(no subject)

[ladyfirestarter]

Charlie's at the bar, with coffee. Sweet, sweet life-giving coffee.

"Still no?" she's saying, wearily, apparently to the bar itself.

Comments

[ladyfirestarter]

Charlie glances up, and doubletakes very satisfactorily.

"You," she says.

[2020sight]

Automatically: "I didn't do it."

[ladyfirestarter]

"No, I mean -- that's what I was saying 'still no' about, I left you a note a few months ago and it hadn't been picked up --"

Charlie stops, and breathes, and says a little helplessly: "Hi."

[2020sight]

"--Shit, you did?" He blinks at her. "I -- crap. Sorry. I probably got distracted. I've got kind of a history of that."

[ladyfirestarter]

"It's okay," she says. "At least I hope it is. I ..."

Another breath. "Okay," she says half under her breath, "this is a little awkward."

[2020sight]

He eyes her. "Darlin', I've lived through more awkward than the Roman Empire, and they had a lot of awkward. Spill."

[ladyfirestarter]

Charlie's mouth twitches in something that isn't quite a laugh, but wants to be one.

"Okay." Half a beat. "I've been trying to get in touch with your brother, and I can't reach him."

[2020sight]

"--Oh. I think he's kind of" -- he waves a hand -- "off again."

The tone suggests he's not particularly concerned, but after a moment he frowns.

"You haven't heard from him, though? What an asshole."

[ladyfirestarter]

"No, it's not -- " his fault, she wants to say, only she doesn't really know.

"He might have been trying to. I don't know. I had a, a clay figurine he gave me a long while back, we used it to communicate. Only it's ... lost. Possibly destroyed."

[2020sight]

He arches an eyebrow. "Did he make it? It'd take a lot to destroy that. If you could find it . . ."

[ladyfirestarter]

"He made it, yeah. Um." She rubs absently at the side of her neck. "Would the equivalent of dropping it into a star do it?"

[2020sight]

". . . Probably?"

He glances at the Observation Window, speculatively.

"Yeah . . . yeah, that'd probably do it."

[ladyfirestarter]

"Then yeah. Pretty sure it's gone."

A beat.

"Would he ... I don't even know how to ask this. Would he know, if that happened?"

[2020sight]

"Depends. I'd imagine so. If he put enough into it to talk with you, I mean."

He tilts his head at her.

"You worried he's waiting for you to call him, or what?"

[ladyfirestarter]

"That," she says, picking up her coffee mug and studying it, "or that he thinks I'm dead. Or that he thinks I destroyed it deliberately. Pick your insecurity."

That last is a touch dry.

[2020sight]

"Unless you've been telling him things I don't know about, which you probably have, but whatever, I doubt he thinks you're dead. He'd've checked in." He sighs, and rubs the back of his neck. "As for destroying it deliberately -- can you? I mean, could you even start a fire that hot?"

[ladyfirestarter]

"I, ah."

Why does she feel sheepish, of all things?

"Kind of did."

[2020sight]

. . . New respect!

"No shit?"

[ladyfirestarter]

... Oh. That's why.

(It is completely unfair that his reaction should remind her so sharply of Prometheus.)

A half-laugh. "No shit, there I was. In a space between worlds and trying to destroy something evil and indestructible. And ... it didn't occur to me until a lot later that I had the kouros in my pocket at the time."

[2020sight]

He holds out his cupped hands, weighing them like pans in a scale. "Destroying an indestructible evil . . ." The left hand dips. "Boyfriend's phone number." The right hand. They wobble for a moment, then the left drops sharply. "Destroying indestructible evil wins."

[ladyfirestarter]

That gets a snort halfway through.

"I would have done it anyway," she informs him with some asperity. "Though if I'd known I was heading into that, I'd have left the kouros back at the hotel. But that's neither here nor there."

[2020sight]

"Yeah, no, I get it." He waves a hand, with a grin. "I'm gonna say you done good, on general principles. And as for my no-account layabout scoundrel of a brother -- you want me to try and get word to him that you're not mad and you want him to call?"

[ladyfirestarter]

"If you could? Only make it leave me a note here, instead of call -- I don't think he's got my actual phone number."

[2020sight]

"I'll do what I can."

His smile fades a little, considering her.

"Look, Charlie -- he does this. We both do -- this wandering-off thing." A shrug. "He does it less than I do, maybe, but . . . it's not like it's gonna go away." He holds up his hands. "I don't want you getting in a panic or anything. He's always fine. It's not like he's -- I mean, he's always fine. But you ought to know what to expect. Y'know?"

[ladyfirestarter]

Charlie sobers in turn, listening.

"Yeah," she says finally. "Okay. So long as ... okay. You're saying I don't necessarily have to assume anything's wrong."