Who: Silas (Eames) & Brea (Boo Radley) What: Movies and talking. Where: Brea’s apartment. When: Several days after they last spoke. Warnings: None! Fuzz.
It had been a few days since Silas had taken Jane to see Brea. He didn’t consider the excursion a success, and he’d left Aubade that day feeling more worried for the young woman in the elegant darkness than he had when he’d arrived. He’d spent the better part of the days that followed in search of light-blocking goggles, and while he’d found the material for such a thing, he was going to have to order the light-blocking glass inserted into waterproof (ergo enclosed) goggles.
He made his way into Aubade in a new, easier way - with an entrance card he’d stolen from Richard’s apartment - and he whistled his way to Brea’s apartment with a DVD under his arm. He loosened the bulbs on her hall as he walked, and then he knocked on her door. “Darling, it’s me,” he called out, thinking she wouldn’t be able to see through the peephole into the dark hallway.
In the intervening days since Silas and his friend had penetrated the inner sanctum of Brea's Aubade hideaway, she had done her best to go back to things as normal. She had ordered some more books on the internet, which had been delivered to the doorstep, and she tried to read one, until she got too sad thinking about all the happy things other people were doing. She had listened to a new radio station for a couple days, until she tired of hearing the same commercials and the same voices again and again, and she turned it back down again until it was a background hum. She'd tried a new recipe with fresh groceries, a kind of ginger cookie with nutmeg, and they turned out alright, but she couldn't really tell since there was no one to give a second opinion.
The day before Stephen had come, but again he would not stay, and he demanded to know more about Silas, but she knew very little about Silas, and she was unable to give him the answers he wanted. Again he warned her about letting in the light, and demanded to know if there had been any change in what she could see, and then he had told her it would be hard to tell on her own, anyway, and if she was losing any vision it would be her own fault. In return she asked him questions about the company and what he was doing, but he wouldn't talk about it, impatient with her for "butting in." She told him that Silas had brought a friend, but he grew so angry with her for letting them in that she was afraid to tell him that Jane was a doctor, and now she worried over her guilt at the concealment.
She missed his presence, as angry and resentful as it was, and her little world seemed a great deal smaller and emptier than before she had left its confines. She almost regretted doing so.
When his knock echoed through the apartment, Brea dropped the clean pillowcase she'd been folding and hurried to the door just as his voice came through. Hesitating she said, through the wood, "Are there more people with you?"
“No,” he assured her. “Just me and a movie,” he said shaking the DVD so she could hear it. He wasn’t really concerned that she wouldn’t open the door. In fact, it was one of his main reasons for returning - concern. He figured her as so lonely, so alone that she would let anyone inside, trusting as she was. Silas tried very hard not to care about people, and he’d had limited success along the way. Sam was safely in the arms of her vigilante, and no one else he’d come across needed him in the way this girl across the door did.
And, admittedly, he enjoyed her company.
He was right. About the letting people in and the being lonely, at least. Brea was not so trusting as she seemed about some things, things like doctors. As before, the door opened into the room beyond, and Brea hid behind it with her face turned away from the light as he made his way in. The familiar scent of dryer sheets was in the air, and a heap of ordinary looking laundry was on the ornate couch. In the light, it was possible to see Brea's packrat habits were neatly restrained with a certain sense of colorblind-style, and you just had to look at the shapes of things and the way they fit together to see it.
"You want to stay in the dark?" she appealed doubtfully, as soon as the door was shut behind him. Her strawberry presence was close and curious as she looked down at the DVD in his hand.
He stood still a moment, letting his eyes acclimate to the darkness. “Give me a moment to grow accustomed to the dark, Brea,” he said, holding out the movie (Roman Holiday). “Right now, you’re not even a lovely shadow yet.” He looked around the now-familiar living room, making out shapes and objects, and when he could make out shades of gray within the space, he stepped forward and smiled at her. “Take my coat?” he asked, already slipping the brown corduroy off his shoulders. The coat was more professor than con man, and he liked it for precisely that reason.
She was watching him anxiously as her shape resolved out of the near-black, knowing through some practice that it took a man a certain amount of time to adjust, but when he moved with confidence she ventured a small smile to his in return. Silas had none of Stephen's dependable, familiar patterns, but she was comforted by the toothless smile focused in her direction as it had always led to reassuring things in the past. (She drew upon her several minutes' and two meets' experience, here.) She took his coat, staring at it with some interest and running her fingers over the buttons curiously as she did so. "Jane isn't with you?" she asked, though it was obvious that she was not. One out of two times he had Jane with him, so she was working with precedents. She bore the coat away to a whimsically twisted bronze coat hanger that dangled little bird ornaments that were probably meant for Christmas.
“I suspect Jane is at work at this time of day, poppet,” he assured her. “She doesn’t have the best bedside matter,” he offered, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. He watched her go with his coat, and he watched her return, and he continued to hold the movie out for her to notice when she stopped to look at him again. He had a smile that was infinitely patient, because he was that. Life, Silas knew, was only time; there was no benefit in rushing through it. “Stephen isn’t about?” he asked, though it was obvious Stephen was not about, or one of them would have had their hands around the other’s throat by now.
Brea took the video and it was a mark of her low mood that she didn't exclaim more enthusiastic over it. "Oh," she said, with quiet happiness, "I do like Audrey Hepburn. She is so very made up and earnest at the same time." She smiled up at Silas, a couple inches from his chin and quite earnest herself. When she asked about Stephen she looked away sadly. "He was here yesterday. For a little while. But he's gone away now. Back to work or... or wherever he goes."
She drifted from him, slowly, leading him deeper into the apartment. They passed through the first entry way and her laundry on the couch, and into another room that at least had a few cracks in the shutters very high that gave him a little bit of light to go on. In this room, which he could sense was large enough for three men to lie down head to toes across it, featured a large television that had a great many wires going to and fro in front of it, and the screen was gray, like a giant Etch-a-Sketch. She bore the movie in that direction.
Across the room there was a deep cushioned sofa with paperback books lying on it, most of them new but one (Polgara the Sorceress, by David Eddings) was worn in fairly well. Brea seemed to favor escapist fantasy in her reading.
Silas followed, surprised she didn’t show more enthusiasm. In truth, he had been expecting more enthusiasm at his visit in general, and he considered it as he followed her through her dark, shadowy world. When they entered the gray room, he looked at the television with its cables, at the couch with its books, and he frowned thoughtfully. “The place I live in, it isn’t as nice as this, darling,” he began, crossing the room and heading toward the couch, He picked up the dog-eared book, flipping through it but unable to make out the text in the low-light. “But if you wanted to leave here and come with me, you could,” he offered. “At any time, darling.”
She turned back to look at him as he came deeper into the room, but when she could detect nothing about his state of mind from what she could see, she turned back the the television--not that it was much left of one, after all the modifications. She turned it on, and it made no sound of zapping power, only pixels shifting through a wave of gray as she put in the DVD to a tray on the bottom of the entertainment center. This, at least, looked normal, but it was connected to what looked like a tower computer processor. "No, I can't. It's bad for my eyes, and it won't do much good if I go out and then can't see anything forever. Then I won't even be able to watch movies." She looked up at the television, and the menu for the movie was now displayed there--but in varigrays, shifting as quickly as they could but still not as fast as a regular television screen. The ink that made up the image needed to shift to white before it could shift to the right picture, so it ended up looking like a moving newspaper print as much as anything else. Brea smiled at it and then came back to him and the couch. "This is a special television Stephen made for me," she said proudly, indicating it. "It doesn't shine light so I can watch things. The computer has a similar set-up."
He watched the screen a moment, but then he turned, his elbow on the back of the couch and his chin propped on his hand. “Darling, I don’t live far. You could close your eyes for the drive,” he told her, then, softer, “And, Brea, it’s a tradeoff, you see. There are many people in the world that cannot see. They have dogs to assist them, braille and the like. But they go out of doors, and they spend time in the world. What if we could find a way to save what vision you have, while allowing you to go out of doors. I want to see you living, poppet,” he admitted honestly, because he did. She was smart, this lonely girl in her tower. He realized she was frightened of possible blindness, but he couldn’t help but think that a life lived alone was worse than a life lived in the dark.
She shook her head, lips pressed together, soft hair shifting over the rough cut of her peasant blouse. "I don't want to be assisted. I like being able to see things, and read, and talk to friends on the computer. I couldn't read or talk or watch movies if I couldn't see," she pointed out softly. Brea's life was small and her chances at communication equally few. The loss of sight removed all of them from her, and she was understandably terrified of that. If Silas took her away, she had no conception of what the place beyond might be like, and if she didn't like it, she knew she wouldn't be able to find her way back.
“And if I can find a way to protect your vision, poppet? What then?” he asked, and there was no pressure in it, no anger if she said no. Just the question, the offer of it, unselfishly given.
She hesitated. "Then maybe I could go." She sat down at the edge of the couch, self-consciously smoothing her long pleated skirt, the plaid pattern of which was pleasant to her. The awful gold blue color of it was lost in the dim light, but the daylight probably wouldn't have been favorable to the outfit. Not unusual.
He watched her hands, the skirt reminding him of something worn on the old, black and white movies he so enjoyed. The ones where the women weren’t frightened to be women, with all the power that came with the title, and where men were men, civil and not monstrous. He suspected it would look garish in the bright light of day, but Brea’s world was old, black and white, romantic and with a softening lens. The skirt suited her. “We’ll think more about it once I’ve your new goggles built,” he told her with a wink. It was a promise, a dream (if she wanted it), and he had fairly accustomed himself to the notion that he was going to have to break the rules of not caring for this young woman.
He had her attention with that, the soft glow of her eyes courtesy of the crack in the shutters far aloft, not the television. "Goggles?" she asked, inching a little closer with interest as princess Audrey felt around for her lost slipper on the hitching grayscale screen. "For my eyes? Would that work?" She looked very hopeful, and she was so enchanted with the wink (the second time she'd seen him do it) that she smiled a bright smile that would be citrus if it was a flavor.
He smiled, but he did not laugh, not wanting her to think he was laughing at her. “I believe it should. I’ve found lenses that block out all light entirely. It’s used in space, you see, for astronauts near the sun. But we’ve a need for more light blocking on the periphery. We’ll need to have water tight goggles modified, so they create a seal that blocks every last bit of light. You won’t be able to see outdoors, love. But it means we’ll be able to go out for a walk, and you’ll still be able to return inside and retain your vision.” He thought about that as soon as he’d said at, and he looked like he’d just realized something. “Well, Brea, I wouldn’t be able to see outdoors with them, but I suppose you might, as you can see better in the dark than I can.” He didn’t mention cost, nor did he mention how he was going to afford the goggles.
"Space goggles!" Brea exclaimed, laughing with delight. "I bet they will look very silly." She didn't seem to mind though, beaming at the idea of space goggles on explorer Brea as she braved the outdoors. "We can try them at night first," she mused, looking at the screen without paying any attention to what was happening on it. "Nobody has better night vision than I do. Lots of things happen outside at night." She turned to look at him again, watching him carefully for more clues to his thoughts and mood. "Can I order them on the internet?"
“No, darling. I’m having them custom made,” he said, leaning back against the couch with an easy, indulgent smile. He was reminded of how Maud had said he had the right patience for children, and how he’d said eventually and someday. He reached out, and he tapped the back of his knuckles beneath her chin. “Run and make us some tea, darling, before Gregory Peck comes on the screen.” He was comfortable where he was, in no hurry to leave, and his demeanor said as much; this girl spent too much time on her own.
"Oh!" she said, surprised. "Thank you!" She was fairly confident that the brush of contact was a good thing, even affection, and she didn't hesitate to throw her arms around his neck in a brief hug, strawberries and warmth and happiness. "That's so lovely of you!" And then she was off the couch and vanishing into the darkness beyond the door, silent on bare feet.
The hug showed the lack of restraint that worried Silas so much when thinking about Brea. She was a woman, not a child; he knew that now. But her trusting affection would be exploited if she left this safe place. He cursed her brother a million times for a fool. He’d done his sister no favors by keeping her completely isolated from the world (and the evil that came along with it). He didn’t want to be the one to explain to her that hugs could be taken advantage of and that pretty young women could be abused. But he wanted her to live, dammit, and you couldn’t have life without caution - it was an unfortunate reality.
Working man Gregory Peck was looking dapper in his gray on gray suit by the time Brea returned with gently steaming cups. The movie played with admirable smoothness considering the time it took for the little gray pixels to refresh themselves, and Stephen's software smoothly staggered the audio slightly, slowing it to match the pace of the screen. Brea curled up on the couch and shyly offered over a little container of her ginger cookies and a cup. "What do you do when you go outside?" she asked innocuously, as Mr. Peck worked diligently on his story while trying to ignore the princess' charm.
Silas quite enjoyed the princess’ charm, and he smiled as he looked over at Brea. He took the container, secured himself two cookies before handing it back, and then took the cup and had a sip before replying. “Well, darling, I don’t do anything as industrious as our friend Mister Bradley,” he admitted. “I play cards, and I’m quite good. I make my living by winning,” he explained, though it was a bit more complicated than that, a bit more sordid. He didn’t mention the dreaming business, because that was hardly something to trouble a young woman with.
"Oh," Brea said, knowingly, "I've seen professional poker on tv. I never see what they see, you know, on the other man's face. I have a hard time with expressions. You must be very good to make enough money to win and then play again. Do you have those gold bracelets like the winners on tv?" Brea didn't watch many documentaries, and her understanding of card players didn't extend to back rooms and shady casinos. She bit into a cookie and watched carefully for a reaction when he did the same.
“I’ve no gold bracelets, darling. The games I play in, they aren’t acknowledged by the World Series people,” he said, as if the World Series people were the ones missing out. “But I am quite good, yes,” he admitted, no subtlety in the admission. “Darling, will you allow me a small lecture?” he asked casually, because it seemed as good a time as any.
She tried to think why Silas' games wouldn't be acknowledged by the World Series people, but nothing immediately came to mind.
She was too smart not to know that a lecture wasn't likely to be good. Her look was one of wary uncertainty at that, but she was otherwise still and at least not physically threatened by such a thing. "About what? Going out?"
“About people, darling. The ones you’ll meet once you go out,” he said easily, the fact that she would be going out not at all in question. She would be, and that was that. Silas had set his mind to it, and he could be quite determined when he’d decided something - even if he continued to tell himself this was all a very terrible idea.
She frowned at him and lowered her teacup slowly. Her feet were drawn up under her and the catlike eyes glowed out of the soft auburn frame of her hair, yet with such concentration on him that there was little of the child about her. "What about them?"
“Not everyone is good.” He nodded toward the screen. “Just like there are bad people in the movies, darling. You can’t trust everyone simply because they claim to be trustworthy.” He smiled reassuringly. “I’ll help you figure it out, Brea, but you’ve to promise me that you’ll be very careful.” Never did he say she couldn’t go, that she couldn’t live. Just that she had to be careful.
He was beginning to think his insomnia was a blessing; at this rate, he’d never sleep again, once she stepped outside - the worry wouldn’t allow it.
"I know they're not," she said, without resentment. "People are just... people. Good and bad." She ventured a small smile through the gloom. "You are good, aren't you?" Brea seemed to think this made her a good judge of character, evidenced by his repeated attempts to assist her. Brea understood that there were bad people that did bad things, but the problem was that they were all incredibly abstract to her. She had trouble envisioning the dimensions of the building; she could not conceive being the victim any more than she could imagine being jostled in a crowd or climbing a mountain.
Silas frowned as she spoke, a deep line marring his otherwise smooth brow. He was almost forty, but he hadn't worried much in his life until Maud went missing, and he didn't wear age in lines and wrinkles. Still, there was something in the lack of deep understanding in her her words that worried him. It was as if she understood the concepts, but not the practice. Reality, he realized, was something learned in books and stories for her, with none of the accompanying fear behind it. "You're to promise me one more thing, love," he said, his voice very serious. "You'll not leave here on your own, not without me. Are we quite in understanding?"
She didn't like that too much. She wavered between being flattered that she'd get an escort, vaguely suspicious for no other reason than what he had told her a moment ago, and resentful that he was going to impose limits as Stephen did. Rather than saying any of this, however, she just frowned and chewed on another cookie, watching the screen as she thought. "Why?" she said, after a moment. "If I get goggles than I can go wherever I want, right?"
“Yes, love, but you’ll allow me a bit of gentlemanly concern, surely?” he asked, intentionally keeping the question light, even if he was starting to be quite certain that this was all about to backfire stupendously.
She gave him a penetrating look. She might be inexperienced, but she was not stupid nor unobservant. She didn't have the facility with nonverbal communication that others did, true, but she was perfectly capable of understanding information that came her way. Brea's learning curve was sharp. "What are you concerned might happen?"
“There have been a great many crimes lately, darling, in Seattle. Our kind has abilities, you see, and some of them are using them to hurt others. Do you understand? There have been murders, and the culprits look entirely harmless, just like you and I.” He told her the truth, because she was an adult, and if she was going to live in that world, well, he was going to be very sure she understood it.
Brea just gazed at him for a little while, trying to figure out what part of his face contributed to truth and what part didn’t, and then she said, abruptly, “Do you call everybody ‘love’?” The question was serious, without guile, and yet supreme in its innocence--because it was honest.
“At times,” Silas answered honestly. “At times I use it when I quite like someone,” he said, touching his fingertip to her nose. “And at times I use it when I don’t.” He smiled at her. “You’re in the former category, poppet. Now, did you listen to what I said? About the crimes?”
“That’s not an answer,” she said, discontented because she was not special and discontented because she was. “I listened.” She sat back and put her tea cup to one side on a little table that was so chock full of knick knacks it would be hard to tell where there was room for such a thing, but with her sight Brea had no trouble nudging this and that aside to make room for her cup. A moment later she curled up and stared again intently at the screen.
“Brea, what is wrong?” he asked, because even a fool with no parental experience could tell she was upset. Any man could tell, even, as she was staring at the screen quite like a woman put out for something a man had said without even thinking as the words passed his lips. “Tell me, darling.”
Maybe Silas could use some experience with women in general. She stared at the screen more intently. “Nothing is wrong. I am fine.” Restless shifting on the couch. “Maybe I will stay in if it is so very dangerous.” Audrey did not seem quite so enchanting, and Brea was almost sure that he did not like the cookies. She sighed.
Any doubt that this creature across from him was a woman disappeared entirely. That reaction was all woman denied, and he knew it well. “Darling,” he said carefully. “I just want you safe. There’s no reason to be sour over my concern for you,” he told her. He had, in fact, forgotten about the cookies and the tea, forgotten about them the deeper and deeper and deeper he sunk into whatever quicksand this was. “The truth of it, Brea, is that I’d be worried about you.”
“Safe is here, Silas.” Her eyes moved, but down, and not to him. There wasn’t any point in looking at his face anyway, she couldn’t read what was there, so why try. You could trust Audrey to mean all the things she said, and you could trust Gregory to be roundabout without being awful, but apparently you couldn’t trust everyone so what was the point, then? “Like I said, I’d just stay here.”
Silas rubbed his brow, pinched the bridge of his nose, and then he looked at her again. “Darling, I’m sorry if I’ve made things worse,” he said truthfully, and he felt that he had, in some irreparable way, done precisely that. Perhaps her dreams were better than the truths that lurked outside her walls, and perhaps he was the one trying to do her harm by bringing all of the terrible realities crashing at her feet. “I shouldn’t have done.”
“No, you haven’t. Things can’t get worse, or better. They just stay the same.” Now she looked at him, or, rather, his cup. She didn’t sound angry or even pretend-not-angry now, just resigned. “Do you want some more tea? I think the water is still hot.” It wouldn’t be the same if he only wanted to be there to make sure she didn’t get killed or shot or all the other horrible things that were happening to Creations out there. Not the same at all.
“No, love, I want to talk this out,” Silas said patiently, again, no hurry or rush in it. “I quite enjoy you, and I want you to experience the world, but I also don’t want anything to happen to you, Brea. I’d be concerned about anyone I cared about leaving their apartment, not only you.” He meant that. He didn’t add that she was more innocent, required more watching, because he didn’t want to upset her more. But he did want her safe when she walked out that door.
It appeared that Brea was indeed her brother’s sister and she did have some trace of temper, though there was no predicting it and certainly no real warning signs. “You ‘enjoy me’?” she demanded, voice rising slightly and managing what sounded like brakes that needed checking. “What does that mean?! You’re always saying things that mean one thing but don’t mean that thing to you!” She had turned in her seat to face him with an angry cast between her brows and a glare that was neither catlike nor particularly pretty.
If the show of temper bothered him, it didn’t show on his face. Silas didn’t rise to the bait very often. He didn’t press issues, and he wasn’t stubborn. And so he just looked back at her calmly, and he waited for her to stop speaking (yelling). “It means I quite enjoy your company,” he replied simply, because he did, even with this show of emotion, which he did not begrudge her.
His reaction clearly surprised her, even deflated her own anger, as she was used to Stephen flaring up like a gas-soaked match in response to the least little spark. She was worried this was some kind of sullen or silent anger, like perhaps Stephen when he was so angry he couldn’t frame words, but then he spoke and she was further unhinged. “How come?”
He smiled warmly. “Because you’re intelligent, Brea, and lovely, and I very much enjoy visiting you.” He remembered his tea, and he took a sip of the lukewarm liquid, following it with a bite of cookie. “Do you enjoy my company? If so, it’s precisely the same, you see. There is something about good company that is incomparable,” he finished truthfully, and it wasn’t a compliment for the sake of complimenting. Again, years in jail had taught Silas to appreciate a good conversationalist, and he always enjoyed what Brea had to say.
“Watch the movie, darling, and quit worrying so very much,” he told her with a smile and a ruffle of her hair.
She sat back, and she did watch, but not very closely. She had too many things on her mind.