[visual / location: don's apartment] (way backdated)

[verylittlesugar]

It's been a couple days since the attack and her phone call to Don, and Mattie's feeling better physically, but still a little wrung out emotionally. Mostly that manifests in being very quiet and trying convince Don to let her cook meals for him, and a noticeable absence of tiny sternfaces. There's a lot on her mind, however, and one or two

Comments

[Video]

[painsinger]

Those weren't exactly questions that he was entirely qualified to answer, but that bandage was new and in an unfortunate place. He might not have been here all that long, but he was still more than a little concerned. It was far too easy to bleed out from a wound in that particular area. She seemed to have avoided that, but. He could still worry, even if he didn't know her that well.

After a few moments, he finally managed to wrestle the tablet into doing what he wanted.

"Are you alright?"

[visual]

[painsinger]

"No, it's fine. There are worse things he could be than protective." But Havens, it was annoying to try and get around. At least she seemed headstrong enough to make her own decision, and that made things several times easier.

"I'll be there as soon as I can."

[visual]

[verylittlesugar]

"I find that he is very mistrustful of new things and people." Which she figures is understandable, but nobody ever had a new experience by never trusting anybody.

"I do think there is need for you to hurry." That's Mattie's way of saying 'thank you'.

[visual]

[painsinger]

All that got was a shrug. "A lot of people are. I guess it makes them feel safe." That's what it had been for him for a long time before he learned that he could trust the Collegium and the palace.

"It's no problem. I don't mind a little hurry."

[visual -> location]

[verylittlesugar]

"I will wait in the hall."

When Stefen arrives, he'll find Mattie standing in the hallway outside the apartment, a man's overcoat wrapped over her nightgown and a too-large hat on her head, arms crossed and looking angry.

[location]

[painsinger]

Sure enough, Stefen arrived a few minutes later, dressed in his Scarlets, leather instrument case slung over his back. She didn't exactly look great, but he'd seen worse. At least she didn't look like she was going to fall over and die anytime soon.

"Are you okay?"

[location]

[verylittlesugar]

Mattie is a little surprised by the way Stefen is dressed, not because there's something wrong with it in her eyes, it's just very much not what she's used to.

"I am fine." She's mad, is what she is, but that's not Stefen's fault. "Is it all right if we sit on the stairs?"

[location]

[painsinger]

"That's fine. I don't mind." After all, he'd played in a closet before and at least he had room to stretch out a little on the stairs. It didn't actually escape him why they were sitting on the stairs, but it wasn't be the first time he'd be rejected and it probably wouldn't be the last. He'd have to get used to it sooner or later.

"Just let me know when you're ready."

[location]

[verylittlesugar]

"I am ready." Mattie assumes if there's something she's supposed to do, Stefen would have told her so. She pulls up her knees to rest her arms on them, and turns a little toward him so she can watch. After all, it's not every day a person gets to have their own private concert.

[location] Pretend this is a boy singing, k? K.

[painsinger]

It didn't take very long at all to remove Rosewood from her case and tune her--not when he had so much practice doing it. So it was only moments later that he was ready, pausing only long enough to think of the song that he wanted to play before he began without any hesitation, concentrating on the Gift, more than the song. But that was how it always worked, really.

And maybe he was just a little nervous that it wouldn't work here. No one really knew how any Gift worked, let alone his that they'd never seen before. Maybe it really was something back home...

He couldn't be thinking about that right now. He was supposed to be helping someone.

[location]

[verylittlesugar]

Even if it didn't help with Mattie's pain (and it does, but in a quiet way that she hardly notices), the music is calming and uplifting, something her troubled mind desperately needs. She hasn't heard a bit of music since leaving Yell County, not since the last church service she attended, and even if the words and tune are different from what she's used to, it's closer to familiar than the snippets of things she sometimes hears on the tablets.

She bows her forehead against her knees and just lets herself be quiet for a while, listening.

[location]

[painsinger]

Eventually, though, it had to end, and as much as he didn't want to, Stefen pulled himself up slowly out of the music and opened his eyes, letting everything die down for a moment, before it all felt mundane enough again that he could spoil the silence with words.

"Any better at all?"

[location]

[verylittlesugar]

Mattie finally catches on to what Don is doing, and speaks sharply from her place on the bed.

"Mr. Draper!"

[location]

[selfmadman]

Don jabs the tablet into silence, tosses it at the nightstand. It lands with a clatter.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed? People die here!" He pauses long enough for a breath--shallow, ragged.

"Dumb luck saved you once. Don't count on it to save you again."

[location]

[verylittlesugar]

"People die everywhere!" Mattie exclaims back at him, sitting up straight. "And I do not count on luck any more than I must, though it cannot always be avoided. I have always managed just fine in taking care of myself, and in those instances when I cannot, I shall trust in luck, or faith, or simple kindness to help me."

[location]

[selfmadman]

He died. There's no way of saying it now, not with two tablets in the room and the boy bearing down on them.

"Have you looked out that window?" Don snaps, stabbing the air with a finger. A cluster of veins stands out on his forehead. "This isn't Yell County, Arkansas. These people are not your friends. They aren't your neighbors. And maybe you could get by on kindness in the nineteenth century but you sure as hell can't now."

He takes two steps forward, jerks to a halt. Looks away, jaw muscles working. When he speaks again his voice is low, has the restrained menace of an animal pacing its cage. "Go to him if you want, but you'd better take your things with you. Because when you walk out that door I am locking it behind you."

He shoves his hands in his pockets--his posture still rigid, every line of his body pulled so taut it might snap--and turns to leave.