[For Veronica]

[plantfood]

There are many things about Henrich that drove Mathias crazy before Mexico and the ruins, things that now and then resulted in physical altercations or shouting matches which left them both feeling sheepish and hurt, but there is one thing Henrich was so good at. One thing Mathias wishes he could have learned from his brother, something he still can't quite seem to grasp no matter how hard he tries or doesn't try, as Henrich used to advise.

He's terrible with women.

It's been a month and a half since New Year's Eve and Mathias has done almost nothing to impress Veronica or further what relationship they might be developing. In fact, with the exception of assuring her there is nothing going on with Stacy, he's barely made any indication that he's interested in her, which he realizes is incredibly stupid. He's very interested and absolutely terrified. Coming to her while stuck as a woman hardly counts as making an attempt at getting another date, so earlier in the week, he'd gathered up all his courage and asked.

Which is why he finds himself heading down the path toward her hut, a bag with some food slung over one shoulder and his towel folded over the other. In a fit of panic, unsure what people do for dates on the island, he'd suggested dinner and swimming at the waterfall, hoping it isn't too forward to include swimming. Already he's starting to doubt himself, but he schools his face to blankness and then raps his knuckles gently against her door.

He can do this. It's a date, after all, he's been on dates before.

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[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Silence didn't come so easily to Veronica most of the time, but now, sliding into the cold water, she was content for a moment to say nothing, her eyes falling closed. She lay back, kicked against the water, body floating up to the surface, and gave a little, involuntary sigh. Despite the fact of people passing on the path not far away and the persistent chatter of birds and animals overhead, there was a kind of peace to be found there. It eased the faint burn of embarrassment that had run down the back of her neck. It was silly to worry about showing interest, and she didn't like to think of herself as being in the habit of running scared. She'd shown interest just by accepting. It was hard not to see the whole affair as her putting something on the line without guarantees. The question was, as it always was, just how much she'd let herself put down.

Upright again, she smoothed her hair back where it clung to her cheeks. "Being out here, it's like - Well, no, it is being in the middle of nowhere, but. Isolated."

[plantfood]

"Away from everyone else," Mathias agrees, pushing his wet hair off his face, feeling cool water trickling down between his shoulder blades. The path is close and he knows it's well traveled, but that doesn't stop him from feeling what Veronica is saying. It's peaceful in a way not many other parts of the island are.

Touching Henrich's pendant unconsciously, he turns the coin over and over as he moves through the water slowly. He's moving closer to Veronica, he isn't trying to hide it, but he continues to speak as he moves. "There aren't many people here, not compared to where we come from, yet sometimes it feels so crowded. Like there isn't enough room." It isn't true, he knows it isn't, but that doesn't stop him from feeling it now and then.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"There's always someone else around." It wasn't like living a city, where the crowds kept moving, heedless. People here had nowhere else to be. They came in close, paid attention. Small town, small talk. "Especially when you live in the Compound." She'd learned to ignore it all as best she could, and moving out had improved things. She couldn't ignore his moving closer, though. Even so, she stood her ground - kept treading water in place, anyway - watching him. "It's why I left. Needed a little privacy."

[plantfood]

Mathias smiles when he nears her, ducking into the water once more, hunkering down until it reaches his shoulders. The coin still turns in his fingers under the water and when he finally does notice that he's doing it, he flushes a little and lets it float back to his skin.

"I don't notice that much," he admits, but he suspects that is partly because he spends much of his time watching people rather than looking for them to be watching him. "I think I would like to move out from the Compound, though. Not yet, but soon." He doesn't think he's ready yet and, more than anything, he doesn't think Stacy is ready. It makes him feel like a coward, but he knows he can't live alone in this jungle.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Veronica nodded, her smile edging up higher on one side. "Sooner than I did," she said, either a suggestion or a stab at precognition. "Took me almost three years. But it's better, having a place to yourself." She was too accustomed to being an only child, not sharing at all. Her 'plays well with others' days had passed. After a moment, she realized she'd reached up to fiddle with the end of a strand of her, absentminded, a tell of faint nerves, and she dropped her hand to the water again.

[plantfood]

"My roommate is... spoiled, self-involved and whiny," Mathias admits, dropping his voice as if he's telling a secret. In a way, he is. He's far from the type of person who talks about others or spreads gossip, but he thinks, in this case, Veronica will agree.

There's also the fact that his roommate is from a children's book series, of course, but he doesn't mention that to anyone. Things like that seem to be unspoken on the island.

"I would like to escape him, I think," he decides. "Just in case his snake attacks me in my sleep."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

It was a situation with which Veronica was well acquainted - well, except the part about the snake. Her own first roommate had been Hermione Granger. After her first mistake, Veronica had learned her lesson pretty quickly.

"That would pose something of a problem," she said, head dipping to the side, a brow arching, as she smiled. "And I wouldn't doubt it, I hear that thing's evil."

[plantfood]

"Lucky for me, it seems to want to upset Draco more than me," Mathias adds, his mouth turning up into a wider grin as he remembers finding his roommate in the hallway, the snake coming after him. "But I don't think that's something I should be pleased about." It seems a little mean, after all.

On the other hand, if he leaves the Compound, he knows Stacy will come with him and while he doesn't mind, he isn't sure what Veronica might think of such an arrangement.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"That's because you're nicer than me," Veronica teased, rolling her eyes at him. "Giant evil snake, Mathias. If it's between you and the boy wonder, well." Just knowing that thing was down there gave her the creeps, irrational though it was. It wasn't like there weren't other snakes in the jungle, even, possibly, out in the stream winding its way across the island. Then again, JK Rowling hadn't written about any of those ones.

[plantfood]

"Boy wonder," Mathias repeats, grinning at that, wondering if Draco has ever heard that. For the most part, Mathias is content to live and let live and has little interest in ribbing his roommate, but he thinks he might use that. Should the opportunity ever arise.

"You know he's from a book, ja?" he asks, just to be sure. It isn't something he likes to think of often, but when they're speaking of his roommate, it's difficult to ignore.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Veronica nodded. "Same series as my first roommate," she said. "It's... not uncommon here." She glanced down at the water, shrugging her shoulders. Though she'd had a while to inure herself to the fact of her origins, it didn't always sit so easily with her. She had her suspicions - had, for quite a while now, considered the possibility that they were simply all that way - but it wasn't necessarily a simple thing. Lips pressed together in a smile, wry, self-aware, she raised her hand from the water. "Television show."

[plantfood]

Mathias looks taken aback for a moment, but it's only a moment, his eyebrows drawing together in curiosity before the expression disappears and he looks as blank as he ever does. Somehow, despite the fact that he never would have suspected, it isn't all that surprising.

"Killer vines, physical trauma, a group of young tourists trapped on a ruin," he muses, giving himself a moment to gather the courage he needs to say the thing he's about to say. The corner of his mouth turns up as he lifts one hand from the water and trails his fingertips over the line of her jaw. He almost doesn't mean to do it, but it gives him the moment he needs.

"Horror movie, I suspect." It's said lightly, but the thought does bother him.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Veronica nodded, the movement barely perceptible in her reluctance to do anything that might end the touch. "Sounds right," she said quietly. If there was such a movie, she had a feeling she'd have to be careful with the shelf. After months with Sam, though, and long after the fact of their relationship, she had still managed to hold back and never watch, except for the one time she'd stumbled on him by chance. Seeing him die had taken away any lingering desire to cheat and watch anyway. She wasn't looking to repeat the experience. "Teenage girl in search of revenge turns detective. Nancy Drew abandoned. Neo-noir. Very clever, I hear."

[plantfood]

"Somehow, I am not surprised," Mathias replies, his smile growing faintly. The fact that Veronica hasn't pulled away from him helps build the courage that he's searching for and he cups her cheek gently, still very aware of the scars on his hands.

"I don't like to think about that." There's a shift, the water rippling out around him as he moves closer to her. "It doesn't matter here, anyway. It shouldn't."

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

The idea that she'd ever been someone's entertainment, her trials and errors subject to Nielsen ratings and Entertainment Weekly reviews, rankled even now, but he was right. She knew that. This was one affliction which in no way set her apart. Whatever had been written was behind them.

"Well, it makes the plot harder to predict," she said, wide-eyed but unable to keep from smiling a little, a hand reaching up to rest on his arm. "Clues are... a little harder to come by."

[plantfood]

"I've always been awful at reading clues anyway," he answers, feeling a little pleased with himself for being able to come up with such a quick response. No one has ever described Mathias as clever. He's smart, he's been told that much, but he isn't quick and he isn't witty. Things are always most difficult to say to women he's attracted to.

The clues are here now, he thinks, but even when he ducks his head to kiss her -- really kiss her, not like New Year's Eve -- he's still second guessing himself. The first brush of his mouth over hers is tentative, questioning.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Veronica hesitated, but not for long. A second too long, she knew, and she would pull away, run off, even now. There was no question in her mind, though, that she wanted this, the twist of nerves in her stomach a reminder of that, even if wanting was only another reason to pull a disappearing act. Instead she tipped her head up a little more, eyes closing as she returned the kiss, more certain now than when it had begun, moving nearer.

[plantfood]

That she isn't pulling back is a good sign, Mathias thinks, a clue he can most certainly read and he lifts his other hand from the water, fingers splayed gently over her back. When she moves closer, so does he, fitting himself against her in a way he would have thought impossible, given his height.

He isn't about to push his luck, though. Not yet. Pressing the kiss deeper for just a moment, a soft breath escapes from between his lips and then he pulls back enough to look at her.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"Well, I'd say you do just fine with clues," Veronica offered, smiling a little despite the slight flutter in her voice and the faint nerves, stronger after the fact than during. With both hands on his arms, his body against his, the urge to drop her hold and bolt flared up again, but she ignored it, held her ground. She wouldn't get anywhere with that tired routine.

[plantfood]

"Not very often," he admits softly, smiling in return. In his stomach, there's a nervous, twisting feeling, but beyond that he can feel the elation of the moment pulsing through him. "I think I am just lucky this time around. Somehow."

He doesn't think he's lucky; he knows it. Girls like Veronica don't exactly come around every day.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

"Somehow," Veronica echoed, shaking her head, "I wouldn't be so sure. You keep doing things like that, you might have a hard time getting rid of me." Light as it was, an invitation, even she wasn't so sure how true that was. It was a truth about herself she knew, was aware of, but tried to avoid. She wanted to be able to say she was loyal to the end. The trouble was only ever how quickly the end came about. Later, though - there would be time for doubts later. Right then, uncertain though it was, she smiled.

[plantfood]

"I don't find that such a terrible prospect," Mathias admits and although he's a little afraid of pushing his luck, he leans in to kiss her again. There's no hesitation this time and although he would never push too hard, he lets himself slide one arm around Veronica in the water.

He's never been good with women, this much is the truth, not in the way he wants to be. Before Veronica and after Ilyse there were tourists, nights he doesn't really remember except for the press of a stranger's mouth to his own, but he'd never pursued them. Not like this.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

It was simpler this time, easier to push away doubts and focus on the wanting. Slipping her arms up over his shoulders, Veronica leaned into him and the kiss. It had been a long time, too long, since she'd had something like this. For a while, she'd been just fine with it, ready to be alone some time. That had passed, though, long before she'd been prepared to admit to the fact. Fitting herself against him, she smiled and reached up tentatively to brush wet fingers over his cheek.

[plantfood]

It's a cliche, he knows this even as he thinks it, but this is the type of moment that would be easy to get lost in if he lets himself. These situations are rare, the kinds that can unwind Mathias completely, but he reels himself in and keeps a tight hold on any urges he's having.

Breaking the kiss a little breathlessly, he grins down at Veronica, reaching up to touch the fingers brushing over his cheek.

[neptune-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Kissing was simple - the act, at least, if not the whole complicated mental dance involved - and liking was natural, and when he touched her hand, when he smiled like that, a smile of her own didn't take any effort. It just came naturally, unbidden. And talking, well, that was usually her strong point. Feelings, though, were messy, troubling, and she'd never been any good at talking about him. And yet, in this moment right here, this gap, it seemed like the thing she needed to do.

"Yeah, so," she said, ducking her head a little, turning her hand against his, "I don't know if you got the memo, but... I kinda like you. A little."