[ A rough huff of breath into the chill air of his empty room, frustrated by the straightforwardness of it, the instruction. But frustrated's better than frightened. And he's going to have to face him sooner or later.
It's maybe five, ten minutes later than he rides that wave to tear a portal out of the air, sparks cutting through the space between his room in the forest and his room in town until he's standing in one looking through to the other.
He looks - fine, all told, better than he should for having fought with two of the most powerful people here. His expression is a fixed mask cast in gallium, already threatening to melt. But he holds it. Keeps it steady. Jaw set, gaze searching, one hand a fist at his side. ]
[ a table has been haphazardly tucked into their room, small and round and just big enough for one chair, although there are two around it. she's been trading. goods from the peaks, for goods that were crafted by the people here.
nami's seated there, one leg crossed over the other, casual as you like. she digs her thumb under the peel of an orange. where the thick skin yields, it stays in tact. one big casing, slowly being sloughed off. the ones from the peaks aren't as good as the ones from coco village, but needs must. ]
[Takeshi is stretched out on the bed - Nami's bed - legs crossed at the ankles, reading. At the portal's appearance, he raises an eyebrow. Dog-ears his page. Sets the book aside, moves to stand. There's a little lingering stiffness, buried deep under his usual easy grace, but it doesn't slow him in approaching. Eyeing the rim of the portal, wondering if the way it sparks like a saw against metal would hurt to touch.]
You're late.
[Days late and not late at all. But it's really just a line to be easily bounced against. An open hand to be taken and used to pull him over the threshold, that last step. If they've been actively waiting, there's no air of is, no tension or apprehension. Just a space, mutually and comfortably occupied. Open.]
[ There they both are. Words easy with a kind of uncomplicated welcome he should have known to expect. Nami settled at an unfamiliar table in their familiar room, Kovacs lounging in her space until Stephen's arrival prompts his approach. To find them both here clenches something tight in his chest, steadies a frantic heartbeat for a stretch of a few moments before sending it soaring.
He steps through, lets the portal spin closed behind him to cut off an easy escape. Works the sling ring from his fingers, thumb stroking over the design in a rote quest for comfort before slipping it into his pocket: a symbolic throwing away of the key.
Then he looks back up. Almost. His gaze fixes briefly on the frame of his empty bed, somewhere between the pair of them, before he finally coaxes himself to flit his attention up first to Takeshi, then to Nami, before falling to idle on the orange in her hand.
He doesn't know what to do. It's never gone like this before. Frozen, he bunches his fist tighter to offset with pain the unsettling feeling of an imminent loss of control as his eyes start to sting, throat starts to burn with the effort of keeping himself contained. ]
there's a strange fullness in nami's chest. warmth, a detangling of tension. she'd expected to be more discomfited by his appearance before any kind of equilibrium was reached. but this? it feels right. easy. the three of them, sprawled together in some lazy understanding.
nami uncrosses her legs. she plants one foot on the chair beside her, pushes the chair away from the table to make it easier to sit in. she discards the orange peel on the table. ]
Hungry?
[ she digs her thumbs into the navel and splits it into two halves. then she peels off a wedge and puts it in her mouth. ]
[ Nami makes space for him, offers him a literal seat at the table, and a deep breath finds its way through the tension in his throat, his chest, to fill his lungs and push down the crackling expectation of collapse. After everything the last month has been, here she is, ready and willing to nourish him.
His gaze cuts across to Takeshi. Seeking - something. Checking in.
Then he takes the few steps across the room to Nami's newly won table, neutral territory in a no man's land of his own making (nobody else in this room seems to think of it as any kind of disaster struck landscape), and sinks into the offered seat. There's an uncertainty to all his motions that wouldn't usually belong there. But he meets her eye. His mouth twitches through what could as easily be a smile as a grimace as he does it, brow tight with his disbelief of his luck, but he nods. Scrambles together the wherewithal to try for speech. ]
[ she peels off a couple slices from one of the orange halves and hands it over, then lifts the remainder of the half to kovacs in silent offering. if he accepts it, she'll toss it over to him on her bed. ]
[A catalogue of details collected: the looping shrink of the portal, the tension in Stephen's frame, the ring slipped off fingers and into a pocket, the hesitant acceptance of Nami's invitation. Takeshi meets the look Stephen gives him with steady ease, a ready answer to the question there. Nods to Nami for the orange, catching it as she tosses it over, returning to his spot on the bed.]
Looked homey.
[The room visible briefly through the portal had looked anything but, dim and empty and cold. Stephen might as well have been in a prison cell, and it only confirms that Takeshi was right to drag him back.]
[ He accepts the gift as it's given. Tries not watch her with too much reverence as she hands it over like it's easy to do, like it's a small gesture and not a monument. The hand he takes it in, his left, is only slightly but not insignificantly changed: on his first two fingers, no scars. A steadiness that doesn't translate into the rest of him.
The offering is a big enough distraction that his answer to Takeshi comes quick, with surprising ease, a little glimpse of his norm. ]
It's a new build. They're not supposed to have personality.
[ Gaze that had dropped to the slices, inspecting them as though they were jewels and not fruit, lifts to Nami again to offer a follow up, an earnest - ] Thank you.
[ is a two-fold offer, to dismiss his gratitude, but also to not discuss the ways she had failed him or the things he had done to her.
a conversation like that would involve measuring wrongs against wrongs. no one would win. more than that, so many of those wrongs were planted in sentiments that she did not want to unearth, let alone litigate. she'd rather cast them out to sea, never to be seen again. ]
Where does it lead? [ the portal is gone, but the little apartment on the other side of it must remain somewhere. ]
[ Don't mention it. He can work with that. At least for now. ]
The woods. [ He considers leaving it at that. If he keeps it vague enough, he might last a little longer avoiding their small search party if he decides not to stay - ] Up a tree somewhere.
[ That is, legitimately, the best he can do. He hadn't been paying attention to the where when he'd thrown it up. Couldn't walk himself there now if he tried. A wry twist to his mouth is half apology until he opens it to reward himself with an orange slice. ]
[Takeshi shoots Nami a look, eyebrow raised. Up a tree somewhere, where he'd still be, for fuck knows how long, if they hadn't intervened.]
Take someone with you, next time.
[There's the sense that Stephen will be retaining the place, wherever the hell it is. Takeshi and Nami could find it, if necessary, but that ultimately wasn't the point. Just as he'd said before Stephen's trip for some quiet, solitude did not suit the man as well as he thought it did.]
[ He's about to argue that the point of a woodland getaway isn't to make sure he's supervised, but that's 1) an extremely bad point, given the circumstances and 2) immediately overridden by Nami's brusque take down of his sad little tree shack's locale.
Consider him surprised enough to almost choke on his orange slice and, swallowing in time to avoid disaster, instead look mildly affronted. ]
I'll make sure to consult my real estate portfolio manager next time.
[ He may or may not have once had one of those. The look he sends back to Takeshi is a fair attempt at disbelief, requests backup he absolutely doesn't deserve or expect, taking advantage of the distraction to not make further mention of his request. ]
[Stephen gets no support from Takeshi, finds a bemused she has a point expression waiting in answer to that look, popping an orange slice into his mouth.]
At least he didn't magic up a Ferrari. [Will Nami even know what that is? Takeshi barely does, just enough for:] Sports cars and cobblestones don't mix.
[ she doesn't quite follow. not the particulars, anyway, but the shape of it? something fancy. something flashy. mobile.
she smiles, hides it in the brief drop of her gaze, then doubles down. yes. she and kovacs are in alignment, on this, and she reiterates it by repeating him as she looks at Stephen again: ] Take someone with you, next time.
[ It's about a clear a show of a closed circuit as can be made. He sits enclosed by a live wire fence designed to keep him from wandering too far. Keep him safe. The brief spell of indignance pales, withers, expression losing some of its disbelief to instead mark the moment with some solemnity.
He nods. ]
Supervised visits only. Got it.
[ Slight lightness to the agreement. Not intending to mock the sentiment, just trying not to dip too far away from the improvised normality they've been attempting to conjure since he stepped through the portal. ]
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It's maybe five, ten minutes later than he rides that wave to tear a portal out of the air, sparks cutting through the space between his room in the forest and his room in town until he's standing in one looking through to the other.
He looks - fine, all told, better than he should for having fought with two of the most powerful people here. His expression is a fixed mask cast in gallium, already threatening to melt. But he holds it. Keeps it steady. Jaw set, gaze searching, one hand a fist at his side. ]
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[ a table has been haphazardly tucked into their room, small and round and just big enough for one chair, although there are two around it. she's been trading. goods from the peaks, for goods that were crafted by the people here.
nami's seated there, one leg crossed over the other, casual as you like. she digs her thumb under the peel of an orange. where the thick skin yields, it stays in tact. one big casing, slowly being sloughed off. the ones from the peaks aren't as good as the ones from coco village, but needs must. ]
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You're late.
[Days late and not late at all. But it's really just a line to be easily bounced against. An open hand to be taken and used to pull him over the threshold, that last step. If they've been actively waiting, there's no air of is, no tension or apprehension. Just a space, mutually and comfortably occupied. Open.]
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He steps through, lets the portal spin closed behind him to cut off an easy escape. Works the sling ring from his fingers, thumb stroking over the design in a rote quest for comfort before slipping it into his pocket: a symbolic throwing away of the key.
Then he looks back up. Almost. His gaze fixes briefly on the frame of his empty bed, somewhere between the pair of them, before he finally coaxes himself to flit his attention up first to Takeshi, then to Nami, before falling to idle on the orange in her hand.
He doesn't know what to do. It's never gone like this before. Frozen, he bunches his fist tighter to offset with pain the unsettling feeling of an imminent loss of control as his eyes start to sting, throat starts to burn with the effort of keeping himself contained. ]
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there's a strange fullness in nami's chest. warmth, a detangling of tension. she'd expected to be more discomfited by his appearance before any kind of equilibrium was reached. but this? it feels right. easy. the three of them, sprawled together in some lazy understanding.
nami uncrosses her legs. she plants one foot on the chair beside her, pushes the chair away from the table to make it easier to sit in. she discards the orange peel on the table. ]
Hungry?
[ she digs her thumbs into the navel and splits it into two halves. then she peels off a wedge and puts it in her mouth. ]
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His gaze cuts across to Takeshi. Seeking - something. Checking in.
Then he takes the few steps across the room to Nami's newly won table, neutral territory in a no man's land of his own making (nobody else in this room seems to think of it as any kind of disaster struck landscape), and sinks into the offered seat. There's an uncertainty to all his motions that wouldn't usually belong there. But he meets her eye. His mouth twitches through what could as easily be a smile as a grimace as he does it, brow tight with his disbelief of his luck, but he nods. Scrambles together the wherewithal to try for speech. ]
Yeah.
[ It's a start. ]
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Looked homey.
[The room visible briefly through the portal had looked anything but, dim and empty and cold. Stephen might as well have been in a prison cell, and it only confirms that Takeshi was right to drag him back.]
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The offering is a big enough distraction that his answer to Takeshi comes quick, with surprising ease, a little glimpse of his norm. ]
It's a new build. They're not supposed to have personality.
[ Gaze that had dropped to the slices, inspecting them as though they were jewels and not fruit, lifts to Nami again to offer a follow up, an earnest - ] Thank you.
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[ is a two-fold offer, to dismiss his gratitude, but also to not discuss the ways she had failed him or the things he had done to her.
a conversation like that would involve measuring wrongs against wrongs. no one would win. more than that, so many of those wrongs were planted in sentiments that she did not want to unearth, let alone litigate. she'd rather cast them out to sea, never to be seen again. ]
Where does it lead? [ the portal is gone, but the little apartment on the other side of it must remain somewhere. ]
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The woods. [ He considers leaving it at that. If he keeps it vague enough, he might last a little longer avoiding their small search party if he decides not to stay - ] Up a tree somewhere.
[ That is, legitimately, the best he can do. He hadn't been paying attention to the where when he'd thrown it up. Couldn't walk himself there now if he tried. A wry twist to his mouth is half apology until he opens it to reward himself with an orange slice. ]
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Take someone with you, next time.
[There's the sense that Stephen will be retaining the place, wherever the hell it is. Takeshi and Nami could find it, if necessary, but that ultimately wasn't the point. Just as he'd said before Stephen's trip for some quiet, solitude did not suit the man as well as he thought it did.]
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[ she chews her way through an orange slice. ]
But it's a little embarrassing that it's just the woods. I mean, it's not that far of a walk. I would have figured it for the Peaks at least.
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Consider him surprised enough to almost choke on his orange slice and, swallowing in time to avoid disaster, instead look mildly affronted. ]
I'll make sure to consult my real estate portfolio manager next time.
[ He may or may not have once had one of those. The look he sends back to Takeshi is a fair attempt at disbelief, requests backup he absolutely doesn't deserve or expect, taking advantage of the distraction to not make further mention of his request. ]
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At least he didn't magic up a Ferrari. [Will Nami even know what that is? Takeshi barely does, just enough for:] Sports cars and cobblestones don't mix.
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she smiles, hides it in the brief drop of her gaze, then doubles down. yes. she and kovacs are in alignment, on this, and she reiterates it by repeating him as she looks at Stephen again: ] Take someone with you, next time.
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He nods. ]
Supervised visits only. Got it.
[ Slight lightness to the agreement. Not intending to mock the sentiment, just trying not to dip too far away from the improvised normality they've been attempting to conjure since he stepped through the portal. ]