Evangeline Sablier is not broken, but please (handlewithcare) wrote in rooms,
Evie didn't believe in quick and harmless.
Not when it came to the hotel. Not the parties. Not the doors. Not even the weird things she'd seen in the lobby as she'd passed through. She didn't believe one bit in quick and harmless. People had been trapped inside doors, they had died inside doors, they had zombies in doors, aliens in other doors, and she was pretty sure there was a door somewhere that would turn her into a pony. And of course. There was the door she lived in where she could control the weather.
So while she would go anywhere and do just about anything Wren asked of her, she still showed up with a backpack on. It wasn't as if she wanted something terrible to happen. And if it was a good day they'd find a door, Wren would do what she needed and they'd be home by dinner time. But just in case they weren't? She had a flashlight, a few extra pairs of socks, a first aid kit, beef jerky, twinkies (shut up, hikers and extreme athletes, you need power bars, she needs twinkies), six packages dinosaur shaped fruit snacks, three apples, two bananas, four ham and American cheese sandwiches on white bread, four bottles of water.
She stayed back mostly, thinking about how she kind of wanted to eat the dinosaur shaped fruit snacks in her backpack. She didn't try and be too introspective lately. It just depressed her and she was tired of being depressed. It was exhausting. It was exhausting pretending to be happy so Daisy wouldn't get some kind of a complex. It was exhausting dancing around the issue with her friends, because while she desperately wanted to scream as loud as she was could that she argued with everything because she didn't want to do anything, she kept it to herself as best she could.
She didn't want to tell one more person that she was fine, of course she was fine, she was just...blah. She wasn't going to go on some weird rampage and shoot up Queens. She wasn't going to throw herself off the Empire State Building. She wasn't going to do anything because absolutely everything would require effort. Or pants at the very least.
And it wasn't that she didn't know how to smile or laugh or joke around, of course she did. She just didn't like that it wasn't as fun as it used to be. And of course Daisy made her smile, but she felt like she should be smiling wider. And of course Downton Abbey was coming back that night even though she didn't have a TV she knew her landlord would let her watch. He'd promised. But she wasn't even all that thrilled about that either. That would also require pants.
This adventure definitely required pants of some sort, and Evie was wearing a pair of jeans, black riding boots that went to her knees a dark blue cable knit sweater that hung to her knees and was probably actually a dress, but it was comfortable. And she had a plaid wool coat on as well as a hat, scarf, and gloves tucked in her pocket.
It was a good thing too because where they wound up walking through was definitely chilly. She walked in with Wren and took note of her own breath coming out in puffs. She put on her own gloves and stood next to Wren her eyes looking around. When Wren turned around, Evie saw her expression out of the corner of her eye and she knew. The door was gone. Of course the door was gone.
Something thumped in her heart, turned over her in her stomach, and she looked around the fog filled town with her arm linked with Wren. This was terrifying. Something inside of her twitched and once again her stomach turned and her heart pounded, her breath was coming in hot puffs of visible air as they walked through the town. Evie walked with her head held high, her eyes open, and...She had a spring in her step. Not too noticeable. She didn't even really notice.