27_53 | (no subject)

(no subject)

They need to stock up on a few things, eventually.

It is only normal, after all. Even if this is anything but normal, with her here and both of them still having trouble with things that should be normal. He cannot find the bar (he has not really gone looking, not after the other day and how much it drained him to try) and she is nowhere near able to go looking, either.

So they make plans to head to the coastal town a few miles down the road. It will not be a long walk. There will be cigarettes, there. And maybe even lobsters, if they are lucky.

(He hopes they are lucky. The lobsters deserved it.)

He has his coat (as always) and he's gotten the most of the blood out of it. There are a few tears that need mending, still, but they are unimportant.

"We can cut across the field. It is shorter, that way."

Following the roads is for boring people, apparently.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

She's watching him, in the fuzzy, unfocused way of someone who could be asleep if they tried a little harder, but is feeling lazy about it. Her now-empty glass is settled in beside her, just in case she gets thirsty later.

(There's an open bottle of vodka. It'll happen.)

Finally she realizes what's been bugging her, and sits up a bit.

(Her scalp itches. Salt water sucks.)

"Do you want me to do it?"

Had this been the bar, by the lake, with the lobster creatures closing in - there would have been no question as to his actions. The lobsters would have boiled in the lake along with all the things that also died, as the universes ended around them.

But here.

It is different.

"...it would be easier," he agrees, before finishing off the alcohol in his glass.

Hers is a harsher outlook - she is hungry, they are edible, and she has no love for crustaceans of any sort at the moment. She pushes herself up, making a face at the way her jeans have decided to dry in bizarre, ridged patterns (no really, salt water sucks) and strolls over. She has to stretch to plant a casual kiss on his cheek, before bumping him out of the way.

Or at least trying.

When not a tiger, she's hardly formidable weight-wise.

"Silly. You could just say." The lobsters are doomed.

Birds are hollow-boned, however, so when she nudges into him he moves aside with the contact - thankfully not falling into the pot of boiling water that is reserved for their dinner guests.

"It would not be so much of a problem," he says. "But the boy was...tricky."

He had to confront the child to get his attention. Some of them don't need confronting, simply fetching.

As she drops the first batch of lobsters into the pot, he's refilling his glass. He will move to hers, next.

"The boy was willful." Katya agrees, as she goes about her new job - she has no problem adding the waterbugs to the pot. "But I think it was honestly come by."

She wasn't overly impressed with the parents.

Especially the mother.

She's still trying to shift some of the bad luck flung in her direction by that woman. The things Light Others have to put up with.

"They usually are."

The lobsters do not scream, and the ripple that emanates from the boiling water is barely a blip on his senses. Skellig sets his jaw, though, as he fills her glass.

He's noticed the shifting.

"Can I help?"

"If you can?" She doesn't pretend to misunderstand. "Mothers' curses are shortlived, but very annoying." And they make her skin itch. She disapproves mightily.

The last (of the first batch, anyway) of the lobsters disappears beneath the water, and she turns her attention to catching up on her vodka consumption.

He hands the glass over, focusing on her face.

"I'm not sure. It is not my specialty."

And while they are alike in some ways, in others, she is definitely not like him, and he is not like her.

"We may have to let it wear off."

She pulls a face, but then consoles herself with vodka. It's not anything worse than she'd catch on a normal patrol in Moscow.

For a brief moment, she wonders if she's going soft.

"Bah. Silly boy was more trouble than he was worth." And that, right there, is a lie. She could have no more not gone after him than she could have stopped fighting at the bar.

"Perhaps he will be worth it, someday."

It is helpful to be optimistic, in these situations. And he will not call her soft - not after she did the killing of the lobsters.

He perches on the rock she had vacated, setting his vodka aside to peel out of his coat. He needs to stretch, and it will be safe to do so, here.

She makes a face at his damaged wing, but there's precious little she can do about it at the moment. So instead she monitors the lobsters while drinking her vodka, a slightly mutated version of drinking beer while watching the barbeque.

"Another day, or so, and I can see if I can do more, there." She notes, in a studiously off-handed fashion. She will probably never be a healer, not now. She might have been, once... but that was down a different road.

He's preening, though he may never admit it - working his fingers over the feathers to coax them back into some sort of order.

(Also, there are still bits of god only knows what stuck between them.)

"It is not broken. They will heal."

A few are badly-singed; he plucks them free with nothing more than a wince.

That only earns a 'harrumph' from her - broken, not broken, he isn't flying, and one of them needs to be not completely useless. Since this is his territory, the logical choice is him.

(Never mind it gives her something to do other than fret.)

The lobsters, however, are starting to look a rather cheery red, so it is clearly time to dump the pot of water out onto the somewhat decrepit picnic table. Again, she's confronted with just how useless she is - a few days ago, the pot would have not been a problem to lift.

Ordinary human muscles have an issue with a large heavy pot with lots of water and crustaceans in it.

The lobsters are no longer waving their claws at them, and for that, he is grateful.

He hops off of the rock to grab the box of butter, that has been sitting in the sun. It is not completely melted, but it is soft enough.

Once the majority of the water has dripped off of the coffee table, he drops into the bench, setting the bottle of vodka beside the pile of lobsters. There is a knife, too. And a hammer.

"I'm glad they are not talking to us."

She shudders at that, fastidiously.
"Food should not be capable of speech." That is for vampires and werewolves. She wouldn't have eaten those creatures at the bar for all the tea in China.

"No, it shouldn't," he agrees.

The lobsters in their current state are very incapable of speech. Thankfully. He perches on the edge of the bench, settling in.

He offers her the hammer, if she'd like to crack the first claw?

She accepts, and rapidly deconstructs the lobster in front of her with the precision expected of a battle mage.

Or someone who just likes really good lobster.

She hands back the hammer, then happily begins digging out hunks of sweet meat, pausing only to drag her prize through the butter.

"You have style," he points out, cheerfully.

Before he soundly begins to thwack at his lobster (the first of many) with the hammer. His precision is lacking, but the results are not, and soon he also has a pile of cracked shells and claws to pick the meat from.

The amount of butter he uses is probably unhealthy, but he's not concerned. After fighting off hoards of demon creatures at the end of the universe and then having to reach out for a little boy and drag him back from death?

He is hungry.

And if they can't order Chinese food, then these delicious lobsters will have to do.

They are doing quite well, actually - there's not much better than sweet, fresh lobster and butter. Especially when you get the whole lobster, with all the tasty bits that so many people think are gross.

Katya believes many people are nuts, as she hums happily to herself.

People have always thought Skellig was crazy for the things he enjoys eating, so the gross bits of the lobsters aren't anything that throws him for a loop.

"Perhaps," he says, after he has finished picking all of the edible bits out of his first lobster. "The boy was worth it."

"Perhaps." She shrugs, placing another lobster in front of him, and grabing another for herself. This one she attacks with the knife, flaying the body apart and leaving the claws until later. "At least he got some exercise."

Her humor is a very dry sort of humor.

He takes the opportunity to watch her work with the knife, and also ensures that their glasses of vodka are not empty.

(It will take him less time than it will take her for the body to start to metabolize the alcohol. This will become evident shortly after he finishes this next plastic-cup full.)

"He did deserve it," he agrees. "The exercise. Not the drowning."

In case he needed to clarify.

"Da, but I do not think the mother believes so." She snickers, evicerating the creature as the shell gives under her fingers.

"She is an idiot," he proclaims without hesitation.

If he were more recovered, he could easily crush the shell of the crustacean with his hands.

But he's not, and he's still tired - and the arthritis in his fingers is causing his joints to ache something terrible, lately - so he resorts to using the hammer once more.

"It is surprising the boy has not fallen into trouble sooner."

"Perhaps he has." She shrugs - she's not nearly strong enough to trace through the causality of his life right now. "There could be others." Other Others? She isn't even going to attempt to deal with that grammar. The second lobster rapidly goes the way of the first, and she rises, licking butter off her fingers.

The pot needs refilling - they're gonna need more lobsters, at this rate. She rehydrates with the vodka he so thoughtfully poured for her.