[ Sometimes Claire brings the dogs with her depending on what shift she's working and where in the gardens, since it's better than keeping them locked up or asking someone else to babysit. He's lucky, this time. Today she's without mongrels but plus dirty hands and a face that could use a good scrub. She has the benefit of catching sight of him before she's close enough to have an expression easily readable, though there are still trace amounts of a wince and some sympathy left over by the time she is close enough.
It's his face okay. She likes his stupid face. ]
Did you even go back to your room before coming here?
[ Is better to ask than it is to say I'd hate to see the other guy. Which just seems insensitive and also true because she would probably throttle him and get charged with murder. She puts that aside. ]
[ His stupid face has all the same out of whack proportions and angles, pointlessly arranged moles and sallow tints, but now with the added features of some medical tape on his right cheekbone and jaw and his right eye being fully, unnaturally bloodshot.
His hair covers a lot of it. ]
Yes.
[ He changed. Showered again, redid the tape on his face to his own preferences. It doesn't hurt. ]
[ Lily had told her enough initially to impress the severity of the situation without going into an overabundance of detail. Even if it doesn't hurt, it definitely looks like it does, though it's still less than what she was expecting. When you're told that someone nearly got their face cut off and then don't see them again immediately following, it's easy to let worry and imagination work in tandem. ]
No. [ He manages a lopsided smile, but there's little energy behind it. Severus isn't a very smile-prone person to begin with, so it ends up looking like a less disappointed :/ emote. He tried.
That failing, he reaches out to take one of Claire's hands, raising it to hold in both of his, thumb pressed into her palm. ] Your head's all right?
[ It's nice that he takes one of her hands, as it makes her step closer to him that much more natural. Grass twists underfoot and she stretches with renewed familiarity to press her mouth into his, briefly but warmly. She's careful but doesn't treat him like he'll break if she leans into him too much, mindful of the bandaging. ]
My head's fine. It was fine to begin with. It just freaked me out a little, but it's nothing to worry about.
[ Now that she's closer, Severus reaches out and touches the side of her face with his free hand (not quite like he's checking to make sure her head's not going to fall off or whatever). He wonders a little bit why the fuck she puts up with him, or likes him at all, and wishes he had some idea how to express that he appreciates her and hopes she wasn't too scared by what happened - to either of them. ]
[ It would have been worse had Lily not been the one to tell her what was going on. Anyone else caught in the right moment and right amount of panic or stress wouldn't have been able to talk her down from ultimately doing more damage. Being able to sit in his room for a while and make sure that he wasn't actually about to stop breathing had helped, too. This is better, even if she would like to get out of the garden and clean up. ]
I'm gross. [ She says it while trying to angle her face away from his hand, never mind that she didn't think three seconds ago that she was too gross to kiss him. Regardless, she slips her unoccupied arm around his waist and curls her fingers in the fabric she finds there. ] Come on, I want to wash my face.
Hardly. [ Severus lets her dodge, though, and instead puts his arm around her shoulders - Claire's so much shorter than him that it's the easiest position. ] Where?
[ Just because bathrooms here are communal doesn't mean he'll creepily hang out while she takes a shower, but he'll walk her there. ]
[ Her floor is absolutely out of the question, and not just because all the public enemies live there. She doesn't want Diablo jumping up at him excitedly or trying to take a bite at this weirdly shaped and oddly tasting thing currently occupying space on Severus's face. Besides, she doesn't want to shower right now specifically. Washing her face and hands should be enough to make her feel momentarily hygienic. ]
I just want to wash my face and hands. [ She spreads the fingers of her right wide, and the lines of her palms are darkened with dirt. ] I think there's a bathroom just down the corridor. After that I don't care. I would have just washed up before I left if I'd known someone was going to be waiting for me.
[ They spend so much of their time either in someone's room or in a kitchen or in the gardens. Right now her instinct is to force him into taking it easy but she can also understand if he wants to stretch his legs a bit. ]
I'm just tired of the back and forth on those things.
[ Even the device he's enchanted are meant to replicate muggle technology, and it gets exhausting. It's not his culture, he doesn't like it, and after a pretty catastrophic injury he's just sort of over it for now. He needs a few days away from the incessant pinging and buzzing. ]
I don't mind a break from it, especially after trying to deal with the network while it was on its last leg. And then Smiley showing up at the end of all that madness. Puts a bad taste in your mouth. [ Which might explain why she didn't try his comm unit when he was still in medbay and instead relied on the mirror. She nudges him as well as she can in her current position. ] Plus that falls into the category of not staring at bright lights. Looks like you escape getting sat on once again.
[ Anyway there is a washroom right here she's just going to pop in for literally two minutes and return fresh faced, clean palmed, and slightly damp around her hairline. Much more refreshed. ]
Let's go up to ten.
[ Her schedule, other than having to work, was very carefully and liberally carved out to allow time for little else other than seeing him. ]
Severus waits and does not smoke a cigarette, even though he thinks about doing so. He feels bad about it so near the oxygen gardens. When Claire reemerges he offers her his hand, since she's squeaky and un-garden-dirted for now. ]
My room, or do you want to do a.. holodeck, thing.
[ Claire takes his hand automatically, fitting her fingers between his and turning to lead them down the hallway toward the lifts. She does feel better and less sticky now that soap and hot water have turned her skin an interesting shade of fading pink, making pieces of hair close to her temples and forehead dry with the crinkled suggestion of natural curl and frizz. She pays it little attention except to wipe her thumb near her temple where it still feels dampest. ]
Are you asking me on a date? [ The expression she turns up toward him is skeptical, eyebrows drawn together and mouth twisted. ] I like your chances.
[ That question makes him do like a mini-mental-bluescreen and he makes a weird face in his attempt to not make a weird face. That sentence definitely made sense and you can't prove otherwise. ]
I'm... [ What is he doing??? ] There's not really anything I do besides work.
[ Claire is just going to ignore that face without ignoring it whatsoever, at all. Difficult to ignore a face being made when you're already looking at the person in question. That being said she definitely enjoys it in some way that is probably ultimately horrible and mean-spirited. Or always just kind of flattered, oddly, to get that sort of reaction.
Meanwhile la la la... ]
Well you're not working right now, so that's out. [ She's putting her foot down on that one, thank you. ] I think I've actually only been to the holodeck one time before. It's been forever.
I've only spent more than a few moments in one once. [ And it was with her father, which he's not going to say in the context of 'is this a date' because that feels SUPER WEIRD. ] I'm not actually too sure how it works.
[ She looks both perplexed and a little concerned, but if any old idiot on the Tranquility can figure it out, Claire feels they'll be fine. Anyway, she's able to call the lift upon arrival, involving the very rare and often longed for skill of pushing a button. While waiting for it to come to their floor, she turns to face him again. ]
I think we'll be able to figure it out. If not then I guess we'll just wander around a hologram for the rest of our lives. So you better pick something good.
I'll just end up picking Scotland, [ he muses, because he's boring and he lives in Scotland and his other experiences are terrible, ] do you want to see if it'll do Texas?
[ Maybe in a more realistic fashion than his little card. ]
I don't know. Do you want to look at a bunch of cows?
[ Of course that's not all of Texas, and she has only seen a tumbleweed once, but the point remains. Scotland sounds much more interesting than boring Texas. And much greener. Not that she hasn't missed it in its own fashion from time to time, but Claire assumes it's more missing what being there represented before everything went completely to hell. Normalcy. Routine. That kind of thing. ]
Sometimes I think I'd get homesick if I saw Texas the way the holodecks project images.
[ But then again, maybe not. Maybe it would just make her think about Odessa and all the shitty things that happened there. ]
All right, where do you think? Paris? The Himalayas? [ Someone else might sound whimsical, but Severus seems like he's actually trying to come up with something. The lift doors open and they get to escape onto floor 10; as usual it's empty. He thinks only Ryuuzaki is left, and he's usually working. Not unlike Severus. ]
[ There's a level of association with the 10th floor's emptiness that she doesn't find cold or echoing, even if the only reason that she does come up here is to visit a room that she has complained about being, sarcastically or otherwise, just a little too chilly. At this point getting off of the lift here doesn't require a look around to see if anyone is going to wonder what she's doing up here, not that it would matter if anyone did. ]
All second homes to me. [ She says it without missing a beat or looking up at him, raising her eyebrows are the floor. Gosh, Severus. It's only after the words are out of her mouth that she turns her face a bit to show him the slant of a smile. ] I've never been to Paris before. That sounds really cool.
[ Maybe she should slow down for two seconds and examine the guilt that is still eating away at her slowly from the inside out, but that would require too close of a look at anything that isn't their holodeck options. ]
Hmph. [ He can tell she's teasing; he squeezes her hand. ] I've never been either. Some--
[ f..riends, no, he can't rightly say that, can he? Fuck. ] --upperclassmen I knew went, every so often. I was always working and, you know. I'm not really one for posh affairs.
[ An understatement. But he manages not to sound too awkward about it. Little by little, he's getting used to talking to her about things in ways that aren't sudden emotional freakouts.
He palms the holodeck door open when they get to it: large and black and lined with a grid.
[ Her eyes skip up to him following the brief reconsideration between the natural progression of friends that the sentence was leaning toward and the resulting upperclassmen conclusion. She knows without having to ask what he's talking about, makes it a point not to pull herself away regardless of whether or not the desire strikes her. It doesn't. ]
My grandmother tried to send me once. Literally the day after I met her for the first time. Obviously it didn't take. Someone once told me that Paris smells, so maybe we're lucking out.
[ Does the holodeck also generate smells? She knows that it crafts artificial sunlight but beyond that she has no idea. Claire steps into the room after him, easing her hand out of his so that she can take a look around. After a moment she returns to his side and loops her arm through his. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
It's his face okay. She likes his stupid face. ]
Did you even go back to your room before coming here?
[ Is better to ask than it is to say I'd hate to see the other guy. Which just seems insensitive and also true because she would probably throttle him and get charged with murder. She puts that aside. ]
no subject
His hair covers a lot of it. ]
Yes.
[ He changed. Showered again, redid the tape on his face to his own preferences. It doesn't hurt. ]
no subject
Does your face hurt?
[ Still, it pays to be sure because reasons. ]
no subject
That failing, he reaches out to take one of Claire's hands, raising it to hold in both of his, thumb pressed into her palm. ] Your head's all right?
no subject
[ It's nice that he takes one of her hands, as it makes her step closer to him that much more natural. Grass twists underfoot and she stretches with renewed familiarity to press her mouth into his, briefly but warmly. She's careful but doesn't treat him like he'll break if she leans into him too much, mindful of the bandaging. ]
My head's fine. It was fine to begin with. It just freaked me out a little, but it's nothing to worry about.
no subject
All right.
no subject
I'm gross. [ She says it while trying to angle her face away from his hand, never mind that she didn't think three seconds ago that she was too gross to kiss him. Regardless, she slips her unoccupied arm around his waist and curls her fingers in the fabric she finds there. ] Come on, I want to wash my face.
no subject
[ Just because bathrooms here are communal doesn't mean he'll creepily hang out while she takes a shower, but he'll walk her there. ]
no subject
I just want to wash my face and hands. [ She spreads the fingers of her right wide, and the lines of her palms are darkened with dirt. ] I think there's a bathroom just down the corridor. After that I don't care. I would have just washed up before I left if I'd known someone was going to be waiting for me.
[ They spend so much of their time either in someone's room or in a kitchen or in the gardens. Right now her instinct is to force him into taking it easy but she can also understand if he wants to stretch his legs a bit. ]
no subject
[ Even the device he's enchanted are meant to replicate muggle technology, and it gets exhausting. It's not his culture, he doesn't like it, and after a pretty catastrophic injury he's just sort of over it for now. He needs a few days away from the incessant pinging and buzzing. ]
no subject
I don't mind a break from it, especially after trying to deal with the network while it was on its last leg. And then Smiley showing up at the end of all that madness. Puts a bad taste in your mouth. [ Which might explain why she didn't try his comm unit when he was still in medbay and instead relied on the mirror. She nudges him as well as she can in her current position. ] Plus that falls into the category of not staring at bright lights. Looks like you escape getting sat on once again.
no subject
I don't have any plans.
[ He just wanted to see her, okay. ]
no subject
I was not aflutter.
[ Anyway there is a washroom right here she's just going to pop in for literally two minutes and return fresh faced, clean palmed, and slightly damp around her hairline. Much more refreshed. ]
Let's go up to ten.
[ Her schedule, other than having to work, was very carefully and liberally carved out to allow time for little else other than seeing him. ]
no subject
Severus waits and does not smoke a cigarette, even though he thinks about doing so. He feels bad about it so near the oxygen gardens. When Claire reemerges he offers her his hand, since she's squeaky and un-garden-dirted for now. ]
My room, or do you want to do a.. holodeck, thing.
[ 'Thing', the default wizard 'uhm'. ]
no subject
[ Claire takes his hand automatically, fitting her fingers between his and turning to lead them down the hallway toward the lifts. She does feel better and less sticky now that soap and hot water have turned her skin an interesting shade of fading pink, making pieces of hair close to her temples and forehead dry with the crinkled suggestion of natural curl and frizz. She pays it little attention except to wipe her thumb near her temple where it still feels dampest. ]
Are you asking me on a date? [ The expression she turns up toward him is skeptical, eyebrows drawn together and mouth twisted. ] I like your chances.
no subject
I'm... [ What is he doing??? ] There's not really anything I do besides work.
[ So he doesn't know what to suggest. ]
no subject
Meanwhile la la la... ]
Well you're not working right now, so that's out. [ She's putting her foot down on that one, thank you. ] I think I've actually only been to the holodeck one time before. It's been forever.
[ Yep, it's been exactly forever. ]
no subject
[ But at least there'll be scenery? ]
no subject
[ She looks both perplexed and a little concerned, but if any old idiot on the Tranquility can figure it out, Claire feels they'll be fine. Anyway, she's able to call the lift upon arrival, involving the very rare and often longed for skill of pushing a button. While waiting for it to come to their floor, she turns to face him again. ]
I think we'll be able to figure it out. If not then I guess we'll just wander around a hologram for the rest of our lives. So you better pick something good.
[ All nonchalantlike. Which is a word. ]
no subject
[ Maybe in a more realistic fashion than his little card. ]
no subject
[ Of course that's not all of Texas, and she has only seen a tumbleweed once, but the point remains. Scotland sounds much more interesting than boring Texas. And much greener. Not that she hasn't missed it in its own fashion from time to time, but Claire assumes it's more missing what being there represented before everything went completely to hell. Normalcy. Routine. That kind of thing. ]
Sometimes I think I'd get homesick if I saw Texas the way the holodecks project images.
[ But then again, maybe not. Maybe it would just make her think about Odessa and all the shitty things that happened there. ]
no subject
no subject
All second homes to me. [ She says it without missing a beat or looking up at him, raising her eyebrows are the floor. Gosh, Severus. It's only after the words are out of her mouth that she turns her face a bit to show him the slant of a smile. ] I've never been to Paris before. That sounds really cool.
[ Maybe she should slow down for two seconds and examine the guilt that is still eating away at her slowly from the inside out, but that would require too close of a look at anything that isn't their holodeck options. ]
no subject
[ f..riends, no, he can't rightly say that, can he? Fuck. ] --upperclassmen I knew went, every so often. I was always working and, you know. I'm not really one for posh affairs.
[ An understatement. But he manages not to sound too awkward about it. Little by little, he's getting used to talking to her about things in ways that aren't sudden emotional freakouts.
He palms the holodeck door open when they get to it: large and black and lined with a grid.
Weird. ]
no subject
My grandmother tried to send me once. Literally the day after I met her for the first time. Obviously it didn't take. Someone once told me that Paris smells, so maybe we're lucking out.
[ Does the holodeck also generate smells? She knows that it crafts artificial sunlight but beyond that she has no idea. Claire steps into the room after him, easing her hand out of his so that she can take a look around. After a moment she returns to his side and loops her arm through his. ]
You're about to get super holodecky posh.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)