(no subject)

Entry tags:

therese

(no subject)

After the kiss they had shared at Pride, Chloe had made sure not to put too much pressure on Therese. She had left the younger woman with her phone number, had told her to feel free to call or text any time, but she hadn't made Therese promise anything and Chloe had thought it best she not be the one to reach out. In a situation like this, with Therese still working fairly hard at accepting who she is, Chloe has the feeling too much pressure might not work out so well for either of them.

And she may not be the sort of woman Therese should be looking at anyway, given that she's not particularly interested in monogamy or giving up any of the other men or women she might end up entertaining, but she can't help it. It's selfish, but she likes her, and Chloe has never had an issue with being selfish.

She's left her alone, though, she's waited and she expects the call to come eventually.

Or expects it would have, anyway, if she hadn't just spotted Therese in the park. Chloe is technically working -- for herself at this point, no one quite knows her reputation yet -- and she has an expensive little figurine in one pocket that she should really get into a safe place, but she can't help the detour she makes toward Therese. This is different from calling, this isn't pressure, it's simply two people running into each other in public.

"Hello, gorgeous," she says when she's close enough, her voice pitched low. She's smiling as she approaches, hands in the pockets of her jeans, as casual and confident as ever, and she has to wonder if things will be different here and now, without the frenzy of the Pride celebration to get caught up in.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Therese can't pretend she hasn't thought about it. She has, and often, the kiss she and Chloe shared at Pride, however brief, still something monumental for her. Mostly, though, more even than that, she thinks about how easy Chloe had made it seem, how confident in herself she'd been, unfazed by the notion of kissing another woman — or, if she'd been interpreted what was said correctly, doing more than that, which is something Therese hasn't been able to help but think about, too. Though she's only ever been with one other woman before, and though she doubts she'll ever get Carol Aird out of her head entirely, still somewhat caught up in her spell all these months later, that had been over well before she ever found herself in Darrow. Just as she'd thought that afternoon, Chloe standing close while the parade passed by, it might well be a good thing to let herself start moving on from that, and just as much of one that it isn't the same at all. That immediate infatuation, the heartbreak, the way it hurt just to look at Carol, like staring into the sun for too long — none of that is anything she needs again. And she can't very well betray someone who'd chosen a life that didn't have her in it.

More than once, she's pulled Chloe's number up on her phone, meaning to call, but unsure of what to say, has never actually worked up to it. The sight of her in the park, then, approaching with a smile, prompts one from Therese in turn, a little less restrained than usual, as she sets her camera in its bag, waiting on the picnic table beside her that she's claimed as her own while she takes pictures. She manages, somehow, to resist the temptation to snap one of Chloe before she puts it away.

"Hi," she says. "It's good to see you."

"And you," Chloe answers, her gaze going briefly to the camera and then back to Therese. "You're a photographer?"

She's met her fair share of photographers. With the places she's gone, there's always someone there taking a picture, trying to document the landscape or the people or, in more dire situations, the political climate. Where she has gone, cameras had been common, but she'd never carried one herself. The work she had done had mostly been illegal and having a camera along for the ride had always seemed like a very bad idea and so she's always mostly avoided them. There have been those who have tried to take her picture, but she's made very sure not to let those get very far and more than a few men have lost their cameras that way.

In Darrow it matters less. It isn't as if she has anywhere else to go.

"I am," Therese says, nodding, her smile still in place. Increasingly, her work has become one thing that she isn't quite as self-conscious about as she is most things in her life. Part of it, she's sure, is just the shield it gives her, the impersonal nature of her. The pictures she takes tell more about their subjects than they do about her, or so she chooses to see it, and having a lens to put herself behind gives her a comfortable sort of detachment. As well as that, though, there's the fact that she's actually managed to find some success in it, at least enough to earn a living. It helps not just being a clerk anymore, taking notes as a room full of older men compare their own work, the upwards climb at so low an incline it seemed almost flat.

There really is a lot to like about the future, if she'd let herself. Chloe turning up is a welcome reminder that maybe she should.

"I was just getting started, back home, but I've... continued with it, here."

"And what do you take pictures for mostly?" she asks, careful not to come close to Therese's bag as she steps up onto the bench of the picnic table and seats herself on top, one long leg crossing over the other. For the most part, she might be the sort of asshole who doesn't give a damn about someone else's property, the sort who would rather steal than give someone's belongings the respect they might deserve, but she likes Therese and she knows better than to get too close to the delicate sort of equipment that goes along with a camera.

She's not photographer herself, but she's more than a few cracked lenses in her time.

"Newspapers? Media? Fashion?" She pauses, glancing around, then looks back at Therese in amusement. "I don't suppose there's much in the way of wildlife photography in a place like this, but I guess it couldn't be completely impossible either." There has to be a bear or two out there in the woods somewhere.

"I work for a newspaper here," Therese says, the warmth in her chest at being able to do so something she's not yet familiar with. Pride, she supposes, might be a good word for it. Not all that long ago, she hadn't even known if she had any skill at all, talked about it like a hobby she was just trying out, despite how much she loved it. She supposes that, in a way, that's one more thing Carol has changed about her life. If not for her — her gift, the pictures Therese took of her — she may never have gone any further with it at all. She could have spent the rest of her life as a shopgirl, not thinking there was anything more for her.

She would have married Richard and lived out a miserable existence. For all of her uncertainty now, in so many different areas of her life, she has to believe that this is a better option. At least she isn't just pretending to be something she's not anymore.

"I know," she adds, "it's a dying medium, or so they tell me. They put the pictures up online sometimes, though, too."

"Oh, forget anyone who says that," Chloe says, waving her hand. "Maybe you won't be taking pictures on film for the rest of time, but everyone always wants photos and almost everyone eventually realizes that just because you have a high quality camera on your iPhone doesn't mean you know how to take a good picture."

She would be one of those. Of course, she routinely breaks her phones, so maybe it's just that she's not all that good with any sort of technology in general. Still, her pictures are never anything special, taken solely to communicate information and nothing more. For the most part the pictures she takes are for work, but she's certainly taken one or two -- or more -- of a more intimate nature and even those don't manage to be all that good when one considers the art of what others can do.

Her saving grace is that she can make just about anything look good.

"Are you working now?" she asks, resting her elbows on her knees and leaning forward with a smile. "Am I interrupting?"

It's nice to hear from someone she knows isn't from the past like she is, almost reassuring. Maybe newspapers and photographs on film aren't especially popular forms of media anymore, but Therese likes to think that they aren't going anywhere, that there's something special about them even with all of the advancements in technology. Certainly she won't be convinced to give up her camera so easily, even if she does have to admit that there's something convenient about how easy it is to take pictures on phones. She might not use hers often, and she tends to bring her camera bag with her when she goes anywhere, but having that option is something she can't help but appreciate. Maybe one day, she'll even be able to put it to good use.

"No, no, you're not interrupting anything," she says with a smile and a shake of her head. "This is just for fun. I like it here — the park, I mean. It's a good place for pictures." Even if she were working, she thinks she'd welcome the company anyway, but as it is, there's something just a little thrilling about knowing she doesn't have anywhere to be, anything to be doing. She could leave with Chloe if she wanted to, if Chloe wanted that. Therese can only speak for herself, but the more she thinks about it, especially now that Chloe is here, the more she thinks she does want it.

"A good place to sneak pictures of people without them realizing?" she asks with a slow grin.

It's not an accusation at all, especially not coming from Chloe, who has engaged in more illegal behaviour in her lifetime than she could even begin to catalogue. It's a genuine question, because people are always more interesting when they don't realize they're being photographed. There's an ease about them and photos taken without the target realizing it's happening are always more relaxed and the people in them tend to look better than they would if they were posed.

Besides, Chloe has also taken plenty of pictures of people who didn't know they were being photographed. It's a necessary part of recon with plenty of the jobs she's taken on. Those photos are probably just a little bit different than the ones Therese is taking, however, because all she ever cares about is getting a good look at anyone who might be standing between her and the thing she's been hired to steal.

"Maybe a little," Therese admits, if only because of the look on Chloe's face, her own smile growing the slightest bit conspiratorial. It isn't like she does anything creepy — not intentionally, anyway — or like she seeks out specific people, but they make for the nicest shots sometimes, just candid pictures of people out enjoying themselves rather than posing for a camera. Some of her favorite pictures she's taken, that she wishes dearly that she had with her, were of Carol like that, buying a Christmas tree, snow lightly falling on her hair. She was beautiful always, but there was an unselfconsciousness about her in that moment that Therese doubts could have been seen otherwise.

She needs to stop thinking about her. The present company helps.

"It's just... You see all sorts of things," she says, an attempt at an explanation. "Families, couples, people with their pets. And it was winter when I got here, so it's been nice, I suppose, to watch it change." Abruptly, as if she'll lose her nerve if she doesn't say it now, she adds, "I've been meaning to call you."

Chloe can't remember the last time she's been anywhere long enough to watch the seasons change and that little reminder that she's stuck here sends a sliver of ice into her chest. Since she was barely old enough to care for herself, her life has been her own, she's made her own decisions and gone wherever she felt, whenever she wanted to. Darrow hasn't taken that away entirely, she's still perfectly capable of moving about the city, but at the end of it all, she's still restricted to these streets, these buildings, things that will soon enough become familiar to her.

Nothing but Nate and Charlie have been familiar to her in years. It's how she had liked things, but now she has no other choice.

She forces that away, though, and her smile grows when Therese says she's been meaning to call. The reasons she hasn't are easy enough to guess at, but they don't matter and Chloe doesn't see any reason to dwell on them. Whether or not she'd called, they're here now.

"Well, you've found me," she says. "Or I've found you. Either way, you'll have to save the phone call for another time and I'll be sure to pick up." She pauses then and winces slightly. "Unless, of course, I've lost my phone. I have a tendency to do that."

"Honestly, I barely use mine," Therese admits, "so it's just as well." She suspects that, over the phone, she'd have done nothing but fumble over her words, unsure of how to explain why she was calling or what she wanted. While she can't say that she's much less unsure of herself in person, it's at least a little easier in person, being able to look at Chloe and remember that kiss, brief as it may have been, their crossing paths here an accident rather than her seeking Chloe out. After all, it isn't as if she's done this before, sought anything out with any sort of intention. With Richard and Carol both, in different ways, everything just happened; they'd led, she'd followed, just like she always does.

Calling would have been taking the initiative herself. Maybe that would be a good thing, but there's only so much she can take on at once, and it's new enough for her to be doing — wanting to do — something casual. If anything does happen here, if she isn't wrong about what Chloe meant before, then it won't be the all-consuming infatuation with Carol she'd had, and Therese likes the idea of that, being able to enjoy herself without her world being turned entirely upside down.

"I'm glad, though. To have run into you."

"I understand how useful they are and I always replace them when I inevitably lose or break mine, but I'm not sure how anyone expected me not to lose them before I ended up here," Chloe admits. Nate had always seemed so surprised and almost disappointed when she admitted to having lost it, every single time, and it had always amused her to see his expression when she had to break the news to him once again. It's not as if a cell phone would have done her much good in the middle of the desert anyway so she had never much seen the purpose in them when she was working.

"The work I did before Darrow wasn't exactly conducive to secure personal belongings," she says, her smile growing a little wider. She speaks of her work in the past tense, because no matter how much she might like Therese, Chloe doesn't trust anyone. Nate is an exception, but he had earned that, being there for her time and time again when she truly hadn't expected him to be. Chloe will work with just about anyone once, but it takes a lot to get her to work with someone a second time, and with Nate, she can't even count how many jobs they've done together.

"But I am, too," she adds and she means it, which isn't exactly rare, but Chloe doesn't often make an effort to see people more than a few times, knowing it to be the best for all involved. Darrow changes things just by being Darrow. "It's nice to see you in a happier mood."

Therese is curious, of course, as to what that means Chloe did back home, but it isn't her business to press. She has a feeling that Chloe could tell her just about anything and she'd be hanging on every word, anyway, entranced by whatever she wound up saying. If there's a word for this feeling, this attraction, she doesn't know what it would be. It isn't love, or even headed in that direction; it's just a want, a fascination. Kissing her again, doing more than kissing, as she's thought about, hoped for, wouldn't leave her alone and pining. If anything, it isn't difficult to imagine them just smiling and going back to talking afterwards. The idea of that separation is perhaps even more appealing than the alternative would be.

It's just also a sign of her getting too far ahead of herself, when she wouldn't know how to articulate what she wants — wouldn't know what she wants at all, content as always to follow someone else's lead, to take her cues from the other person — or that Chloe would want it as well. She can hope, though. She does that well, even when she shouldn't, even when the possibility of anything happening seems against the odds.

"I'm... sorry about that afternoon," she says, though her smile doesn't slip as she does, only growing a little sheepish instead. "I was just... overwhelmed, I suppose. I ought to thank you. It helped, having someone to talk to."

"You have nothing to be sorry about," Chloe answers easily, because it's true. While she would much rather Therese feel comfortable with herself and with whatever she wants, there's no reason for her to apologize for not being there yet. (And it is a yet sort of situation, of that Chloe is absolutely certain.) Therese is from a different time, a different world, really, even if they're from the same place, because so much has changed in the decades between, but even still there are plenty of people who would be willing to tell her to stay hidden.

She can't blame her. Not everyone is built the same.

"Come on," she says, climbing down from the bench and offering her hand. "Let's find something to eat, I'm starving. You can tell me about what you did back home and then I can tell you about what I did." Because unlike Therese, continuing with her career in Darrow is a little more difficult. She's going to find a way to get things done, but it isn't the same. Not without the travel.

It's a tempting offer, though Therese suspects that she would agree to anything Chloe suggested right about now, just to stay in her orbit for a little while longer. Whatever comes next, if she was right about the implication in their last conversation or not — and she doubts she'll work up the will to ask about that — it doesn't matter. She barely needs to think twice before she takes Chloe's outstretched hand, the other reaching for her camera bag so she can sling it over her shoulder. There will be plenty of afternoons for her to come back and take pictures. This isn't an opportunity worth passing up.

"That sounds good," she says, nodding. "I'd like that." She's always agreed to things a little too easily, always been too quick to follow someone else's lead, but in this case, she really means it. Even if all they do is talk, it will be enough for her.

"So you said you were just starting out at home?" Chloe asks as they walk, her fingers still loosely linked with Therese's. At the best of times, she's hardly the holding hands sort, but there's a part of her that wants to help Therese get used to the idea that no one really cares what they do. Or, if there are people who care, they're generally the useless sort who aren't worth spending much time focusing on either way. She knows there are some who might be dangerous, people who feel their opinions are so important that they must defend them with violence if necessary, but Chloe isn't afraid of them and she'd do her best to make sure Therese doesn't have to be either.

"Was is journalism you were interested in?" she asks. "I have a friend whose wife was a photojournalist. She would show up in the most dangerous locations armed with her only camera and the two of us would have to run around like mad, making sure she didn't get herself shot." And then she would still proceed to get in the damn way, no matter where they turned. Oddly enough, despite the fact that she's sleeping with said friend, Chloe genuinely likes Elena. She can put Nate in his place, after all, and she's tough and fearless, but she's not like them. Not quite.

And a camera isn't a good defense against a gun.

It's a surprise, though not an unwelcome one, when Chloe's hand stays around hers. Therese swallows hard, glancing around instinctively for a moment as if they might be seen, before she reminds herself that it doesn't, shouldn't, matter. There's a confidence in Chloe that she knows she'll never come close to herself, that she can only bask in, but this isn't like the rare people in New York who wouldn't try to hide what they were or who they were with. Here, it's simply normal. The more exposure to it she has, she supposes, the closer she'll come to really believing that, letting herself act on it.

For now, this is something, and if Chloe isn't going to pull away, then she certainly isn't going to, either.

"I don't think I could have managed anything like that," she says with a small little smile, self-deprecating but unbothered by the fact of it. "But it was, yes. I had a job at the New York Times before I got here. Just as a clerk, nothing special, but it's a start." Even if she'd been the only woman in a room full of older men, taking notes and bringing what they needed more so than anything else, at least she'd been in the room at all. Everyone has to start somewhere. Here, it just seems easier to get that start than it was sixty-some years ago in the past she came from.

"Don't sell yourself short," Chloe answers. "No one would have expected it of Elena either and yet there she was, sticking her cute little nose in everywhere it could have gotten shot off."

The world needs more women like Elena, Chloe feels very strongly about that, though she doesn't think she'd ever admit it to Elena herself or to Nate. At this point, she finds it best to just never bring up his estranged wife, because the truth is that she likes being able to sleep with him again. Their relationship, whatever it may be, will never be like the one he has with Elena and Chloe is perfectly comfortable with that, but she's not prepared to lose it again either.

"I guess there's no war zones here for you to go poking around in," she says. "Not in the traditional sense, anyway. I heard some toys went on a rampage." She says it easily, as if such a thing is to be expected, but that presses at the extent of her belief just a little.

"They did," Therese says, eyes widening and brow raising slightly at that. "I almost got caught in the middle of it. It might just have been the strangest thing I've ever seen, all these little toys wielding weapons and attacking people." New Year's is a close second, those creatures that crashed through the window, but at least they were actual beings, not children's toys that shouldn't have even been capable of movement. She's just glad they didn't sell anything like those creepy, garish little things when she worked in the toy department at Frankenberg's. For all that she may not have been particularly fond of the dolls she had to sell, at least those hadn't seemed so unnatural.

Besides, something good came of all that, too.

She nearly laughs, a ghost of it evident in the set of her mouth and the tone of her voice. "I would not have wanted to stop and take pictures with those things trying to peck at my legs."

That's the smart reaction to something like that, it's the reaction Chloe would have, getting herself out of harm's way before thinking about anything else, because she's not the sort to put her ass on the line when there's an alternative. No pay out in the world is worth her life and when it comes to the strange and unusual parts of Darrow, she can't imagine there's anything she would be able to trade in a situation like that.

But she knows there are others who would absolutely dive right into something that could very well end their life if there was something they saw as worthwhile waiting for them at the end.

"See, that's my logic," she agrees. "I'm a driver and I might get paid well for what I do, but there's no amount that I'm willing to put myself in front of a gun for. A certain amount of danger is understandable, but if I'm dead, that money won't be very useful to me, will it?" So Chloe prefers to get out while she's ahead.

"No, I can't imagine it would be," Therese says, letting out a short, surprised laugh. Having done so, though, she isn't sure it should be so unexpected after all. Chloe is confident and bold in a way she never has been and never could be herself, and it's not too difficult at all to imagine her doing something with danger involved, and likely getting away with it, too. It's almost a little fantastical, a little surreal. It probably shouldn't have her all the more intrigued, but there's something about being in Chloe's company that makes her want to at least try to be a little brave, maybe because Chloe herself seems to encourage it. "Is that — Do you do that here? Or was it only before this?"

She'd done her best to pick up where she left off, to stick with something steady, familiar, but she knows the same isn't true of everyone. Others might take it as the fresh start it could be.

"I plan on it," she says, flashing a grin at the other woman. Maybe she should know better than to tell her anything like this, but she can't imagine Therese suddenly showing up at her flat with the cops in tow, insisting she was the one, she was the criminal, the thief they were looking for. She's already stolen in Darrow and more than once, but no one is looking for that pocket watch or the compass.

"I'm... well, sort of a treasure hunter," she says. "People would get in touch with me when they wanted to find something and couldn't do it for themselves for whatever reason. I would usually work with a team, but I worked on my own as well. It could be dangerous, but it was exciting, too. I'm not sure what sort of treasure Darrow has to offer, though. I might be out of luck in that regard."

"I don't think I'd rule anything out in this place," Therese says, her smile unwavering. It probably shouldn't sound so appealing. Maybe, anywhere else, back in New York, it wouldn't have; it's impossible to be sure. What she knows now is that, even if it could be dangerous, as Chloe has said, it sounds thrilling, and isn't at all at odds with the idea of her that Therese has had so far. Chloe is so many things she isn't: confident, brave, eye-catchingly beautiful. It would be impossible not to be drawn to that. "There might well be something. And I bet you're good at it."

"Oh, darling, I was one of the best," Chloe answers with a grin as she guides Therese toward a cafe that's caught her eye. "Certainly the best driver in the business. I can handle any vehicle you throw at me with ease."

She's just good at what she does. It comes from years of practice, years of driving for her father, years of learning the ins and outs of vehicles and figuring out how best to handle them. She can repair them, too, fix just about any problem a car or truck might have, but being a mechanic is hardly the sort of thing she wants out of life.

"Best ass in the business, too," she adds with a little smirk. "Or so I've been told over and over."

"I—" Therese starts, cutting herself off in short order with a brief, slightly flustered laugh. She can't exactly disagree with that assessment, after all, though it isn't as if she's spent a lot of time looking, or, for that matter, like she's familiar with anyone else in that line of work. Chloe is stunning, though, and hard to take her eyes off sometimes, and not just because of her facial features. There aren't many people, even women, that Therese has thought about in a physical sense like that, but it's been impossible not to when it comes to Chloe, not after what she said at that parade. Practicing taking what she wants is so much easier said than done, but she does want. She just doesn't know how to say so. "Well," she decides on instead, changing her approach, "anyone who said that must have had good taste."