[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

[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.