justsookie | travelers traveling and on, like the wheel that will take you home

Although she sees the flicker of his gaze, Sookie isn't sure how to interpret it, and she knows that the two of them haven't been acquainted for long enough yet to form habits and a gut instinct to guide her along. All she can see is that his gaze breaks, and the stare that follows seems to be one mired in thought. Is it strange? Is it something that might scare him away, not being the sort of skill that anyone should have wanted for a friend to have?

"Sometimes it was real helpful," Sookie confesses, deciding to burst through with as much truth as she can offer. "If I thought someone was lying to me, I just... touched them on the back of their neck, their hand, skin to skin, and I'd often just know like that. But it's not something I'd want to do all the time, either, 'cause you can't build trust without putting yourself out there in the first place. So yeah, the island's a lot quieter, and I think I like that way."

"I think I would as well," Mathias says, though he has no real way of knowing this for sure, nothing to compare it to. At his heart, though, he knows himself and he knows what he prefers, how he drifts along in life. "My brother would have liked it, I think. Henrich was always very curious about people, he always wanted to know what they were thinking, what they might say if they were given the chance. He was never content to just be around someone without filling the silence."

It had driven Mathias crazy even when they fit together so well. At times, Henrich would talk and talk, and Mathias would want nothing more than to sit in silence, but other times, it was Henrich's outgoing nature that brought them places and introduced them to new friends. Of course, he thinks, it was Henrich's tendency to talk to everyone that led to his death.

She tilts her head back and forth, a doubtful expression on her face. While she's sure that some people in the world would put anything aside, morals and sensibilities, just for the chance to peek into another person's mind, it just seems short of impossible to imagine any brother of Mathias being that way. Siblings can be different, after all, but more often there's still some similar vein that they share, and for Sookie, the trait that immediately feels singled out to her is the quiet nature, the one that listens, that doesn't push.

Imagining someone sharply curious and actively nosy is more difficult, somehow.

"Maybe," she considers. "Then again, I think of myself as being pretty curious too, and I was still so tired of being what I was and doing the things I could. It just gets a whole lot less glamorous over time."

"You'll get no argument from me," Mathias says with a smile, holding up on hand for a moment before he returns to the picture Sam has picked for him to colour. "Could you control it at all? Turn it off when you needed to?" It seems like such a strange way to word that question, but he isn't sure how else to say it.

The idea of having it all the time, always hearing the thoughts of others, it's all too overwhelming. Mathias honestly can't imagine how one might deal with that. He supposes there must be ways to block it out, something she'd have to learn, perhaps, but it still seems like too much information all at once.

"Kinda," replies Sookie with that same small smile on her lips, as well as relief that she dares not express. All things considered, the island should certainly be a place that tolerates differences like her own, people having been capable of so much in their respective worlds, but there's really no way to force any single person to understand. But Mathias clearly tries, and by the looks of it, succeeds. "It was really a matter of calming myself down and narrowing my awareness, I guess? I couldn't control it as a kid, but eventually it's like willfully ignore someone who's yapping by your side. Gets harder the louder their thoughts are, but if I wasn't too tired, I could usually manage."

With a mischievous raise of her brow, and a quick glance in Sam's direction, she adds in a softer tone, "Although sometimes I totally used it to my advantage. Like spelling bees, when I was a kid? Easiest thing ever."

At that, he laughs, imagining there are many situations in which a talent like that would be useful. He still thinks it's the type of thing that might drive him mad in his need for silence and time alone, but there are certainly people who could use it to their advantage.

"Maybe I would be good at turning it off," he says thoughtfully. "My brother used to talk a lot. All the time. Even if there was nothing to talk about. I got very good at tuning him out when I didn't want to listen to him anymore." He says this with a smile, but there's a hint of sadness as well, the knowledge that he purposely stopped listening to Henrich sometimes because his brother annoyed him. But he's dead now. Buried in a small grave in the island cemetery, the headstone clumsily made, blood from Mathias's hands staining it in places. And now he can't go back and undo the conversations he ignored.

She knows what it's like, to smile and laugh and yet feel something aching underneath, a hollow that doesn't quite let happiness sit safe and sound. But the only way she's ever known to cope with such an uncertain state is to push through it, to never let her chin drop or her spirits fall, and eventually the loss begins to wear away until it's skin weathered, protecting them from day to day.

"I know what you mean," she nods with a quirked lip. "I've got a lotta chatty Kathys in my life, too, especially around the workplace. In the family, there wasn't anyone who really talked so much. Jason, maybe— my brother, and he's on the island, actually. But my best friends were all bigger talkers than I was, so I usually had to be the one to sit them down and listen to all their worries. Sometimes without warning. And when you've got a dozen tables to wait, eventually you figure out how to tune some of them out a bit. It's definitely like that. I think." She frowns, smiling through the expression.

"Then again, I guess I don't know all that well."

"No?" he asks, surprised to hear her say that. With an ability like that, he thinks that she must understand it, at least to some extent. And it seems like she does. Certainly better than he can even imagine or attempt to understand.

But he's been wrong before. About many things.

"Have you had it long? Or had you, I mean, before you came here?" He truly doesn't know very much about an ability like that, how it might exist, when a person might begin to experience it. If it's something they have all their life or if it's something that happens to them down the road, a change in them, a shift.

"I just mean that I never really stopped to think about whether or not blocking out someone's thoughts is the same as blocking out the things they say. I know that I always got the most confused to have all of it going on at once, but here, you don't get so much of that. Maybe sometimes at parties, there's a lotta hullabaloo, but I actually don't know a lot of people who'd want to talk my ear off," considers Sookie, mentally running through all of her close friends, thinking of none that quite compared to Arlene and her ability to spew out several stories without even pausing for breath, those in her mind progressing at twice the speed that any of her spoken words did. Blinking, she shakes away that thought again, still feeling a slight pang in her heart.

"Anyway, yeah, I've had the ability for as long as I can remember. Pretty sure I had it since birth, and I'm pretty sure that's what got me started on talking from early on. Maybe baby talk isn't as helpful as we think," grins Sookie with a playful shrug.

Mathias isn't prone to baby talk to begin with, but as he looks at Sam with a smile, he's glad to hear Sookie say something like that. Although she can be shy sometimes, she's relatively well spoken for someone so young and he hopes he can attribute that at least in part to the way he and Veronica would speak to her.

"Did it ever scare you or did you always know what was going on?" he asks, trying to imagine hearing the thoughts of others as such a small child. If she's always heard them, he imagines she grew up thinking it was entirely normal. That everyone heard thoughts like that, but it's still such a strange, distant concept for him.

"And if I am asking too many questions, you can tell me to stop," he adds with a small smile, realizing that he may be prying a little too much. It's fascinating, though, and strange at the same time. Something so different from anything he's grown used to.

"I've gone to so many shrinks over the years that you couldn't pry too much if you tried," Sookie reassures him, shaking her head. At least he has the decency to ask permission, she points out to herself, even if she supposes that all those years of counseling naturally involved nosing and poking because her parents had doled out the money for it, wanting to whittle everything down to the actual problem at hand. "Anyway, it... neither, actually."

She scratches at the back of her hand. It's hard to describe how these things work. Try as she might, she doesn't have much room for comparison, doesn't have the benefit of having grown up without everyone's minds practically being an open book to her. Normal and abnormal are only defined by the looks that other people gave her over the years.

"It didn't really ever scare me, because it was something I was born with. I could always read people's minds, and honestly, I just couldn't tell the difference between thought and speech, back then. I thought everyone could hear each other in the way that I heard people, that moving your lips was just... optional. Boy, was I wrong."

Mathias laughs, trying to imagine having grown up hearing thoughts all the time, thinking that everyone could hear it. He understands it, it makes the most sense. If there's nothing to compare to, there's no reason to think that not everyone is capable of such a thing. It isn't that it's funny, necessarily, but that he can still remember discovering for the first time that not everyone spoke German. Hearing a different language come from someone else's mouth and realizing that there's other ways to communicate in the world.

"When did you realize not everyone could do it?" he asks. "Were you still quite young? Did your parents realize?"

He's still asking lots of questions, more than might be appropriate, he realizes, but he thinks Sookie will tell him to stop if he takes it too far.

She bites, momentarily, at her lower lip at his next couple of questions. They're harmless, really, and the answers aren't hard to come up with at all. The entire period of discovery was one that she remembered all too well, if anything, that day when it became painfully obvious that it wasn't the rest of the world that was somehow strange for ignoring the obvious, but instead something about her that even went so far as to scare her own mother— a day like that simply wasn't easily forgotten. But her smile remains for the most part.

"I was five," replies Sookie with a nod. "When I was just at home, I think it was easier for my parents to think that maybe I was just real keen and could easily tell what other people were thinking. But at school, it just got weird, and all the voices at once were kinda overwhelming for me, too. It started affecting my concentration, so I went in to see a counselor, and it all continued from there. My mom realized, I think, that there was something weird going on. My dad never quite did."

Maybe it isn't entirely fair, but Mathias wonders if perhaps Sookie's father didn't want to realize. There are plenty of things he thinks parents might ignore, just to make things easier and he knows he likely isn't above such a thing. "That's still so young," he says softly, thinking about it, thinking about how much his life might have changed had something so important happened at such a young age.

"Did the counselor realize?" he asks. On the island he thinks it would be easy for someone to believe something like that of a child, but he wonders how open minded teachers would have been in a different world. He can't imagine his own teachers having been very receptive to something like that.

"She... spent a fair amount of time trying to deny it to herself, and when I kept on reading her mind over and over, she stopped working on my case," Sookie shakes her head with a sigh and a helpless shrug. "Which I don't really blame her for or anything. God only knows that they probably didn't pay her nearly enough to try and deal with a precocious little kid who could hear everything she thought." All things considered, Sookie realizes now in retrospect, it's already pretty remarkable that the lady didn't try to turn Sookie in as some type of bizarre, paranormal case.

Then again, maybe she wasn't sure if anyone would believe her.

"But yeah, honestly, I think my parents handled it as well as they could. As well as they knew how. For as long as I had them, they were just... wonderful. Crazy in love with each other and totally adoring of their kids. Things got rough, but they never gave up."

"That's good," Mathias says, thinking of his own parents briefly. It isn't that they were bad parents. He's always known he and Henrich were very loved by the both of them, but his mother in particular has always been very similar in nature to him. They're quiet people, very reserved and as such, affection, emotional proclamations, things like that were always extremely few and far between in their home.

"It's good for people to have that," he continues. "Kids especially, I think." It's why he tries, for Sam's sake. He isn't especially prone to talking a lot or being vocal with his affections, but he hopes he makes up for it in other ways. "My parents were both fairly... reserved. Especially my mother." It doesn't mean that they didn't love each other, he knows this. All his adult life, he's been very aware of how much in love they still were and he's always admired and respected that, but it's a very different demonstration of love than he's seen around him on the island.

Not better or worse, he tells himself, just different.

"Oh, definitely. Just having a kinda stable family life, that's not something that everyone gets to enjoy," Sookie nodded thoughtfully, before bringing her hand to her chin. "But to have, you know, parents who also just get involved in the lives of their kids, I think that's good too. Lots of different ways to do it, obviously, but sometimes I feel like there's nothing better than just being willing to get dirty with your kids and make mud pies, or— or here, I guess, going out to make sandcastles. Stuff like that."

Folding her arms on the table, she straightens, backtracking. "Er, not to say that being reserved is a bad thing. Although, come to think of it, I never really knew a lot of reserved parents in my area growing up, so maybe I just don't really have the experience there."

Mathias laughs and shakes his head, because he knows she doesn't mean it as any sort of insult. That having reserved parents around is likely as foreign to her as having outgoing parents would be to him. And sometimes he remembers wishing his parents would have been more outwardly affectionate, though now, so far removed from them, he's just glad to have had them at all.

"My parents certainly did all that, they were just... quiet about it," he says with a smile, shaking his head again. He can't quite explain it. "It isn't that I ever doubted that they loved me, but we... we were all very reserved. Except my brother. It always felt natural to us, but I know it seemed strange to other people." He's long since accepted that and it doesn't bother him. The way he interacts is sometimes looked upon as strange and he's come to accept that as well. It unsettles people, he thinks, that he likes to watch for longer before deciding to speak.

"Not strange, I'd say, so much as just... different," Sookie concludes with a firm nod. Although all of the families in the area had a tendency to be more loud and boisterous than the ones Sookie had met on the island, she wouldn't have said that all of the families in Bon Temps were similar, necessarily. Each one still had its idiosyncrasies. Each one had its weaknesses and flaws. And as far as she was concerned, something had clearly worked out in the right way for Mathias to be so kind, understanding, supportive in a way that Sookie didn't often see.

"But it's funny to hear that there was a black sheep, so to speak, in your family. I don't think we really had the same," laughs Sookie, starting to doodle in the margins of her page. "All of us Stackhouses were pretty clearly cut from the same cloth. Though I'd like to think I don't give into whims as often as my brother. And neither of us is as smart as our gran was."

Mathias thinks that's probably not true, that people don't often see their own strengths, but he only smiles, looking down at his own paper as well. "Henrich didn't mind so much, being the black sheep," he says. There had been things about his brother that had driven him crazy, things that he'd wished would change, but in the end, Henrich had been comfortable with who he was. And that, at least, was something they'd shared.

"No one really minded, I think," he continues thoughtfully. "It always pleased my mother a little bit, knowing he was so willing to... put himself out there, I think is the expression." He wonders if his mother thinks about that now, if she blames Henrich's impulsive nature for anything that happened. Mathias tries not to blame his brother, but sometimes, in moments of anger and regret, he can't help but wonder if everything would have been different if Henrich had just stayed at the hotel. If he hadn't demanded that he go spend time with a girl he barely knew at all.

But he never would have done such a thing. For Henrich, spending time with that girl was the single most important thing in his life at the time.

"I guess that's natural for parents. Wanting their kids to exceed them in some way, even if it's just... the ability to socialize," Sookie nods in understanding, wondering if she's ever managed to make her own parents proud in such a way. Something told her that she didn't. Not quite. The both of them probably spent more time worrying than anything else, and her smile grows momentarily tight at the thought. She remembers the way that they were with her as a child, but sometimes she wonders if they'd be proud of her decisions as an adult, or what they'd think about seeing the way their little girl turned out. Probably not the same way they imagined her in dreams.

She's only a waitress, after all.

"Sometimes I think I could stand to learn a bit from Jason there, too. Not that I have a really hard time meeting people, I guess, but it's a bit harder to get them to like me. This place has definitely not been the norm in that regard," she adds, even as she suspects that the reason for that has less to do with her personality and everything to do with what she used to be capable of.

"I have a hard time believing that," Mathias says before he can stop himself and it isn't that he doesn't mean it -- he absolutely does -- but that he usually doesn't say things like that. Especially not after knowing a person for such a short period of time. But he can't imagine anyone not liking Sookie. They haven't known each other long, but even now Mathias knows he likes her, he enjoys being around her and it isn't that he's particularly difficult to impress, but that he's not an exceptionally outgoing person.

It's easier, most of the time, to not spend time worrying about whether or not he's making friends. With Sookie, he feels close already, even if he can't say as much.

"I mean... I can't imagine anyone not liking you," he says honestly. At this point, he's already spoken his mind more often than he usually does and she has yet to run away. He can't see any good reason to stop now.

Wrinkling her nose, Sookie immediately waves her hand in dismissal of the assessment, shoulder hunching bashfully as she shakes her head and curls cascade about her shoulders. "You only say that because you haven't exactly seen the worst sides of me. Or what I look like when I'm totally overworked. Because... I mean, I still work as a waitress most days on the island, but it's totally different when you're trying to make ends meet and get stressed every day about looking kind enough to pull in the tips," Sookie points out, laughing under her breath. "So I'm... quite different here. Freer, you could say."

Crossing her arms over her chest, she stares over, eyes careful and assessing.

"Although maybe this means I should leave now while I'm ahead, keep your impression a good one while I try to figure out how I should prepare for our date," muses Sookie, brow arching in thought.

Mathias suspects most people feel freer on the island in the long run, away from the lives they had back home, away from stress and, too often, danger. And he doesn't want her to leave just yet, but he also knows he can't ask her to stay without sounding perhaps a little too pushy, a little too eager.

"You won't be the only one trying to figure out how to prepare," he answers, knowing he's going to spend the next several days wondering exactly how it's going to go or what he should do. It isn't that he's particularly nervous, but he wants the date to go well. He likes Sookie, which is a simple emotion, but one he hasn't experienced in some time. He likes her and he wants to impress her.

"Are you going now?" Sam asks, looking up at Sookie. "Will you come back to colour more?"

"You just have to be yourself," Sookie assures Mathias, reaching over to rest her hand on his briefly, just long enough that her heartrate seems to spike, pounding against her chest. She thinks that leaving for the moment is probably the best thing to do— if she stays much longer, surely she'll start tripping over her tongue, choking on her words. Better to leave the overanalyzing to herself, in the confinement of her hut. "Believe me, that'll be more than enough."

Turning to Sam is easier, Sookie's smile splitting wide as she pulls the girl close enough to press a kiss to the top of her head, ruffling her hair briefly before smoothing it out with gentle fingers. "I'm going now, yes," she confirms with a nod. "But I'll definitely be back to color, and I'll be back lots. Next time, I'll make sure to save more time on my schedule for you, okay Sam?"

"Okay," Sam says brightly, then returns to her colouring. The confirmation that Sookie will come back is enough for her and Mathias thinks it should be enough for him, too. It's so much easier for a child, though, and although he doesn't doubt Sookie, he doubts his ability to impress her at all or make her want to return.

"I can be myself," he says, instead of any of the thoughts running through his mind, any of the worries that he's suddenly imagining. There's no sense doing this, making himself so nervous that he begins to stumble over words or falls too quiet altogether. "I'll walk you to the door," he offers, pushing back from the colouring, not only to be polite but because he wants to see her for just a moment without Sam watching. He has nothing to hide from her, nothing he's ashamed of, but he isn't sure what she might think if he kisses Sookie, even if it's only on the cheek.

Smiling one more time at Sam, Sookie looks up just in time to see Mathias rise from the table and follows suit, giving Sam a last wave as the both of them head to the entrance of the hut. When Sookie thinks about it, this is the most she's felt like she's been a part of a home in ages. Months, at least. And no matter how pathetic that might sound to someone who doesn't know her, she's always had a yearning for this, for people who live in a home from day to day, who come to expect one another to be there, who won't turn one another out no matter what mistakes they may make over time. That's family, after all— unconditional.

She finds that her grin widens.

"It was really sweet of you to invite me in," Sookie murmurs, trying to keep her voice low enough to keep from disturbing Sam. "Even though I totally stopped by unannounced and all."

His smile grows as well and he shakes his head, dismissing that. "I invited you in with selfish motivations," he admits, though he's sure she's very aware of that by now, especially the way he pauses by the door and catches her hand. Although he hasn't dated all that much -- Henrich was always better at it, better at impressing girls, better at getting them to let down their walls -- he finds it funny that he should feel so hesitant now, after everything they've already done.

And still, he is hesitant. He has her hand now, remembers the touch of her fingertips on his skin and his neck heats at the memory, almost able to feel the sensation again.

"You can stop by whenever you would like," he tells her and even with her hand in his, he's still reluctant to press forward and kiss her, not because he doesn't want to. More than anything, he wants to kiss her goodbye, to know that he might be able to start their date with the same gesture. For just a moment, though, he wonders if she wants him to.

A girlish blush rises to her cheeks as their hands twine again, and Sookie finds herself distracted by the contact, her thumb brushing gently over the side of his palm. It's such a tiny thing compared to all that they've already done and seen of one another, but there's something about the sunlight that makes her shy, something about taking a few steps back that makes this more serious, and if nothing else, Sookie just doesn't want to mess this up. She's not naive enough to expect a sudden happily ever after for the two of them, but even the start and potential of something deep and lasting, friendship or more, has her heart fluttering against her chest.

"I'll keep that in mind," she tells him, not wanting to seem to eager, and perhaps more importantly, not sure how often she should come over at all. Self-restraint's never been her best skill, and with the three who live in the hut being so much of a family, she doesn't want to intrude too often. Not until she's naturally, perhaps, become part of that group.

Instead, she pushes up on her toes, pressing a brief kiss to the corner of Mathias' lips.

"Good," Mathias says and he smiles into the kiss, then turns his head slightly, catching her mouth in a longer kiss. There's something about the blush that he finds particularly sweet, and that she's leaned up to kiss him is enough to tell him that this is okay. This will be okay. They've planned a date and he hopes he won't do anything between now and then to give her reason to cancel.

"Then I will see you this weekend," he says against her mouth, then pulls back enough to see her, his fingers still twined with hers.

"See you this weekend!" Sam shouts from the other room and Mathias lets out a surprised laugh, glancing back toward her. She hasn't looked up from her colouring, but it's clear she can hear them and doesn't seem to have any interest in what they're doing beyond the knowledge that she'll get to see Sookie again.

Her breath catches when he turns enough to capture her lips in full, entire body tensing for a second before it melts away, her hand raising to brush at his cheek as she smiles against his lips. It's sweet, it's romantic, and it's just enough to keep from cloying as her hand brushes down the side of his neck, so glad for the contact, and even more glad for him.

"See you this weekend!" Sookie calls back to Sam, pulling away for that brief instant before her hand rests on Mathias' chest, feeling his head underneath. "And I'll see you as well." Slowly and reluctantly, she squeezes his hand before letting go of it as well, turning on the step and heading out into the sun, still feeling as though she might be on the cusp of bursting.

But she surely doesn't mind bursting like this.

travelers traveling and on, like the wheel that will take you home

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