as_damaged | ☎ voicemail

[Chances are the most violent thing on her shelf is Bambi-- admittedly, that's his fault-- but it doesn't make much difference what they end up putting on. It's all in the name of distraction.]

You could carry this in,

[she answers, sliding one warm plate onto the counter and putting the rest in to heat up. Without asking, she pours two glasses of water.]

That sounds manageable.

[Though he's watching her pour the water, a small act which seems pointed. He lifts the first, hot plate to balance along one arm and reaches to test the splay of his hand around the glasses.]

[Maybe later she won't mind the idea of opening a bottle of wine, but right now the water glass is a dare to make the wrong move. They can talk about it (or not) when he's got some food in him.]

I can get one. [She pulls one of the glasses closer to her, leaning back against the counter to wait out the microwave. But, belatedly;] Thank you.

[And for his part he doesn't question it, though he wants to. It itches at him. But he plays docile, something afforded by waiting out those two extra hours. No confrontation, no questions. She's not really the one he'd like to ask.]

Not a problem.

[And he ducks out of the room with the serving plate. This, too, is an odd echo. Dinner on their laps, the same choices most night of the week, when carefully matched shifts have left them weary. He helps himself to a bite of satay while it's still just the wrong side of hot, and speaks with his mouthful.]

You'll have to give me the number of this place.

I'm sure I have an extra menu.

[She finally cracks a small smile at that, though it's more to do with the irony of her making his recommendation back than any increase in her comfort. Setting a few curried dishes on the coffee table, she crosses the room to pick out a film.]

Maybe The Pursuit of Happyness?

[Of course she's halfway to putting it in the DVD player already, it's something of a rhetorical question.]

[Chase eyes the side of the jewel case like an unexploded bomb. He won't say no, of course.]

Never heard of it. [It's helpful to have food to fill uncertain pauses.] Does pursuing happiness involve forming any kind of empowering sisterhood?

[Suspicious, suspicious.]

It's about a man and his son,

[She casts a generously doubting look in his direction, holding in a laugh. For a moment, this feels commonplace and manageable. Just dinner and a movie and nothing more. Remote in hand, she comes back to settle in a chair by the table.]

I don't think Will Smith is the sisterhood type.

[As soon as it's playing she'll dig in; Cameron's been waiting on her dinner, after all.]

Oh. Will Smith.

[That seems enough to get a look of genuine interest from a man who feels he's seen enough empowered women doing it for themselves (but never looking less than model perfect). As long as Cameron's never been the Desperate Housewives type, he's always felt he still had a good deal.

For a while it's mostly uninterrupted eating and viewing: the film turns out to have more moral value and less explosions than Chase could have hoped for and he pays some intense attention to his dinner as Will's wife walks out for less messed up pastures. After a while, though, he's almost invested.

A fork jabs towards the screen.]

I'm imagining he's doing this undercover for the MiB. The whole women's shelter thing - they really are from Venus.

[It earns him an old, familiar eyeroll as she chews a piece of tofu.]

I suppose we'll have to wait for a director's cut.

[But really, she's pleased-- and somewhat relieved that it's been enough to keep them interested enough not to make the evening worse. The problem with movies about empowered women doing it for themselves is that they usually end with a better job, a better life, and a better man; the last thing she wants to watch right now is a romance. On the other hand, Will Smith movies tend to involve more explosions than she'd hope for.]

Though, [she muses, keeping a straight face,] the Rubik's Cube thing makes more sense in that light.

Couldn't resist showing off. [Chase agrees, readily.] He'll have been pulled up on that in the debrief.

[It's companionable. This is why people who don't really know each other go on dates to the cinema. Besides the obvious mutual talking point, after long enough, just the proximity begins to effect a bond.

He finishes the last of his curry (more meat than new age protein) not long after, and grimaces faintly as he washes it down.]

[It's not such a bad comparison; sometimes they're strangers, other moments they know one another too well. This is the sort of thing she misses, from before everything fell apart. Quiet, companionable evenings without an expectation; something she could, arguably, have kept, though at the time she'd wanted (and she'd believed she had) more. But it's unquestionably nice.

Sitting up straighter, she puts her plate on the table.]

Have we missed midnight?

[Chase checks the time on his network device, leaning back to flash the digital display across at her. Five minute countdown, it could almost have been timed.]

Afraid not. Want me to rewind the last scene?

Somehow I feel like that would be less than heartwarming.

[She smiles, but it's a little tighter now. Honestly she'd kind of hoped the year would pass accidentally, with no fanfare.]

Too bad we can't switch over and watch the ball drop.

[Honestly, that's one East Coast tradition he's never understood the affection for. A huge box of fireworks and a few bottles of something fizzy were all it took to see in the new year. He's still unemotional about what is, in his timeline, just another day.]

Really? I thought you were going out of your way to avoid the toast.

[Among other traditions.]

[She shrugs, tension seeping back into her pose.]

It's tradition.

[Not a tradition she has particular ties to, but she does make the effort just because it's the thing to do, if she's not somewhere she'd rather be, somewhere meaningful. Not at home with family, or out with friends, or-- well. It's distraction, more importantly; lights and anticipation and musical acts she's not interested in that could take the place of talking and thinking.

Wouldn't it have been nice.]

Is that why you brought the bottle?

[Sighing, not aggravated just weary, and it is a minute to midnight, that can't be out-of-place, he pushes his hands back over his face, back through his hair.]

I brought it because I thought you'd like it.

[And if the film, and the meal - all the water - has done anything, it's this: he's stony sober by now.]

Why did you ask me to come?

I didn't think the champagne would go with dinner.

[It was an unfair question and she knows it. Really, it's the product of frustration-- she knows something is wrong, just not what; and knows enough to know she can't ask. Maybe they should just avoid the holidays, every year.

It doesn't much matter what they are or aren't to one another-- seeing him drunk and miserable is more than she can stand. She invited him because she didn't want to worry about the alternatives.

She invited him because she doesn't want to be alone.]

I asked because... I wanted you to come over.

[She sounds just as tired. It's a lame and hopeless answer, but she's not certain she has a better one. She doesn't know what a better answer would be.]

[Maybe the right words don't exist, but it's not such a bad choice. Any belligerence over his right to drink (and he's not a drunk because he gets drunk, he's still telling himself, it's a choice not an affliction) ebbs with the weight of her choosing him. He bows his head, almost to his chest, guilty for spending time here. The definition of madness: repeating the same actions while expecting a different result.]

Either I'm someone who hurt you, or I'm someone you hardly know.

[It's a painful assessment, and he feels like a fraud for the inclusion of either. There's no choice where he hasn't.]

If you want company, you could have made a better choice.

If that's true, you don't have the right to critique my choices.

[She levels a carefully guarded look at him, because he's not wrong-- he's not right, either-- and really she has no idea where to go next. Certain things are evident. He's in poor shape; she cares about him; they can neither pick up where they left off, nor part ways entirely. Beyond that it's all a carefully poised disaster.]

That's a terrible argument.

[But he actually smiles when he says it, and this time he checks his wrist, not the screen of his phone.]

We've missed midnight. Happy new year.

[If she lets him, or if she doesn't catch up with the movement before it's made, he'll catch her hand and kiss the back of it, and let it go. Chivalry (and warning her about what she's doing, that's chivalry too), now there's tradition.]

[She stiffens a little when he leans in, but relaxes not because he lets her go but because he doesn't go any further. It's the same old strange balance-- a game stacked against him, where the less liberties he takes, the more he could get away with. As long as he doesn't.]

I hope it is,

[she says quietly, earnestly, because it's more than just a platitude, and lets herself smile a little too.]

☎ voicemail

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