agreement maps Teo's features, a half-beat after he'd finished jack-knifing his posture into almost violent upright and about-face, blinking at the noise of the precognitive's approach like a spritzed cat, before settling, a little foolishly. Ah.

Eve. He bends his mouth around a smile. "It's been a long time," he says, without knowing precisely which timeline he's referring to. He's in jeans, a hoodie; dressed like the live boy who'd known her for going on a year, now, instead of the murderous, body-jumping wraith that had haunted the city for the past few months. "They have been, and shit is only getting harder. How are you?"

"Not good.." she says and shakes her head, eyes flickering over the area. "To much.. the dreams.. the events coming." She hangs her head and walks closer still to Teo.

"I think the real question is how are you?" The seer comes to stand not to far from in front of Teo. "I heard about the future you, invading you." Eve smiles lightly. "Tongue twister." She says with a soft chuckle and she inches forward again.

The tentative pace of her approach elicits a faint, slightly haggard smile. Teo reaches out with a hand that mimics her stride, jigging inches forward, fraught by a hummingbird's uncertainty until it decides her shoulder, closes a gentle grasp on it, his fingers tightening, once, an awkward squeeze. "'M all right. Or I'm gonna be— I think. Thank you very much for asking; it makes me think I'm gonna be all right, anyway.

"That— future analogue of mine? Fucked up a lot of things while he was in the saddle. I have to pick up the pieces. Dunno what shape I want to reassemble them into afterward, though," he admits, prodding at this metaphor like a layman wielding superglue upon the derelict carcass of the broken vase in question. "You're referring to prophesies, aren't you?"

The woman moves closer still, for once. Feeling comfortable with how close she is to Teo, her eyes stare into his but she looks away. "I'm glad to here it. I've missed you." Her head tilts as she studies the man.

"Reassemble the pieces into what you want, I think you deserve it.. to be happy.. to not have to worry for once." Eve says softly and her hand goes to Teo's shoulder.

"The future's been looking real dark lately.. and I'm just trying to stop it all." She breathes out.

"Worthy cause. Not the kind of cause you tend to be happy pursuing, though, y'know?" Teo was rarely so wry before the ghost, which doubtless indicates something, perhaps as simple as suffering or as complex as esoteric psychic accidents. "I've heard some things.

"Burning ravens, the term Munin thrown around— I'm a little surprised no one's standing over Eileen's bed with a sword in hand these days. Or maybe they have: I haven't been checking in on her much. Tamara indicated this new clusterfuck was going to be going down post-Pinehearst, though. And Pinehearst's done." Exaggerated weariness drags at the vowels and consonants of Teo's words, a grin cracked, thin, like a broken egg.

"Pinehearst is over and done with.. and now a whole other bag of shit is about to be opened." She says, the seer doesn't get any closer.. she's practically in his face now but she doesn't want to move forward. Every time she tries, it's rejected in some way.

"Poor girl, must be frightened. I've met her a few times.. well seen her." She points out. "Things aren't getting better anytime soon.. but.. when have things ever gotten better?" The songstress looks at Teo and slowly tries to take his hand, "You should go to bed." She says softly and looks up at him.

Boyfriends, emotional unavailability— it's true; whenever Teo touches something with his mouth it inevitably ends up in screaming acidic boiling. Which is, you know. Partly because he ends up eating these things, bread, oranges, whatever. Partly also because he is terrible at relationships, or even at repeat one-night stands. It's almost legendary.

If you like very tawdry stupid legends, anyway. "She's brave like a cat," he answers. His hand is taken without resistance, hangs its warm mass rough-skinned and long-boned from her grip. "Hisses, bottle-brush tail, but she'll come at you even if she's doing it completely alone. Sometimes, she might even be more comfortable that way.

"I have trouble sleeping these days." Teo crinkles his eyes, a smile that doesn't quite reach his mouth. "Maybe at dawn."

Long delicate fingers folding over his, "Then we don't need to worry about her then. At least not yet." Eve says softly and looks down at the ground. "I'm tired of the future coming after me in my dreams. I just want to rest.. for one night." She looks up to Teo and tilts her head again. "I have trouble sleeping every night.. maybe.. we should take care of our trouble.. together."

It would seem to look like Eve doesn't care about Teo's track record, it's not as if she can't see the future. Her heart isn't in it, at least.. not yet.

For a protracted moment, Teo does nothing and says nothing. Isn't frozen stuff so much as very still, like water left to stand, without life underneath its surface or a breeze moving above, inert and immune to weather and entropy, his visible mood registering at about room temperature. His eyes close and open once. His jaws creak apart without opening his lips, awkward as a fish trying to comment in the language of open air on the fact that he is dying a suffocating death.

"Would that I could," he says, miserably. Color marks his cheeks in accents, genuine embarrassment stifling his urge to explain, though Eve deserves explanation after the obnoxious trainwreck of history they've had. "And I mean that. I'm— fuck, I'm sorry, this is embarrassing to talk about."

It's what she expected, it's always what she expects from Teo. She's never dreamt of a happy ending with her and Teo, doesn't mean she doesn't like to try and tempt the fates.

"Spill it." Eve says softly and she hasn't withdrew her hand, whether she's stay the night with him or not, his hand offers more comfort to her then anyone else has. "I won't laugh." She promises.

Two sparks of color on Teo's. Once upon a time, he would have gone tomato from the collar of his shirt to the roof of his shaven head. Maybe. Granted, his attitude toward sex has always been a bizarre chimera of Catholic sensibilities and casual indifference. "I…

"Uhm." Teo's gaze drops to her chin, skews off over the oblique angle of Eve's shoulder. Returns with difficulty. "I d'n… I— there's… I can't— don't— I mean, I'm fine," he pronounces, despite visible evidence to the contrary as pertains to his emotional state, "but— I um." Stop. Start. "Don't." Hitch. "Think I like sex anymore. For now.

"This isn't a joke," comes the punchline, muttered under his breath. However graceful and unchoreographed Teo's masculinity usually is, it's hard not to trip over this particular instance.

Teo would feel a swat on his head if he didn't move fast enough. Eve chuckles and shakes her head at the man. "Who said I wanted to have sex with you.. ass." she replies in Italian. Eve's eyes narrow and then soften. "I.. don't think I could do that right now anyway." Eve says and looks down at her feet. "Your turn not to laugh." She says and grips his hand a little tighter."

"I just.. wanted to well.. have company." She breathes out with a sigh. "Someone to talk to until I fall asleep, maybe cuddle, ya know. Not just jump on top of you and ride it til I drop down exhausted. Does everyone just ask you for sex or something?" The singer raises an eyebrow at the man.

More color. Down his jaw, brightening his eyes with shy light that would be more at home on a child's face. He ducks his head, whapped as it had been, no effort to evade the rebuke even if he had seen it coming. It's all right. Teodoro Laudani has suffered far greater abuse to his head than that, before. "Sometimes it happens that way," he admits, ruefully. "I fuckin'… flatter myself, I guess.

"Sorry. I could talk. Or I could listen; I can't think of much to say when night gets late, even if there's nothing less now than there is in the day."

"Don't get me wrong, if times were different and I wasn't in the near insane mood I've been in for the past month then I'd love too. But that's not what I need right now." She admits softly and rubs Teo's head gently where she hit it.

"Well then, that's the thing.. sometimes it's fine to just lay and not say a word." Eve shrugs and that's when she begins to walk in the Garden. She is still holding his hand but she isn't pulling him. "You gonna come up? My feet are hurting something fierce." She winks and begins to move forward into the safehouse, inch by inch. Eyes on Teo.

All right, then: Teo won't get her wrong. His smile goes crooked. He doesn't stray out of the hand loose around his, doesn't let any unease bridle his posture or slow his step in following. Some small, shared part of Teo and Ghost's brains, both, are remarking that this is all terribly gay, what with the lying there, and in the dark, and with a woman with whom relations had always been an privilege he was on the verge of enjoying—

But the young man who remains doesn't mind. "I'd carry you, but it was supply day and we'd knock boxes and shit down all over," he offers, ruefully. His shoe thumps stair slats and he reaches out, with his other hand, to snap the porch light off.


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