[eden]

[pylades_drunk]

[Timed to Dec 13th]

Although spending the first full day inside and well assured that his body is perfectly fine -- as well as of the temporary nature of all of this-- helped with the initial shock, the novelty of Grantaire's new arrangement is already beginning to wear off.

There are at least as many hindrances, little reminders that this body is foreign, uncertainties, as there are more pleasant surprises. Many times so, really. He could play it for a lark, he supposes, take hold of not being himself by the horns, so to speak. Be some other character altogether. He can imagine it, can imagine laughing at it. Dressing up and putting on a persona to go with the new body.

But when he thinks about doing it he can't imagine being relaxed enough to go about it. He does have to leave the apartment, eventually, and he probably needs at least one full outfit that suits this body if he isn't to look mad or be forever uncomfortable, for that matter. But even contemplating how to do that much makes him want to just shove this body into his own clothes and go straight to the darkest corner of Tintern -- or the Winchester, where he rarely stops and no one will figure it out -- before attempting it.

So instead of any of that, he texts Eden. Of all the people he can think of to talk about this, she will understand both Darrow's ridiculousness and what he's feeling right now.

He starts, deletes, rephrases, deletes it again and sighs, lighting a cigarette he's allowing himself, sitting on the windowsill to let the smoke out. Polite greetings sound inane, casual ones sound too familiar. In the end, he goes with blunt.

I got a surprise from Darrow: and he sends along a picture, his familiar-and-unfamiliar face looking back, lips pursed in wry annoyance.

I need a goddamn drink. He types it, deletes it, and rephrases to: I really want a drink right now and sends it before he can rethink. This city is ridiculous. Would you ...mind terribly talking to me for a while?

Comments

[wishesandsmoke]

Eden's out running errands when she gets the texts. Somehow, reading them, she's both surprised and not. These changes are never to be expected, exactly, but as he says, this city is ridiculous. It comes after them at times, as if day-to-day life can't be hard enough on its own. And God knows she's been there. It's never changed her like this, but she knows how it is to be caught off guard by this place and to want a drink. To want one even without reason, to just want.

Not at all, she types back. Would you like to meet up somewhere? It's better, at a time like this, for him not to be alone.

[pylades_drunk]

Grantaire watches the wisps of smoke trail out the window; he's almost surprised when the text back is, if not immediate, relatively quick. It's not that he doesn't trust Eden, specifically: he implicitly trusts her, with some things more than he quite trusts anyone with. It's more that he isn't ever quite sure where he stands with other people, especially when they're not in their proscribed places and roles. This isn't the same time and place that he normally sees Eden and knows she expects him; it was easier, when he drank, to bombard other people's spaces until they make room for him or force him out entirely. These days he keeps to the same circles quite a bit more.

But he thinks she's becoming part of that circle.

He's grateful, too, when she offers to meet rather than just text back and forth. I -would- like that. Coffee?

He begrudgingly adds I might need you to explain the fine arts of female clothing, ha with a little emoji putting its head down. All men here. He's not devoid of clothes -- his mass has changed, but not shrunken or grown so totally that he can't wriggle into just newly odd feeling clothes -- but it's not exactly comfortable.

[wishesandsmoke]

Coffee! Eden writes back, by way of agreement. And of course, I'd be glad to help.

She suggests an Ahabs not far from where their AA meetings are held; familiarity, she figures, in even small ways might be helpful right now. She's accustomed, in a sense, to the oddities of the city, but that doesn't make them less odd. She can only imagine that finding oneself in the wrong gendered body must be uncomfortable and confusing at the least. If she can help him navigate that, it'll be an afternoon well-spent. Both as a fellow immigrant to this city and as a fellow alcoholic, she feels as if they're comrades-in-arms, attempting to fight similar battles; but more than that, she's coming to think of him as a friend.

[pylades_drunk]

Grantaire recognizes the address, one they both know; it's not until about halfway there, though, that he realizes how good an idea it was.

He'd put on a ribbed tank top that has enough stretch that it both fits and seems to give some support, and over that a button-down shirt, the leather jacket he favors and a pair of Edgar's jeans, which are still too tight in the rear and a bit baggier than is flattering to his legs, but fit better than his own. It's all strangely fitting, and he keeps his arms crossed around himself, hunching a bit and feeling as though everyone's staring at him.

But as he gets further toward his destination, he's able to notice the city around him the way he normally would, and the familiar path evokes a sort of steady reminder that he's going to speak to someone he trusts.

He ducks into the Ahab's and casts his gaze around for Eden, hoping she's arrived first; she might know the jacket, but he's not sure if she'll know him the way he looks now.

[wishesandsmoke]

Eden's found a table in the back corner, where she sits, patiently waiting for Grantaire to arrive. She wraps her hands around a warm coffee cup, though she's yet to start drinking. It's still too hot.

She watches each new arrival to the store, looking for her friend, until she thinks she spots him. The woman who enters is darkly pretty, but walks in a nervous, closed off manner, and wears a jacket she thinks she recognizes from past meetings. Taking a chance, she lifts her hand in a wave.

[pylades_drunk]

Grantaire catches the wave from the back corner and lets out a relieved sigh, lifting his hand wide in a wave and managing the closest to a real smile he's done all day. The back corner is a relieving spot for her to have claimed, too, now that he's found her at least.

He beelines over and takes a seat. Interacting with furnishings, he's found, is a little strange still, and he's glad the first few times he did it was in his home. "You knew me anyway," he says with a little warm look. "I wasn't expecting that." It makes him feel a little better, thinking that -- even if she knows the specific situation in advance -- he's recognizable in some way.

"I'm sorry, I'm sure this isn't how you wanted today to go," he adds. He already feels so awkward, so disembodied; he doesn't want to be an imposition with his weaknesses. And he knows that's not how any of them should think about it, or about each other, but it's a worry nonetheless.

[wishesandsmoke]

"The jacket was a tip-off," Eden admits, "and there's still something... you about you." She shakes her head, and reaches out, a hand resting between them if Grantaire wants to take it, not yet touching in case he doesn't want to be touched. Some people never do. In a new body, she can imagine it might be more than usually disconcerting.

"And please, don't apologize. I'm glad you texted. You shouldn't have to deal with this on your own. This city is..." She laughs, almost helpless, and shrugs. "Something. Is there even a word for it?"

[pylades_drunk]

He smiles, a little quietly pleased that Eden remembers the jacket. "Edgar and Neil have said that," he says, "but I thought they might be a bit biased." It had been good, the way they'd handled this change. With care and -- unexpectedly, from Neil -- assurances of love. And ultimately, nice in other ways, as well. But like all things he often uses not to think, intimacy only proves a distraction from the strangeness for so long.

The offer of touch, though, is comforting. Grantaire only trusts a few people closely and so he doesn't find himself on the receiving end of compassionate touch as often as he could stand. He reaches his slenderer-than-usual hand to hers, lets their knuckles bump, and turns it over.

He laughs, wry. "Mad, I think. Sometimes it's lovely, the people we meet here, the chances we get, but often it feels like a test."

[wishesandsmoke]

"Doesn't it, though?" Eden takes his hand, gives it a squeeze, reassuring. She'd be the last to complain about Darrow with all the chances it's given her, both to be alive and to live. All the same, it does feel like a test at times. She's still working out what the right answers are supposed to be, at least for herself.

"It's a gift with strings. You get a fresh chance to live, to start over, and in return, you get to spend your days waiting for the other shoe to drop. I mean, I try not to. I try... I try to live in the moment, but..." There's only so much of that any of them can do. And sometimes it's a good thing. Sometimes the awareness that she has only so much time left on the clock gives life a certain grace; she has a chance to make something of this time around. But more often than not, it's only depressing.

[pylades_drunk]

Grantaire nods, pushing his newly-longer curls back from his face with his free hand. "That's a good way to put it."

"But," he ends her sentence and raises an eyebrow. "What do you do, then? When you feel as though it's only a matter of time?" He gestures at himself. "This is -- unsettling, not a tragedy, but somehow I think that makes it harder in a way. It's not so bad a fate that I don't feel like doing anything, it's just uncomfortable. But it makes one's self a hard thing to keep a hold of. Why should it matter what I try to do, when Darrow can just upend everything? Like that."

[wishesandsmoke]

Eden is quiet a few moments, trying to process her own answer to that. "I guess, for me," she says, "I feel like anything else — giving up what little control I have — would be a waste of a life. This is it. This is all I get, so I might as well try to make as much of it as I can."

Maybe there's more. She can't know for sure. After all, she came here from the island; she hadn't expected anything to exist beyond those shores. But there's no reason for her to assume that life is an infinite series of alternate universes. It ends somewhere.