The knock on Layla's door isn't Marc's, which means it's either a stranger or Steven. If she peeks out the peephole, she'll spot the familiar face, open and grinning moving back and forth as he rocks on his heels while he waits for her to answer. He's got his phone in his hands, clutched up habitually against his chest.
Layla is puzzled by the knock - it isn't Marc, and while some of the people she's met here seem decent enough, none of them are on the sort of terms that would make for an impromptu visit - up until the moment she looks through the peephole and sees Steven there, doing an impression of the world's most cheerful perpetual motion machine.
She's smiling as she opens the door onto an apartment only a little changed since the first time he was here. She's added heavier curtains, a blanket patterned in red and gold, and a small gooseneck lamp. Everything else is standard issue, as far as decorations go.
"Hi," she says. "D'you want to come in? I can put some tea on."
"Tea would be lovely," Steven says, peering inside curiously. "Oh you've made it nicer in here than I have. Or we have, really." All Steven's added are books (predictably), and all Marc's added was another mirror.
"We ought to go shopping, too, honestly. My door feels kind of naked without a mezuzah, not that I really know if we could even find anything like that here, and I know we need a lot more clothes than the couple sets we got that first day," Steven rambles, coming in and feeling at the fabric of the curtains with curiosity. "We just haven't really gotten around to it. I've got magic now, you know, and I keep getting distracted reading about it."
"I'd probably be buried in books if I had to figure out magic," Layla admits with a half-swallowed laugh. "Gotta say, I envy you a bit."
Her expression goes briefly vague, and the corner of the curtain wraps loosely around his hand, as though curious about him in return.
"Why don't the three of us make an outing of it sometime? I've only really spent any time in the one in the Magitech sector, so it'd be interesting to get a more in depth look at the other districts." And markets are historically one of the best places to gather information - and make inroads into the underground that nearly every community with more than fifteen people has.
Steven jumps, not quite making the connection between the suddenly clingy curtain and Layla's potential new power. He doesn't move his hand, though, he just kind of... shakes it a little. Like he's shaking hands with the curtain. "Hello," he tells it, a little uncertainly, but not about to be rude.
Reminiscent of telling the camels hello at Harrow's dig site, maybe.
Then he looks up. "Oh, that's a good idea. I'd like that. Marc would, too-- oh, we could, um, maybe do something else while we're out. If you wanted to."
This time, Layla does laugh, quiet and delighted that her trick worked. "That's me," she says. "Don't worry, they don't actually have living textiles here. Probably."
Maybe they do, and she just hasn't encountered them.
She turns to lean back against the counter while she waits for the kettle to boil. Her head cants slightly as she studies him. "Do you have something in mind?"
They're always aware of where Layla is. That's the first thing they recognize as consistent: even when she's across town, they always know at least which direction she's in, and some estimation of how far. Predictably, Marc is more accurate in his guesses, which annoys Steven for no good reason at all.
The rest is... well, they're still working on it. Steven's been trying to keep quiet, honestly, when he's not driving the body around, just like he can tell Marc's trying to be quiet when Steven's in charge. They're not sure what Layla can overhear, since there isn't a lot of precedent for body-sharing with tethers that isn't Sylphid-related.
But she hasn't gone anywhere. There's no disgust or annoyance on the other side of that tether, that Steven can tell. He knew there wouldn't be, he trusts Layla. (He will resolutely deny that bit of relief that lingers, blame it on Marc, if anyone notices it.) But Marc continues to seem amazed by it, which is a little sad when you think about it.
He looks up from his books when Layla comes in-- well, he looks up a little before she comes in, because he felt her coming. So he can smile at her, and try very hard not to think about wanting to get up and hug her the way Marc would. "Hi, Layla. Good practice today?"
She can sense the presence on the other side of the door. That's something Layla thinks she'll never get tired of, the knowledge that Marc or Steven or both of them is there, that she could find them if she needed to, follow that warm pulse of presence. It's occasionally distracting - she has found herself, once or twice, trying to map where they're headed when she feels the tether stretch - but it's welcome.
She can also sense that flicker of alertness that says her approach has been noticed. She's already smiling when she opens the door and ducks inside.
"Hi, Steven," she says. The books and the body language would give it away, even if the accent didn't. (The feel of his mind where it brushes against hers is different too, she thinks, but the feel of someone's mind brushing against hers at all is still new enough that she hasn't yet been able to map those cues, not the way she has with more familiar stimuli.) "Asking, or did you pick up something?"
She's genuinely curious. She's still working on filtering damage to the materials she's manipulating. There's little triumph in that; more notable would be the absence today of fear or shock, and she's not sure how notable that is compared to the presence of the same.
"Well, you weren't hurt, I think we probably would have noticed that much," Steven guesses. Then he realizes what that might sound like and hastily holds up his hands, adding, "I wasn't trying to look! But I'm pretty sure pain or fear or something else really big would be impossible to miss even if I was busy."
"It's all right," she says, crouching down to unlace her boots, head tilting so she can peer up at him. "I didn't think you were spying. That's how this thing works - strong emotions seep through. And even the not so strong ones sometimes. We knew that was a possibility going in."
She pulls the boots off and straightens, toes flexing against the floor.
"I was just wondering how clearly things came through. And if I should find a way to turn down the volume before I move on to anything more intense."
"Well. I guess we could try to test it," Steven says, relieved that she's apparently not worried about it. "You know, like try and think about things while in different rooms and see what we can feel about it." Though he's a little reluctant to bring it up, too, because Marc has had the same thought, only in a much more... personal kind of situation with Layla. Which Steven does not like to think about.
Ambivalence about tethers and romance aside, he has to say, "I think it might get stronger if we actually try to use it. That's what the books suggest. Like exercise or practice."
"Is that what you were concentrating on so hard before I came in?" She tips her head slightly towards the books, expression curious. "Figuring out how all this is supposed to work?"
She makes her way towards the kitchen, pulling her hair from the clip she'd been using to keep it out of her eyes and massaging her scalp absently with one hand.
"It'd be a good idea to practice a bit so we know what to expect the next time we're out on a mission. --Are you okay with that, you and Marc? The possibility of it getting stronger?"
"Oh. No, not really, I was trying to memorize the steps of a new spell. You know, I'm not sure how important it really is to follow the exact same steps as someone else. It's all based in a shared cultural knowledge that we don't really have any part in, and it's all probably just mnemonic devices anyway, not actual requirements of the spell. I've already varied a couple simple ones, and it worked fine, and--"
(Steven. Slow down, buddy.)
"--oh, right, sorry." He runs a hand over his loose curls with a sheepish expression. Him rambling on when they're trying to have a conversation about something else is probably not the best idea. (You can ramble later,) Marc promises.
The question makes him tug on one of those curls and frown. "I don't know. I mean, tactically, it might be a good idea, yeah?" Frankly, he kind of understands Marc's reluctance on the subject, though not for the same reasons. Marc's afraid Layla won't love him if she sees his awful he is (Not that you're awful, Marc, you just think you are. Shut up, Steven.), but Steven's going to be afraid of what happens whether she loves him, too, or not. Either one comes with... complications.
Affection flickers at Layla's end of the tether, mothwing-light, and she gives him a quick smile. "Don't be. I'd love to hear all about it. Just in a little bit."
She opens the cupboard and stretches up to pull down a mug, then looks back over her shoulder at Steven, eyebrows raised in clear question: tea?
"Tactically, it's definitely a good idea. We should at least work on refining our ability to find each other. --Do the books say anything about control?"
I'm Harley Quinn and I'm inviting all the girls from other worlds to a girls night at my place! It'll be the Saturday after the mission is done, and we're gonna have makeovers and movies and popcorn and champagne and pizza and all the stuff you need for a good girls night!
Love to see ya there!
[OOC: I'm going to be posting a log for this on this coming Saturday, and it'll be set after the mission!]
Marc wakes up on the couch, which means Steven was the one who went to bed. He stares at the ceiling for a few minutes before dragging himself up. There's a note on the coffee table. Talk to Layla, it says, in Steven's messy handwriting, and, I messed up.
That's... ominous. He crumples it up and heads to the kitchen, seeking coffee. Talk can come after coffee.
There's fresh coffee in the pot, the small timer beside it indicating that it was brewed only a few minutes before he woke up. There's no Layla, however, and the faint tug of the tether points upward, toward the tiny rooftop terrace they'd discovered while exploring the building.
Not unusual, that - she often takes her morning tea or coffee up there, if she doesn't have anywhere she urgently needs to be. It's a good sort of space to use to think.
It's also a good sort of space to retreat to in order to give her husband room to wake up before ambushing him with the previous night's problems.
He gets his coffee, has a couple swallows to wake him up and clean his mouth a little, and follows the tug with a vague sense of dread. That note really was ominous, and Steven is nowhere to be found in his brain, which either means whatever happened last night wore him down enough that he's still out, or whatever happened last night made him want to hide.
He pushes the door of the terrace open, making a noisy creak. "Layla?"
Layla's curled up on one of the small chairs, woven from tough local vines, that's been set up on the terrace, knees tucked up with her arms wrapped around them, loosely holding her half-empty coffee mug. She glances up as the door creaks open, and offers him a small smile, wan in a way that suggests poor sleep. The presence on her end of the tether warms, though the wearily pensive cast to her emotional landscape remains.
"Hey," she says, and sets her mug aside, coming to her feet so she can cross the small span of tile and pull him into a careful hug, stretching up a little to press a kiss against the corner of his mouth.
Whatever Steven did, it isn't enough to make her mad at him, so he'll try to take solace in that, but her hug is so... delicate, it's hard to be even a little positive. He wraps her up in his free arm, trying to counter her caution with warmth, even though he's sure she can feel his worry regardless.
"Good morning. Or I hope it's a good morning," he hedges, kissing her temple after she settles back down from her own kiss.
She does feel his worry, and her arms tighten a little in a silent reassurance. They're ok.
She really, really hopes they're ok.
"You missed a nice sunrise," she says. "Sleep all right?"
She's not entirely sure how long Steven had been tossing and turning the night before. Probably at least as long as she had, worried and unaccountably lonely.
The hug helps, so yeah, she's not mad at him. Small blessings. "Not any worse than I ever do on the couch," he says. Which means, not exactly great, but not anywhere near as bad as it could be, really. He doesn't get the sense that he didn't sleep at all. He doesn't have a hangover, either, which is better than it could've been. So that's not the thing he messed up.
"What time did Steven go to bed?" And what did he do before that...?
"We really need to get a second bed," she says, with only the faintest whisper of humour. She tips her head to rest briefly against his shoulder, taking some comfort in the contact, before she pulls away and reclaims her seat.
"--Late. It was after midnight when I turned in, so sometime after that."
It was later still before she managed to actually sleep, and she doubts Steven slept much easier.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scarabwings) wrote2022-08-14 11:52 pm
Action, after the tether meme
Steven, clearly.
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She's smiling as she opens the door onto an apartment only a little changed since the first time he was here. She's added heavier curtains, a blanket patterned in red and gold, and a small gooseneck lamp. Everything else is standard issue, as far as decorations go.
"Hi," she says. "D'you want to come in? I can put some tea on."
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She turns and heads into the small kitchen area to put the kettle on and fetch down two cups - plain ceramic, these, standard issue.
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Her expression goes briefly vague, and the corner of the curtain wraps loosely around his hand, as though curious about him in return.
"Why don't the three of us make an outing of it sometime? I've only really spent any time in the one in the Magitech sector, so it'd be interesting to get a more in depth look at the other districts." And markets are historically one of the best places to gather information - and make inroads into the underground that nearly every community with more than fifteen people has.
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Reminiscent of telling the camels hello at Harrow's dig site, maybe.
Then he looks up. "Oh, that's a good idea. I'd like that. Marc would, too-- oh, we could, um, maybe do something else while we're out. If you wanted to."
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Maybe they do, and she just hasn't encountered them.
She turns to lean back against the counter while she waits for the kettle to boil. Her head cants slightly as she studies him. "Do you have something in mind?"
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Tether testing, late Nov
The rest is... well, they're still working on it. Steven's been trying to keep quiet, honestly, when he's not driving the body around, just like he can tell Marc's trying to be quiet when Steven's in charge. They're not sure what Layla can overhear, since there isn't a lot of precedent for body-sharing with tethers that isn't Sylphid-related.
But she hasn't gone anywhere. There's no disgust or annoyance on the other side of that tether, that Steven can tell. He knew there wouldn't be, he trusts Layla. (He will resolutely deny that bit of relief that lingers, blame it on Marc, if anyone notices it.) But Marc continues to seem amazed by it, which is a little sad when you think about it.
He looks up from his books when Layla comes in-- well, he looks up a little before she comes in, because he felt her coming. So he can smile at her, and try very hard not to think about wanting to get up and hug her the way Marc would. "Hi, Layla. Good practice today?"
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She can also sense that flicker of alertness that says her approach has been noticed. She's already smiling when she opens the door and ducks inside.
"Hi, Steven," she says. The books and the body language would give it away, even if the accent didn't. (The feel of his mind where it brushes against hers is different too, she thinks, but the feel of someone's mind brushing against hers at all is still new enough that she hasn't yet been able to map those cues, not the way she has with more familiar stimuli.) "Asking, or did you pick up something?"
She's genuinely curious. She's still working on filtering damage to the materials she's manipulating. There's little triumph in that; more notable would be the absence today of fear or shock, and she's not sure how notable that is compared to the presence of the same.
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She pulls the boots off and straightens, toes flexing against the floor.
"I was just wondering how clearly things came through. And if I should find a way to turn down the volume before I move on to anything more intense."
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Ambivalence about tethers and romance aside, he has to say, "I think it might get stronger if we actually try to use it. That's what the books suggest. Like exercise or practice."
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She makes her way towards the kitchen, pulling her hair from the clip she'd been using to keep it out of her eyes and massaging her scalp absently with one hand.
"It'd be a good idea to practice a bit so we know what to expect the next time we're out on a mission. --Are you okay with that, you and Marc? The possibility of it getting stronger?"
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(Steven. Slow down, buddy.)
"--oh, right, sorry." He runs a hand over his loose curls with a sheepish expression. Him rambling on when they're trying to have a conversation about something else is probably not the best idea. (You can ramble later,) Marc promises.
The question makes him tug on one of those curls and frown. "I don't know. I mean, tactically, it might be a good idea, yeah?" Frankly, he kind of understands Marc's reluctance on the subject, though not for the same reasons. Marc's afraid Layla won't love him if she sees his awful he is (Not that you're awful, Marc, you just think you are. Shut up, Steven.), but Steven's going to be afraid of what happens whether she loves him, too, or not. Either one comes with... complications.
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She opens the cupboard and stretches up to pull down a mug, then looks back over her shoulder at Steven, eyebrows raised in clear question: tea?
"Tactically, it's definitely a good idea. We should at least work on refining our ability to find each other. --Do the books say anything about control?"
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Girls Night Invitation
I'm Harley Quinn and I'm inviting all the girls from other worlds to a girls night at my place! It'll be the Saturday after the mission is done, and we're gonna have makeovers and movies and popcorn and champagne and pizza and all the stuff you need for a good girls night!
Love to see ya there!
[OOC: I'm going to be posting a log for this on this coming Saturday, and it'll be set after the mission!]
Talking with Marc
That's... ominous. He crumples it up and heads to the kitchen, seeking coffee. Talk can come after coffee.
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Not unusual, that - she often takes her morning tea or coffee up there, if she doesn't have anywhere she urgently needs to be. It's a good sort of space to use to think.
It's also a good sort of space to retreat to in order to give her husband room to wake up before ambushing him with the previous night's problems.
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He pushes the door of the terrace open, making a noisy creak. "Layla?"
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"Hey," she says, and sets her mug aside, coming to her feet so she can cross the small span of tile and pull him into a careful hug, stretching up a little to press a kiss against the corner of his mouth.
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"Good morning. Or I hope it's a good morning," he hedges, kissing her temple after she settles back down from her own kiss.
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She really, really hopes they're ok.
"You missed a nice sunrise," she says. "Sleep all right?"
She's not entirely sure how long Steven had been tossing and turning the night before. Probably at least as long as she had, worried and unaccountably lonely.
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"What time did Steven go to bed?" And what did he do before that...?
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"--Late. It was after midnight when I turned in, so sometime after that."
It was later still before she managed to actually sleep, and she doubts Steven slept much easier.
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