try to shut me up, when you know you should wish me luck

[attitude]

If there was one thing which was good about the bookshelf, it was that it made it possible to learn about just about anything, provided one was lucky enough. Faye had entered the rec room in a fit of curiosity that morning, gradually making her way around to all of the magic items on the island. The jukebox had taken up a slow, quiet jazz number in the background, one that reminded her of a certain saxophone player from a lifetime ago as she walked over to the shelf, running her hand along the smooth wooden panel, and staring at what it had to offer. Books about space. Books about Mars, about expeditions that even she could remember now, from before time had decided to leave her behind for half a century. Books about Welsh Corgis. Even a book that looked more like a set of records, one that flashed to her from the end, a familiar seal on its spine that she refused to look at any more closely (and fortunately for it, it disappeared by the time she looked at it next). But the collection that caught her eye the most, a series of photobooks with wide, glossy covers, was a set of books on Singapore.

She'd hesitated for about five minutes, a couple of others coming and going, before she pulled them out and settled on the couch, trembling fingers brushing over the surface of each.

Which was when the jukebox decided to change its tune, something orchestral, which practically vibrated the room around her as a man walked inside. With her brows furrowed, she stared at the direction of the box, then at the familiar face. "Does it always do that when you arrive?" she asked, eyebrow arched.

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[dualites.livejournal.com]

Hoping for something besides Tchaikovsky had probably been asking for too much. The look on Thomas' face said as much, his entire attitude stiff and reminiscent of someone being caught by a surprise party thrown by a number of people that they had never really considered friends, which was, incidentally, pretty much exactly the sort of sentiment that Thomas now held towards what the rec room seemed to find funny.

As soon as he registered Faye's question, he turned towards her, glad for any out (imagined or not) from having to listen to the score of Swan Lake again. "Unfortunately," he admitted, taking a couple of steps into the room. "Every time."

[attitude]

The tune was so familiar, even if Faye couldn't place it immediately. Whenever that happened, of course, she tried her best to go back. As though, in spite of all of her failures, maybe finding just the right memory would make her suddenly feel as though she belonged, be it on Bebop or even just on that island, the one which much more closely aligned the life she led before space was even much of an option. She failed to wave Thomas closer, instead squinting at the jukebox, until her eyes suddenly brightened and her fist came down gently on an open palm.

"That's it! Ballet, right?" she asked, wide eyes blinking over at him, the man only reaffirming her beliefs with the grace that he held, the one that she had spent so much time trying to understand, the last time they met. "You're a ballet dancer?"

Contrary to what any of the rest of Bebop's crew might have believed, Faye appreciated the arts well enough, even if most days, the only way to get her close to a theatre was for a bounty to be sitting in its seats.

[dualites.livejournal.com]

"Used to be," Thomas replied, unable to help the slight current of amusement to his voice at the apparent revelation. "Up until I passed thirty. I directed, after that. Swan Lake was the last one that I choreographed before coming here." Despite the unpleasant memories that admitting this brought back to mind, his entire posture seemed to change. Ballet had been his entire life. Home had been the studio.

Moving further into the room, he perched on the edge of one of the empty chairs, eying the jukebox only a moment longer before fixing his attention on Faye.

"I hope you don't mind the music."

[attitude]

Maybe her initial thoughts and impression of him were wrong after all, Faye thought quietly to herself. Where she had once only seen a sort of slippery devil, she now saw a trained sort of seduction. Dancers were generally good at that, as very little in the world was more attractive than confidence, and the very idea of dance was to be confident in one's body. Knowing that bit about him, no matter how insignificant others might have considered it, meant the world to Faye already. She had to confess, aside from the magic, the only thing that truly interested her on the island was the arts, and those involved.

"Don't mind at all," she shook her head easily, shoulder shrugging. "Better music than most people listen to, these days. I once had to cope with heavy metal for several hours on end. After that, you can deal with just about everything."

Watching him carefully, she added just a little remark to the end. "I danced ballet myself, once. When I was four."

[dualites.livejournal.com]

Just as her appraisal had changed, so did his. If a person danced for long enough, ballet tended to change the way that they carried their. The shape of the body changed. Leave it alone for long enough, the traces could fade, but there were certain things that remained the same. Hints at something left behind.

"Wasn't your cup of tea?" Despite his own obsession with the form, he knew it wasn't the sort of thing that lent it self to being done by everybody. It wasn't a matter of weakness of will (well, sometimes it was), it was a matter of loving something enough to give up pretty much everything else in order to pursue it.

[attitude]

Faye didn't talk about her past much. But sometimes, she wondered if it was just because she'd never had the chance. It was only a few months ago that everything had come back to her, after all, and that wasn't something that she could talk about with anyone from Bebop. Because they would see through her the most, how much she still longed for that anchor in spite of the fact that she knew full well that all of that had worn away. With a stranger, though, maybe it would be okay. She didn't want to carry all of that alone.

"More like I was a little princess, and whatever I really wanted, I got," Faye confessed with a quirk of her lips. "You know kids. It all looks great and fun until you realize it takes work. So I was in ballet one week, ribbon twirling the next, and nothing lasted long."

[dualites.livejournal.com]

He laughed on an exhale, well-acquainted with, if not necessarily a practitioner of, the flights of fancy she meant. While typical of children, those sorts of traits, he'd noticed, could last into adulthood. (And they had, in him. Not in terms of cycling through hobbies or occupations, but in his general treatment of people. Not the most appealing character trait in the world.) "Fair enough," he said, rolling one shoulder back in a shrug. Then, wryly: "I don't think ribbon twirling was much of a loss, anyway."

[attitude]

The laughter was a good sign, one that proved the two of them could see eye-to-eye on a subtler sort of humor. That was always something Faye had seen as necessary in order to keep up any sort of rapport with another person; without the ability to laugh, without the ability to understand one another, the rest of the connection was just that much harder to make. It colored her smile with something a little brighter, more genuine, a glimmer of hope that Faye herself wasn't even aware of.

"Ribbon twirling wasn't a loss," she agreed with a soft puff of a laugh. "It's just relying on a prop to do all the fancy footwork for you. A flimsy one, at that."

[dualites.livejournal.com]

"Is there anything you regret giving up?" To be fair, Thomas knew that it wasn't the sort of question that people generally liked answering; he was lucky, he supposed, in that he'd gotten into ballet from the beginning and giving something up had never really factored into the picture. His gaze remained on her face as he shifted in his seat, getting more comfortable in the chair he was sitting in. (The fact that the question wasn't one she had to answer was one that remained implicit; he didn't figure it needed to be said.)

[attitude]

To be fair, it wasn't like he could have known. And that, that should have been a comfort, that Faye hadn't yet given anyone indication that her life had been particularly out of the ordinary, a mask that she had often wondered about the state of after her return to Bebop. The question was only funny (as much as these things ever were, tinged with irony) because Faye had indeed never been the one to give up anything significant in her life. Childhood hobbies were only just that, fancies held before one grew into the mind they'd retain for the rest of their lives. Everything that Faye had left in adulthood, she hadn't left by a choice of her own. Could she regret that?

"Not particularly," she answered at last with a small wave of her hand. "I don't know that I've given much up, consciously or willingly. Whining now seems like it would be a way of complaining about my life, and I haven't so little that I'd want to do that, yet. You probably know what I mean. You don't look like the type who's ever given up on himself."