"You all right?" wonders Mavis, pushing open the door to the art gallery as they step outside into the chilly, night air. She had brought them out here under the pretence of getting something out of her truck. "I just thought you could use some air," she tells her, still holding the Lost by the hand.
"I'm fine," Amity says after a moment, one hand coming up to pinch the bridge of her nose for a moment. "I appreciate it. I just... I don't do well when I feel like I'm being made the center of things. Too many people noticing me? Paying attention?" She can't explain it, it's just an itch at the back of her mind that sets her heart racing. "Thank you."
Mavis checks her phone as she's stepping over to her truck, keeping her other hand linked with Amity's. She fires off a message. "Well, Thea says she'd like to meet you sometime outside of one of these messes," she tells Amity brightly. "And that you're pretty, but I already told you that."
She pecks Amity's cheek and pulls open the door to her truck. The hinges squawk in protest of the cold. "Climb in, I'll put the heater on. Got a joint in the glovebox."
Amity's cheeks turn a little pinker in the cold air at Mavis' compliment, but she nods. "Sure. I think I'd like to meet her outside this thing, too..." She blinks at the suggestion, smiles. "Okay, okay..." And then she's clambering into the truck, already cold from sitting out in the chill night air.
Mavis closes the door, checking first to make sure that Amity had gotten all of herself in. It would be nice to have her scarf right about now, but that was shoved into Casper denim jacket pocket inside. She runs around the other side of the old Ford Ranger and jumps in, turning the truck engine on, and the heat cranked to full blast kicks on. At first, it spits out only cold air.
"Cool, I think.. she's one of you guys. Smells like fireworks and.. I dunno, her eyes are purple. Doesn't look like they're contacts, either." Mavis had let herself believe that with November and it had been proved wrong.
She reaches over Amity's lap, opens the glovebox, and pulls out a joint. The cigarette lighter on the truck is pushed in to heat the coils while she shoots off a couple more texts.
"Okay, just letting Cas know we stepped outside in case he starts to wonder where we went," she tells Amity, looking over with a smile and leaning in to pull her into a brief kiss. A brush of lips.
Amity sits quietly in the truck, eyes closed and head leaned back against the seat as Mavis clambers in and turns the heat on, goes through the motions of retrieving the joint and so forth. She takes a breath or two. Deep. Even. Calm. Or trying to be, anyway. She opens her eyes when Mavis speaks, nods.
"Her tattoos are very colorful. Like they might catch fire at any moment. Literally." She says in a brief explanation before leaning over to return the kiss and cuddle in closer for warmth in the still icebox-y truck.
Mavis hums back, interestedly, "Oh yeah?" She scoots across the sit, trying to avoid any buckles, and leans against Amity's side. The joint is puffed on a few times with the truck lighter held to the end and then it's replaced back in the console. "Sounds kinda pretty," she sighs to Amity after stealing a puff and passing it to her. "To me, I mean, they're just tattoos. Very elaborate ones, but none of that fancy, glamoury stuff." It wasn't uncommon for Mavis to ask questions about certain Lost. She'd done the same with Casper, particularly intrigued about his mismatched eyes and the stitches scarred onto his skin.
Amity reaches out to take the joint from Mavis when it's her turn and takes a slow puff on it, holding the smoke in her mouth for a long, long moment and then exhaling it to hang over her head in a low cloud. She tilts her head back and closes her eyes again, her breath deep and even in a way that Mavis has probably learned by now means she's trying to relax. "Yes, I know." She's quiet again. "Made up with November the other day," she says after thinking about it for a second.
Mavis' stays silent while Amity holds in the smoke and lets the lulling, weightlessness sink into her fraying nerves. She smiles and matches the blonde's breaths, slow and even, while leaning against her and staring out the fogging front windshield of the Ranger. The heater was started to cough out hot air.
"You did?" She turns her head and her voice had sounded both surprised and happy. "How do you feel about all of that? I mean... It has to be better than-" she pauses, searching for the right phrase, "than walking around on eggshells."
Casper walks through the set of frosted glass doors, closing it behind them.
Amity passes the joint back over, her eyes still closed. "...Mmm. I don't know. I was really angry at her. About what she did to me." A pause, thinking. "But it pushed me to start doing things. To start... trying to take care of things in a way I hadn't before."
Thea says, "Okay. Where to? Another bar? Your place? Mine?"
Thea has emerged from the gallery, complaining about not getting a beer for the road.
Mavis' truck is parked someplace not far off. Casper would recognize it and no doubt both he and Thea would catch the piney scent of burning marijuana in the air that was coming from it, because Mavis has just cracked a window.
"I know," murmurs Mavis, voice low. She didn't know what to say to this. "I dunno, I think this is... maybe better? Than, you know." Mavis gnaws at her bottom lip. "Keeping me in the dark, I could tell it was hard for you. I just.. didn't know what to think, how could I have known?"
Casper breathes in, slowly counts to four, and exhales. He repeats this twice before straightening up, pounding his chest twice, nodding once, and affirming himself - and obviously by extension Thea - "I'm okay..." Then he exhales, releases his hold on Thea, covers his mouth with his hands, and shakes his head, "fuck, no I'm not. What the fuck..." His heart was still pounding. False bravado has caved. Another cycle of breath and he clears his throat. "You... You have a place?" He asks, removing his hands from his mouth and straightening up. "Sorry... I, uh, too much happened at once for me."
Amity grimaces a little at that. "I didn't want to keep you in the dark. I was trying to think of how to tell you--I was going to tell you no matter what. It's more that... she reminded me that I need to be ready in case something happens. That's all? I guess?" She glances over at Mavis. "And..." She trails off. "I don't know. It's hard for me to be around her, like I've said. And I worry about you and so forth but it's better being her friend than me being angry at her all the time."
"I think," Mavis treads carefully, choosing her words wisely, "that it is better to be her friend than to not." A pause. She peers through the foggy front windshield. "Is that... Cas? Is he okay, you think?" Hm.
Yeah. Thea finds herself sloowly exhaling as Casper composes himself. She feels it, too. Of course. Especially since her natural instinct is to punch anything that she finds threatening. He lets go of her, and she lets him let go of her. "Hey, I wasn't gonna let nothing bad happen." She tries to sound convincing. Heck, she tries to convince herself. It's dubious whether she's successful. She winces, scratching behind an ear before she offers Casper a smoke.
Does she have a place?
"I sure do," she answers. That smoldering grin returns to her lips. Easy, rakish. Amused. "Yours, tonight. If you'll have me." She laughs, playfully moving to elbow Cas in the side. "Hey, is that Mave and her girlfriend, what's her name again.." Pause. "You live with her, don't you?"
"Amity," Casper answers as he straightens up with each step further from the gallery. "Fuck. And yeah... I have, um, a couch." He smirks to Thea. "We could, like, totally cuddle. And stuff." He accepts and takes a drag, holding the cigarette between his right index and middle finger. He exhales a plume of smoke and straightens up before glancing toward Mavis's time-travelling truck. "Oh, yeah, that's Mave's Ford Ranger or whatever." He takes another drag and hands the cigarette back to Thea. "Thanks, you're a life-saver. Seriously."
Yep. It was Casper. And Thea, too. Even through the fog over the windshield, she could spot his mop of red hair easily enough to identify the freckled punk. Thea is equally easy to spot with her bone-white, neon-tipped hair-do. Mavis puff-puffs greedily on the joint, aware that she and Amity might just be sharing it in just a moment. A joint, in her mind, was meant to be passed between two or, possibly, three if someone was a light weight.
"Looks like he's ready to go home," she supposes to Amity, shrugging her shoulders and flicking the headlights at him and the tattooed Lost.
"Yeah. Neat event, but..." Amity shrugs, reaches out to take her own quick pull on the joint. She's starting to feel really relaxed now, which is good. But that's not /great/ for, you know, driving home. Amity kisses Mavis' cheek quickly, like she might miss the chance. "I think I'm ready to go home, too, honestly," she adds, her eyelids half-closing in her best approximation of bedroom eyes. Mavis your girlfriend is horny, do something about it.
"Cuddling? That sounds nice." Thea remarks, amused, but also not lying: it did sound nice. Casper offering the cigarette back would be faced with the tattooed punk seemingly missing the gesture. She's already plucked another one from a pack in her pocket as she swaggers over towards Mave's truck. She raps on the drivers' side door, with a grin. "Casper here has invited me over to share his couch."
Casper sticks the cigarette back between his lips, follows behind Thea, and quickly gives a thumbs-up to Mavis from behind the pale, tattooed woman. And a big dumb, boyish grin.
Ohwellgeez! Who was Mavis to turn down an implied offer to fuck her girlfriend? She flashes a bold, white smile before Casper and Thea come over. Mavis cracks the door open rather than cranking the window down.
"Oh, did he now?" Mavis drawls, eyes alight with mischief and she shoots Casper a look that is... almost proud? Yeah, she's proud of the freckled Lost for reeling one in. "Yeah, I guess I know where that's at. You got a ride?" Turning to Amity, she wonders, "Can you drive?" All four of them might have to stack into her truck unless anyone felt like riding in the truck bed in the middle of freezing winter.
Casper takes another drag of his cigarette, still grinning like a dumb idiot. "...Amity could scoot over, and Thea could sit on my lap?" He offers helpfully, beaming.
"Ugh..." Amity grumbles a little. "Honestly, I shouldn't. You know I'm a lightweight..." She says to Mavis as the cloud of weed smoke rolls out of the heated truck. "I said I had to drive inside too. Dammit, now I have come get the car in the morning." She seems... a lot looser when she's high. Weird.
Thea laughs. Her laughter is loud, bold. It echoes around the late-night winter street. "I got a car. Wanted to let you folks know I was gonna take him for the night. Didn't want you both thinking that I was kidnapping him." Wow. Bold, especially considering that she'd been hinting that she wanted to come back to his place. Maybe the couch offer wasn't quite going to work with what she had in mind.
Mavis plucks the joint back and passes it out the door, offering it to Casper or Thea. Whoever seems quickest to take it. "I think we can all pile in, but-" She looks hesitant and her eyes size Casper up then Thea. "-You should probably sit on Thea's lap, sweetie."
But, Thea has other ideas in mind. Mavis studies her quietly for approximately three-point-two seconds then nods her head. "All right," she decides, turning her face to peer at Casper. "You still got my scarf? And just text me in the morning, I'm going to bring Amity back into town to pick up her car anyway."
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