A fragile peace
A break from the Grey story. (How did I lose that photo? Dammit!) A visit from Chris. He brought flowers, and he's making me dinner. It'll do.
God, I'm so tired. All the time.
11/29/2005
Logfile from Leah X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Old Brownstone Apartments #300 - Leah
Plentiful light and air combine to make this tall and narrow apartment seem larger than its floor plan suggests. Directly opposite the entry's little foyer, a trio of high, leaded-glass windows dominates the main area: the central living room, the kitchen next to the entry, and the eating nook in the corner between kitchen and window. On the other side of the apartment lies private space: a tiny office next to the entry, the bedroom on the other side of a short hallway, and the bathroom between.
The decor is simple but pleasant with many touches of nature, from the polished woods of floor and furniture to the scattered arrangements of seashells, dried flowers, and framed landscapes that complete the essence of a peaceful haven.
--
Leah sits at her coffee table, cross-legged on the floor, amid a whirl of journalistic detritus: scribbled notes, half-typed papers, photographs. Head down, she's making fresh notes on the yellow legal pad balanced on her knee; she pauses now and then in her writing to scratch impatiently at her freshly trimmed bristle of bronze hair or snag a sip of the Coke on the table.
Cue the entrance of Birnam Wood, made leafy and great by the NYPD's soldier: Chris Rossi, come in state and bearing gifts. A bunch of flowers makes a rare, if ill-suited peace offering in one fist; the other, excavated from a pocket, props itself against the door and slams its idle heraldry. That done, he turns and leans -- out of peephole view, gaze lazy against the far wall -- to slouch in his leather overcoat and work-worn attire beside the door proper.
Sighing, Leah raises her head. She blinks at the door, twiddles her pen -- but the moment's gone, lost, so she climbs to her feet to deal with the interruption. The pad gets tossed on the table, half over a spill of mutant-pride rally photos; she runs both hands through her hair to settle it on her way to unlock and open and peer. "Oh." She hangs in the doorway, studying Rossi for a distant, cool moment. "What can I do for you?"
Flowers. Rossi presents them solemnly, with much the air of a chastened schoolboy attempting to curry favor with Angry Mom. "Picked them myself," he announces, peeping at Leah from under a fall of black hair. Amends, a thoughtful second later: "Out of the bin, anyway. They didn't have poison ivy or hemlock, but they had nightshade. Go figure."
Leah doesn't move, and 'cool' becomes 'cold.' "Are you going to yell at me? Hurt me? Threaten me?"
"You going to take the flowers?" asks Rossi in turn, eyebrows lifting. "My arm's getting tired. --No. I'm not going to yell, or hurt, or threaten. When do I /ever/--" he begins with a bitter edge of indignation, only to break off. Eyebrows pitch. Trowel. "Yeah."
Another beat; a caesura of narrowed eyes and flattened mouth. Then Leah shrugs and lets the door swing open. "There's a vase in the cabinet by the fridge," she tells him on her turn back to the living room. "Thanks. As for when you have /ever/--" She underlines the repetition with acid sarcasm and, stopping at the coffee table, shoots out her wrist from the sleeve of her plain grey sweatshirt. She holds up the joint to display the imprints of faded, healing bruises in the shape of a police detective's hand.
The lean body unfolds to amble after Leah, pausing only for a guilt-darkened glance off that marked and marred arm. "Oh," Rossi says -- lame acknowledgment, followed by lamer excuse. "You bruise easy." Then it's for the kitchen, leather flaring in a sullen, heavy-lipped wing behind him. Cabinets clatter, glass gleams, water whines. Baritone announces with godlike decorum, "I'm too tired to fight with you today."
"That's nice, since I'm in the middle of working." Resettling herself at the table, Leah picks up her soda for another swallow, over which she keeps tightened eyes on her visitor. "Are you off to the station?"
"On the way back," the ghost in the kitchen advises, while cellophane rattles, torn by an efficient hand. "Switched shifts with Peterson. Parent-teacher conference at his kid's school. Diana left him, you hear? --Damn. I suck at this flower arranging stuff. I'm too manly."
Leah crooks a half-smile. "Yes, you're positively mighty. The testosterone is overwhelming, so just stay over on that side of the apartment, please. --Just stick 'em in the water. You know I don't care about that. Would've thought all those daisies would've taught you something, though."
Says the man, aggrieved, "/Daisies/. What do you do with daisies? Stick them in water and leave them alone. This particular bunch of flowers has actual /class/, Canto." He emerges from the kitchen with the vase held like a torch in a hand, evidence of his taste (adequate) and his arranging skills (not). "I'll put them on the table."
"All right." A little softer -- softened by the sight of blooms, or him, or just familiarity. Leah shakes her head slightly, a narrow arc of self-dismissal, and reaches for her pad again. "How was Thanksgiving?"
"Noisy," says Rossi with a self- and family-deprecating grimace. The vase is deposited on the table, where it promptly begins to pool water, claiming more space in an imperialist's ambition. "Brought Alyssa. Believe it or not, Gabe and Paul both liked her. Julia egged Sister Angela, trying to hit Paul -- it was a mess. How was yours?"
Hissing annoyance, Leah lunges up to rescue some papers from the water. "--Alyssa amid the Rossis? God help her. Maybe Angie could say a prayer for her, since she has the direct line. Mine was fine. Food, folks, fighting, and fun. Oldest brother's getting divorced; kids are going crazy over it. Second brother brought a back-up date who left during the carving. I drank too much and threw up during the third quarter of the Broncos game, in the kitchen sink all over the soaking dishes. I'm banned from the house for a while." With precise, finicky motions, she restacks the papers, adds the photographs, and then folds her hands on them, looking up at him guilelessly. Darkly. "So, you know. The usual."
Chris drops down on a chair, blinking, a barely domesticated urban beast in his overcoat and tie. Long legs stretch, expanding with less liquid influence than the vase. "Think the chicken liked it," he says with a hint of uncertainty. "I swear Julia was sneaking her alcohol. Paula and Mikey are having a girl, turns out. --Your brother's getting divorced? He getting excommunicated?"
"Well, that's where Mom went crazy, see. Kids just know about splitting up, divorce, whatever you want to call it; Mom's freaking about the whole church angle." Leah shrugs back against the couch behind her, settles her shoulders along the comfort of the cushion's blunted edge. "Not like DJ's much of a churchgoer, anyway, so we'll see. Alicia's definitely not, and she's the one who wants the split. Probably my fault: we've never seen eye-to-eye on politics and all that."
Exasperation mingles with amusement, however dry, and laces the dark-pitched: "You kidding me? Nobody divorces her husband because she doesn't like her in-law's politics. Well," Rossi amends, "not unless she's a black chick married into the Klan, say. I should've invited you to the Rossi shindig, sounds like. More fun. The kids shaved a poodle."
Leah blinks. "Who has a poodle?"
"The neighbors, apparently. Toy one." Rossi pillows his elbows to his knees and spreads his hands, sketching size by masculine terms. "About the size of a football. And a half. Paula and me caught them in the upstairs bathroom, using my old electric razor to shave its butt. --You /sure/ you want kids someday, Canto? They're sort of ... stupid."
"They grow up, and sometimes they lose the stupid when they do." Leah smiles a bit. "We were kids once, after all."
Opines Rossi, unconvinced, "Small heads." The hands inch closer together. Football-length. Smaller. "Not much room in there for brains, when you figure how much room eyeballs take."
"So there's nannies. You don't have to take care of 'em yourself if you don't want to. Not the fatherly type," she supposes of him, only slightly mocking.
"Beston's better with the kids," notes Rossi, wrapping one fist around the other to rest his chin on their confluence. The clear-eyed gaze skips up, simply and serenely humorous. "He's got that whole guilt thing down. Never gave it much thought. Anyway, Paul's kids, you know--" A hook of lips hints at a frown. "Mikey and Paula's kids'll probably be better. You know. Likeable."
Leah declares, "I like Paula. --Wait. Is she expecting?"
Chris blinks with the solemnity of an uncle-in-waiting. "Didn't I say? They're expecting a girl. February, I think."
Leah balls up a fist in empty threat. "No, you didn't. We hardly talk about family shit, I guess. Well, congratulations to her. Them. I'll rustle up a present somewhere. A teeny-tiny cop hat."
"It's a /girl/," begins Rossi with patient, unthinking sexism.
"My cousin Maggie the detective would like to kick your ass, Rossi."
Overridden, the man cuts off the rest of the sentence and grins, a sheepish, boyish flare of apology. "Yeah. Sorry. Wasn't thinking. Sure. Get her a little cop hat, if you can find one. Think Mom's already hoping this granddaughter'll turn out to be a doctor or something."
"A stethoscope, then," Leah accedes gracefully, flipping her hand in a dismissive wave. "Gotta keep moms happy, right?"
Rossi opens his mouth. Closes it. Rubs his forefinger knuckles into eye hollows and admits, "Julia had Mom all psyched up about Alyssa before Thanksgiving. Told her Alyssa was some chick I was thinking about marrying."
Leah does not laugh. Her eyes crinkle at the corners, that's all. "She doesn't want to marry you," she points out. "Jump you, maybe, but I wouldn't worry about that. Unless /you/ want--?"
"/God/, no," Chris says with fumbling haste, straightening abruptly to the thought. Less urgently, he adds, "Anyway, she doesn't want to do that, either. Jum-- I can't even say it. Mom took one look at her and started whacking Julia. She call you lately?"
"Julia or your mother?" Leah asks, seraphic as the very Lucifer.
"Julia," says Chris, nowhere near as angelic. Gross clay, he.
Leah leans forward to get the Coke, which she places atop a tucked-up knee after a drink. "Yes," she says then, looking at the can. "We went out Saturday. Burgers and fries. Girl-talk."
Rossi announces with a semblance of innocence, "Julia said she was planning on giving you a ring. How'd it go? --They got into it over the Miller thing again," he adds, apropos nothing in particular. Innocent, yea verily, like unto the very Lamb of God. "The three of them."
"Another interrogation," Leah sighs, but wearily, not bristling this time over the entrapment. "Shut up about the Miller thing, Chris. You want to find out what's going on inside my pointy little head, and you used your sister as your stalking-horse. Didn't you?"
"No." And again, preemptively defensive, "No. I didn't. You came up, but that was because Paul was riling Gabe about one of your articles. Let me touch your head." A hand extends, probing for that bronzed cap. "You cut your hair?"
Leah bats at his hand. "What the fuck? You want to touch my head? Yes, I got it trimmed yesterday; it was getting shaggy. What about my article? The John Grey piece, I suppose."
Thwarted, the hand tries a different avenue, intent on reaching its target. "Hell do I know," says Chris, happily wading through short hair. The broad hand splays, palming, and wags mercilessly. "I came in halfway through. Paul's not a fan of Doc Grey, I know that much. Your head's not pointy."
A growl. "You pet me, I bite you. I'm a bitch, you know."
"I know." Green eyes smile; the mouth does not. The hand? Pats, deliberate, with a quaint show of affection.
Leah's shoulders hunch, but she doesn't move away. She doesn't tense. She does lower her head, rests her brow on the shiny metal lip of the Coke can. "I'm tired. I don't know why you put up with me. Why you keep coming back. I'm trying to /eradicate/ you, dammit. Like the Orkin Man."
Lips crimp, padding with shadow. "Not the first time I've been compared to a cockroach," Rossi grants, warming his hand on that tarnished halo before dropping the arm on the table. He stretches long, longer, longest, attenuating beyond the eclipse of his chair. "Trying to get rid of everybody?"
"Yes," Leah says shortly, and after a long time of hunched silence.
"Why?"
Leah's mouth turns ugly. "Because I'm not good to be around. We don't have to go over that again, do we? At least wait for my bruises to heal."
"You're doing it again." Green eyes fringe black, wise and quizzical. "What's up with that?"
Leah scouts brown wariness back to him. "Doing what?"
The broad shoulders hitch, an awkward shrug. "Pushing. --You hate it that much, why do it?"
"Because I'm good at it, because it needs to be done, because I--" She shakes her head and puts the soda back on the table. "I don't have the answer you want, Chris. I never do. I never will. Might as well throw me back in the box with your partner." Leah tries to make that light. Fails.
Rossi's face hardens, harshens, congealing into wariness. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Leah sits calmly. "Meaning I don't owe you anything if you don't got a warrant."
Chris's mouth opens. Closes. "I'm not going down this road again with you," he declares, straightening -- though his expression softens, easing away from hostility. "I don't get ditched that easy, Canto. Get used to it. Want me to cook you dinner? Mom taught me how to make lasagna."
Leah looks down at her hands, clasped around her bent leg. She looks up, and she tries for light again, tries for humor. "What, in one try? I'm nominating her for sainthood."
Callused hands slide over hers, roughened by labor, warmed by nature. "She's got her own mitre," Chris advises gravely, unraveling those clever, articulate fingers to cradle them in his. "She wrote it down for me. Think she's giving up on me finding a nice Italian wife to cook and clean."
"I cook and clean," Leah murmurs, staring at him through half-mast eyelashes. Her hands tighten around his in turn.
Amusement splinters off the rock of Chris's bachelorhood. "You proposing to me, Canto?"
Leah reports, a little sadly, "I /would/ like my children to be born in wedlock. I'm so old-fashioned."
Rossi stills behind that crooked, droll smile. Just a little. Just a fraction. "Canto. Are you--" It is the bare skeleton of a question.
Leah gives him wide, limpid pools of leaf-brown, and her mouth flattens again. "Well, my period's been late the last couple months...."
Green eyes round, framed by black and white; behind them, shock hiccups and digs its talons in. The smile fades. "Are you kidding me?"
"But I figure it's stress," Leah finishes, breaking into a grin with a little too much teeth (sharp, white teeth) in it. "Don't worry: Aunt Flo paid a visit last week. I'm clear. /You're/ clear, you selfish bastard."
"/Selfish/," echoes Rossi, relief buoying the indignation that straightens him. The hands squeeze around hers, lifting them to the abrupt press of lips. "Shit, Canto. You scare a guy like that, what do you expect him to say? --You /are/ a bitch." There is appreciation in the words, native Brooklyn: admiration for chutzpah, for the brass-balled and sharp-jawed.
Leah backs off, or down, into a smile, and her eyes flood briefly wet. She blinks, though, and gently pulls her hands away from him. "Well, I do my best, don't I? Gotta live up to your magnificence. --Can I ask a favor?"
He surrenders that warmth only reluctantly, trailing fingers along the backs of her hands before tucking them into his pockets -- poor replacement! -- and the furrowed wings of arms. "Yeah?" Rossi invites, smiling back through baritone and the accent's spice. "What's up?"
After a brisk rub at her face (circulation! Move, blood, move!), Leah sighs and looks at him. Bites her lip. "I know I'm being awful," she says straight out. "I know I'm a bitch. I know I'm treating you like shit. I know that. I do, I swear. But -- could you hold me? Just for a second? Please." Soft, that, followed by another bitten lip.
Surprise lofts Rossi's brows, once more widening for a moment that pale, sea-brushed gaze. Then, "Sure. --C'mere." The chair whimpers for his lean in, his lean up; leather-banded arms open, offering a weather-worn embrace over the scent of him: shampoo, soap, the inarticulate smell of comfort. Quiet solace.
Leah crawls in and huddles against him, arms wrapped around tight. They relax after a moment, but she stays there, and her head goes down against his chest: tarnished halo eclipsed. She cries, but just a little. A very little.
Silence, and peace, of a borrowed and transient sort: ephemeral as infamy. (Hers. Not his.) Comforting, perhaps comforted, Rossi holds Leah, and says ... nothing.
[Log ends.]
God, I'm so tired. All the time.
11/29/2005
Logfile from Leah X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Old Brownstone Apartments #300 - Leah
Plentiful light and air combine to make this tall and narrow apartment seem larger than its floor plan suggests. Directly opposite the entry's little foyer, a trio of high, leaded-glass windows dominates the main area: the central living room, the kitchen next to the entry, and the eating nook in the corner between kitchen and window. On the other side of the apartment lies private space: a tiny office next to the entry, the bedroom on the other side of a short hallway, and the bathroom between.
The decor is simple but pleasant with many touches of nature, from the polished woods of floor and furniture to the scattered arrangements of seashells, dried flowers, and framed landscapes that complete the essence of a peaceful haven.
--
Leah sits at her coffee table, cross-legged on the floor, amid a whirl of journalistic detritus: scribbled notes, half-typed papers, photographs. Head down, she's making fresh notes on the yellow legal pad balanced on her knee; she pauses now and then in her writing to scratch impatiently at her freshly trimmed bristle of bronze hair or snag a sip of the Coke on the table.
Cue the entrance of Birnam Wood, made leafy and great by the NYPD's soldier: Chris Rossi, come in state and bearing gifts. A bunch of flowers makes a rare, if ill-suited peace offering in one fist; the other, excavated from a pocket, props itself against the door and slams its idle heraldry. That done, he turns and leans -- out of peephole view, gaze lazy against the far wall -- to slouch in his leather overcoat and work-worn attire beside the door proper.
Sighing, Leah raises her head. She blinks at the door, twiddles her pen -- but the moment's gone, lost, so she climbs to her feet to deal with the interruption. The pad gets tossed on the table, half over a spill of mutant-pride rally photos; she runs both hands through her hair to settle it on her way to unlock and open and peer. "Oh." She hangs in the doorway, studying Rossi for a distant, cool moment. "What can I do for you?"
Flowers. Rossi presents them solemnly, with much the air of a chastened schoolboy attempting to curry favor with Angry Mom. "Picked them myself," he announces, peeping at Leah from under a fall of black hair. Amends, a thoughtful second later: "Out of the bin, anyway. They didn't have poison ivy or hemlock, but they had nightshade. Go figure."
Leah doesn't move, and 'cool' becomes 'cold.' "Are you going to yell at me? Hurt me? Threaten me?"
"You going to take the flowers?" asks Rossi in turn, eyebrows lifting. "My arm's getting tired. --No. I'm not going to yell, or hurt, or threaten. When do I /ever/--" he begins with a bitter edge of indignation, only to break off. Eyebrows pitch. Trowel. "Yeah."
Another beat; a caesura of narrowed eyes and flattened mouth. Then Leah shrugs and lets the door swing open. "There's a vase in the cabinet by the fridge," she tells him on her turn back to the living room. "Thanks. As for when you have /ever/--" She underlines the repetition with acid sarcasm and, stopping at the coffee table, shoots out her wrist from the sleeve of her plain grey sweatshirt. She holds up the joint to display the imprints of faded, healing bruises in the shape of a police detective's hand.
The lean body unfolds to amble after Leah, pausing only for a guilt-darkened glance off that marked and marred arm. "Oh," Rossi says -- lame acknowledgment, followed by lamer excuse. "You bruise easy." Then it's for the kitchen, leather flaring in a sullen, heavy-lipped wing behind him. Cabinets clatter, glass gleams, water whines. Baritone announces with godlike decorum, "I'm too tired to fight with you today."
"That's nice, since I'm in the middle of working." Resettling herself at the table, Leah picks up her soda for another swallow, over which she keeps tightened eyes on her visitor. "Are you off to the station?"
"On the way back," the ghost in the kitchen advises, while cellophane rattles, torn by an efficient hand. "Switched shifts with Peterson. Parent-teacher conference at his kid's school. Diana left him, you hear? --Damn. I suck at this flower arranging stuff. I'm too manly."
Leah crooks a half-smile. "Yes, you're positively mighty. The testosterone is overwhelming, so just stay over on that side of the apartment, please. --Just stick 'em in the water. You know I don't care about that. Would've thought all those daisies would've taught you something, though."
Says the man, aggrieved, "/Daisies/. What do you do with daisies? Stick them in water and leave them alone. This particular bunch of flowers has actual /class/, Canto." He emerges from the kitchen with the vase held like a torch in a hand, evidence of his taste (adequate) and his arranging skills (not). "I'll put them on the table."
"All right." A little softer -- softened by the sight of blooms, or him, or just familiarity. Leah shakes her head slightly, a narrow arc of self-dismissal, and reaches for her pad again. "How was Thanksgiving?"
"Noisy," says Rossi with a self- and family-deprecating grimace. The vase is deposited on the table, where it promptly begins to pool water, claiming more space in an imperialist's ambition. "Brought Alyssa. Believe it or not, Gabe and Paul both liked her. Julia egged Sister Angela, trying to hit Paul -- it was a mess. How was yours?"
Hissing annoyance, Leah lunges up to rescue some papers from the water. "--Alyssa amid the Rossis? God help her. Maybe Angie could say a prayer for her, since she has the direct line. Mine was fine. Food, folks, fighting, and fun. Oldest brother's getting divorced; kids are going crazy over it. Second brother brought a back-up date who left during the carving. I drank too much and threw up during the third quarter of the Broncos game, in the kitchen sink all over the soaking dishes. I'm banned from the house for a while." With precise, finicky motions, she restacks the papers, adds the photographs, and then folds her hands on them, looking up at him guilelessly. Darkly. "So, you know. The usual."
Chris drops down on a chair, blinking, a barely domesticated urban beast in his overcoat and tie. Long legs stretch, expanding with less liquid influence than the vase. "Think the chicken liked it," he says with a hint of uncertainty. "I swear Julia was sneaking her alcohol. Paula and Mikey are having a girl, turns out. --Your brother's getting divorced? He getting excommunicated?"
"Well, that's where Mom went crazy, see. Kids just know about splitting up, divorce, whatever you want to call it; Mom's freaking about the whole church angle." Leah shrugs back against the couch behind her, settles her shoulders along the comfort of the cushion's blunted edge. "Not like DJ's much of a churchgoer, anyway, so we'll see. Alicia's definitely not, and she's the one who wants the split. Probably my fault: we've never seen eye-to-eye on politics and all that."
Exasperation mingles with amusement, however dry, and laces the dark-pitched: "You kidding me? Nobody divorces her husband because she doesn't like her in-law's politics. Well," Rossi amends, "not unless she's a black chick married into the Klan, say. I should've invited you to the Rossi shindig, sounds like. More fun. The kids shaved a poodle."
Leah blinks. "Who has a poodle?"
"The neighbors, apparently. Toy one." Rossi pillows his elbows to his knees and spreads his hands, sketching size by masculine terms. "About the size of a football. And a half. Paula and me caught them in the upstairs bathroom, using my old electric razor to shave its butt. --You /sure/ you want kids someday, Canto? They're sort of ... stupid."
"They grow up, and sometimes they lose the stupid when they do." Leah smiles a bit. "We were kids once, after all."
Opines Rossi, unconvinced, "Small heads." The hands inch closer together. Football-length. Smaller. "Not much room in there for brains, when you figure how much room eyeballs take."
"So there's nannies. You don't have to take care of 'em yourself if you don't want to. Not the fatherly type," she supposes of him, only slightly mocking.
"Beston's better with the kids," notes Rossi, wrapping one fist around the other to rest his chin on their confluence. The clear-eyed gaze skips up, simply and serenely humorous. "He's got that whole guilt thing down. Never gave it much thought. Anyway, Paul's kids, you know--" A hook of lips hints at a frown. "Mikey and Paula's kids'll probably be better. You know. Likeable."
Leah declares, "I like Paula. --Wait. Is she expecting?"
Chris blinks with the solemnity of an uncle-in-waiting. "Didn't I say? They're expecting a girl. February, I think."
Leah balls up a fist in empty threat. "No, you didn't. We hardly talk about family shit, I guess. Well, congratulations to her. Them. I'll rustle up a present somewhere. A teeny-tiny cop hat."
"It's a /girl/," begins Rossi with patient, unthinking sexism.
"My cousin Maggie the detective would like to kick your ass, Rossi."
Overridden, the man cuts off the rest of the sentence and grins, a sheepish, boyish flare of apology. "Yeah. Sorry. Wasn't thinking. Sure. Get her a little cop hat, if you can find one. Think Mom's already hoping this granddaughter'll turn out to be a doctor or something."
"A stethoscope, then," Leah accedes gracefully, flipping her hand in a dismissive wave. "Gotta keep moms happy, right?"
Rossi opens his mouth. Closes it. Rubs his forefinger knuckles into eye hollows and admits, "Julia had Mom all psyched up about Alyssa before Thanksgiving. Told her Alyssa was some chick I was thinking about marrying."
Leah does not laugh. Her eyes crinkle at the corners, that's all. "She doesn't want to marry you," she points out. "Jump you, maybe, but I wouldn't worry about that. Unless /you/ want--?"
"/God/, no," Chris says with fumbling haste, straightening abruptly to the thought. Less urgently, he adds, "Anyway, she doesn't want to do that, either. Jum-- I can't even say it. Mom took one look at her and started whacking Julia. She call you lately?"
"Julia or your mother?" Leah asks, seraphic as the very Lucifer.
"Julia," says Chris, nowhere near as angelic. Gross clay, he.
Leah leans forward to get the Coke, which she places atop a tucked-up knee after a drink. "Yes," she says then, looking at the can. "We went out Saturday. Burgers and fries. Girl-talk."
Rossi announces with a semblance of innocence, "Julia said she was planning on giving you a ring. How'd it go? --They got into it over the Miller thing again," he adds, apropos nothing in particular. Innocent, yea verily, like unto the very Lamb of God. "The three of them."
"Another interrogation," Leah sighs, but wearily, not bristling this time over the entrapment. "Shut up about the Miller thing, Chris. You want to find out what's going on inside my pointy little head, and you used your sister as your stalking-horse. Didn't you?"
"No." And again, preemptively defensive, "No. I didn't. You came up, but that was because Paul was riling Gabe about one of your articles. Let me touch your head." A hand extends, probing for that bronzed cap. "You cut your hair?"
Leah bats at his hand. "What the fuck? You want to touch my head? Yes, I got it trimmed yesterday; it was getting shaggy. What about my article? The John Grey piece, I suppose."
Thwarted, the hand tries a different avenue, intent on reaching its target. "Hell do I know," says Chris, happily wading through short hair. The broad hand splays, palming, and wags mercilessly. "I came in halfway through. Paul's not a fan of Doc Grey, I know that much. Your head's not pointy."
A growl. "You pet me, I bite you. I'm a bitch, you know."
"I know." Green eyes smile; the mouth does not. The hand? Pats, deliberate, with a quaint show of affection.
Leah's shoulders hunch, but she doesn't move away. She doesn't tense. She does lower her head, rests her brow on the shiny metal lip of the Coke can. "I'm tired. I don't know why you put up with me. Why you keep coming back. I'm trying to /eradicate/ you, dammit. Like the Orkin Man."
Lips crimp, padding with shadow. "Not the first time I've been compared to a cockroach," Rossi grants, warming his hand on that tarnished halo before dropping the arm on the table. He stretches long, longer, longest, attenuating beyond the eclipse of his chair. "Trying to get rid of everybody?"
"Yes," Leah says shortly, and after a long time of hunched silence.
"Why?"
Leah's mouth turns ugly. "Because I'm not good to be around. We don't have to go over that again, do we? At least wait for my bruises to heal."
"You're doing it again." Green eyes fringe black, wise and quizzical. "What's up with that?"
Leah scouts brown wariness back to him. "Doing what?"
The broad shoulders hitch, an awkward shrug. "Pushing. --You hate it that much, why do it?"
"Because I'm good at it, because it needs to be done, because I--" She shakes her head and puts the soda back on the table. "I don't have the answer you want, Chris. I never do. I never will. Might as well throw me back in the box with your partner." Leah tries to make that light. Fails.
Rossi's face hardens, harshens, congealing into wariness. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Leah sits calmly. "Meaning I don't owe you anything if you don't got a warrant."
Chris's mouth opens. Closes. "I'm not going down this road again with you," he declares, straightening -- though his expression softens, easing away from hostility. "I don't get ditched that easy, Canto. Get used to it. Want me to cook you dinner? Mom taught me how to make lasagna."
Leah looks down at her hands, clasped around her bent leg. She looks up, and she tries for light again, tries for humor. "What, in one try? I'm nominating her for sainthood."
Callused hands slide over hers, roughened by labor, warmed by nature. "She's got her own mitre," Chris advises gravely, unraveling those clever, articulate fingers to cradle them in his. "She wrote it down for me. Think she's giving up on me finding a nice Italian wife to cook and clean."
"I cook and clean," Leah murmurs, staring at him through half-mast eyelashes. Her hands tighten around his in turn.
Amusement splinters off the rock of Chris's bachelorhood. "You proposing to me, Canto?"
Leah reports, a little sadly, "I /would/ like my children to be born in wedlock. I'm so old-fashioned."
Rossi stills behind that crooked, droll smile. Just a little. Just a fraction. "Canto. Are you--" It is the bare skeleton of a question.
Leah gives him wide, limpid pools of leaf-brown, and her mouth flattens again. "Well, my period's been late the last couple months...."
Green eyes round, framed by black and white; behind them, shock hiccups and digs its talons in. The smile fades. "Are you kidding me?"
"But I figure it's stress," Leah finishes, breaking into a grin with a little too much teeth (sharp, white teeth) in it. "Don't worry: Aunt Flo paid a visit last week. I'm clear. /You're/ clear, you selfish bastard."
"/Selfish/," echoes Rossi, relief buoying the indignation that straightens him. The hands squeeze around hers, lifting them to the abrupt press of lips. "Shit, Canto. You scare a guy like that, what do you expect him to say? --You /are/ a bitch." There is appreciation in the words, native Brooklyn: admiration for chutzpah, for the brass-balled and sharp-jawed.
Leah backs off, or down, into a smile, and her eyes flood briefly wet. She blinks, though, and gently pulls her hands away from him. "Well, I do my best, don't I? Gotta live up to your magnificence. --Can I ask a favor?"
He surrenders that warmth only reluctantly, trailing fingers along the backs of her hands before tucking them into his pockets -- poor replacement! -- and the furrowed wings of arms. "Yeah?" Rossi invites, smiling back through baritone and the accent's spice. "What's up?"
After a brisk rub at her face (circulation! Move, blood, move!), Leah sighs and looks at him. Bites her lip. "I know I'm being awful," she says straight out. "I know I'm a bitch. I know I'm treating you like shit. I know that. I do, I swear. But -- could you hold me? Just for a second? Please." Soft, that, followed by another bitten lip.
Surprise lofts Rossi's brows, once more widening for a moment that pale, sea-brushed gaze. Then, "Sure. --C'mere." The chair whimpers for his lean in, his lean up; leather-banded arms open, offering a weather-worn embrace over the scent of him: shampoo, soap, the inarticulate smell of comfort. Quiet solace.
Leah crawls in and huddles against him, arms wrapped around tight. They relax after a moment, but she stays there, and her head goes down against his chest: tarnished halo eclipsed. She cries, but just a little. A very little.
Silence, and peace, of a borrowed and transient sort: ephemeral as infamy. (Hers. Not his.) Comforting, perhaps comforted, Rossi holds Leah, and says ... nothing.
[Log ends.]