RP Something to Remember

[Katpride]

Lark’s responding smile is just a shade too soft. I wouldn’t mind you monopolizing my time, they carefully do not say, hiding their mouth behind their hand and glancing away.

The facade cracks almost immediately when they laugh at her joke, a genuinely delighted smile breaking its way onto their face. Their gaze flickers back to her, eyes crinkled with amusement. “Ha, yeah, no, that’s a good point. Hard to come by, those pesky rights.”

It’s easier, of course, to pass themself off as someone from the lower classes when visiting the past - less work on their part, too, since upper class outfits require so many little hand-sewn details that they decidedly do not have the patience for most days - but it does come with the unfortunate side effect of having to exist as, well, a nonexistent nobleperson’s servant, most of the time. Which isn't something they’d put Lily through, at least not without fair warning.

They snap out of their thoughts with a blink as some part of their brain registers movement. They twitch, suddenly alert again, but it’s only Lily. They watch her cross to the kitchen, face blank for a few moments as they wait for the instinctive wariness to pass. When they finally do answer, their voice is light, and they’re smiling once more. “Oh, yeah, I’ve got at least one Lark in London. I’ve visited all the major cities, so I can use the version of myself that visited as an anchor. It gets a bit tricky if you consider the different time periods I visited during, but generally I can just jump to where I want to go, locationally, and then do another hop up or down the timestream to where I want to be, temporally.”

That might be the first time Lark has explained that in as many words. They aren’t sure it entirely made sense, but rather than trying to explain further they shrug and pick up the glass of water they’ve been offered, taking a sip. They can hear Lily rustling about in the kitchen behind them, and after a moment of wrestling with their dumb twitchy hindbrain they turn, propping an arm on the back of the couch so that they can keep an eye on her.

Survival instincts are hard to shake. They watch her move about the kitchen, relaxing by degrees as more seconds slip away without anything breaking the peaceful atmosphere. It may not be as familiar as their own, but something about Lily’s apartment seems… safe. They keep dropping their guard without meaning to.

Is that really such a bad thing? They push the thought aside, unfolding from the couch and wandering over to the kitchen table so that they can peer over Lily’s shoulder at the ingredients she’s pulling out.

“You don’t have to make me anything,” they say after a moment. There’s something in their voice that they can’t quite pin down. They hope it’s faint enough that Lily doesn’t notice, whatever it is.

They’re torn, though. Part of them wants to accept the offer, if only out of a burning curiosity to see how well Lily can cook, but the other part… Hmm, well, they could probably have a little bit. It isn’t like they can’t eat anything while they’re temporally displaced; it’s just smarter to keep to smaller snacks so they aren’t stuck in slow metabolism hell.

They aren’t quite sure how to express that to Lily, so what they end up saying is, “But if you insist, I think I’d land somewhere around a one-toast on that very comprehensive scale.”

Their fingers tap against the table, and they look at the stove as though it’s a wild animal that might jump up and bite them at any moment, but they still find themself asking, “Is there anything I can help with?”

 

[HighVoltage]

Lily nodded along as Lark explained how their time travel worked across locations, occasionally throwing in an ‘mhm’ when it felt appropriate. Truth be told she understood maybe half of what they were saying, and even then the half that she thought she understood was probably way off base. But it was nice to hear them talk, to explain things that were simply second nature and they hadn’t put much thought into. It was the same as if she tried to explain to them how she knew which move to use next in a fight, or which weapon she chose. It was just an instinct that she’d built up over years of training, of using her skills until they became habit.

Some part of Lily dimly wondered if Lark would feel the same way as she did if the roles were reversed. She hoped so.

Her counter argument was already on her lips, unbidden, as Lark insisted that she didn’t have to cook for them. She had to reel it back in and clamp her mouth shut. She wasn’t sure which reason would come out. Would it be that she was already cooking, so it was really no hassle? Or perhaps that everyone needed breakfast, since it was the most important meal of the day? Or maybe, just maybe, would she say what was truly on her mind? That she would do anything Lark wanted, that all they had to do was ask?

Lily was saved the choice by Lark giving in to her request almost instantly. By the time she would have figured out which argument to use, it would probably have been dinnertime. She put several strips of bacon into one of the pans, enjoying the immediate sizzle it made. She’d wait on the eggs a little longer, just so things could be done around the same time. Lark’s voice shifted and Lily glanced over her shoulder, smiling at them before going back to turning the bacon. She shoved the part of herself that wanted them to be closer down deeper and half-forced a chuckle at their response.

“Only one? If that’s all you want.” A flicker of worry crossed her brow as she thought of Lark’s skinny frame before she brushed it off. Lark ate plenty, she’d seen them eat takeout with her just the other night. She perked up at their request to help, doing her best to quell the fluttering feeling within her chest as she reached into a cupboard and pulled out a loaf of bread.

“Sure!” She said cheerfully, tossing the bag in their general direction. “Catch.” Lily was fully aware that she did those things in the wrong order, but Lark was fast enough, even without being able to stop time.

“I like my toast, well, about this color.” Lily pointed at her own skin, trying desperately not to flex and failing only a little bit. “Be careful, my toaster can be a bit finicky. It’s fine, though, I’ll eat whatever. Two slices please.” She turned back to the stove, giving an approving nod at the bacon’s progress. She poured a little fat from the bacon pan into the empty one, letting it heat for a moment as she opened the carton.

“Oh, how do you want your egg?” Lily called out. “If you want a runny yolk, I’m just letting you know there’s a one in three chance I break it.” She waved a spatula around for emphasis, leaning back against the counter while waiting for the pan to finish heating. “Just in case you wanna gamble.”

 

[Katpride]

Ah, she found the cupboard bread. Good. Lark had been wondering if they’d have to point it out, considering that they put it there before realizing she had a pantry, but they shouldn’t have doubted her attention to detail.

They catch the bread easily, barely blinking as they pull time to a stop for a half-second and snatch it out of the air. Number one mundane application of time travel: violating Newton’s first law of motion. They spin the loaf between their hands, scanning the counter until they locate the toaster. There it is. “Can do.”

They step forward without thinking, almost crashing into Lily when she turns more quickly than they’re expecting, crossing into their path. Their brain stutters, crashes, and reboots, and they blink, casting a sheepish smile her way as they step to the side. Right. Not their kitchen, not another Lark. It’s been a while since they’ve had to work around another person. Bad habit, expecting everyone else to move like them.

The toaster is beside the stove. They pull it a little further away from the coils and squint at the dials on it while they untwist the tie on the bread. Okay, well, that one is obviously a time dial, but what’s the other one? Temperature? Asking would be giving up, they decide, twisting the time down to one and the temperature (?) to five.

They pop the bread in and push the lever down, then lean back against the fridge, watching Lily cook from their new, closer vantage point. They could reach out and nudge her shoulder. They don’t. In fact, they fold their arms across their chest, smiling their best enigmatic smile. “Oh, however is fine, I’m not picky. Do you cook often?”

Fifty-five seconds later - Lily’s toaster is a little fast, apparently - the toast pops up, and Lark returns to their task. The bread is still very pale, and only lightly crunchy. They must not have given it enough time. They twist the time up to three - no, two and a half, no, three and… a quarter, there - and the temperature up to seven, and pop it down again.

“I didn’t know you liked to cook,” they comment, absentmindedly fiddling with their fingers while they wait. They don’t know much about her, they think.

It isn’t strictly true. They probably know more about her than she does about them, at least for now. But it isn’t wrong, either. There are plenty of minutia that are bound to slip through the cracks, when they’ve limited their time with her as much as they have.

(And, oh, how that makes something inside them ache, knowing that they could gather more of those minutia if they only gave themself the time. Why can’t they have her? Why can’t they try? This is why they shouldn’t have given themself the faintest hint of an opportunity. It’s cruel.)

The toaster pops. They drag their gaze up from the kitchen tiles, only to find that they’ve thoroughly ruined both pieces. They sigh, and tug the charred toast out with fingertips that no longer register heat as clearly as they should. “Shoot. Where’s your trash can at?”

 

[HighVoltage]

The sound of crinkling plastic and the subsequent lack of cursing meant that, at least to her, Lark had caught the bread. Lily turned to make a joke about it and– oh. They were right there. Lark was right there. There’s a single moment where they’re almost touching, mere inches between them as Lark stared down at her with wide emerald eyes, her blue ones almost sucked into the depths. It felt like a year, it felt like a moment, she didn’t want it to end. If she didn’t know any better, Lily would have assumed that Lark used their powers to extend this moment, letting time coil up behind and in front of them in order to stretch it out for as long as they could.

But she knew better.

Time for Lily snapped back all too suddenly, all too soon, and Lark nimbly dodged out of her path as she turned back to the stove, the searing heat that covered her having nothing to do with the lit stove in front of her. She hastily grabbed two eggs and cracked them into the pan, a bit of grease spattering up and hitting her exposed arms. Lily didn’t feel it, instead glancing sideways and biting back a laugh.

She knew her toaster was a bit weird. She’d got it at a Goodwill for like, three dollars back when she’d had to worry about things like that. That toaster had been with her through everything, and sure it wasn’t the greatest with time or with temperature but it was a reliable old thing. She wasn’t going to throw it out just because it didn’t work perfectly. She’d keep it around until it kicked the bucket, probably observe a three day mourning period, then forget to buy a new toaster and never eat toast again.

While it may have been weird, Lily had never given her toaster the look that Lark was currently giving it. Their hand hovered over the dials, hesitantly moving between them and twitching the knob one way then the next, as if her toaster was a bomb that could detonate if they did the wrong thing. She watched with barely concealed amusement as they gently, yet firmly pressed down on the handle before leaning back against the fridge (after a moment to ensure that the bread stayed in the toaster).

Lily just managed to shift her gaze back towards the stove as Lark’s flicked back to her. She barked out a laugh, short but still sweet, at their question as she evacuated the bacon onto a plate lined with paper towels, moving the pan off the burner and turning the heat off.

“Not that often.” Being depressed certainly had a way of killing one’s desire to put effort into food, but she’d been working on it. Honestly it was nice to cook something for someone else, especially the current someone else she was cooking for.

“Been getting back into it. Just because the Lotus left me a bunch of money means I can spend it all on takeout. Plus something something macros?” Lily had never been big into fitness or bodybuilding shit, with all they preached about maximizing protein intake and whatnot. She worked out because she liked how it made her feel and liked being strong. The fact that she could show off her guns every once in a while was just a pleasant side effect.

The toaster popped, and Lily saw Lark shuffle over to it, fiddle with some dials, and push it back down. This time their gaze didn’t return to her, instead slipping off into that unknown place it went when they thought she wasn’t looking. Lily flipped the eggs and turned to face them, taking up her usual resting spot against the counter.

“‘Like’ is a pretty strong word. Honestly it was a lot of trial and error.” Lily’s eyes swept over them, not in a gross way. More like getting a chance to see a live painting when you’ve only seen it in photographs, finally being close enough to see the brushstrokes, the little flaws where the artist messed up that blended together to make a singular lovely piece. “I burned a lot of shit, gave myself food poisoning a couple times, but I’ve got a solid repertoire of meals that won’t kill me or anyone else I cook for.”

Lily knew she was staring, but she couldn’t help it. Lark wasn’t beautiful, they weren’t gorgeous, they weren’t a knockout. But they were breathtaking. They were a night sky in the country, the stars spread across the sky in an infinite expanse. They were a cool lake, sunlight dappling across its surface, just begging you to jump in with a promise of how refreshing it would be. They were a mountain in the distance, snow-covered and towering in all its majesty. They were a sculpture, a painting, something crafted out of clay and only given a thin, transparent layer of glaze. They were rough and imperfect and you could see the places where they were flawed, where they’d patched the cracks and painted over the mistakes, even if there were a million other examples they kept hidden. But all of it made Lily’s heart ache more the longer she looked at them.

She was in love. Somehow, someway, Lily had fallen head over heels for this silver-haired time traveler that popped in and out of her life at completely random moments. And she had no idea how she was going to tell them.

The popping of the toaster sent Lily approximately three feet into the air. She quickly turned back to the stove, hoping that Lark had been similarly jolted from their reverie so they didn’t notice hers. The slightly smoking toast reminded Lily that she had, in fact, been cooking. She flipped over the eggs to find a charred, blackened thing staring back at her.

“Over here,” Lily said, reaching over to open the cupboard under the sink and pulling the trash can out. She put it between them, dumping the charcoal that once was eggs into it and watching with slight amazement as Lark plucked the definitely still burning hot toast straight from the toaster with their bare hands.

“And here’s the error.” Lily chuckled good-naturedly. If Lark hadn’t burned the toast she would’ve felt a lot worse about delaying their breakfast. Almost on cue her stomach let out a loud growl of protest, which she was pretty sure even Lark could’ve heard. “Alright, let’s try this again, shall we? Try two minutes on five and a half, that usually works for me. I probably should have told you that before, sorry.” She made sure the pan was clean enough before adding in some more bacon fat and bringing it back up to heat before cracking some more eggs in, keeping her attention firmly on them.