hellonspectacles | (no subject)

Entry tags:

game: darrow

(no subject)

After hours spent peering over blazers and scrutinizing the websites of wine bars in Darrow, after standing in front of the mirror ruffling his hair this way and that, after allowing Cam to first fuss over him, and then to grow tired of his fussing and telling him to get on with it already, Palamedes Sextus finally steps out of his apartment and walks the few blocks to a little cafe on the edge of Petros Park. Regardless of what anyone might tell him, he can’t contain his nerves, though they are overlaid with excitement that makes him walk more quickly towards his destination. It’s only a simple meal with Marianne, he tells himself, and they’ve shared plenty of meals before.

And yet it is more than that. He’s never done something like this before. He has never even thought much about doing something like this before. For Pal, whose heart might be even bigger than his intellect, and who has a bad habit of feeling everything a little more deeply than he should, it is something more.

He pauses about half a block from the restaurant, seeing a figure waiting outside who might very well be Marianne. Pal pauses and takes a breath, running his hand nervously through his hair one more time. And then he approaches her with a wave.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

For the date, Marianne had chosen a sweep of patterned silk on the bottom and a neat black top that leaves her shoulders bare. She's left her hair down, her fringe brushed neatly across her forehead. She glances at her watch and then goes back to the paperback she's holding, her face utterly relaxed when she doesn't know that she's being watched.

In Pal's experience, there is often something decidedly self-conscious about the way Marianne holds herself. Even when she's relaxed and happy, she seems keenly aware of how other people might see her. And while Pal doesn't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that, his heart does a flip when he spots her looking so unaware if her surroundings.

She's absolutely lovely like that.

Marianne doesn't even notice when he waves at her, and Pal becomes careful as he approaches, not wanting to startle her. Finally, he clears his throat and offers a crooked smile.

He clears his throat and she looks up, her dark eyes wide, for a moment, before her smile takes over. She closes the book -- a battered copy of The Remains of the Day -- and slips it into her bag.

"Oh," she says, stepping back half a step so that she can take him in. "You look lovely."

Pal goes a little pink--he'd spent a lot of time considering and second-guessing his clothing choices over the last few days, and it's somehow both embarrassing and gratifying to have his efforts praised. "So do you," he says, though goodness knows, that's significantly less of a surprise.

"You haven't been waiting long, have you?"

"Not long, no," says Marianne, shaking her head and, on an impulse, she offers him her hand. "A few minutes, maybe? I just hate the idea of being late."

Palamedes takes her hand and lets their fingers twine together, feeling a boyish kind of thrill at the gesture. “I’ll try not to be late for you too often, then,” he says with a self-deprecating smile. Single-minded as he can often be, Pal has been known to lose track of time when deep in a book or some experiment.

“Shall we?"

His fingers twine with hers and Marianne squeezes his hand, ignoring a little ripple low in her belly at the touch of his skin against hers. "Lets," she says, with a little smile. "I've never been to this place before."

“Neither have I,” Palamedes admits. While he has enjoyed discovering the variety of food on offer in Darrow, his choices have remained decidedly pedestrian—sandwiches, pizza, Chinese take-out, that sort of thing. While the wine bar isn’t excessively fancy, it isn’t the kind of place he has had reason to visit until now. “But I pass it so often, and it always looks awfully cheerful, you know?” They go in, and soon the pair are seated on the patio with menus in front of him. Pal peers over the wine list, which is full of descriptions that sound like the kind of thing that Historical Recreation would come up with after sampling too much of their experiments. “ ‘Slightly effervescent, with notes of cut grass and wet stone.’ Well, all right."

"I always found those lists unbearably pretentious," says Marianne, glancing up at him over her menu. "What's wrong with just saying that wine tastes like wine?" Her eyes scan down the list. "I think I might have a glass of champagne? I haven't had it much since I got here." The taste of it always reminds her of Italy, for better or for worse.

“I’m sure the experts would say that we have unrefined palates,” Palamedes says with a small grin. “Every year someone in the Library would manage to produce a drinkable bottle of champagne or two, but I get the feeling their efforts were off the mark. I haven't had it since I came to Darrow."

"Maybe you ought to have a glass too?" says Marianne, raising one dark eyebrow. "You know. So that you can compare?" She sets down the menu for a moment, her chin resting in one hand. "Did they do that a lot at the library? Try to recreate things?"

“No time like the present,” he agrees, playfully matching her raised eyebrow. “And this is a celebration of a sort, isn’t it?” His expression turns wry at the question. “Oh, we had a whole department devoted to historical recreation. Though for something like champagne, they usually got into it with food science about budgets and scholarly credit. I’m not sure the results were ever worth the paperwork.”

"Definitely a celebration," says Marianne, shifting her foot under the table to nudge against his. "So what else had you tried before you got here?"

Something about the way Marianne answers and nudges his foot makes his stomach do a pleasant summersault. “Mm, let’s see,” he ticks off some of the past recreation projects he had been privy to, “other sorts of wines, as you might expect. Chocolate was a popular effort, though I fear it always fell quite short of the real thing. Last year a chemist got quite obsessed with Jello, which led to some awfully strange results.” He wrinkles his nose at the memory. “To be fair, our everyday diet wasn’t that far removed from the food here. It was just simpler. Less variety. With fewer sweets, too, and much less meat.”

Marianne's nose wrinkles at the thought of experimental jello. "So do you like it? The wider variety, or do you wish you could just go back to a simpler life?" Marianne has always, actually, preferred simple things, except for the odd luxury - the lemon pastries in Sweden, Champagne in Italy.

“Oh dear, that’s an awfully philosophical question, isn’t it?” And as he believes one should with all philosophical questions, Pal considers it seriously, looking thoughtful. “On a macro scale and speaking practically, dietary simplicity is probably the answer. Having anything and everything at one’s fingertips is a luxury, and if one cannot adjust to scarcity when it becomes necessary, well,” he makes a helpless kind of gesture, “not put too fine a point on it, but humanity did have to be resurrected.”

But then he grins. “That said, it would be a pity to give up chocolate now that I’ve had the real thing. Or the cake with the colored sprinkles and the ridiculous name—funfetti?”

"Funfetti," confirms Marianne smiling. "I had that for the first time when I get here, too. It's not really an Irish thing." She thinks about the everything else he said, letting it sink in for a moment. "You're right on the rest of it, though. Constant consuming isn't sustainable is it?"

“Rationally, I know it tastes the same as any other cake, but the colors make it better somehow, don’t they?” He rests his chin on his palm, turning serious again. “When everyone disappeared and we weren’t sure if they would ever come back, I wondered if—when, honestly—we might have to begin rationing goods in some fashion. Given the small population left behind and what was already available in the city, I doubt we were in danger of starving, certainly not anytime soon, but most people I’ve met are used to a less…managed lifestyle. The idea would have frightened them.”

As he so often does when considering something deeply, Pal takes off his glasses and taps them against his chin. “And that’s the trouble, isn’t it? The very idea of controlling resources seems antithetical to this society, and the ones most people here come from.”

It ought to be surprising that they've ended up having a conversation like this on their first date, but, somehow, it isn't. She nods. As usual, taking his glasses off transforms him somehow, his eyes limpid and lovely. Marianne finds herself distracted for a moment, and, when she realises, she blushes faintly.

"You're right," she says. "I think most of us are from places that are easier than that. Most of the time, anyway."

One of the things Pal likes best about Marianne is her comfort moving between the serious and philosophical and the frivolous and everyday. Intellectually, he knows that some people see a stricter divide between the two, but he has never been very good at keeping them separate. As with all the people he holds most dear, he feels no awkwardness in shifting their conversation from the silliness of tasting notes to the existential threats of overconsumption.

“It also feels different to be denied something than it does to never have it,” Pal muses. “Resources were more limited in the Library, but no one suffered from want, either emotionally or physically. But here, people would experience the same kind of limits as a devastating loss.”

Ironically—or perhaps appropriately—the server chooses that moment to appear at their table and ask them if they would like something to drink. “I think we’re having two glasses of champagne.” He smiles at Marianne. “Have I got that right?”

"Champagne," says Marianne, with a little nod and a smile. When the waiter goes to get their drinks, Marianne turns back to the menu. "Any ideas on what you might want to eat? What looks good."

“Goodness, more choices,” Palamedes quips, setting aside the wine list and picking up the menu. It’s full of words he doesn’t know, or ones he doesn’t quite understand in this context: artichoke tapenade, lavender honey drizzle, tomato jam. “The orzo salad looks nice,” he says, lighting upon something he thinks he can at least picture. “Hmm, or the crab stuffed mushrooms. What do you think?”

"I was going to get calamari," says Marianne. "We could get that and the mushrooms and share?"

She raises her eyebrows. "Unless you want something all to yourself."

"No, no, sharing sounds wonderful," Palamedes says with a smile. "I've never had calamari, anyway, so you've gone and given me an excuse to try something new. It's a sort of cephalopod, isn't it?"

Even though it's true, Marianne's nose wrinkles. She's never liked that word, particularly. She nods, brushing her hair back from her face.

"Squid. They're serving it with lemon aioli, so that should be really good."

Marianne's nose wrinkles charmingly, and it makes Palamedes grin. "Decapodiformes, if we're being precise." He's being annoyingly pedantic, and he's doing it on purpose.

"In any case, it sounds delicious."

"You're teasing me," says Marianne. "Don't think I haven't noticed." Under the table, her hand brushes his knee, nudging him before she takes it away.

Palamedes’ stomach does a flip when Marianne touches his knee. Objectively, he knows the gesture is entirely mundane. Scientifically, he understands that his reaction is all hormones. But that doesn’t change the fact that no one he has ever quite felt this way about has ever patted his knee.

His smile widens briefly. “Maybe a little. I hope that’s all right.”

"I think I could get used to it," she says, brushing a strand of her dark hair back from her face. "It'll take it as a good sign that you're not just completely serious, Warden."

"Did you just call me Warden?" Palamedes gapes at her and nudges her foot under the table. It does sound strange coming from Marianne--not bad, but incongruous. Pal has never minded being surprised.

"You're not the only one who knows how to take the piss," she says, smiling, her cheeks heating slightly when he nudges her with his foot. Her fingers flex slightly on the tablecloth. "I think this might be the first time I've been on a date like this, you know."

"What encompasses 'a date like this'?" he asks, genuinely curious. The general idea of dating isn't foreign to him, but there are subtleties to it that he still hasn't entirely picked up on.

"A date like anything really," admits Marianne, her chin still leaned into her hand. "The kind of men I've been with haven't been that interested in taking me to dinner."

Whenever Marianne says something about the people she has dated in the past, she always speaks so matter-of-factly, as though it would be obvious that others would treat her as barely worth their time. It makes Palamedes heart hurt; it makes him want to ensure that she would never be hurt again. “Their loss,” he says, eyes gentle. “Because you’re an awfully good dinner companion.”

He's beautiful when he looks at her like that, and her cheeks flush in response. She smiles.

"Maybe I've just grown into myself," she says. This time, when she reaches out, it's his fingers that she brushes with hers.

Pal lets the ends of their fingers hook together, even though it makes him blush. Though not particularly self-conscious in general, he’s still surprised at how little he cares if other people think they look ridiculous. “Or maybe they weren’t worth your time, anyway. Either way, I got the better end of the bargain.”

It's not quite holding hands, but Marianne likes it, all the same. It feels like the start of something. "You really think so?"

"Yes, I really do," Pal says. It makes him a little sad, knowing how uncertain Marianne is of her own worth, and he remains determined to keep reminding her until she believes him. "You're quite clever, for one thing--which I know you know, so don't even pretend otherwise. You've given me stacks of book recommendations since we met. You're thoughtful and creative--need I go on?"

"You can stop," says Marianne, her face flushed, a smile still tugging at the corner of her mouth. Her fingers stay hooked with his. "But thank you. That was lovely."

“Only if you insist.” Palamedes has never had much compunction when it comes to complimenting people when he thinks they deserve it. Cam handles it with long-suffering disbelief; Dunclinea used to make fun of him. Never response has ever stopped him before, and Marianne’s blushing isn’t about to, either.

The waiter returns with their champagne, and Pal pulls back his hand back from Marianne’s so that he can set it down. “Do you know what you’d like to order for dinner?” he asks, and Pal smiles at Marianne.

“I think so. Marianne, what was it you suggested, again?”

Marianne tilts her head up to look at the waiter, suddenly a little bit more herself, a little bit more under control as she orders the two dishes that they'd talked about. When the waiter moves away, she looks down at her fingers linked with his.

"This is nice," she says. "Feels like it took us a while to get here, but I'm glad we did."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only