I'm Looking for the Tower of Learning [Closed]

[celebrityskinned]

WHO| Venus and Enjolras
WHAT| Venus teaches Enjolras how to fight.
WHEN| Prior to the crowning.
WHERE| Training Center
WARNINGS| my ship tho. also mentions of bugs and nightmares.

She isn't new to nightmares. When she was little, the insects her older cousin put on her would crawl back out of her skin in her dreams, skittering and slithering across her belly button and under her shirt. When she was a teenager, the world was on fire, and she kept screaming and beating her little brothers because they wouldn't hear her, and she'd crack their faces open and reveal egg yolks on the inside. Then there were, of course, your run of the mill dreams about showing up to a red carpet event in the wrong clothes, of forgetting her bookbag to school and having to go on futile, circular quests to retrieve it.

The flavor of them has changed. There's a sort of dread to them now that isn't tied into grief, but a vague sense of loss, like grabbing through fog and finding nothing. Foreboding for the future, rather than sorrow for the past. She wakes up in the morning and there are names on her lips, and she listens at people's doors for the sounds of sleeping to ease the strange anxiety in her bones. Kankri snores a little. Enjolras is awake, and she can hear the rustle of pages in his room, but she doesn't knock or enter.

It soothes her bones but not her mind, so she goes to the Training Center. Dressed in a midriff top and spandex pants, she stretches on the mats, warms up with the acrobatic bars. She wraps her hands and puts chalk on them that's still there when she takes to the more combat-oriented exercises. It's still early enough that there's no one besides her there to hear the smacking of her kicks against a dummy, of the elbow she miscalculates on just enough to give herself rug-burn.

She pauses for a moment, breathing heavy but not yet sweating, and goes to the supplies rack to put a brace on her arm.

Comments

[celebrityskinned]

"And you're being honest about that?"

She could continue to focus on anything but his face, but she wants to believe. She's a fixer by nature, a Pollyanna under the makeup and the blood and the warpaint. She'd rather have had a stupid misunderstanding than a real divide.

And from all these weeks of wondering what it was that was changing her and Enjolras from the close friends they were into whatever it is now, she hasn't been able to put words to the conclusion the way he just has. It's how she's seen them, too.

So she looks right at him and almost laughs at herself. "In my time it's a married man's word for the woman he sleeps with on the side. I thought you were implying I was something you were ashamed of."

[orestes]

"I am," he replies quickly, with a sort of uncanny sincerity that, under most circumstances, is what gets him into trouble. It seems to be what's needed here, however. He smiles with her when she explains the misunderstanding. It makes sense, in a way. It's awful, but in another life it's exactly the sort of thing that would be expected of him.

"Ah, there is our confusion. A mistress is simply a woman whom you are under no obligation to marry. It is-- Men take mistresses when they are young, and probably living away from their families. I stayed in Paris after I left my college, but many of my classmates returned to their homes, and were married almost immediately. Wives are not something someone of my status has the luxury of picking. Mistresses are." He pauses because that isn't the whole true and it seems somehow reprehensible to lie to her. For all he knows Joly will fill her in in a few days and they'll be having this conversation again, only with more animosity between them. "Love does not factor into marriage as much as one might think. It is about what is beneficial for the families. If I-- Were one to have a mistress of whom he was particularly fond, he might find an flat for her in the city, and give her an account to manage after he was married off. But I am not married and that is not the kind of life I want for myself. Or for anyone, if we are to be entirely honest."

There are things about Paris he misses, but that particular culture isn't one of them. Panem has one thing going for it, women seem to move freely enough through society that they are under no obligation to find men to put them up in such an arrangement. It's better for everyone involved this way, and critical though he is of the handling of the districts, Enjolras can see that at least. "Do we understand each other better now? I meant no offense to you."

[celebrityskinned]

She chuckles, and when her face averts to her shoulder, it's in more of a bashful expression. "Hmm. 'Luxury of picking', like we're fresh fruit."

A few of the particulars of their relationship start to make a bit more sense against this relief. Not all of them, mostly, but a few of them. It shades the lines that were previously in stark black and white.

She takes a deep breath and rolls her lower lip under her teeth, then pats for him to sit down next to her. "I'm sorry I jumped to the worst interpretation of it. But you're not calling me 'mistress'. We'll find another word for us."

[orestes]

"We could just refer to us as us but I fear no one would be content to leave it at that." It's with only a small amount of reservation that he settles next to her. There's a different expectation now that they aren't supposed to be mad at each other anymore, but at least it's the standard variety of awkward anticipation he's become used to experiencing around her. It isn't unpleasant, it just is, and he's comfortably uncomfortable with that.

With too much nervousness for it to be at all casual, he reaches back, resting his arm around her shoulders. It's better now that they're on the same level both physically and metaphorically. "I will call you whatever you like, and I'm sorry for the confusion as well. I honestly did not know the connotation it would hold for you."

[celebrityskinned]

"Apology accepted."

It's always a surprise to her when he initiates such affectionate contact, although a very welcome one. She exhales, letting his arms settle around her shoulders and her shoulder settle into his side, resting her head to the crook of his neck.

"We could use 'lover', although that kind of sounds sexual, I mean, not like-" Her face turns reddish. "Never mind. We could be boyfriend and girlfriend but that doesn't sound sophisticated enough, I guess, that sounds like teenagers. Significant others?"

[orestes]

His blush matches hers, but he bears the nervousness better, or at least less obviously. Where she trembles, he clenches up. They may both be quick to anger, and slow to let go, but they handle the rest of their stress in entirely different ways.

"Partners," he offers, letting his thumb play with the sleeve of her shirt. "But that might make us sound like criminals. I do not might lovers. Significant others seems cold, like a position one might apply for rather than a state you should find yourself in. It's also needlessly difficult to say."

And indeed both words together play hell with his accent. It would be embarrassing having to imagine repeating the words over and over until some fluttery Capitol idiot was able to understand them.

[celebrityskinned]

"Oh, God. 'Partner' makes me sound like a cowgirl." She grins up at him, though she doubts it's seen so much as felt in the way her cheek moves against his neck. She bets he doesn't even have the frame of reference to get 'cowgirl'. "I'll have you know that I fully intend for you to fill out an application next time you want to kiss me."

Her arm slips behind his back, wrapping around his waist.

"Lovers, then. And you're my mister. And we should both stay off the communicators for our own good, or we'll give ourselves aneurysms."

[orestes]

"In that case, I should ask to borrow a pen." There's a laugh in his voice, but he doesn't actually wait for permission this time before leaning over and stealing a quick kiss from her. As soon as it's there, it's gone again, and he's tucking his head contentedly above hers

"This is the second conversation we have had on this topic. You would think I would learn by now that that thing brings me nothing but trouble." It also allows him to vent his thoughts and while they're only usually minimally successful in reaching people, it's worth something in that respect. "I am amazed by the idea of such rapid communication, however. Telegraphs seemed fantastic and now you have moving pictures. Human invention is a powerful thing, indeed. I just wish it could be used more effectively."

[celebrityskinned]

Someday, when they're braver - no, when they're more secure, they're plenty brave - she'll return those stolen pecks with the deep sort of kisses that seem like a human attempt to fuse souls, to lick with a flamed tongue that sets nerves tingling and burning. But for now she stays content where she is, dimly aware of his heartbeat radiating its muted vibrations through his side and into hers.

Someday, she'll tell him all the horrible things people have done with technology, when he's braced for disappointment and she's braced to disappoint.

"Do you want to sleep here tonight? Just to sleep, nothing hinky or anything." Goddamn, she sounds like a Scooby Doo character when she says that.

[orestes]

Fortunately for Venus, he doesn't understand enough of modern colloquialisms to know the connotations of the word enough to question them or her usage. Enjolras blinks slowly in response. It's a peculiar sort of intimacy to share a bed with someone. He finds that he doesn't outright dislike the idea of doing so with her, but there again lay new sets of expectations, and news things for them to stumble over.

"I-- we would only be sleeping?" His voice is soft and hopeful, willing her not to be offended. It isn't as though he doesn't want her, it's rather that they're so new at this. Moving too quickly is dangerous and could ruin everything so tentatively built between them. "I should my things, but... I think that I would like that."

/wrap?

[celebrityskinned]

"Yeah. Only sleeping." Her voice is as tentative as his is hopeful, and clearly weighted down just a bit by the fear of rejection. She leans back, looking at his face, and when the answer comes a close-mouthed smile unfurls across her face like a banner, though neither victorious nor surrendering.

And, to tell the truth, she's glad that it'll just be sleeping, although she anticipates more philosophy lessons for pillow talk. She may suspect he's not ready for anything more, but she knows she isn't prepared. The idea, not of sex with Enjolras but of sex as an abstract concept, fills her bone marrow with snow. There's an element of expectation she isn't prepared to handle, as if years peddling sex appeal is supposed to turn into actual confidence in the act, and when she fails to live up to that the sham will be blown, the jig will be up.

But sleeping next to each other will be good. The physical proximity will mend any residual fears from the tiff moments ago, the misunderstanding she allowed to morph into insecurity inside her head. They'll rest in a state of vulnerability next to each other, not the forced sleepy helplessness of the Arena but a willing action of trust. And she does trust.

She didn't realize how much her body longed for trust until she had it.