milliways_bar | (no subject)

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River is tucked under a booth, legs crossed and elbows resting on the floor. There's a notebook in front of her, and a handful of colored pens. She's scribbling in a tangled mixture of Chinese and English and diagrams; she never manages to fill a page before she slashes the work out with a frustrated jerk of the pen, and turns angrily to a new page.

She's been through a number of pages by now, apparently to no avail.

[OOC: Sorry for earlier post-and-delete -- mun was called away from the computer right after posting. Back now, though. :)]

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The engineer boots that almost (but don't quite) touch her notebook as somebody slides in the booth above her smell strongly of leather. They're well cared-for.

Above, on the table, sounds of scissors.

River crosses out another page angrily, huffing out a breath.

The pen catches on the paper, and rips a crumpling tear across it.

Silence, except for the snipping sounds.

A while later, a low, rumbled, "Damn." Sounds of paper crumpling.

The ball of paper makes it under the table.

It's a snowflake.

The crumpled paper bounces and rolls, bumping to a stop against River's knee.

She turns her glower on it too for a moment, possibly automatically, and then pauses, regarding it. Slowly, she picks it up (pen held between two fingers), and turns it between her hands.

Only a few motions unfold it. It's nearly complete, but not quite -- rumpled and just a bit asymmetrical, and one stray cut has nearly lopped off a corner.

Slowly, wood creaks.

The face of Destruction appears, sideways, looking down at River through the space between the table and the bench.

He's looking at her the way she's looking at the snowflake.

"Too many variables," River whispers.

Her jittery frustration has faded into something old and tired and sad, as she brushes gentle fingers across the crinkled paper.

"Won't hold still."

"I failed kindergarten."

Pause.

"I would have. If I'd gone." His gaze shifts to the snowflake. "Not one of my better efforts."

(The scissors he is using, for the record, are blue-handled child's safety scissors.)

"Want some advice?"

"I didn't," River whispers.

She looks up at him, after a moment. (Not at the scissors.)

"Let it go. Until what's-his-face comes back with something you can use."

The gaze of Destruction is steady, constant, alive, volatile.

"You can approach it more clearly when the time comes if you're not frustrating yourself right now when you don't have anything."

River's eyes close, and she takes a shaky breath, fingers tightening on the pen.

Not on the snowflake.

"I want to."

"Can't fix it. I never can. She's caught, and, and the reciprocity is fractured. I am. Everybody's breaking."

"Everything fractures. Everything, and everybody, everywhere. It's nothing special."

From a distance, it might look like he decided to take a nap there on the bench.

"You want to do something about it? Don't speed up the process. That's as much as you can do right now. Later...later could be different."

River flinches.

And then, fingers clenched against her coat, nods a little.

He reaches one huge hand down and rests it (surprisingly) lightly on top of River's head.

"I'll be around."

Pause.

"More so than usual. And not...functionally. You know what I mean."

"Thanks."

His hand is gone.

His face is gone.

And then the engineer boots are gone, and the footsteps go away.

River stares down at the crumpled snowflake on her knees.

But not, for now, at the blank notebook page in front of her.

Her eyes are damp.

A pair of legs slides into the booth. When they bump into something a head turns down to see what it is. "Oh, sorry miss. Didn't know this one was taken." Bill smiles and moves his legs, "Hope I didn't mess your drawin there."

"It's inherently flawed," River informs him without looking up, and scowls at the messy line of Chinese she's scrawling.

"I'm trying to balance the sidewalk, but the tectonic plates are in shift."

"Oh...okay..." Bill tilts his head, trying to see the drawing better. "Well, it looks nice. Lotta colors."

"No," River says matter of factly.

"Just red. The gradients are speculative -- can't control the factors of calibration."

There is, in fact, no red ink on the page. A lot of green, and pink, and brown, and two shades of purple, although whether it's meant to be abstract art or creative note-taking isn't entirely clear.

"Uh-huh..." Bill squints but he doesn't see it. He's got no clue what she's working on. Or what she's talking about.

It's a common problem. Particularly when she's in a mood like this.

River jerks the page back, thumps the notebook over to a clean sheet, and begins to scrawl something else. It looks something like a green box sprouting javelins at irregular intervals.

"You're wearing the wrong face," she informs him irritably. "Not polite."

Beat.

"Seven shapes at each point. They'll resort to knives to repolarize the anchor."

"Huh?" Bill has got a bigger vocabulary then 'huh' he promises, it just isn't with him right now.

He frowns and an idea strikes him, "Just a sec..." He pulls his head back and then returns under the booth a moment later with a plate of chocolate chip cookies with pecans, "You want a cookie?"

"Diversionary tactics," River says severely. "It's consistent."

Beat.

Reaching for the plate, "Okay."

Yes, but it's working. He holds the plate for her to take one then grabs one himself. "So how come you're under here? Wouldn't it be better to draw out in the light?"

Don't be stupid, says River's face.

She has eloquent eyebrows.

"I'm factoring in the roof."

"Okay." He shrugs, "What do I know about drawing right?" He bites into another cookie and chokes. He coughs and tries to sit upright, bonks his head on the table, then finally pulls out from underneath and continues to hack trying to clear his throat.

River's head snaps over; she stares at him, eyes wide and startled. Her hands lift uncertainly, and hover.

He coughs and sputters and shakes his head, waving her off. "It's okay...I'm fine..." He wheezes, trying to catch his breath.

"Water."

It doesn't sound as if River's entirely aware of what she's saying. She's still staring at him in wide-eyed worry, almost like a wild animal frozen for a moment's glance.

"Not in the lungs. You'll drown."

"Yeah..." He nods and waves a wait rat over. He manages to ask for water and drinks slowly when it arrives. He clears his throat and takes a deep breath, shaking his head, "That was...AHEM...That was close."

"Not yet," River says vaguely, and then flinches, turning sharply back to her papers.

"Chocolate," she mutters to the notebook, low.

"It's healthsome."

"Yeah, long as it ain't down your windpipe." Bill nods, tugging on his shirt collar. "My mom always did yell at me for eatin laying down."

Almost a whisper, "She does."

"Well, that's what mom's are for right?" Bill asks, dusting cookie crumbs off of his shirt.

"Common factor."

It's absent; her notebook has caught her attention again. Her hand grabs for a pen, fingers swift but a little clumsy, and she scowls at the paper before she begins to scribble again. Every third word or so is crossed out with a single fierce line.

Bill tilts his head to get a better look. "Oh, so you're writin somethin?" He thinks...

"There a reason you're bein so hard on yourself as an editor?" He asks as she crosses out.

"I have to get it right. The variables are in flux but we can pin them down. Each in a box, stick a point through the heart -- it's a parallel. There's a solution if they all line up."

Her voice is tight and stressed, and she's enunciating just a shade too clearly, as if each word takes effort.

"Hey darlin, you okay?" And he's worried now not just because he doesn't understand a thing she's saying but because of the way she's saying it.

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