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]

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.)