Who: Emily Andley (wordsaremusic) & Toby Randall (eyesopened) What: Coffee and conversation. Where: London Diner When: Waaaaaay backdated to the first half of December. Warnings: None.
London Diner wasn’t her sort of place. Emily was the type of woman one expected to see fitted neatly into a trendy cafe’s armchair, all loose curls and over-sized sweater and book in hand. If not there, then some hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant, or whatever frilly tea shop or edgy little takeaway students were frequenting that week. A dingy, dilapidated greasy spoon -- call it what it was -- did not seem her venue of choice. Yet there she was, chin in hand and dreamy-eyed, ages away from minding the novel (Idlewild; not drivel, not challenging, just words to tear through when needing out of her own head and into that in-between space) set beside her on the still-damp, just-cleaned tabletop. She blamed Liam, of course. He was the one who kept dragging her out of his flat, who continued pulling Em along as he conducted his business -- exactly what that was, she’d yet to unravel the mysteries of -- and just as often as not, they wound up at the diner where he flirted with most of the staff and chatted up half the regulars, tried to draw Em into the banter because he was a good man with good intentions, really.
She had none of it. Ophelia still sat heavy on her mind. Ophelia and Nina (and Gryff and Zachary, things Em thought on late at night but would not voice), the dilemma of duality, music Em couldn’t play and places she couldn’t stay, and though she’d come to the diner thinking ‘it’s familiar, it’s warm, I’ll be fine here for a bit’, somehow she was sucked in to the worry of where next -- her father’s or Liam’s -- what to do, who to go to, was everything all right, was home even home anymore, and on the surface she was lucky enough to look lost in pleasant reverie rather than the maelstrom of her own thoughts. London Diner really wasn’t her sort of place, yet amidst the crowd of regulars and hungovers, she somehow seemed to fit right in.
Tables emptied and tables filled right up again with men who put dirty-damp shoes all over the just-mopped floor and put elbows on just-wiped table-tops and made demands in gritty-rough voices that sounded like lack of sleep and lack of manners both. The bell jumped and danced and jangled until she finally had enough, head full of it to drag a chair over and reach up on tippy-toe to unhook it with grim satisfaction and a handful of cool brassy bell that could no longer alert the entire place to ‘this is a day that must be worked’. Tables did all this but there was one that the stream of people parted past, didn’t duck in and sit against - Toby and Dot and the half-help that came on busy days (Meg; brown eyes, soft all over, would give out freebies til next Christmas if they let her) ducked and wheeled and turned through it all and when finally it came to an end, it was just the three of them cleaning up. It was Toby left last, the tail-end of a shift that would swing without fanfare into another because extra time and extra pay were more than wanted but needed, Toby who cleared away the crockery from the next table over and looked across at the occupied booth with tired curiosity. The face was familiar, small and pointed and always before at his shoulder. Earnest and lit up looking up, following whatever it was those two talked about with the kind of delight and concentration that was young girl and man (and tweaked a little at forgotten feelings; how long had it been since she’d looked at people like that, as if the world had been picked out and painted in colours that could be understood purely because of the way a shoulder fit against her own) but she was here alone, now. A book on the table (a small sound that was not quite derision but nor was it surprise) but not reading it, hardly even looking - she wasn’t drinking anything either but looked lost in a way that seemed too fragile for the space around her - Liam, whatever he was (annoyance, irritation, perpetual waste of space that could be taken up by someone less likely to talk when all that was wanted was silence) was some kind of barricade between the rest of the diner and she and now gone --
“You all right?” Toby heard the words before she’d formed them, bus-tray on hip and quietening, idling cafe around her ignoring the for-once need to find out. There were plenty of people with problems lined up in the booths around, drooping heads and cups of coffee nursed far too long but this one didn’t look as though this was the kind of place chosen regularly as a where to hide from the world. “Your friend,” an awkward pause, a fraction of a beat too long to be delicate. “You’re alone.” Obviously, Toby, she had a book as a barricade - even she understood the purpose of that. A hand to blond hair, to push it back, shake it out of her eyes with small irritation at herself - probably didn’t even need the damn question asked.
A moment and then another and one more after that. Em came back by degrees, as was her wont, drifted languid and thought the thoughts she had to think -- Ophelia or Nina? The lady or the tiger? -- before snapping to with a one-two blink, rapidfire but still on the sleepy side. (A family trademark, maybe. A sign of things to come; it hardly mattered.) She heard-- what, exactly? A question. Brief sentences. Words, words, words. English, tentative but clipped, and-- Ah. Liam’s waitress, the one who didn’t want to be his waitress but Em knew he’d chase after because oh did Liam like the chase.
“Pardon?” A quick sorting-through -- she’d heard, it was just processing the information, notes and nuance within the larger construct -- and Emily sat up, leaned back, brushed hair from face with musician’s hands and offered a smile one part harmless to two parts apologetic. “Hi, yes. He’s--” Reliable but always busy? No, he’d hate that. At work? Maybe, but so dull. In the end, she folded both hands atop her table, only to raise one in a little flit-flit-flit gesture of butterfly taking wing: Not here, who knows where. “Off doing what he’s doing, I guess. I’m sorry; was I loitering?” Say no, she didn’t tack on, because the idea of going just now and being forced to make decisions made her feel vaguely ill. It was followed by a silent say yes which Em refused to acknowledge the details behind. She’d rather go back to her silly book or keep peering up at this worn, vague-pretty woman who was so terribly good at frowning the world to safe distance -- she’d seen Toby’s reaction to Liam -- Em wanted to ask her for lessons.
“No.” Toby felt the shape of ‘yes’ against her tongue, wanted to snap it out and say it the way she would have effortlessly swept anyone else out and along and on their way but whatever her name was, she didn’t look as though she had a place to go. The rest didn’t, but it wasn’t the same and the bar light above Emily sparked and sputtered as if as indecisive as Toby herself. Instead she dug her free hand deep inside her pocket, rooted herself upright and wished just for a moment - a minute - that she could idle hours sitting in a booth with an empty cup of coffee, and then that she could leave, get up and walk away and have only the need for a pound or two to pay the bill to go forever and not look back.
“But you’re okay.” A question that wasn’t from a woman who looked a little like the answer was keeping her swayed there against the table-top, as if perhaps she was uncertain as to why she even wanted the answer. Off doing whatever he was doing - vague as hell, could encompass anything and everything; Toby’s face drew itself into familiar lines, found the shape of frowns past and re-assumed them. A man who could leave his girlfriend loitering in parts of London, pleasant as any of those who meandered through the place, ordered coffee and smiled, thumbed out cash from hands that had done as dirty as anything else done in this city. Another reason to keep turning her back and walking away; flirts were bad, the cheating kind worse - except this girl, a halo of messy curls that she half-wondered how the girl kept them tamed and too-bright eyes to be abandoned to a book and a coffee and all-comers - sat there and let him. Mad, daft, both - Toby bit her lip, looked away toward the empty tables for an excuse to go and an excuse to stay. “You’re okay, right?”
“Not really.” Em liked honesty. She liked holding out her hands and offering up the truth, palms held together to show ‘look, this is what I have, what do you think?’ And there truth would sit, small and enchanting, full of sharp little needle teeth: a baby predator staring up with big knowing-hungry eyes. Honesty was refreshing -- she watched people, it was what she did for a living between the filing and the tea-brewing, watched people and listened to them for all the things they did and did not say. Honesty turned out to be such a rare commodity that Cian Andley’s daughter, Librarian-bred and Haven-bound, enjoyed action for reaction: be honest, surprise a little. So she, small wordsmith, elbowed out of her own head for a moment (Out-of-country exorcists, surely that could help. Or that man she kept hearing reference to, the one every person sneered and growled over, the Constantine one -- what about him?) and took in the sight of small blonde waitress -- so very small, Em could see even she had the height on Toby -- weighed down with too much work and not enough time, and it was ‘you’re in the real world right now, Andley, you’re not home’ which was all that stopped her from making an offer to help.
She smiled instead, guilty-as-charged thing which came and went far too fast; Em was tired, too. “But that’s life, right?” Quick glance askance, a too-mild shrug managing more than actual words against teeth and tongue. “I think he’ll be back in the neighborhood tomorrow, if you needed him. Something to do with checking in on some of his girls.”
Dismissive, then; Liam was incidental at best, a common thread which from the cant of her dark head and the cautious I-don’t-know-you-but look on her face, was easily set aside in favor of Toby who frowned and took orders brusquely, Toby who Liam warned you did not acknowledge too hard lest she lash out or disappear altogether. Em didn’t wholly understand, but she could appreciate regardless. “What about you?”
“What about me?” A confused look, one that blurred together ‘just a waitress’ and the dizzying speed of all that honesty rattling down the wires, casual question she wasn’t sure she’d wanted to ask met with too many words, too much talk too quick; Toby’s weight shifted one foot to the other, uneasy settling beneath it all and yet not quite swinging ‘round to go. “You looked,” out of it. Stoned, somewhere other altogether that wasn’t stuck inside the four walls of a greasy dirty place none of them could keep clean even if they’d slept well the night before. If you could escape, climb out of the prison of your own mind, your own head -- why not?
“Not right.” Toby found honesty and added a little of sore-needed compassion, halting-stiff and difficult to grasp when she’d forced it from her long before. It eased its way through once-locked doors that were slammed hard as the girl stirred, woke, stretched out hands with that odd openness that was too much and strange and talked. Didn’t give a damn for Liam’s whereabouts -- girls, plural? -- but in relation to this young woman not yet showing the grubby signs of being handled by life, not damaged to set against the shelf and mark down the price for. Didn’t need to know or need, point blank. A wisp of a frown, reflex tightening of forehead, “Depends who you are. If it’s life or it isn’t.” Some people, life was soft, glimmered like a road, like things that could be had ahead. She didn’t know it, not the way of knowing hard things and the way a pushchair refused to fold up with a queue behind for the bus, or the way a baby’s sobs were lancing-sorrow to the heart, but it was there in the books, there in the films, there for some people, all smiles in snow.
Did she? Look not-right? Well, that was hardly a shock to the system. She found herself standing in front of the mirror most mornings since leaving Haven, hands gripping the countertop -- Liam's, her father's, even Maddie's the one night she'd tried spending back in childhood home -- while Emily examined the face she peered out from daily. Searching for change, maybe, some telltale sign of child within the woman. Vice versa, perhaps. Em knew she managed to come across older than actuality, all worldly eyes and well-traveled looks, as if she'd already toured the globe, had her fill of it and kept the important parts locked away in a glance and a smile. Toby (and that would be her actual name, Em knew, because you didn't hold yourself on guard the way she did and simultaneously wear a nametag which invited questions) was the other side to that coin; no clue as to what her story was, but Emily mentally picked apart the other woman's words, laid the rhythm and harmony of voiced language out flat and peered through its pointed guts for individual notes. Toby, too, was young and old all at once. That sure-in-it knowledge -- Em's own confidence in a little twist of magic which hinted toward people's selves -- made her feel if not kinship, then at least a complete lack of offense.
"As in 'are you all right?' You don't have to answer; I just ask questions. It's what I do; part of my job. Force of habit." A gesture. Nevermind me. I am what I am and I do what I do. She found herself blinking at almost-philosophy from the waitress with the hard lines, found herself donning another small smile in ways which had lost ease of reflex over the past couple weeks. Liam's smiles were charm and hyper-awareness of what was being said nearby; Em's were, in comparison, quiet encouragement. 'I hear you and I'd like to hear more,' that was Emily. Brought back to the larger world, having heard little from this woman and being away from normal routine of pry them from their shells, Andley, she took new scenery and tried old habit as though attempting to straddle a border between unfamiliar territories. "Life's kind of a bastard, in my experience. A very good-looking one, but still a bastard."
A scanty kind of smile that twitched itself up to Toby’s mouth and skittered away as it came; life was a goddamn bastard with a sleazy smile and hands in deep pockets that took away as quickly as they handed out. It was a genuine smile, small but present and one that startled the woman who gave it more than the one she handed it to. Chatty then, this one, sat in a booth with the same searching kind of eyes that her friend had (Toby edited the previous conviction; not girlfriend then, just friend but still) but less predator-clear and fixed, more dreamy-thoughtful. As if life were a fairytale in one of those books, spread out for reading. “What kind of a job means asking questions?” The frown was back, thin lined and confused consideration paid to the idea - a job that meant rifling through other people’s heads, opening them up with pointed remarks and questions like scalpels, right to the point. Her hand flickered to the name-tag, twisted it thoughtlessly against the pin; the uniform dress was worn where the tag sat, it was a nervous tic that had clearly been long-learned. Palm over it, fingers wrapped around, this is my name not yours and I do not wish to give it to you without wanting to give it. She’d left it off when she could, before. A lecture or three and it was always worn, lopsided and giving in, a futile effort to protect a little of herself, given up. Words instead measured out carefully, keeping the ones she could and giving only those she wanted - small defiance from one who butted up against what was required and forced to give.
The bus-tray was shifted, swapped to the opposite hip with unconscious readjustment of weight the way of mothers with children balanced there; it dwarfed her, awkward and unwieldy and handled as though time spent heaving it around was what taught the ease. “You want coffee or just going to let it go cold?” A pointed look into a half-full mug.
Three years of planting firm feet in Haven's halls, of forcing herself to the forefront and sticking elbows in Gryff's sides until he shifted to accommodate her ('Just a little room, please. I don't take up much space.'), and Em still had an uncertain time answering that sort of question. How to safely, soundly explain what she and they did, particularly here in the great wide world rather than the safety of old church turned magic-soaked sanctuary? "I work for-- well, I suppose it's mid-way halfway house and hostel. I work out what everyone needs, and then..." A flick of thin wrist, then fingers: a magician's et voila!, equal in the face of razzle dazzle and small chicanery. Her smile, crooked now, had the good grace to look borderline sheepish. "Does that sound sketchy? Probably. It's a good place, I swear."
Or was, had been. Did Haven still qualify as 'good place' material? Was it still a haven if there was talk of taking people in with contingency plans for murder? Em thought, briefly, of Ophelia's trilling (-tremolo-vibrato, if she wanted to be appropriate; she did not) voice, of Gryff's raising at her and his broad back turned, and her smile twitched once like a dying thing before her gaze slid away, shuttered down lest too much be put out on unnecessary display. Toby's own shifting of equilibrium drew her back -- Em didn't venture far, admittedly, but with Liam out in the field for at least another day, she found herself floundering a bit. Too much to do and not enough time in which to do it, or worse yet, too used to doing and not enough to do. Pragmatism to save the day; another thing to avoid deep-thought dwelling on, but that didn't stop her from looking at Toby with something approaching gratefulness. Toby, who'd been here since before Em showed up and was still bustling about. That was harking familiar.
"Coffee would be great, thank you. Shouldn't you be going home soon?"
It was an echo, an answer to a smile gone-away -- mirrored shutting down and battening the hatches with long-practiced effortlessness that was a rhythm of a routine learned and absorbed until it was instant. The smile went, wiped away after deepening just a touch - ‘sounded sketchy’? God, it did, sounded like those people who wandered London in orange robes, handed flowers to perplexed passers-by. They’d tried it with her once, bright bobbing bloom that was half-wilted and what was the point, hands full of nappy-bag and baby and needing to push past and shoulder through a crowd of people all so set upon being pleasant they didn’t seem to care they blocked the damn way. Toby looked again at the girl in the booth; too-bright eyes didn’t look like they had made-up prayers in them, slim wrists dancing didn’t look like they had track-marks - kid (not girl, kid in the mental assessment of old soul of another) didn’t seem the type -- a sliding-brief look of not-disapproval in tired blue eyes.
Home. It would be icy right now, pipes clanking and rattling when she turned on the heat, a prayer on the lips that didn’t fit inside any religion, ‘please God, do not let them burst, please God, let me have hot water tonight’. Home, with the unmade bed she’d reluctantly clambered out of, all screwed up eyes and sleepwalking to the kettle, poured boiling water with hands that shook exhaustion because of shift until two and then up at six, and Lily’s quiet, too-quiet dead-asleep silence that prompted a hand to the neck to check a pulse with too much efficiency for usual mothers. Home, the door that wouldn’t be unlatched for another seven hours at least, Lily a dead weight sleeping sound against her shoulder, bathed by someone else, fed by someone else but Christ, at least safe as the pipes stirred to life and warmed them through for another handful of hours. “Got a while yet.” Toby economical with details, held her home hard against her heart and pressed her lips into a thin line of suppressed yearning. “Why aren’t you?”
Good question. Bad, thin, dandelion fluff answer, and Em knew it. All moue and bitten-off sigh, she pantomimed at first; the words came easy but they felt either too rough or too tacky in her mouth -- thick, sandy things better left unspoken. Simpler to offer Gallic shrug, to drag hands through already-wild hair, to look up at the woman standing across from her and search for some thin thread of understanding. Emily was a natural with word choice and the hum and purr of language, but bodies could be just as eloquent in the turn of a palm, the angle of one's jaw, the 'I don't know, you know?' rise and fall of shoulder. Em responded as best she could, the way she would for her father or for Gryff rather than Liam or Havenites. Then, as if remembering the larger scope of things -- that bitch World, married to that bastard Life -- didn't often care about nuance or the music of the unspoken or young women itching at the seams with too much magic, she slapped on a smile to match desert-dry voice. "My partner and I decided our people-managing skills didn't mesh, so I’m on sabbatical." A blink, and Toby was soon recipient to a sudden, bright grin, as if someone had flipped a switch. Em wore it well. Easily read, it said 'well, fuck'.
"Ironically, I don't have a wealth of places to stay." Hands spread, she settled into a smirk at her own expense, dialed down the wattage until it was just a wry sort of sparkle to dark eyes. And then, because while God knew she could wander her own head for hours, she wasn't completely oblivious: "Do you think it'll be busy the rest of the night?" A pointed look toward the heavy weight of dishes resting at Toby's hip, silent acknowledgement that she'd taken time to chat, but that didn't look particularly comfortable.
Not much one for the glimmer-glint of other people’s smiles like spotlights, Toby’s head dipped, bowed, said ‘take it off, take it away’ with uneasy twitch of the shoulders weighted down by so much attention. The woman-girl spoke (a name, Toby, a name - except names were currency for those who did not wear them pinned tight and flat against their chests, did not have to hand them out like a paper serviette and clean cutlery) and it was too slick-clean, the kind of plastic shine of people calling something what it wasn’t, polishing up what wasn’t pretty to make it so. Something there then, current beneath the surface, something to slide behind the eyes and confirm the diagnosis - not okay then, not really. Not her business either, Toby reminded herself, the quiet stirring of something kept firmly suppressed, metaphorical foot on throat to put it there. Care for many, care for any who passed through places like this akin to opening yourself up and asking for everything inside to be taken out and stirred up, things taken and not put back.
“You only need one.” Where Em had dry as deserts, sand-drifts blowing and drifting across an acre of what was not-said, Toby’s voice was thin, hard and brittle with plain facts and holding back softening edges (couldn’t afford to wonder where she’d wind up sleeping, where she’d go after here) “Probably not,” words coming where they shouldn’t, a cast-about look across the winding down evening and a surprised look at the bus-tray on her hip, suddenly aware of the weight of it. “Quiet enough. We won’t miss the booth.” Permission given without saying it; she’d crammed herself in behind a table more than once, eaten stale cupcakes and hard muffins with a cup of coffee eked out over several hours, until the dregs were cold and unappealing in the cup.
“I’ll get the coffee.” Swinging around, Toby’s movements were all economy, quick-quiet steps and exchange of words (brief, very brief although her pinched face slid away from animated into expressionless as a customer called, waved a hand -- fell silent at a look) and then back. “You planning on sleeping, or is it going to be okay?” Almost-humour, skimming light and brief and half there, mostly not at all as the coffee pot in hand tipped questioningly; Toby looked at the book rather than the girl. “Don’t get it.”
"One goes down to none if you're not careful." It was said too pleasantly to be anything other than nervous, that predecessor to worry which could fast move on toward thin trickling fear. Emily laced her fingers atop the table, blinked up at Toby as if they were teacher and student rather than waitress and loiterer. If she hadn't known overt hardship in her own young life, then she'd come close enough to familiarity through others, knew to recognize the shape of difficulty in murky waters and gained a cagey sort of respect for it. Em kept her own fear of big, undefinable, unknowable things -- things like expectations and rejection and disappointment, the ones which smothered and bit -- wrapped up in many mindful layers from many different languages, tucked them all away somewhere safe. Except she wanted to know exactly what constituted 'safe', and then her brain spit out a definition, and down the rabbit hole she'd tumble if she wasn't careful, watchful, distracted by something or someone else.
Liam's small blonde waitress was, she decided, a fairly fantastic distraction. A thin copper wire of tension loosened in Em's shoulders when Toby said without saying 'all right, fine, stay', and by the time she made her circuit and reappeared with coffee pot in hand, Haven's missing half had elbows propped up and chin resting on both palms. "Thank you," she said, then "I've got another couple nights at Liam's before he kicks me out. I think. Worst case scenario, I barricade myself in. Are you allowed to sit? You ought to have a coffee with me, if you're going to let me prattle on. (This isn't me trying to pick you up, incidentally.) I'm Emily; Em. Say yes, please."
A look cast around the place to make note of the landmarks of those with sagging shoulders and lowered heads, the shuffling sounds of plates and cutlery almost at an end, the scenery drawing in for the curtain-call of a night dwindling down to just marking time. Quiet enough to warrant pouring herself a cup; there’d be no gap great enough to sneak outside for a cigarette, gasp in two or three hits of the thing before cold fingers and scuttling back inside as the bell (restored; three working back to back could ignore the jangle of ‘more work to do’, one alone required it) rang out and called her back. No cigarette (and at the thought, the wanting more - just three left til the end of the week) but coffee instead and an invite extended from a girl (Emily) with a soft-crazy halo of curls and speech that sped up and died away like trains slamming into the station.
“Not really allowed,” carefully said, the words lined up like bricks, building back up the wall but with slow care and peering through the gaps still remaining. One thin hand twisted against the fabric of her apron, the coffee pot listed in the other as though as indecisive as the small blond woman who held it. But oh, a sudden-familiar ache at that uncertainty, casting around for a place to go, a place to be, smiling big and bright as if that might lean a little weight against those who had the place to offer. Toby felt a sudden rush of gratitude for the tiny flat, the pipes that drizzled out icy water until half an hour’s worth of wait for heat, a door to lock behind her -- space that was hers.
Carefully then, smoothing the skirt of that awful uniform until it was neat-tight wrapped beneath her legs and Toby slid into the opposite side of the booth, and set the still-warm coffee pot down on cracked formica. “They won’t fire me.” Matter-of-fact and almost grim lift and subside of narrow-bony shoulders; softened just a little by the darting smile. “Not right now.”
“They’d damn well better not.” Consent brightened her up, made Em brassier than the watercolor version of herself she’d become as late. Dot swooped in earlier somewhere around the time of Em's arrival and tried to clear the table of remaining cup and cutlery, but she'd glanced up so fast and raw-edged that the older woman subsided. Don't, please. Liam may show up, and if nothing else I can play pretend. She was, Em had discovered, very good at only-child solitude provided an undercurrent of is it safe? What about home? didn't haunt her every third thought. Now, though, with attention and actual company, she could skirt around the worry and be more Em Andley than Nervous Girl. With Toby sat across from her, she raised brows to ask silent permission, then proceeded before it was given, plucking up empty cup and full coffee pot and pouring for the other woman as Toby had already done for her. It wasn't the ritual of mid-day tea, but at this point she'd take what she could get sans major complaint.
"Thanks. For breaking the rules, I mean. The book's all right, but another human being is about a hundred thousand times better right now, and Liam--" Sliding cup across table, Em was shameless enough to roll her eyes. "Well, Liam. He means well, but king of the reasonable attention span, he is not. Have you worked here long?" Short on subtlety, perhaps, but she wasn't up for deft touch quite yet. Besides, this woman, who may as well have been the walking embodiment of wariness, could certainly use the prompt.
This girl wasn’t a waitress, didn’t have the wrist-turn to catch the dripping pot before it slid down to the table-top and puddled there (Toby whisked a paper napkin across the surface, absent-minded mindful always, three steps ahead in the nothing-rhythm of ongoing and ever service) Cooling coffee in a pot and slim hands and bright eyes and girlishness across from her - Toby doubted Emily ‘Em’ thought much on rent and bills and hoping that the man who smelled of piss in an old faded green overcoat, laid sideways in the booth as if he’d sleep there, would stay whilst simultaneously hoping he would go - clocked minutes as if they were pennies sliding into the jar and dreamed thoughts about one day making it full sun up to sun down with a baby-smile on waking and baby-smile on sleeping and all the fractious temper-tantrum moments in between. Pouring coffee for someone else didn’t look like it came naturally, but there was conversation to distract her, send Toby reaching for crumpled paper packets of sugar and stir in three whilst mopping up the overspill in the saucer with the multi-tasking skills of mother and waitress both.
“A while,” vaguely, hedging bets and general hedging all the while. A look at too-inquisitive face and a lack of subtlety, the line laid down for her to pick up, Toby picked up her cup and took a sip of coffee so sweet it made her teeth squeak. Reasonable attention span; not in her estimation, not in weeks at least clocked up with regular (annoying) consistency, same damn booth, same damn corner each time, all smile and ‘here I am’ - “Seems pretty focused to me,” Toby said to the bottom of her coffee cup, a conversation conducted with that which wouldn’t, couldn’t comment - and then set it down with a neat little click into the saucer, wiped a drop from its rim tidily with a finger that went straight to her mouth. “Why right now?” A mild question, soft as disinterest might phrase itself and certainly not the onslaught of Emily’s interest but a question, all the same.
Em merely 'hm'ed; prey to Andley luck and Andley curse all at once, she'd held down little in the way of conventional work. Still, she was hardly so naive as to ask if Toby liked waitressing -- this was a job, a way one forced ends into meeting rather than using a word like 'career'. No ring on her finger, either (which could admittedly mean anything), and yet the other woman obviously worked half-mad hours which shouted ambition up to the skies. So there was a reason, Em thought, and was content to let her lure continue bobbing atop the water for awhile yet.
"Oh, he's got laser focus. You just need to be set in his scope for its full effect. The thing about him is that there are countless people, you see?" Palms pressed together in faux prayer, she was all dry-humor-mock-sincerity across one end of the table. "But there's only the singular Liam." And here, watching Toby in that looking-not-watching way she'd honed whilst working with countless on-the-edge magicians, Em spread her hands and offered up empty palms, invisible honesty sitting atop them. Liam's attention was warm sunshine on the back of one's bare neck, but in countless ways he was little more than a stopgap. It was fact which most of his followers -- and that was what they were, how Emily thought of them, followers skipping along to a pied piper's wink and nod of a tune -- either didn't consider or didn't acknowledge. Here with a woman who'd not yet accepted him into her life (like he was some street urchin's messiah, really), Em felt no compunction about offering her take.
" 'Right now' is sort of a shit time." It was a blurted out thing, words laid down in a messy row before she really thought, and Em blinked in mild surprise quick covered by drinking from a truly horrible cup of coffee. She'd told Liam, of course. He knew the lay of Haven's land -- and perhaps more the shape of her heart than she was comfortable with; after a certain point in the tale Emily realized he was watching her too hard, too sharp, too knowing in that secrets-peeled-back way he had. She'd gone quiet then. Slept rather a lot, trailed after him as directed and watched her strange half-friend, half-guardian here in this diner with all its denizens. Honesty was all well and good, but preferably on one's own terms. Em thought on this for a moment, chewed contemplatively on her lip and let silence sink in while she rested a hand atop Idlewild's cover. "Sometimes," she said, measured out slow and left to hang in the air. "When you've had the rug pulled out from under you, a book can help. Sometimes. But books are other peoples' thoughts, and maybe they'll challenge you to think, which is grand. But sometimes you just don't want to think, or you want to hear a voice, or have some back and forth, and then... Well, human interaction is the nicest thing in the whole damn world, you know?"
How did a book help, when there were worries clamouring from the back of the head, cramming forward until wavering words danced to the tune of what-is-next, what-is-needed, what-bill-must-I-pay? How did a book do anything but make things worse? Toby glowered at it with the kind of bedded down resentment of cooling coals, the residue of protracted war with sentences that buckled and twisted beneath her grasp and twisted her fingers around the too-sweet coffee to take a sip. It gave her time enough to think, to slide away from the sentiment that Emily was cheerfully espousing, that books were the friendly creatures her parents had thought them, crammed them in bookcases floor-to-ceiling and used as impassive babysitters that held themselves apart like her parents themselves and consider the rest of it. Liam then; described the way of breezy familiarity with routine, Emily blithe with vague description of ‘people’ - except, to think about that too long would give the idea of his being anything but a painfully regular customer with a penchant for flirting alongside his food merit -- Toby frowned over it, looped her thumbs through the handle of the cup as she lifted it to her lips, no room for anything else, regardless of prattling girls who talked about him as if he were the goddamn Christ-to-come or anything else besides. It wasn’t good coffee, it was awful; burnt-blackened beans left to simmer too long but it slid down her throat and warmed her inside-out and Toby’s shoulders sank down as some of the tight-bright tension wound itself out along with measured sips.
She wasn’t going to ask, wasn’t going to pick up that loaded-gun of a statement, “Why’s it so shit, then?” It sounded like a challenge, it sounded like, ‘look around and tell me why yours is worse’, rattling up and squaring elbows as to how a girl like Emily, shiny-wild hair and well-fed and healthy could have it worse off, except a softly creeping (escaping, Toby couldn’t claw it back until it was entirely out, wasn’t aware of it peeping through badly-built walls) sense of sympathy. People, the observant types, didn’t claim shitty lives over coffee in here unless there was reason - Toby notched her fingers together wrapped ‘round that mug as if the dying heat of it could slide through her bones and take away some of the ache of long shift and too little sleep and looked at Em, head canted as if actually waiting for an answer, blunt-wielded question and all.
Tiny female Gryff, Em thought while Toby sat and processed, sipped her coffee and frowned and generally look displeased with the surrounding world in all its audaciousness. She'd have smiled at the notion -- really, picture them side by side and it was surreal enough to make you want to laugh -- but no, amusement scuttled out of reach and that was probably for the best. Emily knew better than to laugh outright at Gryff, suspected that to do so with Toby would be even worse. Curiosity and a touch of something which wasn't quite loneliness but presented itself as a kissing cousin, they both pressed cool hands up against her shoulders so that amusement behaved, died away, presented as a blink and a downward glance rather than a wellspring of tired laughter. It bled over to mild surprise a moment later. Too used to talking, to making noise which filled up enough space for two people, Em expected less response than nodding along -- physical cues to pick up on, things which unlocked the little windows which led to the larger doors which ultimately said 'this is what you need to know'.
Curiouser and curiouser, Em thought, even as she refused to think too deep. Let it go, let it wash over you, don't get lost in what's happened and what may be. Words to live by. She fell back on physicality, matching Toby's headtilt without a second thought, jaw working while she searched for the easiest possible response.
She settled on "it's complicated", because how did one explain demons stuck in girls, loss of faith in exorcists and-- well, she'd called Gryff her partner and maybe that'd been the case at the time. Em, who hid from the world she couldn't control but had flung herself bodily right back into it, did not know what to call him now -- what to call herself, how to best sum up 'the man I run a magical sanctuary with told me he is willing to kill an innocent girl because she unwillingly has a demon trapped inside her'. A not-sigh, the barest shrug, Em offered small things when she glanced back up to the waitress with the guarded eyes and the thin I-am-uncertain line of a mouth. "Everything's complicated: life again. Time and tide, right?"
Thin shoulders did their up-down answer without words, said ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and ‘unsatisfactory’ and if Toby had known comparisons, had known which and what she was being lined up against, words would have curled themselves out indignant and rusty with ill-use but said all the same that this one didn’t much go in for sentiments and platitudes that covered myriad sins and encompassed nothing in their everything. She didn’t notice the mirroring, didn’t notice that the world outside the booth (the diner closed in now to tiny pin-point of two people, the shuffle and sigh of boots on linoleum floor quietened and the chirping fuzzy blur of the radio easily ignored for all its rockabilly Christmas music on repeat) but pointed elbows in yellow polyester came down on the table-top, Toby rearranged herself against the vinyl booth back in some approximation of what relaxed looked like for other people and studied her opposite over the lip of wide white china cup. Emily, who gave looks like she was thinking more than she was saying, seeing things that Toby hadn’t given her in the sparseness of words; Toby worked her bottom lip across her teeth,
“It gets better,” the hope in the words was flimsy-thin and unsteady but it was a prayer whispered against baby-temple by night and it was laid down between them and smoothed out like one of the interminable paper napkins. “Life. At least it better had.” A note then, ornery as if squaring ready for punches; Toby’s chin notching upright, defiance fighting weariness for just a little before it subsided under the weight of an hour or six til shift end. She watched the play across Emily’s face, the darting changes that said more than talkative girl would and wondered what exactly it was that battled itself out and pressed itself flat into words that said nothing when Emily was clearly fond of them. “Guess you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for something like that,” because she didn’t fit, did she, even bobbing along at Liam’s side - Liam who didn’t fit for all his people, Liam who counted out coins without even looking at them, who’d more than once taken out enough cash to pay for everyone’s meals, not just his own, but she wasn’t thinking about that -- with effort, Toby tugged her thoughts away from down that track, looked at the smile too small to be anything genuine and raised eyebrows, the familiarity of concern finding its footing once again in her veins.
“Do you think so?” There, the candid question, the clincher. No judgment from her frazzled end, nor any blatant blazing expectation. Em looked at Toby from across that tiny sea of distance and did not guard, did not offer, merely watched on in open-ended curiosity, the lines of her features gone soft with wondering. Optimism and ideals showed in the most unexpected places -- the lessons one learns from a house like Haven -- and oh, she hoped with occasionally embarrassing fervency that those laws could coexist with the real world, the one which she made such a damnable effort to walk parallel to rather than through or with. “Most people don’t, which is just...” Raised hand teetering from one side to the other before she dipped middle finger down to palm and then back up, waving the very idea away: sad, or understandable, or just plain ridiculous.
Not that Emily’s faith in people was absolute -- anything but. Trust was a fragile, hard-earned thing; they were all selfish bastards and it was just asking for heartbreak to hand over one’s faith without consideration, without mindful examination the way one would check over a horse prior to purchase. As a larger construct, an entity of its own kind where one was forced to factor in mob mentality and so-called crowd wisdom, they were horribly flawed things. She tried -- tried -- to remain convinced that the working parts, the individual people, were better than not. So perhaps trust wasn’t wisely handed out all at once, but rather piecemeal, person to person, a safer, smarter way of things.
And if Toby had any idea as to the philosophizing her tablemate was doing, Em realized she’d likely get kicked to the curb. With a blink and a purposeful raising of cup to mouth, she shook off the cage of her own thoughts and tuned back in.
But it was a question that was too tremulous to exist in this place, where philosophising was limited to the alcoholic, the deep and meaningful looks given to black coffee given by those with heavy eyes and the opiate-sweet smiles; that question shivered through the delicate surface-tension, smooth and cool, of the two women sat across from one another in a cracked-vinyl booth and stirred itself against the back of Toby’s neck, restless and adrenaline-bitter. She had her chin leaned against her palm, elbow propped on the table and where Emily was drifting dreamily into places about trust and the goodness of the world, that knife-sly question sifted through her memories and tugged out the ones of life-as-better. Life when talking to strangers, vague visions of a bruise-coloured possible future over eggs and coffee and not enough sleep was the usual and it had her legs swung over the side, battered white tennis shoes catching against the table-leg in haste.
“Got to get back to work,” Em tuned back into a conversation that had ended without her, Toby recalibrated her world to what was necessary, what was the sounds of the diner around her, the tug of duties before the close. The dull, tinny sound of the radio re-intruded and the napkin she’d been fidgeting with (torn into neat little strips, confetti, messy - when was the last time she’d done that?) she balled into her hand, sweeping away the mess (evidence) as if she’d never been sat there to begin with. She found the tone, that one politely distant used with people she didn’t need to offend (the other, hard-cold-cruel, sliding the scale as if a song that was too-familiar, buzzed against the brain to make it hurt, used as often, as necessarily as this one) and climbed back into it. “Sat here too long. Enjoy your coffee.” A phrase rarely used, thin platitude of the working waitress - too polite to be Toby un-rattled as she stood there, a cipher of someone rather than anyone at all - yellow polyester, look that said ‘do not ask for anything’ and distant blue eyes.
In another situation, she’d have been unsurprised by Toby’s about-face. Were Emily not busy tripping over her own concerns, were she more Em-of-Haven and not Em-at-odds, she would have noted warning signs and seen to lay off, to guide things in a different direction, to keep her hand steady but her touch lighter. She was off her game, though, as rattled as the companion she’d gained then lost between words. Startled, too self-involved for her own good, and the big-eyed blinking on her part allowed only a moment’s dismay through, regret and chastisement and some weird brand of apology there and gone in a flash. Probably for the best; Toby was no Havenite, no shattered magician in need of soft-spoken reassurance or too-confident hands. (Even if she was, still better to follow along and cut things short now -- Em’s unflappable confidence had been shaken to a point where if asked for an assist, she’d do better by everyone to draw back.)
“Right.” Thoughtless response, agreement in the face of regaining one’s bearings, and Toby had cleared all traces of herself from the table by the time Emily followed with a more conscious, more sincere “thank you”. She watched the other woman turn back to work, noted details not with Liam’s opportunistic eye, but Em’s own measured habit of tallying up: ‘too thin, too pale, too tired -- could use a good meal or five’, as if doing so might actually be of use here and now.
The message rang loud and clear regardless: welcome, but do not overstep. No surprise when she sat straighter and more self-aware, when she finished her coffee and gathered up all leavings into a neat little pile -- spoiled only child, yes, but raised in a house not made for children by a woman who didn’t take well to stray toys or dirty dishes. Em lingered a bit longer sheerly because -- all ‘OPEN’ signs were made specifically for Andleys, all places their places until invitation had actually be revoked (and even then) -- but was more part of the diner than off in her own head. When she did go, it was with a last, thoughtful look thrown Toby’s way, and cash for coffee and excess for a tip tucked beneath her empty cup. Back to Liam’s for as long as he’d have her, back to the flat which housed innumerable transient bodies, her own now amongst its numbers. The next time she saw its owner, she’d make a point of saying ‘yes, hello, guess who I had a chat with?’, all secret smile, as if Emily and Toby had shared world-secrets rather than bad coffee and brief conversation.