It had gotten very cold very abruptly. Saila was not amused. Having experienced all four of the seasons now, she had determined that winter was her least favorite with its bitter, biting winds and sudden, sharp frosts. She'd taken to wandering again, roaming further and further afield in the hours she had to herself, a haunting restlessness preventing her from settling anywhere, from being at peace. The time between sudden, involuntary naps seemed to be stretching out ever longer, too, and especially when she was spending so much of her time alone, the mercurial muse found her days blending together, one sliding into the next until she was looking up at the moons again, wondering how it was that there had been already been so many.
She couldn't have said what time it was when a sense of loneliness seemed to seize her, one hand prying the bedazzled assault weapon from her pocket to check its display. There were no messages, and as she walked, pale fingers navigated until she found the phone number she was looking for. I've decided that winter sucks, she sent to Amare: It's cold and I'm bored. What are you doing?
Text to Saila (five minutes later): Then you're not doing Winter right. Which isn't surprising. You're probably slugging around and seeing things freeze.
There's a ten minute pause before he responds again.
Text to Saila: Making friends. Do you know how to make a sandwich? I need twenty.
It had been long enough that she was pretty sure he was otherwise occupied, long enough that she'd shoved the phone into the front kangaroo pouch pocket on her hoodie and was back to exploring a new area somewhat aimlessly. The way it vibrated against her belt buckle was something of a surprise, then, and with her brows furrowed, she fished the sparkly cell out of its spot to see who it was.
Oh, hey. Amare's around after all. How does one do Winter right, then?
Again, there wasn't a response, and Saila was most of the way up a tree she was climbing when the phone went off again. Of course. She finished scaling the trunk and perched herself in a fanned splay of pine boughs several feet off the ground before she retrieved the phone again, to see what he had to say this time.
...Sandwiches? That's the thing with the random stuff stuck between pieces of bread, right? I mean. I've never tried it before, but it doesn't look hard?
Text to Saila: For fuck?s sake I can't write you a manual on every goddamn thing.
Text to Saila (3 minutes later): You really need to use Google. Or you can be a heathen and Bing it. Come over to my house if you paid enough attention last time to know where it is.
You're a lot more fun to annoy than Google. Google wants to show me pictures of cats and naked people. Her response had come a handful of minutes later, once she'd pulled herself back down out of the tree and shaken the pine needles out of her hair.
It was another twenty minutes before the girl was knocking on his door, dressed all in black as per usual. Black slim fit jeans and a black hoodie, her winter wardrobe, long purple hair pulled back in a sloppy bun. Her pale cheeks were flushed pink from the cold night air. She knocked once and then tried the door handle.
The door swung wide with a quick, sharp energy. His right hand at the knob, his left holding a dull knife he had been using to spread mayonnaise. Tonight's garb was the usual expensive cut business suit in a light, metallic blue. The white shirt underneath was crisp, untucked, and open at the neck. Before she could step in he stepped forward, arching one brow and looking left and right as if he had expected her to bring company.
Amare stepped forward practically into her, and Saila had not an inch of give. She stood there, silvery brows quirked curiously as he looked around for whatever invisible army he thought had accompanied her.
Was he irritated that she hadn't? "Well, don't just stand there for fuck's sake." Impatient circles cut in the air with the knife before he shut the door behind her. His gaze cut over to the kitchen, which practically melted into the living room if not for one dividing wall that had a window-like cutout in the center. As usual, it was impeccably clean except for the recent remarks of his activity in the kitchen. "All the stuff is there. Ham sandwiches. Lettuce, tomato, mayo and a slice of that plastic Kraft crap."
He stepped back and she followed, and it was almost a dance the way his right leg moved back at precisely the same time her left moved forward. Naturally, the Rabid Baby would chide her for being 'slow' anyway, despite the fact that had she been any faster she'd have been pretty literally up against him. This brought a dry smile to her face as she stepped inside, moving so he could close the door.
The teenager had not the first clue what a 'slice of that plastic Kraft crap' might be, but neither did she ask, figuring that the answer would reveal itself here in a few. Peering through the cut out into the kitchen, her strange gaze slid back to Amare. "...Kay. And how many have you made already?"
"None. I've been preparing this stupid shit." He motioned. There were many slices and loaves of bread all spread throughout the counters and being polished over with the mayonnaise. If Saila was paying attention she might notice that there was an open packet labeled "Kraft" with the individual slices of cheese half way spilling out of it. His job of opening it had been less than delicate.
"Take those, unwrap and put one on every other piece." He frowned and moved over to the counter, resuming what he'd been up to prior to her call. There wasn't music or television playing, just his breathing as he scowled at the bread like it was actively trying to be problematic. It did not bode well for the bread.
"Winter doesn't suck, okay? It's a good fucking time of the year. It's a time of year where the air feels good to breathe, coffee tastes better and you actually feel like cuddling because your body's sweat won't glue you to another person while you're sleeping. There's about a hundred things you can do with snow and ice, so don't be such a..." a pause, he sized up the purple haired teenager and selected the right word, "twat. Yes. Don't be a twat and use some imagination. I'll show you, when we're done."
Trailing him into the kitchen, she swiped a stray tendril of purple away from the edge of her jaw, hooking it behind an ear lined in titanium rings. Surveying the various things he had laid out, it wasn't hard for her to put two and two together, but she laid her hand lightly on his forearm for a moment anyway. Pulling it away, she turned from him, moving over to the package of semi-real cheese slices.
The teen was just about to unwrap the first slice when it occurred to her that she had been climbing trees and running around outside. Instead she re-directed her steps to the sink, pushing her oversized sleeves back to mid-forearm so she could wash her hands, using dish soap if there wasn't any hand soap, and she dried them on a paper towel. Then it was back to the Kraft singles.
"These feel super weird," she commented once she'd liberated the first rubbery cheese product from its cellophane prison. "And the plasticky stuff is sticking to me." Saila frowned, shaking her hand like a cat with tape on its paw to get it to come loose. She reached for another one, peeling it apart more smoothly this time.
Listening to his explanation about winter, a dim smile touched her lips. "...okay," she said skeptically, particularly where snow was concerned. Her experiences with snow mainly involved Cane getting her caught in the crossfire of an epic snowball fight and then buried in a magic induced avalanche. It was cold and wet and super confusing.
There was one glance down to her hand when she wrapped it along his forearm. It was neither harsh or soft, he gaze was only fractionally disarmed before being swept behind a blink. His task had his full attention, sloppy swipes of white disappearing into the face of every slice of bread.
"Kraft crap. It's sort of like cheese. It works in interrogations with the French.? It did catch some of his humor to see her struggle with the plastic. Amare typically found those little struggles hard to ignore. They caught his attention. Maybe that was a predatory thing.
Maybe it was the way her hand had wound around his arm there briefly, but for once Saila actually got the joke, and a soft snicker escaped her lips accordingly. "Good thing I'm not French, I guess," she replied, and by the time she'd taken the wrapping off the fourth slice, the girl seemed to have a working system in place.
"Okay. Finally. This shit gets boring after five seconds." It was lucky he had started prior to her arrival. The fridge sucked against his tug to pull it open, relenting with a pop before he dug out three plastic containers of ham and began popping the plastic seals and unwrapping them. Wrappers of all sorts, in this case, were left to fall to the ground like hair clippings. He didn't count out the meat but peeled what "felt right" and applied it. Some would be more filling than others, apparently, in this meat sandwich game. "So, you have done hot chocolate, right? And I don't mean that cheap ass cocoa shit the gas station slings at you."
It didn't take her long to get through all the slices, and Saila turned to see what Amare was doing. At his question, she shook her head. "I have had chocolate, but not ...hot? What do you do, stick it in the microwave?" She didn't mention that it gave her an epic headache. This seemed like information her dear Rabid Baby didn't particularly need.
"Only if you're ridiculous." Needless to say, he had certain opinions concerning the world and how things should be done. He didn't look at her as he leaned over the counter, fingers plucking at the slices of meat and spreading them out accordingly. They were getting surrounded by forty slices of half made sandwiches. Some were on the counters and other the kitchen island and barstool seats which pulled up to the other side of it.
"You take a pot and you heat milk in it. Gently, don't boil it. Then you take high-quality chocolate shavings so it will melt in. That's how you make a fucking hot chocolate and if you're not a complete moron you add peppermint."
His hands brushed against one another in a manner that initially seemed as though he was applauding his own explanation, but it was just to clear sandwich-making debris from them. After a pause, he brought his fingers up to his nose and sniffed at them. Apparently, the resulting smell on his fingertips was slightly better than expected, though he still shrugged. His eyes lit back to her and he nodded at the zip lock bags and Sharpie marker, "Write something uplifting on those bags, all twenty of them, when you are done. Something like 'you are loved' or 'today is the day you get it.'" He was starting to humor her enough that tasks were getting additional instruction.
She couldn't have said what time it was when a sense of loneliness seemed to seize her, one hand prying the bedazzled assault weapon from her pocket to check its display. There were no messages, and as she walked, pale fingers navigated until she found the phone number she was looking for. I've decided that winter sucks, she sent to Amare: It's cold and I'm bored. What are you doing?
Text to Saila (five minutes later): Then you're not doing Winter right. Which isn't surprising. You're probably slugging around and seeing things freeze.
There's a ten minute pause before he responds again.
Text to Saila: Making friends. Do you know how to make a sandwich? I need twenty.
It had been long enough that she was pretty sure he was otherwise occupied, long enough that she'd shoved the phone into the front kangaroo pouch pocket on her hoodie and was back to exploring a new area somewhat aimlessly. The way it vibrated against her belt buckle was something of a surprise, then, and with her brows furrowed, she fished the sparkly cell out of its spot to see who it was.
Oh, hey. Amare's around after all. How does one do Winter right, then?
Again, there wasn't a response, and Saila was most of the way up a tree she was climbing when the phone went off again. Of course. She finished scaling the trunk and perched herself in a fanned splay of pine boughs several feet off the ground before she retrieved the phone again, to see what he had to say this time.
...Sandwiches? That's the thing with the random stuff stuck between pieces of bread, right? I mean. I've never tried it before, but it doesn't look hard?
Text to Saila: For fuck?s sake I can't write you a manual on every goddamn thing.
Text to Saila (3 minutes later): You really need to use Google. Or you can be a heathen and Bing it. Come over to my house if you paid enough attention last time to know where it is.
You're a lot more fun to annoy than Google. Google wants to show me pictures of cats and naked people. Her response had come a handful of minutes later, once she'd pulled herself back down out of the tree and shaken the pine needles out of her hair.
It was another twenty minutes before the girl was knocking on his door, dressed all in black as per usual. Black slim fit jeans and a black hoodie, her winter wardrobe, long purple hair pulled back in a sloppy bun. Her pale cheeks were flushed pink from the cold night air. She knocked once and then tried the door handle.
The door swung wide with a quick, sharp energy. His right hand at the knob, his left holding a dull knife he had been using to spread mayonnaise. Tonight's garb was the usual expensive cut business suit in a light, metallic blue. The white shirt underneath was crisp, untucked, and open at the neck. Before she could step in he stepped forward, arching one brow and looking left and right as if he had expected her to bring company.
Amare stepped forward practically into her, and Saila had not an inch of give. She stood there, silvery brows quirked curiously as he looked around for whatever invisible army he thought had accompanied her.
Was he irritated that she hadn't? "Well, don't just stand there for fuck's sake." Impatient circles cut in the air with the knife before he shut the door behind her. His gaze cut over to the kitchen, which practically melted into the living room if not for one dividing wall that had a window-like cutout in the center. As usual, it was impeccably clean except for the recent remarks of his activity in the kitchen. "All the stuff is there. Ham sandwiches. Lettuce, tomato, mayo and a slice of that plastic Kraft crap."
He stepped back and she followed, and it was almost a dance the way his right leg moved back at precisely the same time her left moved forward. Naturally, the Rabid Baby would chide her for being 'slow' anyway, despite the fact that had she been any faster she'd have been pretty literally up against him. This brought a dry smile to her face as she stepped inside, moving so he could close the door.
The teenager had not the first clue what a 'slice of that plastic Kraft crap' might be, but neither did she ask, figuring that the answer would reveal itself here in a few. Peering through the cut out into the kitchen, her strange gaze slid back to Amare. "...Kay. And how many have you made already?"
"None. I've been preparing this stupid shit." He motioned. There were many slices and loaves of bread all spread throughout the counters and being polished over with the mayonnaise. If Saila was paying attention she might notice that there was an open packet labeled "Kraft" with the individual slices of cheese half way spilling out of it. His job of opening it had been less than delicate.
"Take those, unwrap and put one on every other piece." He frowned and moved over to the counter, resuming what he'd been up to prior to her call. There wasn't music or television playing, just his breathing as he scowled at the bread like it was actively trying to be problematic. It did not bode well for the bread.
"Winter doesn't suck, okay? It's a good fucking time of the year. It's a time of year where the air feels good to breathe, coffee tastes better and you actually feel like cuddling because your body's sweat won't glue you to another person while you're sleeping. There's about a hundred things you can do with snow and ice, so don't be such a..." a pause, he sized up the purple haired teenager and selected the right word, "twat. Yes. Don't be a twat and use some imagination. I'll show you, when we're done."
Trailing him into the kitchen, she swiped a stray tendril of purple away from the edge of her jaw, hooking it behind an ear lined in titanium rings. Surveying the various things he had laid out, it wasn't hard for her to put two and two together, but she laid her hand lightly on his forearm for a moment anyway. Pulling it away, she turned from him, moving over to the package of semi-real cheese slices.
The teen was just about to unwrap the first slice when it occurred to her that she had been climbing trees and running around outside. Instead she re-directed her steps to the sink, pushing her oversized sleeves back to mid-forearm so she could wash her hands, using dish soap if there wasn't any hand soap, and she dried them on a paper towel. Then it was back to the Kraft singles.
"These feel super weird," she commented once she'd liberated the first rubbery cheese product from its cellophane prison. "And the plasticky stuff is sticking to me." Saila frowned, shaking her hand like a cat with tape on its paw to get it to come loose. She reached for another one, peeling it apart more smoothly this time.
Listening to his explanation about winter, a dim smile touched her lips. "...okay," she said skeptically, particularly where snow was concerned. Her experiences with snow mainly involved Cane getting her caught in the crossfire of an epic snowball fight and then buried in a magic induced avalanche. It was cold and wet and super confusing.
There was one glance down to her hand when she wrapped it along his forearm. It was neither harsh or soft, he gaze was only fractionally disarmed before being swept behind a blink. His task had his full attention, sloppy swipes of white disappearing into the face of every slice of bread.
"Kraft crap. It's sort of like cheese. It works in interrogations with the French.? It did catch some of his humor to see her struggle with the plastic. Amare typically found those little struggles hard to ignore. They caught his attention. Maybe that was a predatory thing.
Maybe it was the way her hand had wound around his arm there briefly, but for once Saila actually got the joke, and a soft snicker escaped her lips accordingly. "Good thing I'm not French, I guess," she replied, and by the time she'd taken the wrapping off the fourth slice, the girl seemed to have a working system in place.
"Okay. Finally. This shit gets boring after five seconds." It was lucky he had started prior to her arrival. The fridge sucked against his tug to pull it open, relenting with a pop before he dug out three plastic containers of ham and began popping the plastic seals and unwrapping them. Wrappers of all sorts, in this case, were left to fall to the ground like hair clippings. He didn't count out the meat but peeled what "felt right" and applied it. Some would be more filling than others, apparently, in this meat sandwich game. "So, you have done hot chocolate, right? And I don't mean that cheap ass cocoa shit the gas station slings at you."
It didn't take her long to get through all the slices, and Saila turned to see what Amare was doing. At his question, she shook her head. "I have had chocolate, but not ...hot? What do you do, stick it in the microwave?" She didn't mention that it gave her an epic headache. This seemed like information her dear Rabid Baby didn't particularly need.
"Only if you're ridiculous." Needless to say, he had certain opinions concerning the world and how things should be done. He didn't look at her as he leaned over the counter, fingers plucking at the slices of meat and spreading them out accordingly. They were getting surrounded by forty slices of half made sandwiches. Some were on the counters and other the kitchen island and barstool seats which pulled up to the other side of it.
"You take a pot and you heat milk in it. Gently, don't boil it. Then you take high-quality chocolate shavings so it will melt in. That's how you make a fucking hot chocolate and if you're not a complete moron you add peppermint."
His hands brushed against one another in a manner that initially seemed as though he was applauding his own explanation, but it was just to clear sandwich-making debris from them. After a pause, he brought his fingers up to his nose and sniffed at them. Apparently, the resulting smell on his fingertips was slightly better than expected, though he still shrugged. His eyes lit back to her and he nodded at the zip lock bags and Sharpie marker, "Write something uplifting on those bags, all twenty of them, when you are done. Something like 'you are loved' or 'today is the day you get it.'" He was starting to humor her enough that tasks were getting additional instruction.