308. FIRSTS MEME

[12bucks]

FIRST TIME MEME

It's your first time! Whether it's first kiss, first date, or even your first child, your character will be plunged into the nervous or terrifying experience that is their first time.

The list:
1. First kiss. Pucker up!
2. First date. Who's paying? Dinner and a movie, or a night under the stars in the back of your

Comments

Sometimes I do good.

[diemwnt]

[Of course he wanders near the Diamonds' stables. Mel and Sydney are important members of his universe, important enough the he frequently slips down from the castle to visit them. He always walks back slowly, enjoying in private the calm that visiting his friend and the lamb always brings to his soul. It's not a quiet he gets much these days--he'd never admit it, of course, but he does cherish it.

So he finds himself, as he often does, walking up the hill with his mind wandering, the cigarette he's finishing off still stuck in the corner of his lips. It's a beautiful day, the sort that makes a person pause and examine the skyline with a critical appreciation. True, his heart tugs for those sweeping bluffs and breathtaking horizons he hasn't seen for more than a few days' time in over five years, but he's learned to make do with what they have.

It's just that he hadn't imagined anyone else in the Deck really cared much about this sort of thing. So his brow quirks a bit to see the young woman with the camera perched on the fence he's about to walk by, looking for all the world like a half-forgotten memory of something he can't put his finger on beyond the fact that it came from Wales.]

[theriverviolet]

[It's second nature now to know when someone's eyes are upon her and her head snaps around to scan the newcomer with a cool, appraising, rather cynical stare. She doesn't recognize him, but that's hardly unusual, and he...

...He looks familiar. Her eyes narrow in an effort to recognize him as she half-turns, the camera forgotten in her lap. In the glow of late afternoon, he looks familiar, but not in a suit. Something similar, but not a suit, and not so old, much young--

Oh God.

Why it's her first instinct, she doesn't know, but after a frozen moment she loops the camera strap over her neck and hops off the fence in one movement. She should run. Except she isn't. She's still frozen in place, one hand gripping the rough wood tightly enough to threaten splinters, staring at him.]

[diemwnt]

[He doesn't recognize her, but it seems she recognizes him. Living with Leigh has retrained him around the skitterish and tense, so her movement has him reaching to toss down the cigarette from his lips, grinding it out with both hands coming up in a sign of peace. Don't be so jumpy, Club. Whatever you've heard about Säde's puppy is probably true, but that doesn't mean he's going to take it out on you.

A step closer brings the camera more properly into his mental focus. It jogs something, a distant memory, something on the other side of the scattered scars riddling his back. When had he known a young woman with those big flashing eyes and a camera around her neck...?

The impulses, half-memories looking for crystallization, are flashing across his face--below the surface. Someone who knew him well would recognize it; a stranger might not. His hands move in a smooth pattern most people recognize even if they don't speak a word of sign.]

/It's okay./

[theriverviolet]

[She reads that much - try as she might, she hasn't forgotten the BSL she'd learned with him - and her curt laugh isn't going to help his recall. It's short, edged with cynical sardonic amusement, nothing like the light, wondering laugh she'd had ten years ago.]

\No it isn't./

[...the Welsh might help, though. Damn. Will he give chase if she runs? She isn't sure, but now she does take a few steps back from the fence, clutching the camera as though it will act as a shield. Don't remember, don't remember.]

[diemwnt]

[He can't put his finger on it, the familiarity of her jawline. It's possible he's simply seen her around, during some trip to the Clubs' castle. It's possible she just looks like some half-remembered young lady from his time in Cardiff. She's got that Welsh look about her, after all, not just in her skin and hair but in her eyes, despite the layer of rather English cynicism clouding them.

And see, she even speaks Welsh.

To him. Without him ever having spoken to her bef--

The camera.

He almost, almost smiles as the mostly forgotten name flashes through his conciseness again. Tafwys. His little Tavie, all grown up, ten years older than the last time he saw her so many summers ago, still with camera around her neck and that soft lilt to her accent when speaking the mother tongue. Not so little anymore, sweet little Tavie...

...and not so much just Tafwys.

Everything stills into a frozen point. This is what Diamonds do, after all, when confronted with a thing like this. They still, become hard. His hands stay frozen in the air, unable to speak.]

[theriverviolet]

[That's done it. He knows her. He remembers.

She watches as he remembers and then looks at her again and sees the differences, and her shoulders stiffen. She is different, almost completely unlike the sweet girl he'd once known, but is it that noticeable?

There's no need to run now, is there? No reason. She approaches the fence again, slowly, like a skittish cat.]

\...Hello, Cadogan./

[The Welsh drops like marbles, perfect and rounded and cold.]

[diemwnt]

[It's manners or instinct or some unknown horrible compulsion that prompts his hands to move. He hasn't made her name-sign in years, but the one that pops into his head and out through his fingers isn't a proper 'Tafwys.' All the comes out is the short little 'Tav,' affectionate and quick and natural in his hands despite the years of distance. That catches him off-guard almost as much as actually seeing her face.

A question follows immediately, sharper, less the rolling smooth movements of his youth.]

/What on earth are you doing here?/

[theriverviolet]

[Even if she'd expected it, she wouldn't have expected it to hit her that hard. Tav, the quick little nickname that even a few of his friends had picked up. No one else had called her that.

No one else who had meant anything, anyway.

She doesn't have enough practice in masking her reactions to keep it from showing in the flicker of her eyes, but she doesn't need to tell him any details. Or anything at all. She doesn't owe him anything.]

\Stumbled into it. What are you doing here?/

[diemwnt]

[She's here. Cold and hard and a little brittle, from what he can see. There are a million things to speculate on, a million little questions and directions and worries and hurts to grouse over. He can't think about them now.]

/H-e-l-e-n-a brought me./

[He'd probably mentioned Helena during their time together, but he spells the name out anyway. It's too surreal to be standing here, watching this new old face, uncertain as to what exactly is welling behind the mask of his face.]

[theriverviolet]

[Tafwys does remember the name, but she hadn't met Helena. They'd never talked too much about their pasts. A lot of their time, just the two of them, had been passed in silence, either looking at her photos or finding photos to be taken.

She flicks her hair behind her ear with that same unthinking gesture. She's grown it out again since cutting it short in London and the gesture had come back as soon as it had gotten long enough again.]

\How long have you been here?/

[She doesn't want to ask how he's been. She doesn't.]

[diemwnt]

[The glimmer of the girl he used to know is strong in that gesture. It arrests his hands briefly, makes him stare with a slightly harder scrutiny at her features. So much is familiar. It's the expressions, the harsh and pain, that he doesn't recognize.]

/Five years./ [He should ask the same thing. He should be normal, calm, collected as ever around her. She's just another face he knows, another Card he's interacting with. He can ask normal, reasonable questions.] /What happened to you?/

[Or he could ask that. Whichever.]

[theriverviolet]

[Five years. She'd just finished school when he'd come here. She hadn't even set out yet in her unexpectedly successful career of turning other people's private mistakes into public ridicule.

She watches him for a long time, thinking about everything that's happened to her. There's been a lot - it's been ten years, and they haven't been quiet, and in her heart she isn't proud of any of them - but there's only one answer she can give. It's quiet. Tired.]

\I grew up./

[diemwnt]

[He's not sure what it is that gets into him. Maybe it's residual comfort from having been with Sydney and Mel. Maybe it's the way Leigh and Helena have been softening all these years of ruthlessness back down into an almost affectionate, almost demonstrative human being.

Maybe it's that her face when she's tired is almost, almost the face he remembers from the first time they'd met, wind-flushed and worried that she'd bumped into him in pursuit of a photograph.

Either way, his hand goes out to her hair. He's out of practice, but the instinct is strong to smooth back a few strands.]

[theriverviolet]

[The unexpectedness of the action roots her in place. He almost manages to complete the gesture, but just before his fingers reach her hair she flinches and takes a step back.

There's a lot under the surface of the blaze in her eyes. Even a touch of regret for her immediate reaction.]

\Wh...no. You don't get to do that./

[diemwnt]

[There's acceptance as his fingers pause and start to fall back. It's been ten years. They didn't leave off on the best of terms by any stretch of the imagination. But her words freeze the hand in place, something that might be shock flashing through the depths of his eyes.]

/I don't./

[Who's the liar between the two of them, exactly? Is it him? Is he the one who held back information about himself and then exploded to vanish into the night?

No. He isn't. He's the young man who was lied to all summer.]

[theriverviolet]

[She shouldn't have much of a temper, and most of the time she doesn't. It's slow to build, but it's been building since she'd first realized who he was and she sets her teeth at the curt, angry sign.]

\No. You don't. You don't know me./

[He hadn't wanted to know her. He'd looked at her full name - her title - as if she'd betrayed him somehow. As if it were inexcusable to want to be treated like a normal girl for a few hours each day.]