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inception - arthur

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[ Seated on a park bench, reading, Mae looks up, turns backward when a familiar if elusive voice invades her personal space, coupled with a polite hand tapping her shoulder. At the same time, the device ends up on his jacket, perched neatly on the back of the bench too, its intermittent flash of red light indicating RECORDING TO NETWORK. ]

Got a promise to keep, don't I?

[ Arthur asks and extends his hand to her. A moment's deliberation later Mae closes her book and accepts said hand, ready to step over the back, but Arthur stops her with a hand that smooths from her shin to her ankle, an affectionate politeness somehow. Then he lifts her off the bench's back entirely, spins with her once before setting her down and the long owed daaaaaaaaaance really begins. ]

[ooc: okay so the dance is basically what happens after JGL lifts Zooey off of the bank counter and sets her down, all of course taking place in the park instead of swapping sites. At the end when Zooey is anti-gravitying her way back to standing upright behind the counter, instead imagine Arthur helping her back up over the bench, kneeling using his knee as a step up :3 wherein the device cuts off because he knocks it finally falls off the bench. Practice makes perfect and all that!]

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[She's definitely laughing by the time it's over, out of breath. She smooths her hair back in place.]

Where'd you learn how to dance, sailor?

Sailor? [ His brow quirks up, which makes it sort of tandem to the corner of his mouth as he crouches down again to pick up the fallen device, turning it off. ]

[Oh - ] Force of habit. [And a pang of guilt, because this is not Jamie and that was not like dancing with Jamie at all. For instance, her brother does not grope her leg.] But the question still stands.

[ There's a soft laugh as he stands up again, absently dusting off his pants though they'll get run to the dry cleaners' anyway. ] M-- [ It's his turn to pause, his hands resting politely on the back curve of the bench. ] A friend taught me. [ He tilts his head. ] What about you?

Ah - me [At that, she stands up from the bench again, and dusts her skirt off as well, smug smile on her lips. As she walks over to his side, she talks.] With the French students at the boarding school.

[She circles him, slowly, her steps are a one, two, three.] The nuns said I had the devil in me feet, but I just had- [And there, she reaches for his hand, spins him over and pulls him against her, only to dip him a second later.] Passion in my heart.

[ . . .!

Surprise is transparent from the way his body follows to the expression across his face. It's brief though, exchanged easy and honest for a laugh that has his eyes crinkling. ] Devil's a little strong. [ He exits the dip with a short turn not small on grace, locking their hands together just to bring Mae into the curve of his arm again anyway, before settling them into something more classic - a waltz, if his internal count isn't off. ]

But...boarding school...really?

[A waltz, it's been so long since she waltz. She follows the steps easily, gracefully.]

Not really. But saying that it was the only physical activity out of the many, many our mother signed us up for that managed to catch out interest sounds...not as exciting.

It's more interesting, [ he says and means it, noting the light and learned quality of Mae's steps - someone who took to something that is taught but as Mal told him, equally felt. The park affords them enough space for promenading without obstacle, and when he lets her go only to meet their hands again seconds later, it's less like practice and more like something they've done before. ] What other activities were there?

Many! [Much like floating; much like an almost ethereal scene from some movie, they move like they've been practicing this. Though she can't help but think there are parts that could benefit from more practice.] Horseback riding, fencing, even cricket but that was never going to happen unless we were allowed to dress up like Alice and the Hatter.

[ There are rough edges, pinches of reality of it only being the second time they've technically danced together, but if anything Arthur imagines they can go over it afterward, immediately or later on - any time before tomorrow. He blinks at her, shy of owlish but curious in its own way. ] You said 'our' before. Was dancing what you both preferred or...?

Definitely dancing. Jamie was not a fan of anything more violent than a paso doble.

That's nice, actually. [ Again the laugh, the laugh and a spin these all a lot less jaunty than the number before, fluid in a sense. ] I don't hear a lot about siblings who actually agree on things.

[Oh, of the two - right now, Mae's the most violent one. Learning how to use knives as weapons? Not something Jamie approved of.] Of course we're not always perfect, but it happens quite often.

Well no one's perfect, [ his smile briefly takes on something a bit sharper, not directed at Mae but a flicker, some further back thought he's not letting surface. ] so I've been told. [ Arthur, unlike Jamie would approve of the knives for Mae the same as he approves of anyone simply taking logical precautions for being in a place like the City. People are uncannily helpful here but Arthur has long believed it's better to depend on yourself. ]

So you've been told? [She laughs, and makes a point of rolling her eyes at him.]

So I've been told, [ he repeats mildly, unflappable in this particular topic, though his expression goes wry. ] What didn't you like about the other things - horseback riding...fencing... sounds like it could've been fun.

[If there's ever anyone to strive for perfection, she imagines it's Arthur. Just from the way he dances alone, practiced moves.]

They weren't the type of fun kids our age wanted - they were more...what my mother would've prefered us to know, I imagine...

[ Often in a conversation there are moments in which gears click particularly sound and definitive. Here is one, Arthur noting the word choice, filling in not too many blanks (too many means presumption, means overstepping) but enough. ]

I'm glad dancing was thrown in there with them, then.

[ Whatever it was then - just fun, or a respite that happened to be fun too from the things expected of a person, not quite asked of.

Arthur tries to imagine his own parents and fails as usual - epically. But it's more automated than conscious. ]

[Though she also imagines now that if - if she'd known almost half the fencing her mother had known, then maybe...

She shakes her head, and smiles up at him; it's soft, and a little sad around the corners.] So am I.

[ Arthur leads her through the dance in silence for a while after that, trying not to scrutinize the quiet presence of something sad sharing the same space.

He doesn't much like to psychoanalyze when it's himself at the forefront, but it hasn't escaped him every female he speaks to, he sees traces of Mal. Not Mal's deformed remnant, but Mal as he desperately holds onto her, mistrusting of the brain and its capacity for detail and accuracy. Mae is so many ways not like Mal at all that it's simple enough to differentiate, certainly; that's not an issue.

But there is something to be said, perhaps, for how any splinter of unhappiness in Mae's expression - even in past tense - is something he'd like to change. Leading her into a broader walk and turn, he says, ]

Did you want to go over the recording of before? We could grab a table somewhere, do lunch and critique at the same time.

[She can recognize a distraction on which to hold onto when she is offered one, and the smile gets tinged with relief and gratitude. She takes it.]

Sounds like a good enough idea.

[ One of the things a curse doesn't hide from them in this particular case is a sense of time; it's the thing they have plenty of as far as they can tell, and so plenty enough to revisit different conversations at later moments. Arthur contents himself with noting the way Mae's features relax. It's not that she's transparent; arguably Arthur is more so when he's feeling anything worth noting, but being dance partners offers a person a sort of sixth sense. Maybe more accurately it can be categorized as a hyper-tuned point of empathy.

Most of the conversations Arthur ought to have had in his life, he avoided one way or another and a few times he's worn the look of relief himself. He leads Mae into a turn with the kind of subtle kindness that makes it more than polite, more than form. In his time here, she is one of just a handful of people he's kept on with even in the slightest definition. ]

Competition'll be fair but I think we have a chance.

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