Re: (After)life: Nel L & Lear L & Fen L
Nel only had a chance to roll her eyes in a slow and exaggerated manner when Lear asked how she knew the women she wanted to be with liked women. "I know when they like me," she informed him, and there was a slight difference. She didn't even need to use her considerable powers of mesmerism to determine interest from someone. She wasn't feminine in any way, shape, or form, and she wasn't what media and the world considered a sexually attractive beauty, but Nel did fine for herself. She did fine for herself with other women. The fearlessness probably had something to do with it, the magnetism, but she wouldn't be able to give you a definitive answer, and those things had ceased to matter at the present. The conversation was rather shelved when those boots sounded outside the door. She had just a moment to smile a fond smile at that familiar hiss. Family, it was a delightful surprise.
Fen.
Fen was approached and kissed, and, as expected, Lear was on his feet and approaching. That her greeting was mirrored did not surprise Nel in the slightest. They'd grown bitter and bile in a place that was old, and with age came a blissful oblivious to modern puritanical conventions—they were immune.
Lear grabbed Fen around the neck, and Nel smiled to herself and slid a hand along both of their backs, the touch low and entitled as she brushed past them as a breeze would. She turned and walked toward the couch her brother had vacated, but she stopped partway, and she turned and raised her camera. Lens to her eye, she snapped a picture. It wasn't well framed, and the composition was shoddy, but it was spontaneity in a snap and flash, and she lowered the camera and advanced the film. One shot. That was all Nel required of this moment, and she thought perhaps the imperfection of it was what made it perfect. "Sit. Drink. I think if anything calls for the dreadful banality of a toast, it's this."
Nel, as always, assumed they would do her bidding, and she walked over to the kitchen counter and returned with a box liqueur glasses and a bottle of Puerto Rican Mavi, which was the equivalent of moonshine mixed with brown sugar and ginger. It packed a punch, and she put the bottle on the coffeetable alongside the box and motioned for Lear to pour—once the boys were done horsing around.