Bad Time? (Lucy)

[Dominique Chevalier]

Dom never did anything without considering it first. Sometimes, it took him only seconds to consider; he had a lot of practice with sorting out and weighing up pros and cons under pressure.

He had been considering his current problem for weeks, and it still didn’t add up the way he wanted it to. It didn’t balance, it wasn’t clean and clear. Last time, it had happened in a moment, and he’d made his decision. It had not worked out as it should. Dom had not been exactly sure of how it would work out, but it hadn’t even gotten close to what he had hoped.

At least this time he could see the other side; but did he want to try and jump again?

There was something he needed to clear up first.

Lucy showered in the evening. So did Dom. It was a coincidence, as Dom would swear until he was dead. And so it was just another, smaller part of this bigger coincidence when his thoughts were broken by the sound of a familiar voice humming.

Dom didn’t believe in signs, but if he did, he would have seen this was one. Opening his stall, he crossed the bathroom and pulled open the curtain of his australian friend’s cubical.

He was naked. She was naked. But he only met her eyes quickly. If she broke gaze to look down, he would notice.

“I need to talk to you.”

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Progression was an interesting concept. Seemed so simple on paper, but like so many things in practice it constantly splintered. Multiple paths stripped the simplicity and blurred the proverbial path.

How Lucy Serrano ended up where she was in any moment was an arguable coincidence. Showering in the evenings was her primary routine despite how little it complied with the secondary schedule she'd folded into her life. But it was late enough, and a majority of the bathrooms were already relatively quiet at a certain point. It was nicer that way, but she was hardly prone to silent showers. Filling the empty void by stringing a coherent tune through the air seemed to make sense.

The heated flow of water forced her to drag such lengthy dark hair away from her face and shoulders as it pooled against her back, leaving free the dotted, albeit faded circular marks against her neck. Possessive by nature in the most acceptable way, her psychometric counterpart had left such reminders indented in her muscles to colour her skin days ago. Or was at least one from last night? This morning, maybe.

Soothed were they by the sheer temperature of the water, but solitude shattered incredibly quickly; away went the concealing curtain to momentarily reveal the Australian's back - the Wonder Woman tattoo that surged a majority of the space and the disapproving king that resided at the back of her thigh.

Sharply turning around was instinctual, and the glaciers her dark eyes met were enough to widen them and raise her eyebrows completely. When was the last time she saw him? Fully clothed on a mountain of dirt in a park? No, it was after that. Graduation. Where she found him or he found her and they seemed to realise they were in the same mess. Like they were somehow in it together.

"Right now?" She asked, a hand already reaching for the curtain he'd drawn back.

[Dominique Chevalier]

Dom raised his eyebrows in return at the question, even as he crowded further inside the small cubicle. His presence at this rather unorthodox time, he assumed, had made it clear he wanted to talk right now. He'd already waited weeks, it seemed. To delay for even a few more minutes wasn't an option any more. "Yes," he said, with determination as solid as bedrock. "Right now."

The water from Lucy's shower was spraying him with warm water that ran down his bare chest, over his legs to collect and drain away over his feet. The smell of the australian's shampoo was strong and clinging. Dom flicked his head as his hair started to drip into his eyes, not needing to check to know it had landed across his forehead perfectly.

People had asked how he managed to get his hair to do that. The answer was money.

The movement had also allowed him to get a better look at the necklace of bruises Lucy was proudly wearing. No reaction could be seen on Dom's face, which more than anything else showed how far he'd come. "Things are going well for you," he said, feeling safe in that assumption. "With her." The word was loaded, though not with the jealousy he'd felt all those months ago. Lucy was happy in lesbian land. That door was firmly closed.

What he needed to say next was difficult for him. Chevaliers did not have vulnerabilities, or weaknesses, and if they did then they kept them secret and hidden deep down where no one would ever find them. Trusting the wrong person, just once, could be ruinous. Knowing where a flaw in a crystal was meant you knew where to apply pressure to crack it wide open.

But if he could trust anyone, it would be her.

"I want that." He said finally. "But after last time, I have... concerns." There was no blame in his words, because he didn't blame her in the slightest, not any more. But he was not sure he'd be able to handle it again, not without some deep private place inside him hardening completely. "About my capabilities."

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

With her minor experience, Lucy knew few so willingly wore faded marks without a thought. Truth be told, she hardly forgot they existed. The moment she'd pulled the collar of her shirt to give light to her skin for her voice mimicking friend was proof enough of that fact.

A small tilt of her head, curiosity overtaking her senses and her expression as her fingers curled around the curtain he held, too. He hadn't stopped her, and so she hadn't stopped. "Mmm." She offered, the roll of her tone akin to some kind of agreement.

Months. Thirteen. Her birthday. A book at her doorstep. A request for some god damn space.

Not even a week later, a psychometrist in a student lounge. Touching tattoos and admitting emotional fault.

"Is it a requirement to share a cubical?" Lucy asked first, her eyebrow quirking with a definite curve. "Only taking blazing company these days."

Damn. A joke probably right over the fallen tuft his hair could usually reach. And his eyes were still so firmly on hers. A year ago she might have felt just that little bit more vulnerable standing in a shower stall with someone completely starkers. But he wasn't looking. And neither was she.

"Okay. Concerns?" She asked, instead. Her eyebrows lowered. She appeared confused, and her tongue slowly tracked along her lower lip as she thought it out, "'Bout what?"

[Dominique Chevalier]

"Is blazing some australian term for flaming lesbian?" Dom shot back, raising his eyebrows as he tried to understand what she could possibly be talking about. Lucy didn't smoke dope, which would have been his other guess, and he had only seen Penny a few times but he had serious serious doubts that someone like her did either. "Don't discriminate just because I have a penis, Lucy." A magnificent penis, his tone made clear.

It helped, that she was willing to lighten the situation, even for just a moment. There were few people who Dom could talk to or joke with without someone getting horribly offended (not him, if that needed to be spelled out).

But while it was a welcome break, it was only that and the skin between his eyebrows creased as Dom made a sound of frustration. His concerns felt so large in number it would take him all day, even if he was able to put them all into words. How did he explain the problems he'd already encountered, the unexpected help he'd had to provide and the reminder it had been at just how difficult such things were for him?

"They're very open with how they feel," he said finally, not willing to say who just yet, not until he knew. "I'm not." he added, perhaps a little unnecessarily. "They wanted me to let them," his jaw ached at how hard he had it clenched, "you know. Move on. Tell them I didn't care." He sought her eyes again, even as he rubbed the back of his neck under the water. "I don't know how to show them that I-" here, he struggled, his throat working. He'd never said it out loud, had not even put the words together in his mind, "I do. Care."

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

What he received for his attempts, in the end, was little more than an exhaled laugh. Softer company, she might think to say. But she didn't.

Lucy tilted her head to one side, her curiosity still relatively peaked as the idea of being completely starkers seemed to fall away from her mind. She let the curtain go and crossed her arms instinctively, instead. Like it was serious business. Like she needed the stance for it.

Alright. So they were talking about expressing concern. Or care. Or maybe it was the same thing. They were talking about feelings. "Well, fuck." Lucy said immediately. Despite her status, she was arguably one of the worst people to deal with expressing feelings.

Raising a hand, she ran it through the mess of hair she held, dragging it away from her forehead completely. And she rocked back a step, standing behind the water instead of underneath it. Or in front, as he'd taken his place,

"What makes you think I'm good enough to talk about this?" She asked suddenly, trying her best not to make it sound so weighted.

[Dominique Chevalier]

As Lucy moved away, the water now fell directly between them in a warm, wet column. Dom's eyes followed her hands, which was still safe territory, and dropped as low as the now bare curve of her neck before sweeping back up. He frowned at Lucy's display of doubt, his expression clearly showing what he felt on the matter of 'good enough'.

"Because," he said slowly, "you were terrible at this," his fingers gestured minutely to the space between them. "Like me. But now.." Dom didn't have to finish; they'd discussed that she was happy and while he was able to think of it without dark deep rumbles inside, he would not mention it again if he didn't have to.

"So," he went on, and stepped forward into the water until his hair was dripping flat against his skull, and Lucy was left with the wall behind her and him, "how did you do it, Luce?"

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Dom was - by all accounts - the master of a stonewalled expression. He locked his features to offer an exterior as cool as the glacial tones in his eyes. They were where her gaze had settled, because for the longest time she couldn't properly grant him eye contact. Not without feeling like she might falter underneath the weight.

It was a rare surge of doubt. How could she be remotely good enough for an issue like this? He wasn't the first to ask her for relationship advice, but it was a whole new tier when it was he who was asking.

Eyes dropped momentarily to the way his hands moved with conviction; how the element that was never his own sprayed off the hardened contours of his fingers and decorated the plane of her stomach with cooler, rolling beads of water. They both sucked at this. At least they were aware of it. There was comfort to be found in the fact that he didn't see her as some kind of relationship genius because she was in one.

Now that he stood in the water itself, effectively stealing it from her in a single step, her hand reached for her forearm. Fingers trailed the length of the lion's mane, the feathery inked nature parting like the sea for the track her fingertips made.

"I kissed her and she slapped me." Lucy replied, pausing momentarily. Her tongue fan the length of her lower lip slowly, following the trajectory as water flecked off his taller form and landed on her, "So I kissed her again."

While she knew he likely wasn't asking about the actual preface, it provided the most appropriate metaphor Lucy felt she could provide. It led to the inevitable question, one she couldn't help in the grand scheme of things. Not if she actually wanted to help.

"Are you running? Or are they?"

After all, there was always one.

[Dominique Chevalier]

Dom's own mouth pressed tight at the explanation; not what he had expected and far from what he wanted to hear. She'd moved first then; taken the initiative and gotten a reaction for it. Dom was familiar with being slapped, as Lucy herself was aware of. His throat worked as her tongue moved; did she have to do that? It was distracting from the point, which Dom was fairly certain he got.

There was a decent chance he was going to be slapped himself, and so the advice was perhaps more literal than Lucy realised.

He reached past her, wrist brushing her waist as he turned the taps and the water slowed to a trickle, then a steady drip, and then nothing.

Raising an hand, Dom drew it over his face with a sigh. "I wouldn't say running," he started defensively, searching for the right words. It wasn't running but... it was something... "Pushing, maybe. Blocking. Chevaliers don't run." They just put up a wall with a great big 'fuck off' sign and posted guards with sniper rifles and alarms to alert anyone nearby they were not wanted. A small part of him suggested that whatever had happened in the alley, that was running. Running with bloody knuckles and rage still broiling inside him over the unfairness and cruelty life could hand out.

But that was over now. He was done pushing, especially when he couldn't even be constant about that. "He might run now," the blonde boy admitted, quietly. "He called me, and wanted me to tell him I didn't care about him. I didn't say that, but..." He hadn't exactly admitted he did either.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Dom was right up there with the list of people Lucy assumed she'd never talk about Penelope Blaise with in any capacity. It'd been no secret that she had an obvious penchant for tormenting the life out of the Brit whenever they'd had a class together. A year of hostility that was far too easy to achieve and far too good to pass up at every turn. And now, this.

Unfamiliar fingers brushed against her skin and caused her to straighten her back. Stagnant wings below the line of her hips. They only pulsed to the rhythm of the person who acknowledged them to life.

As the water dwindled, Lucy held her eyes shut, wary of the final backdrops that might distract her. Cautious eyes from her left arm all watching the blonde as he moved and as she dragged a hand over her face.

"Chevaliers do bloody run." Hauling drops away, she flicked her wrist to rid them of her form entirely. "Everyone bloody well runs when they feel the instinct."

They were twenty. Twenty.

"People like us, we don't-" Talk. They weren't good with words. They were creatures of action, and finding the nerve to act was always hard. He kissed her. She said no. He walked away. She pressed herself against his back and held him anyway.

He left a book at her doorstep. She pursued him. They weren't friends. Don't act like they're friends. She stared. He asked for space. She gave it to him. "We're not gonna tell someone we care about that we don't care about them. People shouldn't ask us to do that."

A week later a psychometrist in a student lounge touched her tattoo and held her hand and asked her if she put up walls, too.

"Once, I asked her to tell me she hated me. To make it clear that that's who we were and that's who we were supposed to be. And she asked me to do it instead, and I-" She explained, hands working the space between them in order to articulate points. The Australian could never stay still; it wasn't how she operated, especially under pressure. "If you can't say it, it's cause you don't. That's how we say we do. Care, I mean."

[Dominique Chevalier]

Dom's eyes glinted; it was fucked up how alike they were sometimes. She got it. She got it so perfectly. He'd never had to tell Lucy how he felt; he'd shown her, and she'd shown him how she felt too. Words were secondary to that. Words were almost nothing to that.

That was why Erik had called him, after all. Words and actions weren't adding up, thought it had taken the snake shifter some
dutch courage to call.

He nodded shortly. "That's what he did," he muttered, watching her to see what she felt of the parallels in their lives. "As if words ever proved anything." Running a hand back through his hair, Dom sighed. "Still didn't say it thought. Didn't say otherwise either. I don't like being told what I feel."

Unlike Lucy, Dom's body hardly moved as he spoke. Body language gave too much away if you weren't aware of it, and the stoic Chevalier disliked anyone getting information off him that he hadn't wanted to give. Not to say he could stay in control all of the time, of course... Lucy knew that better than anyone, except Carter and his face of course.

His hair now slicked back with the weight of the water in it, Dom crossed his arms and smirked at his friend. "I knew you'd understand."

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Lucy exhaled on an audible sigh, the loss of air forcing her chest to concave as her shoulders momentarily dropped. They were heavy - this moment, this conversation and this boy were all heavy - and drawing them back up took more strength than she thought she had. The simple arch of her back; to stand upright was to have a spot in this conversation as a helpful entity.

It was to claim her place in his life.

"Not a lot of people're ever gonna get it." She reasoned. It wasn't a hobby to be crafted by time and ample failures. "I might not be smart, and I'm probably useless at giving proper advice on-" Pause. Ill-thought out, and hardly precise. A struggle and a bounce over a word. Or to it; "-relationships, but."

Stressing the word and a forward motion of her hand. She spoke with her hands. She did it more when she was nervous. He was close enough to reach out and touch, really. She must have been an inch or less from the bare contours of his abdomen.

"I'm pretty sure I know you." And by proxy, that was to be shared.