The McAbe Legacy: Chapter 3.5.2
"Elise," Tyler said, startled as he walked down the stairs to see me on the landing. "What are you doing here?"
I laughed a little awkwardly, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. "Well, you said on the phone that you were on duty, so I thought... I thought I'd come join you. If... if you don't mind-"
"Elise, that's fine. I'd like the company-"
"I mean I don't want to be encroaching or anything-"
"Elise. It's fine. I want you here," he said, making the grin on my face unable to stop.
I glanced around the station. "Are you the only one on duty? I wouldn't have thought that was allowed."
"No, Alfonso and Sara are upstairs sleeping. They hate the night shifts and nothing really happens anyway, so they may as well."
I'd only seen the station once or twice, but there was on odd feeling of warmth here. I was beginning to trust my instincts when I felt cold or warm around places or things. I imagined Tyler sitting on the sofa thumbing through a books, fingers brushing over the stark words, I imagined the fighters stumbling up the steps after working, climbing beneath slightly scratchy sheets with spring beds and whispering hushed good nights to one another, no one willing to get up and turned the lights off. I imagined them sitting around a table, eating food that someone's mother had made, with mouths full as they laughed loudly and not unkindly at an inside joke. I had a sense of awareness here, and yet I couldn't escape the slight feeling of being an outsider.
But quiet... I couldn't see Tyler enduring quiet.
"People are generally quite aware of fire, here," he continued. "A lot of people have barbeques and bush fires aren't uncommon on the warmest days in summer - or from summer storms." He shrugged. "People know what they're doing here, and they teach their kids for when they're older. I'd be grateful if it didn't make my life so boring," he chuckled.
"Why move here, then?" I asked.
I joined the police force not to sit at a desk all day, but to get higher, even if it was a long way off. One of the reasons we moved to Lucky Palms was because of its secret service base that was planted a few miles out of the town, which was great for my grandfather, and would hopefully be for me one day. With most of our family in cultural industries, work was never far off for them. I couldn't stand to sit at my desk, just waiting - for nothing. That wasn't who I was, and I didn't think that was who he was, either; it didn't add up to the lively, light-hearted person I knew.
"I mean, I heard sirens blasting past my window twice a night if not more in St. Claire," I told him. "If you wanted... activity, you didn't need to move."
"I told you-"
"No. You told me you moved because the captain retired, but... Tyler you don't seem like the person that sits around here waiting."
"I... Uh..."
"Tyler?" I asked, stunned by how his gaze dropped to the floor and a streak of red flushed across his cheeks.
"I came beacuse of you," he said, forcing me into a deep stunned silence. "I'd barely been in St. Claire for 6 months and then I heard that the McAbes were going, you included, and I just... I knew I had to take the position here. The captain was retiring... but I would have refused the offer if not for you."
"But we barely knew each other," I all but whispered. "You'd spoken to me once. We didn't even know each other's names."
"Didn't matter," he said with a shrug. "That brief conversation with you had been the most... God, exciting since I moved to the city. The thought of you leaving and me being stuck there, unlikely to ever see you again... I felt so scared to think about that, and I couldn't understand why. But you have to understand, Elise, I'm not a city boy. I'm somewhere in the middle. It's certainly not here, but St. Claire - well, you know what it was like. Working sometimes seven days a week on fourteen hour shifts; didn't matter there was practically a home at the station for you, it was just so damned draining. I couldn't do it. I couldn't stand the thought of coming here, either, even if it would be some sort of reprieve, but I was tired, Elise," he admitted.
"I needed rest and the second I heard you were coming here and that there was a vacancy, I just knew." He let out a self-deprecating laugh. "You probably think I'm a right creep saying all this, but it's true, and I don't want you thinking I'm lying to you or keeping secrets." He said that last bit with a pointed look that made me bite my lip, but I was still trying to compartmentalise his words.
"You like me," I said. "You really like me."
"Uh, yeah. Guess I do," he said, voice filled with that same uncharacteristic awkwardness.
He's uncomfortable, Elise, I suddenly thought. You know people, what makes them tick. Do something.
"So... What do you do for fun around here?" I asked, glacing around the station.
"I guess I read, go on the computer sometimes, though it's about ten years old... Er, play video games-"
"Video games?" I asked brightly.
He laughed, catching my enthusiasm. "Yeah. You wanna play?"
"Well, I, er, only if you want-"
"Elise, it's fine," he said with a smile. "I get to be the blue controller, though."
"Deal."
The TV in the old house had never been used by my family, and I only turned on the one in my bedroom - the only one in the whole house - when I changed for work in the morning, if only to watch the news and see what had happened in the big bad world over night. I remembered going over a friend's house when I was a girl, and as we did our homework on the counter I kept glancing at their older brother as he moved side to side, as if with the screen, as it emitted flashes of light and loud noises. I had been enraptured, but I never got to play; I loved going to their house. Funny how I couldn't even remember their name.
"Jesus Christ. Why is it so damned hard to kill one zombie?" I muttered. "Hey! How did you get a skateboard?!"
"Practice," he said with a grin.
"Practice, my arse. You cheated, didn't you?"
"I'm dying! Tyler, I'm dying! Come save me!"
"Mmm. Busy."
"Tyler! My death would be detrimental to your life!"
"I hate you," I muttered. I watched he maneuvered his avatar towards my dead one's body, standing awkwardly by it and not quite in posession of the moral autonomy to look down.
In his own hilarity Tyler grew unaware of the fire-breathing creature that loomed up behind him, only aware as he saw his character reduced to charred ashes. YOU ARE BOTH DEAD flashed up on the screen as it crumbled, and a red gloop dripped down the screen until all that filled it was a crimson sea.
"I died!" Tyler whined. "By fire! Oh the fucking irony..."
Though he'd said it with amusement in his eyes and the light-heartedness of a video game, I felt as if a spider had just run down the length of my spine, and it was far from a pleasant feeling. An image of Tyler trapped in a building surrounding my flames before they - I felt so, so cold, hairs raised on my arms, and the controller settled beside me so he wouldn't see how badly my hands were shaking.
"Another game?" Ty asked, already resetting the game to the start screen. It took him another few glances to realise I wasn't holding the controller anymore, and I wasn't smiling.
"Elise? We don't have to-"
"You could actually die doing this, couldn't you?" I said quietly.
Tyler's smile fell from his face and he emitted a deep sigh. He settled the controller on the sofa cushion beside him; it was stained with spilled beer and curry sauce, and it smelled faintly of smoke - from cigarettes or actual fire I couldn't tell. I picked absently at the cotton stuffing of my arm rest as he looked at me for what felt like an awfully long time.
"Elise," he finally said, somewhat sternly. "It's my job. It's what I do. It's not like I don't know what I'm going to face when I pull my coat on."
"I know, but-"
"But nothing, Elise. It's my decision. My choice. No one else's."
I swallowed; my throat was dry and I didn't quite have the courage to look him in the eyes. "Do you know anyone that's..."
"Died?" he said plainly. "No. Not personally. Our equipment's so good nowadays that the death rate is as low as it's ever been. Besides," he added, "we don't die from the fire - we die from collapsed buildings or gas leaks or-"
"Please stop," I said quietly.
There was a silence between us, filled with my apology for not having the ability to face reality, and his for... being truthful? It dawned on me that he was willing to risk his life for a complete stranger, not matter what they'd done in their life or what they could do; they just threw themselves into the face of death for... for what? To save someone else's life? Or more likely to gather the posessions of people who relied on them so much in the material world. I wondered if their job was worth their own lives, and I wondered how our society would exist without them.
But then maybe I was just a coward, or maybe I scared myself ceaselessly over unnecessary things, and feared things too greatly. Or maybe I was just so unable to put my self in someone's else's skin and walk around in it, to feel true empathy, let alone sympathy, to fully understand his reasoning.
"Elise," he said softly. "When I hear the siren I know what I'm doing. I'm not unaware of what I might face when I pull on my jacket. Please don't be frightened for me. I'm frightened enough sometimes."
Another silence.
"Are you hungry? I'm hungry. Let's go get something to eat."
"I am a pro at this."
Tyler laughed as he bounded down the staircase to my right. "At sliding down poles? And believe me that could be taken a number of ways."
"Pole dancing is a very benenfical form of exercising," I informed. "And entertainment, I suppose," I added with a shrug, smoothing my dress down.
I followed Tyler's laugher into the kitchen.
"I heard there was a protest in town," Tyler told me, settling down a bowl of... something before me. I pushed at it with a spoon. Pink rice pudding, perhaps?
"Oh?" I asked, not fully listening. "What about?"
"Not really sure. I'm not really aware of the news much," he admitted.
"You've got access to a computer and a phone, Ty," I said, amused. "It's not like you couldn't use Google or BBC or something."
He shrugged, swallowing. At least he seemed to be enjoying it. I forced down another mouthful; I hadn't eaten since twelve and it was almost ten o'clock. "Unless it's about something relevant to me then I rarely pay attention to it."
"That's... of narrow-minded of you," I couldn't help noting. In the police force you needed to be constantly aware of economic, political, religous and other social changes within the society - solving a case could depend on it. It was also through my own curiosity that payed attention to the news. Lucky Palms was endlessly beautiful, but it was small and the people had the tendency to shut off their views from the outside world, stuck with intolerant beliefs and an incapability to accept something new and different. I remembered talking about a Pride March a friend had gone to with a colleague at work in my first week, and they'd been so astounded that I "condoned people going to those... things", a statement that strug me as so alien compared to the diversity of St. Claire. Things were different here, I needed to remember, but I still hadn't spoken to that particular colleague since.
He shrugged. "It's my choice. I'm... selectively oblivious," he said.
That made me laugh, but I had the strange feeling that he was trying to change the topic. His evasiveness made me realise that I really didn't know that much about him. Sure we laughed and he made me smile and he made me feel warm and we could spend hours doing pretty much nothing, but other than his job I knew next to nothing. Did he have any family? Friends? What were his hobbies when he wasn't working, which he seemed to be doing a lot lately. I'd seen him read - what was his favourite genre? Was he a member at the local library?
I had to remind myself that knowing his favourite colour or movie didn't equate to knowledge and familiarity; they were just vague facts of preference, as interchangeable as what people were attracted to. I wanted to know what his lasts thoughts were as he tried to fall asleep, or what had made him be a firefighter - perhaps it was a childhood passion made true, those proud proclamations that rarely did. I wondered what he thought about when he realised when he was alone; was it indulgence or did he really feel alone. I wanted to know the things that made him him, the substance or the essence that made up Tyler Sparks, the little puzzle pieces that I knew right now wouldn't fit, or at least would have an awful amount of gaps.
I must have had an unsual look on my face, because he nudged me and his eyes glanced towards my bowl.
"Do you want something else or do you want to continue pretending you can stomach that shit?"
I laughed, wrinkling my nose and pushing my bowl away. "I was trying to be nice, but I can't eat anymore of whatever the hell this is. Do you have any cereal, or bread or anything?"
He grinned as he looked into the cupboard. "If we do it'll be a god-send. Food only appears in this place if one of us can be bothered to bring it, or if someone's wife makes us sandwhiches."
"Make your own damn sandwhiches," I muttered.
"Can't," he tossed over his shoulder, head deep as he searched through the cupboards. "Busy getting people out of fires and shit."
I laughed, but at that moment a shriek burst through the station. The cupboard door slammed shut and I clapped my hands over my ears. I saw Tyler bow his head a little.
"I'm sorry, Elise, I have to go!" he shouted over the siren. I could hear the sound of bed frames scraping upstairs and heavy boots stomping across the floorboards.
"But... You haven't eaten!" was all I could say, glancing at his full bowl of disturbing pink goo.
"I'll live," he said, flashing a grin. He ran around the table to kiss me on the forehead, before turning and hurrying towards the door, grabbing a heavy-looking yellow jacket off a peg. "Don't wait up!" he called back, and the siren shut off just as the door slammed shut. I was left in an empty station with the sound of another siren and screeching tires dying in their wake.
Watching him go was... odd. It left a lump in my throat and made my eyes sting and itch, and I realised, that for the first time since I was a young girl, I wanted to cry. I wasn't entirely sure why, perhaps it was the thought of being left alone, the possibility that he could walk out the door and not come back, but I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes, rubbing until they were sore and no less stinging.
I was scared for his life, I finally understood. I was scared because for some reason I could see myself being with that man, and not knowing, every day, if he'd come back; scared when a door slammed or when a horn beeped that it would be that siren calling him to the flames; scared of the waiting up for him in the early hours of the morning when my shift started in two hours and I hadn't slept; scared that the flash of yellow jacket before the door shut would be the last thing I would remember of him, before that eventually faded away, too.
He'd told me not to wait up, but I just folded my arms across the cold surface of the table, and rested my forhead on them, closing my eyes, pretending he was sitting in that empty chair beside me.
I'm so sorry, Elise, he thought. It's my duty.
oh hey so merlin aged up and oh my god he looks so much like rory did.
I walked for a long time that evening. The long nights were drawing in little by little, and there were goosebumps running down my skin despite the heavy warmth in the air. My sandals scuffed against the thin layer of sand on the pavement; in the evenings, when a cool breeze swept through the town, it brought with it sand from the surrounding dunes, leaving the town coated in a thin sheet of golden particles that sparkled when the sun rose in the morning. I had always thought the city lights and the full moon reflecting on the river outside my window had been beautiful in St. Claire, but I was slowly beginning to learn that it just didn't quite compare.
My thoughts worried me a little as the moon rose higher in the hazy sky that night. I had never quite cared for anyone as much as I did now. Not as a teenager, not at University - I had never sought out a relationship there. I had wanted fun, but I never really had that, either. I was too high-strung, too dismissive and a directness in my words that bordered on tactlessness.
I couldn't understand that now, though. I had so much - I had a family who, despite our fall-outs, loved me and supported me when I needed it. I had the money and the social freedom to do more than I had taken the opportunity to. I had been benefited with an education unlike so many others, and yet I took it for granted. It wasn't as if I didn't appreciate it, because I did, but I just didn't value it like I should have when making decisisons in my life.
I thought a lot about Tyler that night. About my relationship with him - how it was simply friendship, and how I thought I wanted more. For the first time in a long time, I didn't know what to do. A part of me said I couldn't leave Ajax, and yet another told me that he wasn't mine, that he didn't need me as a constant presence in his life as he grew up no matter how much I may have wanted that. My heart and brain were at odds for once, my heart no longer shut away and sealed up and ignored, treated simply like a contracting piece of muscle that didn't quite care enough if it got hurt. Now it was tender and vulnerable and it hurt.
I was broken out of my thoughts when the rhythmic chanting I heard finally caught up with me. I lifted my head, blinking slowly.
The protest, I realised.
I wandered over to a man I recognised amongst the crowd. Dad had contacted the artist before we came to Lucky Palms, curious about his own talents and the critical receptions of the town.
"Hey," I said. "Darren, right?"
He nodded, and held out a hand. "Yeah. You're McAbe's kid, aren't you? Thought I recognised you."
I shook his hand and glanced around. "What's going on here?"
Darren sighed. "A detective - practically a kid, mind - gave out a distress call on a case for the police. Police didn't arrive for, hell, about ten minutes. By that time it was too late. If he were an official member of the police department, every officer on duty within a ten mile radius would have been there in seconds. Instead they just... let him get killed. They're just throwing their lives away these days..."
"That's... that's really sad," I said quietly. I didn't know what else to say. What can you say when you know you're a part of something that has let others down? When you feel guilty for something you haven't even done, let alone be aware of.
I glanced over his shoulder. "But... my boss is here," I pointed out.
The artist turned around. "Donnovan Steel? Yeah, he's a good guy. Knows the meaning of justice. The publicity he gets won't exactly harm our cause, either." He eyed me, upon and down, an impersonal, cursory glance.
"Take it you're part of the fuzz, too?"
"I... Yeah," I said uncomfortably. "Well, training to be. I've got a few months to go. But, if I were, I'd make sure that nothing like this ever happened. It isn't right. My grandfather's a private detective and if anything ever happened to him... I'd make sure I got the justice he deserved."
Darren nodded and gripped my forearm firmly, with a fierce gaze to one so supposedly placid. I'd noticed the other people here, too, though - stay-at-home mothers and fathers, chefs still in their aprons, professional landscapers, hairdressers, a local politican. There was an odd sense of union in this small gathering, a sense of a common purpose that made me a bubble of... almost excitement bubble up in my throat that made me want to laugh and grin at Darren fiercely, too. It didn't matter where you came from, so long as you knew where you were going. "Well, for now you can just pick up a sign," Darren said.
I watched as he picked one up from the ground, and I admit I hesitated to wrap my hand around the wooden handle. I thought fleetingly about Tyler, what he'd told me not to do. I thought about the reactions of the press who would see my face in the papers, the granddaughter of the prestiges McAbes who were famous for God knows what. I thought about my family - how Ajax would see me when he read through old newspapers or saw years-old articles online written by reporters with little else to do. And oddly enough, that image filled me with pride, because he would see me fighting for something I believed in, for justice, and hopefully he would do that one day, too.
I took the sign, held on firmly, and I raised it in the air.
The rain started soon after, but no one cared much; it didn't stifle their cries or the occasional stomp of feet, but it may have held back the local press and other members of the police force on duty that night. No one came to stop us, and no one came to watch. We told ourselves that it didn't matter, that we would stand all night until someone took action, but it angered us that no one had noticed, or that no one else cared. Gritting my teeth, I stepped up to the make-shift podium that had stood there all night, getting rained on, unused.
I took in a deep breath, and I cried.
"We will not be opressed!" I shouted. "And we will not be left behind! Every individual in this society counts. Every single person has intrinsic worth, and every human being should be given the respect that they deserve, within this life and after it!" I glanced around at the mass, feeling the rain soak my dress and fall down the back of my neck, soaking my hair. Autumn has come, I thought, and I feel invincible.
"Did that young man get the respect that he deserved?" I asked them.
"NO!" they shouted back.
"Will we make sure that the justice he deserved is given?" I cried.
"YES!" was their answering cry.
"And will we stop until we are done?"
"NO!"
I grinned in a way that I don't think I had ever done before - with pride, with that strange fierceness, with something that was a little wild and feral. I looked at the growing mass of people around me. I may not have been able to do much for my own life, but standing there, with that group of people who had braved the storm and didn't care that they'd be cold by the time they got home, letting the rain seep into the ink of the posters and the soles of their suede shoes, I realised I could do something for someone else's. Even when they were no longer here.
I went back to the station that night; my sandals squelched when I walked, so I took them off and wandered beneath the cooling rain, shoes in hand, wet sand sticking to the hem of my dress and the bottoms of my feet. If I closed my eyes I could almost believe that I was at the beach.
I passed the house that had only the porch lights on, and when I pushed the door to the station open, it was still empty, filled with only the dim light of the lamps on upstairs. I should have felt frightened, being there alone, starting to feel cold again as my dress hung heavy and wet, but instead I just lay down on the sofa upstairs, and I slept, eyes level with the balcony. I would see him when he came home.
It was the very early hours of the morning when I felt a presence beside me, but instead of being scared I just lay quietly as the lights clicked off around me and something warm and slightly scratchy settled over me. I drifted off to sleep with the smell of smoke filling my nose.
"Good night, my angel," someone whispered. I still don't know if it was a dream, and sometimes I flatter myself that it wasn't.
i have never seen an "i don't give a fuck" look be given by a toddler sim with quite so much sass.
"Come on, kid. Daddy's waiting."
(please excuse the bushes that have... grown through the brick. er.)
Anoki huffed out a quiet laugh to himself. "What am I going to do with you, kid?" he asked, glancing up at his son in amusement. Ajax just sat quietly and watched his father. He had a good enough grip on the language and gestures to understand what was require of him, but he just wasn't quite having it that morning.
"There we go. We'll get their eventually."
Three weeks had passed since I last saw Tyler. We text almost every day, mostly trading poor jokes or what we had for lunch or sending one another funny photos that we took when our colleagues weren't looking. I looked forward to his messages far more than I should.
His hours had lengthened since the fire he had to put out; he said Alfonso and Sara had been reprimanded for their too-lax attitude and negative attitude to their job, and Alfonso had since quit, meaning Tyler had to conduct interviews and carry out more work - checking and maintaining equipment, updating reports of the station's upkeep and of each fire. Meanwhile the workload on my own desk had increased, and either I was being tested for a promotion, or my superiors were keeping me busy since my attendance at the protest had been noted. I wouldn't be so entirely regretful had I not been so tired when I locked the front door behind me when I got home.
Autumn had come, meaning the air was a little cooller, and much more pleasant for jogging, and I had stopped on the side of the road for a drink of water when my phone rang. I settled my water bottle on the floor and stared at the unknown mobile number.
"Hello?" I said, after letting a ring for a little while.
"Hi, Elise?"
"Speaking."
"Hi, Elise, it's Donnovan. Donnovan Steel."
"Um. Hello, sir," I said to my boss, eyes widening and darting to the phone against my ear, as if that would somehow explain his call. "What can I help you with, sir?"
"Please call me Donnovan," he replied pleasantly.
"Er, what can I do for you, Donnovan?"
"Are you busy this afternoon, Elise?" he asked.
"Not particularly," I replied uncertainly.
"Excellent. I was wondering if you might consider joining me on a date, Elise?"
"Sir, I don't think that's terribly appropriate-"
"I checked and there's nothing against the rules that says two officers can't have a relationship, Elise."
"Firstly, I'm not an officer yet, and secondly just because there isn't a rule, doesn't mean it isn't frowned upon," I reminded him.
"Just one date, Elise, and if you don't enjoy yourself then we'll call it quits and carry on like nothing happened."
"Sir..."
"Just one."
I sighed. He reminded me a little of Tyler, when he'd persisted in playing chess with me. I realised now that I'd almost wanted to give in to Tyler, and my protestations were little more than acting out of the principle. I knew that because, though their were similarities, I very much did not want to agree to my boss.
"Fine. One." I didn't care if I was being rude. He was the one that broke a boundary and asked me to call him Donnovan, let alone asking his subordinate on a date.
There was a smile in his voice as he whittled off an address.
A library. He had given me the address to a library. It wasn't until I heard Donnovan call my name that I stopped wondering if this was a joke, staring up at the tall, elegant building.
"Hello, Elise."
"Donnovan," I said testily. "Hi."
"You're probably wondering why I've been so interested in you these past couple of weeks," he said with a smile.
What? "Um, yeah."
He shrugged. "It's partly because you're beautiful, but it doesn't taken an idiot to notice that. And partly because... When you got up on that podium, Elise... I'd never seen anything quite like it - never felt anything like it. I felt so incredibly inspired, and filled with adrenaline. You made us all feel like we could do anything that night," he told me, shaking his head slightly, eyes filled with a wonder that made me nervous. "You were incredible. And part of me was saying how brilliant you're going to be at you're job, and another part of me knew I had to get to know you more. And, well, here we are," he said, stretching him arms out with what I'm sure he'd been told was an infectious smile.
The silence stretched.
"I'm... flattered, Donnovan," I said, tongue dry and sticking to the roof of my mouth. Even his name was hard to get out.
His face fell a little. "I'm sensing a 'but' in there somewhere."
I gave him an awkward, apologetic smile. "We're at a library," was all I said.
"Well... Yes. You're a smart girl. I thought you'd feel more comfortable around books."
I couldn't help raising an eyebrow. "A library. Where you have to sit in silence and read and not talk to anyone."
"I'm... sorry if I misunder-"
"Sir-"
"Donnovan, please."
"No. Sir," I said. "This was... this was a mistake. I shouldn't have agreed to meet you."
He found, mostly to himself. "Might I ask why?" he said. He didn't look too wounded, which was... good.
"You wore your uniform here, sir, and I didn't even bother to change out of my running gear. If we can't make an effort at the first hurdle, don't you think that suggests something about our effort in the longrun?" I said. "And... I apologise for my bluntness but I just don't see this being worth the looks at work, sir. You're a good man, sir. You're funny and you're charasmatic, but... that's just not what I'm looking for. I'm sorry for wasting your time, and... I'm just sorry."
"No, don't apologise, Elise," he sighed. "I should have known it was a lost cause when you said no on the phone."
I offered him a half-smile and a shrug. "No one can say that you don't go for what you want, though, sir."
He laughed at that. "Yes, I suppose so." He let out a deep breath. "Well, then. See you at work on Monday, Miss McAbe?"
"Yes, sir," I nodded, giving him a salute that made him smile. It wasn't the smile I wanted to see.
He offered his hand, and I shook it, and then he turned on his heel and walked away.
I watched him wander off, watching how he muttered quietly to himself and glanced at his muscles. I shuddered. For once I prided myself that I hadn't made a bad decision.
I went home to shower and clear my head, and after a few minutes of sitting on my bed and flicking through TV channels and flapping through pages of an unread book, I made my way up the road to one of the local bars. It was almost empty when I got there, though it wasn't suprising on a weekday. I ordered a lemonade and wandered over to the table-football, feeling clean and no longer weighed down. Anoki and Merlin had been out with Ajax a lot recently, taking him to the beach, teaching him to swim, working on his grasp of the language before he had his first day of school in a couple of months. It was stifling, and I started to hate being there; I didn't want to speak to Nuka about it, for fear that he would judge me and tell me things I didn't want to hear, even though I knew what he told me was usually right.
Ten minutes in to my one side game, I saw a presence walk over out of the corner of my eye.
"I've never seen someone play table football so violently before," they said. I didn't need to look up to know who it was, to let the smile slip onto my face.
"I like it rough," I said. My head shot up. "I didn't mean that! I just... oh my God."
Tyler was too busy laughing to listen face turned away, hand gripping the edge of the table. I put my head it my hands. A minute later we started playing again, though he still chuckled occasionally. I took a sip of my drink, hand on my hip.
"You're so immature," I muttered.
"Guilty," he grinned. "Guess I'm just not into mature stuff like you. And by stuff I mean-"
"Yes, yes, I get it. Wow, you're hilarious..."
"Stop being bitterly embarassed and come play with me."
"Is that something you're interested in?" I asked, arching an eyebrow, narrowly saving the ball from being kicked into my net.
"What are you..." Tyler's hands stilled. "You are a dirty, dirty girl, Miss McAbe."
"I also believe I've won," I said innocently, taking another sip of my drink as I watched him look down at his own net.
"You did that one purpose!"
I worked hard to keep the smile from my face. "What can I say, I play dirty, Tyler. I thought you knew that?"
He chuckled and shook his head. "Should have known... Hey, what are you drinking?"
"Lemonade."
He gave me a look. "Right, well, I'm gonna get a beer. You want one?"
"Better not," I said with an apologetic glance. "I've got work in the morning."
"Sure thing."
"Hey do you ever wear anything other than your uniform?" I called as he walked over to the bar.
"Always on duty," he called back, turning around to give me a salute.
He came back and settled his bottle on the small table beside him before taking a swig of the amber liquid.
"Guess you're beating me by one," he said.
"What are you talking about?"
"You one this game, and you beat me at chess. I beat you at the video game."
"How do you even remember all this?" I asked.
"I always remember," he said. He meant it be light but I think there was something intense behind his words, something that matched the sinere expression on his face.
"Well," I said, clearing my throat. "Techincally it's two-nil. You died too in the game."
Tyler grinned. "Nah. Two-one. I'll only let you get one step ahead of me."
[x]
collapses. omg. so. this has taken me longer than it should have because this happened and i sort of died a bit. first i tried to convince myself it didn't happen, and then i sort of wondered if i should continue or not. i did in the end, because i wanted to progress with the story and play my game more - couldn't fall at the first hurdle now, could i? so i've had to re-write most of this, and save like a mad-man every time i type a letter. sorry for the wait, and my apologies if there's a spelling error somewhere (there probably is, but i really can't be bothered to go through this again). thank you so much for all your lovely comments and your thoughts on ts4 - it seems there is a general consensus about the game. also! dragon valley's out on... friday? so my next update might have some dragons in! who knows?! (depends on whether i can get it through *cough* unconventional methods *cough*) you guys getting the... world? my only wish is that the dragons could grow and get bigger, but i'm very excited for the use of the violin and archery, though i have a feeling the latter is probably only available by using an archery range and nothing else. i'm pretty sure anoki will appreciate the green dragon for harvesting plants - i know i will!
until next time, lovelies! xxx
oh gosh i nearly forgot to credit! the wedding vows were form myweddingvows.com (original, right?) fuck if i know how to write wedding vows. & Tyler Sparks was created by houseofpudding over on tumblr (originally simsiguess). i know he's in the process of re-creating his blog, and i noticed Tyler wasn't on there (hence why it took so long for me to work out his creator), but i'm sure if you want him in your game you could message Jordan about him and see what he says. ;)
again, apologies for the split between posts - it said they were too long to post as one, darnnit.