(Untitled)

[scheherazading]

Who: Velvet Lyon (Scheherazade), Alex Chase (King Shahryar)
What: Meeting on the subway after her afternoon at the Met with Murdock.
Rating: TBD? PG-13, probably, because Alex has a mouth on him.

Comments

[scheherazading]

Weaving in and out of her ruminations upon the art she'd seen that day, were just little observations about the people surrounding her in that car. People watching was something Vel did constantly, without even thinking about it. She took note of the way the girl with the red backpack on the far end of the car was standing, slouching, shoulder against the pole, but her head tilted in the opposite direction, tired but alert like a sentry on duty. A man's choice of socks - mismatched, bright colors, slacks raised just enough when he sat to show. Idle little fascinations with small things, a moment spent on spinning a reason and a why and a how, and then her thoughts moved on.

She listened in on conversations, too, very quietly delighting in webs of relationships and the urgency of mundanities that made up the human condition on the subway.

But enough of that; her antagonist of recent days stepped onto the train, and sat down, shoulders slumped. She noticed him immediately, of course - she always paid attention to who was getting on and off the train at every stop. She watched him, at a diagonal from where he sat, view partly blocked by people standing. And, of course, then he looked around, and Velvet was saved from initial eye contact by a woman taking the seat next to her. She looked away from the Kentucky man, smiled up at the woman, shifted so they could sit without quite touching one another. And then looked back to see if he'd noticed her.

[kingofstories]

There was a different sort of tug to a Tale of your Tale. Different little catch in the throat, twist in the gut. It felt, usually like being punched unexpectedly, attention dragged unwillingly to a person who quite often, he didn't feel like paying attention to. Accompanying the sensation came a prickling of knowing; quite different from an 'ordinary' encounter with a nondescript Tale. He could feel it, beneath the numb weariness of the mindset of a journey home and without meaning to, sought out the reason for it this time.

Velvet. Who else? She and the unexpected result of rolling a French phrase around in his head, like a mouthful of wine, had occupied his thoughts lately, beyond the preoccupation of paper-cuts and work. In the dim fug of standing beside the photocopier, his mind drifting away into nothing, he was now shocked into reality by a memory that unbolted itself from the recess of time, and slid slyly into his conscious and became more of reality than reality itself.

Velvet. Unforgiveably, she had given him back his memories, and now even in the packed train carriage, Alex fancied he could see the slight ghosts of time-past that surrounded them, before dismissing them. Grim smile, and a little wave, the sort a child makes, but infinitely more sarcastic.

[scheherazading]

Automatically, Velvet smiled back, small and shy befitting chance encounters on a subway car, before she realized the sarcasm in his greeting and looked down into her lap, where her hands played with the strap of her bag. They hadn't had a very... well, civil conversation since she'd lashed out at him, and oh, how she regretted it. Yet, she'd apologized, and she wasn't really sure what she was supposed to do next - not in terms of putting their friendship back on track, or in terms of their current meeting.

The 1 train rumbled and shrieked into the next station; the woman sitting on Alex's left got up, and Velvet mirrored her. Where the other woman got off the train, Vel took her place, sitting gingerly next to Alex, offering a thin-lipped, apologetic smile. "Hi."

[kingofstories]

He didn't know why he expected her to be different, but he did. A tumult of memories pressing against his head insistently, pushing themselves through the membrane of truth and now as he looked at her smile, and he expected to feel that reflect in the inborn Tale reaction. Some measure of certainty, who she was, who he was, played out as it had done because it was meant to, unavoidably driven by a physical reaction.

But there was nothing but the echo of recognition of 'my Tale' and the emptiness of his expectations felt hollow, like a magician inadvertently dropping the card up his sleeve, magic gone. There was no reason for her to press up against his thoughts, coyly curling herself into them until the separation between 'Velvet, the shy Librarian' and 'Scheherazade, mistress of stories' became a porous substance, blending the two until they were inseparable.

Wasn't quite what you were supposed to think, sitting on the edge of your seat - Alex could feel the hard line of seat-end against his back, pressing back courteously to give her space, room.

"Hi," he said with a reluctance that wasn't explainable, to her anyway.

[scheherazading]

Oblivious to the maelstrom inside Alex's head, Velvet could not address any of his Tale related anxieties. She could only sit there, hesitating for a moment more than was really acceptable in most social situations, pausing for just a bit too long while she tried to find something to say. Comment on the weather, gorgeous after torrents of rain? Mention how particularly bumpy this ride has been? How has he been, what has he been up to? The options fell flat and stale on her mind's tongue, so instead she bit her lip and looked askance, at the filthy floor of the car. "I really am sorry I said that. You know that, right?"

[kingofstories]

Right. An apology that had come with all the halting hesitancy of someone who wished they'd never said something worth an apology, to begin with. Remorse bubbled hot, rising an apology of his own to his lips before Alex knew it was there.

"I do. Apology accepted and all that," he said, more formally than he meant, tugging the knot of his tie loose in a fretful jerk. It felt even tighter.

But it doesn't mean it hasn't happened, an incessant little voice whispered in his ear. It doesn't stop what happened after. She just doesn't know

Alex studied a chewing gum wrapper with all the attention paid to grand masterworks in museums.

[scheherazading]

"Yeah, that's what you said," Velvet said quietly, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

She went quiet, again, defeated. It had been what he'd said, over the Compendiums, and even though he said 'apology accepted', he still acted like an unprecedented jerkwad to her, and it didn't seem like she was making much headway. So, she just sat there, quiet for a while, letting the subway jerk her back and forth in her seat, until, finally, after another stop, she leaned back against the wall with a sigh.

"You really don't have to worry about Murdock. I don't know why you have to be so antagonistic towards him."

[kingofstories]

There was no way to construct an explanation, this he knew. No way explaining hostility and resentment that he had become host to something that hadn't been as expansive as before. But the urge to do so, to apologise - in fact to prostrate himself before her and to feel guilt for causing her problems, left a sour taste coating Alex's tongue that kept him silent for long minutes.

"I don't like him. And I don't trust him." He was inherently untrustworthy, and had a roving eye uncontained to one Librarian, a present girl. Even if he wanted no part of Scheherezade, he didn't want her hurt exactly. Just less inclined to fall for the witless burblings of an idiot who couldn't contain himself. It stung his dignity, deep down.

[scheherazading]

"Trust him with what?" she asked, turning her head to look at Alex for the first time since she came over to sit by him. Her tone was mild, curious, but she was watching him carefully, now.

[kingofstories]

Small controlled shrug, a precise measure of up-and-down, shoulders engaged in a minute movement. Not likely to share.

"Anything. Something I should be worried about?" He speaks off-hand, words tripping off his tongue as easily as if blithely unconcerned. The notch of seriousness is as he looks back. Watches back. For signs that might worry.

[scheherazading]

Again, Velvet was quiet before she replied, but not out of hesitancy this time. Rather, she just regarded Alex for a moment, searching his face as objectively as she might wonder about what the teenaged kid across from them was thinking about with his tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth. But, of course, she didn't know that boy, and she did know Alex.

"No."

[kingofstories]

"Right." Either agreement or dismissal, it wasn't fully apparent from Alex's flat response, but the way he folded his arms, tight against his body said something, at any rate.

[scheherazading]

It was the very briefest of sensations, nothing compared to what she'd unwittingly unleashed upon Alex's conscience. One little syllable, ambiguous between approval and disapproval, tone flat and mien stony; it sent a shudder of dread down her spine, lodged deep in her gut. The fear she'd lived with and repressed for a thousand nights and night, so very long ago, came back, suddenly, and went away just as quickly.

Barely there, even, except for a shiver on a packed, overheated subway car in a sweater, coat, and scarf. The train pulled into the station, and Velvet fought the urge to run off it, though her stop was still a bit aways. It was just Alex, after all. Just Alex. Just Alex being... well, Alex.

But, she couldn't think of anything to say.

[kingofstories]

He looked across at her and for a moment, one long moment, there was a flicker of something. What to call it, he didn't know; a prickle at the back of his throat, a sensation akin to dissatisfaction and he shifted uneasily in his seat, sloughing off the feeling as though sliding out of a jacket to leave behind.

"Where've you been?" Striking stilted conversation.

[scheherazading]

"The Met," Velvet replied, grateful for some semblance of conversation. It was all kinds of wrong, Scheherazade sitting next to Shahryar, silent. "We went to go see the exhibit on Modern Photography, it was quite good." She turned to look at Alex, "Have you been? To the museum? Since you've been in New York, I mean."

[kingofstories]

"We." The word sank heavily down between them, as divisive and undeniable as a wall. "No. I can't say I have."