{ scene } dear magnetic boy you've never been with anyone who doesn't take your shit
Probably, James is aware, he should've spoken to Pelagia weeks ago; probably, he knows, there is a very specific conversation that they should've already had. Unfortunately (or very, very conveniently; he hasn't decided), home office had called him in and sent him off again, bung wrist and all, so he'd had no more time than to leave a note for her ( Read more... )
The mermaid is sunning herself on some rocks, still damp from her swim earlier; she's got her legs on, and is watching James from beneath her eyelashes with vague curiosity. She's happy he's back, but she wondered at the miraculous timing of this particular mission - and while she's kept busy on her own terms (she's not the "waiting around" type, as previously noted- she has her home's politics with which to contend), she did keep tabs on his return.
There are things he's kept from her. Important things. She hates that.
"Hello, James," she calls, rising from her perch with lazy grace, "you look well."
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"Marc-Ange apologized for making a mess I had to clean up by forwarding me to one of his personal doctors," he says dryly, bending to pick up his case and watching her from the pier with an admittedly wary sort of fondness. Wariness doesn't actually stop him from hopping down to meet her halfway so he can kiss her hello- he missed her, and a vague suspicion that she's going to come to her senses sometime in the near future is a good enough reason to make the most of this time when she isn't shouting at him about what an idiot he is.
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"Difficult mission?" She fists her (wet) hands in his shirtfront so she can kiss him for a little longer, naked and serene in the sunlight. Pelagia doesn't care whether she gets his clothes wet, it seems.
She's waiting to bring up the elephant in the room- maybe she will when he inevitably makes for the liquor.
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"Interminable." In fairness, James doesn't seem to care if she gets his clothes wet, either; a minor tendency to leap fully clothed into the water on a whim probably accounts for that. "It only needed to take a week. Two weeks, max."
And as disgruntled as he is about that, that's all the more he intends to say about his work today. His inevitable search for alcohol will probably not take long.
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"By now you must know that nothing ever goes as planned," she says, breezily, collecting her sarong-dress - no shoes, though - and tugging it back on. "Let's go inside. Bring your luggage or the crabs will get it, they're bothersome today- they keep saying the most obnoxious things. We should eat them more often."
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"That's one way of solving a problem." Having given his profession more than once as 'problem-solver', he considers not for the first time that people might be a little more polite if the alternative were being eaten. (Don't ask how that's come up before. You don't want to know.)
With that morbid thought occupying his mind, James follows her inside with his suitcase.
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"You're lucky you can't hear them." She stretches, languid and lazy, arms above her head, as they pad into the house.
"Your wrist is better?"
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"They want me to be careful with it for a few more weeks," he says, flexing his fingers there as he looks at the wrist in question, "but I'm told I shouldn't lose any function if I'm lucky."
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"Then you'd better be careful," she tells him, with a knowing look. Pela decides waiting no longer suits her, and settles absent-mindedly into a sofa seat, legs crossed.
"It was a well-timed mission. It gave me time to - how do you put it - "cool down", and you time to think of how you would like to explain yourself. Like fate, yeah?"
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...well, either way it's quite neatly timed with James setting his case down and doing exactly what one might expect him to. (Get a drink.) If he were a different sort of man, then he might pause in that action, but no, he doesn't and he answers with his back to her. "It was interesting timing," he allows, neutrally. "Was I going to explain myself?"
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"You might not have known it at the time," she says, by way of confirmation; she does not intend on surrendering on this one...well, ever.
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"That explains that," he murmurs, mock self-deprecating- to say that he's bad at this sort of thing is to vastly understate the case, though it must be noted that by this point in his life the number of people likely to bother making that observation is almost zero. "What exactly am I explaining?"
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"Why you kept that you are an alcoholic from me," she explains, voice very even (that won't last), "why you capitalized on my ignorance of human society to keep me from understanding what you are doing. It's one thing to be rude to me, James, but you manipulated me and you exploited a weakness I have, that I know I have, because-- why?"
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"In the hopes of avoiding a messy and ultimately pointless scene like this," he says, aware that carrying on this conversation - he turns, here - with a glass in his hand is probably not the best way of going about it. He's too stubborn to put it down, though, having started making the drink without the intention of discussing it; that would be altogether too much like some kind of concession.
He doesn't bother denying what she's accusing him of. It's true, and he did it knowingly.
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"Well, as we can see, that worked out wonderfully for you, because we are having it. You lied to me- and you could have avoided this if you hadn't."
...so much for that 'keeping her voice down thing.'
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"What exactly do you think I should've said?" he asks, refusing to raise his voice in response; he's cold, instead, because that'll help. "'By the way, darling, alcohol is a poison.'"
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