[ 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. ]
[ He unwraps his sandwich. Severus is.. prying, yes, but not in an aggressive way. He's not going to ask her if she's different, or if she has an 'ability' like her onboard relatives. He doesn't quite know how to make it sound like he's asking in a friendly way instead of a clinical way, but he's trying.
[ Claire's answer is automatic. And truthful. She isn't afraid of herself so much as she is the circumstances surrounding her existence and what that tends to mean for the people she tries to get close to. Maybe she should tell him to run in the opposite direction. Regardless, he has the sandwich, so she finds herself fiddling with the pencil instead, imagining it turning into a bird between her fingertips. ]
I was at first, I think, but now it's just. It's complicated.
Severus - it goes without saying - is rather keen on the whole supernatural abilities thing. Maybe he shouldn't be for all the horror that the wizarding world has brought him, but his life before magic was just that much worse. It was small and personal and inescapable. By himself, when he understands, he's free from all of it. ]
[ Nothing worth having has ever been easy. She understands that. Her friendship with Gretchen was complicated and hard. Every other relationship she has had has been difficult. Severus, in his own way, has been much the same, though whose fault that is remains up in the air. Claire can't ask him the questions she might otherwise, if he wasn't who he was, because she has a feeling that asking him to imagine his life without magic would not be remotely the same as imagining hers without the regenerative power packed into her blood and skin and cells and bones. As a result, she's quiet again for a while, drawing on the tabletop with the eraser end of the pencil. ]
Did Peter - did he tell you anything about us, when you met him? About him? About me?
[ She's going somewhere with it. It's just taking forever for her to build up the momentum to get there. And this is not at all what she came down here for, but somehow it's alright, too. ]
No. I didn't tell him we know each other. You value your privacy.
[ And Severus values his; he didn't go gossiping about her. He didn't go stalking her to find out about Nathan, either. That man really does talk. But he understands. Lately he understands more poignantly than ever, being so angry about Ilde's invasion into his personal affairs and her attempt to conceal that from him.
Maybe it was rude not to say anything to Peter, but he did it with the thought of respecting her in mind. ]
[ Claire gets that, and she appreciates it, and she nods to convey as much. Privacy isn't something that she's ever had to explain to him - except maybe that one time, over Nathan - and that's as motivating a factor as everything else that she's sussed out about him so far. Maybe it's a mistake - it probably is - and maybe she'll regret it - she probably will - but the air smells like coffee and the silence between them is tense but not rife with negativity, and Claire puts the pencil down finally and turns to look at him with a resolved expression. ]
Do you want to see it?
[ Gretchen had basically fallen into it. Zach had been a product of her own selfishness. On some level, this feels different from both. ]
[ 'It' is an odd way to phrase anything. He thinks of Raven, her unblinking yellow eyes staring at him as he walked out of the bathroom in a hotel on Arima to find her having dropped her blonde mask, waiting in judgement for his reaction. ]
He also thinks of Peter announcing he's bloody radioactive. ]
Only if you want me to.
Edited (where did my end tag go) 2014-05-19 06:41 (UTC)
[ Pausing in any sense of the word would only make her retract the steps that she's taken, so Claire doesn't, plunging ahead without looking back. She feels color rise in her cheeks, strangely, but chalks it up to adrenaline. Not exactly having an intimate familiarity with the immediate area, she scoots her chair back a little and balances her palms on her knees. ]
You do realize I'm a teacher and not really terribly inclined to give people stabbing implements when they have that particular look on their face.
[ What are you doing!! Are you going to hurt yourself, Claire. Don't do that. He's probably ruining this moment but at least it's over concern for her and not somebody gleefully ripping her hand open with a pair of scissors? ]
[ Almost on a reflex, Claire narrows her eyes, somewhat annoyed at this stall in her grand, dramatic reveal. At the same time, it does kind of throw into sharp relief how absurd the request and subsequent display sound, but Gretchen had gone for it, and Zach had nearly shit himself when she showed him. For a moment, Claire thinks about just stabbing herself with the pencil but doesn't want to ruin the map with blood. ]
You aren't my teacher. [ Which she realizes is beside the point and a petulant response, but she doesn't care all that much. ] I'll be fine. And I'm not gonna stab you, for the record, just in case it crossed your mind.
[ That's basically the gist of it, without the fanfare. Claire doesn't add that she's done it practically a thousand times before. ]
[ Severus gives her a look right back. Her teacher or not, he doesn't make a habit of enabling people to do harmful things. Not like this, anyway, it's too much of what people expect of him and he can't. She doesn't know that, of course she doesn't, but he thinks maybe more people should react this way to 'give me something to slice a person up with'.
Because that is definitely what her grave intonation meant, alright, he's not dumb.
Another silence happens. Eventually, with a small exhale, Severus reaches out and takes the pencil back. He turns it in his fingers, and it becomes an xacto-knife, which he passes over to her handle-first. The blade is tiny, but functional. ]
[ Rather than make a show of it, rather than present it in any capacity the way that she has in the past, Claire snatches the knife up in delicately, the weight of it in her hand probably more familiar than anyone should rightfully be comfortable with. Whether to placate him or otherwise, she makes no move toward her normal flourish, doesn't cut the blade - no matter how tiny - firmly down the center of her hand, slicing through tendon and skin and looking for bone.
Rather, she spends a moment looking at him, the slant of her eyes frustrated and cagey and caught up. She should press the tips of her fingers against the tiny apex and slash across the pads just to prove a point but something in her falters, and she's not unsure or second guessing herself even if she can't put an unbloodied thumb on what it is that gives her pause. It's a long moment before she moves or even breathes, never mind saying anything. Instead, she just stares at him, confused and annoyed and breathless despite not having actually done anything.
Eventually, Claire turns the knife in her own hand, offering it back to him. ]
When the moment's over and she hands it back, tells him that, understanding crystallizes. She was going to give him a practical demonstration, cut her skin open or slice a finger off to prove it and-- something in him becomes inexplicably angry, far away and undetected, that this young woman has conditioned herself to think that she needs to put herself on display like a circus side-show to embrace her own identity. ]
So you are heat-resistant.
[ The pencil is once again a pencil in his hand. Severus isn't really making a joke; his tone is subdued. He believes her.
[ The slow burning flame of irritation begins to flicker and fade out, fanning into embers as she plucks the pencil back from him and procures a blank piece of paper to scratch doodles out on. It only occurs to her how ironic it is that the very first thing she ever survived is the one thing he believed her to be for so long. Some part of Claire aches for Meredith, thinking about that. ]
There's a lot more to it than that, but, yeah. I guess so.
[ How do you begin to scratch the surface of being unable to feel anything to distinguish you from existing like nothing more than a wraith and being a verifiable flesh and soul person? No matter how much she comes to accept what and who she is, that's something she still can't reconcile, something she is eternally - quite literally, probably, and that's another matter unto itself entirely - going to be resentful for. Peter can stand shoulder to shoulder in forgiveness with the man who stalked her across the country and killed the people that she loved, but Claire doesn't possess that capacity, and she would kill him again if given the chance.
She's not even going to scratch the surface in her own mind about what has just transpired here and what it means to her that he reacted that way. For now she's more comfortable simmering, never mind that it's a misdirected fuming. ]
[ All right. That was probably enough of a tense moment for today. Severus is fine with her simmering anger, because it's an emotion he's familiar with, both experiencing and inciting. He can accept that from her graciously and tolerate it without being offended or hurt. In the face of being unable to be comforting or otherwise helpful, perhaps that'll be enough.
[ She just blinks at him some more, feeling her features rearrange themselves across her face in way that she can't recognize from her vantage point but which strangely feels like relief and suspicion all at once. ]
[ --Wait what. Severus looks back up at her, slightly puzzled. ]
... Yes. [ That word almost-but-not-quite goes up at the end. It takes him a moment to formulate what to say, and when he does it's a little stilted, because he isn't used to articulating things of this nature. ] Whatever's gone on to make you so guarded about, clearly it's not insignificant and I won't dismiss it. But as yourself, to me, it's fine.
[ There's a list a mile long and twice as wide but Claire doesn't expand upon it. Instead, she picks up the pencil again and taps the eraser on the tabletop. She'd like to warn him otherwise, but all she can gather up the conviction to say is: ]
Okay.
[ She knows she's being awkward, and she has to try very hard not to just openly stare at him, but she hopes the amount of gratitude she begins to feel is at least able to be absorbed by some kind of osmosis. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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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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[ He unwraps his sandwich. Severus is.. prying, yes, but not in an aggressive way. He's not going to ask her if she's different, or if she has an 'ability' like her onboard relatives. He doesn't quite know how to make it sound like he's asking in a friendly way instead of a clinical way, but he's trying.
He's bad at it, but he's trying. ]
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[ Claire's answer is automatic. And truthful. She isn't afraid of herself so much as she is the circumstances surrounding her existence and what that tends to mean for the people she tries to get close to. Maybe she should tell him to run in the opposite direction. Regardless, he has the sandwich, so she finds herself fiddling with the pencil instead, imagining it turning into a bird between her fingertips. ]
I was at first, I think, but now it's just. It's complicated.
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[ Like how most things aren't 'easy'.
Severus - it goes without saying - is rather keen on the whole supernatural abilities thing. Maybe he shouldn't be for all the horror that the wizarding world has brought him, but his life before magic was just that much worse. It was small and personal and inescapable. By himself, when he understands, he's free from all of it. ]
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Did Peter - did he tell you anything about us, when you met him? About him? About me?
[ She's going somewhere with it. It's just taking forever for her to build up the momentum to get there. And this is not at all what she came down here for, but somehow it's alright, too. ]
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[ And Severus values his; he didn't go gossiping about her. He didn't go stalking her to find out about Nathan, either. That man really does talk. But he understands. Lately he understands more poignantly than ever, being so angry about Ilde's invasion into his personal affairs and her attempt to conceal that from him.
Maybe it was rude not to say anything to Peter, but he did it with the thought of respecting her in mind. ]
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Do you want to see it?
[ Gretchen had basically fallen into it. Zach had been a product of her own selfishness. On some level, this feels different from both. ]
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He also thinks of Peter announcing he's bloody radioactive. ]
Only if you want me to.
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I need something sharp.
[ Noah, somewhere, is going to kill her. ]
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Following it: ]
You do realize I'm a teacher and not really terribly inclined to give people stabbing implements when they have that particular look on their face.
[ What are you doing!! Are you going to hurt yourself, Claire. Don't do that. He's probably ruining this moment but at least it's over concern for her and not somebody gleefully ripping her hand open with a pair of scissors? ]
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You aren't my teacher. [ Which she realizes is beside the point and a petulant response, but she doesn't care all that much. ] I'll be fine. And I'm not gonna stab you, for the record, just in case it crossed your mind.
[ That's basically the gist of it, without the fanfare. Claire doesn't add that she's done it practically a thousand times before. ]
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Because that is definitely what her grave intonation meant, alright, he's not dumb.
Another silence happens. Eventually, with a small exhale, Severus reaches out and takes the pencil back. He turns it in his fingers, and it becomes an xacto-knife, which he passes over to her handle-first. The blade is tiny, but functional. ]
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Rather, she spends a moment looking at him, the slant of her eyes frustrated and cagey and caught up. She should press the tips of her fingers against the tiny apex and slash across the pads just to prove a point but something in her falters, and she's not unsure or second guessing herself even if she can't put an unbloodied thumb on what it is that gives her pause. It's a long moment before she moves or even breathes, never mind saying anything. Instead, she just stares at him, confused and annoyed and breathless despite not having actually done anything.
Eventually, Claire turns the knife in her own hand, offering it back to him. ]
I heal.
[ That's it. He can have it back now. ]
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When the moment's over and she hands it back, tells him that, understanding crystallizes. She was going to give him a practical demonstration, cut her skin open or slice a finger off to prove it and-- something in him becomes inexplicably angry, far away and undetected, that this young woman has conditioned herself to think that she needs to put herself on display like a circus side-show to embrace her own identity. ]
So you are heat-resistant.
[ The pencil is once again a pencil in his hand. Severus isn't really making a joke; his tone is subdued. He believes her.
He doesn't want to see her bleed. ]
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There's a lot more to it than that, but, yeah. I guess so.
[ How do you begin to scratch the surface of being unable to feel anything to distinguish you from existing like nothing more than a wraith and being a verifiable flesh and soul person? No matter how much she comes to accept what and who she is, that's something she still can't reconcile, something she is eternally - quite literally, probably, and that's another matter unto itself entirely - going to be resentful for. Peter can stand shoulder to shoulder in forgiveness with the man who stalked her across the country and killed the people that she loved, but Claire doesn't possess that capacity, and she would kill him again if given the chance.
She's not even going to scratch the surface in her own mind about what has just transpired here and what it means to her that he reacted that way. For now she's more comfortable simmering, never mind that it's a misdirected fuming. ]
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[ All right. That was probably enough of a tense moment for today. Severus is fine with her simmering anger, because it's an emotion he's familiar with, both experiencing and inciting. He can accept that from her graciously and tolerate it without being offended or hurt. In the face of being unable to be comforting or otherwise helpful, perhaps that'll be enough.
He's going to each this sandwich now. ]
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All right. That's it?
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... Yes. [ That word almost-but-not-quite goes up at the end. It takes him a moment to formulate what to say, and when he does it's a little stilted, because he isn't used to articulating things of this nature. ] Whatever's gone on to make you so guarded about, clearly it's not insignificant and I won't dismiss it. But as yourself, to me, it's fine.
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Okay.
[ She knows she's being awkward, and she has to try very hard not to just openly stare at him, but she hopes the amount of gratitude she begins to feel is at least able to be absorbed by some kind of osmosis. ]
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