you wouldn't be so depressed if you really believed in god

[rhinemaid]

Who: Ilde Decima, Mycroft Holmes, Jim Kirk
What: Ilde and Mycroft read together.
Where: Queensgate & Winchester Memorial Park, Sobek Croix.
When: Sukkardi afternoon/eveningish?
Notes: Separate threads for Mycroft and Jim! If you would also like to run into Ilde while she's passing through Sobek Croix, drop me a line and we can probably make something happen. Also, obligatory polyvore.
Warnings: TBA if necessary.

Sobek Croix is an oddly soothing place to be, Ilde finds; passing through the forest always makes her feel as if she's getting away from something, somehow. An illusion that lets her pretend this is a different place when it isn't, not really, just this city's different face. It doesn't really matter - knowing that it's a comforting illusion doesn't undo its usefulness to her. She knows all about self-deception.

The way to Queensgate is a familiar route that she doesn't have to concentrate on too hard, turn here and follow this road and she can do it almost on autopilot, now, and that's how she's done most things for the past few weeks. Distracted and busy, she's let herself forget about everything that isn't one foot in front of the other or written on a list somewhere and nobody pencils in political unrest unless they're living a certain kind of life that she currently isn't. She feels a little bit like she's just waking up all over again, without direction outside the carefully mapped out path that isn't and can't be uninfluenced by what's happening in the world around her. It's like swinging between extremes; being a part of this city is what she wants, but not the wrong part, not the quiet, restless part that frustrated her so much when she first arrived, the people who look away and look through and just have better things to be doing with their time.

And not the part who think because she's started to show that they can touch her belly, either, because she's going to pin someone's hand to a table with a knife the next time that happens without her permission. At very least she'll consider it very hard, and maybe substitute something that she can't be charged with assault for. (Her students, at least the children, get a pass; their parents wouldn't if not for the fact that she needs that money.) A little violent fantasy- has probably hurt plenty of people, but keeps Ilde vaguely distracted on the rest of her walk through Sobek Croix to Mycroft's property, taking the scenic route through the memorial park just because she can.

She came out a little earlier just to make sure it wouldn't make her late. Punctuality is one of those other things she doesn't have any innate knack for, but if at first you don't succeed-

Comments

[captaincocksure]

Jim misses the Enterprise.

He misses his ship, he misses the people on it (one in particular, above and beyond the others), misses being where he belongs. There are a million little ways, a million little things that come up all the time that remind him. Having to boil water for coffee instead of just demanding it from a replicator. Looking up at the stars, not out at them.

But while solid ground tends to remind him of what's been taken from him, there are some ways in which he prefers the feel of it beneath his feet. Running is one of those ways. Exercising on his ship was a matter of running on a treadmill, or, when he could manage it, through the corridors of his ship (though the sight of their captain at a dead run often worried his junior officers, made them fear there was an emergency).

But running out here, with grass and paths and earth beneath his running shoes, and fresh air in his lungs, is far more exhilarating. He likes running through Sobek Croix best; there are trees, more varied terrain, he doesn't have to dodge the street preachers like he does when he runs near his apartment. There are fewer people to dodge.

Usually. Tonight, he follows a rough path through the forest, and when he pops back out onto the main path, he spots a woman up ahead.

"Behind you!" he calls out, mindful that a lady walking alone in a deserted place might not appreciate a man running up behind her without warning.

[rhinemaid]

“Son of a-”

-is probably a good indication of how much she appreciates that, that's correct, taking a few tumbling steps off the side of the path into the grass out of sheer bewildered startlement; it's pretty quickly evident between her tendency to tune out meaningless noise ('most of it', little being distinctly clear to her) and how distracted she is, she hadn't noticed him until they narrowly but mercifully avoided a collision.

She's regaining her balance when she scrutinizes him long enough to say, “Haven't I seen you in a speedo?”

[captaincocksure]

He feels bad for startling her when all he'd meant to do was let her know he was there, that he wasn't creeping on her out of nowhere or approaching with some hidden motive. He stops running when he reaches her, taking only one step off the path, so it's clear he's not trying to crowd her, and keeping his hands where she can see them so she knows he's not about to try anything.

"Sorry about that," he says, his expression sympathetic, one hand offered if she needs it for balance or to get off the grass. But then he blinks at her question. "A speed--oh. Oh," he says, and he laughs, because he knows where he's heard that odd word before.

"At the Babylon? That was me, yeah."

[rhinemaid]

Accepting his hand to steady herself with - her manner is less 'being assisted' and more 'bracing on a convenient piece of furniture that happens to be a person', although this seems less like something intended to convey a slight than it does like dealing with a temperamental housecat - hers is much cooler and more oddly smooth than it looks. The weather is turning, but she hasn't got even a cardigan, and perhaps it's just because she doesn't need it.

“The Babylon,” she repeats, a bit more sure of it now; she remembers seeing him at the pool area, when she'd been coming and going from that way, although she doesn't think they talked and since she knows she was sober, she's relatively certain she can rely on her own memory. (Never completely, but she's never completely trusted her own judgement, either. There's a reason for that.) “I do remember. Do you live around here?”

[captaincocksure]

He takes no offense at this; he's there just to be braced on, he doesn't presume he's needed for anything else. "I work around here," he explains, "sometimes. But I like running here, it's easier to do than where I live in Aspic. Fewer people and buildings to dodge."

As he helps her out of the grass he glances down and notices her "bump". And something in him shifts.

(This not something he will ever confess to, especially not out loud to a person he's just met. But.)

Jim's got a decided soft spot for pregnant ladies. It's probably some result of his father's death being romanticized in his own mind, by his family, by Starfleet. His father, you know, so brave, so altruistic, remaining behind even though it meant he never laid eyes on his new son, never got to see his second child grow up. His mother, you know, so strong, so tenacious, carrying this child during her own service as a Starfleet officer, delivering him in the heat of battle, carrying on without her beloved husband, managing to raise her two sons to be an accomplished scientist and a great military hero.

And maybe there's some echo, too, of his father, of wanting to be that kind of man. And wanting to do the things his father didn't get the chance to do.

Whatever it is that drives it, he interacts with a pregnant lady, he feels an extra sense of be nice and be responsible and don't be a fuck-up. "Do you live around here?" he asks, helpful as can be, "or are you visiting?", and he's already working out how to offer to see her there without coming off like he's some kind of mouthbreathing creep or he's assumed she's entirely helpless.

[rhinemaid]

“Visiting,” she says, with an assessing look - she can't actually figure out whether or not he works for Hellsing at a glance without the presence of a badge, but it's Sobek Croix and she knows a few of those men, so she gives it a shot anyway. “I come by sometimes, I have- friends here. And the cemetery.”

She has friends in the cemetery, or friend, at least; she didn't know Dean Winchester very well before his death and she hasn't spoken to him since his miraculous return to the city, but Boromir is still buried there, and she still goes to talk to him, sometimes. Probably he can't hear her- probably if he's anywhere then he's somewhere in his own world, listening to the memories of his own people. Still, there aren't very many genuinely good, kind people in Ilde's life, partly by design, and Boromir's one of the few she couldn't remain skeptical of. He just was as he just was.

“I came early, to walk through the park.”

[captaincocksure]

"Someone at Hellsing?" He gently drops her hand once he's sure she's regained her footing. "That's where I work, and where I was eventually headed. If you'd like, I can come back around after you've been through the park, and walk back with you."

But if not, that's also all right; that much is clear from the way he says it, the easy smile on his face.

"I'm Jim," he adds. "Jim Kirk."

[rhinemaid]

“Ilde Decima,” she says, obligingly - introductions are rarely something she gets to promptly, but now and then she doesn't go out of her way to avoid them, either. (She just doesn't think of it, as often as not, and then every now and again the impulse to be as contrary as possible is irresistible.) “I'm going to Queensgate, you...probably know it?”

If he works at Hellsing. Mycroft Holmes' property, where he lives, and where the Koenigs have a home as well; she's never met them properly, but she's waved at Liesl coming and going a few times, seen her running around with other local children.

“You can walk me to the gate, if you like-?” Because Mycroft would probably not appreciate someone else coming any further in uninvited, and she isn't someone who gets to decide who is and is not invited; she isn't completely incapable of considering other people's personal space issues, she just doesn't usually. (Personal space is a concept she wholeheartedly embraces. For herself.)

[diogenesis]

Mycroft appreciates punctuality the way someone else might appreciate fine art. He's known his whole life that this is absolutely not true of most others, and Ilde is no exception, but he is grateful when an effort is made. Today, his reading companion is on time, and he greets her at the door with a version of his polite smile that is a degree or two warmer than the one he reserves for the general population.

He leads the way to the sitting room, where they take their customary chairs in front of the unlit fireplace. He's timed the tea so that it would be ready just as Ilde arrived, the service already set out on a low table between them, and he does the honor of pouring them each a cup before taking his own and leaning back in his seat.

The routine is soothing, and the warmth of the cup against his hand is soothing. It's been a tense week, a tension both similar and very different from what he'd experienced at his job in London, and it's left him needing something like this, quiet and familiar. Sometimes the two of them say nothing at all during their time together—not even a greeting at the door—and Mycroft starts out thinking today might be one of those days. But the silence turning in him isn't a restful one; it's missing a piece and it wants to reach out, like a droplet of water running down a pane. And Ilde has come to run beside him.

“Have you been well?” he asks mildly. It could mean anything.

[rhinemaid]

The silence that stretches out after he inquires isn't entirely unusual, or at least not for people in conversation with Ilde; she is inclined, now and then, to take her own sweet time about things. Conversations do not always progress entirely as planned, and for a while it seems like this one isn't going to progress at all until she finally says, “Busy,” as though she'd spent the entire intervening time trying to settle on a word and could only come up with that one.

It is and is not especially promising, all things considered, but it could be worse.

On the other hand- lots of things could be worse. Baedal could be so much worse, which doesn't make it good; Ivan could be worse, which doesn't change the fact that she can guess what the colour in his cheeks might mean, if she thinks about it. She could be so much worse, but her inability to ever be particularly concerned by the implicit knowledge that her partner is an amoral murderer isn't actually a good thing, all the same.

There's tea, though.

[diogenesis]

Silence is something Mycroft spends a great deal of time weaving around himself in a dense, intricate tapestry; he's learned to read the patterns in those fragile threads as well as he can read words on a page. Ilde's eyes wander and her feet and fingers move, and in doing so, they work the loom, spinning out the story.

He finds that, in some ways, it's a similar one to his own: ambivalence, resignation, and frustration all pooling uneasily underneath a skin of pertinacity. The expression around his eyes changes slightly as he looks down at his tea.

“Yes,” he says in agreement. “It's been something of a worrisome week.”

[rhinemaid]

She presses the edge of her thumb to the rim of her teacup, heat rising and condensation forming on her skin, too warm in a way that gives her a small part of this present moment to fix to and navigate around.

After a moment, she says, “I've been a part of Baedal for a year and a half.” More or less, especially if she includes the siege in New York, and- she does, even if those weeks and days she'd been convinced she'd never see the city again. The disquieting feeling of having anything in common with that Militiaman has come to settle uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach as she examines her own interactions with the city nowadays, thinking about what she spends her time on and how she prioritizes. It necessitates a reevaluation, she thinks, she's just not sure where she goes forward from there, either.

It's easier when the solution involves a knife. It's simpler, almost cleaner, and she worries less about putting a foot wrong when she just wants to put her foot down on someone's neck. When it's a perfectly legitimate problem-solving option.

...for a given value of 'the Sonja Garin scale of legitimacy'.

[diogenesis]

Talk of time spent in Baedal tends to unnerve Mycroft, although he's come to be able to look the subject in the eye over the past few months. The edge of his mouth curves upward, black humor coloring his expression, and he lifts his cup.

“I suppose it's been a worrisome year,” he says, and takes a sip.

[rhinemaid]

“I think there's a sign on my back that says 'abduct me for things',” she says, tranquilly, resting her fingertips against the edge of the page that she's not currently reading from. Prometheus. Baedal. Lucas, who she tries to think of as a thing and not a person because it isn't a person, not really. Baedal. Those towers, how much Ivan hates not understanding what happened there.

She remembers very little; she doesn't think she wants to know. Maybe that's cowardice. At least Irene's doctor friend had had access to her Madrasati records, knew where she should be and who needed to be called.

Then she says, “It's funny what you can get used to,” because it is, bleakly.

[diogenesis]

Mycroft breathes out a single humorless laugh, the faint force of the exhalation somehow propelling him further back into his armchair. The statement rings so deeply, horribly true that that single reaction is all that's left to him.

“I always thought myself someone who could get used to nothing,” he says. There's a long moment of quiet then, of him working over memories and elsewheres. Eventually he remembers his tea, and drinks some more of it, and then he goes back to the first part of Ilde's reply.

“I'd recommend staying inside this week,” he says, his affect illegible.

[rhinemaid]

“You and Ivan both. The week after the tower, he texted me almost on the hour when I wasn't in his sight-”

Ilde always sounds vaguely bewildered when she describes the care other people take; not as though she objects, just as though it's unexpected. And in Ivan's case, surreal in its domesticity.

“-anyway.” Not the point. On her mind, though, with the baby. “You're probably right. I just, I don't know. I don't like staying inside.” She doesn't like being in the midst of chaos, either, she just doesn't like doing nothing. There has to be a third option- she's just going to have to find out what it is.