[drp] gurneys and journeys (fresh-faced interns)

[The Semblance of Unity]

"No, I.. I didn't mean that. It's your space, after all. I just feel like... creatures shouldn't be denied care because of things like limited hours." She rubbed her hands together, an anxious fidget. "Though I guess it's fine because I'm just, well, me. Practicing." Not actually needed, just an add-on for now.

She exhaled. "Try calling? I mean, I can wait if you want me to." Wasn't she supposed to be some sort of obedient thing to her patron?

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

He smirked. "Yeah. I don't know how else to do this stuff except to think really hard. Like wishing." Rabbit shrugged. "Maybe there's a less Jiminy Cricket way of doing things. Like just talking to the cloth, I don't know."

"I really don't mind you doing whatever though, as long as you're safe here. It's your creepy prison-college. Call away." He stood slowly, dusting invisible dust from the table and back of his chair. "I was just thinking if there was a big emergency and he was like 'Nope, they used their call already, can't help' it would be bad. Not that he would. I think he's like you."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Wishin' n' hopin' n' dreamin', yeah?" She smiled, turning the cloth over and over in her hands. "Do you want me to call him while you're around or-?"

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

"Yeah." He grinned. "All of the above."

"Whenever you want to call him is fine with me. Really. Just... learn stuff."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[Smerdle]

the evening of april 13th

A small stack of unbound printouts appeared, not in the kitchen where most Vaughn family gatherings took place, but on a low table in a more formal space that had never been used as intended. It was a hard copy of the contents of the listserv, spanning from when Rabbit had joined to just after 6pm that day.

There was a note on top written in spindly caps.

MORE SOON

The Semblance of Unity

2 times da fun

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

approximately january 18th

"I... I'll try." Her smiled brightened as she looked at Rabbit, feeling like, for the first time, maybe she didn't make a mistake in everything after all. It had been a feeling she hadn't allowed herself to acknowledge before, but now that it was mitigated a bit, Temperance could tell how pressing it had been on her shoulders.

"Thank you."

------------------------

the evening of april 13th

Temperance took the sheet of papers and read through them carefully, frowning. There were some terrible things just poised to happen - if only she could do something.

If Rabbit checked the spot where the papers were, he'd find a small note in return. Thank you. The 'o' was written as a heart.

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

at some point in the week that followed

Rabbit left her a few more crowded sheets of paper after that, always in the same spot with no additional notes or marks. Their compatriots were wordy enough, and he found he had little in the way of commentary these days anyway.

When he finally did show his face for longer than it took to drop things off and sneak away, he was listserv-less, but that was fine. He didn't want to talk about any of that. He knew they would, but he didn't want to lead with it if he could help it.

Presumably she'd been working on and off and hadn't been too terribly bored with no one around, or at least Rabbit hoped she had. Over time, he'd figured out how to both designate a space for her healing and how to let those who required healing inside without him carrying them. It meant he hadn't needed to be here, though before the last meeting of the Nobles, he'd liked to be.

All outward signs of his fight with Oroh had faded. He sat, quiet and thoughtful, in the kitchen.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

She squeaked in surprise, her hand flying to her chest. "I'm, um, I'm sorry - I didn't expect to see you, somehow." Temperance had gotten into a bit of a routine lately, enough so that it distracted her from worrying too much about Ashdown, the fetch, the tree rot. Or that's what she told herself.

Temperance set her mug of coffee down on the table. "Mind if I sit?"

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

"That's... well... I haven't been around, so it's fine." He glanced as high as her mug and gestured at a chair. "Go ahead."

Rabbit waited until she had taken a seat to speak, but even then he didn't do it right away. It wasn't because he didn't know what to say—he had planned to ask her about this since he'd last spoken to Jeremiah—it was because this was a point of no return and he was kind of bad at those. He breathed. In. Out. When he had counted twenty of them, he said,

"Do you think you're ready to fight your fetch?"

It was authoritative and brisk, a statement more than a question. It was you should kill your ******** d**k of a fetch before she exchanges ******** promise rings with ******** Melany and they do more than break your ******** hand. He didn't look up at her, pale eyes still on her mug.

"I think it would be better if you made the first move."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

The silence was strange; it pressed in on her uncomfortably and she opened her mouth to speak only to be cut off by Rabbit's words. Her mouth remained open for a few seconds after he'd finished. In a word, no - she wasn't ready. Fighting, possibly killing... these were things simply not in her repertoire of skills. She was a nurse, sort of, first do no harm and all that.

"How do I know if I'm ready?" She sighed, feeling tension sing along her spine. "What did you do with your fetch?" Obviously, Oroh wasn't his... she thought. Glamours were a strange, strange business.

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

"I killed him." He closed his eyes, feeling the resistance of the knife through the fetch's throat, the blade sinking past his eye socket, the same one where Oroh wore her gold. Rabbit could have lifted his shirt and showed Temperance the twin scars just below his ribs on the right side, innocent enough now, but very nearly heralds of his end. He didn't.

"Mynn stabbed me. I've thought about it. I think it was probably while you were taking care of the Spinel Lady. I couldn't... I don't know how Shiloh did it, sparing Beel. Mynn didn't want to live if he couldn't be me." He breathed—in, out—a few more times, then opened his eyes.

"I wasn't ready. I was cornered and I had to do something. Without a deadline like the ball, I don't know if Hart will ever come. Jeremiah said I could go get her, and I will if you want." Rabbit cupped his hand over the table and when he moved it again, there was a cigarette underneath. He picked it up and fidgeted with it, swallowing around the dryness in his throat before finally looking at her. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done this to you."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

She watched Rabbit's face closely, the flicker of his eyes, the way his nostrils flared as he breathed. Temperance wondered if, on some level, he still felt the fetch's blood on his own skin. It was... self defense and she knew it, couldn't find fault in Rabbit for it. But she didn't think she could do it.

"I asked for this," she said eventually in a flat voice. And that was the truth. "Smoking will kill your lungs," Temperance pointed out.

Then, after another moment. "I don't suppose I could go to her?"

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

He scowled, technically, though it wasn't anything more than a slight purse of his lips and narrowing of his eyes.

"I know." It could have been a response to either of her statements. He felt equally as pouty over both of them.

The question was harder to reply to, but taking time to think about it gave him a chance to steady himself again, to push aside the memories of Ezra and Mynn and the hospital and think about what had come next. A deeper connection to his magic. His children.

"You could, I think. She must hang around the court sometimes." To be near Melany. Rabbit was surprised he hadn't seen her himself. "If you could figure out where she's going to be, that would help. I don't know how you'd get a fetch's schedule or anything."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"I guess I meant, um, sort of on my own home turf..." She fluttered her hands about for a moment before settling them on her mug. "My apartment - though I guess that isn't wise, depending on what happens." Temperance couldn't kill anyone; she couldn't.

"Do you know what Shiloh said to Beel?"

smerdle

 

[Smerdle]

"Oh. Maybe." He didn't know how that would work, confronting a fetch back on the mundane side of the world, but that was only because he hadn't experienced it.

"I can find out about that. Probably not the Shiloh thing though. We're more like people who see each other at work than friends, and I don't know how something like 'How did you talk your murdercorpse servant out of trying to kill you?' would come up really." He tapped the cigarette on the table, watching it with mild amusement. This was the first time in weeks he had spoken to someone who wasn't nine or his sister. It helped.

"And no matter where you fight her, what will happen is that you will win. I can still be sorry about giving you something you wanted, but I wouldn't have if I didn't think you could make it out alive. So, yeah. When you're ready. I just wanted to let you know that I could help speed things up if you are."

The Semblance of Unity