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[jageskro]

A pizza box in one hand and two cans of London Pride in the other, Jag walked past Ollie's workshop and smirked at the sight of the artist in the middle of creation. Best not to bug him, then. Jake was out, so he reckoned it would just be him and Em, then. Hands full, he used his foot to knock on her door, twice.

When she opened it, he smiled at her as if he was about to offer her the meal of her life. "Traditional moving day meal. Pizza and beer. Who can say no to that?"

Comments

[offthebeatenpath]

"'Not I,' said the little brown mouse." Em smiled too, half hidden by her hair and the dip of her head as she opened the door wider, stepping back to let him in.

"You didn't have to do that, though. If anything I should be bringing you food, or beer. Or both. You're why I'm not scrounging to find someplace to crash."

[jageskro]

"I wanted to," Jag simply answered as he walked in. "Ollie's in full creative mode, so it's just you and me."

[offthebeatenpath]

"Well then, thanks. But you'll have to let me cook for you sometime, okay?" Em shut the door behind them and with a wave of her hand suggested he make himself comfortable wherever.

"Having second thoughts about sharing space with two artist types yet?"

[jageskro]

"Why, because one of them's just offered to cook for me?" Jag challenged with a smile, setting the pizza down before holding one of the beers out to her. "I think I'll live. Probably. Unless her cooking's that bad."

[offthebeatenpath]

"I haven't poisoned anyone yet." Far from it, and Em had missed cooking for people. Sure the camp stove and other makeshift cooking options she had here were a far cry from the professional grade kitchen in the castle, or the just right kitchen that had been a deciding factor when she and Pyro were looking for a flat, but she'd made due with similar for years.

Em took the beer before sitting on the floor, one leg drawn up to her chest. "And cooking can be cheaper than take-out."

[jageskro]

"Often is by far," Jag easily agreed, taking a cross-legged feet across from her. "But a new flatmate meant splurging. On cheap pizza." He grinned, and popped his can open before holding it out to tip against hers. "But it's good cheap pizza, you'll see."

[offthebeatenpath]

"I hope so," she said with a shy smile as their beer cans touched. "It would be a shame to splurge on pizza that wasn't even good. Which is why I know it'll be good."

Em wondered if pizza would ever not remind her of her experiments with real Brooklyn-style pizza, or why she'd tried at all. But most things these days reminded her of Pyro, or Sabine, or everyone else in Dunninean, and these memories didn't hurt the way some did.

"So, thanks for the housewarming."

[jageskro]

"You're welcome," Jag answered after taking a drink from his can. He reached for the pizza and opened the box, turning it her way so she could help herself first. "I'm glad Jake didn't make you run the other way. He can be a bit too talkative - on his quiet days."

[offthebeatenpath]

Em set her beer down to take a slice that was still hot enough for the cheese to string, but not so much it would burn her mouth.

"Talkative's not always bad. As long as he doesn't need me to talk back, we're probably okay. Especially if I've been out telling fortunes all day." After that long dealing with strangers, what Em needed most was time to herself. But she got the feeling even talkative Jake would leave her alone if she was painting. Something she should probably thank Ollie for eventually.

[jageskro]

"Being the only one to keep the conversation going is really not a problem for him, yeah," Jag confirmed, although affection was woven into his voice. He might talk shit about Jake, but he was a good bloke. "So you grow quiet after a day like that?"

[offthebeatenpath]

"Textbook introvert. Or mouse, depending on who you ask. Seeing the future's the easy part. Talking to strangers all day's hard work for me." Em could do it, had and was and would, but it took effort in ways she hadn't really had to stretch herself often while she was at Muir.

"After, I want to paint or cook or read, or just hermit for awhile." Or be with Pyro, but that wasn't an option, so hermiting it was.

[jageskro]

Mouse, no, that was all wrong. Bird, maybe, although not the same kind as him. Lots of different sorts of birds out there, though.

"We should come up with a system, then," he suggested, as he picked up a piece of pizza for himself. "To let us know when you're in that kind of mood?"

[offthebeatenpath]

"I'm pretty good at making myself scarce when I need to." She shook her head, laughing lightly at herself. "Or just not being noticed. Lots of living in close quarters, or with a bunch of people, for pretty much my whole life." Starting with school, and most of the time since.

Taking a bite of pizza - as good as promised - she shrugged. "Or, you know, I could just say, 'Not now,' if I'm not in the mood for company."

[jageskro]

"I like that system," Jag agreed with a nod and a chuckle, after swallowing a bite. "It's a good system." Honestly, he hadn't been sure she'd be up for that if she was in a quiet mood. He hadn't ever lived with many introverts. At least none that struck him as as shy as she was.

[offthebeatenpath]

Shy, yes. But Em could be stubborn too. And Sabine and Dani, and Nina some, had broken her of any tendency to let people push her around. Sure, if she didn't want to be around people, her first choice would be avoiding them - closed doors were helpful that way - but she'd speak up if she needed to.

"Simple is usually good."

[jageskro]

"So what are you up to tomorrow?" Jag asked curiously, after nodding along to her conclusion. He was, generally, a big fan of simple. Didn't always work out that way, but that was life, wasn't it.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Just an appointment in the morning." Focusing on the move had kept Em from worrying about it, much, so far, but now she was settled in, it was starting to loom larger.

"Some lady bought a painting at my show, and she called Kendal to ask them if I'd be interested in doing a commissioned piece. So I'm going over to her place to talk about what she wants."

[jageskro]

Morning appointment, all right. No getting her blitzed tonight. Jag smirked at the idea, then smiled more frankly. "Think it can work?"

Which wasn't exactly asking if she'd gone to the cards on the topic, because he honestly had no idea how much she went to the cards for anything.

[offthebeatenpath]

She wondered at the smirk, but didn't ask since he'd probably tell her. His question was easier, because that she had asked about.

"Looks like it. But there's a difference between saying I take commissions, and actually having one, so... I hope I can do what she wants." Commissions on top of sales from the show were how Em could make a name for herself - as much as that made her uneasy - and build up a nest egg much easier than the hand-to-mouth of only being a street artist/fortune teller.

"And it could mean days or longer inside painting instead of telling fortunes in the snow and cold."

[jageskro]

"If that's what you'd prefer, here's to hoping it works out that way," Jag stated, picking up his can of beer to drink to that. But that made him think of something else - "So, how often do you do readings for yourself?"

[offthebeatenpath]

"That depends on who you ask," she answered, her expression going fond but sad as she added, "My cousin usually says too often. I could probably recite the whole... debate at this point, even though we got so we could say it all with a Look."

She let out a breath to move past those memories. "I never ask if I'm not prepared to get an answer. And I don't use the tarot for things I can figure out on my own. Usually."

[jageskro]

"Yeah, you asked about moving in here," he pointed out, and she could have just figured it out on her own when she met them and saw the place, the way he saw it.

[offthebeatenpath]

"That was different. It might have taken awhile to realize moving in would be a bad idea. Asking first avoided the potential headache all around." She'd never really been able to explain why she used the tarot the ways she did. Nina had probably understood better than most, the need to know.

She shrugged, then took another bite of pizza. "It's like... I could stumble around in the dark and stub my toe on things, or I could pull out my lighter and shed some light on things."

[jageskro]

"Nice image," Jag congratulated her. Yeah, it would be quite difficult to argue against that, wouldn't it. He wasn't convinced that it was entirely right, but he couldn't have articulated why, so there was no point trying to refute it. "I'm not very fond of the idea of things being preordained, though," he admitted instead, because that might be what it was all about anyway.

[offthebeatenpath]

"I don't know that everything is. Or even most things, maybe." Nina had seen the variables all around them. Em's precog was different, the variables stopping with her visions. Reading for Nina usually gave Em a headache and nothing she could make sense of, and she had a feeling the reverse was also true, although she'd never asked Nina about it.

"I'm used to people being weirded out by the idea. I don't know, maybe it's just the way my brain's wired. Because I do See this way, I need to."