[JB Cavanagh] Chicago is firmly in the grip of an arctic front, with the biting north wind driving the already bitter temperatures lower. The evening news has reports nightly, now, of neighbors finding the bodies of those who have died of the cold - homeless men insensate with alcohol, sprawled, dead-white on the corner of a major intersection, ignored by passers by for a full three hours of the morning commute, an elderly couple whose gas was cut off late last summer for non-payment, asphyxiated by carbon monoxide from the cheap, badly made heater they used in lieu of their aging, inefficient furnate. Stories like these are bookended by speculation about the economy, the shopping season, or cheery little lifestyle pieces instructing the well-heeled and well to do on the latest expensive trends of the season.
Late on a frigid afternoon, the sky is gray falling toward full dark, for all that it's not yet the dinner hour. Café Lulu is open six days a week now - closed Mondays, so says the little sign in the front window - but it is early enough that only a few tables are occupied. The big picture windows papered with ads for local bands, the odd handyman or ROOMMATE WANTED or babysitting offer are framed with little white lights, and electric candles burn in every window of both the restaurant and the living quarters fitted into the second and third floors of the old frame house onto which the brick storefront where the dining room is situated was built.
A good 8 inches of snow has fallen over the city proper. Someone built a snowman in the sideyard days ago, and he has slowly compacted not from heat, but from the solar radiation when the sun peaks through the clouds. The snowman seems to - sag - back against the snowcovered bench of one of the picnic tables tucked into the side yard. Beside him is a rather more whimsicle snow cat. The sidewalks in front of the building have been shoveled, and the snow in the side yard has been amply trampled over the past few days, but now there's something - traquil, still, about the blanket of white in the frigid air.
The side door to the detached garage behind the house proper swings open, and JB steps out, onto the still-snow-covered and welltrampled back sidewalk, then turns and hefts the stem of a great fir tree through the narrow door. The tree is too fat for the door, and so the lowest branches scrape against the door frame as he pulls it through, raining needles down over the snow, releasing that resonant scent of pine sap into the crystalline air. Turning, he shoulders the big tree, balance it over his broad shoulder, the rootball - intact, wrapped in burlap - forward, the great weight of the tree balanced behind.
[Alexa Thanos] The cold is her worst enemy. She spends a lot of her time curled up somewhere in lupus, especially when the night falls, or constantly moving in order to keep warm. Her lips have been chapped, cheeks windburned, and ears threatened to be frozen off. But the bonus about being a Garou is the amount of brutality the body is able to withstand. This does not necessarily make it pleasant or less painful, but it means that she doesn't become a stiff corpse down a side alley, clawing at the cardboard boxes and surrounded in newspapers like so many others without a home. It also means that every time she shifts, just for a little while, her minor wounds heal and her fur helps keep out the bitter cold.
Her footsteps have trawled through the snow, along the wet sidewalks, carefully navigating the slippery slopes as she makes her way through the below freezing temperatures. Gloves fit over her fingers and a jacket buttons up over layers of clothing. Her scarf, a dull gray thing, is tucked around her neck and into the upturned collar of her jacket. Dark, spiraled and curled hair spills out of a knitted cap that falls across her brow and tries to keep in the mane, but can only hold onto so much; the colour of it is multi-striped and seems more suitable for Jamaica then the winter silly season in Chicago. Jeans are darker from the knees down, from where she's been tromping through the wet, and her doc martins have suffered the same fate, making red laces soaked to brown.
It's the slow cloud of her hot breath that moves more then she does the moment she spots the man carrying a tree in the side yard. The smell of the pine was sharp on her nose, the cold highlighting scents. She can only watch him for a few moments, and although he doesn't seem to be struggling, finds herself asking from the sidewalk; "Want a hand with that?" As usual, the pack on her back hangs heavy with her belongings.
[JB Cavanagh] There's a moment where he's startled by her voice; her still presence, just the steam of her breath in the sharp cold air, a shadow against the evening shadows as the edges of the world close in upon themselves, again, as the world sinks toward its darkest day, its longest night. The tension is easy to read in his shoulders, bulky beneath his old down coat, and his thighs, the way his bare hands grip the trunk of the tree, bracing the awkward weight as he turns - a moment's stillness, just another figure in the gray, snowy dusk, tall and broadshouldered, the details of his dress lost beneath the old winter gear, a coat, a hand-knitted scarf that matches, vaguely, and a green and black skicap with a sports logo on the front, which does not match. His hands are bare, the better to grip the trunk of the tree, or perhaps he just doesn't want to get the sticky sap on good leather gloves, the sort one needs in a city.
And so, the man's blunt fingers are red from the cold, his eyes watering from the sting of the bitter wind - just those eyes, dark brown, and the bridge of a once-broken nose are visible, but he speaks through the muffled layers of the scarf after that moment's wariness - the not-quite-animal hint of alertness that skims over his mien and big frame.
"Sure," - is what he says, voice roughened with the cold, a low rumble. He keeps the tree balanced with one hand, then fishes in the front pocket of his jeans for a heavy set of keys, taking a moment to unlatch the carabiner on which they hang from a beltloop before tossing it to her. "Get the door - " he gestures with his head as the keys sing through the air, the metal tight with cold and the sound of it sharper for that. " - would you? And grab the stand."
When she looks, she'll see the red and green metal tree stand mostly assembled, beside the front door. He'd intended to fit the tree to it down here to avoid raining needles all over the living room floor, but the air is sharp enough to make an ordinary person breathless, so vaccuuming doesn't seem like quiet such a chore.
[Alexa Thanos] She hadn't meant to scare him, but these things happen. It's easy to forget simple things like that; the human way of thinking, and how their senses aren't quite as sharp, and their reactions slower. Not always, but mostly. Hers, on the other hand, are much quicker. The way her hand darts out and weight shifts through the wet, is quicker then one might expect from her; she who is always so cautious about the way she blends in with the humans. Her reflexes are far better then she leads on.
His keys are muffled by the glove of her hand when her fingers curl around them. She holds them by her side as she makes her way over towards him, as directed. "It's too cold out." Her voice is low as she passes by, moving to grab the stand in her free hand first, testing the weight of it as she picks it up in the one hand and puts it under her arm. The look she gives him is mildly disapproving, somewhere deep in the dark blue of her eyes. "You should do this at the warmest part of the day." Not towards evening as dusk is falling. Never mind he has a business to run and a child to dote over.
Moving to the door then, she opens it up after fiddling with the keys, guessing at which one might turn over the lock. This close she can barely scent him, it's all sharp tang of the fur, that of the bark and wood beneath. Then it's the food cooking inside, making her empty stomach twist unhappily inside the many layers of clothing, hidden under her jacket. Her hunger is an acute thing and demanding, but her discipline is far better.
Once the door is opened, she steps out the way to let him inside.
[JB Cavanagh] "You know I went to college in Boston - " he informs her, brushing past her with the big tree in hand. It is fresh - and more than that, it is a living thing, roots still intact, if perhaps a bit frozen from the bitter cold - so the trail of its needles in the snow, and then on the worn out hardwood of the narrow interior stairs is narrow, a vibrant green against the vaguely gray, sootstained snow, and the dark, old fashioned stain on the worn flowers. "We'd play hockey, outside in weather colder than this."
There is a rich vein of heat from inside that snakes outward as she shakes through the keys, guessing at the right one until he directs her to the one on the extra steel loop that opens the door. The narrow stairs lead upward into darkness, but a quarter of the way up he steps, a distended shadow above defined by the long sweep of the tree's top, reaches for a switch by feel. There's a distinct click, but nothing happens until he hits the wall with the flat of his palm. Then, the thin, reedy light of an antique fixture comes on, enough to see by.
They're headed upstairs, to the living quarters over the restaurant. The narrow stairwell opens up into a small living room, with an old hearth on one wall, and the sort of antique woodwork one expects in 80 year old homes, even frame houses like this one, except here that old woodwork has been painted over, a uniform white. The living room has a - lived in look. There's a modest flat panel beside the hearth on a stand, and less-modest stereo system beside it, everything from a turntable to a subwoofer, and a half-dozen more components in between, flanked by wooden shelves with books and vinyl record albums. Over the mantle is the classic Edward Hopper painting - three people in a late night diner, all sleek modern lines, the interior stark white, the exterior still, almost meditative. On another wall, a poster of the iconic London Calling cover art - Paul Simonon smashing his Fender bass. The couch is deep, slouch, comfortable, and there's an old recliner that belongs in a bachelor's place. Any woman would've evicted the recliner long ago.
The place feels lived in - a child's backpack on a table by the stairs, all sorts of winter gear on the pegboard over the table - and its clear that he's been moving about the furniture to make room for the tree. There are no winter decorations up just now except the electric candles in the windows, which give another dimension to the light in the room.
"Here, give me a hand - " he says, indicating a cleared out space in the corner of the room, close to the fireplace but not too close. And so saying, he shifts the tree from his shoulder, careful of the things in the room, holding it by the trunk as needles rain down, ready to plant the tree in the stand when she sets it down. " - then step back and tell me if it's straight."
[Alexa Thanos] There isn't a lot of time for her to take in her surroundings, just enough to spot a few details that she keeps to mind, and note the windows, doors, and any extra beings inside the room. She steps over towards the corner when she's asked, aware of her own predicament of not wanting to trample wet boots across his floor but also not wanting him to hold the heavy tree longer then he needs.
Over at the indicated space, she sets down the stand, a little away from the wall to make room for the trees circumference, and stays crouched to help him put the tree into its place. An extra set of hands making it easier. The Strider balances easily enough under the needles, with the extra weight on her back, and the bulk of her clothing over her too lean frame.
Once the tree is settled and there's no fear of it toppling through a window or knocking paintings from a wall, she steps back and rises up again, moving back away from the tree to some central point in the room to have a look at it. "A little to the left," she tells him, indicating with the motion of a gloved hand. And she watches as he rights it again. "Oops, no. Back a little."
"Yeah. That's it."
[JB Cavanagh] He's done this before, balanced a tree, rootball and all, into that red and green metal stand, old enough that the paint is chipped where the cross bars meet and the beginnings of rust are evident in the water basin. When the tree is finally in place, he manages to hold it up while winching home the last screws holding it up. When they're done, the live fir fills the corner of the room, dark and majestic, the tip brushing the high ceiling, the branches disturbed by all that manhandling slowly settling with the work of gravity, the way some medieval queen must surely have settled her skirts around her after a turn at the reel, around the dance floor.
"Thanks for the help," JB says, straightening, brushing needles off his hands, sticky with pine sap and fragrant with it. What errant snow flakes had landed in his ski cap - with the Eagles logo on the front - or the loops of his handmade scarf are already melting in the relative warmth of the living room. Outside the windows, dusk settles over the street, changing the tincture of light. It's futile, maybe even counter productive, but once the loose needles are off his hands, he wipes them on his thighs, clearing away little of the sap. "I promised Lucy a tree. Wanted to surprise her."
Then he's unwinding his scarf, reaching to pull off the cap, standing in front of the unlit fireplace, a thoughtful frown on his mouth as he gives Alexa a brief, critical sort of once-over, the sort that leaves him frowning, faint and thoughtful. " - you hungry?" is all he says in the end. "I'll get you some dinner."
[Alexa Thanos] "You're welcome." There's even a small smile as she says it, tearing her eyes from the tree to look over at the man, just in time to catch his frown as he looks at her. Maybe it's the shoes, she's thinking, and the wet of her jeans. It chases away that small pleasure she had in looking at this tree standing in the middle of the living room, lending its strong fragrance to the house, already working at disguising all the others that could have told her much about the people that lived in the upstairs quarters.
Gloves are still on her hands, wool, black, knitted, and she moves to brush the back of her thighs in a self conscious gesture. She doesn't want to move anywhere now, except to retrace her steps back through the house and down the stairs, leaving him and his little girl their space without an intruder. Alexa has become increasingly aware of where she's standing and how far away that world is from hers. The small peek of it seems stolen and sits wrong with her.
How misunderstood some simple things can be, when the world is coloured through a different lens. A small frown, a critical look, and some inner monologues can twist it all out of shape. But she reminds herself that John has been nothing but kind, too generous, and sometimes even a little stubborn in his ways with her. When he asks if she's hungry, he follows it up with an offer that sounds closer to a statement, and she was going to take him up on it, because sometimes pride even has its limits when the world is a miserable, cold place, and the hunger turns to pain. "Thanks. I'd appreciate that."
Gesturing, then, out towards the way she came. "Do you mind if I stay in the shed, tonight?" Because that's why she was coming, to hole up in the place he'd once offered her. As winter has come around maybe he would have noticed her another night, even though she touched as little as possible and always tried to put things back where they belonged.
[JB Cavanagh] Truth is, he's tracking as much ice and snow, as much frozen mud around the room as she is. His boots are muddy from the trip to the tree farm, crusted with scattered salt from walking on a treated sidewalk, all the filthy slush of the season. Once his scarf and cap are off, he unzips the old parker and tosses it, too, on top of the table at the top of the stairs, at last taking a moment to unlace his boots and step out of the shoes into a pair of moccasin style leather slippers left haphazardly near the door.
There rooms are clean enough, but far from neat, and the scattered way he leaves his boots behind just adds to the sense of lived in clutter about the place. Just the tree has that clean shape, a blanket of rich dark green, like the quiet heart of a forest. He misses the way his frown changes her body language, the way it stiffens her body, makes her feel (again) like an interloper, an alien in an ordinary world. And it is ordinary - now he's sorting briefly through the mail left on the table, still frowning that vague frown - considering what's in the fridge, whether they need to duck downstairs for a meal. When she asks about the shed.
" - the shed?" His back is to her, broad at the shoulders, tapering to the waist. He's wearing a fine-gauge sweater over a white t-shirt and jeans worn enough that they seem as lived in as the living room. A recent haircut has his close-cropped brown hair even closer to the skull. That frown worms its way across his brow as he cuts a glance back at her. "You said the shed, right?"
Then he gives a decisive shake of his head. "There's a studio apartment over the garage, but the heat's not on and it's too cold. You don't have someplace warm to sleep? We can make room here for a night or two."
And with that, he disappears down the dark hall toward the kitchen, to through together dinner.
Late on a frigid afternoon, the sky is gray falling toward full dark, for all that it's not yet the dinner hour. Café Lulu is open six days a week now - closed Mondays, so says the little sign in the front window - but it is early enough that only a few tables are occupied. The big picture windows papered with ads for local bands, the odd handyman or ROOMMATE WANTED or babysitting offer are framed with little white lights, and electric candles burn in every window of both the restaurant and the living quarters fitted into the second and third floors of the old frame house onto which the brick storefront where the dining room is situated was built.
A good 8 inches of snow has fallen over the city proper. Someone built a snowman in the sideyard days ago, and he has slowly compacted not from heat, but from the solar radiation when the sun peaks through the clouds. The snowman seems to - sag - back against the snowcovered bench of one of the picnic tables tucked into the side yard. Beside him is a rather more whimsicle snow cat. The sidewalks in front of the building have been shoveled, and the snow in the side yard has been amply trampled over the past few days, but now there's something - traquil, still, about the blanket of white in the frigid air.
The side door to the detached garage behind the house proper swings open, and JB steps out, onto the still-snow-covered and welltrampled back sidewalk, then turns and hefts the stem of a great fir tree through the narrow door. The tree is too fat for the door, and so the lowest branches scrape against the door frame as he pulls it through, raining needles down over the snow, releasing that resonant scent of pine sap into the crystalline air. Turning, he shoulders the big tree, balance it over his broad shoulder, the rootball - intact, wrapped in burlap - forward, the great weight of the tree balanced behind.
[Alexa Thanos] The cold is her worst enemy. She spends a lot of her time curled up somewhere in lupus, especially when the night falls, or constantly moving in order to keep warm. Her lips have been chapped, cheeks windburned, and ears threatened to be frozen off. But the bonus about being a Garou is the amount of brutality the body is able to withstand. This does not necessarily make it pleasant or less painful, but it means that she doesn't become a stiff corpse down a side alley, clawing at the cardboard boxes and surrounded in newspapers like so many others without a home. It also means that every time she shifts, just for a little while, her minor wounds heal and her fur helps keep out the bitter cold.
Her footsteps have trawled through the snow, along the wet sidewalks, carefully navigating the slippery slopes as she makes her way through the below freezing temperatures. Gloves fit over her fingers and a jacket buttons up over layers of clothing. Her scarf, a dull gray thing, is tucked around her neck and into the upturned collar of her jacket. Dark, spiraled and curled hair spills out of a knitted cap that falls across her brow and tries to keep in the mane, but can only hold onto so much; the colour of it is multi-striped and seems more suitable for Jamaica then the winter silly season in Chicago. Jeans are darker from the knees down, from where she's been tromping through the wet, and her doc martins have suffered the same fate, making red laces soaked to brown.
It's the slow cloud of her hot breath that moves more then she does the moment she spots the man carrying a tree in the side yard. The smell of the pine was sharp on her nose, the cold highlighting scents. She can only watch him for a few moments, and although he doesn't seem to be struggling, finds herself asking from the sidewalk; "Want a hand with that?" As usual, the pack on her back hangs heavy with her belongings.
[JB Cavanagh] There's a moment where he's startled by her voice; her still presence, just the steam of her breath in the sharp cold air, a shadow against the evening shadows as the edges of the world close in upon themselves, again, as the world sinks toward its darkest day, its longest night. The tension is easy to read in his shoulders, bulky beneath his old down coat, and his thighs, the way his bare hands grip the trunk of the tree, bracing the awkward weight as he turns - a moment's stillness, just another figure in the gray, snowy dusk, tall and broadshouldered, the details of his dress lost beneath the old winter gear, a coat, a hand-knitted scarf that matches, vaguely, and a green and black skicap with a sports logo on the front, which does not match. His hands are bare, the better to grip the trunk of the tree, or perhaps he just doesn't want to get the sticky sap on good leather gloves, the sort one needs in a city.
And so, the man's blunt fingers are red from the cold, his eyes watering from the sting of the bitter wind - just those eyes, dark brown, and the bridge of a once-broken nose are visible, but he speaks through the muffled layers of the scarf after that moment's wariness - the not-quite-animal hint of alertness that skims over his mien and big frame.
"Sure," - is what he says, voice roughened with the cold, a low rumble. He keeps the tree balanced with one hand, then fishes in the front pocket of his jeans for a heavy set of keys, taking a moment to unlatch the carabiner on which they hang from a beltloop before tossing it to her. "Get the door - " he gestures with his head as the keys sing through the air, the metal tight with cold and the sound of it sharper for that. " - would you? And grab the stand."
When she looks, she'll see the red and green metal tree stand mostly assembled, beside the front door. He'd intended to fit the tree to it down here to avoid raining needles all over the living room floor, but the air is sharp enough to make an ordinary person breathless, so vaccuuming doesn't seem like quiet such a chore.
[Alexa Thanos] She hadn't meant to scare him, but these things happen. It's easy to forget simple things like that; the human way of thinking, and how their senses aren't quite as sharp, and their reactions slower. Not always, but mostly. Hers, on the other hand, are much quicker. The way her hand darts out and weight shifts through the wet, is quicker then one might expect from her; she who is always so cautious about the way she blends in with the humans. Her reflexes are far better then she leads on.
His keys are muffled by the glove of her hand when her fingers curl around them. She holds them by her side as she makes her way over towards him, as directed. "It's too cold out." Her voice is low as she passes by, moving to grab the stand in her free hand first, testing the weight of it as she picks it up in the one hand and puts it under her arm. The look she gives him is mildly disapproving, somewhere deep in the dark blue of her eyes. "You should do this at the warmest part of the day." Not towards evening as dusk is falling. Never mind he has a business to run and a child to dote over.
Moving to the door then, she opens it up after fiddling with the keys, guessing at which one might turn over the lock. This close she can barely scent him, it's all sharp tang of the fur, that of the bark and wood beneath. Then it's the food cooking inside, making her empty stomach twist unhappily inside the many layers of clothing, hidden under her jacket. Her hunger is an acute thing and demanding, but her discipline is far better.
Once the door is opened, she steps out the way to let him inside.
[JB Cavanagh] "You know I went to college in Boston - " he informs her, brushing past her with the big tree in hand. It is fresh - and more than that, it is a living thing, roots still intact, if perhaps a bit frozen from the bitter cold - so the trail of its needles in the snow, and then on the worn out hardwood of the narrow interior stairs is narrow, a vibrant green against the vaguely gray, sootstained snow, and the dark, old fashioned stain on the worn flowers. "We'd play hockey, outside in weather colder than this."
There is a rich vein of heat from inside that snakes outward as she shakes through the keys, guessing at the right one until he directs her to the one on the extra steel loop that opens the door. The narrow stairs lead upward into darkness, but a quarter of the way up he steps, a distended shadow above defined by the long sweep of the tree's top, reaches for a switch by feel. There's a distinct click, but nothing happens until he hits the wall with the flat of his palm. Then, the thin, reedy light of an antique fixture comes on, enough to see by.
They're headed upstairs, to the living quarters over the restaurant. The narrow stairwell opens up into a small living room, with an old hearth on one wall, and the sort of antique woodwork one expects in 80 year old homes, even frame houses like this one, except here that old woodwork has been painted over, a uniform white. The living room has a - lived in look. There's a modest flat panel beside the hearth on a stand, and less-modest stereo system beside it, everything from a turntable to a subwoofer, and a half-dozen more components in between, flanked by wooden shelves with books and vinyl record albums. Over the mantle is the classic Edward Hopper painting - three people in a late night diner, all sleek modern lines, the interior stark white, the exterior still, almost meditative. On another wall, a poster of the iconic London Calling cover art - Paul Simonon smashing his Fender bass. The couch is deep, slouch, comfortable, and there's an old recliner that belongs in a bachelor's place. Any woman would've evicted the recliner long ago.
The place feels lived in - a child's backpack on a table by the stairs, all sorts of winter gear on the pegboard over the table - and its clear that he's been moving about the furniture to make room for the tree. There are no winter decorations up just now except the electric candles in the windows, which give another dimension to the light in the room.
"Here, give me a hand - " he says, indicating a cleared out space in the corner of the room, close to the fireplace but not too close. And so saying, he shifts the tree from his shoulder, careful of the things in the room, holding it by the trunk as needles rain down, ready to plant the tree in the stand when she sets it down. " - then step back and tell me if it's straight."
[Alexa Thanos] There isn't a lot of time for her to take in her surroundings, just enough to spot a few details that she keeps to mind, and note the windows, doors, and any extra beings inside the room. She steps over towards the corner when she's asked, aware of her own predicament of not wanting to trample wet boots across his floor but also not wanting him to hold the heavy tree longer then he needs.
Over at the indicated space, she sets down the stand, a little away from the wall to make room for the trees circumference, and stays crouched to help him put the tree into its place. An extra set of hands making it easier. The Strider balances easily enough under the needles, with the extra weight on her back, and the bulk of her clothing over her too lean frame.
Once the tree is settled and there's no fear of it toppling through a window or knocking paintings from a wall, she steps back and rises up again, moving back away from the tree to some central point in the room to have a look at it. "A little to the left," she tells him, indicating with the motion of a gloved hand. And she watches as he rights it again. "Oops, no. Back a little."
"Yeah. That's it."
[JB Cavanagh] He's done this before, balanced a tree, rootball and all, into that red and green metal stand, old enough that the paint is chipped where the cross bars meet and the beginnings of rust are evident in the water basin. When the tree is finally in place, he manages to hold it up while winching home the last screws holding it up. When they're done, the live fir fills the corner of the room, dark and majestic, the tip brushing the high ceiling, the branches disturbed by all that manhandling slowly settling with the work of gravity, the way some medieval queen must surely have settled her skirts around her after a turn at the reel, around the dance floor.
"Thanks for the help," JB says, straightening, brushing needles off his hands, sticky with pine sap and fragrant with it. What errant snow flakes had landed in his ski cap - with the Eagles logo on the front - or the loops of his handmade scarf are already melting in the relative warmth of the living room. Outside the windows, dusk settles over the street, changing the tincture of light. It's futile, maybe even counter productive, but once the loose needles are off his hands, he wipes them on his thighs, clearing away little of the sap. "I promised Lucy a tree. Wanted to surprise her."
Then he's unwinding his scarf, reaching to pull off the cap, standing in front of the unlit fireplace, a thoughtful frown on his mouth as he gives Alexa a brief, critical sort of once-over, the sort that leaves him frowning, faint and thoughtful. " - you hungry?" is all he says in the end. "I'll get you some dinner."
[Alexa Thanos] "You're welcome." There's even a small smile as she says it, tearing her eyes from the tree to look over at the man, just in time to catch his frown as he looks at her. Maybe it's the shoes, she's thinking, and the wet of her jeans. It chases away that small pleasure she had in looking at this tree standing in the middle of the living room, lending its strong fragrance to the house, already working at disguising all the others that could have told her much about the people that lived in the upstairs quarters.
Gloves are still on her hands, wool, black, knitted, and she moves to brush the back of her thighs in a self conscious gesture. She doesn't want to move anywhere now, except to retrace her steps back through the house and down the stairs, leaving him and his little girl their space without an intruder. Alexa has become increasingly aware of where she's standing and how far away that world is from hers. The small peek of it seems stolen and sits wrong with her.
How misunderstood some simple things can be, when the world is coloured through a different lens. A small frown, a critical look, and some inner monologues can twist it all out of shape. But she reminds herself that John has been nothing but kind, too generous, and sometimes even a little stubborn in his ways with her. When he asks if she's hungry, he follows it up with an offer that sounds closer to a statement, and she was going to take him up on it, because sometimes pride even has its limits when the world is a miserable, cold place, and the hunger turns to pain. "Thanks. I'd appreciate that."
Gesturing, then, out towards the way she came. "Do you mind if I stay in the shed, tonight?" Because that's why she was coming, to hole up in the place he'd once offered her. As winter has come around maybe he would have noticed her another night, even though she touched as little as possible and always tried to put things back where they belonged.
[JB Cavanagh] Truth is, he's tracking as much ice and snow, as much frozen mud around the room as she is. His boots are muddy from the trip to the tree farm, crusted with scattered salt from walking on a treated sidewalk, all the filthy slush of the season. Once his scarf and cap are off, he unzips the old parker and tosses it, too, on top of the table at the top of the stairs, at last taking a moment to unlace his boots and step out of the shoes into a pair of moccasin style leather slippers left haphazardly near the door.
There rooms are clean enough, but far from neat, and the scattered way he leaves his boots behind just adds to the sense of lived in clutter about the place. Just the tree has that clean shape, a blanket of rich dark green, like the quiet heart of a forest. He misses the way his frown changes her body language, the way it stiffens her body, makes her feel (again) like an interloper, an alien in an ordinary world. And it is ordinary - now he's sorting briefly through the mail left on the table, still frowning that vague frown - considering what's in the fridge, whether they need to duck downstairs for a meal. When she asks about the shed.
" - the shed?" His back is to her, broad at the shoulders, tapering to the waist. He's wearing a fine-gauge sweater over a white t-shirt and jeans worn enough that they seem as lived in as the living room. A recent haircut has his close-cropped brown hair even closer to the skull. That frown worms its way across his brow as he cuts a glance back at her. "You said the shed, right?"
Then he gives a decisive shake of his head. "There's a studio apartment over the garage, but the heat's not on and it's too cold. You don't have someplace warm to sleep? We can make room here for a night or two."
And with that, he disappears down the dark hall toward the kitchen, to through together dinner.
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