Gargoyles Fan Fiction ❯ Of The Night ❯ Nothing Much To Talk About ( Chapter 6 )

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Of The Night

Six

What was there to be done now? Everything had been decided for her, without her consent. He imagined it was maddening; hell, he could probably empathize. He knew what it was like, waking up to find your world had changed without your knowledge.

Brooklyn wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to approach her yet. Lydia was reclined on the castle wall, hands beneath her head. At this distance, a human wouldn’t have been able to make out much detail, but he could see she was awake, eyes on the stars. She didn’t look happy.

He couldn’t blame her for that.

And he couldn’t decide what to do. Normally, after breakfast they’d go out to patrol the city. But with Lydia here, looking so down, he felt he’d rather be here to cheer her up. At the same time, he didn’t know if it was wise to try; he knew women could be unpredictable, and had dealt with enough -- shall we say, crazy? -- women like that to know to be careful. Even after taking down a thug to return a stolen purse, even with everyone in the city knowing about them, there were still some people. . .

This was a bad train of thought and it always left him perturbed. He shook his head, reanalyzing his choices. A, go out to patrol; B, stay and chat with Lydia; C, stay but just keep an eye on Lydia. Option ‘B’ was sounding the best. Besides which, it would give him a chance to talk to her about “Veronica Lewis.” That was something she hadn’t mentioned in any of their talks before, and he wanted to know why.

“Are you going to stay here with her?” Angela asked.

The only reason why he didn’t jump was that he knew she was nearby. “I was considering it,” he answered. “But I’m not sure it’s a smart idea.”

“You should,” she advised.

He glanced at her in question.

“One thing TV has right -- girls love to talk,” she explained. “Isn’t it dangerous for her to be like that?” she asked a bit sharper, wondering at Lydia’s positioning.

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you,” Brooklyn mumbled to himself. He’d puzzled over that same thing himself: why she didn’t seem at all scared about being in such precarious places. “All right, you guys go on without me. I’ll see what I can do with her.”

Everyone left accordingly, Hudson taking Brooklyn’s place in patrol. He felt bad for the aging gargoyle, but knew that despite his age, Hudson still enjoyed being useful to the clan. Taking someone’s place in patrol every now and again served to keep his spirits up.

“Lydia,” he called, hoping he wouldn’t startle her off the wall. He climbed up to her place, getting only a grunt of acknowledgment from her. Crouching down until he was comfortable, he went on, “I don’t think that’s safe.”

She shrugged. “I haven’t fallen off yet.”

“You could.”

“ ‘Could’ doesn’t mean ‘will’.”

“Wasn’t it you who said, ‘If there’s a chance it’ll happen, it will?’ ” He recalled that conversation, and judging by her laugh, she did, too.

“Ouch,” she said, pulling herself up, “that one actually hurt.”

“Maybe you should start taking notes so you don’t forget what you say later.”

“I didn’t forget. I failed to recall.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

He would’ve done the same, except that the way his head was built, he literally couldn’t. It was one of the annoyances he faced, being the type of gargoyle he was.

“Why didn’t you jump?” he asked, then realized the double entendre of how that sounded. “I mean, I thought I would’ve startled you.”

She had raised a brow at him in question and now nodded. “That’s because I have a lot of awareness. I always know when someone’s around, even when I sleep.”

“I startled you yesterday,” he pointed out.

“. . .With the exception of when I draw,” she laughed. “I was totally focused on the picture then.” She tilted her head. “By the way, what were you guys talking about when I left the room?”

If you were in the room, you’d know, he thought. “Some stuff that doesn’t concern you,” he offered, hoping she’d lose interest.

“Anything that did?”

He gave. “We were asking Xanatos about what happened while we were all asleep. He told us about all the strings he pulled to get you remanded here, instead of a prison. He also said you can keep living in the room you were in before, or -- if it would make you any calmer -- he could get you a bigger room.”

She snorted. “That’s what the rich guy does right before taking advantage of the girl in all the movies.”

He laughed. “I doubt it. Xanatos and Fox are totally into each other.”

She turned a glare on him. “Well thanks for saying I’m not sexy.”

He did a double-take. Where had that come from? “I didn’t say that!” His mind raced for a way to fix this -- until he saw she was laughing to herself. He narrowed his eyes. “Oh, funny.”

“I was amused,” she said lightly.

On another note. . . “You know, you really look different,” he started. With her hair styled new, her nails painted, and that makeup -- it was like looking into the face of another Lydia.

She grinned. “I forgot already, honestly.”

That surprised him. “Really.”

“Really. In fact, I should take it off,” she said to herself, inspecting her nails.

“I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” he retracted quickly. “Just different.”

When she looked at him next, he found he had no idea what she was thinking. That look seemed to be measuring him up, in a way. In one quick motion, she swung her legs over the wall and dropped onto the courtyard, before he could do anything gallant like offer to help her down.

She took the landing well, too. Compared to how she threw herself around yesterday, he wouldn’t have thought she could be coordinated like that.

He hopped down after her, saying, “Where are you going?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “I told you, to take the makeup off.”

“And then what?” he asked, making pace with her.

“Then, I have to talk to Mr. Xanatos.”

“Why do you keep calling him ‘mister’?”

“Am I not supposed to?”

“Stop answering questions with questions.”

She smirked. “Because it shows and demands respect,” she told him. “And it also maintains distance.”

He thought about that. “The whole ‘name’ and ‘title’ thing, to gargoyles, is really strange.”

“How so?”

“Well, none of us were ever named in the past,” he started.

“You said so before.”

“We all figured nothing needed names.”

She slanted a smile at him. “Like the mountain was ‘the mountain’ and the river was ‘the river’?”

“Exactly.”

“Aren’t those names, too?”

He stopped short. “I didn’t think of that.”

She shrugged. “Someone had to. And naming things is for coordination. Think of it -- if you’re living in a place that has rivers on three sides, and you want to refer to one, what would you say?”

“Uh, East River?”

“And if it weren’t for naming the directions. . ?”

He laughed. “Alright, you made your point.” Thoughtfully, he added, “I’m surprised you didn’t ask how gargoyles could tell each other apart,” remembering a conversation with a boy long ago.

“That’s easy; you all look different,” she replied. “That makes me think, though -- can gargoyles be twins?”

The question surprised him. In truth, no, he didn’t know of any instance of gargoyle twins. He didn’t even think a gargoyle woman could lay more than one egg. He told her as much.

He only noticed they’d stopped moving when she turned to face him. After a few moments of blank staring, he realized she was standing in a doorway, holding a door. This must be her room, he realized, feeling stupid for just standing there. He turned and left, shaking his head even as he heard her laughing to herself. She did it on purpose, for fun, he told himself.

He was downstairs when she came down, reclining on a chair, feet up, in the one room he knew she knew how to find. She had completely removed the makeup (though she kept the nail polish), and she was holding a sketchbook in hand.

“Want to chill?” he offered, referring to the table his feet were propped up on.

She glanced at the table before grinning. “That depends.”

“On?”

“Are you gonna keep sitting just like that?”

An idea flitted through his mind -- an idea he wasn’t sure he wanted to believe just yet. “Probably. Why?”

With a lift of the book in her hand, she said, “Can I draw you?”

What surprised him the most wasn’t that he figured she wanted to, nor that it was peculiar she wanted to at all; it was that she felt she should ask his permission first. “I don’t see why not,” he answered.

She almost had an aura of childish glee about her when she took a seat, flipped the book open, and miraculously conjured a pack of pencils from somewhere he hadn’t spotted. He wondered for a moment what else was in that pack, knowing it couldn’t be just pencils.

He stayed still for her, feeling oddly uncomfortable about the whole thing. He’d never posed for a picture like this before. Sure, he’d been in a few (thanks to Elisa and the clan being part of several little parties for the holidays, here in the castle), but he’d never sat down to be sketched before.

The fact that she kept looking up at very specific parts of him, little by little, was unnerving. He could honestly say that even being stared at so closely was a first. This gave him time, too; time to study her much in the same way she was doing to him. One of the things he noticed right off the bat was a habit of hers: she would make a motion with the pencil repeatedly before he would hear the scratch of pencil on paper. She also propped the sketchbook on her thighs, close to her face, with only her eyes visible above it. Every so often, she turned the book this way or that, then set it straight again.

But these were merely the habits he discovered. They made conversation as she drew, and he started to notice -- really notice -- her eyes. Violet eyes. A rare color, indeed, and one he’d seen before. It made his nostalgic, remembering again about the girl he’d once longed for. Sure, he could chock it up to a crush; she was a generation above himself, after all, and such a coupling was unheard of for the clan. But it didn’t change the fact that every time he’d seen her, he’d stopped to look a little longer.

He should stop thinking about it, he knew. There were more pressing matters to consider, things that had nothing to do with a past long gone. It was just ironic, that was all -- that Lydia happened to look a lot like that female. Hell, they were even about the same size; that poor gargoyle was small compared to others of her build (and gargoyles did have noticeable sets of builds, sort of like human races.)

As they talked, he brought up how calm she seemed, after having just lost her job and everything else. He wanted to know if it was anything like the clan’s own startling awakening. Her response stunned him.

“It’s not a big thing,” she shrugged.

He was quiet for a moment, staring at her. She looked so. . .unconcerned. “I thought it was a big blow. You left the room in a rage, didn’t you?”

She gave a silent laugh. “It was a big blow,” she agreed, focusing more on the sketchbook in her hand (and his right knee, from the looks of it) than the conversation. “But I learned a long time ago to let things go, regardless of how big or small they were.”

“. . .Like your family?” he asked quietly, hoping he didn’t broach the subject too soon.

Her hand stopped moving, her eyelids lowered, and for one terrified moment, he thought he’d ruined their budding friendship. But she replied easily, “So you heard that, huh?”

Right then, he was torn. He wanted this talk to happen, wanted to know more about her -- God knows he’d told her just about the clan’s entire history -- yet at the same time, he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable or angry.

He finally said, “Yeah, I did.”

She glanced up to meet his eyes for the first time since she started drawing. Setting the book down, she placed the pencil on top of it, then linked her hands on the table.

“Ask away,” she invited.