strangetrip | [EP] I feel the best and most precious part of me leap

When Sunny had arrived to take over in the library, she passed an envelope to Corbie explaining, "For you and Mildmay. I had these printed the last time we were let out."

Corbie had been confused of course, but she'd taken her surprise down with her to the cafe before she opened it. Immediately, the whole world just stopped. It felt like a star leaping in her belly. Like, at least just for that one moment, nothing would ever be wrong again. Because while most of the faces in the pictures she was looking at were unfamiliar--later she might realize that Coby was in the background of one, wearing a completely idiotic sweater--each picture had one person in common. A tall, thin man with long red curls and mismatched yellow and blue eyes, beautiful as daylight, proud as a peacock, and bearing a striking resemblance to Mildmay.

Felix.

She had talked about this with Coby before, but it had not truly seemed real, not at the time. Hell, it didn't seem real now. He was not... well, for lack of a better way to put it, he was not her Felix. This man was younger, of an age with Mildmay, whereas she knew the brothers had something like six or so years between them. There was also no white in his hair (and it was not as long), which she knew he'd gotten on his travels and he was less than proud of it. But that smile, that stance, that affected boredom, that teasing, that was Felix. That was Felix.

She had, she realized, been afraid. Been so very afraid of forgetting his face. And oh, the memories that rushed to her then, sitting together on that rickety cot for her first lessons, the light and almost breathless way he spoke, the way she felt like she'd had sunlight poured directly into her when he'd told her, 'You've made excellent progress. I'm proud of you.'

Her heart raced and her stomach fluttered and her hands shook and Corbie laughed and cried all at once. Her witchlights, little glowing purple chrysanthemums, bloomed all around her. She hardly took notice.

[ooc: So Corbie got photographs of an AU!Felix from another game because RP is weird. Her crush is showing.]

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Yeah, he'd kinda given that one to her. And maybe, somewhere in the back of his mind, the thought had been there without Mildmay realizing it.

"Looks like."

Mildmay shook his head. He couldn't imagine wearing anything like that. But he also hadn't changed much from the all black he wore as Felix's obligataire. Something to make people notice him? And get close? And think he wanted to fuck whoever, wherever? No. Just no.

Childish as it was, Corbie still snickered and didn't try to find a way to keep going with it. Of course he found it strange. Mildmay was one of the most shy and private men she'd ever known.

So she changed the subject entirely and jerked her chin toward the food he'd brought with him. "What's that?"

"Pizza." He nudged the pan with the back of a scarred knuckle a little in her direction. "New York pizza. It's s'posed to be the best or somethin'.

"Emma made it." His head lowered, and he looked down at his hands. "I helped some. With the crust."

Sweet, shy boy. But she didn't dare say that out loud. Corbie gave the end of his braid a playful little tug before she reached to take a slice from the pizza and an experimental bite.

She didn't know what she was expecting exactly, but nothing of Emma's had ever been the wrong thing to put in her mouth before and it still wasn't wrong now.

Once she'd swallowed, she grinned at Mildmay. "It's good." And then she immediately took another bite.

Mildmay took a slice for himself, picking it up from the outer edge the same way Emma had, so it folded in on itself and made it easier to take a bite.

"Emma made it," he said again, like, of course it's good. And it was. Salty and fatty and not like anything he'd ever had before.

A little messy too, a faint sheen of grease on his fingertips when he finished the slice, that he sucked clean one finger at a time.

"You helped," Corbie pointed out, but not very insistently, focusing more on finishing her slice. Compliments and encouragement were always highly suspect, and the harder anybody tried to say something nice about him, the harder he'd resist. It was something he and Felix had in common. "Dough's real easy to fuck up."

Which was true.

He could've said he hadn't done much. Just tossed the dough in the air the way Emma showed him while going on about how the dough was the key to this kinda pizza – 'cause there were other types, he guessed? Mostly he'd leaving cooking to the ones who could cook.

"Always been good at following directions," he mumbled, covering by taking another slice from the pan.

"It's amazing how many people aren't," Corbie observed wryly. Felix among them. He was almost made not to follow directions.

When she took a second slice, she eyed it a moment before folding it--tip up toward the crust--and taking a bite out of it. When she unfolded it again, the bite had left a circular-ish hole in the middle, the edges made up of teeth marks. She giggled.

Mildmay watched, shaking his head as she folded the pizza wrong way 'round and bit a hole right outta the middle.

"S'posed ta fold it the other way," he teased, happy enough seeing her all playful.

"But it's more fun this way!" Corbie chirped, holding up the slice to her eye so she could look at him through the hole. Yes, she was well aware she was acting like a kid and she could almost hear her gran telling her not to play with her food, but just why not?

"As long as you're enjoying yourself." That was one of the best things about Corbie. How she found the fun in life, instead of being ground down and hardened from everything.

Not that Mildmay didn't have fun, but it was quieter, more contained.

"I try," Corbie said, almost absurdly pleased with herself before she lowered the rest of the slice to her mouth to bite off the now-dangling tip.

[EP] I feel the best and most precious part of me leap - OTA

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