tushanshu_logs | If you close your eyes in a moment you will be there

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If you close your eyes in a moment you will be there

Characters: Pepper Potts, Yami no Bakura, Tony Stark, Adrien Agreste, and you!
Date: Throughout February
Location: House Spicy Iron Dragon, KPD Headquarters, and around Keeliai
Situation: It's snowing! That means Pepper is dragging friends outside to play. The Dreaming is making itself known in more ways than one, and she's predictably busy as usual.
Warnings/Rating: None yet

A. House Spicy Iron Dragon | Backdated to January | Bakura and Tony

With the dojo as damaged as it was, Pepper offered to have Bakura stay over at the house. Otherwise he was just going to be grumpy as all get out for however long it took to repair it. Her roommates might not be thrilled, but it was her life, and her boyfriend, for lack of a better term, and she wasn't going to leave Bakura hanging. She'd left the Rescue armor at the dojo to stand guard for the night, so by the time they got back to the house Pepper was a little chilled and definitely damp.

"I'm going to make tea," she declared as soon as they walked in the door. "There will also be scones."

B. KPD Headquarters | Feb 8 | Adrien

The police force is still busy with the last of the hurricane repairs, but it seems like the snow has deterred a lot of people from getting up to mischief. Her armor stands near her desk at the headquarters; it's pretty frigid outside and she's been wearing it every time she's on patrol. Now, though, she's got one of her favorite scarves wrapped around her shoulders and she's working on a backlog of paperwork from the storm.

C. Sky Sector | First half of February | Open

It's snowing! It's also really, really cold, but snow! That means snowball fights are 100% required, and making snowmen, and snow angels, and introducing all of these traditions to anyone willing to hang out. Pepper bundles up as well as she can and ventures outside when she has free time, and it's quite common to see her, red-cheeked and with snowflakes fringing her hair, grinning like a loon and hurling snow at friends.

D. Around Keeliai | Throughout February | Open

The Dreaming makes itself known every so often, and in new and weird ways pretty much every time. Pepper sticks mostly to her schedule, even when she starts hearing rumors about something strange happening among the Foreigners during the second week of February. As long as no one is dying, she mostly doesn't care. There's a lot going on in the city, and there's not much to be done about the Dreaming when it wants to make some noise.

Throughout the month, she can be found at the KPD Headquarters or out on patrol, though she's wearing the Rescue armor when on patrol as a way to keep warm in the snow. Jade Dojo is closed to the public, but Pepper still visits and it's not uncommon to find her in the Wood Sector a few days a week. And since home is in the Sky Sector, that's a good place to look if someone is trying to find her.

E. Central Sector | After Feb 12 | Zelos

After a somewhat tense if enlightening conversation with Kratos, Pepper has been considering Zelos and the potential problems that have been raised. This is a delicate situation for a number of reasons, and she knows she needs to be careful about how she handles things. She can't help Zelos if he pushes her away (although realistically, even if he did she'd keep after him because that's just what she does). It takes a little searching - he doesn't seem to be at the Hotel or the shelter, although she gets told he's been hanging around the Welcome Center a lot. So, that's where Pepper goes looking, and indeed she finds him nearby.

Rather than wave or call hello or do anything remotely resembling an appropriate or traditional greeting, Pepper picks up a large handful of snow, packs it into a ball and throws it at him. It may or may not be aimed at his head. "Hey, Zelos!" Predictably, she is sporting a wide grin, and only after hurling the snowball does she say: "Duck."

F. Midnight Hotel | Mid February | Miles

Having another New Yorker around is always a good thing. Miles is good company, too, although Pepper hasn't had a chance to see him much with the hurricane and the aftermath. Busy is good, but sometimes busy makes it hard to hang out with people. So when things calm down a little and there's enough snow on the ground to even make New York schools call a delay (though probably not a day off), Pepper heads to the Hotel in search of him, sporting a smile and ready to argue the relative merits of different boroughs.

G. Jade Dojo | Late February | Bakura

It's late, but the house was a bit crowded and Pepper knew that the dojo was always more private. Plus, she had offered to come by more often at night since she hadn't been visiting as frequently as she used to now that she was sleeping better. A little before twelve, she slipped out of the house and made her way to the Wood Sector, dodging a few stubborn piles of snow, and left her shoes out on the veranda to avoid tracking in mud or water. Since she was here to spend time with Bakura and not necessarily spar, she wandered into the office and went in search of him, calling his name softly to announce her presence.

(OOC Note: Let me know if you'd like a specific starter, or feel free to make your own!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The apartment was sparsely lit, but not totally darkened as it would be had he retired for the night. Nonetheless, there was no sign of him in the kitchen or living areas, leaving only one room left as a possibility.

Bakura didn't sleep, not fully, when someone else was present. He couldn't turn those instincts off, even when he logically knew he wasn't in danger. But he did doze lightly, never quite making full slumber, but restful enough in its own way for the interim.

Eisso, on the other hand, slept comfortably on the other side of the bed beside him, sheets pulled part of the way up to her waist, exposing deep green ringlets of hair against her bare back. Sometimes she left right away, and sometimes like tonight, she caught a bit of a nap before returning to the Shaded Lantern (or, if she was done for the night, back home). While Bakura was not one for cosseting after sex, he also didn't seem to care if she stayed a bit. Sometimes he was there when she woke, and other times he'd already gone back to whatever he was doing. She'd had ruder clients, for sure. Some of them insisted she leave within minutes of satisfying them.

Pepper's voice roused him from his semi-drowse, though it was too soft to wake Eisso, and he responded with, "A moment, biahbenat," while he stretched and cast about for where his clothes had ended up.

Hearing Bakura reply after a few moments, Pepper went further into the apartment to the living room, pulling off her scarf and coat and setting them on the arm of the couch. She hoped she hadn't woken him; his sleep was erratic enough without her being a disruption.

It was around then that she noticed other clothing that was decidedly not Bakura's unless he'd recently started wearing much brighter colors when she wasn't looking. Pepper knew most of his wardrobe since she has a thing about fashion, and she didn't recognize this.

She froze, hardly daring to breathe, staring at the foreign article like it had personally betrayed her. Words had temporarily abandoned her as well, and she found herself completely uncertain of what to do next, if this meant what she thought it meant, and dismay settled heavily in her stomach.

It doesn't take him long to get dressed once various clothing articles are located, and he steps out of the bedroom in his usual jeans and t-shirt. The greeting he started to offer her stalled partway as he registered her expression and body language. "Biahbenat, what's wrong?"

Pepper tore her gaze away from the offending clothing, and turned to Bakura. There was shock and sadness and confusion in her expression, and it took her a noticeable length of time to find words again.

She desperately didn't want to make assumptions about what was happening, didn't want to accuse him of something when she might be mistaken or misinterpreting things, but her mind wanted to leap before she really looked.

"You, um. You have someone... else over," she observed, very quiet, but the emphasis on 'else' was audible.

The apparent non-sequitur -- to him, at least -- made him tilt his head slightly, nonplussed. "Yes, Eisso is here," he replied.

Then, incorrectly deducing the source of her reluctance, he offered, "But if you want to speak in private, I can wake her and send her out."

Oh, her again. Brilliant.

As upset as she was, though, Eisso was the subject of a conversation that was basically this exact problem come to life, so while her lizard brain was definitely trying to take over, Pepper had just enough of an existing framework not to completely panic.

She gave a single, startled, not quite angry laugh at his response. "I was kind of hoping she wouldn't be here in the first place, but yeah, sure, why not remove the elephant literally in your bedroom," she said, throwing her hands up.

"I said you can show up to the dojo whenever you want to," Bakura raised an eyebrow at Pepper's reaction. "That doesn't mean I'm never going to be doing anything but waiting for you to drop by."

Especially this month with the dojo closed, he'd been in and out of the building more often than not, making catching him here during daylight hours a hit or miss chance.

He regarded her a moment longer, as if trying to discern a better explanation, but shrugged and backtracked to the bedroom once again, picking up the clothing from the couch on the way. Eisso had already begun to stir following the redhead's exclamation, and a brief exchange of words had the kedan woman nodding agreeably and beginning to redress.

"Is that better?" he asked, as he returned to the living room.

Doing things was not the problem. Doing people was the problem, and it really didn't seem like Bakura understood that.

She considered sitting down and determined she was way too antsy for it, so she fidgeted and tried not to pace a hole in Bakura's floor.

"Not-- not really," she admitted, and took a deep breath. Recalling their last conversation on this, Pepper was going to have to be explicit, and that was hard. At least they were in private and not out on the street this time. "I know I can't claim ownership of everything you do, duh, not saying that. I wouldn't even want you to just be waiting around, you have a life." She wrung her hands for a moment. "I just-- you could have at least told me that you'd still hire Eisso so I didn't get smacked in the face with it like right now." Pepper sounded a lot more upset than angry. "I guess-- I guess I just thought you wouldn't, since we've been figuring out this whole 'together' thing."

That was apparently a really stupid assumption to make, seeing as here they were.

He stared at her blankly, there being an obvious chasm of comprehension between what the two had in common, even as the door in the other room opened and closed, signaling Eisso's departure.

And then, it was like the light bulb came on.

"You're jealous," he pronounced, half a question and half surprised revelation.

(It was, unfortunately, not the right light bulb.)

"I-- What?" That wasn't precisely why she was upset, but if Pepper took a moment to think about it, then yes, yes she was jealous, but she was also about eight other more prominent things.

"No. I mean, yes, okay, a little, but that's not the point," she said, and when she laughed again it had an edge of hysteria in it. Pepper really needed to calm down if she was going to explain her side of things in a coherent manner. "My point is that, where I come from, you don't hire prostitutes if you're in a relationship with someone! Or if both partners are chill with that, you at least tell your partner. And I know, I know-- we come from two very different places and see things very differently and I am trying really hard right now not to think of this as cheating on me because I'm hoping this is all just a huge, mega embarrassing miscommunication. "

And not, conversely, something he did intentionally or knowingly. Bakura couldn't have known she'd come over, and if he didn't want to be in a relationship with Pepper any longer she's pretty sure he'd say it and not use Eisso to get that point across.

She started pacing, nervous energy skittering down all her limbs, and she was talking at high speed. "It's just-- where I grew up Bakura, this isn't okay. I mean, sure, some people's relationships are just emotional, and I know that's pretty much where we're at right now, but seriously you could have said something! Because separating emotional and physical stuff isn't easy for me, Bakura, it's really, really hard. And maybe it's stupid, maybe it shouldn't bother me as much as it does, but it bothers me and it hurts." Pepper stopped and looked at him, unshed tears in her eyes. "I'm hurt, Bakura, and that's way, way more important than the jealousy."

And now he realized that the same problem had come around again: a very fundamental misalignment of what their agreement had entailed. Things that he had thought were implicit were evidently not, and the same appeared true for Pepper. It's telling however that he bristles slightly at the idea that she might quantify this as cheating.

Watching her pace, Bakura's nowhere near as fretful as she is, but he's unable to keep a note of testiness out of his voice. "Why would I have said something? It still has nothing to do with you and I. I'm not where you come from. We're not where you come from either, we're here in Keeliai."

"And this," he said sharply, gesturing to her agitated state. "Is all the more reason why I've not only not done something wrong, but done something right instead. If it's so hard for you to separate emotional and physical, why would I do something to purposely complicate them more?"

He folded his arms in front of him, eyes sharp, although he didn't rise from his lean on the arm of the couch.

"Is that something you want? To take Eisso's place? For me to treat you as simply there as someone to sleep with when I feel like it, when you'll know very well it's for that alone? Explain to me how that is less offensive to you."

Oh my god. Yeah. Okay. This was going nowhere good in a hurry, and Pepper needed to be really careful of what she said and how she said it.

"That's not--" Pepper stopped and took a deep breath. There was anger in her tone now, but it was contained. "Okay, first: I'm just trying to explain how I feel and what I'm thinking and where my brain is going so that you can hopefully understand why I'm upset, because both of us are very obviously not mind readers. I'm really not trying to accuse you of anything, just tell you where I'm coming at this from. You're right - we're not in my world, but we're not in yours, either, so I'm trying to meet you where you're at but being in a relationship is a two-way street. So while sleeping with Eisso may not look like it has anything to do with me from your perspective, it does from mine and all I'm trying to do is say that and figure out how to meet somewhere in the middle."

Because she didn't want to lose him, not over this. They had to be able to find a way through it. Right?

She wrapped her arms around herself, somewhere between vulnerable and defensive. This next part was going to be more challenging for her to articulate. "Second: no, that's not what I want. I don't want to be a swap out for Eisso and I don't want to trade sleeping with you for just being with you." Her cheeks were starting to turn pink, and she glanced away. "I'm not-- experienced, Bakura, I haven't ever slept with anyone so I'm not good at talking about this, and honestly I think part of it is because I do maybe want to go in that direction with you and-- and have it be both. Not trade a relationship for sex, but both." God, those were actually words coming out of her mouth and she was so, so very glad they were in private and it was late and her dad was on the other side of the city. She actually looked a little shocked that she'd managed to say it at all. "But if that's not something you think is gonna work, then-- then I will do my best to stop letting Eisso being here bother me. I can't promise it'll happen overnight or that it'll be easy for me, but I will try. At least if I know you're still hiring her I can wrap my head around it."

He remains silent through both halves of her explanation, letting her get her thoughts out, while doing his level best not to start forming reactionary responses before she's done. There's something of abatement in the set of his shoulders when she clarifies that she's not accusing him of anything, but everything she says doesn't convince him that this is solving confusion, rather than creating more of it.

"It was a misunderstanding," he acquiesces. That is something they can surely both agree on, and mete out details from there. "You and I didn't consider that this might appear differently to the other. Neither did it to harm."

Bakura isn't in the habit of explaining himself, of needing to explain himself to anyone, so there's an automatic belligerent reaction that he does his best to rein in, because he recognizes that it has nothing to do with Pepper's personality and everything to do with his.

"I had thought... that since you already knew my interest in Eisso is nothing more than physical, it was inconsequential. Sleeping with her or not sleeping with her doesn't change how I treat you, so to me the reverse made sense to be true."

But then, annoyance in the way he breathes out; this was not the conversation he'd been expecting to have tonight either. Pepper's running-high emotions and the way she was looking insecure spurred automatic feelings of frustration and defensiveness. "I'm not an idiot, biahbenat, I know sex and emotion can be combined, just as you know they can be separate. If I thought there was a chance I was straying to that, I'd have told you."

As far as he Bakura was concerned, there wasn't a chance of that bleed over, not with Eisso at least.

Then of course... there was momentum behind what she'd said.

"I can't say whether that will work or not. I don't know. You're asking me to give you an answer with no experience and no evidence, and then stick with that answer. I rarely use the term unfair but that's straying close."

For perhaps the first time since Pepper walked in the door tonight, she stopped. Bakura did have several points, and she made herself listen without interrupting him. They were getting somewhere, though.

In some concession to the fact that she had calmed down just a little, Pepper decided to sit on the opposite end of the couch from him, and remained quiet for long enough to think that over, her hands pressed together in front of her.

"You're right," she said at length. "That-- that isn't fair of me. It's not something anyone can just answer off the top of their head."

Pepper sighed. She wanted to be angry with him, wanted to yell and be right just because she's hurt, but Bakura didn't hurt her on purpose, she knows it, and yelling at him will only make things worse. She was as upset with him as with herself for rushing and jumping to conclusions. They'd both made assumptions they shouldn't have.

"I know you're not an idiot, by the way," Pepper continued, glancing at him for a moment. "I just-- I didn't know how to even talk about this. I didn't even realize how much I wanted to talk about this until it was a seriously bad time for it." Pepper hesitated for a moment. "That's sort of funny, isn't it? I can talk all day long about pretty much anything except the one thing that's maybe most important to me. I guess I'm just... scared of screwing what we have up by saying the wrong thing, but not saying anything is probably worse."

The question of whether Pepper would continue to object to Eisso's presence was still up in the air. Her gut instinct was that she didn't want Eisso around again, but Bakura had made it clear that his interest in her was purely physical. Making demands of Bakura wouldn't be the way to go about expressing her displeasure with that arrangement if she ultimately couldn't stand it. Her emotions were still running high, which meant that she shouldn't try to make that decision tonight.

She looked at him and didn't look away this time, and even managed the ghost of a smile. "I think we need to talk to each other more about this kind of stuff, huh."

Pepper sitting down and the change in her posture certainly helped take some of the edge off the confrontation, and consequently some of the reactive defensiveness left Bakura too. "You say that as though I've had extensive experience talking about it," he grumbled without real ire.

"It seems we should," he replied, although 'this kind of stuff' was an awfully broad spectrum, and Bakura wondered if they weren't both in over their heads at the moment.

"Well, you're here now. I'm getting something to drink, you're welcome to join."

"...fair point." Maybe talking about sex was a poor example, but Bakura definitely had more experience in that area than Pepper.

She shook her head and laughed quietly. "You know, I never, ever thought I'd say this, but words are hard." The redhead took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Calm was good. Calm was important here, very important. She could get there. "A drink sounds like the right answer, yeah. I need to chill," she added, poking a little fun at herself.

When all else fails, be self-deprecating, right? Dragging them back towards lightheartedness couldn't be the worst idea.

(He could recommend a very reputable brothel, if she wanted to brush up.)

Her admission got a short, surprised note of laughter. "Coming from you, that's almost frightening, biahbenat."

Bakura's cupboard had a small but decent selection of liquor, some from the Golden Koi and others from kedan stores. Bakura drinks less than one might imagine his type to, unless they knew him well. He didn't like compromising his own agency with things he didn't control, like intoxication, but at the same time there was an allure of dulling things down and not being so alert to everything.

He removed a bottle and two glasses from the shelf, then poured for them both: hers first, then his own. Ryou's manners and Japanese custom prevailed, even separated as they'd been for this long.

"You never said why you'd come tonight in the first place."

(One thing at a time, Bakura.)

"Yeah, well, no point in pretending I'm not gonna be fumbling around on this particular subject," she said with a shrug.

Alcohol had basically not had any of Pepper's attention until Bakura teased her about it at the masquerade and then started introducing her to good varieties so she wouldn't end up with crap. She was still something of a lightweight, but her ancestry probably helped make up for her slim build.

"Hm? Oh. Right. Our parents are back. My dad, Tony's dad, and Gene's mom, which is like super freaky because she's been dead for like... eight years? And she showed up right after Gene's stepdad tried to strangle her, so it's a little bit awkward and busy at home right now," she explained. "We don't know how long they'll be here this time and... weirdly I kind of felt like I shouldn't let myself get used to it, so maybe it'll be easier when they do go home."

Gene was going to be a wreck for a while, she was betting. Bakura, for all the challenges he presented, was something of a mental breather, even with the tension that had just happened.

Mahogany eyes widened slightly at that; this was the first he'd actually heard of people returning, Foreigners who weren't Foreigners in the usual sense of the word. He recalled quite well the last time, and the time before that, but hadn't realized it had happened again.

Then again, he didn't spend much time hanging around a great many other Foreigners to begin with.

The part with Gene was particularly worrisome... but at the same time, Bakura hoped that, no matter how temporary, he was able to get something positive from the reunion.

"You know it won't be easier," he said, although his tone has softened slightly, as if the entire previous confrontation had been cordoned off for the moment. "All you'll make is guilt that way. You can't punish them because we're the ones who are stuck here."

There was silence for a moment where Pepper just looked down at her drink. Then she nodded. "Yeah, I know," she said quietly, and smiled sadly at him. "That's why I'm here in the middle of the night, when everyone is asleep. Well, Gene's probably awake, but I heard my dad snoring."

Even if Pepper might have preferred Bakura simply comfort or commiserate with her, she appreciated the bluntness. He was right, and he didn't avoid pointing out when she was doing something unwise. He didn't coddle her, but he didn't make her feel like an idiot, either.

"The house just... feels different. It's quieter here, even if they're all sleeping. More normal. Plus, you know, I like spending time with you," she added with a light shrug. "Figured no one would notice if I slipped away for a few hours."

It would be hard to provide Pepper with an unbiased reassurance that her intentional avoidance was the right move. He'd been here through multiple instances of this phenomenon, but it had never brought anyone he recognized. He wasn't sure what he would have done if his and Pepper's situation was reversed, however. That was a path of thought that would be too happy to drag him down, if he let it.

Instead, he humourlessly clinked his glass against hers. "It wouldn't have been so quiet if you'd yelled at me the way you looked like you wanted to a few moments ago," he said.

"But I don't think you're wrong to want to get away from things when they feel too much," Bakura offered after a moment. "Why do you think I leave the city sometimes? If this is where you feel like escaping to, then it's always here for that."

Pepper raised her head and managed a half-smile. "Thanks. That-- that means a lot." This was, after all, still Bakura's home, and the open-ended invitation that he'd given her before and now again to just show up when she needed to was actually quite touching.

She looked a little embarrassed then, returning to the subject of yelling. "Being loud is sort of my default setting," she said. "I was really startled. At least I stopped before I threw a book at you? I did that to Gene once in class."

And got detention and an extra history project for it. That she had apologized for; this she's not so sure she has to, although she can see apologizing for how she said things and how it had impacted Bakura, if necessary.

After a careful sip of her drink, she continued. "We look at things really differently on a lot of subjects and that's fine, that's okay, but obviously we need to be a little more clear about it all so we're on the same page. I'm totally willing to bend, too, or at least to try, I just need the time to be able to do it."

"A book wouldn't have been so harsh," he remarked. "Considering there are far more dangerous things within easy reach."

Like the dojo's weapons selection, or the pointed end of her ka's sword... a book would have been positively tame.

Bakura sighed into his glass. "Fine, biahbenat, go ahead and make things clear."

"Hitting you once was enough," she said with some little regret in her tone.

Ooh, Pepper wanted to get short with him for that last comment, which told her that she hadn't yet fully calmed down. She needed to measure her words carefully, because she didn't want to end up yelling at him.

"I didn't mean for that to sound like making demands," she said first, grimacing faintly. "Obviously, I'm not very good at separating the emotional and the physical. So, you hiring Eisso bothers me; maybe it shouldn't. I know it's just physical with her, I know that." She turned her glass in her hands. "I also know I'm definitely not in the right state to make any rational decisions about her..." Not making any demands, she reminded herself. Ask, don't require, and try not to blush furiously. "I guess, for now, you might as well keep hiring her if you want to. I-- I want you, maybe probably in all the ways you can want a person, so I'd like to revisit that arrangement in the future." Deep breath. "Especially if we start sleeping together."

"You are certainly the only person to have ever said that about me," he snorted, shaking his head slightly.

But Pepper's attempt this time to explain things was both clearer -- and not. "We already spoke about that part," Bakura said suspiciously. "You asked me if I'd keep hiring someone like Eisso if I were already sleeping with someone I was in a relationship with, and I said no."

If you close your eyes in a moment you will be there

G.

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