Zoe Kemp (lightningseed) wrote in darker_london, @ 2016-04-15 23:28:00 |
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Entry tags: | cai finch, zoe kemp |
Grazed (Zoe, Cai)
The first thing Zoe said to Cai when he came to pick her up from university was “I don’t have concussion.”
He drew closer, his hand gently outstretched toward the bandage on her head, but Zoe pulled back before he could get closer. Guilty, Cai dropped his hand quickly, and grasped both hands behind his back. Zoe leaned against the bonnet of his car. “I did hurt my head, but most of this is where I dragged it across the ground. I didn’t bash it when I fell.”
“Okay,” said Cai, in something like shock. His stomach was doing an excited nervous dance under his ribs. The graze didn’t take up half of her face, as she’d thought earlier. Instead, the worst of it was covered by a square of white bandage to the left of her eye, though he could see a minor rash of it escaping up toward her hairline. “That sounds hideous. Are you alright?”
“It hurts,” said Zoe, bluntly. The skin stung, and behind her eyes it still felt like her brain was gently throbbing with uncomfortable heat. “And the vision it came with was useless. Like a scare tactic, to try and push me into action without giving me a direction.” She glared. She didn’t look at him when she glared, and even if she had, he knew her well enough by now to know that it was directed at herself, not him.
“Well,” he said. “We’ll just have to work on it.”
The glare fell away, though she still didn’t look at him. An almost physical burst of gratitude had swamped all her anger. Nothing was ever hopeless when Cai was around. She finally held out a hand toward him, and he stepped toward it, and braided his fingers through hers. Cai leaned against the bonnet next to her, their hands together, their legs not quite touching. “A real vision, huh?”
“Fits and everything,” Zoe grumbled. “It was our first vision. Me chasing Rachel, someone chasing us out of the funeral.”
Cai went still. “Out of Dom’s funeral,” he said, very quietly.
Zoe swallowed hard. She didn’t have to say anything, she didn’t even have to nod.
She wanted to say ‘maybe not’. She wanted there to be hope. But she’d had a vision of a funeral, and he’d had a vision of Dom’s death, and even though it had been months and months and months since the last hint of this it was impossible not to put the two together and get tragedy.
Lately – since Christmas – her brain had switched to the other threat. The darkness, the roaring, the frustrating lack of answers.
Switching back made her feel helpless. A tiny boat with a telescope in a storm, able to see the waves coming without any ability to either stop them or get out of their way.
Cai pulled away from her so he could pace back and forth beside the car.
Zoe watched him go without moving herself. The restless energy had drained out of her and she was having a rough time staying upright. She sympathised, though. “We were wearing running shoes this time,” she said, because practical details were easier than figuring out how to sound sympathetic. Cai nodded as he paced. Wear running shoes to the funeral, that’s what he’d told her when they first met. “Okay,” he said. “Okay okay, that means we’ve changed something.” The way his whole body lit up with hope was almost painful to see. Zoe wanted to believe that changing one thing meant they could change it all – but she couldn’t let herself hope as easily as he could. Cai reached the end of his pacing and spun around, pointing at Zoe. “You should come home with me,” he said, then added, “for dinner.”
“And in case it triggers any more visions?” Zoe asked, dryly, but took it back almost as soon as she’d said it, because it made Cai realise what he’d been asking.
“No! I mean” – guilty, guilty – Cai stopped talking, since he couldn’t make it better. “I’m sorry,” he said. “No, not to try and trigger any visions. Because it’s been ages since you’ve come over for dinner.”
“Nice save,” Zoe said. “But I will come, and I will leave my mind open as possible, to receive any visions the world wants to send me." She accompanied this with a grand hand gesture, as grand as she could manage with the amount of energy she had left. "I only might have concussion, after all.”
Cai looked horrified. “You blatantly said you didn’t have concussion!”
“I might have blatantly lied,” Zoe was unapologetic, despite Cai’s face. Every emotion he had was scrawled across his forehead, in the twist of his mouth, shining out his eyes. Zoe suddenly wanted to take her hands and smooth them all away. “It’s alright,” she said, then added: “Another vision isn’t going to kill me.”
Cai breathed out loudly through closed lips. “Don’t even joke about it.”
Zoe raised an eyebrow, which made the skin on her face pull painfully beneath the bandage, so she dropped it back down again quickly. She wished she could say something reassuring like ‘I’m not going to die,’ but it felt like asking for trouble. She frowned – which also hurt her face. This was going to be a very annoying injury to recover from, if she couldn’t frown or raise her eyebrows. She sighed, which was just supposed to be a small sigh, but it felt like a good deal of her remaining strength escaped with the exhale. “It’ll be nice to see you family,” she said, exhaustion making her genuine. Seeing them did also mean she got to put off worrying Liz for another few hours, but that was just an added bonus. Zoe slid off the bonnet and climbed into the car, closing the door gently to avoid loud noises.
“Okay,” said Cai carefully, as he climbed into the drivers seat just as carefully. “Just so you know, things might be a little tense at home.”
Zoe raised her eyebrows at him before she remembered not to. She made a mental note never to need stitches in her face because her default expressions would just tear them out. “Why?” she asked, firmly, instead.
“Uh,” said Cai, putting his seatbelt on and starting the car before he replied. “Everyone’s still a bit on edge since the chicken thing. It’s just… some days are more tense than others.” He wondered if she could hear how much he wasn’t telling. Probably; Zoe was an expert at keeping terrible or painful things to herself, he was sure she’d be able to hear it in the voice of other people, especially his own, since he had way less practice than she did.
But he was afraid that if he told her it would begin a crack down on his sisters that he wouldn’t be able to stop, and Cai was already feeling guilty about his own crack down on Roe.
Nonnie’s words I know she hasn’t been happy lately. I know she’s been taking it out on herself and how strongly she’d urged him to be a better brother were loud in his heart.
He loved Zoe; truly, he did, but he couldn’t justify setting her on someone so small as Roe. The girls need patience, and kindness, not someone else seeing Roe as a threat. Cai had spent a long time talking to Nonnie about this, and thinking about it on his own. Roe needed support if she was going to eventually calm down and feel safe in her place in the family, and stop saying things like so send me back, then!.
“Well,” said Zoe, reasonably. “I’ll fit right in then.”
Cai reached across the car and took her hand. “We’ll figure everything out,” he said, like a promise.
Zoe closed her eyes. That, at least, didn’t hurt. “Sure,” she said, and squeezed his hand in return.