as_damaged | ☎ voicemail [v 2.0]

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☎ voicemail [v 2.0]

❝You've reached Allison Cameron, please leave a message.❞

☎ voicemail

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[ooc: retired thread, for reference, here.]

[There's the slightest tilt of her head, the look she always gets when she's running that sort of question through the labyrinthine and ever-shifting rules that govern the answers. She isn't, though; not exactly, and the edges of her eyes crinkle a little.

She's thinking that it would have been a commonplace question, once upon a time. That it isn't, now, which means the rules (as they ought to stand, as they still do in the back of her mind,) don't apply.]

Unless you know a bowling alley that'd be open.

[The words tease a smile out onto her lips. Maybe a drink is a start. Maybe-- maybe, that's all right?]

[He wrinkles his nose, failing to hide the returned smile of his own when he shakes his head at the idea.]

No. Not now I know how bad you are.

[And that seems like the right, natural opportunity to duck away from her without it being a parting - the end of anything. As soon as he has, there's an arm held out in it's stead.]

Besides, we should take the chance while we won't get carded.

Oh.

[Mock offense, and she leans back with it as he pulls away, silently grateful for the grace of the transition. She's never known how to say not yet without it coming out as not ever, after all, but she doesn't want to say no. She wants a little distance. A little time. Always a little more than is given, but one problem at a time. She takes his arm, and thinks fleetingly of moon landings and microwave pizza.]

Good point, you never know how long that will last.

[It's a rare chance, before too much of this world and the real one has time to rebuild itself as a barrier to why this shouldn't (why it can't) be easy. There's just a enough of the teenage fairytale left in the glitter in his hair, on her shoulders, to make the precursor here why not instead of but if.

He's lived with secrets for as long as he can remember. This weekend has only been a reminder of that. But the ones he kept as a child are old to him now, they're easier to bare.

There have been people in his life he's shared them with. And one of them is walking on his arm, and for a little while nothing can seem wrong with the idea that it's where she should be.]

They could drop us into something better than exam week, next time. I get enough late nights reading paperwork on the job.

And we'll never even find out whether it was worth losing all that sleep.

[A night stolen from the City is worth it, though, she thinks. Once-- after he'd left her and before he'd left-- she'd wanted something very like this, some semblance of a second chance without all the City's baggage. You can't always-- maybe can't ever-- get what you want.

But you get something. Maybe if you're careful, you can keep it.]

Are you serious? You got an A.

[There were the kids who'd beat themselves up for achieving anything less, and the kids who were only worried about what their parents would think. Here the latter leads the former, not quite deliberately slipping into a kind of fantasised reminiscence, but still keeping the present well out.]

Maybe I got an A plus.

[And perhaps deliberately provoking a swat in his direction.]

[No swat, a full on shoulder bump. She manages not to stumble, executing a careful series of short steps in the unfamiliar low heels she'd picked up from... well, wherever.]

Not a chance, the TA's would have marked you down for making fun of them.

[It's never this easy, never could be, as far as she knows. But she likes it.]

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☎ voicemail [v 2.0]

→ we are not what you think we are we are golden

→ we are not what you think we are we are golden

→ we are not what you think we are we are golden

→ we are not what you think we are we are golden

→ we are not what you think we are we are golden

→ we are not what you think we are we are golden

→ we are not what you think we are we are golden