WHO: Zee and Hugh WHEN: Following this conversation. WHERE: Zee's Bedroom SUMMARY: Zee and Hugh have the Repose talk. WARNINGS: None I can think of
True to her word, Zee had set down her phone and went out in search of Espresso. While Heart and Cinnamon were delightful companions, that she enjoyed the company of, Espresso was as much of an old friend was Hugh was. She'd bent down, scratching behind the felines ears, before scooping them up against her chest. From there it'd been a quick walk back towards the guest room she'd been staying in.
Her room.
Maybe?
She appreciated that the cat wasn't trying to rush away from her and simply laid down when she set it down on the mattress, climbing in on the other side. The comforter was pulled up over them both, creating a den of sorts and she shut her eyes, breathing out heavily.
Everything felt like too much at the moment. There was still the lingering fear from the second rush of memory, which was only growing stronger with the dawning realization that she couldn't explain it away as a falsehood, and there was hurt as she let her own mind spiral outward. She scooted further down the mattress, bending her head forward to press into the tuft of the cat's belly, while a hand moved to rest lovingly on its hind leg, giving slow and idle strokes to their fur.
Hugh didn't waste time reaching for anything other than a award winning bourbon he hadn't actually opened yet. He figured it wasn't likely to make-up for the fact that he hadn't said anything, but at the same time, it couldn't hurt. He grabbed two glasses, and climbed the stairs. Audrey's scolding had probably been well deserved, and he should have warned her. Especially as they started coming up in spring, but he also hadn't entirely expected it? Looking back he should have - fall and spring, it seemed - but this was his second spring, and only just now was the pattern kicking in.
All things considered, it felt a lot better than last spring, plus he wasn't going to ask questions since that seemed to be an option, but it wouldn't necessarily feel that way to someone who was going through it for the first time.
She'd always hated weird things too - maybe in retrospect that made sense - which hadn't made it easier to talk about. Sure, Hugh knew a vampire, apparently, and he'd developed a school boy level crush on a wizard, and his girlfriend had been an AI, but how did you begin to explain any of that to someone who didn't have those experiences?
He knocked on her door, a tap, and pushed it open. "Zee?" Hesitation borne of uncertainty, and a little guilt kept him by the door, and then he pushed through, and sat the bourbon down. "I'm sorry," he offered, soft, before he pushed covers back to see - testing her mood before he just crawled into her nest.
Her hand stilled against Espresso at the sound of the knock. She'd known he was going to come to her. After all, she'd asked for an explanation. It was just that the more they'd spoke on the subject, and as it became clear he'd known about this all along, the more her need for an explanation had shifted towards feeling hurt that one hadn't been provided. And that was where the spiral was coming in, possible explanations for why she'd been kept in the dark being pinballed back and forth between one another.
She opened her eyes and lifted her head to glance up at him when the comforter was pulled back. She'd not answered him. Her name had bore a question and she left it unanswered. Instead, she pulled in another breath, shifting to sit up.
There was a slide backwards as she did, pulling her knees towards her. An arm circled around them and she found her gaze falling back down to them. "So."
Where did she even start?
He didn’t love the monosyllable or the way she didn’t really look at him and he suppressed a sigh as he climbed in next to her.
“I’m sorry. I really did mean to tell you,” he offered.
There were so many things really. “The first Halloween I was here I went to a Bonfire party and basically became my costume. I was this king searching for my lost Princess, which was Em, I think?” He sighed, not really looking at her. Because he knew it sounded crazy. “Then last spring we ended up all sleeping, this mass sleeping thing across the whole town. Which if it had just been sleeping beauty that would have been fine but there were dreams? And mine was very not safe for work, and there’s nothing quite like waking up and realizing that dream you had was shared with your girlfriend's brother. And that is, among other reasons why Hannah and I are not together and I’m pretty certain both of her brothers hate me. Then this fall there was this train…” he trailed off. “Now memories. At least I don’t think people know that you've seen them? And I’m not asking. Or talking about it.
“And it sounds crazy when I say it out loud. So.”
When he climbed in beside her, she let her free hand reach out, searching for his. Even though she'd not looked back to him yet, she gave his hand a squeeze once she found it, and didn't let it go as he began.
At first, she just gave a soft nod. She wanted to believe that was true.
She shifted, leaning her shoulder against him. Eyes shut again as she pondered this offer of information. He wasn't wrong when he said it sounded crazy. People turning into costumes and assuming false identities as though they were real? That was something out of storybooks. Following it up with a literal page from a fairy tale didn't make any of this sound less insane.
Only, she knew he wasn't making up stories. Hugh didn't lie to her. And there was the incidents of the day... "It sounds crazy," she offered up because it was hard to really respond to any of it. She opened her eyes and tilted her head toward him. "Is it just that it sounded crazy that you didn't say?" She asked quietly.
Hugh squeezed her hand back gently, and leaned into her a little bit, the acceptance, at least she wasn't saying she didn't believe him, helped. For a moment he was quiet, because no, but. Despite the fact that he'd had a few drinks throughout the day he still felt too sober for this conversation. "I um," he started, then stopped again. "You've never liked stuff like this, and I didn't know what you'd say," true, although probably not even the whole of it. He thought about the memory that he was like 95% certain was hers. "And last spring was truly fucking terrible," he added softly. "Talking about it, meant that… all of that. So… I wasn't exactly looking forward to talking about it either."
"Mm," she vocalized, shifting completely to lean back against him. She unraveled her arm from her knees and wrapped them both around his arm instead, pressing into his shoulder. Her thoughts flashed back to the room, the laboratory coats, the secrecy. Her arms tightened their hold in response to it. "I'd have probably just thought you were making a laugh," she admitted a moment later. Her head tilted up just enough to look him in the eye. "I'm sorry it was hard for you," she offered, even though she'd had no way of knowing at the time. For this and the other reasons.
And, at least, that reasoning made sense. It helped affirm that some of her more wild thoughts, that she knew logically weren't it, were becoming less and less likely. "Was everything we saw...everything is real, then?" She'd gotten the impression from reading through the media that people saw different things. Hugh might not have seen the room and the cadaver and the confirmation that werewolves were real. Or knew she'd seen Nathan.
He shrugged. "I would have thought that too," he offered with a small smile, but her question. He wasn't sure. "If they're memories, then maybe. Or you know, as real as things are filtered through someone's remembrance of a thing? They've never been real before. Always dreams, or - well I guess it's possible the train stuff was real and we actually were those people, but I didn't hear anyone say anything like that. I recognized at least one person in one of the memories, so presumably?" He glanced over at her trying to decide if he should mention UW yet. Instead he turned for the bourbon and poured them each a portion of it, and handed it over. "Cheers to Repose fuckery?"
"Presumably," she repeated and her head tilted back just so, lips pursing. She wanted to tighten her arms around him but she resisted the urge. Instead, she lowered her gaze and followed his movements. When the glass was handed to her, there was a flash of gratitude. She raised up the glass half heartedly before taking a swig. She focused on the burn and let the silence envelope for a bit before she asked, "What's etiquette? Do we talk about it?" They were peoples remembrances. It felt like invading privacy in a way. But she was certain it would feel even worse to not tell him what she'd seen. In his case, at least.
Hugh took his own swig, and sat it on his knee for a moment, focusing on her question. "Sometimes?" This felt uncertain though, and as if it didn't offer much in the way of assistance for her figuring out what to do. "I haven't always," he added. And he'd had mixed results regardless. He stared into space, his fingers around the glass in his hand, torn between talking and not. He took another sip of his drink, and just fuck it. This was Zee.
"The Halloween thing was right after I moved here. I kinda decided maybe I'd had too much to drink. Like, I noted it, but I didn't reach out much. Last spring Hannah encouraged me to so I did. The guy answered anon, and was kind of freaked out. He stayed anon, and probably we would have both just gone on about our lives except then he walked through my house door the night I had Hannah's brothers over to 'meet them for the first time'. That night just went from bad to worse. I didn't handle it well, but from where I'm standing neither did any of them."
He quickly took another swig of the bourbon. "This fall I met Aedan though, and he's a neighbor. We've talked several times since." He ran a finger around the rim of his glass. "These are all… " He paused -- Vampire, which okay, he had talked to Aedan sort of. But then the guy with the baby and that felt raw and deeply personal and the sort of memory Hugh wouldn't have wanted to share, and sex and love that didn't work out, and god only knew Hugh had enough of that sort of memory in his life and he probably didn't want to talk about his romantic failures with anyone - should someone have gotten a line-up, he'd rather not know. And then there'd been. "Would you want to know?"
Sometimes didn't make this any easier to process. Her gaze fixed down on the rim of the glass, thumb running over it. She knew hardly anyone in this town. Would anyone really hold it against her if she needed to process it with someone? And while Hugh was admitting to keeping silent sometimes, he hadn't always, and her head turned up when he began delving more into recollection.
There was a nod. She'd thought she was letting her imagination run away with her with the first memory. That Hugh's house and presence were somehow bleeding into her thoughts with her decision to stay longer than norm. But then there'd been the room and she'd felt the urge to just see if there was any sort of distraction on the social pages. It just made it clear she wasn't letting her imagination go into overdrive.
Listening to his recollection, however, she wasn't certain which would have been the better path. Even if the Spring sounded awful by all rights. It wasn't wrong to encourage him to reach out. Sighing, she lifted her drink and took a swig again.
"Would I want to know where you were going with that last thought? Or, what? If someone saw a memory of mine?" She raised a brow.
"Yeah." This was said softly enough to perhaps give the whole thing away even if he wasn't certain 100% but he couldn't think who else would have been at UW and the languages.
She hesitated. It hadn't quite dawned on her that someone could say the same for her. And it didn't feel very likely, even though she'd experienced one of his. Fingers tapped against the glass. "I don't know." A beat. "That's...not helpful. But, you know, they don't know me here? And so it's not like it'd mean anything to them."
But that didn't really answer the question. It was more an observation on her level of significance to others in this specific town. She sighed. "I reckon it might be nice to know. It'd be weird if I popped into 7-11 and was getting stares because the clerk knew something he shouldn't."
There was a shrug, "It's hard to say one way or another."
That didn't really help, but on the other hand, Hugh realized he'd already not told her about Repose and it seemed wrong to not mention. It wasn't horrible, or horrifying, or intimate, at least it didn't seem to be on the surface, although it might not have been something she would necessarily have wanted him to see. He took another sip of the bourbon and put it down, looking into the glass.
"At least one of the ones I saw was at UW, like in a classroom?"
She lifted her gaze once again to look at him. For a moment, she said nothing, processing the words over and over in her head. What was the likelihood anyone else in this small town would have been in UW for any reason? If they were in Washington, maybe, but they weren't and this wasn't a booming metropolis.
And if she'd seen something from him...
"And?"
"Um, whoever it was, was hiding out in the back, it seemed it was a language class and maybe they weren't actually in the class?" It sounded a little crazy when he said it out loud. He shrugged. "It could be anyone I suppose. Someone else might have been at UW at some point."
That wasn't exactly incriminating. Students would camp out in lectures all the time. That wasn't something universal to her but the thing was? She'd done it regularly and always for languages classes. Yes, she'd be cautious enough to make it not noticeable, but she'd scoped out classes all four years to find ones she could sneak into. Ones where she could absorb something new.
Her lips parted for a moment but she didn't speak right away. And then just a slight stammer of, "That's...awfully boring." But she was watching him carefully now with an expression of increasing worry.
"I mean, it's not sexual escapades number 351. Which to be fair, I had some of those," he glanced over trying to decide if it was something that was her. But it wasn't entirely clear to him, even though she looked concerned. "In comparison, yeah, but I mean, obviously it was someone's important memory? Or important enough to... Think about?"
"I didn't." And, she reckoned, if there were memories floating around, one would have to expect those. She drew in a deep breath, shifting to set her glass down now on the bedside table. Flowing through the motion, she slid her legs off the bed and moved to stand, hands coming up to either side of her head. "I staked out classes all the time," she said after a moment. It wasn't an admission but working through a thought. "How else would you get a feel for a teacher ability?" That was summoned up from the depths of her excuses over a century before. It felt hollow now.
That wasn't entirely what it had felt like, but Hugh wasn't certain that he wanted to pry either. He nodded. Cause he had done that a couple of times. It felt like anyone who was serious about their studies had at some point or another, just to get a feel. "I mean, it might have been you. Language class, you know, back of the room all that. It was tame," he assured her. Even if it had felt like she picked the language up really easily.
"I guess if you didn't get sex stuff, then I'm probably safe. Or at least, you just didn't get that. Someone else could have," he sighed, then took another sip of the bourbon and stuck it to the side.
"Could have. Or maybe there's someone here from class of '99. or '86. Who knows." But it didn't feel likely, even as she said it. She let her hands drop from her face and crossed her arms over her chest. But Hugh wasn't saying anything else --- so even if it had been hers, had it been enough to tip him off? She didn't know.
Her eyes flickered to him. There was a brief pause, as his words hung in the air, before she gave a shake of her head. "You are safe from sex stuff," she agreed, frowning as she said so. 'But' practically hung in the air. "I saw Mary."
This got a glance, silent, his eyes turning towards her. "Mom?" Obviously that meant it was his memory but… "Where?"
"An auditorium." She hesitated. She hadn't been at that performance. It was before her time with Hugh and so it was hard to say what it was. "High school? Someone had a horse head?"
"Midsummer Night's Dream?" He raised an eyebrow, and then tried to remember if there was anything horrifying that he wouldn't want the town to know, but in reality he couldn't think of anything. 'It was um, it was with the Seattle Shakespeare Company, but yeah, I was in high school."
"Probably. The costume would make sense, if so," she commented. She pulled her lips into a line when he referenced the Company, the anger for Isaac bubbling back up. That wasn't uncommon though. "I thought it was a really intense, oddly summoned daydream. It... was the first one."
"Gotcha," Hugh tilted his head. "Well, I guess there could have been more embarrassing ones," he sighed, with a quick grin even though he didn't really feel it and it faded pretty quickly. "Sorry, I should have mentioned something to you about it. Or after I got the first one at the very least." Although he didn't know if that would have been after she got hers, and he'd been - well his first one had been vampire teeth.
He sighed and the line came as easily as it would have that night: "If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended, that you have but slumber'd here while these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream, gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend."
Her head tilted to the side at the grin. She appreciated the effort but the seeing it dissipate felt more real. She shook her head. "I'm not...I'm not mad," she assured him. She gestured, twirling her wrist to do so, as she tried to explain, "It's just there was a roller coaster, you know? Confusion, anger, fear, uncertainty...it's felt like a yoyo this entire day," she explained, with a sigh.
But the line brought a genuine smile to her face and she moved back for the bed, climbing up onto it. "I pardon," she promised, holding her hand out for him.
He smiled, warm and fond, and he took her hand, scrambling up himself to follow her. And for a moment, he just wrapped an arm around her to hold her. It was nice, having someone that he didn't have to think about whether or not it was alright, or whether she would care, or whether she would think the wrong thing. He pressed a kiss to her cheeks. "Thank you," he said softly. "This place is weird. Shit happens. I'm bizarrely fond of it, don't even ask," he shrugged with a soft huff of laughter.
It was easy to lean against him and let the comfort wash over her. There was so much that she was suddenly aware of but at least she had him to help make sense of it all. "Your welcome," she murmured in response, before giving a roll of her eyes. "Weird really doesn't feel like it covers it."
He tugged her close: "Shall I tell you about the really weird memory that I had, or is that way too much?"
"It might be too much, for now." Without knowing what the weird memory was, she had no way of knowing, and she didn't want to have another loop as far as emotions went. Not yet. And there was still processing the very real possibilities of it all. "Maybe tomorrow? Sleep on it?"
"That's fair," he told her. "We can see how you're feeling in the morning." He sighed out, it felt better with her knowing, really. It felt better to have her here. And if he still had questions about what he'd seen, he felt like they were her things to tell. "What do you want for dinner? Something that's safe to cook if one of us blacks out into memoryville for however long."
"The morning," she agreed, grateful that it wasn't a conversation that was closed off permanently. That she felt capable of coming back to it once they were both capable. "Funny you say that..." She pulled back enough to grin up at him. "...because guess what Marty sent me?" And her grin grew even wider as she said so.
They would address it in the morning, or maybe even later in the week, but at some point Hugh was certain they'd circle back around to it. For the moment though, he turned and looked down at her. "What?"
"Skyline season packets. And I went ahead and got everything for the five way, too." With this, she gave him a hopeful look. Zee could manage simple things but it was relegated to scrambled eggs and grilled cheese. She was reliant on him to help satisfy her cravings from home.
Hugh's grin was instantaneous. "Perfect. I'm on it."