Hugh & Yelena
Day 1, morning | Hugh's apartment | low
â None I can think of
Actual, functional internet and cell service network aside, it took Yelena longer than expected to find her way to the address Hugh had sent to her. There was no map app on her phone - and she couldâve sworn there had been before - but after some wandering and more than her fair share of wrong turns, she thought she was in the right neighborhood. As she turned the corner onto the street his building was on, she slowed her steps and made more of a point of looking around - not because she expected sheâd been followed or because it was a shady neighborhood - but because she thought there might be a chance sheâd made it here before Hugh decided to leave and she could catch him out here on the sidewalk. No such luck, however; she made it to the door of his building without a single sighting of anyone she recognized.
The place looked nice enough, all things considered as far as âniceâ went here, that she felt it should have some sort of external security on it. And perhaps it did, but Yelena had learned one thing early on in her life - move confidently enough and people will assume youâre exactly where youâre meant to be. So through the front door and into the elevator⌠no problem there. Once sheâd arrived at his door and knocked, however? No one home, so he was still out getting them coffee and she was stuck in the hallway until he came back.
With a dramatic sigh she leaned a shoulder into the door and spun on a heel until she had her back pressed against it, after which she slid slowly down to sit with her feet flat on the floor and knees drawn up so she took up less hallway space. Stoically ignoring anyone who walked by (and yet still clocking their location until she was certain theyâd gone through a door or into the elevator, thanks to long habit), she decided to bide her time scrolling through whatever flavor of social media this place liked to call its own.
And almost immediately, her eyebrows shot up in surprise. This was certainly shaping up to be an interesting wait.
Gathering coffee was also turning out to be interesting. Hugh had located a nearby coffee shop that had good reviews, and looked like it had a fantastic selection of pastries. And it was close enough to be within walking distance.
He'd left the apartment - which was sweet - with Shadow on a leash that he'd found by the door and he'd headed out. He'd gone about a block before he'd been stopped by two girls who couldn't have been in high school. They'd both asked, with giggles and bashfulness if they could take a picture with him, they'd absolutely loved his last role. And oh, was this his dog, and could they pet her.
Shadow inevitably preferred the attention to Hugh. Shadow was all waggy tails and chocolate brown eyes and cute eyebrow raises and nose bumps.
Or maybe, Hugh should put that a different way, it wasn't that he minded, exactly, but he wasn't expecting it, and that meant that the whole situation put him off guard. But the girls seemed nice enough, and he didn't think he looked terrible, so he agreed, and Shadow put in her best performance with happy grins and a good sit, and they went on their way.
These two wouldn't be the first, though, and honestly it felt as if people were turning heads as he walked. Maybe it was just his imagination as he did make it to the coffee shop before he was approached by anyone else. And when they did approach this was an older guy, who simply said 'You're Hugh Christian, right? My grandkids love that elf thing you did."
Elf thing explained⌠basically nothing, and if he hadn't been the next up to order, he might have pulled out his phone to look into it, but instead he ordered two coffees, and a selection of four pastries to go, and stepped aside, glancing to the outside to make certain Shadow was still where he'd left her. She was, because she was basically the best dog he'd ever seen - and maybe that was partially because Marce's were all farm dogs that were best at not chasing chickens and not always trained well in other ways. And with it determined that Shadow was okay, he reached for his phone only to be interrupted a third time.
This time they wanted an autograph, and they shoved into his hand an issue of a magazine entitled Gentleman's Style with him on the cover of it.
For a second Hugh stared at it.
He was on the cover of a magazine?
What the fuck was going on?
He somehow managed to say the right things. He could ask questions, after all, and he was good at it 'what did they like best? Were they from around here? Had they met his dog? Feel free to give her some love when they walk by - she's sweet as anything."
And at that point he had the coffee in a carrying case, and a bag of croissants and danishes, and he was wishing that he had a hat, but there was no use for it.
He'd pulled the leash off the fence outside the coffee shop that marked the borders of their patio, and he murmured to Shadow to come on, and he glanced quickly around - trying to determine if anyone else was actually looking his way, before he ducked his head down again, and started walking back the way that he'd came.
It wasn't until he was in the elevator of his apartment building that he breathed a sigh of relief.
He reached down, unclipped Shadow's leash, and threw it over his shoulder while reaching with a now free hand into his pocket for his phone. "What the heck is going on here girl?"
Shadow stared up at him as he typed in his own name into the browser with one hand. He hit search about the time the elevator door dinged open, and he sighed, slipping the phone back in his pocket and snapping at Shadow to follow him.
As she had the other few times the elevator made a stop on this floor, Yelena stopped her scrolling and let her attention dart subtly in that direction without moving her head any more than she had to in order to catch the personâs exit in her peripheral vision. This time rather than pretending to ignore her sudden company, she sighed in relief and let her phone drop to her knee. For the space of a few seconds she tried to look exasperated at how long sheâd been waiting, but the attempt was weak at best and abandoned the moment Shadow followed Hugh out of the elevator.
She didnât make any effort to get up, because sitting on the floor in front of his door meant she could throw her arms out, fingers wiggling, and Shadow could walk directly into her embrace, half standing in her lap, with her tail thumping against the wall beside them both. âHiiii sweet girl, I donât know why I always get surprised you come all these places with us but Iâm glad you do,â she cooed at the dog, scratching behind her ears as she craned her neck to look up at Hugh from her much lower than usual vantage.
Hugh stepped up behind Shadow, and still feeling a little perplexed about his coffee purchasing experience, asked: "Did five thousand people ask who you were on the way over here?"
âAsk who I am? No, I donât think very many people even looked at me on my way here. Except one guy who wanted to try following me for a block trying to get my attention. You know the kind.â She hunched her shoulders up and lowered her voice to a growl for the impression. ââHey sweetheart, where you going all alone this morning, huh? Need some company?ââ She shook her shoulders out and made a face, then nudged Shadow gently out of her lap so she could start getting to her feet. âSo I told him I was on my way to a doctorâs appointment for making sure theyâd gotten all of the teeth out of my vagina. He didnât want to be company after that.â
She smiled brightly at her own success and popped up onto her toes to kiss his cheek, then sobered almost immediately as she bent down to scoop her phone up. âI think I know why your problem is happening, though. Maybe⌠letâs go inside, okay? I can show you what I found out while I was waiting for you.â But because Yelena was impatient enough to ruin her own big reveals, she couldnât help blurting out the summary while she waited for him to unlock the door.
âYouâre like really famous here or something. Your name is seriously all over the internet, itâs crazy.â
Shadow got to Yelena before Hugh did, and was an enthusiastic participant in the greeting ritual, waggy tail and all, and Hugh had the experience of being both irritated at random asshole dude, and then bemused at the visual, and then shocked at⌠"Wait, what?"
He had the key out, but he turned around to stare at her, pulled back to the fact that he was supposed to be opening the door only by Shadow's tail suddenly beating against his leg as she waited - a little more atypically impatient than usual. Hugh turned the key, and pushed the door open with one shoulder, as he turned around to hand the pastries to Yelena.
"I'm what now?" With a hand free, he slipped his hand back into his pocket for the phone and the discarded search.
But also this⌠tracked.
As did his search - with a movie database page, followed by photos, by a citypedia entry (whatever the hell that was), and a list of top stories, with his name, and a steady combination of "Leoren Silverwatcher" and "Phoenix Ascendent" and:
"Holy shit, I was at comic con last week. I mean, I wasn't. I -" he hesitated. Unlike Empire City where the memories had sat side by side, this wasn't that. He literally had no memory of any of these things. Clicking on the movie database profile, there was a list of films he had no memory of being in. "I think I need to sit down."
Shadow already had, sniffing into the apartment, and having found what looked like the nicest dog bed he'd ever seen a dog have.
He turned his attention to the coffee in his hands, and putting both on a nearby counter, he pulled out one of them, and headed to the sofa where he took a long drink of a still too hot beverage.
"Remind me the next time we end up in a strange place that I should check the Internet before we go out."
While Hugh confirmed her findings for himself, Yelena plucked her coffee from its side of the carrier and decided to take a quick look around the apartment. It wasnât all because she was nosy, though that was definitely part of it; it was more force of habit spurred on by the fact that her own walk around her new living space had turned up its own very⌠interesting findings. Interesting, inconvenient, and no small amount of uncomfortable. The pastries could wait until she was certain it was just the two of them and Shadow here.
âSure,â she answered as she came back into the living room after having checked the bedroom, bathrooms, and inside the closet (probably unnecessary, but she wasnât about to leave a stone unturned). âYou know, check the weather, check the news, check to see if youâre suddenly super famous with huge mobs of fans⌠â It wasnât really funny, not knowing how Derleth liked to twist things that seemed good into weird nightmare scenarios, but right now she couldnât help but smile a little. âThe usual.â
With her coffee still more or less untouched, Yelena draped herself over the back of the couch with her arms snaking over Hughâs shoulders. She bent forward at the waist until she was low enough to press her cheek to his so they were both looking down at his phone, her one hand occupied in holding her coffee while the other reached in the direction of Hughâs phone, index finger extended so she could very casually scroll his credits page all the way back up to the top. âSo I did all this looking too while I waited and I have big questions.â And some big revelations of her own, though they seemed smaller in the wake of what was happening with Hugh.
She indulged herself in a pause so she could pass her coffee from one hand to the other, then reached to set it down on an end table before she accidentally dumped it into his lap. With both hands free now, she wrapped one arm around his chest and brought her fingertip back to his phone screen to tap twice over one particularly interesting line of information. To her, at least.
âJeremiah? When were you going to tell me about that, Hugh Christian!â It was easier to sound stern about it like this, cheek to cheek with him so he couldnât see her face, but she couldnât keep the grin at bay for long. And she knew it wasnât important in the grand scheme of all the things that were happening at the moment, but starting small felt more manageable. âThis whole weird place knew before I did!â
Hugh was scrolling through the information on his phone, invested enough in trying to figure out what was going on, that he wasnât really bothered by Yelena going about the apartment. Shadow followed at her heels, mostly intrigued by the notion of movement over settling, and eventually she came back to the sofa as Yelena did, hopping up to curl next to Hugh.
Her question was not expected, and he blinked at it. Although maybe it shouldnât be, if sheâd looked at his internet movie database page, or whatever the cityâs equivalent was called, then it was right there, at home too, but not in the pocket that was Derleth. He laughed, because he couldnât think of any other thing to do, and then he shook his head. âBecause I hate the name,â he told her. âHugh just is so much snappier, you know? More memorable? Not likely to leave you with Jeremy as a nickname.â He shrugged. âI mean I wasnât hiding it from you but only my dad calls me Jeremiah. And my brother when he wants to be a dick - not Eliot I mean, I mean my brother at home, Ezra.â
He turned around to eye her. âWhat else have you discovered about me, super spy?â
Yelena allowed herself a moment of private, smug pride that sheâd managed to make Hugh laugh. For her, problems were always easier to begin solving when she found one truly ridiculous thing about them; nothing could seem completely insurmountable if it was a little bit funny. And whether she was aware of her tendency to start strategizing like this or not, she applied it all the same to this problem. Hughâs more than hers, but they were in this together to some extent.
âMmhmmm,â she acknowledged as he explained, a waver in the emphasized part of the hum that implied she still wanted very much to laugh. She eased back when she felt him starting to move to turn around, a hand still on one of his shoulders and amusement coloring her expression before she finally gave in to the laugh and shook her head. âI mean that was the biggest deal.â She grinned and meandered around the couch, gathering her hair into a messy twist on top of her head before she deposited herself onto the cushions with a good deal more carefulness than she might have if Shadow wasnât curled up in the space between them. âI discovered thaaaat like a million people are obsessed with you like I said before. That a lot of them are super interested in trying to figure out what time you were born so they can do this whole star chart thing to⌠I donât know, what do those things do? See your future? Decide who you should marry? Seriously, some of the things they talk about just out in the open where people can read them are crazy.â
She slouched down into the corner of the couch and reached to give Shadow a pat on the belly, then kept idly scritching her fingers through the dogâs fur as she turned her head enough to see Hugh out of the corner of her eye. âI found out your momâs name is Mary, thatâs a thing I donât think I knew before. Those kinds of things. I could have found more if I wasnât trying to ignore texts every five seconds.â She shrugged, pulling her own phone out to look at the screen before she almost immediately made a quiet noise and sat it down on the arm of the couch, screen down. âAnyway. What do you think youâre going to do about all of this?â
"Oh my god," Hugh muttered and he couldn't decide if he was amused or horrified. He put the phone down for a minute. He had Googled himself before at home. Obviously. Like, he did try to be somewhat careful about reading reviews of a thing, because he knew his own tendency to dwell wasn't exactly useful to putting in a strong run on a show, and so he tended to ask friends for the good ones, and keep the less great ones. And usually after the show wrapped he'd read the less great ones, and allow himself a day or two to just crawl in bed and listen to sad music and feel sorry for himself, but thus far he felt like he'd gained a thing or two from the critical reviews so he hadn't stopped reading them.
"So maybe I need to be careful about searching for myself on the Internet," he added, and laid the phone aside on an end table. Reaching for something to do, he twisted the ring on his finger for a minute.
"Yeah, Mom is Mary, Dad's Isaac. At least I assume that's true in this reality. He's not my biological Dad, mom had an affair. But that's probably not public knowledge." Hugh made a face and reached his hand up to rub the back of his neck, suddenly remembering, and he dug around inside his pocket and pulled out the card.
"So I have an interview at 3? I guess?" He stared at the card, it's friendly hello feeling almost creepy. If it was that friendly, surely it could have warned him?
"It's not that nobody ever recognizes me, but this is a new level." A thought occurred and he glanced over at her. "Why are you getting texts?"
Yelena pulled herself up from her deep slouch to make it easier for her to lean over Shadow and peer at the card in Hughâs hands. âThatâs⌠â She trailed off for a few seconds while she cast around in her mind for a word, but ended up shrugging helplessly as she settled back into her side of the couch and finally reached for her coffee. âHelpful.â Definitely low on the list sheâd come up with, but sheâd been up too long already to put together anything more witty. âAre you going to go?â She immediately followed the question with a long drink of her coffee, which was starting to get cold at this point after so much neglect. Still, she downed a good third of it at once in an effort to kick start her brain again. âIt could help make things make more sense. But then you have to fake your way through an interview about things you donât even know you did.â
All of that meant it stood to reason that they searched his name a little longer to prepare him, but Yelena looked at her phone like it was the enemy and heaved a sigh. Before answering his question, she took another long swallow of coffee and twisted in her seat to look longingly at where sheâd dropped the pastries on the counter in the kitchen. âOh, you know,â she began, sounding distracted as she decided she did very much want to get up for a danish while she rehashed her morning for him. âThe reset wakes me up because - â She gestured vaguely at her head and shot him a wry smile on her way past - âof the whole danger sensing thing I learn. So itâs super early in the morning, I wake up somewhere strange, and thereâs somebody else in the bed.â
Having hours to get used to what had happened was doing wonders for Yelena being able to tell it like it wasnât any big deal, but inwardly she was still sour over Derleth managing to surprise her into a low grade panic for a few minutes. Danish in hand, she plucked the bag with the remaining three pastries off of the counter and sauntered back to the couch, standing beside Hugh to offer it to him. âHeâs blonde and I have no idea who he is, so I got dressed in the dark and left.â She took a big bite of the danish and chewed thoughtfully, still standing at Hughâs shoulder. Once sheâd swallowed, she shrugged and reached up to swipe at the icing clinging to the corner of her mouth.
âGood news is I walked around the city for hours so I kind of know where Iâm going already. Bad news is I have to go back to my place I guess while you do your interview and figure out what Iâm going to do about it. I can split this with you, by the way,â she added casually, waving the half a pastry that remained to her in his direction. âI took the strawberry one. Cherry? I donât know, itâs red in the middle.â
Hugh took the bag, ignoring Shadow's sudden lift of her head as if she were interested in it. She was, but it wasn't for her. He'd get her treats later. Or order them online if that was a thing. Or send Yelena after them? Or just risk going out⌠again. He realized he was going to have to think about this before he went out, and he tried not to be put out by it. On the one hand, he apparently had a large enough film career to be interviewed, and have his face on magazine covers. On the other⌠well, they were someplace with shopping and he would like to do it: anonymously.
"There was someone in your bed?" He stared across Shadow, and looked at her. "Is he the person texting you?" How did he even have her number? On the other hand, if they did have these whole lives here-which clearly⌠He sighed. "You know as weird as it was having two lives running side by side at Empire City, at least we knew what was going on. It wasn't like being plopped into someone else's life. "I wanted the blackberry anyway, you're good," he pulled out the blackberry one, and pulled a tiny bit of the croissant off for Shadow. "He wasn't naked was he?" Okay, it wasn't an important question. In fact it was really a very unimportant question. Except that Hugh did want to know. Not that they were in any way exclusive, necessarily. They hadn't really had that conversation specifically but if Yelena did want someone else around, Hugh could deal with that. Probably. Except maybe not naked mysterious blonde guy. Not that guy.
Yelena delayed her answer just long enough to nibble around the middle of her danish, leaving the best part for the very last. âHe has to be the person texting me. So what I know is that his name is apparently Joshua and heâs very upset about why it is I leave before the sun comes up today.â She shrugged and picked up her coffee again, the sticky middle piece of her danish still held carefully between her index and middle finger. Part of her felt like she should perhaps feel sorry for this stranger, worried as he truly seemed to be - the rest reasoned that he meant nothing to her, so there wasnât anything to feel guilty about.
She had to hide her amusement at Hughâs final question behind her coffee, however; the slight jerk of her shoulders and the sound of a breath exhaled against the plastic lid probably gave her quiet snort of laughter away, but at the very least she wasnât smirking when she finally set her cup down and popped that last bite into her mouth. âI donât know,â she admitted around the last of the mouthful, pausing to swallow before she finished the explanation. âI didnât exactly pick up the sheet to take any looks, you know? But he didnât have a shirt on, I know that much.â
After lapsing into another brief silence to suck the last of the icing off of the tips of her fingers, Yelena toed off her boots so she could hug her knees into her chest and wedge herself into the corner of the couch between the arm and the back cushions, angled to face Hugh across the sofa. âYou know I donât⌠â She frowned faintly and dropped her cheek to one of her knees, effectively turning her gaze away from him. âI know you have a lot of your own things to deal with this week,â she amended in a murmur, still studying the opposite wall intently. âSo if you want help with that, I - of course I will if you want. But Natasha apparently has some big mansion or something so⌠â
She grimaced and finally made herself look up, repositioning herself so she had one leg folded under her and the other foot on her knee, effectively raising her bent knee enough that she could rest her chin on it. âI donât want to stay with Joshua, is what Iâm saying. But Iâm also saying I have other places I can go, so you donât have to say yes to me if I ask if I can stay here instead.â
Hugh wasn't going to frown, he wasn't, but then he did. It was one thing giving you an apartment, and like, a house, but a fake hook-up, or no, probably a boyfriend or husband if he was texting all the time, really was a new Derleth special. His nose wrinkled briefly. "I mean, you should maybe at least answer him, in case, um, he's really worried or something."
He leaned in, across Shadow, who made a nose of discontent at the shifts in weight and space, and he reached for Yelena's hand. "So far as I know, there's nobody who is in my bed but you," he said softly. "If you want to be, I mean, so of course you can stay."
It felt like a big deal, but it was just for the one week, right? So far nothing had stuck. So it wasn't really a long term sort of conversation for either of them - just for this week. Because nobody should have to be in an apartment with a total stranger. And Hugh wasn't really certain that he wanted this too. Well, maybe? He needed to do more research. And all of that was easier than thinking through the implications of any of this.
"I am, however, going to have to figure out who the heck I am in this world, so it might involve research and watching a film or two - if we can find them on streaming." He leaned back and reached for his coffee and checked his watch. "I might have time to watch something if I get on it. We can hope it's not terribleâŚ"
Yelena felt relief wash over her so completely at Hughâs answer to a question sheâd very carefully not actually asked that she knew immediately she hadnât done a good job of keeping it from reading on her face. She unwound her arm from where it was anchored around her leg to keep it bent, meeting him more or less halfway in reaching for her hand. She offered him a faint smile and gave his hand a squeeze, then realized she should probably say something. âThanks.â
It wasnât much of something, but there was suddenly a lot swirling in her mind. There was Joshua to deal with - which wasnât anything she didnât think she could handle. Sheâd extracted herself out of actual life and death circumstances before and this was just⌠a break up? However she decided to take care of it, she knew sheâd have to do it soon. Staying with Hugh solved one minor problem but opened her up to a whole new line of questioning: after having gotten so used to spending free time with him last week, was that something they were going to keep doing? Did staying here with an actual apartment involved mean anything beyond the scope of this week?
Faced with compounding confusion and more issues to deal with by the hour, Yelena decided abruptly to let them stack just a little while longer. Especially when distraction presented itself in the guise of possibly watching this movie Hugh seemed to have become so famous for. The mere mention of it drew an impish grin from her as she leaned forward, legs now folded in front of her so she could rest one hand on Shadow to help steady herself and calm the dog both, her other arm outstretched so she could tap a fingertip to his chin. Sheâd been aiming for his nose, but the distance between them was just long enough that she didnât have a prayer of reaching that far.
âCan we?â She reined in her glee as she settled back, reaching for her own coffee to finish what little was left of it. âFor science and researches. Obviously.â She sobered slightly as she eyed her phone, nose wrinkled as she set down her empty cup and picked the phone up in its stead. âIâll let Joshua know Iâm okay, we do this, and then the afternoon is for handling business for both of us. Sound good?â