bigapplesauce | Don't Believe Me Just Watch

Current Location: Carl Schurz Park on the East River (Rift's edge)
Current Music: September 10th (forward-dated)

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Don't Believe Me Just Watch

"All right kids, here's what it is," says Iman cheerfully. She's punchy today. Spent the last couple days helping Greta move into the formerly-ROMAC apartments, now just apartments - under whose maintenance, well, that's still a bit of a jumble but Greta has a home now, a good safe distance from the former Base, and moreover, it's a beautiful day for some science. She flexes her left hand and gestures demonstratively at the park's edge, the river beyond it, and more to the point, the Rift's border. Not that anyone she knows of has tried escaping Manhattan via the East River, but Satan's notes definitely helped her construct a solid map of its perimeter, and now that she's so close she can almost feel the crackle of energy, tingling a little in her fingers. Exciting stuff.

It's dawn, almost no one's out yet, and at least one of her companions doesn't look too pleased with the choice of hour, but he never looks pleased, so it's moot.

"This is the Rift's edge," she says with a mostly mocking long-buried academic air. "Runs all around the waterfront keeping us boxed in. The rumors tell us that its recent, what do we want to call it, tantrum was immediately preceded by two rifties breaching the border, if not physically, then some other way. We don't know how they did it but we know it can be done." She gives Greta a little smile. They know now that the escapees were Andrew Noble, his husband, and their children, the very same Greta had been looking after - and she knows Andrew had been her first friend here. But the escape has left them with something very important: a proverbial jumping-off point.

"What I'm gonna do is feel it out with this baby." She gives them a little wave with her left hand. "This is what I do back home, and this is possibly the first and last time I'll ever be presented with so clearly delineated a membrane. So if I can't breach it, I can at the very least interact with it, study it, get some idea how far it might bend under the right circumstances. And that's what I'm gonna do."

Well, she's excited anyway. Rush knows he's more or less here to spot her in case something goes horribly wrong, an eventuality she's assured him won't happen, she'll be careful, she promises. Greta, she invited for a little clean fun showing off, and because, well, she wants Greta to know if there's hope of getting home. Much as that eventuality pains her to think about.

Anyway. She cracks her knuckles unnecessarily and gives them a big grin.

"Ready?"

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"Yes, I'm fine." She's a little taken aback by the question, but perhaps she shouldn't be. Everything was so mad after the Rift pulled Iman in, and then she fell unconscious and missed most of what followed. "Rush is, too, I think. It's a little hard to tell, with him." She attempts a smile, faintly conspiratorial because they both know how Rush can be, but she can't banish the worry from her eyes. Iman has never looked like this before, and that's not even counting the makeshift sling. She looks unmoored, as if the smallest wave might wash her out to sea, leaving Greta torn between wanting to reach out to anchor her and fearing the slightest move might trouble the waters.

"Can I get you anything?" she finally asks. "I made tea earlier, I could make more."

"N-no," she blurts, like that offer is just a bridge too far. "No, no tea. I'm fine."

She is fine.

She starts to take off the sling, much as she wants to just rip it away, she manages to be careful, this scarf is so precious to Greta that she asked for it as one of her essentials from home, it - it shouldn't be used like this, not when she is fine.

"I don't need this. I'm okay." She drapes the thing in a pile beside her, easing her arm down to hang loose at her side, it won't move around much if she just holds her shoulder taut, doesn't look too wildly unnatural. She gets up, shoving herself awkwardly off the bed and to her feet. "I need to go out. Need to take a walk."

"Um." Greta had stilled at the refusal, but it's harder to remain so when Iman starts to pick at the knots in the scarf, and she makes an aborted motion to take over, or to stop her, and chokes back a needless 'be careful.' Iman is being careful.

But she's obviously not fine.

Greta rises to her feet when Iman does, alarmed by the thought of her just walking out the door. Where on earth is she going to go? "But Rush will be back soon," she says. And it's true that Rush probably wouldn't be pleased to come back and find Iman out for an unlikely stroll, but that's not really why Greta wants Iman to stay put. The Rift attacked her; she was so nearly lost. And now she just wants to go? How would she have liked it if Greta had decided to just go out for a wander right after being released from that awful ROMAC cell?

"You can't just leave," she says, caught somewhere between indignation and distress. "Not on your own, anyway. I'll come with you."

Edited 2015-05-09 18:21 (UTC)

"No." She raises a hand in a sharp, frustrated motion, unable to keep it battened down, that feeling when someone tells her she can't. Unable to pull herself together, to give Greta the patience she deserves, unable to look her in the eye. "Just - Don't tell me what I can't do."

She turns away, fussing haphazardly with her hijab. "I'll come back, I just - need to be alone."

Iman has never been short with her before, and Greta blanches, then reddens, as if she's been slapped. Her immediate and entirely unhelpful impulse is to snap right back, and she gets as far as, "But you--!" before she cuts herself off. But she... what, ought to think more of other people's feelings when she's the one who got chewed up and spat out by the Rift? Ought to be more careful, as if she can't handle a walk around the block because her arm is injured? There's nothing wrong with Iman's legs.

And Greta knows, a little too well, the frustration of being ordered to stay put for the sake of someone else's peace of mind.

But that doesn't mean she's happy about this. Her hands lift and drop in a gesture of exasperated defeat, and her voice is ragged when she says, "Fine." Rush won't be happy, either, but what is she supposed to do, tackle the woman? She turns her back on the door and presses a hand to her forehead; the other she flaps in bitter dismissal. Go, then.

Shit.

Shit.

Too late now. Need to go. Can't breathe in here, not in the hallway or the stairwell, not until she's back outside. She barely remembers leaving the apartment, almost as soon as she's outside, everything is all blurred together, everything since the rift pulled her in.

She shudders violently and her arm doesn't move with her, a heavy dead weight. Squeezes her eyes shut against the very close memory and all she sees is Greta and Rush looking at her with, with pity, with-

She walks into the street. Cars screech to a halt, horns blaring around her, some just swerve caustically around her. Whatever. She's already fucked and she's got places to be.

She feels the prickle and sting of eyes much more acutely now, like they all know, like they can see that dead arm for what it is, not just an arm hanging casually at her side - no, no, she realizes, catching the eye of one woman in particular, an obvious tourist with a five year old by the hand, scowling at her from a distance. Oh, right. Look everyone, a Muslim. Apparently that's a big fucking deal here.

She looks back for a while. It used to be so easy to ignore that. These thoughtless people with their mindless prejudices, what do they matter? The people who matter to her don't give a shit. And she can take care of herself. Ain't nobody scares her.

Well, now what. One-armed and weaponless. Now the stares dig at her and the grimaces, the looks of pity, god, it's too fucking much. She reaches up abruptly and rips the hijab off, wrapping it over her shoulder, under her arm, knotting it awkwardly with one hand and her teeth. It's painful and difficult but she pulls it off, hey look everyone, now she has a nice colorful sling. Stare at her for that.

That's better.

That's why she's worth noting now. Get it right.

She keeps walking. She doesn't know why, apart from why the fuck not, but she's heading for Carl Schurz.

Greta's hurt, cold Fine rings in her ears.

She reaches the river's edge, approximately where she stood this morning, and stares at it. The breeze is cooler off the water and she shivers, unaccustomed to having her ears exposed. The involuntary motion almost knocks her loose, and she draws a shaky breath, dangerously close to tears. No. Fuck you. No.

"I was just curious," she mutters. "Why did you have to - I was just trying to..."

She stops. She's being stupid, like a little kid. Arguing with things that aren't there, might not even be able to hear her.

She wraps her arm around herself, willingly pulling at the sore muscles in her shoulder, and for a while she just wishes she could disappear again, if not for good then at least fucking quietly.

The difficulties Rush endured in locating yet another cab were far from the most disagreeable circumstances to arise from a day that has been little else but a sequence of disagreeable cirucumstances, but that ridiculously complicated task managed to stand out by virtue of requiring him to adequately manage the exchange and request and money and distance and navigation and various social cues for which he had very little time or patience, and he has a profound objection to the necessity of interaction with people who insist on wasting his time. As if in recompense, pinpointing Asadi's most likely location was no great challenge.

The solution set to the problem of her arm had presented itself easily, though the difficulties arose in converting theories in abstraction to practice in what is immediate, and the solution set to locating her had been a deceptively simple function. He is certain Asadi is aware of this.

He fires a brusque response to Greta's anxious commentary - 'found her' - as he approaches Asadi, she who has her back to him and her arm in a sling and with her hair spilling over the lifting breeze, and finds he can think of nothing to say.

He stops, clipped and weary.

The subtleties of meaningful interaction are not a science he is wholly interested in, and would have preferred to leave that largely to Greta, who rather excels in that particular area. But clearly that will be a non-workable solution here, and so he does not execute.

He watches her, and the crease between lowered brows darkens.

"Well," he says neutrally, folding his arms. "That was fair fucking predictable."

She lets her eyes fall shut, for a moment not certain if she's annoyed or relieved, too numb to feel either very strongly. When she turns around it's slow, awkward, like she's confronting someone she hasn't snapped at plenty of times, half-carried to safety more than once, rescued from his own failure to interact with people on countless occasions, and considered, in passing and never out loud, a friend. Sort of withdrawn and sheepish. She's been caught.

"I yelled at Greta," she says meekly. It's not very helpful but it's the only thing she can think to say.

He blinks at her once, slow and exaggerated, and hisses a lengthy hush of breath out between his teeth.

"And?" he says pointedly. "I thoroughly doubt she'd be one to hold it against you, particularly given your current predicament. And there's the matter of her rather rampant - " He pauses as his phone hums its indication of another text, eyes narrowing in exasperation. " - concern over your whereabouts."

He is aware he has entered territory through which he has little idea how to correctly navigate.

Asadi's gaze is difficult to meet, but he meets it steadily regardless, his tone even enough to perhaps be construed as gentle. "That sort of reaction is not atypical."

She feels a little tug of longing, faint and far-off, at the knowledge that Greta is worried about her. She nods almost obediently at his awkwardly delivered wisdom, swallows and pulls herself more or less back together. She looks around herself scornfully.

"If you wanted to say you told me so," she says, "I guess go ahead."

A glimmer of her more characteristic hard edge notches into place, which is beneficial from multiple perspectives. Most predominantly, it is beneficial from the perspective of concern regarding her emotional-mental state, which had not been altogether optimal for reasons that were clearly delineated at the time.

Rush looks away, one corner of his mouth twisting in a muted grimace.

"Attempting to predict what is by its nature unpredictable," he says quietly, "is an inherently problematic approach."

The air silent but for the hiss of wind over water. He inclines his head, and adds with the faint lift of eyebrows, "and there was no predicting the end result."

Not much of a comfort. She chews her lip and stares for a few moments at the ground. He wants to take her back, obviously, but she doesn't feel like moving - glued more or less to the scene of the event.

"You went in after me," she says, drawing out a pause, not entirely sure where she's going with this. "Did it..." What, hurt? No shit. She knows that much. She shakes her head as if to brush away the question. "Are you okay?"

The locked nature of his demeanor resolves under the pressure of a faint smile, uneven and incomplete.

"I'm fine." A conclusion quickly reached from a relative standpoint, and from any standpoint worth his time and interest. The pain in his shoulder has not completely faded following its initial flare, nor has that collection of raw and searing nerves regressed to their painless baseline, but he found both discomforts negligible and he will not devote undue thought or worry to anything so insignificant. He has this as a policy, and that is vastly preferred. "Frankly, that's not what I'd consider my primary concern."

He closes the distance gapped between them, to all exterior appearances untroubled and unhurried, indicating her arm in its sling with a subtle tilt of his head. "Are you?"

"No," she says flatly. It should be obvious. She knows it probably is. She doesn't want to get into it here. She'll have to, soon, but not yet.

"Look, um." She looks down briefly, then back up at him, meeting his eyes. He's gonna hate this, and she's not super comfortable with it either, but it needs to be said. "Thank you for saving my life."

He can appreciate bluntness, as bluntness has the favorable tendency to cut cleanly over useless social requirements and or niceties and arrange everything surely and visibly, a neat, clean drape over the obvious pain and subsequent discomfort. There is no need for them to discuss what neither of them are willing to discuss. It is well understood.

"You have made quite the habit of spontaneously saving mine, even when I've specifically told you not to," Rush answers dryly. "Though if present memory serves, that count still seems to be rather skewed in your favor."

"Yeah, well." Iman doesn't know what to say to that. She's touched, she thinks. Everything is still a little foggy.

"I guess we should go back," she says unevenly. "I... I don't want to keep Greta waiting."

She starts walking, drifting more like, her gait a little unsteady. It's starting to catch up to her, all that fatigue and nervous strain. Maybe he won't notice.

He nods, arms unfolding in a brusque unraveling to trail at his side as he pivots and draws even with her. She walks on a course askew and inconstant, clearly unbalanced from the accumulated daily buildup of unfavorable conditions.

It leaves him with an unclear idea on how to best proceed.

He knows what tactic he would prefer, what level of interpersonal distance he would favor, but in Asadi's case, far removed as she is from his understanding of her baseline, Rush has admittedly a limited pool of options available to him. She appears to hold a firm dislike for any personal mannerisms that may indicate physical or emotional vulnerability. This much is obvious and immediate, and it is not unlike his own aversion to those states of being.

In a situation that has grown potentially tenuous, he is aware that an incorrect choice will yield incredibly poor results.

He is aware of this.

He is also aware that action may be required.

Rush watches her in wavering indecision before insinuating one hand easily into hers as a firm point of guidance to the cab he is reasonably certain he ensured will still be waiting for them.

"She's aware you're unhurt," he says with projected insouciance, vaguely dismissive. "Though I imagine she'll be predisposed to worry in any case."

She can't quell the twitch that passes through her when he takes her hand what, what is this, for a moment she can't do anything but stare down at it, though she doesn't resist it.

This would be the worst thing, the absolute worst, if it had come from anyone else. An expression of pity, or a subconscious gesture of guiding her around like a dog. But Rush doesn't just do this, in fact he makes a supreme point of avoiding it, so why-

It's unfathomable. She cannot fathom.

But it's also something he hasn't extended ever before, and she's in no position to refuse it. Not after today.

She allows him to walk her along. It does help a little. She begrudgingly admits to herself. It's weird and awkward and WEIRD but it's gonna keep her upright and in the right direction. She maintains a sort of detached tone of voice to play-act normal. "Is that what I am?" She grimaces to herself. "Unhurt?"

"You're alive," he says, simple and direct. He does not look at her, concentration devoted wholly to the progression of their path versus the progression of linear thought. "You're here. You've encountered an obstacle."

The cab is indeed still waiting for them when they draw into its view. Rush shoots her a wry upward pull of his mouth, small and sidelong, darkened by the troubled notch of a faint frown. "No obstacle is lacking in workarounds." He releases her hand deftly to open the cab's door with a quiet click, and angles his chin to indicate its interior. "I'd know."

Edited 2015-05-12 01:24 (UTC)

She dips her head to avoid his eyes when he lets go of her hand, leaning down awkwardly to crawl into the cab. She doesn't answer any of his remarks. None of them are a comfort. What use is she like this? What possible workarounds are there.

This is not the place for that conversation.

She curls up against the window, staring dully out as the scenery moves by, the driver delivering them back to Greta's building.

The moment the door had swung shut, Greta had felt like the worst kind of fool. How could she have done that, snapped at Iman right after she'd been through something so terrible? There's no excuse; she should have known better. She should have been patient.

She considers going out after her, trying to catch up, but Iman had wanted to be alone, and the streets are so crowded. She can't even spot her from the window. And Iman had said she would come back - what if she did, and found the apartment empty? No. Greta can't go out looking for her.

So she does the next best thing. A few anxious texts to Rush later, she at least has his assurance that he'll try and track her down.

The scarf is still in a sorry little pile on the bedspread. Greta picks it up and folds it neatly, then holds the little bundle in her hands and stares down at it for several long moments. Her arms twitch and her chin drops, an aborted motion to lift the thing and bury her face in it, but no. This time, it's not home she's missing. She returns it to its usual place, slides the drawer shut, and looks around the apartment in a miserable daze.

Just… the worst kind of fool.

She can't stand the thought of more actionless waiting; she had her fill of that while Iman was unconscious. So she sets about making bread, the motions easy and familiar, enough so that she can still go through them with her attention largely divided between her phone and her worries.

Rush texts her. He's found Iman. Thank goodness.

More waiting. More bread. Until she reaches the part where she has to cover it and let it sit, leaving her with nothing to do but wipe down the counter, and once that's done she'll have nothing to do but pace unless she decides to straighten the rumples Iman left out of her bed, and she's not sure she could bring herself to do that.

Fortunately, the knock comes just as she's finishing the counter.

She opens the door, and there they are - Rush looking typically inscrutable, Iman with her hijab repurposed into a sling. Greta lets out a heavy sigh, and there might be a hint of and-what-sort-of-time-do-you-call-this to it, but for the most part, it's just immensely relieved.

"Greta," says Rush with a polite nod, as though he is initiating a nebulous, courteous, moronic exchange of superfluous introductions prior to some routine social gathering and not returning an injured, wayward dimensional physicist to an apartment that is not hers.

He sweeps in once Asadi has crossed that threshold and spreads out the unexceptional arrangement of tools procured from the desolate canvas of his old apartment, depositing them neatly in a lateral spill over one of the more immediate lateral surfaces. Asadi had not been terribly responsive for the majority of the trip and had crossed into a territory of locked, deadened silence, and it had been a state of affairs he had found manageable if not ideal. Greta, he has found, is rather more adept at interpreting and reciprocating those nameless conversational cues and he will leave that task to her capable skillset while he organizes his own.

Iman steps in, keeping her arm wrapped around herself as though trying to make herself look smaller, keeping her eyes first on the floor, then on Rush as he walks around her and deposits his paraphernalia, oh great, looks like he's all set to figure out his 'workaround', she so looks forward to having that conversation.

Finally she looks up at Greta, feeling her heart sink with the shame of what she'd said, how she'd treated her. "Greta, I-" she stammers, feeling herself flush. "I'm so sorry."

Rush steps past and sets an assortment of tools on the table - just as well he didn't pick the counter, or she would have had to scold him - but she only gives him a cursory glance, most of her focus on Iman. Iman, who stands there, shamefaced, as if she only caught the trace of impatience in Greta's sigh and not the overwhelming rest of it. Iman, apologizing.

"Oh," she says softly, appalled. "No, it's--I'm sorry, I, I shouldn't have..." Oh, dear. This is all wrong.

And she should probably give Iman the space she obviously wanted and might still want, but now that she's standing right in front of her... she can't stop herself. Greta closes the little distance between them and pulls Iman into her arms, taking care with her left shoulder. "I'm glad you're back," she murmurs.

"No, it's okay, it's-" With relief and surrender Iman slumps into her arms and lets Greta hold her up for a bit, resting her head on her shoulder. This moment isn't going to last, in fact it's going to die very soon because Rush is still laying out tools, working away over there, and she's going to have to confront that and soon, but not just this minute.

"I just needed to breathe," she murmurs. "I'm sorry it was like that. I..." She won't get any further, she suspects, without her voice wavering, and that would be unacceptable. After another moment she pushes back gingerly. "I'm okay," she lies.

That's done. She can't hide there anymore. Slowly, heavily, she turns to look at Rush.

"What are those for," she says dully.

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dissociation, self-endangerment, lateral bigotry

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