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[evocation]

@kyna.medina | ■ ▲ ◌ ▼

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[withmeinparadise]

[ Well, someone had to voice the thought. He gives her a little squeeze. ]

Since you didn't let the cops handle it.

[evocation]

Yeah. And he is a cop, so...

[So, you know, salt in the wound or whatever.]

[withmeinparadise]

Yeah.

[ He doesn't have anything to add except shit like how the hell do you live with having a cop in the family?, and the answer is that Kyna hasn't spent her life in and out of jail, obviously. Or the other option, my brother's pissed at me, too, and there's no way in hell he's spilling that.

So he sits there in silence for a second or two, Kyna's cheek against his shoulder, and tells himself that he's not actually stuck on how nice this is. When he does speak, he clears his throat a little first. ]

Well, uh. You feel any better?

[evocation]

[Kyna swallows, nods a bit against his shoulder, but doesn't pull away. She's not afraid to admit to herself that this is nice—this sort of physical contact is what she's made for. The empathy bond makes it more complicated here, and so she doesn't get it as much.]

Yeah. Um, thanks. You're better at this than I thought, you know.

[withmeinparadise]

[ He laughs a little, but there's a little relief underpinning it. ]

You think so?

[evocation]

[Kyna smiles despite herself, reaching down to poke him gently in the side.]

Yeah, you are. You listened and you didn't... you know. I'm always afraid people will get... judge-y when I tell them stuff like this.

[withmeinparadise]

Eh. Can't exactly throw stones when it comes to this kinda stuff.

[ Not the magic, obviously, but working outside the law? Doing things that pisses off family? Getting people killed? It's familiar, that's all.

And then, in hopes of heading off questions from her, he adds-- ]

Long story.

[evocation]

Yeah?

[Kyna pulls back a bit.]

I'm not going anywhere.

[withmeinparadise]

Longer'n we have time for.

[ There're things he can make into fun stories, but I might've killed my brother, and I definitely fucked him over isn't currently one. But Kyna's looking at him, waiting, and even he's only known her a month or two, that's long enough to know she's not going to let it go. The best plan he can think of, in the moment, is offering her a different tale. ]

Y'know I almost got picked up for murder when I was seventeen? Not a murder I did. Wasn't even a real murder, just...y'know, a real inconvenient death.

[evocation]

[Yeah, that's not a subtle change of topic, but she lets it go. For now, anyway.]

Wait, what? How?

[withmeinparadise]

[ Mission accomplished. ]

Me and Nathan, we kinda broke into an old lady's mansion.

[evocation]

Did you give her a heart attack or something?

[withmeinparadise]

Not right away? We had a conversation first. [ And with a puff of a laugh: ] She nearly shot me.

[evocation]

You totally deserved it.

[Look, she loves Sam, BUT.]

How the fuck did she die?

[withmeinparadise]

Maybe a heart attack? She was sick. [ Thinking of that makes his ribcage tighten a little. ] We didn't exactly stick around--the cops were already showing up when she, uh. Y'know.

[ A very vague gesture with his free hand, one which clearly means "seized up and died in front of us." ]

[evocation]

Jesus Christ. Why did you break in?

[withmeinparadise]

She had something that belonged to us. [ Despite himself, there's a tiny edge of defensiveness to his voice. He never would've cased the place, let along broken in, if not for that. ] Had to get it back.

[evocation]

[Her head tilts slightly.]

What was it?

[withmeinparadise]

[ Doesn't matter, he wants to say, but Kyna's Kyna. She'll punch him in the leg and make him answer anyway. Normally, her stubbornness is a big part of her charm, but he's managed to talk his way into a corner of this story he isn't wild about revisiting.

Great job, Sam.

After a too-long silence, his fingertips tapping idly against her side, he gives up. ]

Our mother, she, uh. She was a historian. Left behind a lotta unfinished work when she died. You wouldn't believe how long it took me to figure out who got her stuff after Dad sold it. [ Is that enough detail? It's more than he wants to say, possibly less than makes sense. ] Should've been ours, so I figured we could get it back.

[evocation]

Oh.

[She says it quietly, expression softening. Not exactly legal, but she gets it, and she feels for him.]

So what was it? Books? Some cool artifact?

[withmeinparadise]

Books--journals. All the stuff she wanted to write about.

[ That ache in his chest is back, a boy's indignance hiding inside a man who pretends he's beyond it. They escaped with one book from one box. Sam's spent almost thirty years trying not to wonder what else they had to leave behind. ]

And I'll have you know, she was ready to let us have 'em. Problem is, you can't just tell the cops she decided it was okay you broke into her house after she called 'em up.

[ Not when she's dead. ]

[evocation]

Yeah.

[She reaches for his hand and then hesitates, fingers a hair away from his. He can complete the motion if he wants, but she doesn't want to force it.]

I'm sorry.

[withmeinparadise]

[ He's staring at the wall on the other side of the room, but when she shifts a little, he glances down. And there's her hand, hovering over his.

Taking it's a stupid idea. He's awash in old loneliness he doesn't want to talk about, a faint (faint) sense of shame, the weird nostalgia of the whole thing, whatever the desire to kiss Kyna manifests itself as when she touches him--but hell, he's never going to kiss her. He might as well wrap his fingers around hers. ]

Don't be sorry. [ His voice is a little quieter, but there's still some cheer to it. ] S'a pretty good story.

[evocation]

[Kyna laces their fingers together, biting her lip. She's still not really sure what to do with that little undercurrent of desire that always seems to leak through the empathy bond. She likes Sam, and she's rapidly coming to trust him, and she doesn't know how to deal with those sort of feelings from someone she's actually close to. It scares her a little.

So she ignores them, oh so responsibly. Instead, she just squeezes his hand, lets that understanding and sympathy pour through instead.]

Yeah, it is pretty good. What about the other one? The one you said was long?

[withmeinparadise]

[ He'd rather just ignore them, given the choice. It's a hell of a lot less embarrassing than acknowledging them. You're here and I'm here and we're both pretending I don't look at you like a ninth-grader dying of infatuation--and for whatever reason, she just tolerates it. ]

It...ain't really a good story. [ What little shame he has sort of hiccups through his skin, along with something stubborn and sad all at once, an amorphous not-quite-grief. ] Tell you another time, maybe.