Aleksandra Makarov ❅ Maržanna (koliada) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2017-09-26 20:38:00 |
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Entry tags: | chernobog, marzanna |
hello darkness my old friend
Who: Alex & Matt.
What: Two old friends see each other for the first time in awhile.
Where: 403.
When: Following this network exchange.
Despite Alex's network message, there wasn't that much left to unpack. A scattering of boxes near the bathroom, two in the kitchen, and several in the living area, paired with a still-wrapped couch and recliner, were evidence that the place was just newly occupied.
The tenant herself was busy measuring out where she wanted a triptych of photos to go; they were of, perhaps ironically, a winter scene filled with white pines, their glistening, unmarred bark cut by black dabs of wood beneath the exterior. Snow fell over a wide landscape; everything seemed dark, cold, and unforgiving, except for the small dot of a burning orange window belonging to a cabin in the distance. Smoke threaded up from a chimney.
The three paintings were stacked carefully against one another off to the side, but Alex wanted to be certain they were hung just so; she was interrupted in her measurements by a knock on her front door. The first of many, she hoped, as a boisterous grin broke out over her face, the complete opposite of the stoic focus she'd had only moments before. Putting the tape measure down, she moved quickly in her black jegging pants, long gray sweater and white top (shoeless, at least until she needed to run out again for something else the apartment was lacking) toward the door.
"Hey, Mattie." The presence behind the entryway wasn't a surprise in the slightest, and yet it was. It had been some time since she'd seen Matthew Buchanan in the flesh; it felt good, to say the least. With the door opened wide, she uncharacteristically reached out to pull him into a full bodied hug, her arms wrapped around his shoulders.
Matthew tensed for the briefest moment when Alex threw her arms around his shoulders. He stood awkwardly bent forward a little with his hands out, surprised by her sudden embrace and her being there and the surprise of it all, but quickly he settled into hugging her in return, his arms wrapping around her small frame with ease and squeezing her back. “Hey there,” he said with a sigh, catching the scent of her shampoo and suddenly feeling at home. He had missed her, but he hadn’t realized how much until just that moment. “I can’t believe you’re here! All the way to California!”
He pulled back, not wanting her to feel awkward, but was already beaming down at her and falling into the familiarity of being in her presence once more.
"I know, right? All that sun," she shivered, looking briefly disgusted. "But don't linger in the hall, come on in. I was just trying to figure out how to hang some stuff." She ushered Matt into her apartment, closing the door behind him. "Shoes by the door, OK? Trying to keep the dirt and whatever to a minimum." Pulling her sweater closer around her arms, Alex started off into the apartment proper.
"There's really not too much left to do..."
“And here I thought you needed my brute force to help you move stuff around,” Matthew replied, kicking off his shoes and pushing them into an orderly file beside the door. “I guess I could help you hang stuff? Or unwrap your living room things.” He moved forward into the apartment, a smile still on his face which was such a complete opposite from the normally serious expression he wore. A laugh even escaped him as he looked to his friend. “I can’t believe you’re here. Sorry, it’s going to take a bit to fully realize it all.”
Alex had stopped dead center in the middle of the room and its neatly ordered chaos, her arms tucked around her middle. She grinned at Matt, the tip of her tongue emerging to underscore her teasing expression.
"Just your friendly neighborhood ghost, following you around," she replied, quietly, her grin tempering. She shrugged. "It's exactly what I said it was; I'd been with that other clinic for as long as it was going to benefit me, you said you were a little stressed out by work and the apartment and... I also just thought, it's got to be pretty lonely, moving across the country where you don't know anyone else." She went silent for a beat, her gaze resting comfortably on his face.
"Besides, you know, you... You were always pretty fixed on things and..." Alex stopped herself, realizing perhaps now was not the time for that line of inquiry. She dropped her arms by her sides, rolling her shoulders before lifting a hand to rub at one. "Besides, if you could do it, so can I, right? Don't try to make this a boy's club, Mattie." Her smile indicated her teasing, even if her tone was a little sharp.
“Of course you can,” Matthew replied, almost too quickly, as if trying to ensure she didn’t actually think he wanted it to be a boy’s club--which was exactly the case. “I’m glad to have my ghost friend back,” he joked but a brief look passed over his face, there and gone again, as his mind returned to the number of weeks ago when he had been a ghost himself. Biting his lip and letting it go, he moved further into the apartment and looked around. “Tom is here, you remember me telling you about him, right? He’s my high school friend. He surprised me by moving here as well. But that doesn’t diminish your being here.” He paused, smiling at her again, his eyes somewhat glued to her. He had missed her more than he had realized and it rushed at him with the quickened beating of his heart and the settling pleasure that there was no need to miss her anymore.
“I’m shocked you weren’t sick of me and were alright with coming here. You know this means you’ll have to listen to me talk about spirits and life and all that again, right?” He asked as he moved toward the furniture and inspected where the plastic cover opening was.
A sympathetically mocking smile moved over her mouth, paired with a shake of her head. "We really have to work on that self-confidence, Mattie. And the west coast seemed as good a choice as any; did you really think I'd move down to Florida? There's nothing but old people and alligators and humidity." She made a face, sticking out her tongue. "I've got scissors so we can start pulling that apart, if you want. Otherwise, I was trying to hang those."
Alex pointed across the room toward the triptych, each panel carefully stacked atop the other. "The couch would go under it, I think? Unless you've got suggestions on interior design." She shrugged, and then disappeared into the kitchen for a moment, returning with a pair of black handled scissors hanging carefully from one hand; she flipped them around, holding them carefully by the blade to offer the handle to Matt. "You want to do the honors, oh big strong man?"
Matthew narrowed his eyes in mock annoyance but accepted the scissors. “We’ll get this unwrapped then get the photos up, okay? That way we have somewhere to sit afterward that doesn’t remind me of my grandmother’s house with those awful plastic coverings on the couch.” Alex laughed. He began working at the plastic, cutting through the tape and pulling the covering back bit by bit as he rid the tape of its holding. “The lack of humidity is definitely a plus. I was pretty sick of those Baltimore summers. And this apartment is nice… not a lot of people living here. I think you only have Alice on this floor. She’s sweet, be nice to her.” He gave a warning glance at Alex before returning to his task at hand.
"Whenever am I not nice, Mattie," Alex replied, standing behind him at an angle where she could appreciate the view being offered. "I think we've already spoke on the network; she offered to make me something sweet. You know I can't be mad at people who bring me chocolate." She tilted her head to one side, which to any onlooker might seem like she was studying the curvature of his stoop, but they would have been proved wrong when she announced that Matt had missed a piece of tape.
Stepping forward, she yanked it off, getting it stuck to her own hand with an annoyed sound. Alex peeled it off from there, and then immediately attached it to Matt's back, with a pat.
"You're lucky I don't have a 'kick me' sign handy," she teased, before removing herself from his reach by way of grabbing a piece of plastic and beginning to move around the couch in a loose circle to undo the wrapping. "So other than the job and the...sparsely populated digs, how have you been? How has Tom been? I hope he's been dragging you out of your cave."
“He’s dragged me out a couple of times. Otherwise we’ve just hung out at my place,” Matt replied as he tried to unsuccessfully get the piece of tape off of his back. Dropping his hand and frowning, he opted to be completely unhelpful by plopping down on the couch; Alex sighed, shaking her head, but continued to unwind the plastic. “I haven’t had many opportunities to see the sights even. I’ve gone to the bakery that your neighbor runs, that’s how I know Alice, and a coffee shop with a woman who lives here, a museum with Tom as well. I try to get around to see the sights but I’ve been doing an awful job at it. Otherwise it’s just been work and home.” He smiled up at Alex. “We’ll have to be tourists together.”
"Mmhm," Alex replied, having taken particular notice of one detail he'd mentioned. "Coffee with a woman huh? You never mentioned any dates." She did her best to keep a bristled tone out of her words, but it was there. The earlier playfulness was gone, and she focused on pulling all the plastic to one side, bundling it up as best she could before letting it drop completely to the floor. Once a box was free, she could send it on its way. Instead, she tried to remain casual by moving back over to the triptych, picking up the pencil and tape measure she'd put down.
“It wasn’t a date,” Matthew replied, now unable to keep his eye on Alex. He wasn’t ashamed of his time spent with Isobel, nor the gentle crush he had on the woman, but he did find himself shy to admit that his true crush had always been Alex. “She’s nice and a friend. She’s had it rough recently and…” he shrugged. His memories slowly trailing over the history he had with Isobel, straight back to when he had initially met her on the table of the medical ward, which caused him to frown. “I think she finds it comforting to talk to me. I’m a sounding board, I guess, while she figures her shit out. Which is fine, like I said, she’s nice and a friend.”
"Ah," was all Alex replied, pulling the tape measure out from the floor to where she thought would be an appropriate height for the pictures. Without turning around, she gestured toward the other end of the room. "Get the toolbox, would you? Hammer and nails, please. The thin nails, I think two of those per painting will be enough to hang them." She made a short line on the wall where she wanted the first picture to go, and then started to measure out the remaining widths.
"So are you a sounding board for any other ladies in the apartment complex? Or are you offering your services in a non-gendered manner?" Alex cast a sidelong glance in Matt's direction, one brow raised, one side of her mouth quirked in what could almost be called a smirk.
“Har-har,” Matt teased as he got to his feet and pretended his cheeks didn’t burn a splash of red by Alex’s comment. “Where’s the toolbox? Out or in a closet?” He asked as he began to cross the room, weaving in and out of stacks of boxes.
"Closet by the front door," Alex offered, not glancing in Matt's direction. The closet she meant was at least, perhaps sympathetically, simple to find; there was only one closet by the front door, perpendicular to that entryway; its slim lines were easily spotted. Matt was clearly left on his own in this regard, as Alex did not turn away from making her careful pencil lines on the white-surfaced wall where she wanted the paintings to go.
Angling his direction toward the front door closet, Matt moved through the apartment with a familiarity that was already obvious. “We should get food after this,” Matt commented as he grabbed the doorknob for the closet and threw it open. “We can find some new restaurant togeth--”
Matthew blinked, staring into the closet blankly. The toolbox wasn’t there, that’s for sure, but what was there was an apartment. No one appeared to be there, no animals came running out, but there were lived in items and the lingering scent of pot. Bookshelves filled with different artifacts, collectibles, and pictures. A wall with a surfboard and a large hiking pack hanging from a lower rung, a couch with a blanket tossed aside, and no owner to be seen.
Without finishing his thought, Matthew closed the door and stepped back, a hand going to his forehead and fingers prying into his temples. “Uh, yeah, the toolbox isn’t there…”
"Yes, it is," Alex replied, followed by a soft, annoyed sigh. She put the tape measure down, the pencil sliding behind one ear as she turned in Matt's direction. "I put it on the shelf... I'm the only one here, Matt, so it's not like little goblins could have moved it. Here, let me show you." The distance between them was not so long, and sooner than Matt probably would have liked, the pale woman was reaching out for the doorknob he'd so hastily closed.
“It’s not there,” Matthew repeated, his hand darting around the woman and pressing the door back closed. With all that had gone on between his job and the oddities of the apartment, he didn’t want Alex to immediately fall into the chaos of it all. “Here, let’s look, maybe you moved it and you didn’t realize it. Moving, you know, it’s a lot for the brain.”
She stared at him like he'd grown a second head. Then her brows drew together, annoyance lighting up her face even more than before.
"I didn't move it, Matthew. But you need to move. What's gotten into you?" She pressed forward, stepping around him and shoving at him lightly to step away from the door. "Is this because you're stressed? I think you need to talk to your manager, maybe get them to scale things back a little."
“Alex…” Matthew sighed, batting away her poor attempt to shove him and instead wrapping his arms around her. He couldn’t fathom her falling into the same twisted world that he found himself in and for all his feelings for her, it made it all the more serious and necessary to protect her from it all. “Hey, let’s just get dinner now, alright? Let’s go out. Forget unpacking for now, we can do it later.”
Alex fixed him with a look, one that was equal portions worried and a little frightened. She put her own hand on his wrist; not removing it nor denying him the touch, but stilling him.
"Matt, why don't you want me to look in the closet?"
Matthew didn’t answer right away but held her all the same, his arms firmly around her and for a moment he marveled that they were so close to one another. But her look was fixed on him and searching, she knew him well enough to know if he was lying. “This apartment is strange,” Matthew admitted. “It’ll sound insane but things happen here that make no sense. There’s strange things that happen to the people too. Your closet… it’s one of those weird things.” He looked up at the closet with distrust then back at Alex, his expression turning to worry over her reaction.
She measured him for a moment, weighing his words. Then she gently unwound his arms from her figure, stepping away enough so there was a foot of space between them.
"Let me look," she replied, "and decide for myself." It was how she'd always been; questions would not be abated until she'd seen things with her own eyes. And so with that statement, she turned away from Matt and put her hand on the doorknob before he could stop her again; a quick twist, and it was open, and it was not the closet she'd expected to see. The one where she'd put the toolbox on the third shelf from the top, exact placement for easy finding later.
Such finding would have to wait. Her eyes went round as she peered into another apartment, one that was so very much not her own. Frozen in place, she turned back to Matt, staring at him as though his earlier description was not quite enough of a warning. Then she looked back, and took a step forward into the foreign space, as if testing it to see if it was real.
“Wait,” Matthew breathed, reaching out for her hand and following her through the door. He thought of the cat in his apartment and how quickly he had changed and he couldn’t allow the same fate for Alex. Or rather, if something strange happened to her, let it happen to him as well. “See, though? I mean, I told you the toolbox wasn’t in here.”
Alex made a clicking sound with her tongue, chastising Matt for his attempted joke, but paused long enough for him to catch up and grab her hand.
"Do you know who's apartment this is?" Shafts of light broke through haphazardly drawn curtains; the strong odor of marijuana was juxtaposed with what felt like a museum in miniature. Alex drifted toward a shelf displaying a number of icons from potentially African origins, though without a book or label at hand, she was at a loss for specifics.
She gently reached out, but her hand stopped short of picking one of the items up. What if the person had a security alarm? But surely such a thing would have been tripped already, upon their entrance…
“No idea,” Matthew replied faintly, his gaze turning to a different shelf as he stepped to the side and their hands pulled. He smiled, glancing at their entwined hands, then let hers go.
“I mean, it’s obviously an apartment here. It’s definitely not Alice’s though...and that’s the only other person on your floor, right?” He looked at the bookshelf and focused on a photo before pointing at it and looking back at Alex. “I recognize the two guys in this picture although I don’t know them very well. They live in the complex. I guess one of them lives here.”
"An astute observation, Watson," Alex teased. Her hand groped for a moment, fingers closing around empty air. She frowned, but didn't push the issue.
"I mean, we could always rifle around for mail or something, but... That seems in poor taste." She glanced around the room again, wanting to explore and yet social mores told her that she'd be upset if this was her apartment. Alex turned back to Matt. "Well, let's go back to my apartment, and I guess see about getting me a new toolbox. You said there could be food involved?"
She started back toward the door that had led them from her apartment to this unknown one—oddly enough, the front door of this apartment, which was now apparently linked to her closet on the fourth floor—glancing over her shoulder only once to make sure Matt was following.
"Oh, and just how do you know what Alice's apartment looks like? Is she the one you went on a date with?"
Matthew turned to Alex with large eyes. “No,” he replied quickly. “She’s… she’s like a kid. She’s on your floor and I helped Isobel carry a herb plant thing to Alice’s apartment. Isobel had gotten it for Alice as a gift.” He followed close on Alex’s heels, grabbing her hand again before allowing her to slip through the doorway. “And you’re going to tell me you’re gonna focus on all that over this?” He moved his free hand to indicate the apartment and the fact they were going back into a closet that was no longer a closet but a gateway between apartments.
"Well you're the one focusing on the fact that the toolbox wasn't where I said it was," she taunted in return. She undid his hand, instead reaching for his bicep in as calming of a motion that she could manage. "Yes, Mattie, this is weird. This is... impossible. But do you want me to fall down screaming and crying about things that shouldn't be? You already said things have been weird here, and... Clearly you're still sane.
"So we're going back to my apartment, we're getting things as much in place as they can be, and then we're opening a new bottle of Khortytsa I bought to celebrate my moving here, and then maybe we can start talking about what exactly's happening here. Though I certainly hope that I get my closet back..." Her hand smoothed down his arm, catching his fingers again as she moved back through the dual front door/closet door back into her own apartment. Once Matt was tugged through successfully, she closed the door in her own mostly-empty space.
Matthew looked at his friend, really looked at her, and could only smile. He was so nervous she’d do exactly what she had described but she hadn’t and he was a fool to be worried, he knew her better than that. Feeling a tiny bit of relief, he grabbed her hand on his bicep and gave it a squeeze. “Khortytsa sounds good. Maybe we can just order in? Work until the food gets here and all that. And I can get my toolbox from my place so we can finish as much as we can.”
Alex turned away from the door, her fingers still wrapped in Matt's. She smiled. "That sounds great. If you know of a good Thai place around here, that would really hit the spot right now." It would have been an appropriate moment to let go of Matt's hand, to let him complete his suggested offers, but his touch felt warm in her own. Instead, she tightened her grip.
"Mind if I go with you to your apartment?"
Matthew’s smile turned crooked and he gave a nod. “Yeah, come on up. I have some Thai menus, too. You can pick the restaurant.” He smiled down at her and gave her hand a gentle tug towards the door. “Hopefully we can find our way back to your apartment and your door doesn’t vanish.”
Alex laughed, her eyes rolling toward the ceiling. "Don't jinx us, Mattie." She squeezed his hand once more, then momentarily let go to collect her phone and keys. Quickly enough she was back by his side, her fingers sliding between his with a practiced ease that seemed they'd been doing this for longer than was true. She tugged him toward the door. "OK, let's go."