Magdalene Grace Garcia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
talesuntold) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
triangularity2015-10-08 04:36 pm
talesuntold) wrote in triangularity2015-10-08 04:36 pm
for Stefan
Maggie spends the first part of the evening on her laptop, liveblogging in one chat window and using the other half of the screen to monitor threads on her section of the After the End Times forum. Maggie's good with people. She never minds a turn on forum duty, and as a beta on the site, she pays her dues just like everyone else who isn't a department head. It's a refreshing change, actually, to have an entirely merit-based system where her last name doesn't mean a thing.
As the first movie winds down, Maggie sets aside the computer, standing up and stretching. She did look around enough to take stock of the room. Almost everyone here is a regular. She knows all of their food and drink preferences, and she fully expects a couple to stay for half the week.
So of course it's the newcomer who caught her attention. He seemed amused by the movie, and she agreed with him on this one. Funny how a horror movies aren't scary at all when the world has turned into one.
Whoever invited him probably pointed her out to Stefan. Maggie got his name from the security scans at the door, but she isn't especially worried about strangers in her house either way. She tosses the remote to another Fictional, letting him take over and set up the next movie.
Stefan's the only one who needs to tell her what he wants, which makes him the logical choice for help fetching it. Maggie makes her way across the room, leans over one arm of the couch, and and introduces herself, probably unnecessarily. "I'm Maggie. Help me carry snacks from the kitchen?"
As the first movie winds down, Maggie sets aside the computer, standing up and stretching. She did look around enough to take stock of the room. Almost everyone here is a regular. She knows all of their food and drink preferences, and she fully expects a couple to stay for half the week.
So of course it's the newcomer who caught her attention. He seemed amused by the movie, and she agreed with him on this one. Funny how a horror movies aren't scary at all when the world has turned into one.
Whoever invited him probably pointed her out to Stefan. Maggie got his name from the security scans at the door, but she isn't especially worried about strangers in her house either way. She tosses the remote to another Fictional, letting him take over and set up the next movie.
Stefan's the only one who needs to tell her what he wants, which makes him the logical choice for help fetching it. Maggie makes her way across the room, leans over one arm of the couch, and and introduces herself, probably unnecessarily. "I'm Maggie. Help me carry snacks from the kitchen?"
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"I don't feel any need to. Not tonight, anyway." Tonight she wants Stefan as happy and comfortable as possible. She shifts and turns her head to crane around for a kiss to his cheek.
"I wouldn't want to risk chasing you off or spoiling your night." She says it lightly enough that it at least seems like a joke, but she's also serious. Maggie knows it would take much more than a poor movie choice to make Stefan leave, but she wants this to be a very good night.
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Sure, they've had a few dates by now, and more than a few raunchy emails, but when he's with Maggie, he feels a safety and comfort he hasn't found anywhere else. He would know: he's scoured the entire country, before and after the Rising. Even his beloved Church can't still his heart like one of her kisses.
(He supposes, there are worse altars to worship than Maggie's.)
"In all seriousness, what theme should we stick to?"
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Had it been anyone else, Stefan might've refrained. Post-Rising, most people weren't into physical affection. Mere handshakes made them flinch – but Maggie had been different. Maggie didn't shy away from touch, and Stefan was more than willing to hold her close. In fact, he kind of liked that feeling.
“Should we compromise and go with trashy romcoms? One time only deal, Garcia...”
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"That sounds more relevant to your interests than to mine," Maggie protests mildly, but the fact that she leans in to kiss Stefan as she does means she'll go along with it if he insists. "Though if we carry that over into the movie festival once other people arrive, the looks on their faces would be priceless. I think that's one genre I've never covered."
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"I'd ask how you managed that, but most of them are... draining," he has to admit when they let go. "And I've seen more than I care to count."
Thanks to ex-girlfriends, Zara, and of course, his own sappy self. He could probably still quote bits from the Notebook if he really, really tried.
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"Tell you what, I'll let you choose all the movies tonight, and I promise not to mock any of your choices until I've given them a fair chance." She pecks him on the cheek. "Unless you start it, of course. Deliberately mockable movies are another matter."
Maggie doesn't generally give up control in her own home, but it's alright once in awhile. "Keep me company in the kitchen for a bit?" Most of the prep is already done, but she has brownies coming out of the oven soon, and popcorn to make.
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Stefan follows her into the kitchen without a second thought, kind of like a lovesick puppy following his faithful master - but it hits him, right as he enters, that Maggie had acquiesced control in favor of his trashy rom-coms.
If that wasn't a sign of trust and faith, he wasn't sure what else was.
"You want me to make the popcorn tonight?" He grins, flexing a muscle. "I happen to know a foolproof way to make it on the stove."
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"Sure," Maggie agrees, grinning at the silly gestures. "Pans are in the cabinet to the right of the stove, and popcorn and oil in the one above that." She lets him get started, and when her timer goes off, Maggie steps up behind Stefan and wraps her arms around him.
"I'll need to get to the oven for a moment, though," she requests, resting her chin on his shoulder.
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Yet Stefan can't quite help laughing as he glances over and lightly pecks her cheek. The popcorn can honestly wait; he hasn't done much besides heat the oil, let the kernels pop, and let the corn cook as long as necessary.
(He's nothing else if old-fashioned; no microwave bags for him.)
"Buuut I think I can slide over, now that I've gotten my payment."
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Maggie usually makes popcorn the old fashioned way too, or with a popcorn popper. It just isn't the same from a microwave bag.
She kisses his cheek as she reaches for pot holders. "Just in case, I'd better pay passage again."
She pulls two large batches of brownies from the oven, setting both on waiting cooling racks. "Thank you for coming early. It's nice to have you to myself awhile before the crowd descends."
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"I wouldn't have missed this for the world." These quiet moments, he means. Film festivals are fun, but he way prefers Maggie's company to a large crowd's. "It's a lot easier to talk about myself - er, to talk in general - when no one else's around to overhear."
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That was a fairly obvious slip. She turns away from her baked goods and leans against the counter.
"Something weighing on your mind?" Maggie would be fully willing to abandon movie night and find somewhere quietish to talk later if need be, but it's just as well Stefan came early. "We have awhile before anyone starts arriving. Nobody to overhear but the dogs."
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He might as well start by asking her, "So uh, when Zara brought me over, or went through all the paperwork, how'd she introduce me and get me vetted?"
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"I'm pretty free with invitations," at least for first time visits, with recommendations from anyone she likes. Maggie decides herself who gets to come back. "She said you were a family friend. Safety and logistics are the gate guards' job."
She tilts her head. He sounds like a person with something to hide, but she withholds judgement until she finds out what. "Why?"
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Actually, that's a bit of an under-exaggeration, but he'll deal with that when he gets to it.
"Look, Maggie - I like you, and it's because I like you that I don't want to lie anymore. Or at least hold back about who I really am."
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She listens calmly, letting Stefan wind down before she speaks.
"Are you about to tell me about your secret life of crime?" Maggie asks, voice so light that it's clearly a deliberate choice of tone. Whatever Stefan is about to tell her, if it were easy, he wouldn't be this serious. Her first line of defense has always been a cheerful front. "And should I be sitting down for this conversation?"
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Just because it always ends up the same, no matter how many times he tells people - so he turns the stove off and motions for her to sit on some empty counterspace next to him.
"I uh..." He draws a breath. Where should he begin? "Truth is, I'm immune to the virus. I mean, like. Total no-sell, couldn't infect me even if it tried, kind of deal."
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Maggie perches on the countertop as directed, hands braced on the edge. Her grip on the counter tightens, knuckles pale. "That isn't possible, is it? The entire world is infected. No one's figured out our immune responses yet. I would have heard."
Because her parents don't keep that kind of secret, and neither do her Newsies.
She's running quickly through a mental list of exactly what projects of her family's she can name offhand, and cataloging whether any of them pertain directly to KA-related immune response.
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Stefan holds out his wrist, just for visual proof: he lightly grazes his nails against the top, and just as his skin begins to bleed - the blood hardens and clots up, and his skin starts repairing itself. As if he'd never attempted to injure himself.
"And the reason you haven't heard is that people like me know what would happen if your parents or the Newsies found out."
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Maggie's breath catches, and despite a lifetime of conditioning that warns against ever coming into contact with someone else's blood, she reaches for his hand and holds Stefan's wrist up for inspection, carefully avoiding anywhere that could be contaminated.
It takes a moment, but she finally raises her gaze back to his face and asks, "If you aren't human, what's the alternative?"
She doesn't sound convinced yet.
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It's better to rip the band-aid off and say what he is, with no holds barred whatsoever. He trusts Maggie: after all, she went back on the conditioning and societal norm he had seen with her generation. That fear of blood, that overall fear of contamination - it hadn't been as present.
"You know, like..." He coughs, his cheeks suddenly turning a little red. "Like the ones my grandpa wrote about."
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"Funny, I've never noticed any fangs." Having kissed him, she ought to be in a position to know. Maggie's mind is still racing, grasping for a scientific explanation rather than a supernatural one. Despite all of her family's medical expertise, and despite her surface level understanding of most of their work, she comes up blank.
At the same time, she's considering the supernatural ramifications. Maggie is clever and analytical, plus creative and imaginative enough to make leaps that wouldn't occur to anyone who doesn't spend so much time writing fiction. "Next, you're going to tell me that your grandfather never wrote those in the first place, and you're immortal and unaging."
She may have posited that, but Maggie certainly doesn't sound like she believes it. Not yet.
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That certainly was the truth: he had written those classics, and he had stolen his pen name from the two most important people in his life. It was as if he were immortalizing Lexi Branson and Elena Gilbert, in a way. At the same time, if she were telling him this, he wouldn't believe her either.
So he draws a breath, "Let me show you something you can believe," and he allows his true face to appear, with his black eyes and fangs that are most definitely protruding from his teeth, and veins that rise under his eyes. His entire body stiffens as he waits for the inevitable, and part of him hopes he won't have to wipe her memory clean. He doesn't want to lose her - not here, and definitely not now.
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Maggie goes very still, not so much as breathing, at the sight of Stefan's face. She stays that way until her lungs protest, then gasps a couple of quick breaths.
She doesn't know what to say, so she raises her hands to Stefan's cheeks. She runs her thumbs along his cheekbones, brushing the edges of the veins below his eyes. And then she stops, gaze dropping to his fangs. The moment and her trust are both infinitely fragile, but she isn't running or screaming.
As initial reactions go, it could have been worse.
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