milliways_bar | (the one with the snarky narration)

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(the one with the snarky narration)

Here's some local color for you: Loki's door currently leads to a parking garage here. Which, combined with Weyland's magic credit card--okay, he'd made her one of her very own, in the name of Serafina Łukaszewicz-Adler--explains the piles of bags she's carrying with her today, both arms loaded up and the handles of several more held in her teeth as she steps into the bar (hey, when she'd been in the circus she could carry her weight in her mouth, and that was before she'd been demoted to the sideshow)…

It was a good trip. She'd blown more on hideous jewelry than most people spend on their houses, paying extra for the Tiffany or Cartier name when really, she's just going to have Weyland melt it all down and rework it into something more pleasing; and she'd been in rare form as the caged bird, sighing to salesmen over her husband the diplomat who gives her all the money she could want but really, money isn't what a woman needs.

(The young man she'd picked up, who'd gladly followed her around and carried her bags while she shopped for gifts for her husband the diplomat could tell you that much--it's not money, it's power, and the look on his face when she'd abandoned him in the parking garage was worth more to her than all the gold she's carrying.)

Exultant, she heads on up to the bar for a drink. Botherable, though not necessarily friendly.

[open until it scrolls!]

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...diplomat. That's a new one.

But Weyland's been watching the door for days now, waiting for her, so he's on a path to intercept her just as she reaches the bar.

"Ran out of things to buy?" he asks, expression carefully neutral.

Just who she's been avoiding.

She's got her reasons.

But she just smiles, and tilts her head up--if he wants an answer, he's going to have to take those jewelry-store bags from her. She's not about to talk with her mouth full.

Always, these little games.

Normally he's happy to play them. But this isn't exactly a normal situation.

"Where have you been?" he asks, as he takes the bags from her mouth (momentarily surprised by the weight of them; that's a lot of jewelry). "It's been a week, and I haven't seen you at all."

She's not about to get drawn into his mood. Somebody's got to be the adult here.

"I was working," she says. "And since I worked so hard, and made so much progress, I thought I'd do a bit of shopping as a reward--but don't you worry, most of this is for you. I thought you could use a new wardrobe..."

"I don't need a new wardrobe," he says, more quietly, as he sets the bags down on the bar. "And your work--what about our work? You know I can't do it without you. Have you forgotten--have you forgotten what we're trying to do? What the stakes are?"

"I haven't forgotten," she says lightly, setting her other bags down on the bar, and rummaging through one particular bag in search of--ah, there--a set of fine pajamas, in his favorite shade of dark red.

"You'll look beautiful in this. It'll set off your metal nicely... oh, we'll need to have drinks by the fire later, you in this and me in whatever you choose for me."

He sighs, frustrated, as he takes the pajamas from her hand and drops them back into the bag.

"This is important," he says. "Maybe it isn't, to you--maybe you'd rather go shopping or do whatever it is you've been doing the past week. But I can't do this without you. What if you go off to the world and you don't have a door to come back here? What then?"

"Oh, you'd find a way. You always do. My brilliant, beautiful, unconquerable man."

She smiles up at him again.

"Come, let me buy you a drink. With my own money, this time."

Has he always been wound so tightly? This could be a problem...

"We have work to do."

He can't understand her at all. Wasting all this time, when they could be rewriting their world--oh, maybe she can only work when inspiration strikes. Some people are like that. But for him at least, inspiration comes most reliably when he's already working on things, when he's in the forge and in the crafting mindset.

Shopping? Really?

Normally she loves his stubbornness--here's the man who almost destroyed the whole world, in a fit of ego. That's pretty hot--but this? This is getting ridiculous.

"We do," she agrees, and takes a seat on a barstool. "But time doesn't pass here, so there's no harm at all in having a drink together before we go upstairs--and you wouldn't want me to get dehydrated, would you? I might faint in the elevator, and then you'd have to carry me and all the bags, and then you'd have no hands free to open the door. I'll not be slung over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Sit down."

"We have work to do," he says again.

"I'm not opposed to having a drink--but you can get a drink and take it upstairs. Get a whole bottle, I don't care. But we're falling behind, and I can't just sit here and--"

Time to pull rank, then.

She hadn't wanted to. She'd much rather handle the entire situation without getting into the problems at the heart of their relationship, problems he probably doesn't even know exist, but maybe they do need to address them.

"Who's in charge here?" she interrupts.

"You are, of course," he says without hesitation.

He's not ashamed to admit it. She was actually a god, where he was just an upstart. And she's responsible for at least half of their work...

"That's right," she says. "Now sit down."

She orders herself a screwdriver, and him a glass of Atlantean. He'll take what she orders for him, and like it.

"This won't work, if you're going to be like this. I'm trying my best to hold things together, to make it last until our work is done, but if you don't take a step back--you know you have to share my time. You can't get possessive. You said you wouldn't."

"I'm not possessive," he says as he picks up his drink, knowing as he does so that they both know it's a lie.

Just look at his past.

"I'm trying, anyway. I know I can't contain you--nobody can. And I know what I promised. But you were gone for an entire week, and what was I supposed to do? What do you expect of me?"

"I was working," she says quietly. "I have a few different projects going on--you know that too. And one of them was unexpectedly absorbing, and I got into the flow and I couldn't come see you. Well, I did see you, but you wouldn't count it."

"What was this project?" he asks. "If I'm going to be jealous of your work, I'd like to at least know what it is I'm up against."

Not that he could ever tell her what to do, or draw her attention away from anything if that's where she wants to spend her time.

"I've been recruiting you a worshiper," she says.

"I know how hard it is for you--you're brilliant at what you do, but interpersonally you've got some problems. And you can't always recruit people by kidnapping them, especially not if you're stuck here with no door back to the world. So I met someone who's not of much use to me, but I think he'd suit you well, so I've been luring him in. It's a delicate task, and can't be rushed."

"Did he take up so much of your time that you couldn't even leave me a note?" he asks, and sips his wine.

"I even went to your room, to look for you--I brought dinner; I thought we might have a quiet evening together. But you weren't there, so I had dinner with your roommate instead. An entire hour of listening to excited chatter about how wonderful her boyfriend is, and how she's been learning Italian for him, and something about spicy foods, and honestly I stopped paying attention..."

"I know."

In for a penny...

"My Ásólfr, you know there are things I don't tell you. And I have my reasons for that--and there are some things you're safer not knowing, but I can tell you this. All the times you've met Pyrrha, you've never thought much about her mouth, have you?"

"I don't make a habit of inspecting women's mouths as though they are horses," he begins, and then stops.

And sips his drink.

"Is that your idea of a joke? You lead me on, so you can laugh about it later?"

"She doesn't know who she is," she says, setting her glass down and looking up at him.

"She doesn't know, and she needs to stay in the dark. She can't do what I need her to do, if she knows she's a part of... well, a part of me. And I don't act through her, I just go along for the ride."

"But you know. You've seen me how many times since the first time I met her, and you never once said anything."

He sighs and shakes his head. It's useless discussing these things with her; she'll do what she wants to do, and give him only as much information as she wants him to have.

"Things reach a point where it would just be awkward to say something--really, when you first found out who I am would've been the time to say it, but you'd already had so many other surprises I didn't think you needed another. So I didn't say anything, and then you met her again, and... well, like the two of you have never exchanged names. You didn't when you met, and now it would be awkward to introduce yourselves."

She has a point.

He still doesn't like it, but there's still nothing he can do.

"Is there anything else you've been keeping from me?" he asks instead. "Never mind the awkwardness; here's your chance to tell me whatever it is you've been avoiding saying."

Eh, what the hell.

"I've been experimenting on you in your sleep," she says, picking up her glass again and glancing briefly over at him. "Nothing dangerous, of course--but I couldn't do it when you were awake, it would taint the results. But I've done it, and I know it works, and isn't that what marriage is about?"

At least she's honest... eventually.

"...what sort of experiments?" is all he can say.

It would do no good to question whether she has the right, or whether it's a good idea, or anything like that.

He feels normal. He hasn't noticed any changes. But who knows how long ago she'd done her work?

"It's probably easier to show you than it is to explain," she says, and drains her drink.

She'll need the fuel for the magic, anyway.

"That is, if you'll let me. It won't hurt--at least I think it won't; it's never woken you up."

"By all means," he says, and empties his glass as well.

He'll probably need it, for whatever she's going to do to him. Strengthen his nerves.

Is this how marriage is supposed to work? Modern marriage, anyway; his first one had been completely different, but then his first wife had been so different...

She could do it in private, but with all it took to make him stay down here in the bar for a drink, she's not letting him leave so quickly.

So as casually as it's possible to do such a thing, she undoes one of his shirt buttons and slips her hand inside, to touch the scar over his heart.

It doesn't take much to do as she has done so many times before, dissolving her hand and easing it in through the scar...

He has no idea what sort of experiments he would've expected from her, but this is certainly not it.

He's gotten much better at not reacting when she does the unexpected, but this really tries his nerve. The warmth of her hand, the strange fluid feeling, and then--

--that--

She lets some small amount of her dissolved substance in through his mechanical heart, and takes some of his blood into herself in exchange.

It's different when he's awake--this way, she can feel what he feels, and not just have some dim awareness of his dreaming.

A strange intimacy, as she sits there beside him with his heart in her hand.

At first, all he can do is stare at her.

That she would even think to do such a thing--and that it would work--

And then he turns his attention to the window, and his eyes widen a bit more.

"I can hear it," he whispers.

"Of course you can," she whispers back, and slowly--and carefully--takes back her hand, leaving behind that part of her substance that is now in his bloodstream.

"Does it help with our work?"

He can still hear it, even after she takes her hand away.

"I must make notes," he says. "I must capture this--we will have the sound to put to the movement, and we will do this. You've brought us so much closer... just let me go get my notes..."

"No," she says softly.

"We're going to get a bottle of wine, and a nice dinner like you had planned the other night, and we're going upstairs to experiment with this. You can't start in the middle of the show--we can catch it from the beginning, tomorrow. Together."

"As you like," he says quietly.

Even if he's not sure that Atlantean would go well on top of her magic--well, his senses are muddled enough as it is right now. As long as it's done upstairs, and not here in public, he's more than willing to see how far the lines can be blurred.

"I do like."

She orders a bottle of wine, and slips it into one of her shopping bags.

"Maybe we should have dinner sent up; we've got a lot to carry just with these."

It's worse when she moves, when she touches things--it's dizzying, and he is grateful to her for her offer of a way out.

Bags, he can handle. Dinner, he might spill in his disorientation.

"That's a very good idea," he says, and it takes all his focus to stand and gather up her bags.

"Come along, then," she murmurs, taking his arm and starting toward the stairs.

Oh, this'll be fun.

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(the one with the snarky narration)

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