Molly Toombs
The day has been warm and humid, on
account of the gray clouds that choked the skies and insulated the heat
and moisture both so that walking through the day wasn't unlike walking
through a sauna. Nothing like the southeastern United States, to be
sure, Denver didn't get that humid, but it was enough to deter
Molly from going out for her stretch and jog routine until after the sun
had started to dip and touch the tips of the mountains to the West.
Florence
was left at home, she'd taken the dog out for an extended walk today
already and the animal had ultimately sprawled on the hardwood after a
long drink of water afterwards. She could skip the run along with her
owner tonight.
On account of how long Molly put off getting
started in the first place, by the time her jogging routine took her
into Washington Park and put her on one of two paths that she favored,
the sun had gone down and street lamps had to take over lighting the
place instead. Though the sun was down, sweat still gathered at her
brow and made sticky her skin as she bounced her way along a pathway at a
stride that was easy-- this was the point where she slowed to catch her
breath.
Emerald Isle-red hair was gathered into a high ponytail,
the bangs pinned back to keep off her forehead and away from her eyes.
She was dressed in a tank-top and pants that were designed for exercise,
made of fabric that hugged tight and breathed well. Black with white
threading and logos, with black running shoes to match. She didn't keep
an iPod strapped to her arm, though, and no headphones to cover her
ears.
If Molly was going to be out at night, she'd need to be capable of hearing if feet scuffed the path behind her.
Abraham
That is one of the reasons that emerald isle is so green. It was fed on torrents of red. Hasn't all the world been, though?
From
the parched Middle East to the lush jungles of South America. The tree
of liberty, here in the United States, had long been refreshed by the
blood of patriots and tyrants, but these days it seems there is a
greater machinery and it does not much care whose blood greases its
gears or how it gets spilled.
This would be a very abstract
thought for a young man, seated on a park bench in a pair of simple
black shorts and a gaudy Hawaiian shirt, to be idly spinning out of
ether. Still, there Abraham is with legs crossed and foot bouncing to
the same trot's cadence Molly is running with as she approaches. She
continues close along the path he sits beside. Maybe he doesn't even
notice he is matching that tic to her jog?
He is deep in thought. The foot bounces in time a part apart.
Organic. Subconscious. Hypnotic.
In
any case, it is not so strange a thing to be thinking of, because
opened across his lap illuminated by a nearby lamp post is Trotsky's
History of the Russian Revolution. He is taking notes with a mechanical
pencil. He is engrossed up ahead, there to be noticed and not noticing
her just yet.
Molly Toombs
Ever aware, ever alert,
the man on the park bench up ahead didn't go missed. Eyes-- blue, not
the green of storybooks and poster children-- picked him out of shadows
when she rounded the bend to bring him and the bench he sat on into
sight. She didn't slow her pace, so as not to invite attention, but
kept her chin high and her feet tapping on pavement.
The nearer
she got, though, the more the tickle of recognition bothered her min.
He looked familiar, and she couldn't quite place it at first. But then,
nearer still, the picture of face and eyebrows and hair met together
with a memory of a club, of the tingle-and-smell of something abnormal
and magical, supernatural for certain, and a recollection of dancing for
some amount of time that she didn't mark on a watch until later. A
name came to mind after testing the letter 'A' and a few names that
began with it first. She had it by the time she was near enough to slow
and speak a greeting.
"Abe, isn't it?"
She huffed the words
out, breathing impacted by the jogging that came before. Molly was a
woman of soft build, but she was robust. Even so, she wasn't a machine,
so when she slowed about fourteen feet or so away from the bench to
walk her approach instead she breathed heavy and swiped sweat from her
brow with the back of her forearm.
"Molly," she'd supply when he
glanced up, to jar a memory she wouldn't be surprised if he'd lost
already-- it was just one night among many, and they hadn't even stuck
about for very much conversation after the club closed down either.
"Funny place to be studying."
Abraham
The cadence
slows, and so does his foot, and it reminds him to pay attention to what
is going on off the pages open in front of him.
Abe closes the
book, pencil folded between its pages, after he looks up and sees Molly
approaching. She asks if Abe is his name and he nods. He does not have
too hard of a time picking her out from faces in his crowded past.
"Molly," saying the name even as she offers it, proving he remembers before she can spare him any embarrassment if he cannot.
"Yeah,
it is," Abe concedes. His hands grip the thick spine of the book,
turned to face her and his palms pressed against its cover. "It's quiet,
though," but he does not seem to mind the interruption. He doesn't
smile at it, but he doesn't chafe at the conversation either. Doesn't
argue whether what he is doing is studying or not, maybe because he
isn't sure.
"Not a funny place for a run," uncrossing his legs and standing to engage her fully. The book is now gripped at his side.
Molly Toombs
She
came to a stop near the front of the bench. Didn't clutch her side,
for no stitch formed when she finally slowed her pace. She did settle
her hands firmly onto her hips, though, elbows pressed out to let the
cooling night air touch and cool as much skin as possible. Chest and
shoulders didn't heave, but they did move more noticeably and visibly
than they would had she been walking a normal pace.
The man named
Abe was unsmiling, but didn't appear to be unwelcome to the conversation
that this encounter presented. He'd even closed his book up and stood
to greet her proper. She didn't stick a hand out for a shake or
anything so formal, though, but instead offered a smile of parted lips
and teeth to keep breathing comfortably.
"Nah, pretty common place
for a run, you're right." She glanced over her shoulder, checking to
see if any other joggers were coming up behind her-- just in case she
had to move to get out of their way. When contented that there were no
such dangers coming up from behind, she returned her gaze and attention
more fully to Abe. That hook of curiosity was still there, embedded in
skin like a relic in the mouth of a fish that snapped a weak line. She
remembered quite well that there was Something to this man. Whether or
not she could find what, or if it would be worth it to search and pry,
had yet to be determined.
"Admittedly probably not the best time
for it," she confessed, "but here's hoping that you have no plans to
bludgeon me with that textbook." She skimmed the words on the book's
cover. "Though it'd be a little poetic, I suppose. Being revolted
against with a book on revolution."
Abraham
Abe
looks down at the book and then back up at her. "I think Trotsky would
object to that," whether she can see the author's name or not, from that
angle or any of the angles he had been clutching the book before he
says it, she had definitely seen the title. He hesitates. Thinks again.
"He would probably object to that too. He did a lot of objecting,"
Abraham says, like he can't quite corner the idea he is trying to share.
It is almost expressed, though, and he almost gives up figuring that is
close enough.
A moment of illumination.
"I think he would want to be the one doing the bludgeoning," he says finally.
"What
else might he object to?" He asks it in an off-handed manner. "Running
to keep yourself fit? He's probably have ideas for better uses of both
our energy and little care for what we would like to be doing. Good
thing he's dead," and finally a smile that opens his half-lidded eyes a
bit more. Brightens his face a tad.
Molly Toombs
That
it took recognizing that a political figure who would rather they be
working than running, who would prefer to bludgeon people himself after
objecting to other people doing the bludgeoning, for Abe to smile set an
expression of piqued curiosity on Molly's face. The smile urged Molly
to mirror the expression, though, at least a little. It was only polite
after all.
Her breath was coming back to her. Molly dropped her
hands from her hips and let them rest at her sides instead. She didn't
entirely know where to steer the conversation next-- Molly could play at
polite and social and charming here or there, but she wasn't
necessarily the most socially graceful thing. Competant enough to
manage and navigate the waters of meeting people, just as much as anyone
else, but that left her equally subject to pauses and lulls when she
didn't know what else to talk about, if it would be more appropriate to
give the man back his evening or if it was more polite to stick around
instead.
She wanted to talk about what she'd felt that night. Ask
him if he wove magic, or if maybe if some blood trail of mysticism ran
through his family. But how did you come upon such subjects? What was
the natural transition for that?
These thoughts ticked through her
mind, and the time she spent on them was time left for silence to fill
the space that words probably ought to instead. She blinked, reminded
herself to get out of her own head and just say something already, and dove on in.
"So
I didn't really get around to asking that other night, but I couldn't
help but notice something that evening. About you, in particular."
Eyebrows went up as she went out on a metaphorical limb. "You're not
really the average guy on the street, are you?"
Abraham
Abraham
looks surprised. His eyes open a little more. They are almost as wide
as an average guy or gal might be when confronted with such an odd
question, except there is something else there. Rather there is
something that is not there. He does not seem to think she must be off
her rocker. His eyes do not screw up and he does not suddenly look
cautious or caught off guard.
Just surprised. A little curious.
That curiosity gets brushed under the rug once he gets his own eyebrows
in line and the muscles of his face perceptibly more relaxed.
"Not
reading political theory in a park I'm not," shaking his head. His chin
drops and he looks the way she had been running, then kind of steers
himself that way, but doesn't just yet take a first step.
"Yeah,
you said something about me not fitting the mold. I get that a lot,"
brushing it off along with his reaction to her question.
Molly Toombs
[Perception + Empathy: So you seem surprised, but not too surprised]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Abraham
Molly
is absolutely right about what she says and there is a more interesting
answer to the question she asks than what he has given. What she picks
up on is something about himself Abraham is acutely aware of. The most
surprising part is not what she says, but that she is the one saying it.
Molly does not seem like the kind of person to notice what is different
about him, and it has him spooked. Paranoid. Even as he turn his head
he is looking her over. Looking deeper than her exterior. Trying to pick
up on anything off about her that lays below that surface of athletic
attire and the glow of exercise.
[ Auspex (Aura Perception): Perception + Empathy. Specialty is Paranoid. ]
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 1, 3, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Molly Toombs
"Well,
I meant the mold of Man in general." She spoke the word 'man' with a
capital letter that's easy enough to catch. Abraham had angled himself
like he wanted to start walking, but didn't start moving yet. Molly
wasn't sure from reading body language and facial expressions whether he
would indicate for her to join or if he simply wanted to be off on his
way and to escape the prying that she was doing.
What she did
note, though, was that he didn't have any 'crazy' buzzers going off in
his head from her observation. He was surprised as though he didn't
expect her to be able to pick up on him, but not by the comment in and
of itself. That in and of itself was worth noting.
While Molly
was doing her best to read Abe, he was doing quite the same, looking at
her a little more intently. Molly didn't know that his eyes were
searching more than just the physical now, that they were picking up on
the layer of energy around her that she wasn't even aware existed. He'd
find the movement of energy slow and typical, he'd find her to be Human
and nothing but-- there was no pale to seep into and stain the colors
about her. Dark blues and violets mingled together-- she suspected him
and was curious, eager to know more. This could be a dangerous
combination, that's for certain.
While he was reading and making his conclusions, Molly pressed on.
"I'm
sorry," she began, and ducked her chin just a touch as though bashful
of her own directness (perhaps a play, perhaps a conscious movement to
make herself seem less worth worrying about). "I'm not the best
icebreaker. I'm just... curious. I sort of study the Unreal as a
hobby, you could say."
Abraham
Abraham looks up at
her and his eyes find hers if she looks back up. His intensity goes
from flatline to redlined with what she says.
"I'm real," he says. Asserts. Sets his feet like it might prove he is material.
"Real as you are. And I am
a Man, not a hobby," a chip on his shoulder that suddenly tumbles into
an avalanche. There is a lot of anger there, but if she is still reading
him the way she might have read psychotic patients or dangerous things
that walk the night, the anger is not directed at her. It is no less
focused than the usual glaze of his eyes, despite how fierce they are in
that moment.
Abraham's fingers strain on the book and the pages
fan out like the leaves of a fern. He is not strong enough to tear
telephone books in half or throw cars- far from it- but the gesture is
there.
When his fingers relax so does he. It fades away or at
least is goes back beneath the surface. The latter is a more disturbing
possibility as it may still be agitated, just hidden.
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5) ( fail )
Abraham
[ That was a Willpower. A Willpower botch. Here is a Manipulation + Subterfuge to hide how he is feeling. ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Abraham
[ Note: Abraham's WP is 6, not 7, but I'm taking the botch anyway. ]
Molly Toombs
The
reaction was stronger and more negative than what Molly had
anticipated. She saw his knuckles and fingers strain when he squeezed
that frustration out on the cover of his book. She saw the flare in his
eyes when they'd met. Whatever charm or humor she was trying to carry
for the conversation seeped away, scared off like a pheasant from a
shotgun blast. Her hands went up, palms forward, in a reflexive
gesture-- not one to indicate that she was worried he was going to
charge, but rather a common motion for 'Whoa, easy'.
"I wasn't
trying to call you a hobby, Abe. I'm sorry it came across that way."
Her tone changed, closed up, became more worried. She didn't back away
from him, though. Instead, eyebrows flexed into something mingled
between apology and concern-- concern not so much for his well being or
peace of mind, but rather for whether he was going to be flying off the
handle and if she'd need to extract herself from the situation very
suddenly.
That bit of mysticism, that touch of Something
Different, it couldn't be dismissed. She had no idea what he was
capable of, all she knew was that it was something beyond just a punch
or a throttling.
"And to be clear, I wasn't accusing you of not
being a Man." There was a pause where she considered her words, how
they would be perceived, before she continued. "Just that I sensed...
something." A frown creased her brow while she tried to explain. "Like
you're More Than, you know?"
Another pause, and she followed up
with a tone of cautious hesitation: "Maybe I should just let you
be...." This is the second time she's concluded that in meeting Abe, he
may recall.
Abraham
"More Than sounds real, but
I'm not any more than someone who can-" he stops, like he has found
himself talking without starting. In the meanwhile his gaze has
softened. It begins after she concludes she should leave him be. He does
not seem to want to chase her off. At least a part of him does not want
to. He is curious now.
"Where'd you learn about Something
Different?" He asks it with a sudden realization. Turns the question
Molly had asked around on her.
She pulls back. Whatever
misunderstanding does not spiral out of control and take them down to a
horrible place. It looks like that allows him to get a handle on
whatever had come up, reared its head, but again that is the seeming. If
there if there is Something Different or More Than at work here it
might not be so overt.
Molly Toombs
Caution was
worked into Molly's bones and body language. Fear didn't seep from her
pores like sweat did, though. She was watchful of Abe, aware of how his
brow may crease or how teeth and jaw may work behind lips. She'd
sensed the snap within him, knew that what she'd said was wrong. He was
on the spot, and it occurred to Molly that her approach might make him
feel cornered. She didn't like to think on what a man who read about
Revolutions and sent currents of supernatural energy into the air would
do when cornered.
When the question swung around on her, she
seemed to find it to be a bit of a relief, oddly enough. The spotlight
shining somewhere besides Abraham could give him a chance to cool down,
and she supported that since she was standing alone with him in a park
at night.
"Right here," Molly answered. She blinked, then clarified. "Well, not right here
in this park, but here in the city. Things that are Different are
under many of the rocks and lurking in quite a few shadows. I suppose I
walked through the wrong shadow, saw the wrong thing." She shook her
head. She was being ambiguous, but of that was probably expected. "It
didn't make sense, so I looked deeper into things. Started to learn
more, see more, understand more."
She licked her lips to wet
them. That sensation of a situation spiraling near to the edge of
out-of-control made her head feel a bit dizzy, but to show that much
uncertainty and let it impact her sense of calm couldn't help her at
all. She looked down, broke her gaze away from Abe's with the excuse of
brushing invisible dust from the front of her shirt and tugging so it
was sitting more comfortably on her sides and across her stomach. This
kept eyes and hands busy so they would reveal less.
"Of course
you're real," she wrapped around again, reassuring him that she didn't
think otherwise. "But... Not everyone thinks the same, do they?"
Abraham
"Not
everyone. Most people, though, yeah. They do," because Molly says a
whole lot and that is the easiest part to respond to. It is no less
abstract or ambiguous that the rest, though, so he tries to zero in once
he has gotten that out of the way.
Abe cants his head to the side
once he starts thinking about it and what he has seen of her, both here
and in the ether, and repeats a part of with: "Saw the wrong thing.
Yeah, that happens, but it doesn't look like it stopped you walking
through shadows, seeing things, asking questions you ain't hear a lot of
people asking," he notes.
"You oughta be careful turning over
rocks, but you know that, don't you?" His own body language continues
relaxing. She is a curiosity of epic proportions. If she had been hooked
he is holding the rod and is just as invested in the landing.
Molly Toombs
"You
also ought to be careful driving and walking home from work." She
smiled again. The expression was small, testing the waters. Curiosity
was a mutual thing now, a beast that lived within both of them. The
curiosity beasts sniffed one another, touched noses in the metaphorical
plane of space between Abraham and herself. The fidgeting had stilled
and she settled for resting her hands on her hips once more.
"But,
of course I know that. And of course I keep doing both of those
things. Just like I'm compelled to keep turning those rocks. Like an
archaeologist, except I suppose the things under the rocks that I find
are still alive. Largely, at least."
She took another breath, this one slow and filling. Like someone about to jump off a high dive.
"What is it that sets you apart, Abe?"
Abraham
"I
don't want to be apart," he answers and it resonates in his chest, but
catches soulfully in the back of his throat. It is a bit forlorn. It is
young like that chip on his shoulder. He isn't a child. He isn't even a
young adult. He had been locked, though she does not know this, in that
premature prime. All strength with none of the wisdom of how to use it.
"I'm not. I try not to be," he continues to answer without actually answering.
"Come
on," turning his head again, and his shoulders banking like the wings
of a plane as he deflects with words and body language. "Some things are
comfortable under their rocks, ain't they? You're not like an
archaeologist. You sound like a social worker," he says with a distant
laugh that shakes his chest and hums in his throat, shaking his head.
Molly Toombs
Sympathy
flashed on Molly's visage, not an incredible or strong impulse, but one
that Abe would probably recognize effectively enough to feel something
negative from it. He didn't want to be set apart, he didn't want to be
Unreal or anything but Man. So, to have this freckle-faced curiosity
looking at him like she felt bad for him, he probably didn't much care
for that either.
When he compared her to a social worker, she
tried to flush the look off her face and pushed a chuckle to roll about
in her chest lungs and throat instead. Tried to laugh along with him.
"I
don't drag things out from under their rocks. I just like to peek and
see. To continue a metaphor, anyways." She wished that her work-out
clothes had pockets so she could tuck her hands into them. She also
wished that she was wearing something besides her exercising apparel in
general, but for reasons beyond a desire for pockets to hide hands in.
She preferred to dress to impress, so to be caught in social banter with
a man she'd enjoyed dancing with and have that morph into a Hunt for
Information, she would have preferred to trade sweat an a ponytail for
jewelry and a dress.
But, neither here nor there, and as she well knew wishes didn't make shit happen.
"You don't have to
share anything. I mean, it's your life, your business. I'm not
entitled to any of that. I've just never seen any harm in asking, is
all."
Abraham
Woe is he, yes, and Abraham might
seem the type to shrug that off like he had tried to shrug off most of
what she said that had an effect on him. For most he might. She want a
peek, though? That is how she continues her metaphor?
He sees
sympathy, catches upon it more than that subtle desire to have donned a
fashion forward armor. It eclipses that questioning posture, the warmth,
and he stokes it. Cups his hands and fans it from spark to flicker to
flame, or tries to, because he has opened up. Shown some rare depth and
its surface catches her reflection. Stirs it. Tries to make it a
tempest.
Abraham looks back at her to do this, to add catalyst to
what is present, to make it reactive and incendiary. It is alchemical in
nature. She studies the occult, but this is something she might not
understand off-hand, even if she could sense such Different Things.
Throughout it he seems to be contemplating what she has asked.
"Saying
would set me apart, though, wouldn't it?" She'd said he didn't need to
share, to answer, but she had asked and not seen the harm in doing so.
"Asking says I'm not the same. I'm Something Different. Didn't you ever
look under a rock and not like what you found? What if I don't want you
to not like me?"
[ Dementation (Passion): Charisma + Empathy. ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Molly Toombs
Something
stirred in not just the words that Abe spoke, but the way that he said
them. He wanted to stay the same, didn't want her to turn him away and
not like him soon as she found out what he actually was. Her heart
ached and throbbed with that. Molly wasn't an especially maternal
person, she didn't draw comparisons to children in this exchange. But
she did feel for the man. She wanted very much to know what he was so she could begin to learn, but eclipsing that was a sense to help and to support that nearly burned her chest.
Her
expression folded back to something that was almost stricken, but her
voice wasn't flinching when she spoke up. She sounded more genuine than
he's heard her yet.
"I can assure you that whatever it is you might have about you, I'm certain that
I've come across something far more horrible. And still, I like them
enough to answer their calls." She offered another smile, and this time
it seemed more bracing.
"I've never heard of anything wrong with Different, anyways."
Abraham
Abe's
own passions, no matter how outwardly muted they might be, go into it.
While he has turned his head, started his body, each time he has stopped
before retreating away and left the winding path to whoever else might
want to use it. He has not left that bench and now he finds himself
sharing his most intimate secret with her: his madness.
She does
not even know it, even as it flares and catches whatever fuel has been
exposed in her, and can he not at least see her through it? See what it
does to her before he tells her how he is different, if he ever does? It
is secondary to who he is. Apart and in pieces.
Abraham turns the
book in his hand and sits back down on the bench. "That sounds like
something that would be on a poster. A bunch of kittens and one of them
calico," he says.
"Tell me about horrible. Tell me why you answer horrible's call, huh, Molly?" Won't you? It doesn't sound like the way he talks, but he says it with his eyes. Asks her to share with him to make him feel better.
Molly Toombs
Madness
must be an incredibly intimate secret to share. Molly might find
herself honored that he let her see, if she could understand any of it
just yet. She didn't recognize what it was, exactly, that had stoked
that flame in her heart, stirred it into a passion that she truthfully
hadn't felt since the night over drink and smoke that Flood had implored
and encouraged her to continue her plunge into the depths of the
unknown.
See how strongly she took that to heart.
So though
he offered no verbal invitation to sit along with him, Molly sank onto
the bench along with him. She sat to his left an angled her shoulders
and hips and knees just enough that she was still very clearly engaged
in conversation with him. No more playing cool an casual, as was her
standard approach to the world, that had been cast to the wind.
He
urged her to share more, to tell him about horrible. Maybe if he knew
the kind of horrible that she hung around, he would feel better about
whatever it was that he saw in himself as a burden, as a shame. She saw
no leprosy on him, and she wanted very much for him to recognize that (but why, Moll? why do you give such a shit about this guy?).
"Because
they're a good horrible to know. Because though they may be horrible,
they haven't wronged me or betrayed me at all. Horrible, like you, can
still be Man." She shook her head and set her hands on the tops of her
thighs. "I've strayed a very far way from Normal myself, anyways. The
way back's all caved in."
Abraham
Molly sits and
joins him and though she had not been invited to do so, see the way he
turns to mirror her. His arm crooks back and rests atop the seat back,
settling there and settling him in. He does not cross his legs again,
but they shuffle once a little closer to her as he turns to continue the
conversation.
"You're a sick dancer, two-stepping with the Devil,
but it sounds dark in there," and he seems to understand just how dark
it can get in those depths. See Abraham? There he is breathing. There he
is, and she hasn't touched him, but hadn't he been warm when he had
taken her hand and spun her, or when he had shimmied and shook close
enough to put his fingers around hers, a thumb in her hand, or when they
had brushed close enough? He blinks. All the signs of life. All the
light in his glazed over eyes.
Abraham's arm, cocked up tight next to him, straightens out when he is done.
"Imagine if you knew someone who was just good to know. Not anything else. That might be what gets you killed," he says.
It
is not casual, he does not feign like he does not know what he is
doing, he actually watches his hand move go until his fingers reach out
to play their tips on her shoulder. Make contact. Close that distance,
reach across the plane that stretches out, and touch her.
Molly Toombs
"Sounds
like a song," Molly commented when he accused her of two-stepping with
the Devil. She was humored, somewhere in the back of her mind, by how
on-the-nose he was in his comparison. She saw how breath moved chest
and back and nostrils, noted that his eyes weren't glazed for a lack of
blinking. They'd spent time that they'd lost track of dancing the first
night they met, so she knew full well that his palms and chest were
warm with life as well. She didn't worry for him being a vampire, it
wasn't the first thought that occurred when knowing that someone was
Different, not necessarily. Besides, it would be paranoid to assume
that everyone could be one, even though she did know that they were
capable of hiding even their signs of death.
But a will to
disbelief was a powerful thing. It was the strong, strong thread that
kept the Masquerade held together, after all.
His arm rested along
the top of the bench's back, and this brought his hand near enough for
fingertips to touch her freckle-dusted shoulder. Her skin was still a
bit tacky from the sweat of exercise, strands of hair fallen loose from
her ponytail clung to her neck and brow in places. He felt her shoulder
move when he touched her, but she didn't jerk away or tense up. Just
offered a smile that was a little lopsided, humored at a thought. "Abe,
there's no such thing."
Her own hands kept on top of her legs,
but they slid nearer to her knees. This stretched her arms forward,
rolled her shoulders both forward as well. Leaned her in only a little
more.
"I could greet by name a number of things that could get me
killed. It's perhaps the fact that I know their names that keeps it
from happening."
Abraham
Abe doesn't not to what
she says, but he looks to be considering it, even if his eyes are still
on his hand, or may her shoulder since they almost occupy the same space
in his line of sight.
"And like you said, driving and walking
home, they could do the same shit. There are a lot of things you could
call by name and they ain't anything different than what they always
been. They the things that kill you, and dying ain't always the worst
thing that can happen, is it? Maybe it's the caving in. Maybe it's
having to live like that, apart," he says next.
Her skin is supple
under his skin, or at least that is what he would call it, and the way
it sticks under his finger tips and to them makes even his light touch
nothing so easily romanticized. He does not seem to mind, not that or
the fact her shoulder moves. It follows along, unless she shrinks back
considerably. Considerable enough to make a point? That is the measure
that will get him to stop.
"You ever look under a rock and what
was underneath up and bit you?" A leap and a dive, this time from his
cautious end, and he watches for her reaction.
Molly Toombs
That
the touch persisted didn't appear to bother Molly Toombs. His elbow
and arm scooted along the back of the bench so his hand could move
forward as well. His fingers didn't keep still but touched and
smoothed, like interested in studying the very texture of her skin.
Light, though, not traveling far, not invading upon much territory not
his own. She didn't shrink away, and nothing flashed in her eyes to
warn of discomfort or an urge to flee.
She'd told him that the
path back to Normal was all caved in. So wouldn't it make sense that
she'd be drawn to the only path left to walk, if only to see where it
took her?
The question, though, had her raising eyebrows just a
touch. Still no signs of her taking flight from him, but the choice of
words did have her wondering.
"Not yet." Her head tilted a
little, and those coppery-light eyebrows (no longer penciled dark, they
haven't been for a while now) relaxed back down to instead express
curiosity.
"Should I worry that you will?"
Abraham
"You
asking if I will or if it's something you oughta worry about? Something
to be afraid of?" Territory. They are already in each other's, but
their distance is conversational. Intimate? He made it so, but it is
still intimately conversational. Nothing more.
Abraham had looked
back to her shoulder, but his eyes flick from his fingers, her shoulder,
over to hers only when he is done asking a question back.
"I
don't think you can turn over rocks and not wonder, want to know, want
to be touched, be turned over yourself, feel Something Different," he
says, wondering aloud and with some conviction.
Molly Toombs
What
he was speaking rang truth, though the words seemed to have two edges
instead of just one-- meanings and implications that bled and twined
together, coaxed that way by how he'd drawn her in, stoked that need to
help, to know in order to know how to help. Made unclear and tangled by
the shared space, the near-touch of knees angled inward, the lingering
and established touch.
"I suppose it's fair to say that I'm asking both."
The
answer was spoken slow and thoughtful, for it had to be formed through
the other things rushing about in her mind, trying to piece and direct
and interpret. His comments about wanting to know and actually be
different were like stones that kept sinking deeper.
She sounded almost cautious when she asked him: "Should I worry? Are you worried?"
Abraham
"Always,"
Abraham says, answering both questions with that single word, and
tossing another stone into the well, the lake, the ocean, whatever it is
Molly will be. He isn't sure about the depth, about how wide her
expanse stretches, and haven't they discovered entire oceans underneath
the earth? All he can do is listen as it breaks the surface and watch
the ripples as another weight disappears.
Abraham's fingers are no longer pawing at her. In a moment they lie flat around the ball of her shoulder.
"You're
here in the cave with me, already, though," like it pins her to the
spot, another avalanche that forces her deeper down the path. "That's
one less thing to worry about," the book forgotten as his other hand
goes to hers and takes it by the wrist. Raises it along the same plane
as his other arm. His hand, the one on her shoulder, withdraws along her
tricep to support it. Does all this if she does not pull away.
Molly Toombs
Always,
was his answer. It was a heavy rock that disturbed the surface of her
mind's lake and fluttered concern in her chest. But the wings of that
concerned little moth scorched and burned under the flame that was that
Passion that the man on the bench had instilled in her.
He reached
for her wrist and lifted it so her hand parted from the top of her knee
and hovered in the air instead. His other hand slipped past the
shoulder and curled fingers under her upper arm instead, supporting it
up so that her arms were away from her sides. It felt like she was
being engaged in a dance, except their feet weren't anywhere near a
dance floor, and they weren't even standing at all. She took a quick
breath and her pulse quickened, but Molly didn't fall to pieces often or
easy.
She didn't break away from him or lean back, didn't flash
fear or protest to his manipulating her posture. But he would feel that
her arm-- the one whose wrist he held-- stilled in the air, wouldn't
move further up or forward if he tried to continue guiding it.
She
wasn't a woman who feared eye contact. She knew that the things who
benefited from it could steal it from you anyways. It was a show of
trust and confidence to offer your eyes. But, more than that, she
wanted to do nothing to scorn or wound Abe, so she wouldn't insult him
by averting her gaze.
"It sounds like one less thing for you to
worry about. You're making it seem like one more thing for me to worry
about, though. I don't want to be trapped in the cave, I want to find
my way through it."
Abraham
"You do. Every morning
you wake up and see the sun you do," he says. The hand on her wrist
turns. It does not try to bring it to his mouth, but his thumb runs
along her forearm. Finds veins. Presses against gently, but enough that
she can feel her own pulse as he follows their lines to her wrist.
"And
all I have is this," he says, but he had felt her hold it still where
it was, and he does not pull it further toward him, nor does he pull her
any closer. He doesn't take what she won't give freely.
He might have been talking about her blood, but he doesn't have it.
"Hunger," he continues, "is the only thing that keeps me going," and his hands open to let her go.
Molly Toombs
His
thumb ran down her arm an her eyes dropped to follow the motion, and it
was hard to discern whether that was anticipation or apprehension that
she wore on her face when she did. Ultimately, though, he released her
from both his hands and confessed that all he had to keep him going was
hunger.
She suspected that he didn't mean for food, and frowned.
She ached for him, sincerely. He said this was all he had-- didn't
clarify what 'this' was so she could assume that it was something in the
here and now. Hunger was no positive sensation, it signified want. If
it was the only thing to keep him going, it meant he was forever
wanting, and there was a sorrow for the man's condition that swelled up
into her throat and had her swallowing hard.
Molly lowered her
arms and straightened up. She drew in a breath that filled her chest
and for a moment it seemed like she may try to fold him up within her in
an effort to muffle that hunger and want, to comfort and pull that
clear conflict out of him.
Instead, she asks: "Do you have a phone on you?"
The
answer would be yes, and either by her thumbs or his own Molly's phone
number would end up plugged into it. She didn't ask him for his, but
instead offered hers. "I don't want to put you under a microscope, Abe,
I just want to help." She soon after stood up from the bench and
pinned up licks of loose hair back off her neck and brow again with a
couple bobby pins that held things together. She had to go, she said,
but she wanted him to call.
"We can get a drink. Talk about that hunger, and that help."
She'd jog away, and sincerely hope that he would.
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