(no subject)
WHO: Cygna and Alex (+ Tabitha!)
WHAT: Brief and temporary passing-on of Tabs stirs up a few things.
WHERE: His place.
WHEN: Saturday, May 24th, after this conversation.
CYGNA: Saturday afternoon, and life was starting to spiral remarkably out of control -- but Cygna wasn't alone in having her life go topsy-turvy, and Alex needed her help, so she showed up on the dot at two o'clock, a book on toddler caretaking shoved surreptitiously into her bag. Of course she vaguely knew how. But it'd been years and years and years since she'd taken care of her brothers and an infant Noah. She wasn't entirely certain she remembered it properly. And above all else, she didn't want to mess up. The thought of babysitting thrilled her in a way she'd forgotten ever existed, but the thought of Alex coming back to terrible disaster had Cygna scared to her bones.
Oh well. Saturday! Two o'clock and the doorbell-- Ringring. Ding-dong.
ALEX: In typical Tabitha fashion, she was playing up. Playing up, for Tabs, meant spitting out what little food he managed to aim at her mouth, and having a screaming fit any time he left the room - clearly, this was really going to work well. While Tabitha had met Cygna, albeit briefly, she seemed to have a sixth sense for finding out exactly what you wanted her to do - and then doing the exact opposite. So it was a frazzled Alex that answered the door, spat-out food crusting the shoulder of his tee-shirt. He was a far cry from the groomed date-aholic who wouldn't have picked up the cheap fabric, let alone worn it, but the kid propped against his hip, grizzling, explained things. Dressed in a cotton sundress, diaper conspicuous, as the door swung open, Tabs crammed her fist into her mouth and sucked, tearfully, giving Cygna the patented, 'I cannot believe this demon is my daddy' look that she turned on perfect strangers all the damn time.
"Hi," he said, barefoot in his hallway, a half-packed bag which probably had one or two gummed toys shoved into it. "Come in. Please." A note of desperation.
CYGNA: "You're looking... um, paternal," she said lamely, eyebrows arching somewhat in surprise. She took a step forward into the apartment after his invitation, and very nearly reached out to pick up the girl -- but at the last second, Cygna turned it into a shutting of the door, a shrugging of her bag, and an awkward cough. She hadn't even realised she was trying to hold Tabitha before she'd started doing it, which was odd. Chalk it up to twisted and repressed motherly urges.
"Are you surviving?"
She hid a wry smile behind the question.
ALEX: He'd thought she'd reach to take her, was quite happy to hand over the kid who was currently pulling his hair, buzz cut coming up for one Chase, please. But she didn't, and so he dropped back into the kitchen, opening the fridge, pointing out the small pinboard on the wall; utilitarian, there were no photos. Just a list of neatly (for Alex) written numbers and names. "Doctor, number, address of local emergency room, my cell, mom's home number and her cell if for some reason I'm not picking up, lady across the hall in case Tabs' is being a bitch and won't shut up, she generally has tips, woman is a legend," he rattled off, with a gesture toward the stacked bottles of formula and labeled containers of baby food in the fridge unit. They sat incongruously next to beer, and bottles of olives. "Got enough stuff here to get you through, clean bottles and stuff under the sink in case you do, formula in the cupboard, food in the cupboards too, if you know, you're hungry." He held out the little girl, who was now damp-eyed but less of a screaming hellion. She always did that in company.
"Here. Yeah, surviving. Don't I look like it?"
CYGNA: "By the skin of your teeth."
Alright, the moment was here. She finally slipped the protective bag (it gave her hands something to do, her arms something to hold that wasn't a pile of baby) onto the kitchen table, and accepted Tabitha--
-- and the little girl's weight settled into Cygna's arms with a familiarity which was surprising. She hadn't held Tabs when she'd met her before. She hadn't held any babies in, oh, over a decade. But Cygna adjusted her posture, her back straightening, hefting Tabs up for a moment to where the girl could rest against the woman's shoulder, hands looping around her neck and gaze peering quizzically over her back.
"She's lovely," Cygna said, after a laden pause. "Is she always this good with strangers?"
ALEX: She was showing off; Alex glared at Tabitha briefly. Fine, evil-daddy-man. She always showed a preference for women; he guessed it was the mom thing. Lisa hadn't had guys around when she was pregnant, and no one had showed up after the birth. Tabs wasn't used to it - and she went from hellspawn to angelic in a very short time. And then she turned her head, looked at him and smiled. His own grin was luminescent.
"Yeah. Apparently so. Seems to prefer 'em," he said, grin turning crooked. "She looks comfortable." As if listening, as if to endear herself, Tabs leant back, resting her head against Cygna's shoulder and tucking her thumb into her mouth, content. Clearly her daddy's kid in making women like her.
CYGNA: And it worked like magic, because Cygna was charmed. She'd heard the shrieks and yells before she'd stepped into the room -- so seeing the transformation in Tabitha's mood changed Cygna's in turn, and her face lit up into an open, beaming smile. She brightened like someone had flipped a lightbulb under her skin. This had been a good weekend.
As she gently bobbed Tabs back and forth -- only a little unnecessarily, considering the girl had quietened already -- Cygna finally raised her blue eyes again to look at Alex. "You know, I don't think I ever asked? Why are you planehopping back to Kentucky in the first place? I mean, if it's alright for me to ask."
ALEX: He sobered, and didn't look back. Focused instead on Tabs, swaying back and forth, looking almost as if she were stoned, all dopey and content like that. "Dad's sick," he said, words short and careless. "Mom called, wants me back. There to get through the hospital stuff." A thought occured - she wasn't trying to ditch it, was she? He scanned through a mental list of women - but rating based on kid-care rather than the size of their ass. Could one of Tabs' friends - if you could call them that, number of times he'd gotten calls to say she'd hit another kid with a truck - have a mom willing to take care. "You still cool with this, right?" he said, quickly, looking between Tabs and Cygna, worriedly. "She's no baby angel, but not as bad as I make out, you know?"
CYGNA: "Am I still cool with this?" Cygna repeated, scoffing at the prospect. "Oh, Alex -- why wouldn't I be?" And standing there, her face a little bubble of exultant happiness behind Tabitha's head, the words rang true. "You -- well, you go home and take care of what you need to. She'll be in good hands. And if they're not good hands, I'll find other hands to help."
She gave him another encouraging smile.
ALEX: His smile was less wavering, a little steadier and it only took a moment or so to glance at Tabs, check she was still performing her butter-wouldn't-melt routine, and disappear into his room. There were the sounds of slamming drawers, and the rattle-squeak of coathangers against the metal rail. He was half-cocked to respond to a squall, the slightest sound that Tabs might not be A-Okay with the situation. But she seemed fine. Liked Cygna. Kept good company with Vel in that respect. He wasn't jealous she took to other people way better. Not even a tiny bit.
CYGNA: After Alex disappeared, Cygna's attention became wholly absorbed by the toddler. She moved towards the living room and settled down on the couch, juggling and balancing Tabs in her arms -- it didn't take that much to get to know a human being who couldn't speak yet. It didn't take much to make them like you, either -- Cygna's steady hands, calm demeanour, and bright smile seemed to do the job perfectly.
ALEX: Re-appearance, bag packed, tee-shirt swapped for something a little less territorially-marked, he gave Cygna a brief smile before dropping a kiss onto Tabitha's forehead, then dug in his pocket for the apartment keys. "Here. Silver one locks the top, gold the bottom, all her stuff is in her room." Did it hurt like this for everyone? He'd thought he'd enjoy it; time away from howls at bath-time, and the crowing at five am, little fingers shoved into his eye when he passed out with her sprawled across him. But it hurt; sharp and stabbing in his chest as though he were forgetting something important. He couldn't look back, fiddled with his wallet, anything but look at Tabs, perfectly happy on Cygna's knee - didn't even notice, now. Second time her parents had walked out on her, oh God -
"I'm going to," he jerked a thumb at the door, coughed. "Uh. Get on."
CYGNA: She'd managed to look away from the child (who had discovered a new playtoy in the form of Cygna's long, dark hair, and was fascinated), and watched Alex instead. She hadn't known him as long as Velvet had, but Cygna knew people -- she read his little tics and twitches and saw that something was off. And she took one blind, half-assed jab into the dark with her guess -- it was lucky, of course, but it also hinged on her own intimate acquaintance with the fear of abandonment.
"You know. From what I remember of my brothers, she'll be fine. It's just the weekend, after all; she probably won't start fussing until after the first day and a half. There might be some wondering where daddy's gone, but she's not -- well. It'll be okay. It's not like you're leaving her for an entire year, or forever."
This time, the smile was thinner, but it broadcasted the same message as before, if diluted: hope. Determination. Reassurance.
ALEX: Tabs was stronger than she had been; little fingers could yank a hell of a lot harder than they used to, and with all that hair swaying back and forth under her nose - well. Time would tell. There was a smile at that; half-hearted and weak, but still an effort and he was cold. Without the warm weight of her, chubby arms around his neck like a millstone, the idle babbling of nonsense in his ear. He shuffled a little, nodded, and ducked into the hallway. Couldn't really stand it. He and Tabs; they existed in a world outside fairy-tales, and Vel and the tides of magic. They worked, in a rough-and-ready way, and without her he didn't seem to work quite so well. He straightened, at the door, compensating with a back that didn't have to accomodate small child, and a lift to his head that had a touch of Alex's old arrogance. But it wasn't the same, and as he walked out the door, pulling it to quietly, not trusting himself to say anything and give himself away, he very much doubted it would be again. The odd thing was, it didn't seem to matter.
CYGNA: She wished she could have hugged him goodbye. It felt slightly unfinished, now, but she didn't have long to think on it; the tugging did indeed turn into a forceful yank, and with a brief little cry, Cygna had to focus her energy on gently detaching a small toddler from her head. Her attention now shifted back to Tabitha, and Cygna started compiling little mental lists of ways to keep herself busy, ways to keep the girl busy, which post-it notes to check and who to call, and when it might be kosher to phone Benny for some late-night conversational company.
Babysitting. No, it wasn't just babysitting -- for a moment, here, something twitched and kicked in the place where Cygna's heart was, and she felt the sense of loss. Acute, painful, biting loss which swallowed everything else, and with that twinge of melancholy, she knew she was remembering other lifetimes.
Alex himself had said the memories might not be worth it. It was best to focus on the present.
So she did. There was a girl clinging to her shirtneck again, and she probably needed entertaining.
WHAT: Brief and temporary passing-on of Tabs stirs up a few things.
WHERE: His place.
WHEN: Saturday, May 24th, after this conversation.
CYGNA: Saturday afternoon, and life was starting to spiral remarkably out of control -- but Cygna wasn't alone in having her life go topsy-turvy, and Alex needed her help, so she showed up on the dot at two o'clock, a book on toddler caretaking shoved surreptitiously into her bag. Of course she vaguely knew how. But it'd been years and years and years since she'd taken care of her brothers and an infant Noah. She wasn't entirely certain she remembered it properly. And above all else, she didn't want to mess up. The thought of babysitting thrilled her in a way she'd forgotten ever existed, but the thought of Alex coming back to terrible disaster had Cygna scared to her bones.
Oh well. Saturday! Two o'clock and the doorbell-- Ringring. Ding-dong.
ALEX: In typical Tabitha fashion, she was playing up. Playing up, for Tabs, meant spitting out what little food he managed to aim at her mouth, and having a screaming fit any time he left the room - clearly, this was really going to work well. While Tabitha had met Cygna, albeit briefly, she seemed to have a sixth sense for finding out exactly what you wanted her to do - and then doing the exact opposite. So it was a frazzled Alex that answered the door, spat-out food crusting the shoulder of his tee-shirt. He was a far cry from the groomed date-aholic who wouldn't have picked up the cheap fabric, let alone worn it, but the kid propped against his hip, grizzling, explained things. Dressed in a cotton sundress, diaper conspicuous, as the door swung open, Tabs crammed her fist into her mouth and sucked, tearfully, giving Cygna the patented, 'I cannot believe this demon is my daddy' look that she turned on perfect strangers all the damn time.
"Hi," he said, barefoot in his hallway, a half-packed bag which probably had one or two gummed toys shoved into it. "Come in. Please." A note of desperation.
CYGNA: "You're looking... um, paternal," she said lamely, eyebrows arching somewhat in surprise. She took a step forward into the apartment after his invitation, and very nearly reached out to pick up the girl -- but at the last second, Cygna turned it into a shutting of the door, a shrugging of her bag, and an awkward cough. She hadn't even realised she was trying to hold Tabitha before she'd started doing it, which was odd. Chalk it up to twisted and repressed motherly urges.
"Are you surviving?"
She hid a wry smile behind the question.
ALEX: He'd thought she'd reach to take her, was quite happy to hand over the kid who was currently pulling his hair, buzz cut coming up for one Chase, please. But she didn't, and so he dropped back into the kitchen, opening the fridge, pointing out the small pinboard on the wall; utilitarian, there were no photos. Just a list of neatly (for Alex) written numbers and names. "Doctor, number, address of local emergency room, my cell, mom's home number and her cell if for some reason I'm not picking up, lady across the hall in case Tabs' is being a bitch and won't shut up, she generally has tips, woman is a legend," he rattled off, with a gesture toward the stacked bottles of formula and labeled containers of baby food in the fridge unit. They sat incongruously next to beer, and bottles of olives. "Got enough stuff here to get you through, clean bottles and stuff under the sink in case you do, formula in the cupboard, food in the cupboards too, if you know, you're hungry." He held out the little girl, who was now damp-eyed but less of a screaming hellion. She always did that in company.
"Here. Yeah, surviving. Don't I look like it?"
CYGNA: "By the skin of your teeth."
Alright, the moment was here. She finally slipped the protective bag (it gave her hands something to do, her arms something to hold that wasn't a pile of baby) onto the kitchen table, and accepted Tabitha--
-- and the little girl's weight settled into Cygna's arms with a familiarity which was surprising. She hadn't held Tabs when she'd met her before. She hadn't held any babies in, oh, over a decade. But Cygna adjusted her posture, her back straightening, hefting Tabs up for a moment to where the girl could rest against the woman's shoulder, hands looping around her neck and gaze peering quizzically over her back.
"She's lovely," Cygna said, after a laden pause. "Is she always this good with strangers?"
ALEX: She was showing off; Alex glared at Tabitha briefly. Fine, evil-daddy-man. She always showed a preference for women; he guessed it was the mom thing. Lisa hadn't had guys around when she was pregnant, and no one had showed up after the birth. Tabs wasn't used to it - and she went from hellspawn to angelic in a very short time. And then she turned her head, looked at him and smiled. His own grin was luminescent.
"Yeah. Apparently so. Seems to prefer 'em," he said, grin turning crooked. "She looks comfortable." As if listening, as if to endear herself, Tabs leant back, resting her head against Cygna's shoulder and tucking her thumb into her mouth, content. Clearly her daddy's kid in making women like her.
CYGNA: And it worked like magic, because Cygna was charmed. She'd heard the shrieks and yells before she'd stepped into the room -- so seeing the transformation in Tabitha's mood changed Cygna's in turn, and her face lit up into an open, beaming smile. She brightened like someone had flipped a lightbulb under her skin. This had been a good weekend.
As she gently bobbed Tabs back and forth -- only a little unnecessarily, considering the girl had quietened already -- Cygna finally raised her blue eyes again to look at Alex. "You know, I don't think I ever asked? Why are you planehopping back to Kentucky in the first place? I mean, if it's alright for me to ask."
ALEX: He sobered, and didn't look back. Focused instead on Tabs, swaying back and forth, looking almost as if she were stoned, all dopey and content like that. "Dad's sick," he said, words short and careless. "Mom called, wants me back. There to get through the hospital stuff." A thought occured - she wasn't trying to ditch it, was she? He scanned through a mental list of women - but rating based on kid-care rather than the size of their ass. Could one of Tabs' friends - if you could call them that, number of times he'd gotten calls to say she'd hit another kid with a truck - have a mom willing to take care. "You still cool with this, right?" he said, quickly, looking between Tabs and Cygna, worriedly. "She's no baby angel, but not as bad as I make out, you know?"
CYGNA: "Am I still cool with this?" Cygna repeated, scoffing at the prospect. "Oh, Alex -- why wouldn't I be?" And standing there, her face a little bubble of exultant happiness behind Tabitha's head, the words rang true. "You -- well, you go home and take care of what you need to. She'll be in good hands. And if they're not good hands, I'll find other hands to help."
She gave him another encouraging smile.
ALEX: His smile was less wavering, a little steadier and it only took a moment or so to glance at Tabs, check she was still performing her butter-wouldn't-melt routine, and disappear into his room. There were the sounds of slamming drawers, and the rattle-squeak of coathangers against the metal rail. He was half-cocked to respond to a squall, the slightest sound that Tabs might not be A-Okay with the situation. But she seemed fine. Liked Cygna. Kept good company with Vel in that respect. He wasn't jealous she took to other people way better. Not even a tiny bit.
CYGNA: After Alex disappeared, Cygna's attention became wholly absorbed by the toddler. She moved towards the living room and settled down on the couch, juggling and balancing Tabs in her arms -- it didn't take that much to get to know a human being who couldn't speak yet. It didn't take much to make them like you, either -- Cygna's steady hands, calm demeanour, and bright smile seemed to do the job perfectly.
ALEX: Re-appearance, bag packed, tee-shirt swapped for something a little less territorially-marked, he gave Cygna a brief smile before dropping a kiss onto Tabitha's forehead, then dug in his pocket for the apartment keys. "Here. Silver one locks the top, gold the bottom, all her stuff is in her room." Did it hurt like this for everyone? He'd thought he'd enjoy it; time away from howls at bath-time, and the crowing at five am, little fingers shoved into his eye when he passed out with her sprawled across him. But it hurt; sharp and stabbing in his chest as though he were forgetting something important. He couldn't look back, fiddled with his wallet, anything but look at Tabs, perfectly happy on Cygna's knee - didn't even notice, now. Second time her parents had walked out on her, oh God -
"I'm going to," he jerked a thumb at the door, coughed. "Uh. Get on."
CYGNA: She'd managed to look away from the child (who had discovered a new playtoy in the form of Cygna's long, dark hair, and was fascinated), and watched Alex instead. She hadn't known him as long as Velvet had, but Cygna knew people -- she read his little tics and twitches and saw that something was off. And she took one blind, half-assed jab into the dark with her guess -- it was lucky, of course, but it also hinged on her own intimate acquaintance with the fear of abandonment.
"You know. From what I remember of my brothers, she'll be fine. It's just the weekend, after all; she probably won't start fussing until after the first day and a half. There might be some wondering where daddy's gone, but she's not -- well. It'll be okay. It's not like you're leaving her for an entire year, or forever."
This time, the smile was thinner, but it broadcasted the same message as before, if diluted: hope. Determination. Reassurance.
ALEX: Tabs was stronger than she had been; little fingers could yank a hell of a lot harder than they used to, and with all that hair swaying back and forth under her nose - well. Time would tell. There was a smile at that; half-hearted and weak, but still an effort and he was cold. Without the warm weight of her, chubby arms around his neck like a millstone, the idle babbling of nonsense in his ear. He shuffled a little, nodded, and ducked into the hallway. Couldn't really stand it. He and Tabs; they existed in a world outside fairy-tales, and Vel and the tides of magic. They worked, in a rough-and-ready way, and without her he didn't seem to work quite so well. He straightened, at the door, compensating with a back that didn't have to accomodate small child, and a lift to his head that had a touch of Alex's old arrogance. But it wasn't the same, and as he walked out the door, pulling it to quietly, not trusting himself to say anything and give himself away, he very much doubted it would be again. The odd thing was, it didn't seem to matter.
CYGNA: She wished she could have hugged him goodbye. It felt slightly unfinished, now, but she didn't have long to think on it; the tugging did indeed turn into a forceful yank, and with a brief little cry, Cygna had to focus her energy on gently detaching a small toddler from her head. Her attention now shifted back to Tabitha, and Cygna started compiling little mental lists of ways to keep herself busy, ways to keep the girl busy, which post-it notes to check and who to call, and when it might be kosher to phone Benny for some late-night conversational company.
Babysitting. No, it wasn't just babysitting -- for a moment, here, something twitched and kicked in the place where Cygna's heart was, and she felt the sense of loss. Acute, painful, biting loss which swallowed everything else, and with that twinge of melancholy, she knew she was remembering other lifetimes.
Alex himself had said the memories might not be worth it. It was best to focus on the present.
So she did. There was a girl clinging to her shirtneck again, and she probably needed entertaining.