if we’re only ever looking back Who: Isobel & Obed What: Isobel and Obed open their presents, and it does not help tensions. Where: D3 When: Saturday morning, following this event.
Hanni pranced by the door, tiny claws clicking on the hardwood as he waited on his master to return. Obed did so in short order, the dog's small harness and leash in his hands. He knelt by the door, affixing the little harness around Hanni's chest. He pushed himself up to his feet with a small, tired sigh. The night had provided him very little rest; the tension that had arrived with Carver had not eased with his departure. What little sleep he'd managed had been shot through with uncomfortable dreams edging on nightmares. Obed could feel the deep shadows under his eyes. He covered his mouth against a yawn, and quietly opened the front door.
"All right, little guy," he said. "Let's see if there's a storm out here today, too…"
He paused before they crossed the threshold. Hanni moved first to one silver-papered box, then another, inspecting each with the intensity of a bomb-sniffing dog on the job. Obed blinked down at them, but saw no card. Briefly he wondered if this was Carver's idea of a peace offering, but he dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come. He left Hanni's leash to trail on the ground, and obediently the little dog followed as Obed picked up the boxes and brought them inside. He set them down on the dining room table, then slipped outside to complete his original task.
Hanni's business done, Obed left him no time to dawdle. They went inside immediately, a deep furrow still marring his brow as he wondered what the boxes might hold. His eyes went wide for an instant as he considered who they may well be from. "Bryan," he muttered, his steps quickening as he moved back into the apartment.
Isobel was already by the dining room table, one hand brushing fingertips over the boxes. As Obed re-entered the apartment, she felt her breath hitch in her throat, but she forced it down and away. The dream that had left her so afraid of him would not entirely dissipate; compounded by everything else, it was making their coexistence edge on mental torture. Still, she forced herself to call out.
"Obed? Are these yours? On the table?" Some apology? She didn't think he'd go that far, and, honestly, the feeling she got from the beautifully wrapped boxes was that she wanted nothing to do with them.
"I'm not sure." He quickly slipped Hanni's harness free. He was still carrying it in his hands when he entered the dining room, his knuckles white around the rough cloth. "They were in front of the door when we left. I haven't ordered anything."
He set the harness and lead down on the table, moving beside the nearest box. He chewed the inside of his cheek, considering. "You aren't expecting anything, either?" Isobel shook her head. His hands toyed with the edge of the lid. "I suppose there's no harm in opening them. A gift from management, maybe. Compensation for the elevators and cats and God knows what else. I didn't see Stephan when I took Hanni out, or I'd have asked him."
Her mouth settled into a hard line, and slim, white fingers wrapped around one of the boxes to pull it closer to her. Despite their rich appearance, they opened easily with a simple pull of the top; the one she opened held a small slip of paper, rolled into a careful scroll. With marked gentleness, she picked the parchment up, undid the string that held it closed, and unfurled it, revealing a charcoal sketch of a dark man and a smaller woman with flaming red hair. Her brows rose, turning the paper to show to Obed.
"Something from Ray?" She asked, her tone clearly unhappy with what she was seeing.
"No…" Obed frowned, though his attention was clearly divided. He narrowed his eyes at the picture, studying it more closely, and then his gaze returned to the box he had opened. "Not his style," he said, his voice soft. "And this?" He turned the box around, pushing it across the table to where Isobel could see. Inside was a pile of dead leaves; atop it, an elaborate piece of jewelry, all hard, dark lines and sharp-edged metal. "This was certainly not him."
Isobel let the scroll wind back into itself, dropping it back into its box; she unconsciously pushed it toward Obed, hooking her fingers into the one by him to pull it toward herself. That was as close as she came to touching the hand guard, her fingers staying carefully on the exterior of the box.
"I don't think... This doesn't seem like something Bryan would do," she offered, voicing her own concern. He'd always been more about taking rather than giving, and besides, the last time she'd seen him, he'd been all but homeless. Where he would've gotten the money, let alone the wrapping, for such an elaborate stunt was beyond her. She picked up the lid and closed it. "And it's an incredibly strange way for management to make amends. You think they would have at least put our names on the boxes."
"You'd think." Obed's voice trailed off. It was small, cold comfort that she did not imagine Bryan behind these odd gifts, but by the same token, that left the greater problem of who had done such a thing. He reached into the box evidently meant for him, withdrawing the sketch she had cast aside. "This really isn't bad, though," he said. A small smile curved one corner of his mouth. He glanced over to her, trying for levity. "I actually kind of like it. It's not our painting, but it still might be worth framing."
Her eyes tracked up from the scroll in his hands to his face, chewing on the inside of her cheek.
"And something you could put in the living room," she supplied, meeting his gaze, happy for the tentative olive branch he'd offered. She still could not dispel the pang of fear that threaded through her, dampening her smile. She left the box on the table, taking a step back. "I think I'm gonna go read by the pool for a bit." She did not offer an invitation, or ask what he wanted to do with their shared time; instead, she waited a beat, then headed for the bedroom.
Silent, he watched her go, a muted frown on his face. His shoulders softened their hard plane. Carefully he rolled up the sketch; he knew precisely where he would go to have it matted and framed, and regardless of who had sent it, it filled him with a quiet, not altogether unpleasant melancholy. He closed the box that had belonged to her, and quietly slipped back outside, there to attend to his own business.