The day after Eleanor returned | Eleanor's Apartment
Laurence stops by to welcome Eleanor back
with froyo.
⚠None
Laurence had, for some time, gone without losing any of the people he’d considered friends to the whims of Vallo, and he’d considered himself fortunate in that regard. And then, very suddenly and unexpectedly, he’d lost a great many all at once, the most recent of whom had been Eleanor.
He was no stranger to loss. It was impossible to be, when you’d been brought up in the Navy since the age of twelve. He’d lost his first companions in battle, men his own age, who he’d considered friends, when he’d been thirteen, and that it had become a simple fact of life in the twenty-three years following. There was some comfort in knowing that the friends he had here hadn’t necessarily died, per se, and some of them went home to situations that were really not so bad – Eloise, for instance, may have bristled against the customs of their shared time, but she had a large family who loved her, and whom she loved in return.
And there was, always, the possibility of seeing them again, no matter how slight. Ruby, for instance, had disappeared twice, and while she didn’t remember him the most recent reappearance, she still seemed the same as he remembered and he was sure they’d be friends again. And so, really, he tried to think of it more as being separated by distance than anything else. The world he’d come from was large enough, without entirely reliable ways to communicate across it, and to never see a companion again if they were to move unexpectedly, with no forwarding address. It was easy, sometimes, to think of the disappearances as just something like that.
Even still, it was nice to see that Eleanor was back, and with her memories seemingly intact. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t missed her during the weeks she’d been gone.
He’d made sure he’d be welcome, before he made his way to Eleanor’s place, stopping at Yogurt Yoghurt Yogurté. He wasn’t sure, exactly, which flavour to get her – she’d gotten Caller Doesn’t Leave a Voicemail when the’d gotten froyo the first time, but he thought, maybe, that might be a little melancholy given the apparent state of hers and Marina’s relationship. He settled instead on Haircut Compliment, and let the clerk talk him into upgrading to Beyonce, whoever that was, Compliments Your Hair. For himself, he’d ordered The Sound of the Ocean, and made his way to Eleanor’s.
He knocked, and when she answered the door, he smiled and held up the bag of froyo. “I thought you might appreciate some frozen yoghurt,” he said.
The fact that Eleanor was a functional human the morning after her return was thanks entirely to Rasalas who'd had the forethought to leave her a hangover potion. Sophie had fulfilled her promise of providing food and drink, and Eleanor hadn't allowed nonsense like moderation enter her brain the night before.
But it was the next day, and Eleanor couldn't hide herself away and pretend nothing was wrong; she wasn't Marina, after all, and so she was even presentable when Laurence arrived.
With froyo, even.
"Laurence, you are my hero," she informed him in greeting, taking the bag and checking which was hers before asking "What did you get me? Wait, no, don't tell me." She took one of the spoons and the cup of frozen yogurt before leading her guest over to the couch.
"Good thing these places are furnished. And Vallo even took down the creepy clown portraits that had been stuck to the wall last time I was here." She dipped her spoon into the dessert and then took a bite, appreciating the moment of euphoria granted. "I'm probably looking pretty rough right now, but I'll accept that compliment, Beyonce."
She grinned at Laurence, pointing the spoon at him. "Great choice."
“It seemed the least I could do to welcome you back,” Laurence said, allowing himself a small, pleased smile at Eleanor’s appreciation. It seemed the least he could do after she’d, apparently, received a frosty reception from Marina. He’d not ask for more details – it was hardly his business, especially if Eleanor didn’t wish to willingly give up the information – but he couldn’t imagine such a thing would have been pleasant, exactly.
“I think you look very well, all things considered,” Laurence said, taking a seat on the couch frowned, and looked around the suite. “Your walls used to have portraits of clowns stuck to them? That sounds ghastly.”
"Yeah, a gift from Vallo. It's a bit complicated but it was part of my torture in the fake good place that Vallo saw fit to bring over here. I hope they stay away this time."
She took another bite of froyo to appreciate the taste before turning to a more unpleasant topic, "Marina had a portrait painted of me as a clown. She tried to give it to me yesterday. I probably should have taken it so I could burn it."
Laurence ate a spoonful of his own froyo, if only to stop his lip from twitching. He couldn’t imagine that a portrait of Eleanor as a clown had been meant as some sort of flirtatious ribbing. He certainly doubted that Marina had commissioned the painting in the two weeks that Eleanor had been gone, and if she’d held on to the painting even after Eleanor’s disappearance, he hoped that it meant that Marina might be happy to welcome Eleanor back once she’d recovered from the shock of all of this. He might not have understood their relationship, but he thought they made one another happy, at least.
“Perhaps this way, she’ll be forced to come seek you out again,” Laurence suggested mildly.
"I think you're vastly underestimating Marina's stubbornness," Eleanor replied with an eyebrow raise. Especially when she was trying to guard herself from getting hurt or future loss, something Eleanor only thought but knew better than to speak out loud.
"I'll give her some space before I try and tackle that. Which gives me some time to adjust too, from being slingshotted back and forth from here.."
“You may be right,” Laurence said. He liked Marina well enough, though he could make neither heads nor tails of her. She reminded him of nothing so much as a feral cat, and the most experience he had with cats was those who’d sometimes worked as mousers on the ships that he’d sailed on.
“I hope it’ll not be a difficult readjustment. I suppose you must have lost many of your belongings?” He wasn’t entirely sure how disappearances were handled here in Morningside, though he thought the must be frequent enough occurrences that it lightly didn’t take long for management to be rid of a former occupants belongings. “Do you need anything? I’d be happy to help.”
"Marina got the most important things before they disappeared," Eleanor said, smiling softly as her hand instinctively went to her necklace. When she'd discovered that in the box, she'd immediately put it on. And if there was one thing that gave her hope with Marina, it was that when her girlfriend discovered she'd disappeared, she'd gone into Eleanor's apartment to retrieve the important things.
Including Bruiser, the most important retrieval, who made herself known as she entered the room and seemed to pause and consider Laurence.
"I'm alright, but thank you, Laurence . This place is easier to adjust to when you know the drill."
Laurence didn’t miss the gesture, even if he lacked the context to the greater meaning; he did not need the details to make an educated guess. It brought a matching smile to his face. “That seems to be very promising,” Laurence said, and hesitated; he did not know Marina so well that he could make any sort of meaningful assumptions to her behaviour. “But even if it isn’t, I know there are several people who will be very glad that you’ve returned, myself among them.”
Eleanor grinned. "You won't be glad when I turn on Real Housewives," she said teasingly, before eating a spoonful of froyo. When the spoon was empty, she pointed it at him.
“I beg of you to please refrain until I leave,” Laurence very nearly moaned. He’d watched the show with Marina and far too much alcohol shortly after Eleanor’s disappearance, and it was too soon for him to watch any more. He rather thought he could die of old age and it would still be too soon.
He was pleased enough with Eleanor’s reappearance, and sorry enough for her difficulties with Marina, that, if she insisted, he’d watch an episode with her. He thought it best to perhaps not mention that so directly, however.
“I begin to regret mentioning it to you at all,” he said, though a smile tugged at the corner of his lip.
Eleanor wasn't really going to subject Laurence to any of the Real Housewives, especially after he brought her frozen yogurt. "Do you watch anything?" she asked curiously. Because what Laurence found entertaining was suddenly very interesting to her, and maybe she should let him pick.
Either way she was glad for his company, and wanted to make sure he stuck around for at least a while longer. Watching something meant she didn't have to talk as much, and thus didn't have to worry about trying to put everything into words.
“Not very often no,” Laurence said. “My first incident with television was this horrid show called Jersey Shore, and it rather put me off the whole thing together,” he admitted. His Real Housewives marathon with Marina hadn’t helped matters. “Sometimes Lan Huan and I watch baking shows though, and I watched a few episodes of a program called Downton Abbey, and I was rather taken by it. I prefer good company to television though, most of the time.”
"Well," Eleanor said, "You and have me and Bruiser right now. That's pretty good company. And I always appreciate having you around. But especially today. So, enough about me. Tell me what I've missed in your life."
She finished off the dessert and settled in, because Laurence was right. Good company was preferable to television. Or wondering what she should be doing now.