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.

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