It is Wednesday, the 28th of March, and it is a beautiful day in San Diego. Alex is already gone by the time Sinclair awakens. He still gets up at six in the morning. He still goes running. He still stops by the gym and beats on a punching bag for a while. Usually in the afternoons now he's busy with Other Shit, specifically Tribal Shit, but he comes home for lunch and a shower, and if she's home too they cook together and eat together and sometimes, if they have time and if she looks at him a certain way or he comes out of the shower with his towel draped a certain way or just because they want to, they end up in bed together.
Sometimes in the evenings she's out, she's hunting, she's leading her Tribemates or communing with her skyborn totem. Sometimes in the evenings he's out, he's Doing A Job, he's helping his Tribemates. Sometimes they're together, on the same job, and these are the nights he likes best. There's danger, there's excitement, there's fear, but
he's with his girlfriend, and that's a thousand times better than waiting and wondering.
Anyway. The point is: it's Wednesday, the 28th of March. It's a beautiful day. It is also Sinclair's birthday. The curtains are drawn back, the windows open to let in the spring breeze. She can hear cars outside, someone's stereo playing. She can smell, faint but pervasive, the ocean in the distance, the salt in the air. She wakes alone, which isn't odd normally, but -- it's her birthday. One would think he would be there.
When she rolls over, she sees a index card taped to the ceiling. A very short note is written there in Alex's heavy, bold hand:
MAN WALKED ON THE MOON THE YEAR I WAS BORN.
YOU TOTALLY LOVE ME, SO COME FIND ME.
HINT: VROOM VROOM.
It appears to be ... a riddle?
Sinclair
Usually in the afternoons when Alex comes home to shower and eat lunch, Sinclair is just waking up. It sets off a few blinking red lights in his brain when he comes home that time of day and she's not there, it means something has happened, something woke her up. Sometimes she sends him a text, if she can. Sometimes she can't do that though. Sometimes he waits, afraid, gut knotting, but then most of the time
he comes home and she's in some ridiculously colorful pair of her panties and whatever shirt he discarded last night draped over her, and she's either waking up sleepy and languid in his bed -- their bed -- or she's alert and she's perky and she's making lunch. Either way, sometimes, they end up against the wall or on the mattress or in the shower itself. It doesn't matter if the last time was just last night, or this morning. It doesn't matter if later on he knows that his slightly-younger girlfriend is going to want it all over again, doesn't matter if sometimes she seems insatiable, doesn't matter because she's his, she's utterly delighted just to be held and kissed by him, she's happy when she wakes up and she feels sick because her moon is waning and he's home, the sun is shining all over him, he's asking her if she's hungry. Nothing matters, really, because everything does.
It makes sense to her that way, at least.
She wakes up a little before noon. They've been sleeping with the windows open lately, it's so gorgeous otuside. She can hear and smell the ocean. She can hear and smell their corner of the city. She can smell someone's grill, and her mouth waters a little. She feels drowsy and content. She's a little horny, smelling Alex in the sheets and thinking about sex last night. She's not even one hundred percent sure they had sex last night or if it was a dream. Doesn't matter. She's drowsy, content, happy, suffused in the presence of her mate, even if he's not really there right now. The fact that it is her birthday doesn't quit register yet.
Smiling, Sinclair rolls over, blinking her summer-sky eyes a few times. She blinks the sleep and haze out of her eyes then, a little faster and wetter. She frowns at the ceiling. She narrows her eyes, lifts herself up onto her hands, and reads the card.
Instantly, she perks. If she were in lupus her ears would be up, her tail wagging. She makes a quiet, gleeful sound and flings off the covers, bounds out of bed, dashes into the shower so quickly that it's cold at first and she shrieks, splashing about to get clean and then toweling off quickly. Tripoli is rolling into the bedroom, covering his eyes with his hands because she's running around naked, looking for fresh underwear, putting things on so quickly her bra strap falls down her shoulder and just stays there for awhile. She is pulling it up after putting on some shorts -- no, it's her birthday, and she changes into a swishy blue skirt, asking Tripoli if he knows what day it is.
Eeeee! he agrees. Of course he knows.
Sinclair pulls on a white tank and sticks her feet in a pair of sandals. She leaves her hair wet, towel-dried, and it's going to dry in waves the way it does when she's been in the ocean, only they won't be quite as awesome because there's no salt in their shower water, and she's got her keys and she's deposited Tripoli back in his playpen and she's got a granola bar to tide her over and she's bounding out the apartment, rushing down the steps.
The El Camino is one of the only cars under a cover in their apartment complex's parking lot.
Alex
The El Camino is, in fact, one of the only cars under a cover in their parking lot. And normally the Elantra sits next to it, and Alex's obnoxious motorcycle next to the Elantra, but today,
today, the motorcycle is gone.
Also, there's another index card stuck to the steering wheel. Good thing Sinclair leaves a spare set of keys in the house, or else she'd have to wonder if someone broke into the El Cam. But, no. The locks click open obediently. The old leather seats embrace her. Sinclair can read the card when she gets in:
T-SHIRTS, BURRITO BOWLS, AND SMILES ONLY COME IN L, XL, AND XXL HERE.
YOU TOTALLY LOVE ME, SO COME FIND ME.
HINT: HANG TEN.
Sinclair
Normally she puts the cover under the leather cover to the bed of the car. Normally that's a pain in the ass. They usually take the Elantra anywhere. The El Camino doesn't have A/C and only a tape deck but she does love it. She fixed it with her father. She drove it from Kansas to San Diego, San Diego to Las Vegas, Las Vegas to Chicago, Chicago to Kansas again, Kansas to Chicago again, Chicago to San Diego. She cares for it regularly even if she doesn't drive it. She keeps it clean, keeps it covered, keeps the gas tank full and the oil fresh.
It smells like a part of her home when she sits in it. She smiles at the card. There's a theme here. And she loves Surf Taco, too. They went there for the first time shortly after she got here, after they met up, after they got back together suddenly and abruptly and... rightly. They fought together after leaving this placed, and they learned how to deal with fighting together. They both have t-shirts from this stupid place. She sent one to Alex's dad for Christmas.
Sinclair huffs a laugh. Tripoli materializes in the seat next to her. She shows him the card. "These are totally too easy," she says, and taps the little elemental with the card before sticking the keys in the ignition, rolling down the windows, and pulling out to go to Surf Taco.
AlexThese are easy. But she pulls up to Surf Taco, and there's no Alex-bike in front of it. There is the Surf Taco dude, though, sitting out at the little patio chairs he puts out in nice weather - which is pretty much daily - chatting with his customers.
He catches sight of Sinclair and holds up a slightly grease-stained card. "Your boisterous young man is not here," he informs her, "but he left this for you."
It reads:
WE LIVE AMONG STORMS AND SKYSCRAPERS,
BUT WE'RE ONLY A PHONE CALL AWAY.
YOU TOTALLY LOVE US, SO COME VISIT US.
HINT: NO MORE HINTS! YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN!
:D :D :D
Sinclair
So easy. So easy she wants to laugh at him, love him, because: he's Alex. He doesn't overcomplicate things. She saw where he got that attitude later on, when she met his parents and saw how very simple things were for them. What matters and what doesn't. What makes sense, feels right, and what doesn't. She loved them, too. She's a little delighted to find out that there's no motorcycle outside of Surf Taco, because that means there are more riddles -- even if theyr'e easy, she's enjoying herself.
When Sinclair gets out of her car, she's wearing sunglasses now, and her hair is only barely begun to dry. She looks around, seeing no card, and then the big fat Surf Taco owner beckons her over. Boisterous he calls Alex, and she huffs a laugh. She takes the card, thanking him, and heads back toward the El Camino.
Halfway there, she stops walking, staring at the card. She nearly drops it.
Tripoli has his hands against the glass, is aaaaahhhhing a query at her. She shows him the card when she gets in, just like before. He begins clapping, his hands clanging together. Sinclair, stunned dumb, drives the El Camino back to the apartment complex. She turns it off. She doesn't get out to cover it up, but she does make sure it's locked before she picks up her phone and calls the land line at Katherine's Loft.
"Don't hang up, Lucille," she says, like she always does, and since Lucille has learned by now, she just drops the receiver and gets out of the way.
AlexSinclair, by now, has doubtlessly realized: the riddles aren't really about the puzzles. Neither of them are Theurges, or born to the crescent moon. Neither of them are Ragabashes, or born to the moonless night. They are both, in fact, born to the swelling moon. The wanderlusting moon. The passionate, ferocious moon.
It's about the journey. The places she's going; the places they've been. The things - and people - she loves. Your pack, he reminds her, and she
crosses a continent in an eyeblink, materializing out of electricity and thin air. Lucille looks as nonplussedly frazzled by this as she always does, but
Maddox is letting out a whoop, coming over to hug her; Katherine is remarking that she's been up since the crack of dawn, she doesn't know what kept Sinclair so long, but arch as her words are she can't help but smile. Lukas is glomping Sinclair against his side, passing her a card:
INTERMISSION 1!
WHEN YOU'RE READY FOR YOUR NEXT CLUE,
TURN THIS CARD OVER.
-- and Katherine is clapping her hands, saying it's time for a light luncheon. Maddox wants to know why she can't just say lunch. The pack is gathering in that spacious, modernist kitchen with its high ceilings and its industrial-chic counters and stoves. Lukas is making sandwiches. He asks Sinclair what she wants on hers, and he makes it special because it's her birthday, after all, and Katherine wants to hear all about the weather and the beaches so she can daydream about summer, because after a week of glorious warm weather it's cool in Chicago again, and
while Katherine is distracting Sinclair, Lucille is quietly wheeling out a lovely little cake. It's her birthday. She can have dessert before lunch if she likes.
Sinclair
You totally love me.
Come and find me.
It's never really been the car or the burrito place, either. Ultimately it's the people she loves, the places, the things, but: Alex. Most of all, and above all, Alex. She wants to see her pack, she's touched and overcome that Alex sent her there, but when she flies through time and space and finds herself right in one more place that smells familiar and friendly, she is a little sad that she doesn't see Alex. She looks for him. For about two seconds, before
she's being glommed on all sides by packmates, squeezing her and high-fiving her and clapping dainty hands. Sinclair laughs, kisses Kate on the cheek, bumps her head under Lukas's jawline, shoves Maddox with her shoulder, and there's a card in her hand. She reads it, and she wants to see the back, but she plays. It's a game. Pressing her lips together, she huffs another laugh. She holds onto the card and doesn't let it go.
Kate wanted to throw a party. Catering and all. But Lukas makes sandwiches, tearing lettuce and slicing tomatoes and smacking meat onto bread because this makes him feel good, makes things feel right, for him to feed his pack. Katherine nearly has a conniption when he licks mustard off the knife. Sinclair hauls herself up onto the counter and Tripoli appears, chasing her all over the damn place today.
The truth is, she's always happy to see her pack. They talk about San Diego, about Sept business here and there, about battles fought, about music listened to, movies seen. Sinclair talks a little too long with Maddox about The Hunger Games and debates the merits and flaws and storylines of 30Rock with Lukas. She says whenever they all visit San Diego -- and oh, she does have a certain time frame in mind, but she doesn't mention it -- they can all go to Surf Taco and she'll get them t-shirts. Katherine thinks fondly of the sun and Sinclair threatens to teach her to surf. Lukas, laughing, gets a similar threat.
She is happy. And she is missing Alex terribly, all the same, vibrating with longing even though it's been at least a few weeks since she's seen her pack and mere hours since she's seen him. She has a sandwich in her mouth when Lucille wheels out the cake. Sinclair glees again.
The candles go out. She doesn't really wish for anything at all. This is the moment. This is what matters: what is right here, right now, happening to her. And it's good.
They eat cake, all of them, but all of them can also tell how badly she wants to move on, too, go on, find Alex, be with Alex. Maddox is the one to suggest that she turn over the card now. He's curious, he claims. And she licks frosting off her lips and flips it over, eager.
Alex
Unfortunately, as the 'intermission 1' suggests, Sinclair's little treasure-hunt might be going on for a while, yet. There's a reason for that. There's a reason for that, which she'll figure out sooner or later, but for now:
for now, it's about one in the afternoon in San Diego, which means it's already about three in the afternoon in Chicago. A bit of a late 'luncheon', really, but there you have it. The sandwiches are devoured, the cake is cut and subsequently devoured as well, and the dessert was light and fluffy and delicious and the sandwiches were hearty. Sinclair is all but buzzing with eagerness to go on, follow the trail, sniff her way all the way to her mate, which is something rather like finding her way home.
The card, which Lukas leans in curiously to read, is simply:
YOU HUNTED UNDER THE MOON ALL AROUND MY SHORES.
I'M A LITTLE OUT OF THE WAY, BUT YOU TOTALLY LOVED ME.
SO CALL THIS NUMBER AND COME FIND ME.
555-583-2287
Kate is delighted. Oooh, how mysterious! Sinclair is on the phone almost before they can say goodbye, and when the speed and rush of the transit is done, she finds herself
at a public telephone behind an old gas station, Bear Lake blue and shimmering in the distance. The sun seems to have jumped backward in the sky. It's an hour earlier here.
Sinclair
None of her packmates know what this clue-card means, but Sinclair gets it in the first line. Her heart aches. She remembers dirty, muddy feet in a sleeping bag. She remembers blood under her fingernails, fresh water in her mouth as she washed the hunt from her face, her throat, her arms. She remembers waking up in the morning and telling Alex about it. She remembers telling the story of it later to humans around a campfire.
She thinks: oh, I love you.
There are hugs all around. Sinclair asks Kate if Tripoli can stay for awhile, because Tripoli is angling for a polishing anyway, and the pack decides to play babysitter to the elemental. There are more hugs. Lukas manages to get in a quick question about when she's going to challenge, and Sinclair ducks away from it, leaving a frown behind on the Alpha's face. She goes to the phone.
It's a risk every time. Not a terrible one, but it is there. No worse than crossing the Gauntlet. She calls the number, and someone somehow picks up, and she pushes through. She comes out into sunlight, taking a deep breath, and smiles broadly, hand against the glass in the phone booth. There is a pair of kids outside, kin by the smell of them, native to this area. One of them, the younger one, the little boy, is playing LookOut. He is peering intently everywhere, making sure no one SEES. The older one gives Sinclair an upwards nod. She laughs, too happy to do much else, and steps out into the light and the very different air. She looks longingly, almost, toward the lake.
Alex
The air is so much thinner here, hundreds and thousands of feet above sea level. The two kids are skinny and tanned as jerky, toughened by rural living, toughened by the pine-strewn land and the cold winters. The little boy's eyes are big as she pops through, but Nobody SAW, so his job is done. The older boy nods up to her, the same teenage mannerism she sees in San Diego, in Chicago, everywhere she's been.
Neither of them have a card to hand her, though. The teenager informs her: "The dude who paid me to set this up said you'd know where to go for your next clue."
The little boy pipes up: "But we're allowed to give you ONE HINT if you're REALLY REALLY lost."
Older boy, leaning all nonchalant against the phone booth, practicing his Bitchin' Cool Attitude because it's an older woman, he's sure she's like in college or something, and she's kinda hot, "This some kinda secret agent mission or something?"
SinclairThey know what she is. They can feel it as surely as they just saw it, with her flying through the wires and the air itself to land at their feet. She doesn't look like she belongs here -- summery as it is today, she's dressed for far warmer weather than they have. Her wildness is in her eyes -- and in the ink all over her arms, her thigh, her ankle, the metal through her bicep. But her rage is a vibrant pulse, as distracting and attracting as it is terrifying.
Sinclair, for the first time since she can remember, is not averse to talking to strange kinfolk who are not hers. She is beaming. She even grins at the smaller one. The teenager leans and she perks her eyebrows at him, head cocking a bit as though she can sense he is about to speak. Her manner fades a bit. "Oh," she says. "Yes," with a nod. "I can't tell you any more than that, though."
She thanks them both, and starts to walk away, toward the lake, wishing she'd worn something other than flipflops. Or maybe dedicated this skirt when she bought it. She also begins to wish she'd asked the boys for their address in case she was wrong and needed to go back and get that hint. She could find them regardless. But it would be polite not to sniff them down like prey and show up at their door.
Slower than she would like, but enjoying the sunshine and altitude nonethless, Sinclair heads toward the shore of the lake, trusting instinct to guide her back to the campsite they shared.
AlexThis is not a verdant land. It is dry, mid-continental, high up, blazing with sunshine in the summer and frigid in winter. The nights now would be full of sound and activity, though: a million tiny lives swarming, moving, thriving in the darkness. Sinclair smells wild heather and juniper, and the deep green smell of pines. She takes her time making it to the lake, trusting her instincts and trusting her feet.
It's a little past 2pm, pacific time, when she finds their campsite. The sun is just beginning to glitter blindingly off the lake when she finds their campsite again. The three pines in a triangle, the boulder a little ways down. The flat area, only a little shaded, where they pitched their tent - because Alex said pitching it over full shade would make their bedrolls too damp, too cool.
Softly, the lake laps at the shore. She is far from civilization here. Birds call in the treetops, and there, set atop that boulder, is a smaller stone. Pinned beneath it is a small index card:
THREE CHEERS FOR THE HOME TEAM,
BUT ACROSS THE STREET'S WHERE THE ACTION WAS.
Sinclair
By the time Sinclair gets to the lake, her skin feels warm and the sun has warmed it still, bringing out her freckles, but the breeze moves and ripples the fabric of her shirt, moves and ripples the surface of the water. She shades her eyes, peering outward. She remembers this land. For a night, a single night, it was her territory. She hunted here. She made her den here and kept her mate in it. If she were blind, she would remember this place, just as she would remember their neighborhood in San Diego, just as she would remember a dozen other places that she claimed, even for a short time.
At the lake, Sinclair strips out of her clothes and ties them into a bundle. She shapeshifts, lifting the undedicated clothes in her mouth. Her own smell is distracting, as are the scents of laundry detergent and two other states so far, but she does fine. It takes her less time, in this body, to find the place where they made their camp. And when she does, she picks up human scents. She drops her clothes on the ground and pads over to the larger rock. Shifting, suddenly long and lean and human and naked, Sinclair reads it.
And frowns.
Her first thought is Wrigley Field. But nothing about that area, or across the street, has any particular meaning to her and Alex that she can remember. She wracks her brain, thinks of Yankee Stadium, but the only 'action' she remembers from their jaunt through New York involved a grimy alleyway and some blood, a man she may have permanently brain damaged, and she can't think of Alex wanting to take her -- send her -- back there. She sits down with her back to the rock and starts pulling on her clothes while she thinks. She's pulling her tank top over her bra and flipping her hair out of it when she thinks.
Home team. Cheers. Across the street. And she starts laughing. Oh, he's a dork. She climbs to her feet, brushing herself off, and grabs the card, taking it with her back toward the pay phone. The kids are gone now. She wishes they weren't; she could get the little one to keep watch for her again. She wishes this, too: that she's not completely and totally off base.
The first number she thinks of dialing is the sept. Sinclair pauses on that, though. Alex gave her no hints on this. She taps a different number in, and asks her cousin:
"Is your roommate there?
"No?
"Okay, don't hang up." And a beat. "You may want to step back, buddy."
A minute and a half later -- which is frightening to her, and a little unsettling to Will since she never told him how long to not-hang-up and she wasn't answering as he repeated her name into the receiver -- Sinclair appears in a UCSD dorm room, her hair and body momentarily limned with a greenish-gold light. She shakes it off and gives him a hug and tries to half-explain everything but he's completely bewildered. He wonders if she's there to catch up, and she tells him she's on a hunt.
"The next step is my bedroom?" he asks, wary.
Sinclair shakes her head. "No. I think I'm supposed to go to Black Beach."
Will is a decent chap. When later his dormmates ask him about the twentysomething blonde leaving his room in the middle of the day, he admits that she's his cousin who came to visit. He's decent and learns to regret it: they ask if she'll be visiting more. No, they don't care that she has a boyfriend.
It is quite a walk to the beach from Will's dorm. She's sweating by the time she gets there, but she stopped to buy a bottle of water and a candy bar from a vending machine, so she's draining that bottle and tossing it in a recyclng bin when she gets to Black Beach. She puts her hands on her hips, stands there, looks around her.
Alex
Well; there's no index card at Black's Beach. At least, not the sort she's been seeing all day. There is a little paper airplane stuck into the sand, though:
GOOD GUESS! BUT NOT QUITE.
HINT: FLAT AS A PANCAKE.
Sinclair
All right.
It's hot now. Sinclair walks all over the beach. She makes sure people see her, nude and non-nude alike. Maybe there's another plant. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. But she walks, and walks, taking off her sandals and walking some more, til her feet are crusted in sand and she's heading back along the path out, thinking she clearly got something wrong. She picks up a paper airplane that has been stepped on and crumpled and no one has put it away, and then sees familiar handwriting.
Sinclair unfolds it, smooths it, and reads the 'clue'.
Then she swears so virulently that a couple of people nearby swing their heads around. "Oh, I'm an idiot," she explains to them. She had thought, back at the payphone, that maybe he was following this path. She'd dismissed it -- they hadn't gone to Surf Taco before setting out on their road trip, after all -- but now she realizes she was overthinking it. Again. She folds the crumpled paper up with the rest of the notes and goes back to campus. She needs a phone that she won't drop and leave behind and need later, and she needs it to be private.
Will is a decent chap. When his dormmates tease him later about the hot blonde coming back and entering his room and never coming out that they saw, he will keep insisting that she's his cousin, and they will never, ever believe him.
In San Diego, he hangs up his dorm phone. In Park City, Kansas, Sinclair shows up in her mom's studio and asks, quite bluntly, if she can take a shower and have a snack. She can't stay long, she is on a treasure hunt, but she at least wants to wait until she knows school is out and the kids have gone home.
Awhile later, after a rather tepid shower, a smoothie -- her father says they started making them after the visit last year, and he shows her his Magic Bullet blender -- and some hugs, she sets out again. She lets her mom drive her. Just like old times. Her mother waits in the car while she walks across the street from the school, down the bank, and to the spot by the pond where Alex asked her -- again -- to marry her.
Alex
So now, after that little detour and the beachcombing, it's close to 4pm. 6pm, when she appears in Kansas. The sun's getting a little low, and her parents are happy to see her - wish her a happy birthday and all before showing her their new blender and driving her to school - but oh, she can't stay. She's on a mission. She's on a treasure hunt.
Her old school's long since let out. A couple kids are playing basketball in the playground, but they pay no mind to the twenty-something-year-old crossing the street, disappearing into that small, surprising lush little thicket.
Kids have been here recently. There's a candywrapper in the shade, footprints. The grass is new, freshly pushed up from winter's sleep. And the pond is higher than it was in August, cool and green.
On the tree they lay beneath, there's a little index card tucked into a wedge of bark. When Sinclair turns it over, she reads:
INTERMISSION 2!
GO SAY HI TO YOUR FOLKS :)
TURN THIS CARD OVER WHEN YOU'RE READY.
...but of course she's already said hi, so sooner or later she turns it over, and the other side reads:
WE CHASED EACH OTHER THROUGH THE GRASS AND THE WATER
AND I KNEW YOU WERE MY MATE.
I LOVED IT HERE, SO COME AND PASS THROUGH.
Sinclair
This time she has no doubt. The card left at the lake was cheeky as hell, but the memory here is tender to her. She doesn't know what it is about making love to Alex outdoors that change things, but somehow it does. It makes a strange but powerful difference in him -- in both of them, she thinks. She knows, on some level, there has to be a Why. She knows, on the same level, that it doesn't really matter. They connect differently. He's more open. She's less afraid. It isn't that their lovemaking in bed or showers or tents is really less, it's just... not the same. And the fact that they are both Glass Walkers and yet their sweetest memories of being entangled in each other happen out in the open air is ironic, and it makes it all the sweeter.
She doesn't hesitate this time. She spent some time with her parents. Had a smoothie, had a shower, caught up a little. Told them she bothered her cousin today. So, when she finds the card, Sinclair sits down on a stump that has been serving as a stool for decades and turns the card over. She already knows where she's going next, but the words confirm it, and they aren't cheeky anymore, they aren't as coy. He doesn't say You totally love me. He says I loved it.
"I know," she tells him, though Christ knows where he is.
Hiking back up the bank, Sinclair clambers back into her mom's car. As soon as she tells her mother -- who is ever so curious -- where she's going next, Samantha starts saying she should take some of the banana bread she made to the Vaughns. "Aw, mom, I don't -- well, I'll try," she says, and so she does.
She kisses and hugs her parents at home. Her mom packs up a half-loaf of banana bread in some foil. Sinclair holds it in one hand while she dials.
"Hey, Greg," she says fondly. "So... I'm going to zap through the phone now." There's a pause. "Yes, I will gladly wait for you to put on pants."
When she emerges from the phone, Greg asks her if she brought a football. She didn't -- that's just how she ended up holding the bread, cradling it and folding herself over it a bit. She's shocked to see it came through with her. "Um, this is from my mom," she says, holding it out. "I have to go to a swamp," she adds.
Alex
A swamp.
God knows what Greg is thinking right now, but likely he doesn't question it. So: out they go, out from that sundrenched city of Miami, out past the city limits, out to that road that so sharply divides decadent civilization from one of the oldest, purest wildernesses of the American mainland.
If she took the car, she leaves it at the road. She moves into the swamp, and here on the eastern seaboard the sun is sinking into the west already. It's past seven. The shadows are long, dappled on the ground. Reeds alternate with mud, with the occasional dry land, with ankle-deep water. Out and out she goes, and
the truth is even she might be hard pressed to find the place, the exact spot, but
Alex never meant for this to be a trial. There's a thin, tall flagpole planted in the middle of the swamp, easily seen from a distance. The flag is bright red. When Sinclair gets to it, she sees the index card nailed to it.
WAY DOWN SOUTH IS AN OLD, OLD GARDEN
THAT I ALWAYS THOUGHT WAS A LITTLE LIKE EDEN.
YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU. COME AND FIND ME.
Sinclair
Greg can think what he likes, as long as he's wearing pants. Sinclair hugs him, but his awesome wife had a late meeting and Aaron doesn't live here anyway, so she passes on the bread and love and thanks and goes out to the swamp with Greg. Driving is different than sneaking out and running. Sunset is different from late night. But she tromps out, she gets her legs muddy up to the knees, she finds that flag and that card and
again, she just knows. She doesn't think, though. She turns and goes back to the car and simply thanks Greg, and asks to borrow his phone.
It isn't Alex's phone that rings. It's the sept offices in Rio De Janeiro, but they're far more serious and less insane when it's not Carnivale. Some of them still seem hungover, though. Sinclair could have gone straight to him, but she doesn't. She pays her chiminage. She combs her hair. She washes the mud from her legs, even though she knows she's liable to just get messy again.
This time she takes a cab. Pays American money, convinces the cabbie to take it. It isn't hard; she's a wolf from a tribe that has been running alongside humans for centuries -- or, really, since the dawn of their Nation. He takes her to the gardens and she twists her hands in her lap, breathing quietly, steadily, but shallowly. Her heart is the fastest beat Alex has ever played.
When she gets there, though. She walks. And walks through that long Avenue of Royal Palms who all remember their mother, who all came from the same lineage. It is a little like Eden. And she's wearing blue and white, she realizes, which has its own connotations. Sinclair is smiling when she gets to the fountain, her sandals dangling from her fingers.
"Hey," she says, when she sees him.
AlexIt is late, late summer here - much as it was, really, the last time they came here. The air is heavy with heat and humidity. It is dark already, just past sunset, and light still lingers in the west. Light still lingers in the sky, against which the silhouettes of those magnificent old palms are etched. There are lovers on the paths, strolling in the dimness, beneath the sheltering arms of trees older than many family names.
It feels a little like Eden here. Old and untamed and full of secrets, full of shadows. And she is wearing blue and white, and when he sees her
she is smiling, and so is he.
He is sitting on the edge of that fountain. With the wild odyssey he's sent her on, with the enormously flight he's just gotten off of, one might expect him to look ... different, somehow. But he doesn't. Alexander Vaughn looks like himself: compact and muscular, his tan boldly set off by the bright red of his shirt. He's wearing cargo pants, and sneakers, and he hops off the fountain in an agile, springy step.
He's so proud of himself. She can tell. She can tell he wants to crow about it. It took an enormous amount of pre-work, a staggering amount -- particularly for Alex -- of planning. It was sheer genius, and he wants so much to share all the little details, all the secret little things he had to do in advance so today, this day, this moment, could happen just ... like ... this.
He doesn't crow. His smile spreads; it's a grin now. He reaches for her hand. They meet in the middle, exchange a warm little kiss that he smiles against.
"Hey," he says back,
and then,
he gets on one knee.
SinclairShe's been at this for hours -- six or more, she lost count. A long time. The sun is going down. And she knows that Alex has been at it longer. Since...well, who even knows. Buying a ticket down here. Getting his family, her family, and her pack In On It. Hiring a couple of kids through another kinfolk in another state just to hang out at a gas station for a couple of hours and guard a payphone. He probably even got up earlier today. It's a long flight.
Sinclair remembers how long of a run it was.
She was sitting in the fountain, up on the shelves of carvings, the last time they met here. He was drunk and his bare chest was painted with gold designs and the sight of him almost made her salivate. It certainly made her all but pant for him. They got soaking wet. They snuck off into the green, so much of it untamed and unkempt and ancient, and said and did the filthiest things together.
As memories go, particularly if one tells the whole story, it isn't the most romantic. But the truth is, neither of them are very concerned with romance. They are comfortable with each other. Half the trouble was that they were so uncomfortable with how comfortable they were with each other, so very quickly, so very suddenly. That doesn't change the fact that they aren't given to sonnets or candlelight dinners or any of that. They are ultimately very realistic people. They are ultimately very honest people, both of them.
And honestly: she knew this was coming when he sent her to her pack. She didn't guess, didn't hope, didn't think, she just knew. It's been nearly a year since he first told her that he wants to marry her. Nearly a year since the other time he rolled off of her and touched her and said it again, asked her again. They've told their families that they're getting married. Her pack knows how insistent she is that she be married on a beach, goddammit, and not die before then. It's not like this is a surprise, or news, and yet
he made it new. He made it a surprise for her this morning, and when she saw that card telling her to go hang out with her pack. He sent her to everyone they love the most today, just to see them, as though by their secret help, they could lend a blessing to it.
He bounds off the fountain and she drops her sandals, stepping forward into the circle of his arms as soon as he's close enough, her arms around his neck. They're both so warm. It's ridiculously hot all around them, and they both smell like their own sweat. She is smiling when she kisses him, quite nearly grinning, and as he steps back she lets him, lets him go ahead and take her hand. Hey, he says, and she finally does grin this time.
And then, he gets on one knee.
And then, Sinclair's grin grows, brightens, partly in triumph because she knew it, but mostly in joy. She drops to her knees on the grass, right in front of him, almost eye to eye with him again, her smile still so bright, so youthful, so delighted -- but softer now than a grin, less baring of her teeth. Quieter.
"Yes," she says, preemptively, nodding. "Yes, I will."
Alex
Something like this inevitably draws attention. Something as archaic and ritualistic as a proposal of matrimony is so deeply ingrained in the western world's collective consciousness that the very act of a man bending one knee to a woman makes heads turn, makes hushed and delighted murmurs break out. It doesn't matter that they're in Rio de Janeiro. It doesn't matter that they are both so casually dressed. It doesn't even matter that they are not speaking the same language as so many of the bystanders.
Their impromptu audience is a little startled, though, when the girl drops to her knees right along with the boy. Some think it's cute. Others are confused. None of them really know what's going on, and none of them know that this isn't the first, or the second, time that Alex has proposed to Sinclair. She is not surprised. She knew.
She knew when he sent her to his pack. When he sent her on a long journey through so many places, so many cities and locales, where their relationship deepen unexpectedly; and to so many people whose influence had helped shape her - and them. They end up where they began, here in Rio de Janeiro, in a garden that feels as old as mankind.
It is not a surprise, but they've come a long way, in every sense possible, to stand here. In a way, the only stop they missed was the one by the beach, where after so long and painful and - really - senseless a separation, they came back together.
But then: they're getting married at a beach. She's already decided. And he knows.
So: he goes to one knee. And she drops with him, and she's smiling, they're all but beaming, she tells him yes before he can even ask her the question. And he gets this look in his eye, this twinkle, and he says,
"You're supposed to wait until I ask,"
and puts his hands behind her head and kisses her. People are clapping; he laughs against her mouth and then - eyes closed, not breaking the kiss - he reaches into his pocket. They have to part so she can see the ring, and it's silver or white gold and to be truthful the diamond is absolutely miniscule, but he's so proud, so gentle and so happy, when he slides it onto her finger.
Sinclair
Some of the people in the gardens are tourists. Some of them are as white as Sinclair and Alex are. All of them, though, can tell what's going on over there. But the man and woman aren't dressed up fancy. They didn't come here together. The man hasn't been pacing, fidgeting, doesn't seem at all nervous but simply happy as the woman drops her knees in front of him. Alex and Sinclair's audience likely doesn't see any symbolism in that, don't see how deep it goes or how necessary it is -- at least to Sinclair. To put herself on his level, on the ground, so that she is not so high above him.
She doesn't want to be so far away. She doesn't want him on his knees in front of her. She does not want to be higher than him, not in this, not in their time alone together. Never that.
He tells her she's supposed to wait. Sinclair could quip back and remind him that he was supposed to wait til they were clothed, but she doesn't. She is being kissed, and kissing him, smiling into his mouth, forgetting that there are people and even forgetting that this is a proposal until he starts to put something on her hand. She lets out a yelp, startled and delighted, their kiss breaking apart. Oh, of course she looks. Spreads her fingers and beams at the ring on her third one. It's dark and she doesn't really care if it's silver or white gold or what, as long as she can dedicate it, always wear it, alwaysalwaysalways, and the diamond is absolutely miniscule and she can only think that it is so cute.
Sinclair grabs him around the neck and pulls him down, tumbling to the grass with him, hugging him.
Alex
Alex tumbles laughing to the grass - elastic, robust, all but bouncing off the ground to roll and tumble. Somehow Sinclair ends up atop him, and they're laughing still, she's still close to him and hugging him, and his arms are around the middle of her back.
The strangers sense that the public moment has passed; they look away on instinct, go on with their lives. And meanwhile Alex and Sinclair lay in the grass near the fountain, in the muggy warmth of a Brazilian summer, separating just enough for him to reach up and stroke a fallen strand of her hair behind her ear.
"I got us a room at the Copacabana," he says. "It's pretty small and we only have it for the night, though. So," and he leans up and kiss her again, a soft little touch of their lips, "maybe we should book it."
SinclairJust one night. The same hotel, though. And not some lavish suite he's staying in for a week or more because he earned fifteen grand from jerking off into some cups. Just a small room, though even the small rooms at the Copacabana are luxurious. Sinclair aches a little when she looks at him, but it's a happy thing. It's just also a little overcome.
"Thank you, baby," she says quietly, almost whispering it, squeezing herself to his side. Her eyes open, and she props herself up, looking at him with a much softer smile than before. "We should get room service. Maybe go for a swim," and she trails off there, her eyes flicking from him to her hand, where she is lightly and thoughtlessly touching his face. Her hand looks different. Glee flashes across her expression. She beams at him. Leans down and kisses him quickly, softly, warmly.
"I love you," she says, for the first time since just before she fell asleep last night. "I totally love you," she adds.
AlexAlex's grin is fond, soft, a little crooked. "I know," he quips gently, and then leans up again. This kiss is longer. It's slower. It's warm as the night.
"I love you too," he adds, when it's done. And, nuzzling her gently, "Happy birthday, baby."
Not long after, they wander out of that lush old garden. Her hand is held in his. They are not out of place in their summery attire; not even out of place with their rumpled and grass-stained clothes. The streets are full of lovers and vacationers. There's a vendor on seemingly every streetcorner selling brazilian barbecue, and they stop to buy a few skewers of beef and chicken because, really, they've barely eaten all day.
And even though they only have their room for a night, they take their time getting there. They stroll along the sands, looking across the bay at neighboring towns glittering in the night. Even from this distance they can see Christ the Redeemer on his mountain, arms spread toward his city. They take their shoes off. They get sand between their toes. They drop their empty skewers in a waiting trash bin, and then
they get a couple more skewers, plus a few bottles of some orange soda that they don't have in the States.
Eventually, they head over to the Copacabana Palace - that glistening white Art Deco landmark by the sea. They are not, by far, the last guests to arrive. In this most leisurely of cities, the dinner hour isn't even properly over with yet. They have no luggage - well, Alex has a backpack, but that's about it - and they're holding streetvendor barbecue, but the girl behind the counter smiles at them and welcomes them, slides the keys over.
Their room isn't half as large as the suite Alex had last time and it's only on the second floor, but it's still spacious. It still faces the ocean, dark now, brilliant blue by day. The bed is enormous and high. The air conditioning keeps the room cool and dry, but the first thing Alex does is throw the windows open, let the sheer inner curtains billow. It smells like the ocean, suddenly, and they can hear voices, laughter, the bustle of the city below. It reminds him, suddenly and a little achingly, of their little PB apartment.
Alex drops his backpack by the window. Then, mindless of the dirt and sweat of a day's worth of travel, he fairly scoops Sinclair up, spins her around once laughing, and then tumbles her into bed.
Sinclair
On the beach they look at the Redeemer. And the stars. They wade, calf-deep in the ocean, the air warm on their skins, their hands linked. They are from the least traditional of the tribes, Sinclair has bucked most traditions even that tribe has, and Alex bucks everything. The traditions they do employ, the rituals, are somehow effortless. They do what makes them happy. They do what feels right. And sometimes it ends up being things like: the nicest ring he could afford that he thought she would like. A room at a legendary hotel by the sea. Proposing to her on her birthday, in a botanical garden, on one knee, after sending her on a riddle hunt.
They walk on the shoreline, holding hands, under the moonlight.
She is barefoot when they walk into the lobby of the hotel. Nobody bothers them. The people that look askance would do so anyway, because of her tattoos and her feral nature, because of the fact that Alex does everything one-handed rather than let go of her hand. She gives him a bite of her skewer when he scarfs down his, rubs her nose on his shoulder as they go up in the elevator -- to the second floor.
"Oh," she says upon entering, which is just another way of saying this is so nice. He throws open the windows. Sinclair licks her fingers and he's whirling around, grabbing her up, making her laugh. People outside can hear her. People outside are laughing, too, at their own jokes, their own happiness. They flop into the bed and she offers him her last finger to lick the sauce off of.
"I have two questions," she informs him, and launches into them as soon as he nods or grunts or even ignores this. "First: would you be bothered if I added your name to my list on my arm, and second: did you think to pack me some fresh underwear and a toothbrush, or is your backpack full of DVDs?"
AlexFlopping down, Alex unhesitatingly licks the sauce off his brand new fiancee's finger. Then his smile turns a little quirky. "I totally wouldn't mind," he says, "but if you do that I'm going to get these names lasered off my arm and put yours on instead."
And then he laughs. "I did not pack toothbrushes," he admits, "but that's 'cause I knew the hotel provides them. I did, however, pack you a change of clothes. And me too." A pause. "Also, I brought a couple cans for Tripoli. He was in on it, did you know?"
SinclairSinclair tips her head, smiling benignly. "You don't have to do that. They're part of your history. And if you laser them off there'll still be scars." She lifts her head, kisses him softly again. "Which will also be part of your history." It's all very zen to her. So she grins. "So do what you like best."
Her fingertips start traveling through his hair. "Maybe I'll put your name somewhere else. Somewhere special-er." The grin goes a little lopsided and wicked. "I'm totally going to get a tramp stamp," she teases. "Your name -- worked into like... a tribal butterfly!"
They roll around a bit. She nuzzles herself under his jaw, sniffs at his neck. She has missed him since this morning. All day, she's been looking for him. All day, note after note -- they're all folded in her pocket still -- telling her that she loves him, and he loves this, and loves her, and they both love their life. Now he's here, in her arms and wrapping his around her, and this is the sort of thing she lives and dies for. This is why she fights. No longer because she is too angry not to, too hopeless. Now because there is so much to live for, so much worth defending. Family. Pack.
Mate. She would admit it to any of them: above all, her mate. More than the war and the earth and even her packmates, whom she loves as well. But not like this.
His smell makes her sleepy and aroused. His arms and his heat do, too. She doesn't know which she wants more, so she stays right where she is, as she is, listening to his voice and his breathing and trying not to peek too often at her ring and thus look totally shallow and stereotypical.
"Thank you, baby," she says again, then laughs. "I had a feeling, once I started figuring things out. He and Kate seemed a little more in-cahoots than usual." Suddenly she squeezes him. "Thank you for that, too. Just... going to see everybody. So they could kinda share in it but we could still sorta... be private, too." Another tight squeeze. "I'm really, really happy."
Alex"You know I will anyway," Alex retorts. Do what he likes best, that is. Though that's perhaps not a hundred percent true anymore. These days Alex is a little more, dare we say, grownup. These days, Alex will often consider Sinclair, and sometimes even consider other people, before making radical decisions.
They're lounging together in bed. She's musing about a tramp stamp, which makes him grin, which makes him dip his head and touch his mouth to her collarbones. This is where they first made love. This is where they've come again, on her birthday and the day of his Real Proposal, and it's at once the same and so very different. They're not so rushed this time. They're not so insane, and unthinking. There's something lazy and fond about it all: her fingers in his hair, his lips touching her skin.
"You should put my name around your belly button or something. So I can see it when I go down on you." He's all matter-of-fact, but his smile is lopsided, a little wicked. "Also, I can totally see you peeking at the ring. You can look. I'm not gonna tell everyone what a girly girl you are."
He gets squeezed - he affects an oof, as though he weren't built out of solid sinew and bone. He grins, though, and they take another tumble on the bed, and she ends up on top this time.
"I got the idea, like, around January. You have no idea how hard it was to keep my big mouth shut for two and a half months." Oh, he wants to gloat more. All the notes! All the people! All the setup! But he doesn't -- he muses instead, "But ... I wanted you to see everyone. And kinda ... see all the places we've been together, and all the headspaces we've gone through, y'know? And all the people we love, and all the things we are.
"I just wanted you to be able to do that. And I wanted you to kinda know, y'know? That I know you. And I know where we've been. Figuratively. You know what I mean."
SinclairShe does know that. But she also knows he thinks more now. Considers the effect his actions will have on her, on others. There's a loss there. She understands that, though they've never really spoken of it. The exchange for becoming a little softer, a lot kinder, much wiser for her was to become less vicious, less madcap, less dangerous. They both had to grow up a little. But when you grow up, you do have to let go of some things that didn't always suck, that felt like a part of who you were.
She huffs a laugh at his suggestion. "You're a narcissist," she chides him, still brainstorming internally. He teases her right back and she just laughs, aloud this time. "Oh, I'm so peeking. And I think that when the bridal magazines take over our apartment everyone's going to know how girly I am anyway.
They tumble again, and she wiggles right off of him, back to his side, though now she's on the other side, still quite intent on using his arm and shoulder as a pillow, his leg as a resting place for her leg. When he says y'know? she nods, because she gets it. He rambles on. She grins lopsidedly. "Yeah, Alex," she says. "I know. Oh --" she pops her head up. "Speaking of knowing me, I went to that nude beach across from UCSD because I thought that's what you meant with that one clue. The home team one and the across the street one. I almost didn't see the airplane," she laughs. "But I would have just texted you for a hint if I didn't."
AlexThat's something they don't really talk about - that with maturity comes... well, a little less spontaneity. A little less drop-of-the-hat, spur-of-the-moment let's do it!-ness. They don't really mention it, but they both know it, and --
well; Alex likes to think they both accept it. Even Peter Pan couldn't fly anymore when he grew up. But on the other side of the equation was all the good stuff that comes with it. Being wise enough not to be a dickhead about one of the best things to ever happen to him, for one. Being wise enough to see how good it is, what he has with Sinclair, and to not go running from it.
He's quiet, thinking about this, but then she talks about the hint and the airplane and he barks a laugh. "See, I knew you'd go there. You went to UCSD, and there were naked people on the beach across the street. So I left you a note there.
"I'm kinda glad you didn't call me though," he admits. "I wouldn't have gotten it til I got off the plane. And then I would've had to wait longer. And plus, it was better like this. Just ... seeing you walk up. It made my day."
Sinclair"Well if you hadn't answered, I would have made my pack or my parents or your parents or someone help me, or I would have threatened a Ragabash to find you and gotten very confused when the questing stone pulled straight up and toward the south." She snuggles him, unable to keep from physically expressing her glee every few minutes. She relaxes, stretching out, exhaling long and slow.
"You did make my day," she muses, and it amuses her. Her whole day has been this. She smiles. "You always give me the best birthdays. And all I ever do is bake you a pie or something."
Sinclair does climb atop him now, again, facing him fully again. "We should both change our names. And I'll be Sinclair-Vaughn and you be Vaughn-Sinclair and all the babies will be...like... Sinclaughn. Vair." She frowns, shakes her head, kisses his chin. "They'll be Sinclair-Vaughns, sorry. Let's go take a shower and fuck til we're hungry again."
Alex"You say that," Alex says slowly, mock-somberly, "like pies aren't the best thing ever. Besides," and they shift; she gets on top, and his smile is slow and warm, "we don't need to compete about who gives whom better birthdays. They're always awesome."
She starts naming them. And their kids. Sinclair-Vaughns, she decides, and he laughs. "That sounds better than Vaughn-Sinclair anyway. Vaughn-Sinclair sounds ... I dunno. Weird. Like Vons, the supermarket."
And then, lighting up: "So we're gonna fuck and then go down for more brazilian barbecue, right?"
Sinclair"Good, you can have the dorky supermarket name then," she agrees roundly, and nips his jaw with her teeth. He perks at the idea of more brazilian barbecue and she chuckles. "I was thinking room service, because it doesn't require us putting on clothes. But," she adds, "I also kinda want to go out. And just hang out and run around before we come back to sleep. I mean, we're in Rio," she concludes.
Her hands go to his face. "Baby, I love having you inside me probably more than is sane, but we can save never leaving bed for the honeymoon." With that, she gives him one more quick, firm, kiss. The truth is, she doesn't really need a shower. She's had two today already. She and he are both sweaty, but it's a sort of clean, warm sweat from being out in the sunlight, in the open air, rolling in the grass. So perhaps that's why she doesn't stop kissing him, why that quick kiss lasts so much longer, why she pauses only to nuzzle him, exhaling softly.
She doesn't say she loves him right now. She thinks he knows, right now, what she's saying without words.
AlexShe doesn't have to say it right now. Neither does he, really. All day - all that long, incredible day where they literally crossed continents for each other - they were saying it. Every time she found a note, he said it, even though it was couched in other terms. You know you love me. Or, I loved it here. Or simply, at the end: you know I love you. Every time she followed his clue through another hop, another impossibility of time and space, she said it right back.
So they don't say it now. He doesn't say anything, in fact, though for a moment he has opinions on barbecue vs. room service; he has opinions on what they might do in Rio, and how, if she wanted, they could stay an extra few days. He'll tell her this later: that he doesn't have a plane ticket back yet, so really they could stay as long as they want. They just can't, y'know, afford this particular hotel. But they can get some little room in some little hostel and tour Brazil like proper penniless backpackers. They can climb Sugar Loaf Mountain and they can visit Christ the Redeemer. They can laze on the beach. They can call all their friends and all their family and tell them that they've finally, finally decided to get hitched.
And they can start setting a date. Sinclair can start collecting bridal catalogs. Alex can maybe sorta look at a few tuxes, because he should probably get dressed up if he doesn't want Sinclair's dad to clock him on his own wedding day. And...
...anyway. That's all later. For now, his girlfriend -- no, his fiancee -- is kissing him, and not going to shower, and he's kissing her back, and that kiss breaks only long enough for him to say:
"Change of plans. How about we fuck ourselves silly first, and then shower and eat?"
SinclairShe grins against his mouth and just nods, nods, kisses him again. Her body moves atop his. His hands move down her sides. They move up the bed. And since the beginning, from the start, their lovemaking has always been a bit more athletic, joyful, raw, than slow or sweet or tender. There is sweetness to it, though, there is tenderness. Sometimes they even go slow, like when she came back from that horrible night when she left to go fight with her pack against the dying of a caern and when she got home to him it was all different, her memories were confusing, and she was crying, crying because something with him might be different and she was so frightened she was going to lose him, scared it meant that she wouldn't know him anymore, he wouldn't know her anymore.
That night, it was slow. And a little rough, actually, firm and intense and aching. Comforting, too. Grounding. She was exhausted afterward, slept for a solid fourteen hours after that, as though recovering from some wound. But she was okay. He was still there. Still loved her. Still knew her, just as she still knew him.
Tonight, though, there is reason to be exuberantly joyful. Always, they can find a reason to express their adoration in one physical form or another, but tonight it's undeniably extra special. They keep the windows open, their bodies barely hidden by the thin curtains that billow in the occasional wind. They should perhaps keep quiet; they don't. They never do. Sinclair -- and every poor passerby under that second-story window -- knows exactly what Alex thinks of her nipple ring, what his opinion is concerning her tits, how her cunt makes him feel. And Alex knows, as he would be hard-pressed not to know at this point, that Sinclair is quite sure she will up and die if he ever stops, if he doesn't stay with her when the wave comes to crush her into grains of sand.
They are atop the covers, naked and sweatier than before, when Sinclair starts wedding planning. She has to, she defends herself, because they're going to get married in like two or three months, September at the latest, she likes the word 'September', but still, that's not much time to throw together even a simple beach wedding, but it's not that simple when you're talking about guests from at least three different states. The wedding planning that takes place on the bed, however, while the sweat evaporates from their naked skin, is limited to telling him:
"I'm going to wear a dress," she informs him, "But you don't really have to dress up," as though this is clearly going to be of greatest concern. "If you just wanna wear cargo shorts and a muscle shirt, I don't care. But I'm totally going to look like... eighty times better than you if you do that, instead of just the ten times better than you I'd look anyway."
He grins, and he kisses her forehead, and they eventually drag themselves up to go shower. They wash quite quickly, actually, energized by fu-- well. Perhaps more by finding each other today. She just throws on the clothes she was wearing before, brushes her teeth, wears her hair wet all over again.
And they do go find more brazilian barbecue. They stay out most of the night, and Alex tells her they can probably stay a few extra days, just... not at the Copacabana, and Sinclair laughs and says that would be awesome, yes, let's do that. They go clubbing, but only briefly. Alex is exhausted. Sinclair could, feasibly, sleep anywhere at anytime for any reason, and tonight,
with him,
at the Copacabana where he took her virginity,
seems like a pretty good place and time to sleep.
Lying with him later, the sunrise just a few hours off, she dozes on his chest, half-asleep already. "We should... honeymoon on Easter Island," she murmurs. And Alex grunts. She thinks that means yes.
