Who: Callum & Catherine What: Conversational shenanigans When: May 1st, late afternoon, St. Francesville Where: Along the midway at first, then the dining tent. Warnings: Language, momentary smuttiness in the form of a book quote from The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, discussions of the wolf eatin' people. And a dog. He ate the dog. Status: Complete
Once again the circus had moved in a blink. It wasn’t anything that Catherine would ever get used to, she didn’t think. She had spent the start of the day in her home, fighting off a headache from a vision in a dream. It hadn’t been terrible but her head had been throbbing for hours after. Now that it had cleared up, she had dressed in the green almost Druidic dress she usually wore and brushed out her mess of curls as best as she could. Afterward, she stepped out of her little home and started for the construction. The rousties were hard at work as usual - the circus was such a busy hive of little roustabout bees when they first moved.
But what she really needed to find out was where they were putting her work area. Usually it was about the same place but sometimes the layout changed. The circus was a mutable thing, a breathing entity and sometimes that very fact drove her crazy. She liked things to be where she left them. Part of her hated walking the circus while it was being raised up. It was always a risk for her to go anywhere around sharp metal, hoping she didn’t have a vision that knocked her on her ass.
As soon as she spotted the gangly Scotsman she had been half-looking for, she called out to him, staying back a good distance, “Oi, wolf-man!” Catherine waited for a moment, one eyebrow arched as she made sure she had his attention, “I expect you’ll be helping me with the innards of my tent, later.” Catherine didn’t ask for help - never had, never would… But she wasn’t opposed to insinuating that it was expected.
------ Callum quite enjoyed the day they arrived someplace new. It was always a challenge trying to figure out where to put everything and how to fit it all, and how to secure it into whatever terrain they were on, this time. It sounded easy enough! But that wasn't always the case. Keeping a tent upright on sand, or keeping things from blowing away by the seaside, etcetera. Thankfully he had a hard working team of roustabouts to help with it all. Creatures with super strength, bastards smarter and more creative than him, and so on. He was glad to have their help!
While he did enjoy the moving days, and setup days, it was always tiring. So he'd usually end up celebrating a good day's work with beer, or bourbon, lots of turkey legs, and maybe a carnival dessert or two before going back to his place to pass out. That was the schedule for a pretty successful day, if you'd asked him.
He was in black jeans and a worn and faded Quadrophenia t-shirt and busy with attempting to tighten a rope around a particularly stubborn stake when he heard the familiar voice. "Fuckin' shite," he grumbled with a bit of a roll to his eyes-- it was more a habit, now, than anything. when it came to the Irish Woman.
Tugging tighter at the rope, he gave a glance over toward Catherine as he wrapped it around the stake again, that he now had his boot on top of, to hopefully -- hopefully encourage it to stay in the mud, this time. "Yeah?" He called back at her, once he was done tying the rope, and was just busy trying to keep the stake from slipping loose again.
He smirked at her question and shook his head, giving a look back to the stake as he slowly took his foot off of it and took a step back to survey it, "yeah.. don't I always? Same time, right? After I get the Ferris Wheel up and running, this afternoon," he wiped his hands on his jeans and looked back over toward Catherine, that lopsided smirk of his still very much present. “Why?” ------- Catherine couldn’t help but smirk when she faintly heard him cursing her very existence - not in so many words, of course, but she knew that tone of voice and she didn’t take it to heart. Not with him. Even if she had thought he actually meant it, that wouldn’t stop her from bothering him. He really was having trouble with that stake and that ground though wasn’t he? As he fought and she waited for an answer, she focused on the rope and the wood, letting her mind go for a moment.
Hrm.
Once he seemed satisfied with his work, she approached properly. “Yes you do. You’re a good puppy like that,” she reached up to pat his shoulder lightly, smirking faintly. It wasn’t nice to tease him about his wolf but she’d never claimed to be so. “Just making sure. Never know, you might change your mind.” Making sure it looked like a proper fortune telling tent was her job, really - not his - setting out the tarot cards that she couldn’t actually read and the crystal ball which she could.
Catherine was still somewhat zeroed in on the stake and rope, shaking her head a little, “Fairly certain it’s going to slip.” She, of course, wasn’t trying to tell him how to do his job. Callum knew damned well what he was doing or else he wouldn’t have been the lead roustie. This was more a professional opinion of her own sort, a hint of a vision on the fringes of her Sight.
----- He really wasn't cursing her very existence. He quite liked the friendly rivalry he had going on with her. And yes, he was having quite the trouble with the stupid tent, and the stupid stake, and this fucking mud.
He sighed narrowing his eyes to focus on her as she gave his shoulder that pat-- and-- and bloody called him puppy. Fine. If anyone was gonna call him ‘puppy’, he guessed he'd allow it to be Catherine. He guessed. After a beat, he nodded over her right shoulder, "I’ll get the shelving and tables and chairs set up for you after lunch. You need some help? With your frilly crystal ball mind reader shit? Loading it in, I mean.”
He paused in his words, blinking, and looking from her, to the stake. Then back to her, back to the fucking stake, "what," and then back to her as he straightened up and crossed his arms over his chest. Frowning, he shifted in his stance. Was she fucking kidding?
"You fucking serious?" He dropped his arms back down, motioning to the stake with the nearest, "well, now I gotta re-do it." Because she was fucking psychic. She knew, didn't she? -----
“Well, that and our good natured bickering. Vision headaches don’t leave me in the brightest of moods, ‘y’ken’,” she put it in Scots slang simply because she’d picked it up from him. ‘Know’ had slipped out of her lexicon and she blamed Callum for it. Maybe he was trying to turn her Scots and she didn’t realize it… Nah. “I might a bit later. Y’re still fussin’ about with all this. I don’t actually want to distract you fully from your work.”
Catherine nodded slightly as he put it all together and got right down to that annoyance with the stake again. Poor man. “Wouldn’t a longer stake in a slightly different spot fix it well enough? Surely it’s not that big of a problem.” She figured just jam a foot-and-a-half long piece of wood or something down there and he’d be set. But she wasn’t a roustie so what the Hell did she know?
She wrapped her arms around herself, stepping backwards to get out of the way once again, “I’ll go get your lunch. I know what you like. You fix this.”
----- He narrowed his eyes again when she said what she did. Was she having her headaches, then? "Yeah... I know.. are you okay?" He'd help her now, or later, whenever she needed it, really, but she wasn't distracting him from his work. He was just trying to out-stubborn the stake.
"Ughhh," he groaned with frustration, though it ended up more of a growl as he turned to go back over to the stake, leaning down to easily yank it back up out of the mud. "I'll have to go find one of the bigger stakes-- like we use for the big top," he hruffed, straightening up to look back at her as she started back to get out of the way again.
Pursing his lips, he pointed to her with the muddy stake, "you'd better know what I like, yeah? You're a fuckin' psychic," he teased, but honestly, couldn't keep a straight face for too long. Giving her a wink, he turned his attention back to the stake, and then to the tent. He'd have to go find a bigger piece of wood to shove into the ground. Maybe a hammer or a mallet to get it in there too. -----
Catherine tried to remember the last person who showed concern for her as easily as Callum did and she couldn’t put anyone in that place. Perhaps her eldest brother but once he’d married, they’d not had much contact. He’d found her visions disturbing by the end of it… She ducked her head slightly, tucking blonde curls behind one ear with a slight nod, “I’ll be fine. At least it wasn’t a seizure.” And with that reminder full and present, she was more than ready to get out of the way of the rousties. She didn’t need another scar.
A soft clearing of her throat pushed away the interest that came with a growl and she watched him pull the stake from the muck. Not quite an impressive feat of strength considering but who didn’t enjoy watching men at proper work? “There’s no helping it - though I don’t expect Management would be easy to sue if a tent came crashing down. Not that it’s overly likely that they would anyhow, being magic and such.”
She barked a laugh, tossing her head back, “As if you’re difficult to figure out. If you had it your way, you’d breed monstrous turkey creatures made only of legs!” She twirled away from him then to start heading towards the dining hall tent. He’d meet her there, she was sure of it. ----- Well, yeah. He had concern for her.. he felt like he needed to look out for her, considering. He'd been the one to witness and help her after the incident, not long after she'd first arrived at the circus. She likely hadn't been able to get rid of him since! "Yeah, not yet... take care of yourself, will you? Aren't seizures the next step? Headaches, and then so on?"
Callum was no 'Strong Man' with super strength or anything like that, but the whole werewolf thing had given him a little bit more strength than say, maybe he had had before. But no, yanking the stake out of the mud was no feat. "I don't know.. but let's hope a tent doesn't come crashing down, yeah? I'd rather not get yelled at for screwing everything up."
He frowned, "yeah, yeah." So what! Maybe he did love turkey legs! He liked other stuff too! But oookayyy... turkey legs were his favorite. Catherine was right.
Watching as the ridiculous Irish woman twirled away, he eventually let his gaze drag away as he started off to go find a larger stake.
It was maybe 20 or 30 more minutes before he showed up in the dining hall tent, he'd made a stop off at his trailer to wash up a bit before he did. Mud and everything else did not mix well with turkey legs.
Giving a bit of a look around, it didn't take him long to spot Catherine, and he started over to her and-- presumably-- his lunch. -----
Shaking her head, she told him, “No, there’s no progressive steps. I’ll explain it over lunch though, if you’re really curious.” It was a complicated sort of system of injury. Well, perhaps not totally complicated but it had more detail to go over than she should while he was working. And she really did hope no tents started falling down around them, if only because with her luck, she’d be in the tent that fell and end up crushed or smothered or some such. “ Or fired - then you’d never get to see me again.”
After arriving at the dining hall, all she’d had to suggest was ‘Callum’s plate’ and then get something for herself which generally consisted of some kind of ham sandwich and crisps. Not particularly creative but she hadn’t really known what she wanted. Even now, this wasn’t it. She was picking at the bread and the crisps but hadn’t taken a bite of the sandwich properly by the time he arrived (blessedly washed as much as a roustie could be).
“I see you decided to freshen up for me,” she fluttered her eyelashes at Callum as he approached, motioning to the spot across from her. “Did you get it fixed up then?” Of course he did, but it was a way to start a bit of chitchat. ----- "I mean.. yeah, if you'd like? But there's no steps? It's just-- it does whatever it feels like?" He waved at her to go on, "I'll let you explain at lunch." She'd said that already. But he'd still been trying to talk to her. It was fine.
His brows furrowed, "well, I fuckin' hope not.. this is the best place for me to stay. If I get fired, I'd have to find another place with a werewolf-sized cage, yeah?" He didn't want to get fired. But the possibility was always there, wasn't it??
"Fuck off," he came over to flop down across from her with an amused smirk, "I freshened up for my turkey," he gave her a wink as he reached for one of the turkey legs, "and yeah." He took a bite as he looked across at her. Of course he'd washed up for her.. but he wasn't going to admit that out loud to her!
Setting the turkey leg back down, he reached for his napkin to wipe at his fingers before he went for the bottle of beer. Inspecting the label, he shrugged, "I got a bigger stake. Like you said. The mud was still pissing me off, though. You got the wrong kind of beer, Mindreader," he teased, twisting the cap off and bringing the bottle up for a sip.
-----
She was such a work-oriented person that she wasn’t going to let him carry on questioning her. There were things that needed to be done and they would get done as long as she wasn’t interfering. Sometimes, she was just no fun to be around. So she had only smiled at Callum like she was amused but not trying to be. “Oh I’m sure there’s plenty of places for a werewolf… Mostly government labs, of course,” Catherine arched an eyebrow but left it at that. She was certain all those thoughts had gone through Callum’s head before just like with her… Would they let her live or would they want to dissect her brain? Who knew.
But then it was lunch and there was turkey and teasing which she could always get behind. Well, usually get behind. “I’m sure the dead bird appreciates it,” she rolled her eyes slightly. But at least the tent was fixed. “The mud will apologize when it’s had time to cool down,” which was likely a joke only she would find amusing but what the Hell ever. “As if I know anything about beer - you know I’m a whiskey girl.”
Heaving a breath, she leaned forward over her plate, elbows on the table, “So now, education time. What happens to me depends on the vision. The more important the content, the worse the effect. Little things get headaches or nosebleeds. More dire warnings get seizures. God only knows what would happen to me if I Saw the end of the world.” Catherine frowned, crossing herself out of habit. God forbid that ever happened. ----- As far as Callum was concerned, he could do both. Talk and work, work and talk. You had to get used to that sort of thing when you were a Roustabout. It made the day and the work go by faster. And for the life of him, he couldn't understand people that were heavily work-oriented.
He frowned again at her words, though he wasn't entirely sure whether or not he was actually bothered by that comment or not. Government Labs? Way to bring the mood down. He glanced down at the stake in his hands. Government Labs-- it was more like prison for him, he was sure of it, if anyone caught up to him.
Lunch, turkey, company, teasing, who couldn't get behind that? Beer too! He rolled his own eyes at her sarcastic comment about the dead bird he was chomping on. And whatever the crack was about the mud. He arched a brow and took another sip of beer, "well, yeah, I prefer whiskey, m'self.. but I've got a couple'a more tents and a fuckin' ferris wheel to put up, this afternoon, so.. Prob'ly shouldn't be completely shit-faced, yeah? You must've known that, otherwise you'd've gotten me whiskey, I'm assuming.." He was making a playful jab, sure.
Nodding, he gave Catherine a wink, and brought his bottle of beer up for another drink. "Mmm," He hummed, "Mind Reader and Educator- be still, my fucking heart," he set his bottle of beer down before placing his own elbows on the table, and leaned in more toward her. Scooping up the turkey leg, he took another bite out of it as he listened to her explain.
"Yeah," he began as he looked to the turkey leg, "but," he shrugged a little, lifting blue eyes back to her as he gestured to her with the nommed on leg of meat, "what makes you get the visions? Why would you see the end of the world? Why not some other Mind Reader? Or do you all have the same wiring, so you're all seeing the same shit like that? Like a party line? Facetime chat with your psychic friends? Like, ohp, Saw the fuckin' end of the world! Guess Margaret the psychic were-koala did too!"
-----
Surely argumentative and angry mud was a good joke… No, not really. It was terrible but what could she really say? She liked odd humor. “And I’ll have fortunes to tell - though mostly it’ll be women wanting to know when they’re meeting their tall, dark and handsome stranger.” She rolled her eyes. Half of her work was gimmick. The other half, someone would come in wanting to know something real - who murdered their brother or some such. She would help as much as she could but often times they didn’t have something belonging to the person for her post-cognition to work and they’d have to come back another day. “So,” she gestured to the bottle of water next to her plate. Whiskey would have to wait. “Never assume. Why would I do anything that nice for you?” But she was smirking, shaking her head slightly.
“You have no idea the things I could teach you,” she told him with a wry smile.
Explaining her abilities was always a trial. There were questions and she couldn’t answer them. Catherine shrugged, “No clue. My grandmother said they were a gift from God. My eldest brother said they were from the Devil. Once I was told I was a chosen disciple of Apollo, like the oracles of old. I could quote you the entirety of Bleak House, but I could never explain why I See what I See or how or…” she trailed off, shrugging again and breaking one of her crisps in half idly, rather than eating it. ----- Somewhere, surely. Maybe. "This afternoon? Already? What do you tell them?" He brought the turkey leg back for another bite. Though, her smug little 'so' had him frowning again as he chewed, "didn't figure as much." His blue eyes searched that expression on her face, though. She didn't have to do anything nice for him.. but he knew she was just messing with him.
He busied himself with tearing off another bite of turkey to chew, before he set the, now, half eaten turkey leg down and reached for his napkin again. Smirking, he gave her an amused look, "oh yeah? What sort of things, hm?"
So it was a little like the fact that he was a werewolf. There were always questions, and he could answer the basics, but he didn't know. He didn't know who'd bitten him. He didn't know, exactly, how it had happened, he just knew he'd been chased, pounced, and dragged through an alley. Then he'd turned into a werewolf a month later. And ate some people. And again, the next month. Really, he didn't know. It was all unclear.
He nodded a bit, "Maybe it's not a religious thing. Maybe you're just a mutant. Or an alien. An X-Man. or woman. Like Professor Xavier, but less bald, and way hotter. Please don't quote Bleak House to me. I dunno what it is, but it sounds boring as fuck," he glanced down to the crisps that she was idly breaking.
"You're wasting those, you know," he reached across to steal a few of her chips.
-----
Catherine laughed softly at the misunderstanding and shook her head, “No, that’s just my usual fare. I don’t even have to be psychic to know it’s coming. Though I can tell you for those ones, looking for love, I just make shit up. Half my job is people watching.” Wait, was he pouting at her? She reached out with a foot to tap it against his, scrunching up her nose a little, “Sort of thing’s for the end of the day, when we’ve not got to have our wits about us.” It was not subtle the way she brushed her fingers along the scar on her cheek. Alcohol or visions - she wasn’t going to risk it.
She glanced from one side to the other as if she were about to reveal a secret - an illusion helped as she lowered her voice to a whisper, leaning a bit more forward, “I’m not sure you could handle it, my lad.” Ha. Lad. As if he weren’t so much older than she was.
She grinned as he went on the long list of alternatives to religion but she shook her head a little before pushing her curls back out of her face again, “Religion at least gives me someone to blame. The other options don’t. Especially when I’m worried it will kill me eventually. And I’ll take, um, First Class Charles, thank you. Gorgeous man.” Which was a downer thing to say but with all the seizures, surely there was some sort of damage being done. Did psychic seizures count? She wasn’t sure.
“Bleak House is Charles Dickens, you uncultured Scottish ragamuffin,” she had almost called him trash rather than ragamuffin but she wasn’t that mean and he pouted so well… Catherine certainly didn’t stop him from stealing her crisps. She wasn’t going to eat them anyway. “Here, I know what you’d like,” she closed her eyes and went through all the words stored in her mind, “In the topmost bedchamber of the house he found her. He stepped over sleeping chamber maids and valets, and, breathing the dust and damp of the place, he finally stood in the door of her sanctuary. Her flaxen hair lay long and straight over the deep green velvet of her bed, and her dress in loose folds revealed the rounded breasts and limbs of a young woman.” Catherine opened one eye, trying so hard not to laugh. That particular book (she hesitated to call it a novel) wasn’t exactly the highest quality, nor a good representation of… really anything… But she’d read it and so she remembered it.