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strangetrip2018-09-03 06:05 pm
st_james) wrote in strangetrip2018-09-03 06:05 pm
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[Log] Mary & Hathaway - A-Maze-ing Day Out - Backdated to 6/27
An impromptu day out in London. Don't call it a date. But it might have been a date. Don't tell her sons.
Mary never thought she'd make it over the ocean. Back home she never would now, so when the Inn made Europe appear, she decided to take full advantage. She had traveled thought Scotland and Ireland and was now in England. She liked how everywhere she went there was history and stories. She also liked how this world didn't seem to have any supernatural monsters. It was the way the world should be, if she could have her way.
She was trying to send a text back to Dean - these phones were really hard to navigate - when she felt herself bump into someone. Mary glanced up and saw Hathaway. She immediately looked a little embarrassed and offered him a smile. "Sorry. I wasn't looking where I was going."
Hathaway wasn't quite so dour as he'd been after his excursion to Oxford and disappointment at not finding it inhabited by the people he expected to be there thanks to Kitty (and her friends) who had dragged him to Iceland for a week. But he was back now, and despite it not quite being the England he'd left behind, it WAS still home. Sort of.
At a minimum it included any number of places to get warm beer, eat a pasty and buy a suit.
He smiled down at the apology as he recognized Mary, "No need to apologize, I think I'll survive the collision."
Her smile warmed. "Good. I wouldn't want to to have that on my conscience." Somehow his accent sounded all the more better with him in England.
"Visiting old, new haunts?"
"A good way to put it," he admitted, a brief flicker of sadness in his eyes because as familiar as they were they WERE new. "It's odd knowing my way around but not really knowing anyone."
She imagined this was what she would feel like if she showed up back home in her boys' time after being dead for so. Lawrence wouldn't be the same, but it also would.
She noticed the expression and reached her arms around one of his arms. A quiet display of comfort as much as it was meant as a playful distraction since she tugged him in a random direction.
"Well, I've never been and I've been looking for something interesting to do and someone who speaks the language."
"Your English isn't all that bad for an American." He teased lightly before considering what she might enjoy. "Park, museum, palace or... the Tower?"
She hummed in thought. "If you were going to impress a girl before trying to take her back to your place, which one would you choose?"
Not something he was actually actively familiar with.
"Would depend on the girl," he said finally. "If I needed to impress her with how smart I was, the museum. If she seemed the sort to like the pomp of the palace, then the changing of the guard. If she liked a bit of gruesome history I might take her to the tower and if it was a girl I liked and just wanted to be with, then the park."
His tone might imply he would take Mary to the park, but he'd willing to take her anywhere she wants to see.
There were a few things Mary knew about herself. She had no real attachment to the palace or the royal family, but the Tower's stories might be interesting. Museums, she had discovered after becoming a mom, were not her thing.
"Well then, I'd like to be bold enough to say that park sounds nice."
"I was hoping you'd say that," he admitted with a slight pinking of the ears. "There are monsters Crystal Palace park."
Really they were old dinosaur sculptures, and other extinct animals.
"And a maze." Sadly, not the Crystal Palace any longer. But it was still a nice park, and less touristy than Hyde Park.
It was cute when he blushed. She used to be able to make John blush, once upon a time. Her lips quirked up in amusement. "Monsters, huh? What kind of monsters?" It sounded nice simply by the way Hathaway spoke about it.
"I'm good at mazes." She smiled to him. "And I always like a more local, inside scoop of a place."
"Prehistoric animals mostly, plaster versions." He aimed them in the direction of the park and started to walk as he considered. "I like the local bits myself. But then in England I am a local."
Sort of, even though this wasn't HIS England.
"I was living in Lawrence, Kansas before I ended up here. There's not a lot of tourists that come, but we have some great hiking." It wasn't a destination place, that was certain. "I think there might be a few museums, but they're the kind you get embarrassed when you bring someone from out of town to." She smiled, joking a little.
"Some of the embarrassing ones are the most interesting." But he got the point of what she was saying. "I haven't been to Kansas, what's it like?"
"Good barbecue. Generally friendly neighbours, though Lawrence is one of those small enough towns that people try to know everyone else's business sometimes." Mary smiled though because she sort of missed the nosey neighbours now - neighbours she'd never see again. "Really into their college football." She glanced to him. "American football." She thought about Lawrence as they walked, almost feeling wistful. "We chose it because we thought it would be a nice place to raise a family in."
"And was it?" A nice place to raise a family in he means. He knows she has two sons who are at the Inn and fully grown but he doesn't really know either of them.
"Yes." She wasn't sure if she was ready to admit to anyone, let alone Hathaway, that she had unintentionally put her second born in harms way by making a deal with a demon for John's life. "Maybe teenagers would hate it, but it's one of those nice little towns to raise kids."
She paused. "My sons didn't stay there long. I died when Sam was six months old and they started traveling for work with their father." Her expression sobered a little, but she had mostly come to terms with her fate. Mostly.
"I'm sorry," he hadn't known that she'd died so young. And how odd it was to be talking to someone who mentioned their own death. "My mom died when I was at Cambridge. Not as young as your sons but, it's never easy."
She'd been ill when he went, and sometimes he wondered how his life would be different if he had stayed home like Nell to help care for her. But he'd wanted to get away from Crevcour Hall and Oxford with almost fanatical intensity back then. Funny that he'd been so keen to get back and so upset when it wasn't his Oxford he'd found here.
"No, but I'm trying to just accept it. Not much I can do now about it. And the Inn's given me a chance to see my sons all grown up." Even if it was sometimes awkward, like when your youngest made out with his girlfriend provocatively in public, but she supposed she would have had to deal with that when they were teenagers anyways. "I'm sorry about your mother. She raised a good son, so I'm sure she was really nice."
"She was," and anything else about his family was probably best left unsaid. Luckily they'd just arrived at the park and he gestured left then right. "Monsters? Or the maze?"
Mary looked at him with a bit of a mischievous look. "Feel like getting lost in a maze with me?"
His smile was also just a trifle mischievous. "That sounds like a wonderful idea."
For a moment Mary felt like she was sixteen again and on a first date. She felt butterflies for a moment and even the sudden urge to kiss Hathaway. Mary inwardly rolled her eyes at herself. She needed to get a grip. Still, his look caused her to smile warmly and she took hold of his hand. "I'll trust you to keep me safe."
Something told him she could probably keep herself safe, something about the way she carried herself maybe, he wasn't sure. but he didn't contradict her.
"I will do my best," and the looks she was giving him made his ears pinken slightly as he thought about kissing her as well.
"The mazes I'm used to are usually made from corn." Her eyes roamed over the bushes as they approached, her smile still lingering despite herself. "This one looks like the kind you find in movies." And maybe that's why she actually thought she'd enjoy this. It was surprisingly hard to find your way around and Mary found herself laughing when they came to the third dead end. "I don't think we're very good at this." Not that she minded.
"That depends on what you think the point is," he considered the direction they had come from and decided that they needed to try going left at the intersection they'd just passed through.
"If you're focused on getting to the center, then," another dead end greeted them after the left turn and her laughed. "We are in fact failures."
He gestured that it was her turn to pick a direction as he continued, "But if the intent is a pleasant hour, with an attractive woman then I think I'm doing fairly well."
It didn't come out nearly as smoothly as he'd hoped but he hadn't stuttered.
It was always nice hearing a compliment from someone and it was especially nice hearing it from a man after you've had two children. Having children had a way of making you feel a bit like an old spinster, despite the fact she wasn't that old at all. So she smiled at his words and felt the same sort of flutter he seemed to be capable of giving her.
Mary decided they should try going straight rather than the left or the right this time. "hmmm." She made it seem as if she was considering what her focus really was as they walked.
"Well, I have to say, if we get stuck in here, there's not that many other people I can think of who would make being lost enjoyable. Plus I have a feeling you'd be a gentleman and keep me warm." She playfully bumped him with her shoulder as they walked.
"To the detriment of my own comfort if necessary," he'd been well brought up. But the twinkle in his eye said that perhaps he'd manage a bit more than offering her his coat if it came to it. "And you never know with a British summer, it could stay lovely like it is, or it could suddenly start raining."
"So the jokes about British weather are true, then." Since this was Mary's first time here, she didn't really know.
She let the silence settle between them in a comfortable way as they tried navigating. At least they seemed to be going deeper into the maze now.
"I feel like I should warn you I'm considering kissing you if we find the middle of the maze."
"Quite the incentive then." He matched his tone to hers, and managed, just barely, not to stutter. If his attention on which way they were going, and where they had been, was suddenly more to the point than during their previous wandering it was just a coincidence.
Mary felt a little silly, really, that she felt almost like a teenager again. She wasn't normally such a big flirter and yet here she was and couldn't quite stop herself. She had to admit that it felt nice to have such a light, hopeful feeling again. At the very least, it was nice to see that Hathaway didn't find it incredibly insufferable.
And as they seemed to be getting nearer and nearer to the center, the fluttering in her chest seemed to grow much like a silly teenager and she inwardly scolded herself. She was a grown woman, after all. This shouldn't seem so new and exciting as it was. And yet, it did.
"I think I see the end to the right of us."
He glanced in that direction and nodded smiling down at her, "I think you might be right."
For an awkward sod he was doing remarkably well at not bollocksing this up. He was momentarily sad that Lewis wasn't around to see it.
She definitely felt like she was fourteen again as the hedges opened up triumphantly in front of them. Mary felt accomplished somehow, but it was muddled a little with the sudden realization she had, in fact, declared her intention when they arrived here.
"I think I owe you something now, don't I?" She faced him and there was a playfulness in her eyes as she touched the side of his chin lightly with her fingers, rocked onto her toes, and brought her lips against Hathaway. He was the first man she had kissed since marrying John and there were a surprising amount of mixed emotions. His lips felt warm and his warmth seemed to seep into her own lips and trail down her body. Under everything, though, seemed to be a thin line of guilt.
He was in the middle of saying she didn't owe him anything, when her lips touched his so he froze for a moment before deciding that if she wanted to kiss him he was happy to be kissed, and let his arms drift around her loosely and returned the soft brush of lips with his own.
His tentativeness was cute and her lips formed a smile against his lips. When she pulled back, she was still smiling, and she didn't quite take a step back yet as she read his features silently. "Sorry if I was a little... forward. I've been out of practice for a while I guess."
"I didn't notice anything you need apologize for," his smile was a little lopsided. "And let's face it, if left to me it might never have happened."
And that would be unfortunate as he had enjoyed it.
It was nice to know she apparently hadn't lost her touch. Her smile was wry "Well, then. Remind me to tell you to ask me out another time back at the Inn."
"I'll ask, even if you don't tell me." Then he bent to kiss her again. Still light, and his arms around her still loose enough she could easily pull away, but with less hesitation.
Something in her shoulders relaxed and while his arms were loose, her arms around his neck tightened and she pulled herself against him just a little. Maybe it was because she felt incredibly lonely since she got to the inn, but Hathaway's arms and his lips and the warmth of his body were all things that Mary was eager to experience at that very moment.
When her arms tightened his did as well and after a long moment he deepened the kiss and lifted her against him more fully taking the kiss from sweet and tentative to something a little hotter, just a little they WERE in public and he's still well.. him.
Mary pulled back a little and she was smiling warmly. "I definitely like this better than the museum or the tower." She was thankful she made the right call. "And I'm glad we found our way to the center."
"As am I," it had been fun so far, and had almost made him forget that this London wasn't the same has his London. In conjunction with the trip to Iceland overall this little vacation hadn't sucked nearly so much as the first day in Oxford had implied it might.
Mary never thought she'd make it over the ocean. Back home she never would now, so when the Inn made Europe appear, she decided to take full advantage. She had traveled thought Scotland and Ireland and was now in England. She liked how everywhere she went there was history and stories. She also liked how this world didn't seem to have any supernatural monsters. It was the way the world should be, if she could have her way.
She was trying to send a text back to Dean - these phones were really hard to navigate - when she felt herself bump into someone. Mary glanced up and saw Hathaway. She immediately looked a little embarrassed and offered him a smile. "Sorry. I wasn't looking where I was going."
Hathaway wasn't quite so dour as he'd been after his excursion to Oxford and disappointment at not finding it inhabited by the people he expected to be there thanks to Kitty (and her friends) who had dragged him to Iceland for a week. But he was back now, and despite it not quite being the England he'd left behind, it WAS still home. Sort of.
At a minimum it included any number of places to get warm beer, eat a pasty and buy a suit.
He smiled down at the apology as he recognized Mary, "No need to apologize, I think I'll survive the collision."
Her smile warmed. "Good. I wouldn't want to to have that on my conscience." Somehow his accent sounded all the more better with him in England.
"Visiting old, new haunts?"
"A good way to put it," he admitted, a brief flicker of sadness in his eyes because as familiar as they were they WERE new. "It's odd knowing my way around but not really knowing anyone."
She imagined this was what she would feel like if she showed up back home in her boys' time after being dead for so. Lawrence wouldn't be the same, but it also would.
She noticed the expression and reached her arms around one of his arms. A quiet display of comfort as much as it was meant as a playful distraction since she tugged him in a random direction.
"Well, I've never been and I've been looking for something interesting to do and someone who speaks the language."
"Your English isn't all that bad for an American." He teased lightly before considering what she might enjoy. "Park, museum, palace or... the Tower?"
She hummed in thought. "If you were going to impress a girl before trying to take her back to your place, which one would you choose?"
Not something he was actually actively familiar with.
"Would depend on the girl," he said finally. "If I needed to impress her with how smart I was, the museum. If she seemed the sort to like the pomp of the palace, then the changing of the guard. If she liked a bit of gruesome history I might take her to the tower and if it was a girl I liked and just wanted to be with, then the park."
His tone might imply he would take Mary to the park, but he'd willing to take her anywhere she wants to see.
There were a few things Mary knew about herself. She had no real attachment to the palace or the royal family, but the Tower's stories might be interesting. Museums, she had discovered after becoming a mom, were not her thing.
"Well then, I'd like to be bold enough to say that park sounds nice."
"I was hoping you'd say that," he admitted with a slight pinking of the ears. "There are monsters Crystal Palace park."
Really they were old dinosaur sculptures, and other extinct animals.
"And a maze." Sadly, not the Crystal Palace any longer. But it was still a nice park, and less touristy than Hyde Park.
It was cute when he blushed. She used to be able to make John blush, once upon a time. Her lips quirked up in amusement. "Monsters, huh? What kind of monsters?" It sounded nice simply by the way Hathaway spoke about it.
"I'm good at mazes." She smiled to him. "And I always like a more local, inside scoop of a place."
"Prehistoric animals mostly, plaster versions." He aimed them in the direction of the park and started to walk as he considered. "I like the local bits myself. But then in England I am a local."
Sort of, even though this wasn't HIS England.
"I was living in Lawrence, Kansas before I ended up here. There's not a lot of tourists that come, but we have some great hiking." It wasn't a destination place, that was certain. "I think there might be a few museums, but they're the kind you get embarrassed when you bring someone from out of town to." She smiled, joking a little.
"Some of the embarrassing ones are the most interesting." But he got the point of what she was saying. "I haven't been to Kansas, what's it like?"
"Good barbecue. Generally friendly neighbours, though Lawrence is one of those small enough towns that people try to know everyone else's business sometimes." Mary smiled though because she sort of missed the nosey neighbours now - neighbours she'd never see again. "Really into their college football." She glanced to him. "American football." She thought about Lawrence as they walked, almost feeling wistful. "We chose it because we thought it would be a nice place to raise a family in."
"And was it?" A nice place to raise a family in he means. He knows she has two sons who are at the Inn and fully grown but he doesn't really know either of them.
"Yes." She wasn't sure if she was ready to admit to anyone, let alone Hathaway, that she had unintentionally put her second born in harms way by making a deal with a demon for John's life. "Maybe teenagers would hate it, but it's one of those nice little towns to raise kids."
She paused. "My sons didn't stay there long. I died when Sam was six months old and they started traveling for work with their father." Her expression sobered a little, but she had mostly come to terms with her fate. Mostly.
"I'm sorry," he hadn't known that she'd died so young. And how odd it was to be talking to someone who mentioned their own death. "My mom died when I was at Cambridge. Not as young as your sons but, it's never easy."
She'd been ill when he went, and sometimes he wondered how his life would be different if he had stayed home like Nell to help care for her. But he'd wanted to get away from Crevcour Hall and Oxford with almost fanatical intensity back then. Funny that he'd been so keen to get back and so upset when it wasn't his Oxford he'd found here.
"No, but I'm trying to just accept it. Not much I can do now about it. And the Inn's given me a chance to see my sons all grown up." Even if it was sometimes awkward, like when your youngest made out with his girlfriend provocatively in public, but she supposed she would have had to deal with that when they were teenagers anyways. "I'm sorry about your mother. She raised a good son, so I'm sure she was really nice."
"She was," and anything else about his family was probably best left unsaid. Luckily they'd just arrived at the park and he gestured left then right. "Monsters? Or the maze?"
Mary looked at him with a bit of a mischievous look. "Feel like getting lost in a maze with me?"
His smile was also just a trifle mischievous. "That sounds like a wonderful idea."
For a moment Mary felt like she was sixteen again and on a first date. She felt butterflies for a moment and even the sudden urge to kiss Hathaway. Mary inwardly rolled her eyes at herself. She needed to get a grip. Still, his look caused her to smile warmly and she took hold of his hand. "I'll trust you to keep me safe."
Something told him she could probably keep herself safe, something about the way she carried herself maybe, he wasn't sure. but he didn't contradict her.
"I will do my best," and the looks she was giving him made his ears pinken slightly as he thought about kissing her as well.
"The mazes I'm used to are usually made from corn." Her eyes roamed over the bushes as they approached, her smile still lingering despite herself. "This one looks like the kind you find in movies." And maybe that's why she actually thought she'd enjoy this. It was surprisingly hard to find your way around and Mary found herself laughing when they came to the third dead end. "I don't think we're very good at this." Not that she minded.
"That depends on what you think the point is," he considered the direction they had come from and decided that they needed to try going left at the intersection they'd just passed through.
"If you're focused on getting to the center, then," another dead end greeted them after the left turn and her laughed. "We are in fact failures."
He gestured that it was her turn to pick a direction as he continued, "But if the intent is a pleasant hour, with an attractive woman then I think I'm doing fairly well."
It didn't come out nearly as smoothly as he'd hoped but he hadn't stuttered.
It was always nice hearing a compliment from someone and it was especially nice hearing it from a man after you've had two children. Having children had a way of making you feel a bit like an old spinster, despite the fact she wasn't that old at all. So she smiled at his words and felt the same sort of flutter he seemed to be capable of giving her.
Mary decided they should try going straight rather than the left or the right this time. "hmmm." She made it seem as if she was considering what her focus really was as they walked.
"Well, I have to say, if we get stuck in here, there's not that many other people I can think of who would make being lost enjoyable. Plus I have a feeling you'd be a gentleman and keep me warm." She playfully bumped him with her shoulder as they walked.
"To the detriment of my own comfort if necessary," he'd been well brought up. But the twinkle in his eye said that perhaps he'd manage a bit more than offering her his coat if it came to it. "And you never know with a British summer, it could stay lovely like it is, or it could suddenly start raining."
"So the jokes about British weather are true, then." Since this was Mary's first time here, she didn't really know.
She let the silence settle between them in a comfortable way as they tried navigating. At least they seemed to be going deeper into the maze now.
"I feel like I should warn you I'm considering kissing you if we find the middle of the maze."
"Quite the incentive then." He matched his tone to hers, and managed, just barely, not to stutter. If his attention on which way they were going, and where they had been, was suddenly more to the point than during their previous wandering it was just a coincidence.
Mary felt a little silly, really, that she felt almost like a teenager again. She wasn't normally such a big flirter and yet here she was and couldn't quite stop herself. She had to admit that it felt nice to have such a light, hopeful feeling again. At the very least, it was nice to see that Hathaway didn't find it incredibly insufferable.
And as they seemed to be getting nearer and nearer to the center, the fluttering in her chest seemed to grow much like a silly teenager and she inwardly scolded herself. She was a grown woman, after all. This shouldn't seem so new and exciting as it was. And yet, it did.
"I think I see the end to the right of us."
He glanced in that direction and nodded smiling down at her, "I think you might be right."
For an awkward sod he was doing remarkably well at not bollocksing this up. He was momentarily sad that Lewis wasn't around to see it.
She definitely felt like she was fourteen again as the hedges opened up triumphantly in front of them. Mary felt accomplished somehow, but it was muddled a little with the sudden realization she had, in fact, declared her intention when they arrived here.
"I think I owe you something now, don't I?" She faced him and there was a playfulness in her eyes as she touched the side of his chin lightly with her fingers, rocked onto her toes, and brought her lips against Hathaway. He was the first man she had kissed since marrying John and there were a surprising amount of mixed emotions. His lips felt warm and his warmth seemed to seep into her own lips and trail down her body. Under everything, though, seemed to be a thin line of guilt.
He was in the middle of saying she didn't owe him anything, when her lips touched his so he froze for a moment before deciding that if she wanted to kiss him he was happy to be kissed, and let his arms drift around her loosely and returned the soft brush of lips with his own.
His tentativeness was cute and her lips formed a smile against his lips. When she pulled back, she was still smiling, and she didn't quite take a step back yet as she read his features silently. "Sorry if I was a little... forward. I've been out of practice for a while I guess."
"I didn't notice anything you need apologize for," his smile was a little lopsided. "And let's face it, if left to me it might never have happened."
And that would be unfortunate as he had enjoyed it.
It was nice to know she apparently hadn't lost her touch. Her smile was wry "Well, then. Remind me to tell you to ask me out another time back at the Inn."
"I'll ask, even if you don't tell me." Then he bent to kiss her again. Still light, and his arms around her still loose enough she could easily pull away, but with less hesitation.
Something in her shoulders relaxed and while his arms were loose, her arms around his neck tightened and she pulled herself against him just a little. Maybe it was because she felt incredibly lonely since she got to the inn, but Hathaway's arms and his lips and the warmth of his body were all things that Mary was eager to experience at that very moment.
When her arms tightened his did as well and after a long moment he deepened the kiss and lifted her against him more fully taking the kiss from sweet and tentative to something a little hotter, just a little they WERE in public and he's still well.. him.
Mary pulled back a little and she was smiling warmly. "I definitely like this better than the museum or the tower." She was thankful she made the right call. "And I'm glad we found our way to the center."
"As am I," it had been fun so far, and had almost made him forget that this London wasn't the same has his London. In conjunction with the trip to Iceland overall this little vacation hadn't sucked nearly so much as the first day in Oxford had implied it might.