With advancement in technology, we can only assume that ghosts are going to be asking for wifi passwords when they show up to scare the crap out of you.
[ She shows up sometime later, long enough not to have been rushing but quickly enough to be prompt. By now she's gotten used to letting herself in down here, and no one seems as surprised as they had been initially to see something bright and generally smiling slip down to someone equal parts her opposite. Claire has wrapped the sandwich in something resembling wax paper that she found in one of the kitchen drawers on their floor, and although she's as unsure as ever what the meat is actually made of, it tastes fine by her own standards. It is, of course, a very tasty sandwich, and she's managed to procure some coffee as well.
The image of her doing this strikes her as odd only as long as it takes her to get down to the borrowed labs. After that Claire doesn't feel anything about it at all, the same way she would about doing anything else that she has done a handful of times. It isn't routine, but it isn't foreign, and when she's in sight, she offers a wave to dispel anything that might indicate her awkwardness. Which, in turn, might make her look a little more awkward, but she thinks she does alright. ]
I found coffee, too. I'm made of packed lunches today.
[ Severus is never surprised at people being awkward around him, but he doesn't understand why Claire persists. He doesn't dislike her company - though he won't think too hard on that - so he won't turn her away. It's just that he would prefer to understand her motivations, since he can't imagine what she's getting out of this. ]
Made of them, [ he echoes, not looking up yet from something he's sketching out with a pencil and the blade of a ruler on a large sheet of paper. After a moment he looks up. ]
[ Green eyes vaguely make out the shapes his pencil is producing as a small grin quirks its way around the corner of her mouth, tracing lines and looking for patterns, noting the angle of the ruler and thinking idly of geometry periods spent passing notes to Jackie and the last math question she ever tried to solve. Claire squashes both sets of memories by placing her little bag and thermos on the table without preamble. ]
Don't think I'm not expecting you to tip. [ The things that she has brought with her are close enough to his elbow that she doesn't need to pay attention to what ends up being done with them. Instead, Claire lets her attention focus on what he's been drawing. ] What's all that?
[ More lines, drawn with careful, slender fingers. Spider-like if we're going with Harry Potter's narrative, appearing too old for the rest of him. ] A map of the space between here and a room in the old labs, as seen through the perspective of something being teleported.
[ That goes down about three levels beyond her comprehension, and she wonders if Hiro sees something similar, or would see something similar, were he to keep his eyes open rather than screwing them shut so tightly. Claire glances at him once, briefly, and fixes her eyes again on the sketch while she folds her fingers into each other. ]
I've been teleported before. [ She says it after some amount of deliberation, watching the careful and purposed movements of his hand and fingers, the positioning of the ruler and the long sweep of the pencil. Still unable to determine how much she wants to give away about herself - he's paying attention, after all - her voice is carefully thoughtful, though no less controlled than anyone else recalling something from memory. ] I don't remember it looking like that.
This is not an innate ability, [ he says easily, drawing a long spiral shape between lines. ] like Charles Xavier's telepathy.
[ Or the two dozen things your uncle can do, he doesn't say. ]
It's a spell. I'm building an enchantment that will move a person from one place to another by touching and object. Normally it doesn't require this much planning, but the ship is being difficult.
[ Claire doesn't question that allusion, although she knows he could easily draw them between Peter and this, depending on what he knows about him. Knowing Peter, it could be his whole life story. ]
Imagine that.
[ The words feel like they stick to the roof of her mouth a little, catching somewhere on the notion that she isn't as perturbed at the idea of Nathan being comatose as she rightfully should be. Thinking on it is counterproductive, however, considering it's the reason she's down here in the first place. If she can distract herself enough then she won't have to think about being powerless to do something else on this stupid ship. The notion of building a spell is something that strikes her as peculiarly interesting. ]
Building a spell sounds... kind of weird, honestly. When you hear about stuff like that at home, they're just... they just are. No one ever really goes into the mechanics behind it. I didn't realize there could be a process behind it.
[ Severus puts his pencil down and spins it on the table. It turns into a spoon. He picks it up and draws a sigil in the air with it, and a small illusion of a bird flying materializes and fades away as the bird flaps upwards. The spoon turns back into a pencil. ]
I'm able to make it look easy because I've studied every invisible mechanic and understand all of everything I do. It's about looking closer.
[ Anyway. He investigates the coffee she's brought. ]
[ She's charmed. By the bird, at least. With everything that she's seen in the last couple of years, there are just some things that don't even come close, and for as much as she dislikes the circumstances that have brought her to this unfortunate outcome of a spaceship, Claire can't say with all honesty that she's ungrateful or spiteful or any other negative sentiment all the time. ]
I can look as close as I'm able to, and it's still not going to stop being very cool.
[ Her realm of expertise lies more in the physical, and she might be able to make popping bones back into place look easy, but it's never going to have the same effect. At the end of the day, she thinks she would rather be able to turn a light on than regrow her arms and legs. Anyway, coffee. ]
I couldn't find any cream. I figured you wouldn't mind it black.
It's fine. [ Not much of a sweet tooth. ] Thank you.
[ He still sounds strange saying things like that, as if he's not used to being put in situations - even casual ones - where he'd be obligated to. The silence as he sips his coffee begs to be awkward but he refuses to acknowledge it.
Eventually, ] Do you not want to look closer at yourself?
[ It's weirdly not an uncomfortable silence, but it isn't exactly bubbling over with comfort either. Claire uses the time presented to her to study his map more closely, as if staring at it for longer than it takes to recognize that it's comprised of lines and made with pencil will somehow bestow upon her the ability to comprehend it on any sort of practical level.
His question catches her off-guard long enough for her to blink back at him twice, unsure of her own answer as much as she is her own desire. Again, the uncertainty related to sharing and just how much she wants creeps in. He hasn't given her much, though she's guessed on her own, and Claire hasn't offered much in turn - he thought she was fire resistant - but she doesn't believe in evening the playing field that way. She blinks down and fiddles with the crackling sandwich paper. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
i was dead at the time
goodness
and then i vanished
hdu
i am gonna do it again. for tacos. please forgive me
well, since it's tacos.
i knew you'd understand
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[ For all the other disastrous things that are pointed out about him, that's a new one. ]
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[ Because he's texting her. ]
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[ Obviously that's not all there is to this, but hey. ]
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[ Mildly suspicious but it's not like they don't already make a regular thing of food.. ]
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The image of her doing this strikes her as odd only as long as it takes her to get down to the borrowed labs. After that Claire doesn't feel anything about it at all, the same way she would about doing anything else that she has done a handful of times. It isn't routine, but it isn't foreign, and when she's in sight, she offers a wave to dispel anything that might indicate her awkwardness. Which, in turn, might make her look a little more awkward, but she thinks she does alright. ]
I found coffee, too. I'm made of packed lunches today.
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Made of them, [ he echoes, not looking up yet from something he's sketching out with a pencil and the blade of a ruler on a large sheet of paper. After a moment he looks up. ]
Filling your time with a delivery service?
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Don't think I'm not expecting you to tip. [ The things that she has brought with her are close enough to his elbow that she doesn't need to pay attention to what ends up being done with them. Instead, Claire lets her attention focus on what he's been drawing. ] What's all that?
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[ More lines, drawn with careful, slender fingers. Spider-like if we're going with Harry Potter's narrative, appearing too old for the rest of him. ] A map of the space between here and a room in the old labs, as seen through the perspective of something being teleported.
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I've been teleported before. [ She says it after some amount of deliberation, watching the careful and purposed movements of his hand and fingers, the positioning of the ruler and the long sweep of the pencil. Still unable to determine how much she wants to give away about herself - he's paying attention, after all - her voice is carefully thoughtful, though no less controlled than anyone else recalling something from memory. ] I don't remember it looking like that.
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[ Or the two dozen things your uncle can do, he doesn't say. ]
It's a spell. I'm building an enchantment that will move a person from one place to another by touching and object. Normally it doesn't require this much planning, but the ship is being difficult.
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Imagine that.
[ The words feel like they stick to the roof of her mouth a little, catching somewhere on the notion that she isn't as perturbed at the idea of Nathan being comatose as she rightfully should be. Thinking on it is counterproductive, however, considering it's the reason she's down here in the first place. If she can distract herself enough then she won't have to think about being powerless to do something else on this stupid ship. The notion of building a spell is something that strikes her as peculiarly interesting. ]
Building a spell sounds... kind of weird, honestly. When you hear about stuff like that at home, they're just... they just are. No one ever really goes into the mechanics behind it. I didn't realize there could be a process behind it.
[ Probably because it's fiction, Claire. ]
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[ Severus puts his pencil down and spins it on the table. It turns into a spoon. He picks it up and draws a sigil in the air with it, and a small illusion of a bird flying materializes and fades away as the bird flaps upwards. The spoon turns back into a pencil. ]
I'm able to make it look easy because I've studied every invisible mechanic and understand all of everything I do. It's about looking closer.
[ Anyway. He investigates the coffee she's brought. ]
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I can look as close as I'm able to, and it's still not going to stop being very cool.
[ Her realm of expertise lies more in the physical, and she might be able to make popping bones back into place look easy, but it's never going to have the same effect. At the end of the day, she thinks she would rather be able to turn a light on than regrow her arms and legs. Anyway, coffee. ]
I couldn't find any cream. I figured you wouldn't mind it black.
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[ He still sounds strange saying things like that, as if he's not used to being put in situations - even casual ones - where he'd be obligated to. The silence as he sips his coffee begs to be awkward but he refuses to acknowledge it.
Eventually, ] Do you not want to look closer at yourself?
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His question catches her off-guard long enough for her to blink back at him twice, unsure of her own answer as much as she is her own desire. Again, the uncertainty related to sharing and just how much she wants creeps in. He hasn't given her much, though she's guessed on her own, and Claire hasn't offered much in turn - he thought she was fire resistant - but she doesn't believe in evening the playing field that way. She blinks down and fiddles with the crackling sandwich paper. ]
I'm not sure if I'd like what I'd find.
[ Confirmations, mostly. ]
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