justsookie | let me have it all, let me have a battle on

Entry tags:

rahne sinclair

let me have it all, let me have a battle on

Doubts were the sorts of things that tended to flood in whenever the source of distraction left one's immediate vicinity. Over the past few hours, Sookie's eyes had started wandering all over the place as she found difficulty settling on any single thought in her mind, the blonde rushing from room to room and back again within the Compound, trying to settle what she could only see as ridiculous, possibly hormonally girlish behavior. Every now and again she found herself laughing, often at nothing in particular, and at other times she jumped at any sudden sound or sight in her near vicinity. In the end, she had settled on sitting in the kitchen, lightly bouncing on her seat as she waited for a familiar face to come by, preferably one who she could talk to about the events of the previous evening and to finally determine whether or not she should have been feeling those flickers of guilt, and given that answer, how best to progress from there.

Sighing, she leaned forward over the table, foot still tapping incessantly on the floor as Sookie's fingers wove into her hair, gripping strands and tugging as though she could pull reason and logic out from within herself. She had been on the island for over two months, and so many others saw the place as one where everyone could start over, live the lives they'd never had a chance at back in their respective worlds, and Sookie supported that notion. Had begun to act as though she planned on using it for herself to justify drawing close to new people and breaking away from habits borne of the belief that her disability was one that she would never escape. And yet she still had to wonder if she was being the equivalent of a little girl newly allowed to peruse the candy store, and dwelled further on the fact that others were possibly affected by her spur of the moment actions as well. It was all a bit much, churning through all of those thoughts on her own, and so when Sookie finally did see a familiar and welcome face passing through the door, she jolted straight, waving.

"Rahne! Rahne, over here!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Rahne had hardly expected such an enthusiastic greeting upon walking into the Compound, drenched from having been outside and in search of something warm to drink, but at the sight of Sookie, she couldn't help but smile, already heading in her direction. On an island full of former teammates and connections from home, there were few real friends she'd managed to make apart from that; Sookie was one of the foremost exceptions. Squeezing some water from the ends of her hair, she exhaled heavily as she took a seat.

"Hello there," she said, breathless but in good spirits, leaning back a little in her chair. "How're ye doing? Managed to stay dry, I see?"

Without even waiting for Rahne to be seated for longer than five seconds, Sookie quickly got up to rummage through the options for drinks, still staying within easy speaking distance. Her smile was stretched, not quite labored but not curved with the ease Sookie usually wore— the combination of lousy weather and a rather exciting turn of events kept her jittery without the use of caffeine.

"Sort of," she grinned, having found tea, coffee, and some sort of hot cocoa that drew a slightly wary gaze from the blonde. "It's the feline in me. I hate bein' cooped indoors, but I hate feelin' constantly wet even more. I only leave some nights to sleep in my hut, since things are so busy here, but aside from that I spend the entirety of my time here. D'you want somethin' to drink? Coffee, tea, some sort of hot chocolate? Don't think we've got marshmallows, though."

"Some tea would be lovely, if ye're sure ye don't mind getting it," Rahne said with a slight laugh, gaze following Sookie as she moved about the kitchen. She'd been told before that Sookie liked doing it and remained aware of it now, but it still wouldn't have felt right not to say anything, like taking advantage of what Sookie had done before. Dripping wet or not, she'd have had no problem fetching her own drink. "I know the feeling, though. I don't mind rain, but like this —" She gestured with one hand to herself, as if to indicate how steady the rainfall still was, rarely letting up at all. "It's nearly impossible to do a thing. I just know I'd go crazy if I didn't get out at all."

People on the island liked acknowledging Sookie's efforts; that much became clear after a few short weeks, and especially so after Sookie took up a position at the Winchester. It was a nice change of pace from how things were, back in Bon Temps, and one that made Sookie wonder whether or not money was a factor at all in the matter. It always seemed that people in Merlotte's were inclined to feel that they had paid already for the service, that anything less than the quickest and kindest waiting was being unfair to them— it was that sort of reasoning that made Sookie wish that tips were automatically factored in, at times.

On the island, though, she'd found that she didn't really care to have her work praised too much. Sookie did it because she wanted to, not out of any sort of obligation or in order to pay bills, and just being able to offer some sort of help on an island where many grew stir-crazy, where many wanted to escape on a daily basis, where utopia was only the thinnest of surfaces painted over everything else, was enough. She smiled sheepishly at Rahne, serving the tea and hauling two large mugs over, placing milk and sugar on the table as well.

"I don't mind at all," she grinned, before circling around the counter one last time to tug out the largest towel she could find to help Rahne dry off. "Especially when I think I'm just that— stir-crazy. Movie nights seem to be my poison of choice, these days. I've..."

A friend? That didn't seem to sit on her tongue too well.

"I don't know if you know Mitchell or not, but he's actually really good at makin' popcorn with a kettle." Sookie slid into her seat, toying nervously with a strand of hair.

"Mitchell?" Rahne echoed, pausing after having been toweling off her still-damp arms, her eyebrows raising and corners of her mouth lifting with them in a small smile. It probably wasn't all that uncommon a name, but she knew only one person who went by that, and after a while, all paths eventually crossed, leaving her with only one assumption to make. She didn't yet know Mitchell half as well as she knew George, or even as well as she'd have wanted to, but she liked him all the same, enough to be pleased at the mention. "Mitchell who lives with George and Annie? Aye, I know him. I didn't know ye did, though."

Spooning some sugar into her mug of tea, she took a cautious sip, watching Sookie over the rim of the cup as she played with a piece of her hair. It wasn't too telling, but it was enough to make her curious, at the very least, and as she set the mug back on the counter, her grin grew the slightest bit, almost imperceptibly, crooked. Her question, though, was entirely innocent, not implying anything. "So the two've ye have been spending a lot of time together?"

If Sookie missed the slight suggestion in Rahne's smile, it was because her cheeks had immediately flared to a dusky pink, the blonde almost choking on tea as she quickly placed the mug down and dabbed at her lips with a napkin, feeling the liquid scald her tongue. There was a part of her that wanted to be blatant about it in the way that she had after her first night with Bill, to smile and beam at people and to be glad to elaborate, but whatever it was she had with Mitchell didn't feel the same. There was no sharp burn of a first love— if anything, it felt like both of them were walking on ice, never quite sure where the cracks would fall.

She was happy, in some ways almost deliriously so, as was typical for Sookie. If she felt, she felt strongly, couldn't hold her emotions back in the same way that she could occasionally keep her actions on a leash. Mitchell was everything that she could ask for— experienced, kind, open— and sometimes it seemed ridiculous, in the moment, to bite her lip and hold back.

But being careful was a good thing, wasn't it?

"Y-yeah, that Mitchell— I didn't know that you knew him! Or George and Annie. I've met all three of them, they're really sweet," Sookie rambled, mind momentarily wondering if all the people on the island with werewolf-like attributes grouped together in the way that vampires seemed to, inevitably. The question seemed too rude to ask, though, so instead she pressed on, syllables tumbling one after the other. "I mean, I'm sure you know that already, since you apparently know them. But yeah, I spend a lot of time with Mitchell. We're sort of... possibly-seein'-each-other."

Sookie's initial reaction all but speaking for itself, Rahne was hardly surprised by the confession that came out, but that didn't make her any less pleased by the notion. It wasn't as if she ever spent time thinking about such things, but Sookie was a good friend, and from what she knew of Mitchell, there were few, if any, better people, making them a pair well-suited for each other, regardless of the 'possibly' Sookie had worked into the last sentence. Rahne was sold on the idea already, her smile only broadening, warm rather than teasing.

"I've known George since he first showed up here, and met the other two not long after they did," she explained, but was quick to move on, that not really being worth discussing in the face of news like this. Contrary to what was the case for Sookie and Mitchell, she had nothing more to tell -- nothing that was hers to tell, anyway, when she didn't know how much Sookie knew about anything. Their one encounter with island magic was a story best left for another time. Leaning forward a little, she rested her chin in the palm of one hand, elbow propped up on the table. "I'd no idea, though, about the two of ye, that's wonderful. Tell me more, when did this happen?"

If there was anyone she knew on the island who was likely not to judge, Sookie had to imagine that Rahne would be that person. The fact that she was familiar with those who were a little more than human was already a comfort, but on top of that, Rahne seemed to understand what it meant to have doubts. What it meant to second-guess oneself. She seemed capable of giving Sookie the space it inevitably would take to find her footing, while at once not treating Sookie like a child for it. Despite the fact that her smile was bashful, Sookie could bask in the fact that she didn't need to sheepish around Rahne, and indeed her smile began to relax, though it remained tight at the corners.

"I don't wanna get ahead of myself," Sookie confessed, furrowing her brows in the process, although her lips were still quirked. "We said that we'd give a shot. Only a couple of nights ago, actually. And it's not even like I spend all of my time with him, just that whenever I do, it's... easy. It feels safe, and I know that this island's already pretty darned safe already, but it feels safe on a deeper level and I always end up losin' track of time, so... the way I figure, why not see if there's more to it?"

Because you had Bill, her mind piped up. Because Mitchell's not over Lucy.

Shaking her head, Sookie let the grin creep onto her face again as she leaned in, chin held slightly higher than usual. "But what about you? Any chance that there's somethin' going on with, I don't know... George?"

"Oh, saints, no," Rahne said with a laugh, maybe a little too quickly, shaking her head. While she would have been lying to say that the thought had never crossed her mind, time and logic had all but ruled it out, and she wasn't the sort to sit around waiting, at least not anymore. George was older, likely more interested in the long term when it came to matters of that sort; Rahne couldn't have, in all honesty, denied being attracted to him, but it didn't seem the sort of thing likely to ever work out. Cheeks just barely tinged pink, she took a sip of her tea to buy herself a moment's time, with which she could be better suited to actually respond. "He took me to the dance a while back, the fifties one, but I suspect yuir Mitchell may've had something to do that that. And there was someone else, a while back, but..."

She trailed off there, shrugging. It was just sex seemed a bit crude to say, but that was all it had really been between her and Rupert. "Neither of us was looking for anything serious," she settled on instead, free hand waving dismissively through the air. It wasn't her own love life or lack thereof that was worth focusing on here. She softened a touch as she looked over at Sookie, all too ready to shift the focus once more. "If ye ask me, though, that logic sounds right. As far as I know, at least, that's the way it ought to feel."

"Oh hush," Sookie exclaimed, suddenly looking like a child who'd managed to stumble across the candy jar unsupervised. Perhaps a little of it was trying too hard to compensate for the embarrassment she felt over getting all aflutter over Mitchell, and yet another part didn't want to presume too much on his end while they were taking things so slowly, but there was genuine excitement to build off of too at playing spectator like she had most of her life. Even if the process had been frustrating at times, the end lesson Sookie had taken with her was the fact that watching everything from a distance was safe, for her.

Not that there was a reason to feel that what she had with Mitchell wasn't, but— Sookie winced as her thoughts wandered to him again, schooling herself into focusing on George, George with the adorable voice that cracked when he went into fits and with ears that probably rivaled Will Smith's. And Rahne, who was beautiful and kind and deserved a decent man. Ideally, the kind ones would always find each other.

And although Sookie knew that the reality of it was far more complex than that, it wouldn't stop her from hoping anyway.

"You're the girl that Mitchell was convincin' George to ask to the dance. I never would've thought— oh, Rahne, don't you think that when a guy gets all shy over askin' a girl to an island function, that it means somethin'? I mean, I'm not sayin' that an island dance is two steps shy of marriage, but there'd be no reason for him to be nervous if everythin' was just casual."

"What I think it means is that he has friends with overactive imaginations," Rahne replied simply, though she couldn't keep the barest trace of amusement out of her voice. She couldn't say for sure that Annie had had anything to do with it, but having her suspicions confirmed that Mitchell had been behind it, she could only assume that it had been a joint effort. Annie, when they'd talked, had been wonderfully sweet, and seemed very much like the eager sort of person who'd get involved in the love lives of people she cared about. Rahne couldn't fault her for that, and it hardly made a difference, but was worth mentioning all the same.

Part of it, too, she supposed, was her own fault, telling Mitchell about the effect island magic had had on her and George back on Valentine's Day, probably giving him all sorts of ideas. Sookie, now, ought to have been told about it, too, if only because it served as proof that he wasn't interested when he was sane, but it was too much of a non sequitur; at the right time, she'd get to it, but for now, it would wait a while longer. She still wasn't sure what she had been thinking, bringing that up then, except that it had been somewhat hilarious to tell Mitchell that she was George's former fiancée, having held that position for all of a day.

"Believe me," she continued instead, fingers still curled around her cooling mug of tea, "if anything were going to happen, it would have by now. Besides, it may not be two steps short of marriage, but that's the sort of thing he's bound to be looking for. He's got nearly a decade on me, I'm not even thinking that far ahead yet."

The topic of age had never really come up between Rahne and Sookie; if anything, the blonde had felt younger most of the time, to the point where hearing that George— who Sookie knew to be roughly her age— was a decade older made Sookie's eyes widen with some amount of surprise. She had never really thought too much about the fact that she was of the age that should have been settling down, considering having kids, all manner of scary ideas reserved for adults. Part of it was surely due to the fact that Sookie never thought it possible for her to join that contingent of people in the first place, with steady relationships that could easily blossom into families. In some ways, she noted with a wry grin, she had already started that with Bill. Jessica was his progeny, after all.

But on the island, everything could happen normally. As normally as they could on an island smack in the middle of a nexus dimension, at least. It made Sookie feel young all over again, like the little virgin watching wide-eyed as Bill carried her into the house or the young girl who dreamt of someday getting married, complete with white dress, and Sookie ruffled her hair to keep busy while words failed her.

"Well... I definitely don't know George enough to really say whether or not he's lookin' for marriage— I mean, I think I'm about his age and I can hardly think about datin' without getting giggly like I'm some kind of teenager." Sookie shrugged, lips toying the line of a grin. "Just as long as you're not denyin' yourself just because you don't think he's interested. Because if you want somethin' to happen... he took you to a dance, I just can't get over that. Maybe I'm too much of a romantic."

"I don't know about too much, just more of one than me," Rahne said, shrugging. That was the case these days, at least; it hadn't always been so, not at all, but her pragmatic side had developed more in the time before she'd shown up on the island. As far as she was concerned, a dance was just a dance -- not something she would have even considered going to on her own anyway -- and it wasn't as if George had asked out of some impulse of his own. Besides, there still seemed a gravity to him that Rahne herself didn't yet possess, and she wasn't looking to be tied down, not any time soon. She just needed to find the best way to explain that. "And it isn't just that I don't think he's interested, even though I know he isn't -- if that were it, it wouldn't make a difference, I'd give it a try anyway. I just don't even know what I'd want to happen, and I'm in no hurry to figure it out, what I'm looking for."

Explained in that way, Sookie felt that she had a much better sense of what Rahne was trying to convey, to the point that she could nod in understanding as she took a deep sip from her mug, trying to decide on what exactly to say. While it was easy for Sookie to get swept up imagining her best of friends finding love together— or not even best of friends, necessarily, but just people who seemed to be kind and good, Jessica and Hoyt being examples— she also knew very well what it was like to feel pressured by a collective into something which didn't quite work. Into something that wasn't natural in the way that lying by Mitchell had been, wrapped easily into his arms and finding that time slipped by without Sookie even noticing. Not everything was like that, even if all the other variables seemed to be in place, because chemistry didn't know logic or reason.

Swallowing slowly and enjoying the warmth that spread through her from within, Sookie tilted her head. "I get that. Well, sort of, I think. My boss back in Bon Temps, Sam, he kind of had a thing for me, but what was kind of more suffocatin' than that was the fact that everyone else in town was expectin' for the two of us to get together, and he wanted to move so fast that I just couldn't..." She shook her head with a shrug, a helpless look. "It didn't last long, which is not to say that I never thought about what things would be like if it did, but I just didn't know if it was what I wanted, and he wasn't okay with that. So it didn't work."

"That'd do it," Rahne said, processing all of this carefully and nodding once. She wasn't remotely familiar with a situation like that, but it certainly made sense to her, and she supposed that was all that mattered. To have people's expectations pinned on something like that seemed like it would only make matters more complicated, and she wasn't sure which she preferred: that, having everything involved, or what she knew better, trying to keep it all a secret. Preferably, two people wouldn't have to deal with either, but then, it was so rare that such things came without complications. Wishing for it all to be simpler wouldn't help anything. "Ye'd think people might be able to mind their own business, but they only ever have to get involved. As if it weren't difficult enough already." She paused for a moment, gesturing between herself and Sookie. "Not like this, of course, but when it's lots of other people in general acting like it's any of their business at all, ye know what I mean. But aye, no matter how interested two people might be in each other, it doesn't always make it right."

Even though the series of thoughts which had led up to the conclusion was logical— that people shouldn't ever act as though they had a right to one another's private musings, and that it could create an insurmountable barrier to a romantic relationship— Sookie couldn't help blinking slightly at the exact phrasing Rahne had used, one that left her feeling unsure. How did one know when something was right or wrong? If interest wasn't enough, how could she tell in a way that wouldn't leave her hanging on by a thread for ages, in the way that retrospectively, her relationship with Bill had definitely been at times? She wanted to think that love was enough, that the pleasant feeling she got in her stomach whenever she was around Bill, or Mitchell, that it was proof that there was something worth fighting for. Perhaps there simply wasn't a better way to foresee it, Sookie sinking back more fully in her seat. No matter how much she doubted when left on her own, however, being with that person— whether they were a friend or something more— always erased Sookie's doubts more fully. She wasn't the type who hemmed and hawed.

"I guess that's right," she nodded with some reluctance. "Interest alone doesn't always work out, in the long run. And if you're bein' pressed into somethin', whether it's a long-term relationship or just to spill your guts out when you don't wanna, that's a bad sign." Sookie sighed, before shaking her head with a small laugh.

"Okay, that got deep real quick."

"Well, that's romance for ye," Rahne said with a short laugh of her own, running a hand back through her hair. Maybe some people were able to talk about the subject lightly, but she'd never really been one of them, probably due to the fact that none of her experience, despite its all being acquired in a relatively short time, didn't lend itself to that sort of conversation. She had learned a great deal about what not to do and what didn't work, but had never had anything just simple, comfortable. There were times, too, that she wanted to change that, but more recent years had seen her running headfirst into any and everything, the outcomes of which couldn't always be predicted. In retrospect, she'd been full of bad ideas. At least she'd learned from them.

She considered Sookie for a moment, wondering just how much information she ought to divulge, only to decide that there was no real sense in holding back when the other woman had already shared so much, and was someone she trusted, no less. "I, ah —" she began, pausing only to roll her eyes at herself, downplaying the memory considerably. "I was working as a teacher for a while, at a school for mutants, and before that, I'd been seeing someone who was a student there. I meant to end it, after I started working, but... we didn't, not for a while, and after we broke up, everyone found out about it. I all but lost my best friend because of it. So... aye." She exhaled heavily. In retrospect, it was nothing she was too proud of, especially after having been blackmailed over it. "For the rest, it's never good to have that sort of pressure at all. If ye ask me, it ought to just be natural."

It would have been extremely easy just to sympathize with Rahne, to call the situation that she had run into unfortunate, but Sookie wanted to give it all a little more thought, resting her chin in her hand. Relationships were always troublesome when there was some type of power disparity, Sookie thought. That was the reason why Sookie had been reticent to consider dating Sam in the first place, knowing that the other waitresses wouldn't have liked the idea of their boss making out regularly with one of them, leaving the possibility of favorites being played. Even things with Tara had gotten rocky, although it was for a seemingly different reason, after learning that Sookie wanted to give Sam a chance at something a little more. Although her relationship with Bill meant more deaths and dangers, something about it was infinitely more comfortable, and so Sookie nodded.

"If it's somethin' that you've gotta hide, that's already problem enough. It's impossible for two people to get along perfectly, but it gets that much harder if you can't really talk to the most important people about it. It always leaves you wonderin' if you should be ashamed, I've found," Sookie mused, watching Rahne's reactions closely and feeling like there was an air to them that was slightly off. "I'm sorry you had to deal with that, though. Riskin' friendships over romantic relationships is always hard."

"Aye, it is," Rahne agreed, shrugging just a little. That much, really, was self-explanatory, and in retrospect, she wasn't sure she'd have made the same choices. That whole situation had just turned into a train wreck too quickly, as complicated as something out of a soap opera; there was more to it than what she had shared, but the most important parts were included, and when she so rarely talked about it at all, she saw no reason to have to go on at length about the mistakes she'd made. "More trouble than it's worth, or at least, it was in our case. It's just bound to not work out well."

That was the story of all the relationships she'd been in or been close to, then, which added to her hesitance to start one now. She'd gone that route before, dating a friend, and while it would have undeniably been different here, it still put a friendship in jeopardy every time. She wasn't sure how she felt about doing that, especially when, despite her many teammates, there were so few people here she was honestly that close to. When she wasn't sure of the outcome, why risk putting everything out in the open and losing one of the people who meant the most to her? "But that was a long time ago. The point is — well, it's not, but I was going to get back to it — I think it's great that ye're with Mitchell. As far as I know him, he'll be good to ye."

When Sookie thought more carefully about it, there had been something magical in the way that things had worked out with Bill. He was new, completely unfamiliar, had lingered around the town long enough for Sookie to get a positive impression of his personality, but not nearly enough for there to have been much of a friendship between the two of them before they quickly decided to get tangled in one another's lives. She had nothing to lose, with Bill. With Sam, she stood to risk the employer and employee rapport, the friend she could turn to no matter what happened.

Maybe there really was something to the way that people always said that getting involved with close friends was a bad idea.

"Sometimes I feel like... the harder things are, the more I wanna work through them just to prove that life doesn't always get it right. That even if it isn't natural or whatever, two people who love each other enough can always find a way to work things out," Sookie pondered aloud. "But this is the first time where I haven't— I don't need to work so hard to make it fit, and... well, I'll stop botherin' you about it, 'cause it's gotta be so borin' to listen to. I think you're right, though. I think he'll be real good to me."

"It's not boring at all," Rahne assured her, both hands held up as if in emphasis of its proof. With someone else, perhaps, the conversation would have long since grown tedious, but as it was, she found it refreshingly normal, having a friend with whom she could sit and discuss romance and lack thereof with, something that tended to be more difficult where teammates were concerned. For all their respective complications, it seemed somehow simple when laid out like this, easy, set in context so casual and comfortable. Like the two of them could handle it. It was funny, really, how she was just fine going into a fight, but love was something so unconquerable. "I'm glad to talk it through. And I know what ye mean, at least, I think I do. I've never seen any sense in just taking the easy way out."

"The easy way out always seems to cost too much," Sookie pondered, gaze dropping down to her hands, and in spite of the giddiness she felt, there was something else there, too. Something sobered, which wondered if she was doing just that right now, taking an easier way out and leaving behind that which would have been harder to maintain. Her love for Bill, and her willingness to remain faithful to him no matter how difficult it was. Which was harder— waiting every day on the off-chance that she would see Bill again, or fording on ahead in spite of the drop in her gut that wondered if this was cheating?

Her brow furrowed.

"'Cause if you realize that it's the easy way out, then there's something that you aren't fightin' for, and... well, if you're like me, anyway," Sookie continued with a sheepish look. "If you're like me, you grew up thinkin' that it's only right to fight for the things and people you love."

“I can’t say I grew up with it, but I certainly got it later,” Rahne replied, shrugging just a little in understanding before she drained the last of what was in her cup. Much of what she’d been taught in her upbringing was nothing worth repeating now, though a good deal of it had stuck with her, shaped what she still believed even when it made things more complicated for her; most things, she figured out after the fact, once she’d gotten away from her father and into better environments. She could say for sure, though, that Sookie was absolutely right. A fighter by nature, there was little Rahne wouldn’t have done for anything or anyone she cared about. “It’s true. No one gets anywhere by just sticking with the easy solutions.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

let me have it all, let me have a battle on

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject