potosi | or say we're only dreaming;

i lead a plenty happy enough life.

thanks.

Now go pay attention to your little deer. ;)

aye aye, capitan.

[ Okay so there's being a regular to a coffee shop and then there's... what Newt does. On top of him getting a morning and sometimes evening requirement of hot cocoa (because fuck your rules he's a grown adult), he's even gotten permission to use the spare room for some help with groups of students and meet special needs of his graduating and higher kids. This shop is starting to feel like a second home.

So, yeah, he sees pretty much all of the staff every day.

And, to no one's surprise, he instantly bonded with the OTHER guy named Newt! Dude! What are the odds even! Both named after Sir Isaac too?! That's awesome!

He's kept Newt company on slow mornings and winding down on closing shifts. They see each other all the time. Weirdly, never outside of the shop. Newt - uh that is Geiszler - has never really thought about it. He likes the other Newt. He likes his company. It's half the reason why he even goes! Including tonight. Slow? Hey, everyone needs a break. ]

YOU HERE NEWT?

[ He calls as he enters, as if it's his house. Hey, no other customers are in the place - he looked. He's not totally without manners. ]

Okay. [ all the time it is, then. tessa doesn't mind her little quarters in the passenger area of the ship, but since she kissed minji that first day, they sure have started to feel lonely. the warmth and weight of her arm against her waist is soothing and comfortable, and she can most definitely see herself sleeping here for the forseeable future.

tessa's cheeks turn a little pinker as she considers it, has to fight down the faintest flush of affection in her chest, and she glances down at the space between them and lifts her gaze under her eyelashes, look nothing short of, well, adoring. she's not sure when this happened, when she started caring about minji like this but she does. irrevocably so.

so, she lifts her small hands and curls them in the front of the shirt she's now wearing, and tips up to kiss her. once, twice, again, over and over, until it's something she can get lost in--something maybe a little less chaste. ]

[ By telling Tessa she's welcome at any time, Minji really hopes that it means she'll come by more often. Not even just at night - she'd love to see her at all hours of the day, as if they don't already constantly see one another - but perhaps especially then. Because this moment, this moment right here, is the most perfect thing she's known in a long time, something that just feels like it belongs. And that's part of what she'd felt, when she first laid eyes on Tessa.

The feeling is just even more powerful, now, in the night, just the two of them touching and kissing.

Nightgowns are incredibly restrictive, in Minji's opinion. It's why she doesn't wear them, why she doesn't like dresses in general. But she slides her hand up the length of Tessa's spine, rucking up the thin cloth a little on her way, until she finally feels skin between her shoulder blades. And then she goes up higher, curls her fingers around the back of her neck and beneath the sweep of her brown hair.

If Tessa wanted to move back, the hold is loose enough for it, and she tries to make that obvious. But at the same time, she dips in a little more into the kiss, each one that follows, until parts her lips and teases her tongue against the swell of Tess' bottom one. Just the faintest touch, almost testing but no less confident. ]

[ alex isn't dumb. he's not, okay? he doesn't need to speak selkie to know that bean doesn't like him very much. actually, the majority of their little traveling party doesn't seem to like him that much. alex can't blame them, he guesses; he is a walking, talking representation of everything that's ever caused them any trouble. at least quinn seems to be sort of warming to him in her "i actually don't give a shit either way" sort of way.

it's been a particularly low day for the group, and alex had been paying more attention to the street than he had to his fellow party members; it wasn't until they were all halfway down the street that he noticed bean had stopped to look at a busker with a dog. the dog was balancing a ball on his nose, happily barking and bouncing it up and down, and alex watched her stare at it, saw the look on her face.

of course, she's a seal. people can't really do that, can they?

so it's at dinner that night that he comes over and sits next to bean by their campfire. there's no prelude considering they don't really speak each other's language, but he sits down and holds out a metal spoon, showing it to her.

then, alex breathes on it, picks it up, and puts it on the tip of his nose.

holding it there for a second, he pulls his hands away and then looks cross eyed down at it. a magic trick with no magic--it's no ball, but it's a start, right? ]

[ the thing about all of your family being brutally murdered is that their properties typically get left alone. maybe people worry about headless ghosts or blood in the walls or god only knows what else--alex just knows that when it's snowing outside and they're trekking through the cold, a house is a house, especially one where the heat might still work.

it doesn't, but the fingerprint lock recognizes him, and the four of them are able to walk into the dark house fairly easily. alex flicks on a light and the place is illuminated, dimly--it's still decorated for christmas, mistletoe in every doorway, boughs of holly on the railing of the spiral staircase, a christmas tree in the corner. it's only been a few weeks since everything went down--of course the servants had already decorated, anticipating his parents arrival.

they never came, but their prodigal son did.

for him, this isn't anything big and fancy; this house is actually on the small side compared to the place where he lived before. but, the kitchens are stocked and with a little help from quinn, they get a crackling fire going in the fireplace, and hot cocoa on the stove. alex is quiet when he holds his cup, leaning on the doorway with mistletoe over his head (though he has yet to notice) as he tries not to think about everything this little house stands for--when quinn passes through the doorway while he stands in it, he tries to move out of her way and freezes.

it's cursed.

of course it is.

muttering: ] God, continuing traditions from the grave [ he looks up, and then at quinn, going for a crooked, jokey grin. ] Sorry, Quinn, you just got parent trapped.

[ bean doesn't belong in this body, and she's known that ever since she first signed away her pelt in a trick of a trade. she's clumsy and sometimes wobbles on her two feet, sometimes she mistakes how small she is and gets cramped in some places, sometimes she forgets her human body isn't as good at swimming, and has to get shea to save her before she drowns. a drowning selkie, there's probably a joke to make there.

often times it's the smaller things. that she can't bark like she used to, or eat as many raw fish before she gets sick. sometimes it's the most minuscule thing that makes her homesick for her ocean and her proper body, like watching a street dog balance a ball on it's nose, and feeling a pang of envy that she can't do it anymore. safely said, beanie spends a good portion of her time in an upset mood -- either from sadness, or from anger, usually because of alex. that she's associating with the man at all would probably have her kicked out of her pod, but she puts up with it because shea puts up with it, and that's all she has to go on.

hundreds of selkies, all without their ticket home. thinking about it makes bean grit her teeth.

when the spoon is first held out, bean lets out a soft bark ( yeah, i know you've eaten from a silver spoon before, prince, so i'm not feeding you ) which she's glad he can't hear, because it was a pretty dumb joke. she doesn't try to be cruel to him, really, because two wrongs don't make a right, but her rage is --

forgotten, when he sets the spoon on his nose. bean leans in, uncomfortably close, examining it where it rests, trying to figure out the trick, but.

she can't. so she lets out a happy bark, laughing, followed by her fishing out her phone and typing out: ]

show me!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

[ bean isn't the type of girl alex would have approached in the bar or on the streets (quinn was more of his type, even if now she was becoming sort of like a cool older sister instead), but she's definitely cute, and that reaction. well. it was what alex was hoping for.

the smile on his face is kind of tentative until she reacts, and then it broadens, until he has to laugh and duck his head as the spoon falls off. this is a rocky, rocky road and he knows it is, but in the time that he's started to sort of make progress on it. slow, stumbling progress, but progress none the less. maybe they'll be able to be friends someday, despite their backgrounds, despite the pain the harroways had caused the selkies for so long. ]

It's really easy. You just breathe on it, really fast-- [ he repeats the trick, easily, setting it higher on his nose. ] And then let go. I used to do it at dinner. Drove my mom crazy.

[ pulling it off, he offers her the spoon. knock yourself out, beanie. ]

[ the homestead is dead quiet, an unusual sight and sound for most days. it's something newt's sort of become used to, as the boys are typically pretty obedient about curfew. most nights, everyone's so exhausted that when 11 rolls around, the gladers are all already snoring in their bedrolls. it's newt and alby's job to check over them, often their job to comfort a boy terrified by nightmares, the low, piercing moan of a griever in the night, but tonight, not so much. tonight, someone else could do their jobs.

newt rouses from his bedroll around ten thirty, slips out from his spot sprawled on the floor beside minho. he has yet to move into alby's room but he thinks it'll be soon, thinks the rest of the gladers know that there's something going on here that's different than just friends. newt knows he's obvious. he knows he's been obvious, but he can't help it. can't help the way they don't even need to speak to know what the other's thinking, how alby has a secret smile that newt thinks he might be the only person who knows it. he can't help where they've come to, this point that seemed inevitable.

(he thinks he should have told him when he was going to jump, but he didn't.)

either way, newt limps to alby's room quietly and knocks on the door, three short, sharp taps to let him know it's him before he opens the door and slips inside, offering a small smile to the figure inside. newt thinks he has butterflies, wonders if he's ever felt this for anyone before and it knows that if he had, it was for him. it was always alby, memories or not. ]

Ready to go? [ he whispers, quietly--a walk in the glade, out to the deadheads--and holds out his small hand. his leg is still healing and he shouldn't be walking but he found that his and alby's quiet midnight walks were one of the things he would have missed if he'd died.

alby was that thing, really, so he bucks up and tries to keep moving, for him. ]

[ Quinn can't recall the last time she did anything remotely close to celebrating Christmas, nevermind decorating for it. so the hose being decked out from bottom to top in lavish decorations and impressive detail, it reminds her that not everyone forgets the holidays so easily.

having been with everyone pretty close to twenty-four hours a day, she takes her time leaving the kitchen, snaps her fingers for the emptied pot of cocoa to wash itself. satisfied, she grabs her cup and heads to the living room with the others. and, really, she should have been paying better attention, she should have noticed something as simple as enchanted mistletoe hanging from above, but she had been far too excited to nestle down into the corner of the sectional couch just out of her reach. ]

Oh, please. You wish.

[ with a roll of her eyes, Quinn snaps her fingers again in an effort to override the enchantment and release it -- to no avail. pursing her lips, eyes narrowed, she looks up at the hanging plant as though it offends her and attempts to, again, release the curse.

nothing.

huffing out a sigh, she finds she can lean far enough to set her mug down, crossing her arms over her chest once she straightens back up. and really, she knows it isn't Alex's fault, but it's still capital-I levels of Inconvenient. ]

Sure were some talented parents, kiddo.

[ Alby can still remember the day Newt jumped as though it was yesterday ( it's been weeks now, even as Newt continues healing ) and he can remember the way his stomach sank, how he felt like his heart might beat how of his chest, because the mere idea of losing Newt hit deeper than he knew what to do with. and maybe it's an underlying memory, maybe before the glade it was him and Newt, the way it's become the same now that they're here. maybe for him, Newt's all there has ever been.

but Alby isn't one for the past, not when he can't remember bug all of it, and he knows he can't go forward if he's always digging through some muddled past that might never make sense. so it's one foot in front of the other, it's waking up and running the glade, going to sleep worrying over the boys just outside the door, for what waits in the darkness outside the walls. and if he thinks about it too long, or too hard, he can see why Newt felt like there was no alternative. but he can't -- he can't invest in that train of thought, because if he loses hope, what's stopping the rest of them from doing the same?

so he does his best, falls in stop with Newt and pulls him along for the ride. because, to him, there is no other option.

when the familiar knock comes, Alby looks up from where he'd been lacing together a ripped bedroll. even at night, there's still plenty left for him to do; idle hands make for idle minds. but when Newt's stretches out in front of him, Alby hoists himself up from the floor to take it, and he knows more than anything he would have missed the familiarity that Newt brings him. ]

'course. Most of them are asleep, yeah?

[ something about leaving without the majority of the gladers resting didn't sit well with him, after all. ]

Course. Can hear Minho snoring clear from out here. [ newt feels the same way--these boys were, in the end, their responsibility. fifty some odd boys when the numbers were right, working, living, trying to survive in the glade. caring for those boys with alby was a hard job but newt found a little solace in helping them when he couldn't help himself. and when he couldn't help himself, at least now, after the accident? alby came to help him. it was a system that worked, the leader and his second in command. alby looked to him for decisions, newt tempered him when he was furious, alby made newt feel things when he wanted to feel nothing at all. they had always been a team, so this development that rose out of it all was as natural as natural could be.

so, of course he doesn't let go of his hand when he stands. newt gives him a bit of a crooked smile and jerks his head towards the door. it's a little bit of a mess trying to pick through the boys, sleeping on the floor of the homestead in a disaster of bed rolls and snoring, but newt does it with ease, even with the limp he's still trying to reconcile with the rest of him. he should be using the cane gally made him, but he won't--the whole point is sneaking after all, and there's a giddy, bright excitement that comes with it. going out after curfew is technically against the rules, and even leaders follow rules, but the nice thing about the glade is that it is safe at night--no griever's going to break through a hundred and twenty feet of solid concrete.

when they get outside, newt takes a breath of the fresh air, shutting his eyes and inhaling the night. it's lovely, like it always is, and with his eyes closed, holding alby's hand, newt can pretend that he's at a park, or a forest, or anywhere that isn't the glade. he stands there like that for a little while, fingers still loosely entwined with alby's as he comes through the front door.

newt flutters his eyes back open--the glade, as usual, but at least alby's there, too-- and he gives the hand in his a faint squeeze. ] Quiet tonight. [ and nicely so, too. ]

she's team captain, i'm in the bleachers
dreaming about the day when she wakes up and finds
that what she's been looking for has been here the whole time

Edited (THIS POST LITERALLY BELONGS TO ME NOW) 2014-12-26 08:58 (UTC)

[ tess's toes curl out of instinct--is she really about to make out with minji in the dark like this? of course she is. she's not exactly confident but tess isn't exactly shy, either, because her own kind of stupid boldness tends to make up for that. so where her fingers are curled in her shirt, she tightens them a little, and opens her mouth to let her in.

she wouldn't have pictured herself here when she first arrived on the ship. actually, tess would have probably retched at the thought. but now that she's gotten to know minji more than the pirate captain and maybe gotten just a little stockholm-syndrome-y (although not badly; it's not like she was ever treated badly, just that her...means of arrival was a little strange.) she's comfortable with her. minji's brave and smart and funny and.

a really good kisser. did she mention that? her eyes flutter and back behind them, tess's foot pops. ]

[ Thumbing at the patch of skin behind Tessa's hair, Minji feels a sort of thrill at the fact that the kiss gets a little less chaste, a little more intimate. This is something that she never expected would happen, truth be told, even with the way they've been growing closer. It's a perfect, easy sort of thing, but it practically heats up her skin in the process. Like every point of contact is on fire.

But it's the best thing she's ever felt before, Tess is the best thing she's ever had. But never owned, because a person is not a thing to own and her little princess has always been very adamant about that.

There's a shift, somewhere behind her, but she doesn't know what it is. Rather than question it, though, she brings her other hand up to frame her face. Kiss her a little more deeply. ]

or say we're only dreaming;

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we should actually play them meeting

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this is the literal cutest prompt ever

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YES HELLO SLAMS IN HERE

♥♥!!! i was so happy to see this this morning LMAO

u3u!

do u think I've thoroughly claimed this post

u3u

sweet angel children

so

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It would've been nice if I hit send on this last night.

magical cousins!! or s/t

well I mean.