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The sleet was coming down in whirling flakes around the parking lot, met on their way by a drifting wisp of smoke. Following that trail to its ending would reveal one young woman in a thick green jacket, sturdy boots, and a haphazardly-tied scarf; she had a handful of nicknames under her belt, of which 'bloody nuisance' and 'Ginny' were currently the most common, but the world at large knew her as Gina Lestrade.
She breathed in deep and glanced across the view of campus, reduced to greyscale under the half-melted snow. The day had been decent, overall. Hopping in halfway through one of her lectures, snagging quick photographs of the others' notes. Spending some of lunch catching up with Suz and her gang of mates. Meeting up with Iris in the library, whose enthusiastic eye and helpful encouragement had kept her fixed on her textbooks until all the academic nonsense clogged her brain.
She should, probably, have been studying. She should, probably, have been doing a lot of things. Instead she was hanging around the parking lot, waiting to drop the day's farewell to her most familiar target. As she caught sight of a green-garbed figure pounding the pavement, she rapidly stamped out her cigarette and zeroed in.
"Hiya, Gregsy!" As ever his custom, he replied with a half-hearted grumble. Still, no veiled swearing, which meant he was in an alright mood. "You watching the game today?"
He adjusted the lapels of his coat, flipping them up against the occasional flecks of sleet. "Yup. Got twenty riding on Chelsea."
"Pfth, 'course you do." She flicked her eyes in a quick roll, tucking her hands into her pockets to shield them against the cold. "Spurs are gonna trounce 'em."
A sharp snort shot back at her. Running back through her memory, that was probably about the third time she'd seen him smile, even couched in sarcasm. "Not bloody likely." He hauled a cone of newspaper out of his pocket, bringing a hand up to shield his dinner-on-the-go from the elements. "Assuming you're going to keep an eye on it, then?"
"Yeah, I'm headed to a party." She checked her phone quickly, its screen a mishmash of cobweb cracks ― still a fair ways off. Tucking it back into her pocket, she grinned. "Buncha mates are getting together to watch."
Gregson's nod was gentle, but his ensuing cod-munching was distinctly contemplative. "...It'll be with that Venus girl, huh?"
Gina tilted her head, a spark of skepticism entering her eyes. "What's wrong with her?"
"Didn't say there was, just...well, I don't know. It's a weeknight, isn't it?" He folded his arms, keeping his eyes carefully blank. "Got your studies in order?"
She snagged a chip from his cone, prompting a reflexive grumble which was met with a keen smirk. "Last I checked, Gregsy, I was an adult and you weren't my dad."
He let out a soft sigh, raising his eyebrows. "You're right. You are, and I'm not." Picking up the pace as he headed towards his car, he threw her an off-hand wave. "Have fun, you little blighter."
She cupped one hand to her face, hollering after him. "You too, you rusty geezer!" As he pulled out onto the streets she drew her fist from her pocket and flicked her fingers out, revealing six chunky chips ensconced within. A sharp grin cut across her face. Might be out of practice, but still had the knack.
She nibbled away at them, lingering aimlessly. With that see-off tended to, she weighed up her options ― Iris had brought in a handful of her eclectic energy-drink concoctions so she'd definitely be staying in late, meaning the library was off-limits. The place was huge, but no matter how discreetly she hid the girl always seemed to pop up somewhere, and ― bless 'er ― she was too relentlessly helpful to avoid badgering her into keeping on top of her workload. Could turn up fashionably early to her destination and hang around the block a bit, maybe. Shoot a text to Venus, see if they could loiter threateningly somewhere...
Seconds later she sidelined her vague plans and grinned as she spotted a hunched man cutting across the parking lot, grumbling as he trudged his distinctly-season-inappropriate sandals through the slush. He was good for a laugh too, in his own way, but you had to be a bit more wary about him. If you prodded slightly too hard at Gregsy, he snapped and fumed, which was fun; if you prodded slightly too hard at Mr. Natsume, he had a tendency to come over all quivery, which was a lot less fun.
"How do, Mr. Natsume!" Gina called out to him, receiving a sharp jolt, a swirling, suspicious stare and a rapid nod in response. She had a vast assortment of nicknames for the various lecturers and staff around campus, but he received the rare privilege of his actual name ― partially because the poor sod already seemed like he had enough to deal with, but mostly because his own entranched tendency for formality led him to always refer to her as 'Ms. Lestrade'. In a stodgy sort of way, it made her feel all mature.
She advanced with a few quick steps, drawing a deep breath. "So how'd things go with ol' Will? Your, y'know―" She hunched down slightly and curled her fists, embarking on a spirited mime of boxing. "―civilized debate?"
His politely neutral expression dropped, immediately, into weary exhaustion. "...Ugh. You heard about that, did you?"
"Yeah, word gets around. Did he really break your nose?" Her eyes glinted, ablaze and intrigued, as they fixed on scrutiny of his face. "And did you really bite him?"
He shook his head irritably. "No, he didn't break it." The pause that followed was, very clearly, all too long. He cleared his throat, dipping his hands into his pockets. "...A-anyway, I must be going―"
Her smile widened from amused to impressed, which he caught out of the corner of his eye. As he sighed and turned away she leaned against the side of his car, peering over at his deeply-furrowed and increasingly-twitching eyebrows. "Aw, don't look so glum!" She continued, her voice pitching up into an encouraging lilt. "I mean, you won, right?"
"Ms. Lestrade, no one won." He mumbled, stiff fingers fumbling with his key fob. "It was an undignified, unbecoming, utterly useless fiasco for all involved, and I want nothing more than to put it behind me."
"Got it." She nodded, tilted her head back and tugged at her scarf, musing over the implications of that statement. "So I guess that means Will won, huh?"
His fists clenched, and he lunged with a sudden rush of fervor. "Absolutely not! I got him in the eye―" At the sight of her sharp grin his moustache twitched, drawing back into defensive grumbling. "W-well, either way, I advise you not to learn from my example!" One of his hands shot up, fingers splaying in the air. "From now on, I reserve all my primal passions for personal projects! Such as my retrospective on the common themes of jokotoba in tanka poetry."
"Sounds wild." He gave a jovial nod, bereft of any touch of sarcasm. "I'm gonna be living it up a bit, myself."
"A party, I suppose?" Normally he wasn't one to linger longer than necessary when talking to people, but as he unlocked his car, he paused for a second. Maybe it was an attempt to re-establish his shot credibility, maybe it was some last-ditch grab at self-respect, but either way he turned back towards her, brows curling. "...It's going to be one of those boisterous affairs, is it?"
As for her, she normally wouldn't bristle at the remarks of someone who'd probably acted like he was forty since he was born, but this time something about his tone sliced wrong across her mind. "Speaking from personal experience, are you?" She folded her arms and raised her eyebrows. "An' how many 'boisterous affairs' have you been to?"
"Well, I..." He dipped into a long silence, seeming to realize the exact figure would weaken his point slightly. "E-enough and too many, Ms. Lestrade!" He concluded, attempting to couch his vagueness with a dip into imperious inflection. "The point is, overt socialization is mankind's most constant vice! A group of disparate people, all sane in separation, can assemble themselves into a jumbled mess of madness! And that's even before taking into account the addling of alcohol, or the influence of inexperience..."
Gina pushed out a sigh. The speech hadn't worked from Gregson, and she wasn't particularly inclined to hear a more sanctimonious repeat performance. "Yeah, well―what did you do when you were younger, then?"
He placed his hands to his lapels, beaming with a mild touch of do-gooder pride. "I focused on my studies!"
She nodded, giving him a blank look. "And what are you doing now?"
"Oh, well―er..." He stumbled slightly, seemingly not having expected a followup. His brows twitched and curled as he headed for the obvious conclusion. "F-focusing...on my work...?"
"Proves my point, dunnit?" She gave a quick wave as she strolled off, abandoning him to his increasingly-frenzied reverse-rundown of the state of his life. "Have a good one, Mr. Natsume."
A while later Gina's boots were thumping across the crowded streets, bound for the club in question. Wasn't too far from the university, thankfully―always nice to skip out on taking the underground if you could afford it, though you could usually score a free ride off the bendy buses. She passed by several lit-up sports pubs, blaring their advertising at either side for the big day, sifting through crowds that were thick with would-be watchers bustling in a hurry to get somewhere.
...Which meant that the one figure standing still at the street corner was unmistakable. Red hoodie, slouched stance, handbag full of small-scale explosives. She smiled. Even though they were the same age, Gina had always thought Venus had a slicing edge of maturity to her ― some extra bit of entrenched confidence, maybe, or the fact that she'd scored the milestone of a job. Some sort of pyrotechnics arrangement for buskers and wilder night clubs; her talent for arson and tendency for pathological lying had both proven very handy in both the development of her craft and the marketing of it.
Still, where she beat her in spectacle, Gina beat her in stealth. With a series of silent footsteps she approached from behind, stretching her arms out before lunging down at her shoulders in a talon-like grip. "Heyo, Venus!" A startled gasp gave way to cackling as she whirled around, identifying her fellow hoodlum. "You ready to light things up?"
"Ugh, don't do that! Gonna get yourself tazed one of these days." She laughed, drawing her arm back and slamming it around Gina's shoulders in a gesture with roughly as much affection as violence. "Thought you were going to be a no-show for a bit."
She tucked her hands into her pockets, tilting her head. "Said I'd be here, didn't I?"
"Yeah, but...still, you've got a new best friend, haven't you?" Gina's brows scrunched up, and a quick wink shot across at her. "You sure you don't want to watch the game with Gregson?"
"Give over!" She burst into a light laugh, nudging her elbow into the grinning girl. Less violence, but about as much affection. "I haven't gone soft on you! Nabbed his wallet last week, y'know."
"Sure, sure." As Gina hauled a cig from her pocket, Venus flicked her lighter with a swift roll of her thumb. They paced down the streets side-by-side, bound for their mutual destination, as Venus gave her a sharp look and a curled grin. "But back in the old days, you wouldn't have given it back."
The Exam was absolutely not what one might call a sports pub, but there was a match on and this was England. Drawn away from the typical branding for reasons of financial savvy, the proprietor had made sure to set a monitor up so drifting viewing parties could pop in for the extra business. Boisterous groups with patterned scarves sat scattered across the room, speckling its interior with vivid color, with one distinctly beige exception perched at the edge of the bar.
He'd positioned himself as far away from the crowds as he could manage, but the free-and-breezy roughhousing atmosphere seemed to have touched a cord in Soseki's wavering heart, and he was hunched over his drink in what he perceived as a loose, bohemian manner. He sipped his beer, letting a sharper edge than usual curling on his tongue. For the first time in a fair chunk of years, he'd decided to head down on a weekday and order something non-non-alcoholic.
Some distance away and advancing rapidly, William Shamspeare was heading towards the entrance. After the football field fiasco Stronghart had sliced his department access down to practically nothing, and with his search thus halted, there wasn't a lot to do after-hours until he'd laid low enough to get in the good books again. Lot of side projects still open to dip into, but as he pushed open the door, he figured he could afford himself one day off; could probably talk his way into a drink if he found someone friendly enough, or drunk enough, or ― he squinted towards the edge of the bar ― moody enough...
Huh. After further inspection, and the conclusion that there was only one person in the vicinity of campus who matched persistently-terrible posture with socks and sandals, Shamspeare zeroed in. "Evening, Natsume."
"...Evening, Shamspeare." He mumbled back, feeling an acute spike of some emotion or other at the man's presence. Irritation made the most sense, but in this moldering miasma of melancholy malaise, perhaps he felt a touch of an urge for conversation.
"Feeling down?" His tone was gentle, evoking the image of a mountaineer feeling out a foothold.
"Oh, well, no." He folded his arms over the bar. "I wouldn't say so, no. Not particularly."
"Uh huh?" Shamspeare was hovering in a noncommittal way, evoking another image ― this one of a circling vulture. "So what are you doing here?"
Soseki paused, hunching his shoulders up. "...Good question." He took a sip of his drink, glaring down into its foaming contents. "What are any of us doing here, really?"
More depressed than usual. Yeah, this was going to work. "Not sure." He was settling down already, signalling for the bartender. "Let me help you figure it out."
A sideways look in the newcomer's direction, brows furrowing. He only seemed to have the energy to retain the tension for a moment, though. "...If you insist." He sighed, before swishing his hands in an explanatory motion. "But, all other things aside, it's still a school night. I'm stopping after this one."
"Sure." Perfunctory conversation was on the menu, but Shamspeare couldn't deny that he was the tiniest bit curious. "What's got you so frazzled, anyway?"
"It's just...I don't know." He put one hand to his forehead, wrestling the words down for a moment before weakening them enough to be deployed. One deep breath, closing his eyes. "Shamspeare, do you think I work too much?"
The "Yup." was immediate, and delivered in between an order of a pink gin. Its speed itched at him.
Grumbling in between sips, he replied: "You didn't even think it over."
A sharp shrug from lanky shoulders. "I don't have to. You take it too personally, Natsume. You do overtime, like, every day, right?"
"Not every...well, I―sort of, but I mostly do it at home, so it's not so bad..." From the corner of his eye he could tell he was getting some sort of look or another, and he swallowed, doubling down. "I-I just―literature saved me! Shamspeare, I wasn't the most socially adept youth―" Shamspeare bit his tongue, as a 'no shit', while accurate, would break the flow a little. "―and digging into my studies was the only way I got through!"
His gaze fixed steadily downwards onto the bar, trailing the grain of the wood. "But the professors were all, you know, slightly dreary and bland and they didn't seem like they understood, not the way I did―and I need to be able to convey it to people, the same way I needed to hear it..." He whirled around to face his temporary confidante, an irate glint flashing in his eyes. "A-and I am still writing, you know! I just haven't quite found the time lately, but I am!"
Shamspeare gave him a blank nod. It didn't seem to soothe his defensiveness, but it didn't aggravate it, either. He sighed, bringing his hand up to his face. "But every year more come in and more leave and you see the muddle in their eyes and know you can't do enough, and that weight, that weight―" He pressed one fist into his cheek, eyes flickering, voice despondent. "How do you handle it without drowning?"
Shamspeare took in the sight of him in all his exhausted, bedraggled glory. After a teetering pause he shrugged one shoulder, grabbed his glass, and replied. "I half-ass it and go home."
He took one sip of his gin, sensing Soseki's eyes burrow into him from the side. His glare was firm, his brows curled low, and his overall expression cutting a fine line somewhere between envious and enraged. "...How?!"
Shamspeare put his glass down and turned to face him, his eyes set into half-lidded blankness. "Just not worth dwelling on. Some of them are tuning out everything you say, some of them are just in it to have an easy-pass course that looks good, and all the ones that are actually interested won't learn anything from you that they wouldn't have learned on their own."
He peered into his gin. Dwelling on student days was bringing out a handful of shoved-down memories ― the wide-eyed ambitions, the crash course in backstabbing, everything that had happened since then ― and he had to take a moment to scrub them out of his mind. "No matter how hard you try to force it, you can't control where they're going to end up. So obsess about it all you want to, but the more you try, the more those lectures of yours will turn into―"
Hands clutched and flourished. "―a tale told by an idiot―" Words rose into booming peaks. "―full of sound and fury―" Ocean-blue eyes locked onto his, wide and intent. "―signifying nothing."
Shamspeare held the glare for a moment before dropping back out of character, glancing away with a leisurely sip to his drink. The look on Soseki's face, previously half-laden with envy, had now morphed entirely into something else. The stare was still burrowing into him as his compatriot fumbled for the right phrasings, before his fists clenched in front of him and he embarked on a familiar refrain ― once more, with feeling. "Poppycock!"
He glanced back to find a wildly-jabbed finger in his direction, brandished in front of a pair of blazing eyes. "Ideals are the lifebuoy of a drifting soul, Shamspeare! There's a quiet dignity to be held in a dutiful life! Doing your utmost for a cause you believe in is pivotal to an independently invented individual identity, and no matter how severely strained your sense of self, you need to devote yourself utterly to your personal development or you're never going to get anywhere!"
"...Uh huh." He muttered under his breath, placing one hand to his cheek as he turned to face him. "So what's it gotten you, Natsume?"
His fingers twitched for a second before seizing once more, knuckles whitening from the tightness of his grip. "Th-the respect of my peers! The prestige of academia! The opportunity to work with what I love!"
He nodded and gave him an exceedingly neutral look, his eyes as blank as mirrors. "What's it really gotten you, Natsume?"
Soseki raised one finger and lowered it. "W-Well, I..."
Soseki opened his mouth and closed it. "I..."
Soseki burrowed his hands into his hair, eyes wide and locked onto the counter. "...I-I need another drink."
Two fingers whipped into the air. "Bartender!"
Time passed. After the sting had settled, the ice had broken. They'd spoken, some, and argued, some, and Shamspeare had found himself sharing some of his actual opinions, at which the scholar mostly scoffed and balked and, begrudgingly, conceded some points of. Their conversation drifted back and forth, next to an incrementally-growing cluster of glasses.
"...absolutely the biggest loser in the field of Japanese poetry, and his work is incredible! I can't get through the first sentence without being struck by the ephemeral beauty, and it fills me with loathing!"
"You want to talk about that―listen, don't get me started on Yeats. "Ooh, I'm one of the cornerstones of 20th century literature! When my rival's widow rejected me, I tried to marry her daughter!""
Time passed. A goal had been scored, clearly, judging by the riotous cheer that erupted from all and sundry corners of the room. Soseki cringed away from it, hunching further over the bar. Over the rim of his glass, Shamspeare made an observation: "You don't smile, do you."
"Absolutely not." He grumbled, raising his beer. "It feels too much like hubris."
Time passed. Soseki slid his long-empty pint from one hand to another, adrift in morose mumbling. "Born after my time, Shamspeare. I should've been alive at the cusp of the Meiji era, hobnobbing with poets and philosophers..."
"You mean back in the day when everyone died at fifty?" An arched eyebrow, a raised finger, a nod from the barman. "You're better off, I think."
Time passed. Shamspeare poured himself a shot of vodka, and when his companion pushed a glass over, spread it around. "You ever think about seeing a therapist, Natsume?"
Soseki downed his drink in one grimacing go, rustling his increasingly-flushed head. "What, so another person can judge everything I do?"
"Yeah, see―" He jabbed a finger in his direction. "That's the sort of thing you should see a therapist about."
Time passed. Soseki slumped his head on Shamspeare's shoulders, his voice dipped low into a syllable-stumbling rendition of some melancholy Japanese ballad. Not knowing the words, Shamspeare hummed along. With the football match long over and done with, the two of them were the only ones sticking around at the pub. Last orders were fast approaching, but for a couple of minutes, they lingered.
Several districts away, after the winter darkness had settled over the city, a night club was getting into full swing. After the match had wrapped up Gina had bounced from person to person, sharing jokes, chatting away, using speedy fingers as party tricks. Mates of mates, mostly, some slightly off-kilter but generally a good lot. Finishing up a round of shots, she flicked out her phone for a split-second check ― Iris had probably gotten home by now, and what with school nights and all, it might be about time for her to start heading back as well.
She looked around the room, packed wall-to-wall with a thick mat of laughing, drinking, dancing people. It occurred to her that she hadn't seen Venus in a while, and under the booming music, her heart thumped slightly faster than usual.
Being on the slighter side, drink didn't have a long way to go before it reached his head, and he could hold his liquor about as well as a wrung-out sponge. Natsume staggered fitfully to lean on a lamppost, slurring out a thesis on the art history of commercial woodcuts.
"Steady, mate, steady―" Shamspeare said, one hand at his shoulder and the other smoothly dipping down to snag his wallet from his jacket pocket.
"...flourishing under the shifting tide of societal―no, tide's too trite, isn't it, the Great Wave off Kanagawa parallell's so obvious―" He groaned, reeling before an imaginary board of peer disapproval. "―they'd laugh at me, they'd all laugh at me..."
"It's okay, Natsume." Patting his shoulder gently, he drew back his hand. "You think you can make it home alright?"
"I-I..." Usually a trove of ever-abundant words, his eyes grew murky for a moment as he stumbled to find the answer. "...don't know."
He gave the contents of the wallet a hasty once-over. Looked like Natsume was one of the few holdouts who still carried cash, at least. "It's fine. I'll call you a cab."
"Y-yes! Yes, good." He stumbled to the side for a second, hands endeavoring to hold his head steady as he muttered. "My address is...slipping my mind for a moment, but..."
...Okay, he was dangerously blotto, and even with everything, he didn't want the death of a scholar on his conscience. After a few mulling-over seconds, he gave a curt nod. "Alright, then." He slipped Natsume's wallet back into his pocket, after securing a couple of bills for the fare and drawing a small bonus as a service charge. "Guess you're going to get to see casa de Shamspeare."
Time passed. Thankfully, Natsume was docile enough to follow his lead exactly; four flights of stairs in his state was practically gambling with his life, and the lift was in a state of permanent repair. He didn't bother flicking the light switch as they came in, since the electricity had been shut off a long time ago, but that was probably for the better ― the place got worse the longer you looked at it, anyway. At least there was running water, plus a nearby café to steal Wi-Fi from.
A hum of words drifted across his shoulder. The scholar had been talking, incessant and mostly-indecipherable, all the way there. Shamspeare had overall tuned it out, but with him hanging on his arm as they entered the silence of his flat, it was getting hard to ignore. "I'm not―good with―I never really, in my student days―" He murmured as he was guided over to the couch, flopping down heavy as a sack of potatoes. "I-I haven't really 'hung out' with people like this before, Shamspeare."
Quelle surprise, or, to use the layman's term, no shit. "I'm your first, huh."
Natsume nodded and tilted his head to the side. His eyes slid shut, softly, as he continued mumbling. "You're my best friend. You―your opinions are dreadful and you smile too much, but you're my best friend."
Faintly touching, but extremely drunk. The sentiment rolled off Shamspeare's shoulders with a light shrug. "Sure I am, Natsume. Now, come on―" He paced over to the kitchen nook and twisted a knob, waiting for the tap to finish its split-second sputter before filling up a glass of water. "You'd better have something to drink, or you're gonna..."
The light melody of snoring had already started to suffuse the room. Natsume had stretched out, catlike, to occupy a lot more of the couch than he seemed physically able to. Shamspeare couldn't help but quirk into a smile as he went past on his way to the bedroom, ruffling the man's hair―Natsume's hand shot up, lightly batting, before dropping back over his face. "Goodnight, sweet prince. Enjoy your hangover."
Elsewhere, in a small but not insubstantial flat, Tobias Gregson was settled on his couch, neck wrapped in a thick scarf, morose eyes fixed on droves of post-match commentary. He furrowed his brows, chanting "What a load of rubbish" at a particular ref call with as much fervor as one could conceivably muster when not part of a chorus.
Across the table, his phone burst into an all-too-cheery melody. Checking it would reveal a call had come up from a contact named 'Nuisance'. He sighed. Should've expected her to call and razz him about it, of course; he put the phone to his ear, responding dutifully. "'Ello?"
The reply was too fast, interspersed with flecks of crowd noise. "Uh, hi, Gregsy―or, uh, Mr. Gregson, I―it's Gina." Her voice was coming through the receiver tense and breathless, and as soon as she called him by name, a chill crawled through his chest. "I―we were at the party, an' everythin' was fine―" Silence and ambient noise burbled across in a distorted mix as she drew a deep breath. "―but things've kinda gone wrong an' Venus is really out of it an' her place is kinda far an' it's a while until the next bus and I―so I kinda―could―could you give us a ride?"
Gregson was already at the door, shifting his phone between one hand to the other as he got his coat on. "I'm coming, Gina. Where are you?" The name of a night club shot over, followed by some moments of hesitation as she squinted around for the address; he cut her off midway, already aware. "Got it. Give me a minute."
Even across the background noise, the weight that had dropped from her voice was palpable. "Al-alright. Thanks. See you th―"
"Hey, hey―" A flurry of thumping steps resounded up the stairwell as he rushed down, keeping the phone pressed tight to his ear. "Could you do me a favor and not hang up, Gina?" Out into the frigid air, sprinting across to the parking garage, darting into the worn seat of his car. With a quick tap he put her on speaker, placing his phone in the passenger seat. "I'll be right there. Stay with me."
"O―okay. " Silence passed by for a few moments. "Should I talk about something...?"
"Well..." Over the gentle rumbling of the engine, his voice was low and steady. "Spurs did pretty good tonight, didn't they?"
A burst of muffled chuckling brought him some relief. Seconds later a set of spotlights cut through the night and Gregson made his steady way towards his destination, swearing under his breath at each mistimed traffic light or overly-slow pedestrian. From the voice at his side, growing slightly steadier with each sentence, the conversation went back and forth about bad calls, hopeless plays, future coaching strategy ― and, eventually, the shine of the street lights would reveal a burst of bright red and dark green on a corner.
With a soft swerve he pulled up to the side, getting out and casting a swift look over the pair. Venus was slouched over Gina's shoulder, eyes closed, mouth half-open, expression suffused with a mix of tranquility and drowsiness. Gina had straightened her back, one hand at her hip, the other clutching at her friend's side. A firm edge glinted in her eyes. No redness, though. That was something.
Gina drew a quick breath, running down the situation. Still a bit of tension to her voice, but overall stable. "She was in the bathrooms. She was kind of lying there, and like, I―" A short pause, before she shook her head in a series of rapid rustles. "―she came around, but I guess I got a bit..." She glanced away. From this angle, the light hit her eyes a bit differently. "I dunno. Worried, for a sec."
"'Course you did." Gregson nodded, stepping closer. He leaned down, speaking slowly and clearly. "Sorry, Ms..." He paused for a few seconds before glancing towards Gina. When she shot him a shrug, he looked back. "...Venus?"
A few moments passed by without a response, until Gina jostled her slightly with her shoulder. One of her eyes fluttered open alongside a gentle snort. "Wh..." One of her hands went up, gently rubbing at her face. "Oh, hey..."
"We're going to take you home." He opened the back door as Gina led her in, steadying her as she got into the seat. His gaze lingered over her for a moment, keeping an eye on her breathing and movements, checking if they needed to make a change of destination to the hospital. He spoke up, and though his voice was unmistakably drained, it wasn't as terse as usual. "You feeling alright?"
Her head bobbed in a gentle nod. "Yeah, just..." After several fumbled attempts at going for the seat belt, Gina leaned over to help click her in. Venus gave her a limp fistbump, which was responded in kind. "Just tired." She mumbled, closing her eyes again.
He nodded. "Right. Don't worry about it." He popped the front door open, shuffling in. Gina moved for the back door, intercepted by the sight of his hand waving her over. After a pause she nodded and headed for the passenger seat, shutting the door as the engine rumbled into action. "We'll be there in just a bit."
Gina tapped an address into his GPS and they pulled out onto the road. Silence settled, broken intermittently by its gently-robotic female voice delivering instructions and Venus' soft breathing from the back seat. Eventually she folded her arms tight, slumping down in her seat. "...You can say everything you were gonna say, y'know."
"Uh huh." He mumbled, melting back into the shifting rhythm of late-night traffic. "And what would that be?"
"Y'know―" Her voice dipped into a caricature of a gruff baritone. "I told you so, Gina. Parties like that are full of renegade delinquents, you're just lucky no one got hurt." Pitching back up, she placed one hand to her forehead. "Oh, yes, I don't know what I was thinkin', settin' foot in a lawless drinkin' establishment!" A few stern shakes of her head, wielding a firm scowl. "Well, at least now you know to stay away from places like that. Hear that, Gina? Don't drink, an' don't do drugs―" Each point was punctuated by a jab of an invisible newspaper cone. "―an' don't smoke, an' stay in school an' go to bed early."
She folded her arms back up again, looking out the window. "...Somethin' like that."
He nodded. "Sounds like you've covered it pretty well already." The snort she gave was indistinguishable, ambiguously on the verge of tension and amusement. He tilted his head, keeping his hands steady on the wheel. "...I'm not about to lecture you, Gina. You wanted to do something fun with your friends, and it went sideways on you. Hurts enough as-is." His eyes were steady on the road as he continued, his low voice calm and level. "You didn't do anything wrong."
Gina threw a glance back at him, studying his face for any additional movement. When he stayed stoic she looked down in front of her, dropping to a mumble. "I wish I...kept a better eye on Venus. We were goin' together. It was gonna be, like, a fun―a fun thing."
"She'll be alright." Gregson threw a quick look towards the rear-view mirror and nodded, continuing in matter-of-fact tones. "I did worse at her age, and I turned out fine."
"Oh, yeah, sure, you turned out 'fine'." She shot him a thin smirk, then returned to watching the passing street lights. After a few moments of silence she glanced back to him, brow furrowed and eyes glinting. "...Like what sort of things?"
He shook his head, putting up a firm stone wall. "Like I'd ever tell you."
A quick, if not slightly disappointed, nod. "Yeah, 'course. Gotta stay a role model."
"Sure, that too, but mostly..." He gave her a quick look and perhaps, before he turned back towards the road, a raised eyebrow. "Don't want to give you lot ideas."
She let out another snort; this one more firmly within the bounds of amusement, which brought a small tug to his lips. As they pulled up at the street outside Venus' flat, Gina got out of the car to lead her into her place, helping her with her keys. It was the relatively common student fare of a cramped one-room ― Gina was pretty well familiar with it from the amount of times she'd crashed on her couch, and the place hadn't gotten any tidier since last time, scattered around with various degrees of fire hazards.
Venus shuffled her hoodie off, tumbling backwards into bed. Gina reached out, easing her onto her side. Her nerves had all but dissipated, but still, reaching her flat marked the crossing of a finish line. "There y'go."
"Thanks, Gin." She mumbled, raising a hand littered with ever-present first-degree burns into a gentle thumbs-up. "Rock on an' all that."
A faint smile shot through the darkness. "Rock on, Venus." She replied, drawing a blanket over her and heading out in much the same way as she'd approached her earlier in the night ― with precision, stealth, and a series of silent footsteps.
Several minutes later they were well on the road again, bound for a different destination. The inside of the car filled with jovial chatter on various subjects; football, school, the night club scene, before the pair pulled up at 221B Baker Street. Gregson looked towards the building, one thumb tapping against the steering wheel. "So. This is where your parents live, is it?"
"Yeah." Gina's nod was hasty as she went for the door, pushing it open with a quick shove. "Thanks for the―"
"Just a sec there, sunshine." She froze. Behind her, his expression morphed into his usual brand of workday scowl. "Don't try to pull a fast one on me. This is the Sholmes girl's address."
"Oh." Her fingers twitched up to her neck, adjusting her scarf as her eyes wavered. "Uh...yeah. Sorry, forgot. I'm―I'm overnightin' at her place."
Silence hung in the air for a moment, tense as a bowstring, broken by a sharp intake of breath. "Gina, I'm gonna ask you a question." His eyes settled over her, neutral but with an intense focus. "Where do you live?"
There were a lot of options open. Refusing to answer, making a joke out of it, acting like he was exaggerating, straight-up lying. She chose none of the above and drew back, slumping in the seat and folding her arms. "I live with..." In the reflection of the car window, Gregson saw her eyes waver slightly. "...friends."
"Alright, then." He turned towards her, leaning one hand towards the wheel. "Do they know you've got nowhere else to go?"
Further silence, broken by an under-breath mutter. "That's more than one question, Gregsy."
"Gina..." He felt a familiar surge of irritation rush through him, but let it lapse out in a sigh. "I looked into the address on your forms, and it's an abandoned building." Her hands pressed tighter on her arms, crumpling the folds of her jacket. A pressure was rising in her heart, thumping, alongside darting eyes. "I've seen enough to recognize someone without a home. If you'd just told us, we could've―"
"I've got a home, Gregson!" She lunged back, fists clenched, eyes sharp. "I-I can handle fine on me own! An' I've got my friends an' I've got enough money an'―" She trailed off for just a moment before snarling, pounding her fists against her legs. "―an' if you're gonna dump all your pity on me, you can keep it!"
His fingers tightened around the wheel, voice raising into a roar. "Dammit, Gina, that's not what I meant!" Furious huffs and fixed glares went across the both of them, and he drew a deep breath. In an exchange like this, someone had to yield first. Might as well be him. "What I'm tryin' to say is..." His fingers tapped across the wheel in a restless rhythm, before settling. "You know you can count on me for a ride. Right?"
He glanced out the car window, grumbling. Outside, street lights speckled the roadside like fallen stars. "You're a bloody handful, yeah, but you're...no trouble, is all."
Though her eyes were fixed elsewhere, the tension at her shoulders softened a little. Silence lingered before her head tilted to the side as she threw him a look, quick but clear. "...Th-thanks, Gregsy." Her hand locked around the handle, pushing the door further open and heading out. "See you."
A curt nod. As she paced up to the door and got out the spare key she'd been given, an unassuming car went off into the night. She maneuvered up the staircase without making a sound and kept extremely careful about any potential jingling of metal, but as she put the key in the lock, the sound of light, muffled footsteps immediately thumped throughout the apartment inside.
Gina let out a soft sigh, swearing to herself and putting the key back in her pocket. Before long a young girl opened the door, dressed in moderately-poofy pajamas. "Welcome back, Ginny!" The look on her face was undoubtedly cheery, but the distinct note of relief to it made her heart sink a bit. "I was starting to get worried."
"Yeah, sorry about that. But it's past your bedtime, isn't it? You didn't have to stay up for me." She headed inside, glancing around the room. "I mean, Mr. Sholmes is usually up around this time, right?"
"Mhm! But he didn't go to sleep last night, so he..." She trailed off and Gina followed the trail of her gaze to the lanky figure of Mr. Sholmes at the table, clenching a spoon in a rigid grip and slumped face-first into a bowl of coffee beans and milk. The two looked at him for a moment before Iris clasped her hands, beaming with delight. "So! How was your party?"
A moment of silence, to recharge her nerves. Eventually, she put her hands on her hips. "Oh, great!" She said with a bright grin, letting it light up her eyes. Everything was all over and done with, and she was already being enough of a hassle for the two of them. "Yeah, it was really fun."
Iris headed over to her desk at the side of the room, closing an expansive series of tabs before putting her computer in rest mode. When she turned around, she gave her a bright nod. "Wonderful―I can't wait to hear all about it!"
"Oh, well..." She glanced upwards for a moment, before shaking her head. "Not sure I can tell you, Iris. I mean, it's not all kid-friendly, y'know?" She finished, and the sound of gentle banter disappeared up the stairs. It didn't last too long, however; when the excitement of waiting for her arrival had worn off the young girl soon found herself acutely drowsy, and before long they were saying good night and cutting to their separate rooms.
Gina's accommodations took the form of some sort of bedroom-slash-guest room-slash-study type thing, set up in an eclectic jumble. Probably some renovation that had gone halfway. As she settled down into bed she found herself staying awake for a bit, staring up at the ceiling, still suspended in the unexpected tension of tonight. She'd have to have a talk about it with Venus eventually―could probably go one way or the other, but the feelings would bustle around in her chest until then. For now, though, it was all okay. She was home...more or less.
Gina closed her eyes. The night crawled onwards, slow and steady, as the stars circled overhead.
On the streets outside a substantially less upmarket neighborhood, frost twinkled under the street lights of the still-dark morning.
William Shamspeare got up around the same time oppressively-early time as usual that day, treading lightly around the snoring scholar, going through his morning routine. Doing his hair, fixing his face; the winter months had come in rough with the lack of electricity and daylight combined, but by phone everything was still vaguely visible. Took some time to set up some scheduling and rehearsal times for the next few meetings of the drama society, topics to cover, lists of exercises, keeping up on the rigamarole of playing his part.
He checked the internet to verify a quote, noticed the time, and, alongside the sound of fretful shifting from his living room, nodded. With gentle steps he moved back through the door, activating the flashlight on his phone and beaming it like a spotlight in Natsume's direction. "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks...?" As illumination struck his eyelids the figure currently splayed on his couch rolled over, groaning like a man rising from his grave. Undeterred, Shamspeare strode to his side and perched one foot on the armrest, sweeping his hand out in theatrical grandeur. "It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!"
Soseki Natsume twitched awake to discover that, improbably, the world had shifted to localize ten atmospheres' worth of pressure behind his sinuses. He screwed his eyes shut hard enough to hurt, hands clamped over his face. "Nonono, please...five―five more minutes, five more...hours..."
"Five seconds, Natsume." He put his phone away and leaned over, his smile thin but threatening. "Then I start soliloquizing."
The groaning intensified, muffled through his fingers. "Shamspeare, please, no soliloquizing, my head―"
A soft rustling as the actor cleared his throat heralded the inevitable. "This royal throne of kings! This sceptred isle―" He boomed, swishing and arching and playing to an invisible audience, and had barely gotten to 'Against infection and the hand of war' before Natsume caved, bleary eyes peering out from under his curling wisps of hair.
"F-fine. Fine. Can―" He squinted around the room, adjusting to the dark. "Can you turn the lights on?"
"Afraid not. Localized blackout hit this morning, weirdest thing." He lied, with an immobile deadpan.
"Agh. Right. Have, um―" His fingers rubbed gingerly along the top of his head in a slow massage, piecing together the necessities of waking. "―have you had breakfast yet, or can I join you?"
"Got nothing in the house at the moment, sorry. Planned to go shopping today." He lied, in much the same manner as the first time.
Natsume grumbled, burrowing his face further into the cushions in one more bid to escape consciousness. "Breakfast is essential, Shamspeare."
"Sure, sure." A dramatic pause lingered for a moment before he spoke up anew, in a manner of gentle prompting. "Don't you have more important things to worry about, though?"
The thoughts rumbled through his head accumulating slowly, like an avalanche, and then striking him with tremendous and devastating force, also like an avalanche. He went from horizontal to upright in a matter of milliseconds, quivering unstoppably from abruptly-amassed accumulations of adrenaline. "Time! What's the time!?"
Once again, Shamspeare peered at his phone. "Seven-fourt..." Digits ticked over and he shook his head. "No, sorry, fifteen now."
"I need to―my car―no, wait, I didn't―where's―the buses, do they go from―" He zipped through and discarded several possibilities in a terrified flash-flood of ideas, before his eyes darted back to his nonchalant collegue. "Sh-Shamspeare! Can you give me a ride?!"
"Car's in the shop. Bad timing." He lied, making it a hat trick.
"B-but I―but―I have to, I―" He trailed off, stuttering the same series of syllables, glassy eyes starting to dart and twitch at a hummingbird tempo.
Shamspeare, noting that his breathing was dipping into the overtly frantic, drew a deep breath and opted to interject before this turned into a full-on anxiety attack. "...Got a bike, though."
His eyes widened, swirling back to him with a faint glimmer of hope. "C-can I―" Shamspeare held up the key, which was whipped out of his hand in a heartbeat. Stumbling towards the door in a blur of tumbling motion he spread a breadcrumb-like trail of grumbling after him: "Absolutely idiotic―should've never even considered―"
He fumbled with the slightly-too-jiggly door handle before managing to throw it open. Glaring back at Shamspeare, brow half-furrowed from indignance and half from the panoply of pressures still throbbing against the back of his skull, he dropped his parting remark. "Y-you're a terrible influence on me!"
Shamspeare sat in silence for a moment and counted on his fingers, wondering how long it'd take him to notice. After twelve seconds and the sound of frantic footsteps down half a staircase, then frantic footsteps going back up half a staircase, the door cracked open a tad and Natsume's hand shot back in to retrieve his sandals.
"...but thank you!" He hissed, before slamming the door again.
Having stopped several times to check various maps on his phone, forcibly reoriented himself after getting lost down winding alleyways, and nearly gotten flattened multiple times in the rush of London traffic, he made his way towards the university with the haphazard speed of a lightning bolt. Some hundred meters away, a group of students were getting increasingly puzzled, checking their phones and beginning to ask each other if any change of plans had been announced for today. The light air of conversation would, eventually, taper off into attentiveness as the soft but rapidly-approaching sound of thunderous footsteps slammed relentlessly down the corridor outside ― before Mr. Natsume tore into the lecture hall five minutes late and doubled over, tumbling against the desk like a drowning man clinging to flotsam.
After two full minutes of wheezing, then another spent slamming his fist against his chest in a desperate attempt to pump his lungs back into functionality, he wiped the sweat off his brow and rustled his head. "Good―good morning, everyone! All in―f-f-fine fettle today, I see!"
He staggered towards the whiteboard, uncapped his marker, let his hand hover over the board for a second, and froze. Tiny pinpricks of sweat beaded at the back of his neck. His eyes crept slowly back towards the vast arrays of seats. Soseki whirled around, spread his arms wide, and drew a deep breath.
"...Does anyone remember what we covered last week?"
Roughly 120 blank faces stared back at him.
He swallowed, mentally began dusting off his resume, and, in a pleading squeak, repeated: "...Anyone...?"
Like a boon from the heavens, one hand went up. A low voice started, tentatively. "Um...Ogai Mori, and his role in contributing to the understanding of Western―"
"Yes!" He snapped back, gesturing with the marker. "Yes! Excellent! You've―you've been paying attention! Very good! Now, the gradual shifting of global literary trends―" He started, turning back towards the board, the memory of an oft-practiced subject surging its way back through the temporarily-barren routes of his mind.
Gina Lestrade arrived at the university around the same early-noontime as usual that day, and Gregson had a nod ready for her when she came in. "Morning, Gina. Everything alright?"
One of her hands out dipped out like the casting of a fishing hook, snagging a chip from the newspaper cone tucked away in his coat pocket. It was an oft-exchanged ritual, usually earning a grumble or snarl, but on this particular day Gregson put up no effort to stop her. "Spic-and-span. Like always, Gregsy."
He folded his arms, unable to see the cheery twinkle in her eyes as anything other than a distraction. There was more he wanted to ask, but probably nothing more she wanted to talk about...and anyway, as they'd well covered yesterday, she was an adult. If she said she didn't have anything to get off her chest, that was that. "...Right you are, then."
They passed by each other, returning to their separate schedules. Stubborn, prickly, defensive...talking to her would be so much easier if they hadn't been so bloody similar.
After the lecture had finished, Soseki scraped himself back together. By the skin of his oft-gritted teeth, he'd managed to pull through ― all there was to do now was hope the rest of the day would be calm or quiet or, at the very least, not too bright.
As he shuffled his notes back into his bag and moved to head back to his office, a figure appeared at the door. With his mind more sluggish than usual, the shock registered too slowly to convert into any visible reaction other than a curt nod. Gina responded in kind, drifting in. "Hey, I―sorry about yesterday, Mr. Natsume." There was a brief pause as her arms folded, drawing herself up. "I mean, it were none of your business and you should've kept out of it, but..." She glanced away, finishing up with a hasty bundle of words. "...I guess I can kinda see why you were worried, an' all."
Most likely he should've felt something positive in response to that, spanning between the options of contentment, smugness, or so on, but...Soseki sagged, shame rising in his heart far more than vindication. Rubbing one hand across his forehead he shook his head softly, side to side. "No, no, I―you have nothing to apologize for, Ms. Lestrade. Impeccable insight isn't insult, and either way...recent circumstances have made it exceedingly clear to me that I had no right to judge you."
Not having expected anything more than reproach her brows arched a little, before giving him a small nod and a tight smile. An awkward silence hung for a moment before, recognizing the faint note of withering bleariness in his eyes, she reached into her jacket pocket. "You want an aspirin?"
"F-four. Four, please."