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kore_logs2013-07-10 04:33 pm
unsanguine) wrote in kore_logs2013-07-10 04:33 pm
Entry tags:
you're the only one who can get me on my feet
WHO: Hal and Riley! (2.0)
WHAT: Fishing, hilarious bouts of self-control
WHERE: House 7 and presumably the ocean
WHEN: Day 89!
NOTES: I should stop putting Hal in awkward situations, but I won't.
Hal has never had this much time to himself.
In some ways this has its charms; no one is prodding him to get a job, to go outside and interact with what some other vampire, in some other universe, had once called Happy Meals on Legs (Hal would get the sentiment, if not the reference). He doesn't have his routines here, but he can establish new ones. He accepts resignation better than most.
So left to his own devices he probably would just brood in his Man Attic forever, actually, and that might be fine, even if one imagines it might get a little weird for Shiala eventually, living with someone who never emerges from his own room.
On this day he has just finished doing approximately a fuckbillion pressups, and is now puttering around the living room because ...it needed dusting, and that did require leaving the attic. He is imminently botherable, so this is probably about when a dedicated person would pounce on him.
WHAT: Fishing, hilarious bouts of self-control
WHERE: House 7 and presumably the ocean
WHEN: Day 89!
NOTES: I should stop putting Hal in awkward situations, but I won't.
Hal has never had this much time to himself.
In some ways this has its charms; no one is prodding him to get a job, to go outside and interact with what some other vampire, in some other universe, had once called Happy Meals on Legs (Hal would get the sentiment, if not the reference). He doesn't have his routines here, but he can establish new ones. He accepts resignation better than most.
So left to his own devices he probably would just brood in his Man Attic forever, actually, and that might be fine, even if one imagines it might get a little weird for Shiala eventually, living with someone who never emerges from his own room.
On this day he has just finished doing approximately a fuckbillion pressups, and is now puttering around the living room because ...it needed dusting, and that did require leaving the attic. He is imminently botherable, so this is probably about when a dedicated person would pounce on him.
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The figurine in question happened to be a ceramic cat; Hal found it in hideously poor taste but was obligated to dust it anyway. His expression was pained. "Do take care with that," he ...pleaded, more or less, as if Riley wouldn't be doing him a favor by dropping it.
It took him a few seconds to work backwards and realize what she'd actually asked, at which point the pained expression withered into something between bafflement and disdain. "Surely you must know someone better suited to that sort of avocational activity."
Like, literally anyone. Including the ceramic cat.
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That was a bit of a dig at him, considering how he'd literally followed her around (very unstealthily, she might add) on the day of the full moon to see if or how she prepared for her 'ordeal'. Which, as it turned out, was completely unnecessary since Riley didn't need to shift on a full moon and it wasn't anywhere near painful for her to do so. That had surprised him, but from what she'd seen, it had been a pleasant surprise.
"Besides, I want to spend a little time with you. So what do you say, mm? Come with me?"
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Still. It was a weight off, especially since he didn't exactly have access to a chicken on a string. There was little point in stealth; he had never been less than stellar at anything in 500 years, and he certainly wasn't about to start now.
"I suppose I could do with fresh air," he began, slowly--he'd considered saying he could do with the company, but it seemed so unlikely he'd gone with the safer bet. "But I have no intention of--cleaning fish."
Ugh, how prosaic. And possibly likely to trigger a fit of bloodlust.
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"Come on. I bet you might even have fun. I promise smiling won't hurt." She looked over at him as she set the cat back down carefully. "Much."
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He could, he thought, if he was careful, proceed safely in that direction; she knew he didn't indulge (as it were), and there was no need to bring up the past. Or that he couldn't so much as safely be around Kia-Ora, or ...any other thick liquid for that matter. Staying clean had proved to be--well, perhaps not less of a hardship here, but a different one than he'd anticipated. As long as he didn't go out, he was safe; left to his own devices he'd retreated much as he had while staying with Leo.
Annie and Tom had different expectations, and it seemed that Riley did as well. The problem was that just as he'd come to care about Annie and Tom, Riley's expectations meant something now. He had to meet them, to show her he could be a good man.
So he attempted a smile, even if it was on the tail end of scoffing as he adjusted the placement of the cat just a subtle inch to the left, where it belonged. Their fingers didn't quite touch, but it was a near thing. He looked somewhere around their feet, adding, "Very little does."
You know, very little could hurt him. As he was immortal, much to his dismay. Fetching his coat from its stand beside the door was probably unnecessary, but he was always a bit colder than the average person, what with being dead. "All right, then. Lay on, MacDuff."
He took a moment to look pleased with himself in the process of holding the door (yes) and ushering her through. "That's most often misquoted, you know."
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Sorry, Hal. You're going to have to educate the poor miss on things she clearly doesn't know. But she let him direct her out of the house, waiting for him on the stoop with her hands laced in front of her.
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In Hal's case, that applied to ...a lot. For once he wasn't thinking about that, though, following Riley's lead to wherever they were going to engage in this spot of fishing (as he certainly had no prior reason to know) and staring in blatant disbelief at the same time. "Not--there is no literal laying."
....that was a great sentence, Hal. "I despair at what the 21st century has done to the education system, no one has the remotest of standards anymore. MacDuff," he enunciated, clipping every consonant, "appears in MacBeth, one of the finest works of Shakespeare. As a foil to the ambitious villain he centers the morality of the play. MacDuff is--a good man. One who accepts responsibility for his actions even when they cause great grief."
Of course Hal liked MacDuff. Even if the trail of bodies in his wake more easily correlated him to the titular character.
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Maybe if Riley had taken an interest in literature or poetry, her mother might have pushed her more that way, but Riley decidedly didn't give two squats about Blake or Shakespeare or Frost. Hal would probably have a coronary, if he could, over her utter lack of cares given.
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He sounded appalled, but at least now he had some kind of explanation.
Keeping up wasn't a problem; he wasn't interested in taking the lead, but they were pretty well matched in leg length. "Well. The library could certainly provide a remedy. I'd be glad to show you myself, I've become quite familiar with its contents of late."
Even if she wasn't interested in literature, that sounded an awful lot like he was inviting her somewhere. Indoors, but progress nonetheless.
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She did hear the invitation, smiling to herself over it as she decidedly didn't make a big thing about it. "I might, but fishing and hunting kind of takes precedence over reading."
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He pauses, considering her out of his peripheral vision. "I suppose those are necessary to survival, yes." Except for him, because he doesn't eat. Nonetheless: "Though I believe there ought to be more to life than simply surviving. I should know, I've done the former for a--a very long time."
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It was all right, he supposed, or could be; Riley's nearness didn't send the thrum of blood fluttering through his dry veins. Without that trigger it was undoubtedly easier.
Her question caught him off-guard a little, even if it was a perfectly sensible one; he seemed to hover always on the tip of a great melancholy that could spill over at any time. So his tone was both self-deprecating and morose as the years ticked by behind his eyes. Hal never forgot anything, not even - or especially - when he wanted to. "When one's fondest wish is to die, its eternal impossibility does him no favors."
...thank you, Hal. He relented a bit and recounted more specifically. "I was born in the late 15th century. We don't age. You see me now as I was when I encountered the only death I'll ever know."
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She pointed up at a path that led into the woods. "I usually take that one to the river. There's a good spot to fish not far along it, if you don't mind lounging on the bank." He always sounded so sad or looked like someone was going to stick a red hot poker up his butt. She decided she was going to try to get him to smile more.
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At home his more suicidal inclination had been more or less glossed over--he could never quite be trusted enough not to slip for anyone to protest with much strength. Annie, he thought, fluctuated between being grateful that his strength provided a measure of protection for Eve, and wanting him out of the house for the sake of the same person.
To Tom he was a monster, as all vampires were, although they'd come to an uneasy sort of truce. But to Riley...he wasn't any of those things, at least not yet. He was a novelty, and perhaps not an unwelcome one. The shine would wear off when she learned what he truly was, his usual pessimism contended, but for now--for now he could have this. Someone who wanted for reasons he couldn't quite pin, to be in his company.
Even if she did also want him to clean fish. He'd been tracking her movements with his eyes, said eyes having gone a bit round when their shoulders had brushed, but he recovered soon enough to explain: "Yes, really. Peak physical condition is important to my routines."
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She didn't really know what it was that made her push at him so much, but he was broody and seemingly uncompromising and that part of her that was all cat wanted to bat at him and make him react. Either to her or to the situation.
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But she'd made it a challenge, and he'd always prided himself on his ability to meet those. Dedication to the difficult was the only reason he'd made it dry the last 50 years. He followed the thick growth of trees visually, the same way he'd watched Riley close in, only this time with intent. With purpose. Choosing to forsake the path entirely meant that he was occasionally thrown by a tree or debris he hadn't anticipated, but once he stopped thinking so damned much, the creature that he was knew how to account for those obstacles without breaking stride.
At its core, without the measurement of good or evil, a vampire was a hunter. He let his instincts take him, and so arrived at the riverbank disheveled, sweaty, and inordinately proud of himself. He'd give it a minute to see what Riley made of that before his general neuroses drove him to start neatening his hair or brushing his clothes free of twigs and leaves.
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He'd almost looked like he'd been enjoying himself, but she didn't want to jump too far ahead. He'd done it and that was the key. He'd smiled and she wouldn't rub it in his face. Little steps (or giant leaps) at a time.
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This was a challenge too, even if he suspected he was being heavily manipulated. (Although with no ill intent.) He could have kept moving back, away from the reach of her hands, but he made himself stand in place. After a second the urge to straighten his appearance proved too strong an itch, but he'd done it. He'd let her in even as briefly as he had, and no great catastrophe had dropped out of the sky.
She reminded him of Katherine, the same spark and steel, and there hadn't been a woman like Katherine in over a century. She'd been--exceptional, and it wasn't lost on him that she'd also been a werewolf. "You did make the proposition rather irresistible," he pointed out as if he'd just made some marvelous deduction of logic. "I'd be loathe to disappoint a lady."
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She hoped so.
Turning to the river, she gestured a little further down. "I usually fish over there. There's a spot you can rest if you want, m'lord," she added with a very low sweeping curtsy. It was probably the worst curtsy in the history of curtsies, but did she at least get points for trying?