A Child First

"Thank you." Her tone was polite, but also pleased: Not in the I've gotten away with something manner that the man beside her was no doubt intimately familiar, but in a far more sedate Oh, that was nice manner.

She picked it up, examining it with a careful eye, the sort of look that people tended to give pens before they started taking them apart to see what all the pieces looked like inside. Laine stopped short of that, of course, because the pen didn't need to be apart, and of course she was already quite sure how it all fit together.

It was nothing. A simple thing. Only a pen. It seemed unimportant, but it was hers now, part of whatever puzzle she presented to him. In a more literal sense, Laine kept the pen in one hand and returned her other to the puzzle, snapping the pieces into place before and after the one that he had started all of this will, locking it into place as part of the whole.

"What's your-" Laine stopped herself, perhaps a little shortly. Usually that was the right question, but she had the feeling very suddenly that in this case it was not. A fleeting uncertain expression crossed her features, not sure what to do with this knowledge, seeking the right question rather than the right answer. "What do you want me to call you?"
 
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She thanked him for the pen. Good manners, bad form. He let it go because it was meant to be a gift. It was a small thing. A pen. It wasn't like some other things she could've asked him for. That she almost asked him for. Not with the same force that some things might've requested with, but enough force to be noticed.

Hal might've suddenly seemed very sharp. Maybe it was the shift of his smile, or the glint in his eyes. He wouldn't feel endangered by the half-asked question, but there were some questions that didn't belong in situations like this. And yet, unlike most things, she seemed to have an instinct for that. The confusion followed by hesitance as the world seemed to pause - not anomalously, but in the long moment of uncertainty that followed questions that weren't finished or answered.

The sharpness fell away as he seemed to consider a number of options - he was a man of many names, after all, given he didn't ever want one to become a Name like his real one - but there were a few he'd taken a liking to. Ones he'd used with beings that would break a person not already apparently shattered into sharpened bits, ones for strangers on the impromptu field trips he'd taken as a younger researcher. And yet he, too, felt an instinct, like the one he chose here would have... permanence. Like a puzzle piece that gravity should claim from the edge of the table, but which would stick.

"Strings."

It should've just been a word - one with too many meanings. Banjo strings, puppet strings, the frayed threads at the edge of humanity, the intricate patterns of a spider's web. The lines that all led to a Gordian knot at the center that could be pulled loose or outright destroyed for the right answers. Maybe that was why he felt it was the right word to secure into this moment. And he added nothing else, no rambling explanation for his motives that he might've given to something else with less permanence. The silence didn't suit him, even more than sound didn't.

Or, maybe, people grossly misjudged him, and he was grossly overestimating her. He was just a man, after all; she was just a child, after all. But it was best to assume the worst in cases like hers. Just to see what happened, until all the pieces were in place.
 
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"Strings?" It was only a question, bearing no weight. She shifted her eyes towards him, never quite meeting his own, but taking in something about the tuned banjo in his lap, the peeping strands of hair escaping the hat, about the way he was too tall for things and it made him sit hunched over - like a marionette doll. Maybe he thought of himself as playing with puppets, but Laine thought he looked more like a puppet himself, though that implied someone else was holding the strings at the other end, and she didn't know who that would be. This was why she didn't like similes. They were imprecise.

But Strings fit him, in a number of ways. "Okay. Strings, then." The word drew taut, anchored at the end, woven into the fabric of the man before her. A collection of strings. It fit together, part of a whole that made sense in the way that things made sense to her. Other people, Laine had been told, were not like that, but Laine had accepted she was not like other people. It was even in the file that was still open between them: anomaly. The word fit her, much like Strings fit him.

Having determined the answer to that question to her satisfaction, Laine returned her attention to building the puzzle once again.
 
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There was a test, and there was an answer. There was a moment of freedom and a moment of binding. There was a gentle chord under his fingertips and then a much sharper Note in the air between them. There was a doctor, and there was an anomaly. There was a man, and a girl, and a Name.

And there was something in between it all that said he'd chosen right. Was it that the Name had always fit him, or was it that he was stretching to accommodate it? You never knew with anomalies. Or most didn't, and some could, but they'd need time to figure it out, like a name taste-tested before use. And there were certain breeds of anomaly that were even less predictable than others. Laine, though, had been quite accommodating so far. There were a few things to do, before Strings considered himself done here, but he had all the time in the world for his little experiment. Or at least the rest of the afternoon.

Settling didn't suit him, but he did it anyway, leaning back into the chair and gently retuning his instrument. It'd be a little tidier, make the subject a bit more comfortable - even more than she already was. He did let his fingers wander for a little while, looking for the right song - a background experiment while waiting for the next one to be ready. See if there was any music she thought might be right for the occasion, but without asking deliberately. And if not, he'd find some chorus or another to pick from the strings.
 
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Oh.

He went together, with the name.

Laine hadn't expected that. She didn't know what she had expected. She had felt that something would happen, but hadn't been very certain what it would be. Perhaps it wasn't a good idea to try things like that, if she didn't know what would happen. It had seemed right at the time, though.

She didn't know how she felt about that. She wasn't sure how Strings felt about it either, because he didn't tell her and Laine wasn't good at figuring out what other people were feeling about things unless they told her. Strings seemed to have been attached to him, though. Knotted on, maybe, or just entangled. She didn't know if it was something that came apart or not, or how hard someone would need to try to find out.

Laine didn't think she was going to be the one to do it, if anyone did. Strings might, but she didn't think it would be now. Right now he was sitting back, playing with the banjo. He played with it the same way that she played with puzzles, Laine thought. He knew where all the pieces went, but it was still a comfortable feeling when they all came together. He sifted through bits and pieces of different tunes like she sifted through different pieces in the puzzle box. He didn't seem to have found the one he was looking for, though. Laine wondered what it was like. She didn't really think much about music. Mostly, she liked it when it was quiet.

The music searching wasn't too much, though, so she didn't say anything about him searching for a song, instead tuning herself out and working to complete the puzzle. It wasn't very long before only the last corner remained in the box.
 
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He never actually settled on a song, bouncing between choruses that settled well enough together but weren't quite right, weren't quite there. Waiting wasn't quite right for a man like Hal - a man like Strings - who in the span of a moment had become a man of two Names. That could be useful in the future, in trials too unlike this one to occupy his mind for very long. As little as he cared for the idea of one being tied to the anomalous child in front of him, it certainly wouldn't hurt that someone else already had it. Safer that way.

Maybe that suited her. It wasn't quite there for him.

He waited, though, because he was a researcher more than he was whatever-else-others-guessed, and even if it was rare it was important here. He did not quite wait until the puzzle was done - that might be too long. But he let her work, and worked through his songs until there was one piece left. A corner, of course. The corner of Hal's mouth twisted back up from the soft neutrality he'd assumed, and anyone with real experience would know that trouble was brewing.

"Hold on a second, Laine," he said, one crooked finger held up as she reached for the last piece. "I wanna show ya somethin' first."

A piece of chalk appeared in his hand. That wasn't on his list of equipment, because, well, that would spoil the surprise. It wouldn't be very tidy to press it against the metal of the table, draw a white symbol there and a small arrow in the direction of the cardboard. He gestured to it, like a showman showing there was nothing up his sleeve. Once he was sure she was looking, he'd hold his hand over it, mutter a word that certainly wasn't in her dictionary, and snap his fingers.

The chalk would ignite like gunpowder. A flash of light, a loud bang that cut the quiet he'd let grow as full as his nature would allow. That was just for show, however. A distraction from the main event: the wave of force that rippled across the lei-line of the arrow, and attempt to shove the pieces apart while she was distracted. It'd make an awful mess if it really did break with her concentration.

Then again, Hal had never claimed to be a tidy man.
 
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Laine's hand paused, a little bit before taking the last piece, and returned quietly to her lap, intrigued. Strings wanted to show her something, and she was curious. He had a piece of chalk with him. Laine had very mixed feelings about chalk. It was not tidy, and it was not permanent, but it felt very nice. Not children's chalk, the colored type that went everywhere, but the sort that had once been used for blackboards in schools. They didn't use that any more, not really, but she knew what it felt like - smooth, and it didn't all rub to powder the way the children's chalk did. Mostly, it stayed together until it was used.

Strings was drawing on the table, which Laine was fairly certain he was not supposed to be doing, but perhaps the rules were different for him. She had noticed that often the rules were not the same for adults and children, even though she had always thought that they should be. Laine had been told that this was because adults were more responsible, but she had always thought that if adults were more responsible, they would not be doing the things that were against the rules.

He drew an arrow, which had a point. Not a point as in a place where two lines met at an angle, although it also had one of those, but a point as in a purpose. It had both of them, and Laine wondered if that meant that it actually had two points. Metaphorical geometry could get very confusing. Strings held his hand up and said a word that was definitely not a word but was also-

Light. Bang.

Laine knew about bang. It was a loud noise, and then everything came apart. She was sitting in her seat, with the harness straps buckled securely across her chest, but the seat was crushed and the straps were covered in sticky red mess and her arm and her leg and her face were all wrong and her chest hurt and she couldn't breathe and she was coughing and it was very untidy and-

That couldn't be. Laine didn't come apart. Only everything else did. The cars and the people and the puzzle and-

Oh.

She was here. Laine sat up a little, pulled back to reality by invisible Strings, then slid down out of the chair and went to sit in the corner of the room where it was quiet.
 
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She responded as expected. That was disappointing. Hal knew she'd react badly - contrary to popular belief, he wasn't stupid. That was the point. The breaking point, which while spectacular at first, just faded into a silence that had never suited him.

He unfolded himself from the chair and slung the banjo onto his back. The chalk vanished, and he picked up the clipboard and the pen from the table. He stayed, taking Notes in his curled shorthand, an idle hum forming in the back of his throat and wandering out a bit at a time. The pen was returned, and then the nimble fingers hovered over the last cornerpiece as though there was any consideration left to their owner. There wasn't, as they picked up the piece and made it disappear, just as before, with a flick of the wrist.

"Good afternoon, Laine." He tipped his hat to her, huddled in the corner, then held it as he ducked back out the open door, leaving only silence and a pen behind.
 
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