bigapplesauce | find me when you wake up [closed]

"Yeah." Iman nods grimly at that. She has no desire to dwell on it, and she knows Greta doesn't either; this day is not about that. Carefully balancing the syrup, she leans back over to nuzzle gently against Greta's shoulder.

"We're okay now," she says. "I'm just... I'm so happy you're safe."

Let's not get too emotional here. She draws a breath and then offers the syrup. "Shall we?"

Greta turns her head almost automatically, her cheek brushing against Iman's hijab. She doesn't trust her voice enough to respond aloud, so she presses a kiss to Iman's forehead, instead. She's right, of course. They're both safe. They're both out. It's over.

And there are more immediate concerns, like getting the syrup onto the pancakes without getting it everywhere else. "Let's," she replies, supporting the bottom of the cup so Iman can pry off the top. She carefully upends it over the pancakes, and... oh, dear, it's already pooling a bit close to the edge in one corner. One hand goes under the container to try and even it out a bit; the other hastily deposits the empty cup into the bag.

"This is going well," she says, a wry smile tugging at her lips. "We probably should have gotten a plate." Not that she's making any move to go get one. Rather, she settles in a bit more snugly against Iman's side and attempts to cut into the pancakes without dumping syrup into their laps, pulling her lower lip between her teeth as she concentrates.

"Nah." Iman grins, watching Greta work. "It'll be fine. We'll eat slowly."

She hesitates, wondering if she should pick up a fork and try to eat, or...

"Um," she says. "You know, since I only have the one arm it might be better if I... if you..." She chews her lip, not sure how to ask for this, though she's reasonably certain Greta won't mind. "Here." She moves her hand to grasp the plate, holding it steady for her. "If you wouldn't mind, um, feeding me? This might be a little easier."

She's definitely not blushing. If she thinks hard enough that she's not blushing, it will be true.

It's a somewhat startling request, though perhaps it shouldn't be. Greta can only assume Iman's been managing well enough on her own these past few weeks as far as feeding herself is concerned, and hadn't thought to offer help beyond cutting the pancakes into manageable bites and nudging them in Iman's direction. More than that, she'd figured, would just come across as patronizing; you don't need two hands to operate a fork.

Then again, given the precarious state of the dish and the difficulty of cutting things up one-handed, it might take more than three hands for them to both feed themselves without making a truly horrendous mess (or just taking all day to do it). She has little doubt that it would be easier if Iman took over steadying the plate and left Greta both hands to deal with the pancakes.

But most importantly, Iman asked. She wants help, and it's no trouble from Greta's perspective, and refusing is unthinkable.

"Not at all," Greta replies with a reassuring smile. "In fact, as long as you've got the dish..." she carefully slides her hand out from beneath it and helps herself to the second fork. It's much easier to coax the pancakes apart with one fork to hold them steady and the other serving as an impromptu knife, and it's not long before she's reduced a portion of them into bite-sized pieces. She spears one for Iman and one for herself, loads them both up with syrup, and waits for them to stop dripping overmuch. "Here we are," she says, offering one forkful to Iman and popping the other into her own mouth at the same time.

Oh. That is good, and she lets out a satisfied hum.

For a moment she's fairly terrified Greta is going to laugh at the weird suggestion, but then she just goes along with it, of course, because she's lovely and nice and she likes taking care of people. After the way things went with the Lucifer incident, Iman is trying to make sure she doesn't take that for granted, or deny her help outright.

She takes the bite off the offered fork and smiles as she watches Greta eat hers.

"You like that?" she says. "Diner pancakes are the best. There's something about them that... it's like they should be gross but they're just delicious." She grins. She's a bit punchy but that's to be expected, surely. "I'm so glad I have the honor of introducing you to diner food."

Greta hums as she helps herself to another forkful, giving this one a more professional assessment. She doesn't have much of a frame of reference for diner food, and can only take Iman's word for it that it shouldn't be as good as this. They taste fine to her, and she's fairly certain she could replicate it. Perhaps even improve it; she could see a stack of plain pancakes getting a bit monotonous without something besides syrup to add more flavor. Fruit, maybe - if she finely chopped some apples or added berries to the batter...

She catches herself before she gets lost completely, and hastily offers Iman another bite. (Is this even Iman's fork? She's already lost track. Oh, well, neither of them have a cold so it hardly matters, right?) "I was just thinking of how I might make them," she admits with a sheepish smile. "But they are good, so I thank you for the introduction."

The next piece she offers has a bit too much syrup on it, and it ends up dripping onto Iman's chin. "Oh! Sorry," Greta says with an embarrassed giggle. And Iman can't even see to it without releasing the dish, and then they'd really have a mess. Oh, dear. "Hang on..." She sets down her fork so she can wipe the syrup away with the pad of her thumb. "There. Well, we knew it would be messy." She snorts, amused, then absently licks the syrup off her thumb before regaining her fork and cutting them a few more pieces.

"Oh, it's-" She stops, screeches to a halt, more like, when Greta reaches out to clear the mess with - does she realize what she's - how intimate this - oh, okay, all right, yeah. This is happening. And now she's...

Iman stares at her for a long moment as her brain completely flatlines. That was nothing. It was nothing! Just a doting maternal gesture, or a favor from a friend who gives no fucks, why bother being a prude about it, right?

Get it together holy shit, any minute she's going to notice this very conspicuous goddamn silence. Iman clears her throat and opens her mouth to accept the next bite, grinning at her, hopefully not too manic about it.

"I bet yours would be better," she says, frantically moving forward.

It isn't often that Iman is reduced to a stunned silence, at least in Greta's experience. She gives her friend a brief, bewildered look, not knowing quite how to interpret the expression on her face, but feeling her cheeks prickle in response. Something's wrong, she's made some sort of embarrassing misstep, but what? Was it... oh. Her dropped gaze lands right on the napkins, currently spread over the blanket as a first line of defense against a more catastrophic spill. She could have used one of those - should have, obviously, that's what they're here for - even though syrup is sticky and it probably would have just resulted in Iman's chin getting covered in paper fiber as well. Regardless, it would have been a bit more dignified than Greta's casual use of her hand, as if Iman was her child as opposed to her friend.

Is this what Iman gets for asking for help? Greta babying her right out of the gate? Ugh. Small wonder if she doesn't think twice about asking for assistance, next time.

"Sorry," Greta says, blush deepening despite Iman's game attempt to move things along. "I didn't mean to, um... mother you." And she can hardly follow up that apology by offering her another bite, oh dear, this is appalling. She can't even move, can't risk shifting herself for fear of upsetting the arrangement across their laps. With so few options available for venting her mortification, she ultimately ends up dropping her forehead onto Iman's shoulder with a groan. "I wasn't even thinking."

"What?" Crap. Nooooo. This is precisely what she didn't want to happen. "No, no it's fine! Sweetheart, it's fine." She lifts her hand gingerly from the dish to rest it on Greta's head. "It just surprised me, that's all. It was sweet."

She curls her fingers, scritching gently at Greta's scalp. She hopes that's not weird. "You're my friend," she says. "I know you aren't mothering me."

That's nice of Iman to say, but Greta's not entirely sure she wasn't. Or maybe she's just not sure what else to call it if it wasn't mothering, as it seems a bit beyond the scope of friendly aid. Regardless, she ought to know better. She has seen how skittish Iman can be, knows how rarely it ends well when she allows herself to get too... too close, or too overbearing. Too insistent on offering what she assumes Iman needs, regardless of whether she's asked for it or not.

At least she was lucky this time. Iman's not upset, not pushing her away. But she still ought to be more careful.

She's giving the pancakes a baleful look - somewhere between 'this is all your fault' and 'you'd better not spill' - when Iman curls her fingers into her hair. It feels divine, and Greta's hum of stubborn self-recrimination changes its key, tapering off into a sigh. This is nice, a forgiveness more easily believed than mere words. Her eyes drift shut, and her posture is well on its way to a boneless slump before she catches herself and mumbles, "I'm going to fall asleep if you keep doing that," into Iman's shoulder.

Which doesn't sound so bad. It was hardly a restful evening. But there are still pancakes to be dealt with.

Iman frowns when Greta doesn't seem to want to let herself off the hook, but then she - she makes a soft satisfied sound and a sigh and Iman can feel her settling, relaxing, getting heavier on her shoulder like she really is about to just drift off. It's nice. It's wonderful. Iman could not be happier.

This cannot happen.

Greta really, really likes this, and yeah, it's a motion that feels objectively nice, it doesn't have to relate to anything untoward, doesn't have to ping as anything other than platonic affection in Greta's mind, but Iman can't shake the feeling that she is taking advantage. So after a moment, lips pursed briefly, before Greta looks back up - she lifts her hand away.

"Well that won't do," she says, relaxing back into a smile. "We should at least finish our breakfast first."

Greta's caught somewhere between the private acknowledgment that she should sit up and force herself to be a bit more alert, even though it will mean gently moving Iman's hand away, and actually making herself do it (no easy task, as she's deliciously comfortable just as she is), when Iman saves her the trouble. It's probably just as well. Disregarding the pang of disappointment she feels at the loss of Iman's hand in her hair, Greta lifts her head and resettles herself into a more upright position.

"I suppose," she agrees with mock reluctance, as if eating pancakes is such a chore. Her smile is genuine, though, if still a little sheepish.

After a bite or two, she adds, "Fruit - that's what I'd put in the batter, I think." There, back on an even keel, as if that awkward moment never happened.

"Oh, yeah," says Iman brightly, relieved that things have leveled again. "That's a common practice. Blueberries or bananas, usually. Both very good." She smiles as she takes another offered bite. "There's lots of ways to prepare them. They're kind of notoriously hard to make for people who, you know, don't know how to kitchen. But I bet you'd be great at it."

Down, girl.

Still, self-deprecation aside, this is nice. A good recovery date between friends. They continue eating and chatting until the pancakes are no more, and she's able to oh-so-carefully nudge the syrupy tray onto the coffee table, beside her laptop. On a whim she moves to open the computer, one-handedly clicking into a browser window and heading off to Netflix.

Greta helps clear things away, at least to an extent. The forks and used napkins get dumped back into the bag, which really ought to get thrown out completely, but that would involve getting up. And for the moment, at least, that's more than Greta wants to do; she's pleasantly full, and they have such a cozy arrangement on the couch that she doesn't want to break things up until they must. So she sets the bag as far enough away that she won't be kicking it by accident, and deems that good enough to be getting on with. They can deal with it properly later.

Leaning back against the couch, Greta stifles a yawn and watches Iman navigate the computer. She smiles when Netflix pops up; that means more Cultural Education, as Iman likes to call it. She hasn't shown Greta much, and not in quite some time - not since the Rift had its way with her arm, really. It's nice to see Iman in the mood for it again.

"What is it this time?" she asks, idly rearranging the blanket.

"Something nice, I should think," she says idly, clicking through their options. "Maybe something for kids. There's a lot of nice animated movies out there. You know about animation?" She glances over her shoulder. "People draw the entire movie - by hand, originally, now with computers - and they get animated into a motion picture. People provide voices for all the characters. It's really fascinating stuff." She does a cursory search for available Disney movies and finds Netflix's options to be sorely lacking. She tuts softly and consults the internet at large. Within moments she has several links at the ready. This isn't strictly legal but it'll do.

"Here's a fairy tale," she says. "I remember it from when I was a kid. Weird how much media there is in common between worlds." She smiles at Greta. "Beauty and the Beast?"

Edited 2015-08-11 22:32 (UTC)

People draw entire movies by hand? A faint line appears between Greta's brows as she tries to imagine what that would even entail. Fairy tales, though - she can hardly object to that, and this one in particular sounds vaguely familiar. "I think I've heard about this one, too," she says, already curious to know what Iman's universe's take on the tale is. Maybe it'll be similar to what they're about to see.

"Oh," Greta breathes shortly after the music begins and the first images appear onscreen. "It's beautiful." She almost adds an incredulous, 'someone drew that?' But before she can get the words out, the narrator begins with, 'Once upon a time, in a faraway land,' and Greta falls into an instinctive, rapt silence.

It doesn't take long for Greta to determine that this is rather different from the version she's heard. She could have sworn the girl had sisters, and that her father was a merchant, not an inventor. But these are small quibbles, easily explained as differences between universes, and nothing compared to how good the rest of it is.

And it's all so much like home. The little village with its bakery, the cottage, the cobblestone streets, the singing - nobody does that here, yet it's second nature in this little hand-drawn world. It's wonderful. It hurts. Greta shifts a little, sliding down the back of the couch and leaning her head against Iman's shoulder, not wanting her friend to see her face and stop the movie, not wanting to seem as if she needs comfort, but wanting it all the same.

Iman is just sleepily enjoying the movie for a while, and it's not until she glances at Greta to get her reaction to Gaston that she realizes something is very wrong. It doesn't take much to guess what it might be, and she reaches out quickly to hit the space bar on her laptop.

"Greta," she says, pulling back and sliding her hand onto Greta's cheek. "I'm so sorry, I - I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry." She tilts her head with an apologetic little smile, hoping Greta doesn't think she's put out or anything. "We can watch something else, if yo like."

Greta starts when Iman pauses the movie, both relieved and bereft by the interruption, and then mortified when she realizes why it's happened. "No, it..." this isn't Iman's fault, there's no way either of them could have guessed it would be so familiar, fairy tale or no. She covers Iman's hand with her own, holding it in place for a beat or two as she tries to gather herself.

"It wasn't your fault," she says first, because she won't have her friend blaming herself for this. "You didn't know--you couldn't have known. It just..." she gently pushes Iman's hand off her cheek, but doesn't release it. She just takes it between her own, lowering it into their laps and turning it over between her palms as if it's a puzzle she's trying to solve. "It was just so much like home," she says with a wobbly attempt at a wistful smile. "With the-" she laughs once, heavily, as if someone had thumped their hand against her back and knocked it out of her, "--the singing and all."

Edited 2015-08-12 02:43 (UTC)

"Well, I'm still sorry." She smiles down at Greta's hands as they work over hers. It's a nice feeling, even if it's a bit anxious at heart. She likes it, and, cautiously, she allows herself to like it. "We can find something not-so-familiar."

She's about to tug her hand gently free before she stills, her brain catching up to what Greta just said. "Wait." She smiles bemusedly at her. "The singing. Are you telling me you lived in..." Is she really going to say this. Well, she supposes it's no weirder than 'fairy tale'. "...A musical?"

"... Yes?" Greta pauses in her absent toying with Iman's hand, looking a bit bewildered. "I suppose if that's your word for it, then yes." She'd never thought to distinguish between the way things worked at home and the way things worked here until she'd realized how different they were in this particular regard, and even then, she hadn't really thought about terminology. She just knows that people don't sing here unless they're performing, and any ambient music can ultimately be traced to speakers if you poke around for them. Back home, music was just... in the air. It would sweep you up when you were just going about your business and carry you along for a while.

Not so, here. She hasn't felt like singing - really felt like it - since she arrived.

"It wasn't exactly like that," she admits, glancing at the screen. "I mean, it wasn't often that the whole village got into it."

"Whoa." Iman's eyes go a bit wide, for a moment wearing a look of pure scientific curiosity. "That's fascinating. Did you do a lot of singing yourself?" She expects Greta has a lovely voice. Does this mean she was a - a main character? This is a little too weird, the more she thinks about it.

She diverts her attention back to the computer, closing out of Beauty and the Beast and slipping back to Netflix. She scrolls through the available animated features and stumbles across one she's never heard of, The Secret of Kells. "This one looks pretty. Wanna give it a try?"

Fascinating seems like too strong a term, and Greta hikes her shoulders in a bashful shrug. "I suppose. No more than anyone else back home, but... certainly more than anyone does here. Except the Balladeer." That's probably not a fair comparison, though. Singing is his job.

She's a bit worried that Iman is going to ask for a demonstration, and is more grateful than she should be when her friend turns her attention back to the computer, instead. She doesn't know why she should feel so embarrassed by the prospect of singing in front Iman. Maybe it's just that it's hard to pull a song out of the air when it isn't already there and waiting for you. Or maybe it would just feel too exposed without the music. Or too lonely, singing in front of someone who doesn't sing back.

Well, it's a moot point, anyway. Greta resettles herself with a nod and a game little smile. "Yes. Let's try that one."

Iman smiles and starts the movie, settling back cozily, curling up closer still. Greta's so nice and warm, and so willing to sit with her like this, she's a lucky little fucker, isn't she? Some greedy little part of her wonders, can't help but wonder, is it just that Greta is a naturally affectionate person, or is there something else here, some chance that she might be - and never had any way to know-

No, stop that. This is not a path she needs to wander down. Certainly not right now.

The movie, fortunately, is immediately distracting. It's beautiful - she's never seen anything quite like it. The music is charming and the art lush, the story immediately compelling. Her smile grows softer and happier as she watches, leaning against Greta, letting herself feel content.

This is a better choice than the last one. There are inklings of comforting familiarity in the accents and the music - even, a little, in the artwork itself - but nothing that hits too painfully close to home. She can enjoy it for what it is, not ache over how near it lands to what she's lost.

But the real comfort is having Iman curled up next to her. She can't remember the last time they were close like this just for the sake of it, without one or the other (or both) being completely miserable. Without it being a need and not a want.

And she does want it. It's nice and cozy and makes her feel... cared for. Safe. Things she rarely gets here. More to miss, she supposes, whenever things get sorted out and they all go their separate ways.

If they go their separate ways.

She would survive if they didn't. She could. Sometimes, as the weeks drag on, she wonders if that wouldn't be easier, or at least less complicated, than eventually making it home, after all.

She's tired. It easier to entertain the idea of not going home when she's tired, harder to feel upset beneath her haze of exhaustion and the comforting closeness of her friend.

She'll be all right, as long as she has this.

Her eyes have drifted shut, she's not even sure how long ago, but it doesn't trouble her. A soft sigh escapes her as she shifts closer to Iman and settles her head on her shoulder, unconsciously curling a possessive arm around her waist.

Oh.

Okay.

Now this is happening.

Iman blinks at the computer, her eyes sliding slowly down to glance at Greta in her periphery. What is she - okay this can't be what it seems like, it's just... a place to put her arm, surely.

She draws a breath and manages not to make comment or shift in any way. She really wants the arm to stay where it is. She reaches up and resumes stroking Greta's hair.

This is normal. This is fine.

Greta's close to unconsciousness when she distantly registers the hand on her hair. It's something nice, and good, and her response is instinctive. She curls closer with a faint hum of acknowledgment, her arm tightening for a few moments in a sleepy embrace. Then she settles, slumped contentedly atop her friend, her breathing slow and even as she dozes off completely.

find me when you wake up [closed]

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hey kids: don't pirate movies, stay in school /fingerguns

you wouldn't DOWNLOAD a PIZZA

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