[ainmhianverse] i sang in my chains like the sea

[stilljustandrew]

He's been here a couple of days now; his room adjoining to Max's has been arranged (and, he found on the first day, his tome has been moved there). He's starting to believe, with both relief and trepidation, that this is all real.

And Max has suggested, in that gentle persistent way that to Andrew's mind is as good as a direct order, that he might want to get out and start meeting more people.

So here's Andrew, stepping out of the castle and into the sunlit afternoon, blinking under the color-shifting sky.

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[stilljustandrew]

If Lucas is paying close attention, he'll see a tiny light kindle in Andrew's eyes twice during that litany: once at library and once at workshop. Both times it's shuttered quickly, as though he doesn't want to be seen showing even the smallest enthusiasm for anything.

But his self-discipline fails him at the last item, eyes widening. "A movie theater? How -- ?"

[woocas]

There's no missing Andrew's reaction to the movie theater, although he did catch the others. Lucas figures it's nerves holding the poor man back. After all the city can be really overwhelming, especially to newcomers.

"Yeah, for real! If you curry enough favor you can ask your Patron for gifts. So someone, Daisy I think, did that awhile ago and boom! Movie theater." Lucas had been just as stoked to see it when he arrived, too. "They rotate what's playing all the time so it's...a nice reminder of home honestly."

But he'll steer them in the direction of the little library nook first. A fellow nerd can always suss out another fellow nerd.

[stilljustandrew]

(Another reaction he can't quite hide: the smallest flinch, at the phrase reminder of home.)

He follows along to the library, eager to see what's there, and on sight of the shelves immediately cants his head in the typical reader's stance to read the titles.

[woocas]

Lucas catches that once again and wonders at it. Twice time might just be coincidence, but better to play it safe. He's only just met the poor guy, sometimes it's better to let someone spill the beans when they feel more comfortable.

"Any genre you like in particular?" Lucas asks, stifling a quiet snicker at the way Andrew cants his head. It's cute!

[stilljustandrew]

"Oh, I ... I dunno," he says hesitantly. "I used to be really into science fiction and fantasy? And comics? But ... it's been a long time since I ..."

He gives himself a little shake. "Anything that's new is good, really."

[woocas]

"Since you...?" Lucas starts. No way he's missing that. "I mean, there's no going wrong with a good comic book. Sometimes you can find some good ones when the fae are feeling generous, otherwise it's all porn."

Might as well give Andrew a heads up at any rate. "I mean, that's still not a bad thing, mind you, but..."

Lucas shrugs, sweeping his arms out at the books around them. "You never know what you're gonna get."

[stilljustandrew]

Andrew's gaze follows Lucas's sweeping gesture at the books, and he smiles -- hesitant and uncertain, but still a smile. "Like a box of chocolates."

A beat, and he asks in a slightly lowered tone, as though afraid somebody might overhear: "What kind of good comic books?"

[woocas]

That gets a laugh put of the Medium, "Yeah! Exactly like that!" Man, it's good to get a reference like that from back home.

"I mean, I'm not a huge comic book nerd but all the classics. Superman, Batman, Justice League, Avengers, and stuff I've never even heard of to be honest." Lucas leans back, almost whispering, "No one's gonna say anything I promise."

Andrew is just nervous about taking one right?

[stilljustandrew]

His smile broadens when Lucas laughs, but oddly at the same time so does his look of fear, as though somebody might hear them and -- and what? Punish them for laughing?

"If ... if they have anything I've never heard of," he says, "that ... I'd like that."

[woocas]

"Well then, let's see what we can find!" Lucas hopes his enthusiasm helps put Andrew at ease, if only a little bit. Poor looks like he'd rather slink into the floor at a moment's notice than enjoy himself, but soon enough Lucas is pulling comics from the bookshelves and amassing small piles of them for Andrew to peruse. It's hours later before he realizes how fast time is slipping by, and unfortunately he has to get to work...

Days later, Lucas is pacing the little library nook, figuring this is one of the places Max or Rowan is least likely to be. His fretting could wear a hole in the floor as he goes back and forth.

Investigation is practically in his blood but Max's worry about him being sent home over it is finally bubbling to the surface, eating away at the Medium. He doesn't want to go home and lose everything here! It's not fair. Maybe it'd be better to ask the fae to take away his abilities all together, then he could more easily resist the temptation. But, his mind spins again, it's in his nature to be curious...and around and around he goes.

With his thoughts drawn inward Lucas doesn't even notice that someone else has arrived. Instead he whirls on his heels again, scrubbing his hands through his hair. "Arrrgh, why can't things be easy!?"

[stilljustandrew]

Andrew takes a startled step back as Lucas delivers the complaint, apparently directly at him. He takes a better grip on the little stack of comics that he's brought back, to keep them from sliding out of his arms.

"A-are you ... is everything okay?"

[woocas]

"Gah!?" Andrew's voice startles Lu as right out of his thoughts and nearly out of his skin. He clutches his chest, lungs heaving, wide eyes latching onto the other man's presence. It takes a good minute for the Medium to sort himself out.

"Yes?" It's not a convincing answer. Lucas throws his hands up in the air and begins to pace again. "Maybe! Not really!?"

At this rate he might cut a path in the floor.

[stilljustandrew]

"I'm sorry --"

He's torn between offering to leave and offering to help, and ends up hovering in miserable uncertainty.

[woocas]

"Dude, I'm not mad at you, I'm just--!"

The pacing increases. Powered by general aggravation with no real outlet he turns and stomps out another lap, close enough to Andrew to reach out and grab him. Which, after a long pause, Lucas actually does without thinking. Whipped up emotions cloud the usually strong mental barriers that keep out unwanted memories, leaving the Medium unwittingly defenseless.

"Sorry, I'm just...worked..." The apology slows down as a memory sweeps over him like a wave.

[stilljustandrew]

"So, look," Nita Callahan is saying, "we thought you must be getting pretty bored in there --"

You look up then, through the translucent cell wall, still rubbing the sleep out of your eyes, and see her straightening up from the stack of books she's just set down on the floor. Books, familiar ones, yours, and the sight of them is like a blow that knocks the air from your lungs, and something bound and buried deep inside you struggles awake trying desperately to scream.

No. No, you can't, you can't -- you smother it up, shove it back down --

"We got them from your room," Nita's saying, with a kind of hopeful attempt to smile. "It seemed we'd have better luck there finding stuff you liked? I mean, I could've raided my shelves, but books are so -- individual, you know?"

"Oh." You can barely hear yourself. You can't look away from the stack of books, you can't see the titles at this angle but you barely need to: that's a volume of Lord of the Rings (just one?), and a Heinlein juvenile, and the scuffed and taped-up spine of The Last Unicorn, and two Star Trek novels, and --

"Is this," and the dread is almost choking you, this is wrong, you shouldn't ask, but "Do I ... do I have to do something?"

(And if she says yes,) murmurs the memory of Lucifer's voice, your master's voice, and the sound of it makes you want to weep with dread and fear and longing, (if she names a price, Andrew, will you pay it? Do you still want these toys so badly as that?)

"No! No," Nita says in alarm and swift reassurance, too swift to tell whether you would be able to answer with that same no.

She's still talking as the understanding settles on you slowly, softly, like falling snow, like despair: you don't get to take the books back. Not ever again. Not ever --

Andrew's blinking at Lucas, waiting for him to finish the sentence.