WHO: Simon Fields and Carter Pukhova WHEN: Backdated to the Friday of the outing. WHERE: Outside of Jazz Hands SUMMARY: Carter and Simon weigh in on how their shared past lives differ. Loads of contemplative thinky thoughts too. PROMPT: Orange - School WARNINGS: Mild cigarette smoking? Mild cursing? STATUS: Complete
Free drinks were all someone had to say to get half the angered town in the joint. Saul had really made a rash decision, but Simon had not been above taking advantage of it to continue celebrating his 21st birthday. The whole list business bothered him. Finally knowing who the Mad Hatter was and having a way to contact him seemed foreign on the edge of Simon’s mind. Furthermore, Simon being the relatively cautionless person he was, had decided the same day had been the best one to open another scroll. Memories fought in his mind over how he should react to things, though he imagined it would be harder for mundanes that did not already compartmentalize a different self away from the now-self.
Leaving the small group for the moment, allowing Nate and Eliza to continue chatting and his sister to do whatever she was doing, Simon went out the back to get some fresh air.
Carter knew she was running “late” but she did nothing to hurry her steps. Late was often relative. But particularly to someone like her who could keep people waiting longer than they might like if they hadn’t managed to wrangle a set time from her. But seeing as she’d probably been one of the first people to answer Saul’s open invite, she probably should’ve been the first one through the door. If only so she wouldn’t miss out on the alcohol. The possible snacks. Or anything entertaining.
Or, at least, because she had insisted that Eliza make an appearance and told Simon she would meet him there.
That had been several hours ago. A number of things had happened in those hours. Least of which was getting the ice she’d told Saul she would bring. And some food.
Carter switched the bags from one hand to the other and pushed back her hoodie as she approached the establishment. She could make Simon out as she got even closer. Her eyes pursued his figure thoughtfully, but they didn’t settle on any one point.
In the space of those several hours, since they’d last spoken, Carter had opened her scroll. Like she had said she would. The one where she was a male, a Russian one (and that was a weird kind of funny), and they had traveled Europe causing mayhem. Well, trouble. Ruslan had caused mayhem, occasionally, but most of the time he had let Felix keep him on a “leash”.
“Experiencing” it made that reality no less puzzling than when she’d put the pieces together from the information Simon had shared with her.
“Hey.” She called out as she approached even nearer.
Simon blinked up at the approaching figure, coming back to focus on the reality around him. There were moments since the change of potions that Simon was unsure if he was having an episode or not, though the weirdly sweet liquid had been created to give him warnings of full on episodes- Simon did not know yet if it worked for the microsleeps.
“Hey, Carter.” A smile and wave was given before he stood up to help her carry something. “Want help?”
“I’m okay. But if you want to,” She lazily shrugged a shoulder. “Sure. Are you ready to head back in?” She had considered refusing the help, mainly because she didn’t need it and didn’t want Simon to feel obligated to make the effort.
“I mean, I just got out here- I think. But yeah, we could go back to the table. I sort of left Nate and a very fear-high Eliza to their own trouble,” he smirked. “But Arden is our current acting babysitter of the drunk and off balanced.” Having his sister act as extra eyes helped relieve the stress from their mother, but she also did not stop them from doing whatever they wanted either, so it worked in their benefit. Simon had been sneaking drinks to his besties since they got there.
Carter’s frown was minute at the mention of Eliza. She didn’t know Arden. She knew that she was Simon’s sister -- but she didn’t know Arden -- and he trusted her. Her cousin was probably fine. But Carter wanted to at least check her over; maybe state the offer to leave town again. For some place less filled with people oozing out fear and anger. “Wait. Let me get these in before they melt. And I’ll come back. We. We should talk. Maybe. About the scroll.” Simon shrugged and nodded, waiting for her to get back with a cigarette between his fingers.
She gave him a pause to answer before she went in with the bags. Several minutes later, errand delivered, cousin observed, people greeted, and Carter was outside again. With a grilled cheese in hand and a homemade curry fries in a bag for herself. “Less noise out here.”
“Yeah, that’s why I escaped.” He smirked, scratching his chin. “I might drag Nate and Eliza home just to not be amongst people- which was completely my idea in the first place, but I didn’t think so many would take up the offer.” That was not entirely the truth, but the bar only held so many people and the poor bartenders were not getting much out of all the drinking.
“It’s free alcohol. And people need something to do.” She would have needed something to do, at any rate. Or that had been her intention. Until talking with Eliza and Simon had happened.
Unable to make sense of her thoughts, feeling stuck, Carter had been racking up ideas on acceptable activities. Acceptable being: At most an hour’s drive from town. Because anything further felt like leaving. And she certainly wasn’t going to leave now - she couldn’t help but wonder if she would have an opportunity to really travel anytime soon in the future - after Elsie; after this list; after the hits seemed to be coming at a faster pace.
With a sigh, she reached into the bag and grabbed herself a fry. She chewed thoughtfully, taking the opportunity to savor her food before her eyes darted to Simon. “You were right.” She stated after she ate another fry. “It was a rough life.”
Not that she had doubted him. Carter might not have had much interest in school but she remembered the wars. Who didn’t remember learning about World War II? She figured it would be difficult. But she hadn’t really worried about it because rough was relative. And, well, it was World War Two.
Mid puff off his cigarette, Simon looked over at Carter. “So you opened it?” He knew she was going to, she had said she would, he had not expected Carter to look at the scroll before she even arrived at the bar. The idea in his head had saw her doing so in the next couple days, not immediately. The memories had been on the chaotic side, even for the sleepy mouse. For the french, for Felix’ family, the war had not been what public school taught them it was. Every country enjoyed rewriting history to lessen the negativity of what had happened specifically to them.
“Yep.” Carter took two more French fries and contemplated the cheese sandwich already in her hand. After a quick decision, she switched it, placed the sandwich into the bag. Sandwich for later and fries for now. Grilled cheese sandwiches were dubious when cold - though, personally, she liked them just fine - but fries were better for a conversation. Especially one with pauses.
She waited for him, in case he had anything else he felt he needed saying. Carter had a couple of thoughts on the matter. Yet she felt no hurry to voice them.
Simon’s want- or need- to be talkative ebb and flowed much like his level of awakeness. Carter’s simple response brought a nod in reaction. He stared out at nothing for a moment of further silence while his friend ate her fries. “What do you think?” Truthfully, Simon remembering Felix earlier would have made his school grades better in History. Or not. A french boy messing with Nazi’s by using his dream manipulation abilities to keep himself safe might have added a very strange twist to his essays.
Putting out his cigarette, he reached over to steal one of Carter’s fries. She was making them look too good to pass up, but he knew if he went back inside that he would not be leaving again without the rest of the trio.
Carter’s hand slithered upward and snatched Simon’s wrist before he could get too far. The instinct activated from the sight of someone’s fingers hovering near her food and well-honed from years of protecting her breakfast foods at home. Reflexively she tightened her grip. But gimlet-eyed contemplation settled heavily on him for a few moments, before she let him leave unscathed with the fry.
Then, took a few more for herself as if nothing had happened. In a sense, nothing had happened. Carter shrugged in response to his question.
Was there more for her to say? His words could’ve been searching for any number of things. She felt she had covered the basics before he had even asked them. It was a rough life, there had been a war, and Ruslan trusted Felix. A level of trust Carter would’ve never given to anyone outside of her family. She supposed, in a way, that Felix had been family to the Kraken. To Ruslan. She felt it interesting the pattern of how such a solitary creature allowed itself to imprint on certain humans. There were those It liked and cared for but there were those It viewed as --
Carter wasn’t sure how to phrase it. Even to herself. So, she didn’t waste the effort of trying to out loud. Especially, since she didn’t think it needed saying.
But it was a level of fierceness that went beyond liking. Beyond caring. Not quite propriety, not quite protectiveness. Carter had thought it was a matter of blood, a matter of years of dedication. Because no one reached the level of that feeling that the Pukhovs had.
“I’m surprised they didn’t get into more trouble.” There. Nailed it. Carter moved the fries closer to Simon to take if he wanted more. “I wonder if we’d find anything about them if we looked them up.” NPR or some historical special. “People write about cold war spies.” It didn’t sound like a question. But it was one.
Had they been spies? Or was it more information sellers? Or trolls before the word had been invented.
Being used to Eliza, Simon did not expect an intense conversation. The idea of some super deep conversation had not crossed his mind as he too had been unsure how to take the events around their past lives. Felix had had a thing for Ruslan; they had a complicated compatibility within the end of the war that drove them together and forward.
Simon smiled at her comment. “If they did write about them I'm sure it would be under fiction. Felix had a far better control of his abilities than I do.” Simon understood the unspoken question, but Felix had not considered himself a spy. They were opportunists and trolls in every sense of the word, but spies felt too formal.
“Huh. Maybe.” She interjected, mostly to herself. It’d be a start. But Carter wasn’t curious enough to follow the trail if the access wasn’t easy. She didn’t care about Ruslan the man beyond him being also the Kraken. And how he related with that. The answer, partially, was more carelessly than she did. But that might’ve been because he had fewer people to worry about than she did.
Carter fell silent as Simon continued to talk about his past life and the abilities. “And what does that tell you?”
“Tell me?” He replied. “Uh, that I suck and shit moved slower in the good ol’ days?” Simon did not understand the question. Where he had found disappointment in his previous life, knowing that his narcolepsy seemed to follow him through lives as his abilities did, there had been so much more intense things happening in Felix’ life to focus on. Living in Nazi controlled France as a person of ‘special talents’ who did not fall into line could have made him a target easily.
The narcolepsy still a large part of who each life had been, Felix felt different. There was a lack of fear of self or care that his episodes were uncontrolled. Felix took a hold of it and fit his life around it. It helped that later on Ruslan had come in, a far more dangerous person than he had been, but they complemented each other that allowed them to work- play- together. They were family where family had moved on.
“You said that he had better control.” Carter pointed out patiently. She put her fries away and leaned wiped her fingers mostly on a napkin and then again, a few seconds later, on her sweater for convenience sake. It was a mostly orange and black get up. Worn because she forgot to do her laundry. It wouldn’t really show the stains. Not that Carter cared. It was just an observation that caught her notice as she rubbed her fingers against the fabric.
“And that’s what it tells you?” She leaned back against a wall and planted her foot against it as well. In an incorrect imitation of a stork. Far from her to judge his self-pity. She had her own moments from time to time. “I’m going to take it that you’re being sarcastic again. ‘Cause things weren’t slow for them. And you don’t suck. So.” Carter shrugged as she crossed her arms and waited.
Simon laughed. As much as the Pukhovs were a family of less than emotional people, he still liked them. His dry sarcasm and random responses did not need to get reactions as they spilled from his lips without much forethought. Simon did not consider himself much of a talker, but he might have seemed so beside Eliza and Carter.
“God, you sound like my psychologist.” He scratched his chin, looking over at her. “It doesn’t really tell me much. Each life handles our same shit differently. I feel further removed from Felix because of it than I did Sevan.” He shrugged.
His gaze finally falling on Carter’s sweater, Simon gave her a questioning look before continuing. “What did living through Ruslan tell you? Other than a Dormouse is a great companion.”
Carter shrugged at his comparison. She wasn’t surprised. A lot of her material was borrowed from what helped her during her bouts of therapy. (And she listened when Sasha talked. For the most part.) Carter wasn’t the most emotive person. Yet sometimes she could understand or she had been in a similar enough position to what the person she cared about was feeling. Her default was to give suggestions that had worked for her. It wasn’t about her but if it worked before, it barred the effort of replicating. And she wanted to help if she could.
She nodded thoughtfully as Simon continued; because sometimes all you could do was listen. And she at least was good at staying silent.
“Family matters.” Carter suddenly felt vaguely uncomfortable and awkward. The reasoning behind that nearing close to things she didn't talk about with most. She took in a soft, audible, breath and pushed on. “And he would’ve agreed.” The grin that suddenly burst on her face was small. Yet very bright. “So. You’re not wrong.”
Carter didn’t speak up about Ruslan’s frustrations similar yet different to her own. The bitterness he sometimes felt over Felix; his human tether. It would’ve been easier for Ruslan to leave Felix than it would be for Carter to leave the other Pukhovs and Yulya. And, maybe even, her other friends. Yet he chose to keep that leash around all the while wondering how more himself - like the Kraken - he could’ve been without him. So, Felix pushed his bounds.
Carter was the opposite. Yet, she found it interesting, that it might seem like it on the surface.
Simon reflected her grin with a soft one of his own. The past duo had a strange relationship that was harder to quantify than the past trio. Having relived it as Simon inside of Felix’s brain, Simon too could not fully understand tie that kept them together. Felix had been attracted to the darkness of the other, in many ways; the Kracken being a dark void to the dancing lights and vivid dreams of the Dormouse. He had known Carter, was friends with her, but the history lesson of the past life made him wonder if it was the Dormouse being attracted to the dark ones that had initiated his attraction to Eliza.
Taking a deep breath, he sat back and pushed himself to his feet. “So, now that there is a new, strange level to our friendship, want to grab a drink inside with me? We can’t make the crew wait all night.” He held out his hand to pull her inside.
There were varied reactions from people on how the scrolls affected them, Simon was letting them affect him more than most- living in a dreamstate half his life it was not too much of a stretch to dwell on the memories- but if he followed the logic of his mother and tried to think about what he might learn from his past lives like Carter had sort of suggested, then he might make something more of them than just more dreams and nightmares.