yelena (notaposer) wrote in noexits, @ 2022-06-23 16:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread/narrative, marvel (tv/movies): yelena belova, original character: hugh christian, → week 038 (toon town '45) |
TOON TOWN (BACKDATED) | DAY 4 - AFTERNOON
In which they have a startlingly mature conversation about their lives and attachments where they're from and what that means for both of them in the context of Derleth... all while having a picnic of deli sandwiches and whiskey on the beach.
Yelena knew her view on the core of what Derleth was about was already skewed. So far she’d spent one very strange night reuniting with her dead sister, a honestly decent week being an average citizen in a city almost exactly like New York, and a week… well, all right. So last week trapped on campus dying because a cupcake willed it wasn’t the most normal thing in the world. Still, ending up here felt like a stroke of strange luck to her; she knew the bare bones of what the past weeks were like, and finding herself spending time in a couple of cities (now with old time-y clothes and cartoons!) felt merciful, comparatively. It had only taken her an afternoon to set herself up fairly well. Not wanting to try paying for anything with a bill someone could look at and realize came from the future, she’d arranged an innocent little accident bumping into someone who looked like he could spare losing his wallet. Or at least all the cash in it - everything else she doubled back to drop in the gutter near where they’d collided so it looked like a casualty of the accident if he came looking. By the time both she and Hugh had an afternoon free to spend at the beach, Yelena had put her ill-gotten gains to good use. She was outfitted for the occasion with a deep blue satin-y halter top one piece swimsuit (printed with truly obnoxious flowers and complete with a flowing, matching skirt to wear on the way), a wide-brimmed straw sun hat, and almost ridiculously large white cat eye sunglasses (which she’d go to her grave claiming she bought because they were ridiculous, though secretly she kind of loved them). Perhaps more importantly, she had a large woven wicker bag slung over one shoulder big enough to carry the overly large beach towel she’d gotten for them that was currently folded up and serving as a cushion for their lunch. When Hugh arrived, she gave him a lazy wave and a smile, then hiked the bag up onto her shoulder before giving it a gentle pat. “So while you were doing… “ She trailed off to wave a hand in the general direction of the rest of Derleth, shrugging, “Whatever it is you were doing, I went to buy us lunch. I figure… my turn, right? Since you bought us nachos I think I probably ate like eighty percent of myself. I owe you.” Between attempting to keep the play rehearsals running solid and genuinely trying to get out and enjoy this particular world and decade as much as possible, Hugh had been running kind of non-stop since they arrived, which meant that he'd applied that caffeinated concealer under his eyes along with a brush of camel shimmer across his eyelids. Nothing dark or super noticeable because this wasn't the decade for it, but it was difficult to take the twenty-first century completely out of the theater kid. Both had been applied in the dressing room of the same shop where he'd run in and picked up a pair of navy swim trunks, navy boat shoes, and a white short sleeve linen shirt that he'd slipped on top, leaving the first three buttons unbuttoned, intentionally casual without being too casual for streetwear. He'd pulled a canvas bag out from the theater costume room, choosing it over his backpack as being a little less noticeable as not of this time - he hoped. He had stuck inside a large blanket, a battery powered radio, and a bottle of an orange whiskey that he'd picked up earlier in the week. "You're incredible," he told her with a grin. "You didn't have to do that at all, but god if I'm not grateful for it. I feel like I've been running a little non-stop trying to get as much stuff for the show done as possible. Who knows where we'll be next week, and since we're here I figure we should try to pick up costumes and props and -" he gave a dramatic sigh, and sat the bag down and stopped to really take her in, reaching a hand out for one of hers. "You also look incredible, darling." Yelena shrugged up one shoulder and turned her head to touch her chin to it in a gesture of obviously false modesty, her grin doing all the work at giving her away. “I am, I knowwww,” she answered with a laugh, straightening again with a dismissive wave of her hand. “You put me to shame, I keep saying how there’s nothing to do around here and you keep so busy I’m lucky I get dancing time in the mornings.” Spoken like she herself didn’t have much of a schedule for the week; she did, but given that it was all for fun she was having a hard time thinking of them as things that were keeping her busy. Down time - completely foreign concept. She reached out to take his hand when he reached for her, twisting back and forth at the waist a few times so her skirt swished around her ankles. “I found some money so I figured why not go kind of big, you know?” It wasn’t really a lie, but she also didn’t figure he needed to know the specifics of how she found said money. It occurred to her belatedly that she hadn’t done a particularly good job of accepting the compliment, so she huffed a soundless laugh at herself and reached out with her free hand to pluck gently at the first button on his shirt that was actually buttoned. Not enough to unbutton it, just enough to tug it away from his chest a little. “And thanks. You too, obviously, like I really have to keep saying you look good when you have mirrors.” After hitching the bag up on her shoulder one more time, she sidled up hip to hip - or as near as she could, given the height he had on her - and wrinkled her nose. “Did we accidentally go matchy match? Kind of. Oh well, everybody looks good in blue.” She shrugged helplessly, then bounced up onto her toes and let the lean forward carry her into moving forward a few steps. “Are we ready? I went by the other day to see what we should maybe expect and there were a lot of people. Lucky you have me if we have to fight for a spot to spread out, right?” "You could just say I'm a workaholic," Hugh laughed easily. There was some truth in it though. He did keep himself busy, because he knew what happened when he didn't. A week like this made it easy to keep busy. There were all the things he wanted to do because they were in a place where they could be done - and that wasn't something that was typical of every week at Derleth, but then there were also those things that he needed to do because he could only do them here. And once he'd realized that they were here, and that his half-notion of doing the play set in mid-century had just been made a lot easier to pull off, he'd immediately jumped into the sort of mode where he made that happen. Plus, if he was busy he wasn't missing home, and he didn't think so much about Marceline, someone he should probably bring up to Yelena sooner rather than later. They might have decided on being friends now, but he'd gone about everything backwards because of not realizing she was someone from Derleth when he'd agreed to the date in Empire City. Not intentionally, but that didn't really matter now. He glanced between them and grinned. "I think we went perfectly matched - just enough everyone will think it was intentional, and they'll think that we're the cutest and best looking couple on the beach. Because we will be." He added, stepping in beside her and slipping an arm through hers, companionably. "And then if we have to fend off everyone for a space of our own, I'll stand back and let you do it and watch everyone be shocked because I'm letting a woman do all my fighting for me, but you'll make it look like a fantastic scene from some old film, so it will be great." They didn't need that large of a space though, and Hugh thought he saw at least one area of the beach that might be a little less insane, so he prompted her in that direction. "What have you been doing besides dancing, and obviously hitting up a fabulous boutique for fashion?" “I guess we could always ask nicely,” Yelena offered carefully, making it sound very much like an afterthought alternative to fighting. She wrinkled her nose and shot a dubious look at Hugh, though; clearly it was an afterthought because she thought it was the less viable option. Or in her mind, the less fun one. “But me asking nicely never goes as well as I think it should. Which is stupid, you know? I’m nice.” Aggressive insistence on one’s politeness was always a telltale sign of the truth. Right? Regardless of the methods they were possibly going to need to employ, she fell into step easily with him and was more or less content to walk in silence until he jerked her from her seagazing reverie with a question. “Mmm? Oh, nothing very exciting, really. I spend way too much time in the store when buying this because the woman working there decided she wanted to dress me up like her doll.” She stuck her tongue out and affected an exaggerated full body shudder without missing a step, but very carefully left out the fact that she’d walked away with almost all of what the woman had suggested she buy. She needed clothes here, and she very much needed things to do, so shopping had been wonderfully mindless for a couple of hours. “Some time exploring, some time working out so I don’t turn into blob… whatever keeps me from - “ She cut herself off under the guise of deciding exactly where they were at was the perfect spot, turning his arm loose to spread her arms wide in a gesture aimed at the sand at their feet. “Here we go, this I think is perfect. I brought a big towel to sit on unless you brought something better?” She reached to give the bottom corner of his bag a tug, then diverted her attention to the tide rolling into the shore not terribly far from where they stood. “It’s really pretty,” she murmured, seemingly more to herself than to Hugh, but blinked and returned her focus to him with a smile immediately after. “I never really went to the ocean just for funsies before, sorry. So you. How are the rehearsals going, big director man? You’re leaving some time for having fun too, right?” “I brought whiskey,” he reached into his bag to pull the bottle out. “And a radio, and a blanket. Perhaps we should use the towel for food and the blanket for us? It’ll give us plenty of space.” Hugh sat the bag down and pulled out a striped blanket that either was made for picnicking or for covering a bed with decorative stripes, it was unclear. He spread it out expertly and motioned to her. “Well, the shopping was successful. It’s a good week to stock up really. A lot of things are similar to modern clothing, and it’s nice to have options. I’ve picked up some trousers and shirts on top of these,” he motioned to his current outfit. “A little higher-waisted than I might usually, but I can live with it. I always liked a Gene Kelly look,” he added with a smile. “Singing in the Rain came after this but it was why I wanted to act, and sing and dance too. But directing is going good. We’re picking up supplies for costumes and props and I’m excited about where we’re moving now.” He pulled the radio out, flipped it on and fiddled with the dial until he was able to find some Frank Sinatra and he smiled and turned back to her. “What did you do for funsies?” He asked. He knew she had said she hadn’t had many ordinary experiences, but there had to be something surely. Once the blanket was down, Yelena deposited herself onto it without much grace, which led to a billowing of fabric and her needing to shake one leg free of the twisted mess she’d made of her skirt on the way down. It took her longer to untangle herself than it normally would have thanks to most of her attention being on Hugh as he spoke, though once he finished up saying he was excited with the direction the play was going she smiled fondly and refocused herself on arranging herself a little more neatly. “Good. Everybody seems pretty excited about it that’s involved, so I know it’s going to be fun. You have to wait to actually perform it for when we’re in a place I can find roses to throw on the stage. Or somebody can make magic flowers, I guess. I’m still not used to that.” She didn’t have much to unpack from her bag - just the sandwiches and the beach towel, really - so once that was done she stretched her legs out and leaned back onto her hands, turning her face up toward the sun enough that her hat almost slid off behind her until she threw a hand up to catch it. “For funsies before?” Instantly she was glad for her hat rescue because the floppy brim of it hid the worst of the unease that flickered across her expression, and hopefully the sunglasses took care of the rest. She cast a quick look around them and decided no one close was paying much attention to their conversation, even if it did look like a man off to their left was ticking a foot from side to side with the rhythm of the Sinatra song on their radio. “I don’t really… “ She sighed and sat up again only to fold her legs and lean in, elbows on her knees so she could speak more quietly - not quite a secret, but definitely at a volume that didn’t particularly invite their beachside neighbors to listen in. If she was going to be stuck here, and if she and Hugh were going to be friends… maybe it was all right to just tell the truth. Abridged. “So right before here, I was in New York. And that was sort of fun but it was also business.” Calling it that sounded a lot better than revenge, even if she hadn’t exactly gotten it. “Before that there was a thing that happened that disappeared a lot of people for five years. So I was just… gone.” She ducked her head briefly to hide her frown, catching the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth before she looked up to continue. “I was little when they took me and turned me into a Widow, and there was never anything for funsies about that. Always the missions or the training for them. And once I was free and we made sure there couldn’t be any more Widows made, I tried to free the ones left that I could find.” She gave him another smile, this one more weak and uncertain, barely a tick of one corner of her mouth. “So I guess I’m trying to figure out what I do for funsies. Sorry for kind of stealing all of yours.” Hugh settled down on the blanket, offering to help lay things out whenever she might need it, but mostly just listening. They'd talked a bit - enough that he had some idea - but maybe not the whole idea. Or maybe it was just, in the list of things that his mind could accept, Gods and magicians were easier than the notion of a girl having lost her entire childhood to being turned into an assassin. He didn't really know what to say to it either. It wasn't okay, but it was bordering on so far outside what he knew that it was difficult to come up with good words. He supposed listening he could do, and also helping her figure out what she liked. "You don't need to apologize for stealing my fun," he said finally, shaking his head and reaching for cups to pour them both some of the whiskey. "Honestly, I'm of the mind that fun is more fun with company, so I not only don't mind, but typically it's an improvement on anything I'd do myself." He handed over the glass for her and looked at her. "So pretty much always feel free to crash on my funsies. I admittedly mostly do a lot of dancing, and film watching, and play production I suppose. At home I'm pretty much either a) at rehearsals, or b) at dance classes, or c) at a coffee shop, or club, or theatre. Admittedly, recently I've been less of all of those last few places, and I guess I don't really know what it was going to look like. I didn't have a play lined up and then I was here. So… I might have had to figure out what fun things I could do that weren't those things, myself. And then I got here and I kind of…started a play, so obviously I wasn't going to do a very good job of not having work. Is there something you've always wanted to do, but you haven't? Because we should definitely figure out a way to do that if Derleth allows it." Yelena accepted the glass with a murmur of thanks that was more just sound than it was words, though she did at least try to drive her point home with raising the glass to him in both acknowledgement and toast both. Rather than putting voice to any one of the things that immediately sprang to her mind, she indulged herself in a healthy swallow of the whiskey and didn’t bother with hiding the sigh of relief at the burn on the way down - it was good, being able to focus herself for a second on something that wasn’t how she still had no idea how to feel about her current life situation. And mercifully by the time she needed to say anything at all, she could talk more about him than herself. “It’s really cool, you know. That you knew what you were all about before you got dragged here for whatever reason it is this happened.” The smile she gave him, though small, was sincere and a little wistful before she tipped her glass to him again and took another, this time more measured, sip. “And that you’re still getting to do it here. I totally get not knowing what to do with yourself when you’re not doing what it is you know best how to do.” She paused briefly, tipping her head to the side while she tried to untangle the knot of words to make sure it made sense, but eventually just shrugged and waved them off. After, she smirked and shook her head slightly, watching the swirl of whiskey in her glass as she twisted her wrist. “It’s a little harder for me to do that here, unless somebody needs killing.” Their conversation hadn’t gotten any louder, but she still tipped her head back and called out a little louder, “Kidding! I’m oooooonly kidding!” No one had been listening before, but a few people glanced in their direction after… and then promptly returned to their own activities. She reached out to nudge one of the sandwiches in his direction, then pulled the other closer to her without reaching to open the wrapping right away. “Tell you the truth, I’m sort of making up things as I go along? This place has been great for that,” she added, her delivery sarcastic even though she found herself thinking it may be true, “It’s like five things a day I never did before. Like the beach. And being in the 1940s, never did that before now. And before the other week, never had a real date - thank you for that, by the way - never knew how to do art, never did a dumb air guitar show in a park… “ She trailed off and shrugged, her smile coming a bit more easily now as she picked at the edges of the wax paper wrapping her sandwich. “So I keep thinking maybe this isn’t so bad. Most of the time. The cupcakes were pretty bad.” She made a face, finishing it off with a roll of her eyes. “But you’ve been here longer than me. Are you tired of it? I guess that’s a stupid question. You probably want to be home where food doesn’t want to kill you and you don’t travel through time to dinosaurs, huh. You’re going to have so many stories for your friends, though. If you remember it.” Hugh looked bemused. "Well if I find myself a damsel in distress I know who to call," he told her with a grin, but he sobered slightly, nodding. She made it sound as if he had everything completely figured out, which he really didn't feel like he did have. And it brought back home, but he also understood what she meant about making things up as she went along. "I mean, I think that's what I'm doing too, maybe what we all are doing to an extent. Like, Most of the stuff here isn't a thing at home - or if it is? It exists so far outside of what I know about that it might as well not be a thing. Superheroes and gods and magic are all things from films and books, not real life, and I get here and it's all, very up front and here. Eliot asked me early on how I wasn't going completely crazy with all of it and I think I'm just improvising most of the time. And I think the better you are at improvising and just making it up, the easier it is maybe." He took the sandwich and started removing the wax paper and he offered her a smile. "I think I'm glad that I didn't know I was your first real date - I'd have felt a lot more pressure to be spectacular, but," he paused and glanced over. "It was still fun? I hope? I do miss home, I mean, obviously." He sighed. "Which probably brings up a point that I normally would have brought up prior to going on a first date with someone during a normal Delerth week. I have a fiancee at home? Wife technically, long story, and… I guess when I said we should be friends, and that I had things to tell you before we did other things, that was kind of the thing." Hugh pushed his hair behind his ear, feeling too anxious to eat the sandwich now. He didn't think she'd be upset, but he didn't really know. It hadn't been an intentional lie on his part, the person he'd been in Empire City hadn't been attached at all, and he hadn't really thought about ending up with someone who was in the same sort of situation he was in, and the whole thing had ended up more thorny than he had hoped it would be. "I like you," he added, lifting his gaze to try to figure out if he was likely to die and come back on reset. "And I like hanging out, but obviously I feel like that's something about me that you should know." “Of course it was still fun,” Yelena groused quietly, continuing to pick at the wrapping of her sandwich until the paper tape holding the folds down started to peel back at the corners. “I mean it was definitely fun for me, did you - “ She cut herself off before finishing the question, scowling at her sandwich for a moment like it had offended her before she shook her head and finally made an effort to free the food from its trappings. Prepared to move on to more Hugh-centric subjects, she folded the wax paper down over the bottom half of her sandwich and settled in to actually start eating. She’d just gotten her teeth into a corner of her sandwich when the truth came. Rather than actually taking a bite she simply froze where she was, sandwich raised to her mouth, and turned a wide-eyed look in his direction to gauge whether he was joking or not. When it became obvious he wasn’t, she slowly lowered the sandwich - never having sunk her teeth in - and set it aside on the blanket without diverting her focus away from Hugh. The good news for him, perhaps, was that she didn’t necessarily look upset. Shocked, definitely. Into silence for the moment, which was something unusual. Her quiet at least let him get the rest of his explanation out. And then some; the silence stretched until she swallowed in an effort to get some moisture into a mouth that felt suddenly dry. “Oh.” It was a lot more hoarse than she might’ve liked thanks to the fact that her throat felt just as parched, so before she did anything else she grabbed for her glass and tossed back the rest of the whiskey like it was nothing more than water. “Okay.” Well, it was a little easier to talk now, that was something. She still wasn’t entirely sure what to say, but she wasn’t going to have a physically hard time saying it when she figured it out. “I like you too,” she finally ventured after another few seconds of silence, bringing both hands up to tuck the tips of her index fingers underneath the middle of her sunglasses to pinch the bridge of her nose. “And I - and that is certainly a thing I know about you now.” She dropped her hands into her lap and shrugged her shoulders up practically to her ears, giving him a tight, close lipped smile before letting her posture relax again. “It’s not like you have to worry about me telling anyone. Her. Your wife. About it.” She closed her eyes briefly behind her sunglasses, then blew out a quiet exhale and forced a smile that at least looked more genuine and less tense. “You say you want to be friends, so we can be friends. The other week, that can be just… different us’es. I guess. Whatever we want to decide about it.” Alright, not upset. Hugh let out a quiet breath. She’d have every right to be, but he’d hoped she wouldn’t be. He peeled back a bit more of his sandwich wrapper & then set it to the side. “I- thanks? Although I admit I wasn’t that worried about you telling her. I mean, she’s not here and nobody from home is here, and it’s been weeks now. I don’t think it’s likely, honestly.” He was quiet too, trying to figure out what to say next. He’d never been particularly good at being upfront about relationships. It was something he’d really only realized in the past year, not even counting the time here at Delerth, but because Delerth was weird he felt like maybe he needed to be more open. And maybe, he’d just gotten tired of improvising in this particular way. “I do want to be friends, Yelena, and if that’s all you want that’s fine with me,” he reached for the whiskey and swirled it in the glass. “We can say it was the other us’s if you want. Although, truthfully, I don’t know how to think about myself here. It’s not like I’m gone and I know she’ll show up or I’ll go back. There’s no set period where, like, “I’ll see her again”. I miss her and I hate being alone. And I like you. I liked the night we spent together. It just didn’t seem fair to even think about doing anything like that again without you knowing I’m complicated.” He finished this off with a quick sip of the whisky, and an uncertain smile in her direction. “We can just be friends. I like this too. It’s all good really. I’ll even try to tone down the flirting if it’s too uncomfortable.” Unsure of how to answer at first - or more accurately, sure she knew what she wanted to say but reluctant to admit it - Yelena stalled for another minute by seizing the bottle of whiskey to pour another generous swallow or two’s worth into her glass. After downing one and turning her head to watch the waves roll in for a few more quiet seconds while she spun the glass between her palms to give her something to fidget with, she gave him a small, crooked smile and shrugged one shoulder in a helpless gesture. “I think it might be that we’re both complicated for different reasons. And I really am glad you told me. Even if it didn’t seem that way because it surprised me.” She tossed back the second swallow of liquor in her glass and then set it aside next to her sandwich, determined not to give herself anything else to toy with or look at now as she scooted herself another inch or two closer to him. “It’s not uncomfortable,” she finally admitted, voice gone more quiet. “Telling truths, I like it a lot.” She twisted her mouth in self-disgust at how silly the sincerity made her feel, allowing herself to look down just long enough to pluck irritably at her skirt before forcing herself to focus on Hugh again. “Listen. I know we don’t come from the same place if you never had super heroes ruining cities in your world - you’re so lucky for that, really, but not important. I don’t really have anybody where I’m from, not anymore.” The bleakness of that truth hit her hard, but she pushed her way through it with a faint smile in his direction. “So I don’t worry about me. I don’t want to be a thing you regret if someday I only exist to you when you remember me. But this place from what people tell me can suck so much sometimes, maybe we should figure out being happy when we can.” Before she could think too hard about it she reached out to take his hand and squeeze it, then let him go and hugged her knees up to her chest once more so she could at least feel a little more shielded. “For what it’s worth though, since we’re saying all these things? I want to at least be friends if you decide you want to say no to whatever else. Okay? So if something more than that happens and you change your mind about it, promise you tell me. I just want to know. I’m getting tired of secrets, and...” She studied him intently for a moment before turning her gaze toward the water again, finishing the thought without looking directly at him. “It’s nice to know someone I don’t feel like keeping them from. I think maybe I should be saying sorry that it’s you. That’s all, I guess.” "It's fair to be surprised," Hugh remarked softly. "I think I might have been more worried if you weren't startled." He glanced over and watched her moving closer to him. She really did look gorgeous in the whole get-up and a slightly less complicated version of himself who hadn't just announced the fact that he had a wife in his home timeline, would almost have certainly moved to catch her in a kiss, but something kept him from leaning in. Maybe it was that truth telling thing. There were a lot of things he wasn't certain about, but he'd now been settled in Derleth for months, three of them, going on four, and it was looking less and less likely that he'd go back home to Seattle, Fall City really, and he did know that he didn't want to do alone. It felt a little foolhardy to do anything resembling a settled relationship when everything was so uncertain. And certainly Hugh had done his share of not settled relationships. He'd pushed Marce away for years before finally realizing that he could handle something settled. And maybe when Derleth was so unsettled, trying to actually have things settled with the people he was around felt more important. He returned the squeeze to his hand, and followed her gaze out to the shoreline. It was different from the ones he was used to in Seattle, even the ones on the actual Pacific ocean coastline of Washington state. They were wild and rocky tossed with rocks or giant tree trunks that were pushed ashore as if a giant child had left their tinker toys on the beach. "I wouldn't regret you," he said finally, turning his attention back to her and offering her a smile. "I don't regret you. Traditionally I've not been great about talking about relationship stuff, or being monogamous for that matter, but I do think that being here, it is so uncertain, that the least I can do is try to be certain in the places that I can be. So I'm trying. You should be clear at least of what you're getting with me, and it's not maybe as complicated as 'former assassin', but I've got my own shit." He reached over, curling a finger against hers, a nonverbal request for her hand back again. "No secrets, even the hard stuff, I can handle it - you can handle it. Friends for certain. We talk things out like grown-ups. And maybe we carve out a little bit of happiness in the madness." The weight of their conversation against the backdrop of the persistent sound of the tide rolling in, the murmur of conversation around them, and the radio announcer’s smooth voice declaring that this next one’s by Johnny Mercer, folks was a dichotomy that was strangely comforting, in Yelena’s mind. It served as yet another reminder that things were so strange and twisted around that the only thing any of them could really hope to do was their best in making sense of it all, which at the moment was probably the reminder she needed most. So she smiled, feeling a little lighter now that things were so much as a speck more clear, and hooked her index finger with his. For a second it looked like that’s all she was going to give, but then she laughed and dropped her hand away from its anchor point on her knee to take his properly. “‘Former assassin’ isn’t so complicated, really,” she breezed with a quirk of a grin. “That’s all it is, two words of what I used to be.” Or perhaps what she still was… that part was a little unclear for her given the whole contract killing thing she’d entered into with Valentina but most definitely wasn’t bound to now. So used to be, at least here. She shifted again so they were sitting close enough for her to nudge his ribs gently with an elbow, relieved to find that smiling was much easier now. “It’s definitely no ‘hey by the way, I’m taking the it’s complicated relationship status to whole new levels’. Your shit maybe beats my shit on this one. And you’re right, we can be grown-ups about it. I think even if the truth sort of sucks for one of us it’s still better to know it soon, right? Finding secrets out later is only fun if they aren’t about you.” She tipped her head back to get the sun on her face, this time letting her hat fall back behind her when it slid off of her head. “I think this could be okay.” It suddenly dawned on her - mostly because she was starting to feel the effects of drinking what amounted to a few shots of whiskey in a short span of time - that they’d abandoned the whole picnic aspect of this outing in favor of serious discussion. Which they’d needed to have, that seemed obvious now. Still, she righted herself again and gave him another nudge, reaching for his sandwich with her free hand to drop it into his lap with a laugh. “We should probably eat these before they get disgusting. I spent a whole ten cents on you for lunch, Hugh Christian, you can’t let that go to waste, can you?” Her hand in his felt nice. Sometimes Hugh felt like no matter how many romantic comedies he'd watched in his life he never was very good at meeting any relationship with any sort of meet cute. He'd picked up Marce at a nightclub, they'd insulted each other the next morning, and he'd given her his phone number somehow anyway. And here he was with Yelena, after an online dating app in a city that he didn't know if they'd ever see again. "Ten whole cents," he looked over at her, eyes dancing with mischief. "I don't think this even begins to cover the nachos." But he reached for the sandwich, feeling lighter somehow. Derleth was full of uncertainties, but at the same time, he didn't feel like lying to people. He could just never mention Marce, he supposed. In some ways that would be easier, but if she showed up? That felt like something that would rightly make her and anyone he was with angry, and he didn't feel like doing that either. "I think it will be alright," he took a bite of the sandwich and nodded his head, lips turning up in a sort of smile around chewing the food. "Yeah, I think it definitely could be alright. We should go stick our toes in the waves when we finish eating. Cause if that's something you haven't done yet, you definitely should." “Okay but I bought two sandwiches,” Yelena defended herself with a snicker, leaning heavily into him with her shoulder in an attempt to shove him a little off balance. “And I think that’s five dollars to us or something. I don’t know!” She grabbed her own sandwich and took what turned out to be a too large bite - now that things seemed like they were going to be okay between them following the revelation of these… interesting truths, to say the least, she was free to give real thought to how hungry she truly was. Things were quiet on her end while she chewed, trying for once to have some manners, but she wagged a finger in his direction before she was fully finished. “It’s maybe a third of the nachos,” she allowed once she’d swallowed, tipping her head to one side and then the other like she was weighing how much she thought their Empire City date truly cost. And then there were the drinks… wrinkling her nose, she realized she probably had to admit defeat on this particular point. “Fine, so maybe I still owe you dinner. A few of them, if next time we end up somewhere as cheap to buy things as here.” She took another bite, this one less gluttonous; which was good, given she didn’t quite wait until she was done eating before voicing her next thought. “How does food work? Like the clothes I buy I keep, right? What if we bought a bunch of these and put them in a bag with our names on them before the reset, do we get sandwiches every week?” In the quiet between them while they ate the lunch they’d brought, Yelena divided most of her attention between her sandwich and the shoreline. Luckily they’d found a stretch of the beach that wasn’t so populated that someone had set up their blanket directly in front of them, so the view to the waves was an uninterrupted one. Once she’d finished her food, she plucked a small piece of lettuce off of her skirt and tossed it aside, an eyebrow raised when a particularly bold seagull strutted over and snatched it off the sand. “I haven’t and I want to,” she answered belatedly, gesturing out toward the water. “Just toes, though? We should go deeper than that. Promise I won’t try pushing you.” She lolled her ear toward her shoulder to turn in his direction and smiled sunnily, one hand coming up to trace a cross over her heart with the tip of her index finger. “Never ever.” Hugh laughed, “I’m teasing, Yelena. Besides, as I recall you dumped money on the table for the nachos too. We’re totally even.” A beat. “Ish, anyway. Even-ish. And besides I don’t care. Next time I’ll get whatever. Considering half the money I spend here is magical counterfeit.” He shrugged and took a bite of the sandwich. “These are really good, anyway.” He chewed, and nodded. “With the caveat that it’s Derleth and honestly who knows, here’s what seems to generally be true. Stuff you come with, resets. So like, I had a backpack with my usual, I’m in the city for the day, stuff on my person when I arrived. Everything in it, resets. Coffee, protein bars, make-up, the thirty dollars I had in my wallet, the works. Stuff I’ve bought along the way, not so much. Like I bought some clothes when we were at Schmigadoon and some of them survived the great Butler collapse and some didn’t. But, for the most part it seems like stuff you pick up one week behaves normally. Mostly it doesn’t poof! If I bought another bottle of this orange whiskey for instance, it’d be in the room next week, but I’d use it up the same as a normal bottle of whiskey. There’s been some exceptions, but generally? That’s what I’ve found. So this fabulous outfit is yours if you keep it,” he gave her a wink. “And hey, northern oceans are too cold to go out further, but since we are in California…” he looked out at the shoreline and turned back to her. “I accept your proposal of ‘further out’. And dunking is as dunking does, you push? I push.” He grinned. Although he suspected that she might win that battle and he might just end up soaked. But eh, he could handle that. Yelena’s eyes went wide toward the end of the list of things Hugh had accidentally managed to bring with him, and by the time he’d finished explaining how things more or less worked with the resets she’d dusted crumbs off of her palm onto her knee just so she could shove him gently on the shoulder in mock outrage. “You have thirty dollars every week and I stole money to buy us lunch? Thirty dollars can almost buy us the whole restaurant building in this time!” Try as she might to make her offense believable, she was laughing by the end of it and just had to shake her head with a grin, not even doing a fair job of seeming disappointed. “I think I’m keeping this, though,” she added more thoughtfully, easing herself back to recline propped up on her elbows with one leg stretched long and the other foot planted on the blanket with her knee bent. “It’s kind of nice, right? And I’m still making up for years of never shopping for things so I might as well.” She paused momentarily to study the pattern on her swimsuit, then flopped back the rest of the way to lay with one forearm draped over her forehead to help her sunglasses in shielding her from the sun as she turned her head just enough to peer up at Hugh. The fact that he met her challenge with one of her own earned him a teasing ooOOoo in reply. “You know, that’s fair. It wouldn’t be so much fun if you just let me do it, whoever wins should feel like they earned it, you know?” No longer hungry and feeling remarkably content, she turned her face back up toward the sun and closed her eyes. “You know, when I was little and we went swimming at lakes, Melina would always say to not swim after you eat but never says to me why. It never bothered me. So when you’re ready, I’m ready.” She paused, dropping one hand down to the side to trace her fingertips idly through the sand. “But this is nice too.” He laughed. “2018 money, Yelena! It would look like weird Monopoly money to them and they’d probably think it was counterfeit,” he reached for his drink again. “But next time, let me hook you up with Eliot and we’ll get you magical money for the week. It’s sort of like stealing except not? I don’t know how that works ethically,” he shrugged. His gaze settled on her, lips turning up in a smile. It was nice. She was nice. No, not just nice, gorgeous, sassy, funny. He could feel himself sitting on the precipice of something and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to let go and drop into it or not. Could he explain it to Marce if she showed up? Did he entirely care? Because Delerth was difficult and lonely and however much he might have fought commitment for so much of his life, he was realizing that he was sort of better with consistent companionship. And what if she left? There were a dozen of those questions, and he turned them off. Buried them down because he didn’t want to focus on them - things that might not matter in the end. “You should keep it,” he told her softly, reaching over and brushing sand off her shoulder. “And if you want, I’ve got money, I’ll buy you a dress or trousers or something for every day.” But that was for later, right now, there was a whole ocean in front of them and Hugh put the empty glass down and hopped to his feet, reaching his hand down for her. “I didn’t eat that much and I think it’s an old wives tale anyway. Shall we?” He wondered if they stayed late enough what the sunset would look like, and half determined that if she was game - they could find out. |