Hello Stranger (Everett)

[Faye LaBeau]

Skipping out of town without a word was something Faye wasn't particularly proud of but something she felt was needed. She didn't have a good excuse. Yes, her sister was having a baby, and yes she hadn't seen her mother in over a year, but she could have said goodbye. She could have answered texts, or given some hint to her coming back. The thing was, at the time she wasn't sure she was coming back. But like the moon pulling the tides, Vermont has a certain way of pulling the meta woman back once again. 

It was late when she finally got up the courage to knock on Everett's door. She'd been thinking about paying the boy a visit for days now, but the memory of her budding feelings surged, causing her to retreat. Still, she couldn't get him out of her mind. So she wandered up, bottle of wine in hand, rang the bell, and waited. 

[Everett Lilien]

Everett was bored. Gabe was out of the apartment, doing who knows what. Possibly out with Kiara, possibly playing his guitar somewhere, possibly at the bar. He tried not to think about the third option. Ev's night was spent lounging on the sofa, remote control in hand and an empty beer bottle and bowl of popcorn left on the coffee table. He'd been marathoning all movies in the Marvel universe, and had only managed to make it through two, pausing Thor when he heard the doorbell. He paused the movie and waited again, as if he wasn't sure he'd really heard it, but he eventually rolled off of the couch anyway and moved towards the door.

Maybe Gabe had forgotten his keys. Maybe it was a pizza he hadn't ordered. That would actually be welcome. But it was neither Gabe or the pizza, unfortunately. It was a familiar blonde with icy eyes, holding a bottle of wine. He stood in the doorway, feeling like an utter mess in front of someone who had up and left...just like people seemed to do in his life. Gabe, Henri and then Faye. And they never gave him an explanation. Not to mention, he was wearing sweat pants and a faded vintage Superman t-shirt. "Faye," he said. "You're back."

[Faye LaBeau]

The blonde wasn't prepared for the unusual surge of butterflies that seemed to flood her insides when Everett did in fact answer the door. The look of surprise on her face must have been hysterical, especially since she was the one who knocked in the first place. "yeah." She said cooly, exhaling as she regained her composure. "Just call me a magician, made myself disappear." She chuckled taking a step closer to Everett, not at all surprised by his attire. She was probably overdressed, still wearing her clothes from work.

"Mind if I come in?" She asked, "I brought wine, figured I owed you for dinner last time and all."

[Everett Lilien]

The way she waved off how she'd just left shouldn't have shocked Everett. He had made a joke about it too. Because that's how he handled things, by making jokes. Then it didn't phase him so much. "Yeah you did. And for a while..." he muttered, just loud enough for her to hear.

"No, not at all," he told her, realizing he should have invited her in right away. It was kind of chilly outside. The wind was blowing. Such was the fall season in Pilot Ridge. "I haven't seen you at Hammel yet." Was that where she was coming from? She looked more dressed up than he was, but then again, how long he was at the institute each day varied, depending on how many training sessions he had lined up.

"You didn't...owe me, I mean. But thank you." They'd had a wonderful dinner. He'd actually gotten to cook for someone besides Gabe, who he really hadn't been cooking for in general lately since they were just getting back on good terms, and Gabe was often gone a lot and it wasn't the same if you just cooked a really nice dinner for yourself. It had allowed him to do one of his favorite things and to have conversation with a woman he still couldn't quite figure out. Her leaving after they'd made out off and on for hours fueled on wine, had only made it more confusing.

[Faye LaBeau]

"Yes. I had a lot of papers to grade." She told him as she removed her scarf and jacket. The tension that lined the air was suffocating. She'd fucked up. She knew that. But admitting it or apologizing would just make it worse, wouldn't it? It'd just shed light on the feelings she'd developed before she'd left and given the fact she didn't know his, or know what she wanted she'd decided to sit with the tension was better than to die by the can of worms she would undoubtably open.

But not talking about it left a giant pocket of nothing to talk about. She wanted to ask how his summer had been. She wanted to know about his sister, if he was seeing anyone. " Did you see Guardians of the Galaxy?" She settled on. That was a safe topic and if he hadn't seen it she would be absolutely shocked. That was an Ev movie and had she been there, she would have maybe liked to see it with him. But she'd fucked that up too.

Her blue eyes wandered over to him, catching his own. She should apologize. She was a shit head. She shouldn't have ran away like that and abandoned whatever the hell it was that had felt like it started. She shouldn't have come back. There were so many fucking mistakes, and here she was like an idiot standing there, staring at him.

[Everett Lilien]

"Makes sense. Haven't seen you around," Everett told her, fumbling for words. "How...how long have you been back?" It was a simple question. It just provided an answer, not an explanation of why she'd left although he would admit that he wanted to know. What was up with people doing that to him, deciding they needed to find themselves or something and just leaving without a word to him about it? Maybe Ev needed to find himself to and he was pissed that he was twenty-four years old and still didn't know what he wanted. Was he allowed to run off without telling anybody? It just seemed so immature, like something he expected himself to do, not everybody around him.

It was hard to talk to her about normal everyday stuff when there was undoubtedly tension between them from the fact that she'd left. Small tak was so hard to come by at the moment. But he found that her next question was easy to answer. "Yeah, of course! Space meets super heroes?" Of course he'd seen it. Nothing was better than reading a comic book, but it was also fun to see it come alive on screen. Besides, the movie had turned out well. "Did you?" One of the reasons he'd become so attracted to her was because of the geeky personality she'd showed him.

[Faye LaBeau]

Faye felt like a goldfish who'd jumped out of her bowl, doing everything possible to hop back into the water but ultimately just counting down the moments to her death. Ev would probably throw her out. If he did, she wouldn't blame him. She'd left without a word, then just decided to pop back in without so much as a phone call or a text.

"Of course." She chuckled, "Midnight premiere. It was fantastic, you know I was actually worried. I figured it was going to go one way or the other but Chris Pratt was perfect, and dare I say, I think I'm in love." She let her arms uncross, allowing herself to attempt to get more comfortable. But even with the shared moment, the tension would undoubtably be back in the air and quite frnakly she couldn't stand it.

"I fucked up. I'm sorry I just left." She blurted, "It was really shitty of me."

[Everett Lilien]

It was easy to talk about super hero movies and definitely easy to talk about how phenomenal Chris Pratt's acting had been in Guardians of the Galaxy. But that's not what Everett wanted to talk about, for once. He was slightly jealous that she'd gone to the midnight premiere. He'd only dragged Gabe to go see it with him. He would have gone on his own, but the blonde was uncomfortable with going to a movie theater by yourself, that was a lot different than lounging on your couch watching a movie. It was considered a social thing, to go to the movie theater, although Ev didn't really understand why. After all, you didn't talk...but still he found himself conforming to society. "Yeah, it was a really good movie," he agreed, not saying much more, which was odd for him. He could gush about it for hours.

She didn't answer his question about how long she'd been back, but rather burst into an apology. He stared at her for a long moment. "Where did you go?" he asked, the first question of his tumbling out.

[Faye LaBeau]

"Home." She sighed as she ran her fingers through her hair. "I needed a break from Montana. I guess I kind of lost it." She admitted as she slid onto his couch. It seemed as if he wasn't itching to throw her out yet. She hoped that was enough for him. She didn't want to explain that she'd been scared, that she'd developed feelings for him, or that she was too much of a lunatic to be able to handle what to do with those feelings. She didn't want to tell him that Vermont was getting to her. That she was questioning why she was there, why she was a teacher, who she was. She felt so lost in her own body and it sounded like such a stupid reason to just run. But that was what she'd done and did she feel better for doing so? No. She didn't suppose she did, but she learned to live with it.

"My sister had a baby." She said hoping that that would serve as enough of an excuse. "hey... why don't we open up the wine?" That would help. Everything was better buzzed.

[Everett Lilien]

Everett nodded as she said where she was. He realized he hadn't even known where she lived. "Where is home...exactly?" he asked. Where was she from? How had he not known? Wasn't that something you should learn about someone early on? He instantly felt stupid as Faye sat down on the sofa, explaining that she 'kind of lost it.' But then moments later, she'd used the reasoning of her sister having a baby, which would serve as an excuse had she not said the earlier remark.

"Your sister having a baby made you lose it?" he asked, attempting a joke. Mostly because that was the way he dealt with awkward situations and this was definitely one of them. "Is she not fit to be a mother? Or....did you suddenly go baby crazy?"

Definitely not the time for a joke like that. "Yeah, yeah...good idea," he'd told her as he'd padded into the small kitchenette to grab a bottle opener from a drawer and two stemless wine glasses from the cabinet. He brought them back and set the glasses on the coffee table before handing her the bottle opener and settling onto the sofa.