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[open] a friend in need's a friend indeed
Who: Ned and OPEN
What: Random encounters & fallout from dream-walking tomfoolery
Where: House 20, the garden, anywhere around town
When: Day 89
It's been a long week. A long, mostly-sleepless, weird week during which Ned has seen far more of his friends' and neighbors' subconsciouses than he would have liked to. Plus, a creepy city made of crystals that everyone seems to have seen, but no one will claim as their own. Shady stuff. Today, he is determined to wear himself out. Perhaps if he's tired enough, whatever mojo the men behind the curtain have put on him won't be strong enough to stir him out of a deep and dreamless sleep.
It's probably a futile tactic, but he can't just do nothing.
So he is a bustle of activity - cleaning the house, walking around town, checking on the crops to see if they are holding up well (carefully, with an eye for any enterprising tigers roaming too close to the edge of the forest), keeping an eye out for new faces and an ear out for rumors of missing ones.
What: Random encounters & fallout from dream-walking tomfoolery
Where: House 20, the garden, anywhere around town
When: Day 89
It's been a long week. A long, mostly-sleepless, weird week during which Ned has seen far more of his friends' and neighbors' subconsciouses than he would have liked to. Plus, a creepy city made of crystals that everyone seems to have seen, but no one will claim as their own. Shady stuff. Today, he is determined to wear himself out. Perhaps if he's tired enough, whatever mojo the men behind the curtain have put on him won't be strong enough to stir him out of a deep and dreamless sleep.
It's probably a futile tactic, but he can't just do nothing.
So he is a bustle of activity - cleaning the house, walking around town, checking on the crops to see if they are holding up well (carefully, with an eye for any enterprising tigers roaming too close to the edge of the forest), keeping an eye out for new faces and an ear out for rumors of missing ones.
no subject
"River thinks time is stopped in our own worlds, while we're here. A couple of the people who disappeared and came back again said that when they showed up at home, no time had passed. So they might not even realize you're gone."
That's got to be better, right? A small comfort. It certainly is to him, thinking about DIgby, alone in his apartment. Ned wouldn't want him thinking he'd been abandoned again.
"If it'll make you feel less lonely, you could tell me more about them?"
no subject
Riley found that information to be a bit of a relief. Sure, it meant it wasn't likely anyone would be looking for her, but it also meant that her family wouldn't wind up here by accident or be worrying themselves sick over not hearing from her. It was oddly comforting. "Well, there's that, I guess."
She looked up at him, reaching for her tea. "Really? I could, I guess. Well, there's my dad, who's the reason we move around so much. He's the anthropologist and he got a bee in his bonnet, mom says, when he was in college to see how much modern civilization affected those that didn't want to be affected. Mom and him fell for each other like rocks, so she wound up going along with him. She's kind of a mix of a stay at home mom and a teacher, so we really never got off on our homework. At all. Like, ever. There's Brian, the oldest brother. He's okay. He's just always been a bit of a know it all towards me and Finn. Finn's my other brother, and he's great. He's got this way of looking at things that's kine of like a permanent silver lining or optimism and it's hard to stay bummed out around him."
no subject
Ned likes listening to her speak about her family. He chews almost absently at his bread, gaze straying between the various utensils on the table, trying to come up with a mental picture and sense of each of them. His mother had stayed at home, too. She'd not been an official teacher, no, but she'd taught him how to bake, how to clean and cook and look after himself. It had all seemed rather tedious at the time, but those skills had come in pretty handy, when she was gone.
If this conversation were an equal exchange, the way conversations were supposed to be, he'd share this detail with Riley. After all, she's telling him about her family. But it's not that simple, for him. He doesn't have any experience with it, doesn't know how he'd even begin to really talk about his mother in conversation. He thinks about her all the time, but that never really manifests in speaking about her, to anyone.
"More of an optimist than you?" Ned's having a hard time picturing a more cheerful, bright version of Riley. Doesn't seem possible. After all, look at how well she's been coping with being brought here. Always a smile for those around her, never angry or impatient or petty, even though she'd left behind such a fascinating, good life full of loving, wonderful people.
"What do your brothers do for a living?"
no subject
She smiled as she sipped her tea, nodding. "More optimistic, but also more of a trickster. I think it's a boy thing, but he and Brian play horrible pranks on each other all the time. They learned to leave me out of it when they found out I play dirty." She grinned, remembering the Nair incident. Yeah, they'd left her out of it after that.
"Right now? Brian's taking doctorate courses. He hasn't clarified what field he's going into, but dad's sort of hoping he'll follow in his footsteps. Finn's... Finn. He helps out wherever we wind up and always finds an odd job to do, but he doesn't have a career in mind. I think he might be one to take off on his own soon." Which was a sad thought for her, but she knew they'd keep in touch.
"What about you? Do you have any family?"
no subject
Then again, Ned knows that what he's calling a prank and what she's calling a prank are perhaps not exactly the same thing. He doubts that two brothers, who ultimately love one another underneath the mischief, would do anything truly 'horrible' to one another. Riley probably means 'horrible' in the sense of cheesy or contrived, rather than genuinely degrading. At least, he hopes she does. Otherwise, he isn't so sure he envies her quite as much as he thought he did.
The question isn't exactly unexpected, but he never knows the best way to respond to it. He's a terrible liar, so that's out of the question, and besides, Riley deserves better than that. But any kind of no, whether it's a shake of his head, or a verbal one, is going to be a heavy thing. No one really expects and outright no to that inquiry, in his experience. They expect, at worst, a yes, but we're not close. Which is, technically speaking, somewhat true, for him. His father isn't dead, at least, not that he knows of. He could be. It has been twenty years.
He settles for something more oblique, to give him time, and give Riley a chance to back out, if she was only asking in a polite, cursory way. "Depends on how you define family." He pauses, and adds, "And have."
no subject
"Well, I guess it depends on what it means to you?" The emphasis on 'have' had her curious, so she propped her chin up, giving him a curious look.
no subject
Before he gives his answer, he takes a big bite of his bread and uses the time in which he chews it to think about what family means to him, how he wants to define it, how he wants to reply to Riley's question.
"River is my family," he begins, slowly. "We're not actually related, but she's like a sister to me, and I... think she misses her real brother pretty badly." He knows that if River caught him calling himself a poor replacement for Simon, she'd probably throw something at his head and call him a boob, but he can't help thinking it on occasion.
As for the rest of it, he decides he just... doesn't want to poke that hornet's nest. Especially not after some of the nightmares he'd had. He'd had so much private information about himself and his life and his family in particular revealed without his permission that he is grasping greedily at his privacy. But he doesn't want to lie, so he says, prodding at his eggs with his fork, "As for other family, I'm gonna say... functionally, no, I don't have any. With the addendum that it's complicated and I can't- it's not really pleasant breakfast conversation."
He shoots her a very quick, apologetic smile.
no subject
She gave him a small smile, nodding. "You don't have to tell me if it makes you uncomfortable, Ned. Share what you want. I'm not trying to interrogate you or anything." She put her tea down and reached for her toast, smearing jam over it and taking a huge bite. Did she want to know more about him? Yes, but not at the expense of his comfort levels. She always figured if there were things people didn't want to share, it wasn't her right to know them unless it had something to do with the safety of herself or people she cared about.
no subject
He appreciates Riley's understanding, that she lets him know she's willing to listen, but still curtails her curiosity for anything beyond that. But he doesn't change his mind. He remembers the way it was, at boarding school, when all the other boys knew he was the one whose father had just left him there. No doubt Riley wouldn't react anything like they did, but she would still know.
"Maybe another time."
And then, because he wants to take attention away from his own lack of answer, and because he's genuinely curious, he leans his elbows on the table and asks, "Riley, what's your favourite flavor of pie?"
no subject
Which got her thinking about it, a small smile on her face as he pictured a pie, topped with whipped cream and just begging for her to eat it. She missed the little things, like treats and ready-made food.
"Why? What's yours?"
no subject
"I love all pie equally," he says, with an air of fairness and solemnity. He can only keep it up so long, however, before he's admitting, "But I suppose, if I had to choose, it'd be peach."
He's not exactly sure what liking peach pie best means. Surprisingly enough, he's never known anyone else who liked it best.
Ned makes a mental note to make his next pie strawberry, smiles at her as he takes another sip of his tea.
no subject