Demi Rafferty (enavant) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2016-03-29 08:25:00 |
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Barely a week had passed since Demi had last seen Isaac and yet she found herself anxiously awaiting the moment when she would be able to lay her eyes on him again, to wrap her arms around him and enjoy his company. Phone calls and text messages didn’t compare to the real thing, not even close. Not only that, but Isaac had asked her to meet him at the bar -- the one that had been a neutral meeting ground -- to assess whether or not he should make it his new residence or not. Demi hadn’t seen the bar since the last time she had been there with Pete, but she couldn’t imagine it would have changed enough for her to speak against Isaac taking it over. In truth, she liked the idea of Isaac having a place in the city that was his, and if she allowed herself to go there she liked the idea that it could be theirs. The more nights she spent apart from him, the more she was beginning to realize she wouldn’t be able to survive it long term. She wasn’t codependent, but she found comfort in waking up next to him and going to bed beside him. A comfort that was hard to find in a world where everything seemed to be shifting from hour to hour sometimes. This was what she was thinking about as she approached the bar and parked the borrowed pickup truck in the alleyway beside the building. The front entrance wasn’t accessible, that much Demi had remembered from before so parking in the alley gave her the easiest and likely safest path into the building through the side door. She turned the engine off and pocketed the keys, she reached into the passenger seat for her gun, bolstering it and double checking that her knife was in its sheath. With both weapons safely strapped into place, Demi exited the truck and made quick work of darting across the alleyway and through the door to the bar. The lights were already on when she stepped through the doors and it didn’t take her eyes long to adjust. Once they had Demi scanned the space, her face breaking into a happy smile when she spotted Isaac seated at the bar. Taking a moment to just admire him, brown eyes scanning him from head to toe, silently checking him over for any signs of change or injury that he might have felt unworthy of mentioning to her over the phone. “Waiting for someone, sweetheart?” She questioned as her smile turned coy, a hint of flirtation in her tone as she moved towards him, hips swaying as the heavy motorcycle boots she wore made thudding noises that echoed off of the walls of the mostly empty space. Scratching at his head and making a show of looking as confused as possible, he said, “As a matter of fact, I’m looking for my girlfriend. She’s about yay high,” he lifted a hand to Demi’s height, “Is somehow sexy and cute as a button at the same time. She can be a royal pain in the ass, but I happen to be madly in love with her.” Standing as he spoke he began to move over towards her, stopping once he was only a few steps away. “Know anyone who fits that description?” He asked, grinning. Screwing her face up into a thoughtful expression while she shifted her gaze from him to turn and glance over her shoulder as if in search of the person Isaac described, she shook her head. “Sexy and cute as a button, huh?” She questioned when she was looking back at him again. “I just might.” Demi took one step and then another to invade Isaac’s space. “She might be here looking for her boyfriend, he’s about this tall,” her hand rose up to his height. “The kind of handsome that screams leading man, but he’s also a total goof. And he really should get some kind of sainthood for putting up with me, which I love him for that reason and about ten million other ones.” The smile that accompanied her words could have lit up the whole bar it was so bright and instead of dropping the hand she had previously lifted up, Demi instead brought her other arm up and looped them both around his neck. The act was dropped as Demi rose up onto her tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss to Isaac’s lips. “Hey, baby,” she murmured as she sank back down to stand flat footed. “Just remember I'm your royal pain in the ass.” “You’ll never let me forget,” Isaac grinned, placing a final kiss on her forehead before pulling back slightly. Moving his hand down, he laced their fingers together and began to tug her towards the stairs. “So let’s start at the top and work our way down.” The climb up the stairs didn’t take long, and once they’d climbed to the fourth floor, the door opened to a large living area. The place was actually pretty unreal, though it lacked luxuries like the running water they’d had at the Capitol. “Think you can see yourself waking up next to me in that bed?” He asked, glancing at Demi, trying to get a read on her first impression. Demi gave no objection as Isaac began leading her around the abandoned bar, making their first stop on the fourth floor. When the door was opened and she got a good look at the place, she couldn’t help the way her eyes went wide as she met Isaac’s gaze. “Honestly, I could have seen myself waking up next to you in a cardboard box,” she began with a smirk. “But I wouldn’t complain about that bed.” Her gaze slipped away from him again as they both stepped further into the living space and she took in more of the space. Isaac’s apartment back at the Capitol had been nice, but something about this place felt more like him, or them really. Even though they had yet to discuss it in length, Demi found herself already entertaining the idea of making this place home. “Do you think you could handle waking up next to me in that bed?” Demi finally countered, waving a hand towards the bed and then sweeping it towards the bathroom. “Or testing out that bathtub with me?” As she spoke she pulled them both towards the bathroom, wanting a closer look at the place. Isaac followed closely behind Demi, his arm moving around her waist from behind once they’d stopped, pulling her closer. “I’d wake up next to you wherever,” he agreed, kissing the top of her head. It would be a relief if they could actually find a place to be together -- and that place might be right here. As she leaned back against Isaac, Demi allowed a ghost of a impish grin to turn up the corners of her mouth as she tipped her head back to look at him. “Just so long as I’m not making you sleep on a couch, right?” There was a twinkle in her eye as she asked this. “Or would that even be bearable so long as I was there?” “I think anything is okay as long as we’re together,” Isaac smiled, letting go, then moving around her and towards the tub, turning the faucet on and off a few times, to no success. “We’ll have to figure out how to get water up here before we can take that bath, but I have an idea for that. Something Cal told me ages ago about how the water got to the Capitol. That’ll be something we can investigate later, though.” Stepping into the doorway of the bathroom, Demi leaned a hip against it while Isaac tested out the faucet, a frown appearing when it didn’t yield any results -- not that she had truly expected it to. “Do I even want to know why you two were talking about the Capitol’s water source?” She questioned, the frown evaporating as she thought about what would have brought the two men around to talking about that. “I was just curious as to why all the fixtures work at the Capitol but when I’ve scavenged in apartments around the city, the water is off. Cal said there are controls down in the sewers. Maybe if we figured out how that worked, we could get water here.” Isaac hoped so anyway. Because although he’d learned a lot about how to collect water and purify it while he’d been living with Clover, he did miss that luxury from the Capitol. “We’ll put water investigating at the top of the to-do list,” Demi noted, glancing back over her shoulder as she asked. “Right below testing out the bed, you know, just to make sure it can handle us,” She said this with a knowing smile. “We do have lost time to make up for, after all.” Demi tacked on while she stepped into the bathroom and took hold of Isaac’s hand. “If we finish this tour quickly we could even test it out before we leave,” she continued while she attempted to pull Isaac back into the other room. “Or now, we could test it out now.” “You’re the worst,” Isaac said, giving her a playful shove, though a grin accompanied his words. And while he would have loved to test out the bed, if they went down that road they wouldn’t accomplish anything. He’d brought her here so she could get a real look at the place but they couldn’t do that if they just spent the whole day in bed. “Oh, am I? Who was it again that put off a dance performance because he just couldn’t wait?” Demi fired back with humor in her tone as she gave him a good natured shove in return. She hadn’t exactly minded Isaac’s impatience then, and she didn’t mind him continuing their tour now. They would have more than enough time in that bed in the coming days and months, that was, if Isaac decided to make this place home. “Maybe if we’re efficient we can revisit that idea.” He leaned down, giving her a kiss, then moved back slightly to say, “Let’s go look at the rest of the place first, okay?” One eyebrow quirked up as she remarked. “I suppose now we have incentive to be efficient don’t we?” Demi stepped in close, eating up the space that Isaac had just put between them, and rose up on her tiptoes, pressing a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth -- one that was reminiscent of the first time she had kissed him. “Lead the way, Mr. Tour guide.” She teased as she pulled back from him and waited for Isaac to decide where he would lead her next. Isaac briefly considered saying fuck it and just dragging her back to bed, but he knew they’d be better off if they finished the tour first. They wouldn’t have anything to worry about if they finished their task first. So reluctantly, he moved his hand down, taking hers in his, and began leading her back downstairs. The next floor used to be offices, or at least that was what Isaac assumed. Whoever was here before had shoved desks and file cabinets into one of the rooms and put mismatched beds in the rest, turning them into bedrooms. “Because you know we have so many friends who are going to visit,” Isaac smirked after they’d poked their heads into the last of the bedrooms. “Come on, let’s go look at the kitchen. Every time I go in there I feel like I’m breaking the rules. Like some chef is going to wave his knife at me and tell me to get out.” “Maybe we could open up the first apocalyptic boarding house?” Demi suggested with a laugh, picturing both herself and Isaac hosting a motley crew of people in this place. They hadn’t officially had much of a conversation about her moving in with him yet, though on some levels Demi assumed it was a just a given. Both had expressed over the span of time that they had been apart that they wished it wasn’t the case. Maybe the White Trail was the solution they had been looking for all along? With a quirked eyebrow, Demi eyed Isaac. “Don't tell me I've created a monster and you like feeling like you’re breaking the rules,” she teased lightly. “And you never know, maybe I’ll shoo you out of the kitchen with a knife some day…” Demi couldn’t even begin to imagine what it might be like to cook in a full kitchen again, her mind taking off with all the possibilities and solidifying the idea of moving into this place even further. Each step they took that brought them closer to the kitchen just served as another step in her resolve that this place was somewhere they could have a semblance of a life together. Somewhere worth setting down roots in and might absolve Demi of some of the guilt she carried over the fact that Isaac had been living on the run and without basic amenities like running water, simply because he loved her and had given up his life, his career, to save her. As they stopped just outside the doorway to the kitchen, Demi paused, turning to look at Isaac. “I like this place,” she started. “But do you like it? Could you see yourself living here?” Demi paused. “Could you see us living here?” Isaac leaned against the wall, looking around the bar that could be his. It was a nice place and more space than any one or two people could need. But even though moving here might be excessive, it was the end of the world, and he’d take any luxuries he could get. “Yeah, you know, I think I could. We need a place where we can be together and this seems like it could be it. And I want to wake up next to you every day and even if you chase me out of the kitchen with a knife, I’d still get to be with you,” he grinned. “So is this it? Are we doing this?” As he spoke, Demi first surveyed the bar again and then moved over towards Isaac, his grin was infectious and she found herself mirroring it as she wedged herself in next to him. All those months while in the Capitol Demi had thought of nothing else but getting back to the Dog Park, to her family, her people. But all of that meant very little now, because the person who had become most important to her wasn’t there. This place, the bar, it would allow for them to be together again. No more holding their relationship together through phone calls, text messages and the occasional face to face meeting -- which always just left her wanting more. “Are you giving me permission to chase you out of the kitchen with said knife?” Demi teased as she leaned into him, face tipped up to meet his gaze. “Yeah, I think we’re doing this,” she continued, her tone held a bit of awe to it. She hadn’t thought it would be this easy to find a place where they could live together again. “Look at us, finding our first place together,” Demi knew in reality Isaac had found the place, but the statement still stood. The Capitol apartment had been Isaac’s first, she hadn’t had any kind of say in that. But the bar, they were agreeing to make it theirs together, the act just confirming what Demi already knew in that they were both in this for the long haul. “Do you think you’ll want to open it as a bar again?” “I don’t think so. Wouldn’t mind people coming here to hang out, but I’m not going to cook and go scavenging for booze for other people. It can be a BYOB kind of place, if anything,” Isaac grinned. It wasn’t something he’d actually thought about before Demi asked him, but the answer came to him quickly… and it felt right. They had more than enough space and it wasn’t like there were any other public places to meet. So it seemed like a good compromise. Isaac pulled Demi in, his arms looping around her waist as he leaned in, kissing her forehead. “I love you. Now what do you say we go cristen that bed upstairs?” It was nearly second nature now, the way the two of them fit together and Demi found she liked the comfort of that, of how secure and safe she felt during moments like this. “I like the idea of giving the people of Austin a neutral place to meet,” she agreed, a smile playing on her lips as she stood on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to Isaac’s cheek. “And I don’t hate the idea of getting to show you off, either.” Demi tacked on impishly as her hands found the belt loops on his jeans and she began tugging in away from the wall and towards the stairs. “I love you too. And I would say you just read my mind, so let's get a move on.” Pulling Isaac along with her, Demi took the stairs two and a time, well, she had absolutely no shame in owning her impatiences and the last thought she had as they left a trail of clothing from the doorway to the bed was that this couldn’t possibly be her life now, that at some point she was going to wake up to find that the last ten months had been some kind of dream. If or until that happened though, Demi was going to take advantage of every moment she got with him. |