i had you deep in my lungs. Who: Demi Rafferty & Cal Davidson Where: The Capitol What: Old friends catching a moment in an unfamiliar setting. When: WAY BACKDATED to the Frost Moon ball
He’s still readjusting the cuffs of his white sleeves, resisting the urge to unbutton them entirely and roll them up to his elbow. There are too many well-coiffed lawyers and former senators and council members floating around the room, looking like pristine unruffled models out of a catalogue, despite the world having ended; Cal has never been quite so aware of the twinging pains in his body, the cuts and bruises hidden beneath the fabric. Like wearing another skin over his own.
And he looks ill-at-ease, until he finds the other DoR agents and cottons onto their group for a time. Their rough-and-tumble jokes settle him down, and he knows that. Fletcher has, in fact, rolled up his sleeves, and is on his third drink.
Cal is mid-laugh, mid-story, when he looks over his friend’s shoulder and catches a glimpse of someone he knows very well indeed. Then he’s making his apologies and stepping through the crowd, heading over to the other side of the room to where Demi balances on heels.
“Hey, stranger.” And Cal being Cal, doesn’t even try to hide the admiring glance he casts over her. “Look what they’ve done to us,” he says wryly.
The drone of the wives encircling her has begun to sound like a faint buzzing, words sliding into each other until Demi can't discern them anymore. She tuned out a long time ago, nodding at appropriate moments, ruby red lips plastered into a small, yet fake smile. To anyone watching it would appear as if she were in fact enjoying herself, even if her various conversations through the evening might have alluded to the reality of her feelings about this night.
Her heels are starting to kill her feet, but Demi refuses to show weakness -- even in this. So she's ignoring the dull ache, eyes sliding over the various faces as Hayley Schultz, another congressman's wife, yammers on about just how couture her dress is. The woman throws out the name of a designer and the only thing Demi can think of is how Lita would have known exactly who this woman was talking about, probably.
Demi is just about ready to end her misery when she catches sight of Cal approaching. Quickly she makes her exit, apologizing to the other women (even if she doesn't mean it) and meets him halfway. If she preens as his gaze slides over her, well, could anyone really blame her? She does the same to him, because even if they figured out long ago they could never work, Cal is in her opinion one of the most handsome men in the room.
“We clean up well, don't we?” Demi laughs, seamlessly looping her arm around his. He accepts the easy contact, and they fall back into that rhythm as smoothly as the first time they ran into each other in these hallways. “Maybe this place is wearing off on us…” She says this teasingly, positive that the ivory walls of this place will never rub off on either of them. It's a comfort really, the fact that despite everything she knows Cal will always be Cal. She's thrown her fair share of bombs at him in terms of her life, and yet here he remains a constant in her life, a comfort when so many other things are unsure. He laughs, elbowing her slightly in the side, affectionately.
“So help me god, if it ever does, please just kick me out into the wastes and lock the door on me. I miss my fatigues already. Or just my good ole pair of jeans.” His thoughts flicker to the future for a moment: he’ll be back to Richland next month, sweating in the hot sun, mucking out stalls, feeding the goddamn hens. Drifting back to some sort of pastoral farmland. He’s not sure how well that mantle suits, either.
Demi laughs. “Sweetheart, I won’t toss you out into the wastes, I’ll just remind you of who you really are,” because tossing him out would mean losing another person in the Capitol that she could actually stomach. “And you’ll be back in your jeans soon enough, I’m sure. Just let me get a picture of you like this before that happens, it might be the only time anyone ever sees you in a tux.” A friendly dig, a callback to a time when they both used to talk about how they weren’t the ‘have and to hold’ types. It was startling just how quickly Demi’s mindset on commitment had changed since those days back when Austin wasn’t a wasteland.
“You ever been to one of these shindigs before?” Cal’s voice is soft and low, intimate almost, as they float through the crowd in their own little bubble of space. Demi is a world unto herself; he’s more cautious these days, perhaps, but she’s still one of the few things he trusts around here. Even after the things he’s learned.
Cal breaks into her thoughts with his next question and Demi’s gaze is drawn to the lavishly decorated room again before she responds. “No, I mean unless you count a much smaller halloween party that Rose Paulsen threw,” that party was in truth nothing compared to the event the mayor was throwing. “I used to have to attend suit and tie affairs like this when I was a dancer, but this is my first over the top Capitol event.” She bites her tongue before mentioning her suspicions as to why Olinger has pulled out all the stops. Cal might have forgiven her for her lies, but that didn’t mean she was going to bring up the Hellhounds freely with him, especially not now that she knew the history he had with them. “Have you ever been to one of these things?” They’re dodging people as they move through the crowd, ignoring the looks they’re given. Demi knows the gossip mill will be buzzing tomorrow, but she doesn’t care.
Their friendship stands outside those concerns, roots grown deep in the ground. If it can survive disastrous sex and lies and prison and her tears on his shirt, it can survive a few wives throwing them skeptical side-eyeing looks over the edge of their wineglasses.
“A couple. They don’t always break the bank like this,” Cal says, delicately. “But they’re part of Capitol life sometimes, yeah. Mostly I stick to the Resources guys like glue, so I sure am glad to see you.”
He’s not even going to jokingly pretend these parties are a real hardship, though. Not with others in the city starving and desperate.
“You here with Isaac?” It’s an easy assumption to make. His own date situation is more bereft, although he instinctively glances over Demi’s shoulder, catching a glimpse of three LBJ blondes standing together on the other end of the room.
The scowl that flickers across her features is hard to hide, and even if she tried she knows Cal has known her long enough to catch the change in her mood. “No, he and I, things have been tense,” she sighs, dark eyes glancing down at the ground before looking back up at Cal. “Which maybe I should have expected given my track record.” If anyone knows her dating history, it’s Cal.
Wanting to move on from the dismal state of her own love life, Demi quirks an eyebrow and eyes Cal while she asks. “Is there a reason you don’t have some hot date on your arm?” She pauses a beat before adding. “I mean you have one on your arm right now, but we both know I’m not going to stay here forever.” This is said with a smile and in an attempt to not allow her sour mood and the tension between herself and Isaac ruin the time she’s been given with one of her oldest friends.
He laughs and gives his arm candy an affectionate squeeze, drawing her briefly closer. “I prefer borrowing others’ dates. Less commitment and responsibility. Means I get to be the cool temporary dance partner, but no strings attached.”
It’s a lie, of course, and she can read him like a book, Cal’s typical way of edging around a subject. But it’s Demi, so some of the truth slips out as it always does around her: “My own track record’s shit, Demi. I’ve got an ex, a friend I hooked up with, and then women who have either punched or stabbed me.” And one who isn’t allowed through the white gates of the Capitol. “Just simpler to go stag. Life’s hard enough without fussing over something like a date.”
“You know I don’t believe that for a minute Cal Davidson, after all it takes one to know one, right?” Demi remarked with a laugh, remembering back to a time when they had worked because neither one of them were necessarily looking to hitch themselves to just one person. It was funny how easily things had changed in less than a decade - at least for her. “And do I need to remind you that you’re not borrowing me, I’m nobody’s date tonight.” If she failed to keep the bitter tone out of her voice, well, it was Cal so she wasn’t bothered if he knew how she truly felt.
The look she gives him says more than her words ever could. “Sweetheart, you’re preaching to the choir here,” Demi reminded him gently. “But I severely doubt that you couldn’t have found at least one woman in Austin that you’re in good standing with and asked her to be your date,” she paused. “I mean you haven’t managed to pissed off Savannah have you? She would have made a good date.” Demi had spotted her friend earlier in the evening, but had as of yet failed to get a moment to actually talk to her.
“Sav’s staying in my room tonight, actually.” A pause, then he added, “No funny business.” For a moment, Cal hears his voice outside himself and is astonished at how much he sounds like his Uncle Pete.
Life imitates art and art imitates life, Cal decided.
Demi laughed. “That's a pity, I'm sure you could both use the stress release,” while she didn't know the details of everything Savannah, or Cal for that matter, had been through over the last year. It didn't take much of a stretch of imagination to assume everyone could use a break and a little bit of fun. “And who says funny business anymore?” She added, gently poking Cal in the ribs with her elbow.
He grinned. “Maybe that does sort of make her my date.”
Then he’s thinking it over, and it takes a bit of effort but he finally clears his throat and approaches something that wasn’t a joke, for once; Demi’s bitterness is weighing the air between them, and Cal feels that nagging urge to acknowledge it, if not fully address it: “I know neither of us don’t like talking about shit when it’s… tense, but you know you can come to me if you need to? Even considering everything. Not a lot of friendly faces here otherwise, I know.”
Another laugh bubbles up out of her. “Probably the closest person you'll have for a date,” Demi agrees with a nod and another glance around the room, this time looking for the blonde in question. Her search for Savannah is brought up short by Cal’s words, his reminder that despite everything she had revealed to him of late, despite everything currently going on, she still had a confidante and friend in him. “I know, sweetheart. There isn't much to tell though, I've got my loyalties and they clash with Isaac’s,” this is said with a sigh. Not for the first time Demi wonders what life might have been like if her path had crossed with Isaac’s sooner. “But if I need a listening ear, yours will be the first one I bend,” Demi adds, face tipped up towards his. “And you know that's a two way street, right?”
“Yeah, absolutely.” Considering everything they’ve been through—if they can’t trust each other anymore to be upfront, who the hell can they?
(Even if he’s got secrets of his own, things he’s not divulging and never will.)
He’s looking over her shoulder, considering the open floor, the background music that’s now slowed into a sort of waltz-like thing that he’s sure he’s gonna botch. But he has a former ballerina on his arm, and all of a sudden, Cal remembers that fact very, very clearly. “Hey. Demi, you wanna go for a whirl on the dance floor?”
It’s the first idea in a while that’s made him feel anything but dread.
“Do you even have to ask?” Demi questioned, her attention drawn to the dance floor. She had been out there earlier with Isaac, but she had had ulterior motives at that point. Whereas she could enjoy just simply dancing with Cal, no need to use it as the only time she might be able to get him into a conversation. “And do you think you can keep up?” She added teasingly, already drawing him out onto the dance floor as the band finished one song and began another. He let himself be led, his hand tightening on hers as they found a clear spot.
There was a comfort in being out on the dance floor, the only thought being of the next move and the familiarity she and Cal had. A familiarity that had been fostered over years and had thus far survived some pretty big bumps in the road.
“I don't want to make you look a fool in front of your coworkers,” Demi continued as she waited for Cal to lead them off in dance.
“I’ve got a beautiful woman on my arm, I think that makes me patently incapable of looking like a fool,” Cal said with a flash of a smile. When his hand found Demi’s hip and her palm rested against his and they started side-stepping in a dance (evidently he had learned somewhere along the way, and he was agile, if a little stiff), they could almost forget that most things were wrong and the structure was teetering around them.