Thea shoves the door open with the toe of her boot. "So this is the place," she says, gesturing to the colourful-but-small one bedroom apartment before them. "It's not much, but you should have seen it before I painted." There's a certain amount of pride in the Brit's words. She flicks a light switch on, holding the door open for Mavis to enter. "Can I get you some tea, a coffee, love?"
Mavis trundles in behind Thea, turning to take in the view. A grin cracks her features, crooked at one corner. "I love what you've done with the place," she tells Thea with a sly glance back at her.
The mortal walks further into the apartment, turning to take it all in while still smiling. It wasn't exactly how she'd imagined, but pretty damn close to the mental picture Mavis had of where Thea must call home.
"I really do, and yeah. Wouldn't hate a coffee," she tacks on then raises her eyebrows to ask, "Hey-- mind if I smoke in here?"
Thea actually beams. If Mavis was being sarcastic, she fails to notice. "Yeah, I'm really happy with it," she states, pleased, as she heads over to her small kitchen. "Sure, you can smoke. Ashtray's here." She gestures, indicating the ash tray on the windowsill in the kitchen. A low hum at her lips, she potters about in her kitchen. One would note that while the tea was good quality, the coffee was just instant stuff. Nescafe or whatever just slightly not store brand instant coffee Americans drink. Steam rises from the boiling kettle. "You're sweet enough, so while you might not need sugar.. do you want some?"
She actually wasn't being sarcastic. That was a genuine Mavis compliment right there and if anyone had any doubts then they ought to note how cozily she's settling in with her cigarette over by the kitchen window. Mavis lights it up and peers out through the glass into the alleyway below.
"Oh, shut up," she says over to Thea, turning to grin at her to let the woman know she meant it playfully. "Two spoons of sugar and some cream." Mavis pauses, flicking her cigarette in the ashtray. She was expecting to get some shit for this. "Heavy on the cream, please."
Thea makes Mavis her coffee with two lumps of sugar, that grin once more at her lips as she hums. Hums! "Sure thing, chicken wing." Thea shapes her hands into two finger guns as she takes a step back towards her fridge. A sad affair, empty except for a limp carrot, a block of cheese, a mostly-empty carton of eggs and some chinese takeout that truthfully might have been in the fridge when she'd moved in a month ago. Oh, but there is milk. And, after sniffing it, Thea seems satisfied that it isn't off! Coffee finished, milk back in the fridge, Thea offers the beverage to her guest. "There ya go, lovely," she coos, leaning back against her kitchen bench as she sips her own black tea.
Mavis graciously accepts her coffee with a quipped, "Mmh, I might bring over some powder creamer." She sips, humming in appreciation. It's not the croons Thea had made earlier, but a soft noise of enjoyment. Yasss. Coffeee.
The cup lowers, Mavis' light-brown fingers curled against it with her many rings clicking softly against the ceramic as they touch. "Thanks, that's good." Her cigarette burns in the ashtray where she'd set it down and Mavis jerks her head towards it. "Help yerself. It's a menthol." A Camel Crush menthol. The green pack, to be exact. Extra mentholy. That's like triple menthol.
"So, that art gal thing kinda sucked," she huffs with an eye roll. "I didn't even get to eat anything. And I left my beer at the bar."
Thea does help herself, when offered. The white haired Lost puffs away, leaning her elbow against the windowsill as she stares out at the 'view' rather dreamily. "Yeah." She says, agreeing it did suck. "Girl's talented, but goodness. If I hadn't picked up Casper, well, the entire evening would have been a bit of a drag." She chuckles, exhaling smoke. "Wow. This *is* a lot of menthol." She places the rest of the cigarette back in the ashtray before running her hands through her hair. "Oh, where's my manners. The rest of the tour." She points towards the tiny bathroom. "Right. In there's the bathroom." And then she gestures towards the only other door. "That's my bedroom. And that's it."
"I didn't get to talk to her," Mavis remarks with a frown that she hadn't gotten a chance to speak to the hostess of the party. Then again, she wasn't sure what she would have even said to a fellow artist other than an abashed congratulations. She hadn't even told Thea that she was an artist.
"Cas seems delighted about you, though," she mentions, lifting her mug to sip some of the steaming, sweetened bean juice of life. Mavis watches Thea with one brow slightly arched, the dark line lifted curiously. The mortal never outright said it, but she was... protective of the freckled hitchhiker she and Amity had picked up along the side of the road just a few short weeks ago. "I'm glad he's making new friends here."
Her other brow shoots up when Thea introduces her to the rest of the house. Mavis half rises, ready to follow, but the tour ends right where they're standing. After a dumbfounded second, she laughs.
"s'All ya need, really. This place is.. cozy. Makes me kinda homesick. Mom n' I'd move into a new place, a lot like this," she tells her with a nostalgic look around, "repaint it and throw some used furniture against the walls. Call it home for a little while."
Thea sips her tea. "Mn, she didn't have much to say," Thea comments, referring to the artist who held the art gallery opening. "Lass seemed kind enough. Likeable enough." Shrug. She finishes her tea, and sets the mug aside in the sink. "Casper's just a doll, isn't he," she muses, before walking over to actually open her bedroom door. "Yeah. It's.. mn. When I first moved in, it was so little I thought the walls were going to crush me." She says the words with almost painful cheerfulness. "Just.. real cramped. Real awful, you know? Cleaning this place up was.. tough. But I did it." She steps inside her tiny bedroom. "But.. the small size doesn't really bother me. So long as the power don't go out, I'll be fine."
The room is as described, except there's a neon blue and green bass guitar resting next to an amp. Some headphones with a looong aux cable attached are plugged into the amp, so one can assume her neighbours don't want to murder her yet. Also. There's a heavy duty torch by her bed. Actually, thinking about it, there are quite a few extra torches around the house, within easy reaching distance.
"Yeah, I grew up in a place like this, too." Thea muses, before flopping down on her futon-bed. She pats next to her. "Back in England, though. Not that you'd know by my accent," she teases.
"Oh well," replies Mavis about the artist she never got to talk to and with a shrug of her shoulders. Bye, Felicia. She sips her coffee again, which is rapidly depleting, and reaches over to stub out her still burning cigarette. Then, Mavis sets her coffee down on the sill with the intent to come back to it and wanders over to peer through the door Thea has opened.
"Wow!" exclaims Mavis, brushing past Thea to get a better look. "I fucking love-love-LOVE the lights." She turns to Thea with an excited gasp, covering her mouth with a tawny hand. Mavis blurts behind it, "Oh-my-God-a-skylight?! That's SO rad."
Thea grins. "Yeah, I know, right? I like to just lie down here, pop my headphones on and play my guitar. Though, sometimes, admittedly, I don't put the headphones on."
Sobering with curiosity, she asks, "What are the torches for, dare I ask?" Mavis blinks and peers back over at them to make sure she's seeing it right. Yup. Lotsa 'em. She looks back at Thea. "And, yeah, I kinda guessed you're a Brit," she notes, walking over to the futon but not flopping down on it. She crosses her arms instead and looks around like a nosy person new to someone's inner sanctum.
Thea laughs and picks up the torch. Shining it against the wall, she waggles her fingers.. creating all sorts of shapes with the shadows. "Look, a puppy, a rabbit." The explaination likely doesn't add up.
Mavis peers at the shadows and squints one eye at them skeptically. "Mhm," she hums, casting doubt with just those two muffled syllables and her heavy stare. "Right, better off not asking. I get it," she sighs to Thea with a shoulder shrug and finally turning to sit down on the futon, uncrossing her arms. Conversationally, Mavis decides to share, "Amity told me what you are. You're a Lost like her and Cas." Before the questions can be asked, she explains to Thea, "I can't see you guys." An index finger taps the corner of her temple. "Been thinking about it, though. I dunno."
Thea chuckles, flashing that rakish grin Mavis' way as she switches the torch off. "Sorry, love. What else is a man, but a miserable pile of secrets?" And then she flops back against the futon, folding her arms behind her head. Her glasses glitter, her violently purple eyes staring up at her glittering ceiling and the tiny little skylight. And then, Mavis drops a bombshell.
"What's that?" Thea wrinkles her nose, looking down her body to stare at Mavis. "You can't, and she still told you? ...and you believed her? An' it dinnae make yer all crazy an' afeared?" She lays back again, once more staring up at the roof with a thoughtful 'hm.'
"well, aren't you an intriguing little Minx, then."
Mavis twists around where she's sitting to shoot Thea a disgruntled stare. She wasn't quite sure how to take those words and even says as much. "Uh- Not sure that I know what you mean, but sure." Miserable piles of secrets and all of that. Her eyes further narrow at Thea as she lifts her head to peer disbelievingly at her. Sighing, Mavis flops down and climbs higher to turn onto her side and prop her elbow on the futon. She supports her head with the knuckles of her fist.
"No?" Mavis blinks, confused, then asks, "Why does that keep surprising you guys?" Huh. Weird. "I mean, I didn't believe her at first," she admits with a guilty glance down and a warm, ruddy flush tints her cheekbones. "But, then she... showed me magic. Not that stupid card trick stuff that guy at the art gallery was trying to do," scoffs Mavis, rolling her eyes and grateful to stop looking into those pure violets for just that moment. "But REAL magic. And then? She tore away her mask and how could I not believe her after that? I felt so bad... I thought she was going craZY." Clearing her throat quietly, Mavis adds, "I did start smoking. You know, 'cos of the stress? But, she doesn't know about it, I don't want to make her feel bad and take on some weird sorta blame for ME smoking. Crazy, though?" Head shake. "Nah. Just fell back into an old, dirty habit."
Thea is silent for a few moments. Well, except for her fingers which are suddenly tapping against her bed frame. She's thinking. "..I'm not sure whether your girlfriend has done you a kindness, Mavis. But.. I suppose it is the truth. And the truth isn't always kind." The words are more softly spoken than usual. Her eyes close, and Thea reaches up to rub at her eyes behind her glasses. "Miserable pile of secrets. It's a video game reference. Or I thought it was, I'm probably getting it wrong."
Thea sits up. Takes her glasses off. And she **LOOKS** at Mavis. No rakish smile. "Okay, that's bullshit. You want to keep secrets? Do it for yourself.
Thea exhales through her nose, hands gripping the edge of her futon mattress. "The torches. You wanna know what the torches are for?" She laughs. "I'm afraid of the dark. Heck, I'm afraid of enclosed spaces, too. That's.. why I started laying into you at the club. I was just trying to fit in, to feel human. And there you are, bumbling into me, acting all concerned.. and the lights were flickering off."
Thea notably leaves her bedroom door open.
Mavis is quick to disagree with Thea, but she does provide more context in the same breath, "No, we were already living together and I was starting to catch on that something was.. wrong. I knew she was hiding stuff," she explains, "although, I never would've guessed even close to the truth. She's an awful liar." The mortal gives a quiet, fond laugh about it NOW, but at the time she had been waiting to step on the eggshell that had a landmine hid beneath it.
She scrunches her nose cutely at Thea's admonishment, retorting with, "Okay, fine. I'm doing it for me so that I don't have to feel doubly guilty about it. Besides, it's only two or three a day, wind up giving the rest to Cas." He was "in" on it apparently, but then again sneaking around TWO people living in her house made things doubly difficult and Casper incidentally made a good scapegoat if ever Mavis did smell a little heavy of smoke.
Then, she listens, and patiently peers back at Thea as she removes her glasses, drops her tough girl act. "Really?" Mavis blinks, unsure about the torches. That's a mile to go when a nightlight would do the trick. "I mean, I get it.. Started sleeping with a machete behind my headboard when I found out monsters are real. There's a stake in the driver's door of my truck," she murmurs with a sheepish flush. "And-- Why go out if tight spaces and strobing lights bother you so much?"
Why go out?
Thea shrugs. She seems to predict the 'really'. "There ain't many power points in this place. I don't really like goin' in my wardrobe to fiddle with it." She points at the largely disused walk in robe. "Besides, you never know when the power will go out. Don't trust the wires in this place." Thea eyes Mavis. "I mean, if ya wanna come over and have a toke, you're welcome. But I ain't keeping any secrets from Amity."
"Yeah, I guess if the power goes out the next thing ya do is grab a torch and cuss your way to the fusebox." She rolls her eyes and sits up with a grunt. "I wasn't asking you to, dork," she huffs at Thea, reaching over to flick her on the arm. Kinda hard, actually. Damn, Mavis. Those're some mighty thumpers ya got there. "And it wasn't some innuendo about fucking around neither," she adds, because they ARE in Thea's room and on her futon bed. The mortal just.. felt like she had to touch on that topic for some reason. "I'm not sneaking around like that." She wouldn't. "We're kinda open about that sort of thing. And, besides, I'm going to quit smoking anyways. Need't get, like, some gum or something."
Thea flops back once more. This time her time to indicate disbelief with two syllables. "Uh-huh." But this time, when she lays back, she reaches for her guitar. Drags it along her athletic form. Nudges the amp on with her foot, generating a second of speaker feedback. And, with her gaze unobscured by glasses or her unruly hair, the tattooed Lost looks across to Mavis.
"Please. Sit. I ain't meanin' nothing untoward by having you in here. Promise."
A gesture to the end of the bed.
"It'd just mean an awful lot to me, love, if you'd listen to something I've been workin on." The smile tugs at her lips. Less.. rakish, more.. almost somewhat rueful. Coy. "If ya don't like it, I won't get upset. Promise."
And then she begins to play. Her strong fingers stroking, slapping, plucking at strings. Music starts up, a low thrum that one could feel in their bones.
Thea must be the worst to live next to.
GAME: Thea spends 1 Glamour with reason: to make my performance roll rote and inspire hope in Mavis (using Inspiring Performance)
-> >> Thea to Here << <-==============================================
Rolled 4 Successes
< 1 1 2 2 3 4 4 4 5 5 8 8 10 10 >
==============================-> >> Presence + Expression Rote << <-
Thea hums along as she plays. No words yet. The tune is raw. Unpolished. But it isn't bad. In fact, one might even say it's good. The deep and sonorous music flows through the Lost's bedroom, from her amp.. through the ground, through the air. Heck, through her. Her purple eyes flutter open and she stares up at the sky through that skylight.
"Florida measured
until the water imagined
her
and the fingers played."
The words might as well have been nonsense, but the meaning was there. It was.. hopeful.
"I am sitting," she retorts, but Mavis' expression turns sharper with interest when Thea drags over the guitar. The amp growls to life and Thea assures her that she's wields no ulterior motives for having her over. Mavis doesn't quite look like she buys it, but she gives a small laugh and an even smaller shrug of her shoulders.
"I'm sure some nun would be pleased to hear that you're not trying to get into my knickers," teases Mavis, turning more towards Thea and getting comfortable while the amp fills the room with the heavy thrum of bass. Luckily for Mavis, she's not one of Thea's neighbors. She's the audience and an enrapt audience at that. "I mean, if it sucks I probably wouldn't have the heart to tell ya, but you're living like a punk artist is supposed to." More sincerely, she adds, "I'd love to hear what you've got."
She goes quiet, listening and feeling. When the verse begins, a swell of something hopeful and warm builds in her chest. The corners of Mavis' lips slowly tug higher as the amp joins Thea's voice in the dance of music.
While she plays, Mavis just watches her. Her eyes visit Thea's face, bare of glasses, and her hands on the guitar as they work above the strings.
- To be continued, probably.
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