Wry and Watchful (wryandwatchful) wrote in solsticerp, @ 2010-09-13 16:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | jane, june 23 2009, sean |
Tuesday: Not a Puppy
Who: Sean and Jane
When: Afternoon
Where: Sean's apartment
Sean had called Jane earlier that day and invited her over to his apartment for lunch. He didn't have much in the way of groceries for he and Will, but he'd bought bread, deli meat and various cheap items to keep their stomachs full until he could con someone into going grocery shopping for him. Will wasn't around at the moment, which was okay with Sean. He didn't mind spending solo time with his siblings at all, inf act he preferred it. It was easier to get to know someone when you didn't have three or four people around to distract you.
He'd showered that morning, but forgot to shave again, and he covered his shaggy hair with his cap that was in desperate need of a wash. After smoking a cigarette, he washed his hands and pulled everything he felt they might need to make some sandwiches, if Jane was actually hungry when she arrived. If not? Well, he'd figure out someway to keep her from wanting to rush off.
Leaving the house was something of a trial for Jane. The little creature that had hatched the day before had woken her up hungrily twice during the night, to feed it, and twice that morning it had demanded more food. She was almost out of milk, and she had a feeling it wasn't very good milk for the thing, either, since it threw it up again half the times she fed it. She needed kitten formula, or something, but she hadn't any idea where to get it.
But Sean had called, and while it was tempting to just blow him off, she figured she might as well bring the thing along. Maybe Sean would know where to get kitten formula, or rat formula, or whatever it ate. Or maybe he'd know what the hell it was.
So after a couple false starts, she finally got herself, the winged rat-monster, and the last of the milk out the door and into her car, the first one wrapped in a towel, her last clean one, and the second one in a capped tupperware cup. Juggling them both, she made it to Sean's house and to the door, but she had to resort to knocking with her foot, since her hands were full. The sound startled the creature awake, and it started keening, making her wince. "Hurry up and open up!" she told the door desperately, looking around and hoping no neighbors were home.
Sean could hear the knock out front, followed by a muffled voice. He set the mustard down on the kitchen counter and hurried to the door to unlock it and tug it open. He was about to greet Jane when his eyes fell on the towel she was carrying in her arms. It was making noise and he paused, staring at it before lifting his gaze to Jane. "What th' hell is that?"
The creature was only about six inches long, not including the long tail, and the towel that held it hid most of it but its face and front two limbs, but even that was just weird looking. Jane winced and shouldered her way in past him, letting him close the door behind her. "I was hoping you could tell me," she admitted. "It hatched from that stone egg thing I found on the beach with you. I think its hungry again." She hoped that was the problem, and not that it was upset or about to throw up again or something.
"Are you mad?" Sean shut the door behind Jane before reaching up to scratch at the nape of his neck. He wasn't a big fan of the unknown, which was probably why he tried to know everything he could. That didn't mean he was very welcoming to creepy looking creatures in his place. "This thing hatched on the beach and you actually kept it? What're you feedin' it?"
Jane wasn't about to answer the question about being mad. Maybe she was. But she couldn't let the little thing die. It was helpless. "Milk, right now, but it doesn't really like it much. It's just the only thing it will eat." She paused halfway to the kitchen and snorted. "Besides beer. But I don't think that's good for it, either." Finishing her way to the kitchen, she set the towel down, and the cup of milk, and went looking in his cupboards for a saucer or a small bowl or something. Really needed to invest in that bottle....
"Prob'bly because it eats flesh," Sean said in a weak attempt at a joke. He followed her to the kitchen, deciding to get closer to get a better look at the thing. It had wings. It definitely wasn't anything Sean had ever seen before. "You said you found this down on the beach. Where we found all that other shite layin' around?"
"It don't have any teeth, Sean," Jane answered patiently, over the sound of the hatchling's continued wails. "And I tried feeding it meat, and it wouldn't eat it." She came back with a saucer and popped the cap off the milk cup to pour it in. "All right, you little monster. All right. Stop screeching." She unwrapped it the last of the way from the towel-- revealing the last set of legs; the thing had six legs, after all, even weirder-- and set the milk in front of it, where it fell on it hungrily, lapping as fast as its tiny tongue could go.
Sean gave her a look, shoving his hands into the pockets of his faded jeans. "It's likely it won't eat meat because it has no teeth." Still, the thing was creepy as hell and he couldn't believe Jane had actually taken it home with her. Sean inhaled, taking in all six sets of legs. "This thing isn't normal. I'd say it looks a little bit like a dragon, only... different. What're you gonna do with it?"
"Find it some kitten milk and teach it to bite people who don't like me," Jane suggested with a wry grin. "Once it has teeth, anyway." Her gaze dropped down to the creature again and her smile turned into a frown. "You've never heard of anything like it, huh?" Neither had Joel. She supposed she could ask Sorcha or Turlough... maybe at that dinner thing. If it happened. If she went.
His lips quirked into a faintly amused smile at her supposed 'plan'. "Might be a good idea. Animal Control'll have no idea what they're searchin' for, should it ever get reported. To be honest, I've read about creatures in my books, but I've never seen one in person. I can look through some of my stuff and see if it looks familiar. I'd say maybe it's a species that could be found somewhere exotic, but the fact that you found it here? Makes that doubtful. Have you got a cage for it or anything?"
"Hell, it's not like we know what anything else that came up on the beach is," Jane grumbled, folding her arms on the counter and leaning on them, watching the hatchling slurp its lunch. "What's one more weird thing?" She shook her head and added, "No, no cage. Think I should?" Honestly, she hadn't thought very much at all beyond "make sure it doesn't die", at this point. What she might do with it in the future... she had no idea.
What's one more weird thing? Sean could have pointed out that this weird thing could end up killing her, or someone else. He could likely find out what it was pretty quickly, but he'd never bring home an animal or creature without knowing what the hell it was in the first place. "I think you ought to definitely get a cage for it," he told her, still eying the thing cautiously. "You don't know how big it's gonna get, and it looks like it's gonna start flyin' at some point. You don't want it attackin' you or anyone else, right? A cage might work until you know for sure what it is."
"And I thought I was the suspicious one," Jane snorted. "It hasn't even tried to bite me, teeth or not. I don't think it's going to attack me. I mean, look at it, it looks like a fuckin' mouse with wings. Mice aren't dangerous." Why did people keep assuming she was going to get hurt? It was getting on her nerves, to be honest. "And even if it was, I'm not completely helpless," she added, a little annoyedly.
"You don't know that for sure," Sean pointed out. He leaned against the counter and folded his arms, still watching the thing drink it's milk. "Animals can turn on ya in an instant, Jane. Not sayin' that this thing is dangerous, but you don't know one hundred percent yet what it is, what's gonna grow into..." His gaze ticked to her face, aware of her tone. "I'm not sayin' you're helpless. I'm sayin' you need to be careful and take the right precautions if you're keepin' this thing."
Jane just rolled her eyes at him. "You must not remember me at all, Sean. I hate being lectured, and that's probably the best way to make me not do what you want." Even before... everything else... she'd been stubborn and contrary. Now she was worse, and hypocritical, to boot, since she tended to lecture people, herself. "I'll be fine. I can look after myself, especially from something only about as long as my hand. I mean, c'mon. If it starts growing like a weed, maybe then I'll start worrying. It hasn't even put on an inch since it hatched." Which was only yesterday. But whatever.
Sean tried his best not to show his exasperation with her, because he didn't feel like he was lecturing at all. He just wanted her to be safe. "Not lecturin' ya, Jane. I'm givin' you advice. It's small now, yeah, I get that, but it might not be in a week, or a month. You wanna keep this thing, then keep it. But it's not a puppy, or a bird. Since you don't know what it is, I'm just askin ya to be careful, that's all." He was positive anyone else around her would probably tell her the same thing. Sean was especially concerned since she found it down on the beach where all the other strange items washed up. In Sean's mind, it was always best to assume the worst and prepare for it than to go into a situation blind.
"Since I'm kind of a grown woman, yeah, if I wanna keep it, I'll keep it," Jane snorted at him, offended and no little exasperated, herself. "Quit talking like I'm twelve, Sean, or I can take that little not-a-puppy and go right home again." It had finished eating now and waddled over towards her, making mewling noises. Absently she picked it up.
There was a chance that if it had been anyone else talking to Jane, they might have argued with her, but Sean had always been extremely passive. He didn't like arguments, so he did what he always did when it came to a potential bickerfest... he backed down. With a small shrug, he watched Jane pick up the thing. "Okay. Sorry. You want a sandwich or somethin'?" He motioned to the other side of the counter where he'd placed the bread and deli meat he had picked up for he and Will the day before. "I don't have anythin' gourmet, but it's food, right?"
Maybe that was why Jane liked him best out of the siblings she'd dealt with so far. He might lecture her, but he stopped once she got pissy with him. Awesome. She let it go, too, since bickering might be her forte, but that didn't mean she necessarily liked it. "Sandwich is good," she agreed. "And I'm not a gourmet kind of gal, so we're good." She drifted over to investigate the offerings. "So how've you been?" she asked. "Since I didn't get the chance to ask yet." She was glad her own bruising and split lip were fading; it was less noticeable now. She'd always been a quick healer.
Pushing away from the counter with his hip, Sean moved around her to open up the bread. He'd make the sandwiches, since he didn't really want Jane handling his food after carrying around that thing. "I've been pretty good, I think? Me n' Will have been gettin' along... but then we always have, so that's not a surprise. I saw Sorcha too. We talked about stuff going on around here."
"Oh?" Jane asked blandly, hoping that those things hadn't included her. Sorcha was the worst of them, with her visions and dreams and worrying. At least Joel was normal, as far as she knew, and Sean's magic wasn't the worrying kind. Sorcha could actually claim some kind of excuse for her worrying, which irked her. "How're both of them? I haven't even seen Will yet, and I haven't seen Sorcha--" In a week? Two weeks? "--in a bit."
"They're good." Sean placed some bread on the two plates he'd pulled out of the cupboard. "Will's still gettin' used to bein' away from home, ya know? I only talked to Sorcha for awhile that night, so I can't really tell how she's doin' right now. She told me 'bout this woman she ran into, with this shadow type creature. It seemed to have shaken her up pretty badly." He couldn't help it, he felt protective of his sisters, despite not having seen them in so long. "I'm callin' some of the people I know to try and see if anyone had heard of anythin' like it before. Ham? Turkey?"
"Uh, ham. Thanks." The irritation at perhaps being talked about evaporated, as Jane leaned one hip on the counter, the snuffling and shifting little rat-monster curling up in the crook of her elbow unheeded. Jane frowned, more at the thought that Sorcha had run into something crazy than at any of her own problems. "Shadow-type creature?" she asked, wracking her brain for what that could be. She knew air elementals could bend and play with light and shadow, but that didn't seem to fit with "shadow-type creature" very well.
"Yeah. I'm not sure what it was. Sorcha didn't give me many specifics, but apparently it was hangin' around this woman. I thought maybe she was a mage, from the description Sorcha gave me, but I can't be sure. All I know is that Sorcha was pretty sure the woman was dangerous in some way." Sean pulled the ham out of the plastic zip lock bag and got to making them both sandwiches. "Y'know mages can do a lot of weird shite. I'm just glad she's okay."
"Yeah, they can." Though why Sean would talk about mages as if he wasn't one, Jane couldn't even guess. "And I am, too." Even with how annoyed she got with her siblings, the last thing she wanted was for something to happen to any of them. The thought made her feel a little panicky-- which was irritating, in and of itself. Today was just shaping into one of those "everything pisses Jane off" days, it seemed like. "Where was this? I mean, should we be looking for women with shadow-type creatures all over?"
Sean hadn't meant to come across as though he weren't a mage, but there were some mages out there who performed the kind of magic Sean would never dream of touching. There were some dark people out there, and as much as that kind of magic fascinated him, he'd never try it himself. "It was in the woods," he explained, grabbing the mustard to put on his own sandwich. "She had this dream, guess she wound up goin' out to this house out there. That's where she ran into this woman."
"I want some of that, too," Jane said, since he'd taken it upon himself to make their lunch, himself. Besides, the little winged thing was asleep now, so she only had one hand, at least until she moved it. "On Eldritch, I guess, if she didn't have to rush off to the ferry in the rain...." Jane was half-tempted to head over to the island to check it out, but not now. She had a nosy brother and an infant monster to worry about first.
"Yeah, pretty sure. I went over there to see her," Sean said, squirting some mustard on Jane's sandwich as well. "I've been meanin' to talk to Joel or Turlough about it, but it's been hard gettin' over there with all the shite goin' on here. Plus, I think I'm gonna have to start lookin' for a job if I plan on stayin' awhile." He couldn't live off his savings forever. "Mayonnaise?"
"Yeah, please." What was mustard without mayo to go with it? Jane watched him work, half-wishing she were working, too, to give her hands something to do. The one not occupied with supporting the little monster started petting it, just so it wasn't idle. "I've been looking for a job for a while now. I finally got a callback, I'm supposed to go talk to somebody tomorrow." It was for a grocery store, but beggars couldn't be choosers, at this point.... "So what do you mean, you wanna get Sorcha to move over here...?"
Sean grinned, unable to stop the bit of pleasure he felt over the tiniest things like Jane liking mayo on her mustard. Cayden had always found Sean's eating habits disgusting. Ketchup on his scrambled eggs, mustard, mayo and sometimes pickle relish on his ham and turkey sandwiches. He couldn't really help it. There was rarely anything out there he wouldn't at least try once when it came to food. Grabbing a butter knife, he dipped it into the open mayo to slather it on their sandwiches. "Callback? Where at? I keep hopin' to get into the bookstore or somethin' to see if they're hirin' part time." Sean glanced at her and shook his head. "No, I mean talk to them about what happened with Sorcha... I don't think she'd appreciate me tryin' to move her closer to me. Both of my sisters seem to be pretty stubborn."
Smirking sweetly at him for the "compliment" about being stubborn-- that she was, and she'd readily admit it-- Jane answered, "Grocery store. It's not much, but it's something. Rent money is rent money." She didn't think there'd be a whole lot of bookstores hiring around here in the first month of summer, when all the high school and college kids had probably already snatched everything up. There certainly hadn't been any who'd wanted her.
Nodding, Sean dumped the knife back into the mayo jar and finished making up the sandwiches before nudging Jane's plate toward her. "At this point, a job is a job, right? I'll find somethin' eventually, even if it's workin' at a gas station." He'd prefer not to have to resort to that, but when money got tight, he wouldn't have a choice. "Probably best I don't work at a grocery store. I'd probably end up eating all of th' sweets."
"We'll see how long I last before I cuss out a customer or my boss and get fired," Jane snorted lightly, shifting restlessly against the counter. "If I even get it. I'd probably do better at the gas station. If you get that job, I'll totally switch with you. And you can just learn self-control to not eat the sweets."
"Maybe they can put you out on the floor to stock stuff, so you have as little interaction with customers as possible," Sean said before taking a bite out of his sandwich. He supposed it all depended on how badly Jane wanted to keep her job. He supposed she could always get a new one if they fired her. Maybe something that didn't require a people-person.
"I only wish," Jane said. "We'll see. I usually move around a lot, so by the time I lose a job, I'm ready to leave, anyway... it'll be different having to keep one for a while." Provided the rest of the clan stuck around here, anyway. And she had the sinking feeling that they probably would. She pushed up from the counter, walking carefully over to the towel she'd kept the little monster wrapped in, and transferred it over there, so she could free up her hands to eat.
"Try not to get fired," Sean said around a mouthful of ham. "If you run out of places to work, y'll definitely be screwed, yeah? You'll walk in and potential employers'll hide from ya." Which was actually a pretty amusing mental image. "I guess I could always get a job waitin' tables again, as much as I hated it in New York. Maybe somethin' temporary." He eyed the monster thing, noting all the places it had been in the kitchen. He'd have to go out and buy some disinfectant or something to clean up after Jane left.
"Ugh. I did the tables thing more than once. In New York, too, even," Jane admitted, eying her brother and wondering how they managed to miss each other. Probably the size of the city. When there were that many people around, it was hard to run into people you knew, much less long-lost siblings. It took tiny places like Darkwater to do that, she supposed.... After settling the creature, she moved to pick up her sandwich. Given she'd washed it up before coming here, it didn't bother her one bit to touch food after touching it. She knew exactly where it'd been since it'd hatched, after all. "I wasn't very good at tables, either. I dumped someone's food on him once, for being an arse."
"So you're not a people person," Sean said with a small smirk. Clearly she wasn't. "I didn't mind 't so much. Yeah, you got the rude people, and the lousy tippers, but I made some pretty good money most of th' time." Flirting with the women didn't hurt anything. He learned to use his Irish accent to it's full advantage over here in the States. "You realize you could prob'bly get anythin' you wanted if you piled on the Irish charm, right?"
Brows going up over her sandwich at him, Jane answered around the bite she'd just taken, "You do realize I don't have any Irish charm, right?" She barely had the accent anymore, and wasn't even sure she could call it back up if she wanted to, and as for "charm", she was awfully short on that, too, Irish or not. "Maybe you can do the puppy-eyed foreigner thing, but I suck at it."
"Sure, you do. You just don't use it. Buried it deep down, I bet, but it's there. Couldn't have come from our parents if ya didn't." He smiled at her and leaned his hip against the counter lazily, nearly done with devouring his sandwich. "You bet your arse I can do the puppy-eyed foreigner thing. Don't think I'd get laid otherwise."
"Since getting laid is the end-all, be-all of everything, now," Jane told him, a little sarcastically. So what if she were still a virgin? That was the better way to be, anyway. You didn't get STDs or broken hearts that way. It was about all she had, anyway, to compare to magic: physical purity. Her faith would probably suffer if she weren't. "But you'll have to dig awfully deep to find any charm, here. Sorry to disapppoint."
"Did I say that?" Sean cocked an eyebrow curiously before biting into his sandwich again. Sex was not the end all be all, although it was nice. He'd just been chaste way too long, since there hadn't been anyone since Cayden. He certainly didn't worry about a broken heart when it came to sex, and he made damn sure never to risk an STD. He never felt guilt for pre-martial sex, and he never asked forgiveness from any Church authority, since he no longer believed in God, let alone the Church itself. He swallowed and grinned at his sister before shrugging. "Not disappointed at all. I don't need, or expect, you to be charming t'ward me at all."
Whether he'd said it or not, if it was the first thing that came to mind for using his puppy-dog Irish charm, or whatever, Jane had to assume it was at the very least pretty high on his list. "Well, good," she answered his second comment. "Cuz I'm shit at the charming thing, no matter who it's towards. Which, you know, I said already, and you could probably tell by now, anyway." She gave him a "sweet" smile, back, which was pretty obviously fake, for a joke.
Sean nodded, not expecting Jane to do anything Sean might do to get her way. He'd actually prefer she didn't. Some guys found that brashness attractive, and some didn't. Sean didn't think Jane cared much at all, either way, what men thought of her. "Yeah, I can tell." He finished off his sandwich and found that he wished he had bought paper towels. There were a lot of things he and Will could probably use that he hadn't considered. "What're your plans for the rest of the day?"
Because she had farm girl manners, Jane just licked her fingers when she got a bit of mustard on them from the sandwich. "To take that home--" She jerked a thumb at the snoozing rat-monster. "--and then to go see if I can find a pet store where I can get kitten milk. Then probably laundry, so I have something sorta-nice for the interview thing tomorrow." She grinned at her brother some. "Real exciting, huh? How about you?"
"Take that thing into the pet store," Sean teased. "I bet they'd just hand you kitten milk and push you out as quick as possible." He wiped his hands against the thighs of his jeans before shrugging. "Dunno. I may go buy a few more things Will and I need around here. Then find a pub or somethin' to get a beer. I haven't explored this place as much as I would have liked to."
"I'm trying not to take it anywhere public," Jane admitted, glaring at it a little. She didn't want anyone asking where she got it, what it was, trying to take it away to experiment on it... it might be nice to have a pet. Some kind of company that didn't talk back. "You've been here how long, and you haven't explored it yet?" she asked Sean, looking back at him with a wry smile. "What've you been doing?"
"I haven't been here that long," he corrected. "Just a couple of weeks, and dealin' with everyone showin' up has kind of distracted me from just going out and really lookin' at everything. I went over to the island only once, yeah? I want t' go again and see what's goin' on. B'sides, I got Will here too. Brotherly bondin' type stuff." Which wasn't so bad. He'd missed his brother, and he knew Will was still dealing with having to sell the family property.
"I haven't been here much longer, and I've got the place memorized," Jane countered dryly. "It's not that big a place." Though she supposed maybe her brother wasn't as paranoid and cautious as she was. Jane refused to ever get lost in a place she was staying for more than a few days. Not knowing your way around meant it was easier to get into trouble without an escape route. "But I guess if Will's been keeping you busy doing brotherly things...." She shrugged and chomped her sandwich again. "Where is he, anyway?"
"You're also not a people person," Sean said simply. He had been spending time with his siblings, as much as he could. Somehow he doubted Jane was doing the same. "Like I said though, I may go out in a bit and take the ferry over to Eldritch." He knew there was a church and cemetery over that way. Not that he'd be visiting the church, but he'd like to see it anyway. "Dunno where he went, to be honest. Maybe he's out takin' in the sights too?"
"Hm. I'm gonna hafta run into him eventually...." She shook her head a little, not sure if she looked forward to it, or not. She was employing a complicated mix of hovering and avoiding with her siblings, and she probably couldn't have explained it if she wanted to. "Did Turlough tell you about this dinner he's planning? All of us, over at his place, sometime soonish?"
Sean would have thought she'd want to see Will, but his sister seemed to be pretty unpredictable. Maybe it was because she was so much younger when the family was pulled apart. "Yeah, I heard somethin' about it. We're all here but for Morgan, so it makes sense. I think it'd be interestin' to see us all in the same room again." His lips twitched, though he didn't quite smile. "I'm guessin' that you're dreadin' it, right?"
Making a face at him, half amused and half annoyed, Jane said, "I don't know if I'd call it dread." At least with her other brothers, they already knew how much she'd changed-- she'd at least talked with them a little. Will didn't know, and she didn't want to see how he reacted to it. Turlough hadn't taken it well. At least Sean and Joel managed not to act all hurt just because she wasn't all lovey-dovey and hugging on them all the time.... "I'm just not so good with people. Like you said. So a big group of them, I'm sure I'm going to piss one of you off, at least."
"All siblings piss each other off at some point," he said. "I doubt you'd be the first to ever do it, and I doubt you'd be the last." Sean never expected lovey-dovey, physical affection from anyone. He might prefer it sometimes, but he hadn't gone into any of this assuming Jane, or Sorcha, would jump into his arms or anything. "I think it'll get easier once we all get to know one another again. It's been such a long time since I've seen most of ya, I can't pretend to know the person you are today."
"I hope so, anyway," Jane muttered-- referring to the part about it getting easier. Right now, everything was just so fraught with frustration and nerves and guilt and anger, and it was kind of exhausting. One more reason to half-avoid her family. She popped the last of her sandwich into her mouth and chewed heartily. "Good food, at least," she added around it, dusting her hands free of crumbs.
"Glad to hear it. Takes a culinary genius to make a sandwich that good," Sean joked. "Glad to came over tho'. It's nice to have th' company." He'd been on his own for so long, it was quite an adjustment to have Will around, living with him at the moment. Even more so to have all but one of his siblings in town too. But it wasn't anything Sean dreaded, or disliked.
"I guess havin' Will around all the time doesn't count as company," Jane snorted, amused, and gave her brother a little nudge with an elbow. It did seem kind of silly to come to her for "company", since she never made good company, but hey. He was a McDonnell. He was allowed to be a little weird.
"Sure it does. But it's nice to get a bit of variety now and then, yeah?" Sean smiled, folding his arms and leaning against the counter again. He certainly didn't think Jane was bad company. She was a bit reserved, and he could understand that. Not everyone could open themselves up to strangers with the snap of their fingers. Even if those strangers were siblings.