returning to the adventures of cloudybees

[scarabsuited]

WHO: Abby and Jaime (scarab third wheelin' it as always)
WHERE: music hall roof
WHEN: An evening this week you are not getting a specific date out of me this week
WARNINGS: TWOO WUV?
SUMMARY: This is almost back to normal for good
FORMAT: No



Without Scarab (and Google), Jaime wouldn't have been able to say who he was listening to right then and there. All he knew is it was old, maybe Beethoven, and expensive to get a seat to. Indoors, anyway. But they'd bypassed that problem a long time ago.

With panes of the rooftop window carefully lifted, sound floating out with that tinny, strange alteration that came from rising past metal rafters and that tiny outlet. It wasn't Bose-quality, but it was hardly bad.

Besides, more often than not, it was just the background music.

"—can't even get it through my head she's driving now," he was saying. Legs stretched out on top of the blanket he'd rolled out, back against the base of the raised window, one arm around the blonde next to him, the other propped against a closed-lid cooler storing the remainder of the goodies they'd brought with them. The hand dangling there twisted and gestured now and then as he talked. "I mean, I still remember her in those green pigtails, not even...eleven? Maybe?" He rolled his eyes at himself. "Okay, so maybe I don't remember that well. Whatever. I'm old."

Comments

[cloud9]

The blonde in question scrunched her nose up in response.

"I think you mean, we're old." Abby was in denial about it most of the time. Actually being a grown up and all. She didn't always feel like one. "I'm gonna be twenty in September. That's like-- two whole decades. Two times ten."

She held her hands up in front of them, towards the sky, spreading all ten of her fingers out as if visualizing how long she'd been alive.

"I won't even be a teenager anymore." It was a weird thought. Her arms dropped after a moment, draping over her middle. She'd only been sixteen, when she arrived in the City for the first time. "We've known each other like forever now."

[scarabsuited]

Fingers drummed once against her shoulder, then the index poked her, teasing.

"You're aging pretty gracefully for forever," he said with a smirk. "Or twenty in September. What am I getting you for that birthday, anyway? You haven't said."

[cloud9]

"What? No!" Abby makes a face, wrinkling her nose again-- even though her mouth makes a shape suspiciously like a smile. "You're not allowed to get me anything, okay? I mean it. I'm pretty sure there's some kinda rule that when you've been dating for a trillion years, you don't have to buy presents anymore."

She reaches over, lightly pinching his nose for a second-- revenge for being poked.

"We can just hang out. It'll be fun."

[scarabsuited]

"Uh, no." Jaime's face scrunched up at the pinch, shaking his head free of it. "There's rules to negate that rule, because only a jerk stops getting his girlfriend presents. You don't want me to be a jerk, do you?"

[cloud9]

Abby made a little exhaling noise that sounded entertained.

"No. Not that you even like, know how to be a jerk." She paused, her tone less teasing when she went on, "I mean-- not to be a total downer or anything? But two months ago, I wasn't even sure I'd ever get to talk to you again, so..."

Her fingers absently fidgeted with the hem of her t-shirt.

"The present doesn't really-- matter to me. For my birthday? I just, y'know. Want us to be together still. A-And that's probably what I'll say for every birthday from now on."

[scarabsuited]

Her explanation is sobering, washing the smirk off his face. He can't help but feel responsible for what had happened, even though that was nuts and he knew it. Still. It made him wonder what he could've done differently. And what had happened to Danielle — that girl he'd liked, who thought he was dead. He knew it was wrong to keep twiddling his thumbs over things like that, but he really didn't know what the right thing to do was. How do you explain Hey, remember that time you saw me get shot in the head and die? I got better! Cool, right? Oh, yeah, uh. My girlfriend from another dimension is back so I'm sorry we can't hang out right now — you're cool with that, too, right?

Yyyeah...He wanted to table that one a bit longer, if he could. Of course he could. That doesn't make it right, though.

For the moment, though, he wanted to think about Abby. He couldn't fix what had happened, but he could make the here and now better. He watched her hands, feeling his chest tighten a little more with the talk. How the hell they'd managed to pick up from all the strain and confusion each time something had gone wrong was unbelievable. The Porter zapping her left and right, the shooting, all of their friends popping in and out just as much as her...

It was amazing they were still talking sanely about something normal. Like a birthday. Like normal people.

He desperately wanted to keep that the way of things. Superheroing was fine — it was something he had to do, the way he saw it, but...But he didn't want it to be his life. He wanted both worlds, really. And he wanted to keep her in it (and the more he wanted that, he feared, the more the Porter would magically catch on and ruin it).

Jaime wasn't going to waffle around on this, at least.

"I have an idea," he said at length, tilting his head to better see her face. "And it's not just going okay and not getting you anything, because a, that's against the rules and b, I'd be crazy to just say okay. So I'm going to have to use my own brain powers and come up with a really good present, and you're not going to laugh if it winds up being horribly corny or lame, yeah?" He tilted his hand to lightly dig a knuckle in her shoulder.

"But other than that...Why not just. Give you free rein of decking out my place?" He squinted a little. That sounded lame aloud. "I mean, if you wanted to stay there. Like when I had the house. Except it's just us, because the apartment's smaller, and..."

LMFAO NOT SURE WHAT HAPPENED THERE....

[cloud9]

Sometimes it scared her to think that there was another dimension she lived in where he didn't exist. Where she didn't even know he existed, somewhere else. She couldn't even call that place her "home universe" anymore. It didn't feel like home. How could it, when the one person she wanted to be with wasn't there? It was terrifying, the idea of going back and not remembering. Not having all her feelings for him, and the memories of all the things they'd been through together. And even if she was Ported back in, like this time, who knew what it would be like? How much time would have passed, or if something would happen to Jaime again--

Whenever she thought about it, it hurt almost physically. So she tried not to.

In the present, Abby almost missed what she was being asked. She was dwelling on birthdays, presents or the argument for the lack thereof, and the idea that even if there was a present and it was corny, she'd probably love it anyway. Even if she did laugh.

"That's okay. I think there's another rule somewhere that says if you do break the first rule and buy presents, they're totally supposed to be corny, 'cause that's what boyfriends and girlfriends are f--" She abruptly stopped. Like she was finally processing what he'd said. She squinted back at him a little for a second, before responding tentatively, "Uh. Are you like, asking me to move in with you?"

FREE VERSE POETRY TAG TBH

[scarabsuited]

"Well..." He fidgeted a little under her weight, head shrinking down in the place of being able to shrug his shoulders up. "Yeah. Yeah, I mean...If you want. I'm not like, making any ultimatums or anything, I'm just...I just thought it'd be good. For us. I mean, either way is good if that's what you want, obviously, but-- yeah..."

ACCURATE

[cloud9]

Abby sort of just watched him for a long moment. She paused, her gaze hiding under her eyelashes for a second before she glanced back up. Then, at length, she shifted her weight and propped herself up on one arm.

"Well." A little exhale. "Then. You'd better make room for my XBox and my boy band posters. 'Cause I am so not compromising on those."

[scarabsuited]

It was a good thing he was already on the ground, or his knees would've buckled and he would've dropped. Relief hit him like a bag of bricks, though his heart still fluttered and pumped adrenaline anyway. His mouth split with a crooked smile, a little laugh in his exhale.

"Well, I'm...going to have to draw a line at putting those posters on the ceiling. I can only go so far, you know."

[cloud9]

Abby smiled back, bright and automatic in response to his, just wide enough to show off her slightly large front teeth. Lifting a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear, she leaned down to nudge the round tip of her nose affectionately against his.

"Okay. I guess I can live with that. But only 'cause I love you."

[scarabsuited]

"Huh," Jaime squinted and grinned. "That's awfully generous of you."

He tilted his head to catch her mouth, because there was no way he was letting the chance, so close, slip by. Every kiss made up for every one he missed over the months she was gone and the months he was gone. Horrible lengths of time, and not simply because of how attached he was to her. The City made every second more valuable; who knew when one or the other would be gone, and who knew how long that next exile would be?

"I love you, too," he murmured against her lips. "Always gonna."

[cloud9]

It didn't matter at all how many times he'd kissed her before-- and it never did. Every time, it made her heart swell, brought a little flush to her face. She closed the small space between their mouths to kiss him again, the shape of her eyes and the curve of her lips all happiness.

"Always is a really long time," she teased lightly. "What about when I'm like, middle-aged or-- when I get gray hair? What about wrinkles?"

[scarabsuited]

"I'm pretty sure they'll be good-looking, too," he tried, making a face. He couldn't really spin wrinkles into good-looking, but he was sure was going to get backed into one of those awkward boyfriend corners. "Or at least, I'm pretty sure that's not going to bother me at all when the time rolls around. I'll be all old and gross, yeah? Huge nose hairs runs in my family. Just sayin'."

[cloud9]

Abby made a face back, scrunching her nose up again and glancing off a second like she was trying to imagine exactly what Jaime might look with monstrously long nose hairs. It must have been pretty funny, because she muffled a little giggle with her hand before responding.

"It's okay. I'll like, trim them for you. That's how you'll know it's true love."

[scarabsuited]

Ew. His own face contorts with the thought, teeth flashing in a crooked kind of grin as he squeezes his eyes shut against the thought.

"True nasty," he corrected when he could speak, raising his voice over her laugh. "But you're gonna have to stand by that now. There's witnesses with encrypted memory banks up in this discussion, y'know."