voted #1 dad in the house

there’s a moment of stability. the quiet beats where they’ve both finally waved their white flags, and the tension breaks. she can’t say who’s won. she has a curfew but she gets to go, he knows there are very high incentives to not break this said curfew on her first time out. maybe there aren’t supposed to be winners in these sorts of things, who’s to say.

the sigh finally escapes with his prolonged offer, as though she couldn’t quite help herself from one final separation from the moment. “i just—” her dish is rinsed clean, wynn is perched in the corner watching, there is still time on the clock where white flags might be switched out. she stares at damion, trying to figure out why he would offer, confusion scrawled across her forehead for the briefest of moments before she can shrug it off. “okay. a plate. sure.” why not. she could suffer the expression she would get in the car, though she doesn’t have to pretend to be happy about the idea. “fine. that’s okay?”

He's seen that look a few times before. This isn't his first rodeo with the kiddo. It's not something he's gotten used to yet, and he thinks he never will at this point. His heart twists, a blockage of an artery filled more with feeling than what can cause the heart attack he'd suffer if anything happened to either one of his girls. All he wants for both of them is whatever the closest thing to normalcy is, whatever /isn't/ tied to causing the confusion on Claudia's face over a nice but basic gesture.

"Yeah. It's okay." There's a silent breath released. Relief might be an overstatement, but it's close enough. "Here, I'll get it together for you." Paper plates are the go-to. It stops the boy from getting a free pass to come by to 'return' a real one. He knows all the tricks. "So." A spoonful of dinner is scooped out, just another casual beat in their little household. "He's... cool?"

“i was trying to imagine the scene.” there’s a direct question being asked of her, but it’s a blink and you miss it. her mind goes a hundred miles in the other direction, trying to think about the idea that dad could pretend to be cloud. she wondered if he was going to do a higher voice. but there’s no such luck for her scene work. just more questions. “like her coming home, but it wasn’t working.”

but given enough questions, one of them was going to finally snag her and pull her onto this new line of inquiry that was being asked of her. “she’s shown you her pictures.” and it’s not a lie, given with guileless honesty because there are photos that hang on the walls of the house that she can point to as fact. but maybe they didn’t see the same photos, or all the photos. she knew that for all the ones that she was given access to that there would be nine more no one would ever know about. it must have been the same for everyone else. a fickle artist, of course.

“she takes her pictures with julian. sometimes they’re on the film, it’s not bad. he’s kind of got a good eye too.” how else did he explain some of the photos that showed up on the rolls of film. they couldn’t all have been taken by her. “i mean she’s better, she gets lighting. but i think that’s because you let her practice so much.”

His gut doesn't know peace. There's an ulcer growing in there, has been growing from the very day his place turned into a household instead of a poor excuse of a bachelor pad. It's an ulcer of love, but he can call it whatever he wants; it still hurts in moments like this, making itself known in all its worry. Sure, he's seen the pictures she brings home, but that doesn't mean a complete disclosure.

"What's the story on his?" Can it be bad? Can it? A mumbled groan scratches the back of his throat, unsure. "What kind of photos is he taking, kid? Are there any you don't get to take a look at?"

“it’s just one. just a boy.” she doesn’t realize that the clarification doesn’t make anything much better, if anything it puts her on shakier ground. as though suddenly she’s not hanging out with a friend, but some that that really is more to talk about. there’s not. she’s already made her negotiations, she’s going to go to the church because there was nothing wrong with it before. and she wants to see julian, still, even if he is a boy.

“i know the signs.” but so much of the fight is already out of her, fire put out just as quickly as it had been stoked. sometimes all it took were those two words, i’m sorry, even though she finds them still nearly impossible to spit out herself. she took a deep breath, although she hardly goes so far as to follow any of the breathing techniques that have been recommended to her. “i just—” she doesn’t know what else there is left to say before she treads into something too much for an after dinner chat. “it’s a church. i’ll be home at nine.”

He processes, the speed of a Windows 95, loading up the program of an understanding nod, belated is an understatement. One boy. It comes as a mixed bag like a lot of things that are being thrown around here. His jaw shifts, swallowing back the first few words he can think of that the more experienced side of him knows won't do him any favors. "All right," he settles on. "He's just one boy," he agrees with a shrugging shake, hitting a tone that's gotta pass for being honestly dismissive, like it's no big his daughter has glomed onto a father's nightmare. He'll quit while he's ahead, even with his hands on either side of his crossed arms, a poor attempt to warm himself up to the idea before him. At least he's got the nine o'clock part back. He'll take the small wins where he can get them.

"Do you want to... take some snacks along with?" he asks after the silence has passed between them long enough to start again on a better footing, a reboot. "You could give the... one boy a plate of dinner, if you feel up to it. I don't know what kind of grub the church is dishing out, but it can't hurt."

she nods, trying to think of how she might visualize the scenario. she likes to think that she knows cloud well, really well, better than almost anyone on the planet. but this was uncharted territory, trying to mix what they’d learned from all their movie watching and the reality of who julian was. she thought for a moment, gave the question the time that it deserved. finally she mimes checking her watch, the scene formulated in her head.

“i thought dad said curfew was eleven?” but then she pauses, maybe not that. what did she know. they’d never really had a curfew, and it was almost the same as opening the window to sit on the roof. just because in the past neither of them had scaled down the trellis didn’t mean it wasn’t looming. “wait— do over. how did the photos turn out?” that seemed safe, the photos were always a safe bet, and sometimes she got to see them on the little viewfinder before they were printed out. a sneak peak into her sister’s head before she deleted all the ones that she didn’t like. “did you let julian take any again?”

she looked at her dad expectantly, as if this were a normal game where all the rules made sense without any more explanation. “well, what does she say?”

It doesn't start off great. He doesn't know why he thought it might. There's no telling if it's the change in his face that's made Fred start over or if it's just a new thought, but there's a lot to unpack either way. Each new twist and turn causes another gray hair, makes another twist in his lips, a wrinkle to his brow. He's trying his best to keep up with all the objections that are piling into his head like a six-lane traffic accident, but it's just one crash after another until it's all over. By then, he's out of gas, stares at her with a slightly open mouth and squinting eyes to make sense out of something that can hardly be in focus. It's called the starting point.

"Okay. Time-out. Let's pump the brakes right there." Now, he's pinching the bridge of his nose, taking a stab at the first thing that's making its way out of the carnage. "What's with the curfew point, kid? Did she go over it that one night? You know, that night with the Scream movie marathon?" He was told he missed the sound of the door opening, but a dad knows, even when he tries not to start a fight he's not sure he's on the right side of. "And what about that Julian thing? What's with the pics, huh?" Oh, now he knows how that sounds aloud again and his head tilts, face already wrought with a new expression. "What's the deal on these pics, Fred? Did she show them to you?"

“oh my god.” the exasperation is clear in her voice, whatever white flag she might have been waving is pulled back quickly at the new target that’s being aimed for. the question might have been a valid one in a world where she walked blindly into every situation and didn’t think anything through, but she was pretty darn certain she’d learned her lesson on that one far enough back to know. “no. he didn’t pressure me to do anything.” it’s equal parts defense of her own judgement, but also a swipe and keeping julian’s reputation in tact. big talk for someone he hadn’t even really met. “do you think i’m stupid?”

she didn’t walk into traps, and she made sure to stay out of most people’s way. this was the first time she’d even considered hanging out with someone outside of school and of course it’s met with twenty questions. “i want to go, i asked. it was me. okay? he’s doing me a favor. i’m not— i don’t get pressured into doing things.” the implication stings more than it should, she knows there’s no reason for it to. but still, she hates to think of herself in such terms. weak, malleable, manipulated. she’s not. why would he say that? the thought repeats again, finding its way to being voiced in such obvious wounded terms.“why would you say that?”

He knows his mistake at first tone back. His body sighs out all the air inside, like a deflated balloon that's been let go of at full capacity, so close to reaching its full potential. It's all too late to recapture, now, not that he can bring himself to give up on trying to get back what has been lost. "No, listen, no one ever said anything about anyone being stupid here. I didn't mean it like that, all right? I'm just saying boys aren't all sunshine and rainbows sometimes, but that's nothing on you."

Damion attempts a step forward towards her, but what will he do when he gets near enough to her? Pat her shoulder? Pat her head? His hand lowers back to his side before it can even really be raised, all crossed out as options that will make the impact he needs, already sensing the future, and it's not roses. "I'm sorry, kiddo," he lands on, he means it even if this household is learning the ropes with a lot of things, including apologies and feelings. It's for the best if he puts his hands in his pockets, no longer tempted to put on some awkward moment between them that he knows they're both trying to avoid. "It's what dads do, okay? It's part of the job to keep a look out for you."

they’re just going to keep an eye out. that sounds more subtle than she’d been expecting, but she can do subtle. she’s been practicing the best ways to sit in a room and become invisible, it seemed like a skill that would be handy. of course she’s not useing it against claudia, there’s no weapons being wielded. it’s for claudia. she apparently just has to listen, with people saying the important parts. if he’s serious, he’ll say so. she’ll keep an eye out. no, an ear. that made more sense.

“wait. so i can’t just ask?” she didn’t think that talking about boys was the kind of conversation topic that needed and introduction. they sit on the bed with popcorn and sodas and talk about the first thing that comes to mind. she paused, brow furrowed with thought while she tried to consider the way it would come up. “i thought you could just say how was the church and go from there. made total sense to me.”

He wonders how much time he's spent on gauging Fred's seriousness before always coming up with the same conclusion; she's always serious. There's never a moment that she isn't painfully honest with her thoughts for better or for worse. Still, he watches her as if this will be the day that the unbreakable trend will make its move for a difference. In the end, he breathes in, now pondering what's the right move to make.

"Why don't you try it out on me first, okay?" he tries, gives her the chance against all logic. "Give me the test run. Pretend I'm your sister. How are you going to tackle this exactly? What's the opener?"

she knows this is the moment where she’s supposed to say that she’s sorry, she apologizes, she takes it all back. they’re supposed to be working on accepting their faults or something like that, learning how to be better. she can’t bring herself to do that. all that she offers is a wince as he crosses his arms, waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under her. so she waits, but it doesn’t happen. which is almost worse, conflict engineered by her own nerves about what. it was just a meet-up.

“i don’t need an extra pair of eyes, okay.” finally a comment makes its way out, but it’s lost most of the fire that was there before. the wounded retreat after realizing that she’d gone so far. there was no shouting in the house claudia rose. “i’ll be fine.” she thought about adding once again that it was a church, but she’s can’t push her luck any more. she meets him in some imagined half way. “maybe we can get ice cream tomorrow.”

It's remains hard to wrap his head around the fact that time hasn't stood still. It's what he gets for seeing his kids every day; he doesn't see the subtle differences that have added up over the years. They're no longer knee-high, round faces, easy homework. Moments like this one remind him that one day both of them will have their own lives outside of this house, and one is already starting to.

His head nods, the kind of 'okay' that it's meant to convey contradicts the worry line across his forehead. He wants to believe. As much as he believes in her, he has less faith in the other half of the equation that can guarantee that she will be fine. "Sure thing, kiddo," he says, half-hearted smile pushed up before it dips again. "He didn't..." he tries to slip into casualness, an ill-fitting polyester suit that shows every crease, "pressure you into coming by yourself either, right?"

she nodded at his directive, tapped her temple to signal that she retained the thought. she liked to watch people, note what made them different from one another. she was starting a new category, but she wasn’t sure what to label it yet, maybe special. because she knew cloud a lot better than she knew most people, she might even be able to see why julian was the one who was allowed to get past all those defenses that she’d seen her sister put up over the years. “keep an eye on them at the bistro.” the idea turns in her mind, as though it’s trying to find the connecting puzzle pieces of thought. “it’s like a stakeout.”

but her thoughts quickly shift with the next expression that presents itself to her. she hasn’t seen that one before, or at least not in the context of the this kind of conversation. she didn’t think they were talking about anything particularly painful, but she didn’t know for sure. “he can’t just say he likes her?” wasn’t communication supposed to be the most important part of a relationship— she thought that’s what anna had tried to teach her. it sounded like the kind of thing that she would have watched sitting on the couch, not really letting it play out in real life. “i guess they do like movies. you think i should ask?”

"Yeah. Chicago vice, that's us," he sighs, but it's sudden reminder that Fred will take him literally with the idea. "No, hold up there, 007, they're not Bonnie and Clyde. We don't need to pull out all the stops with the coffee and donuts here... Not yet." It's not something he really can close the door on entirely. It's more like a small gap left behind. "We'll just keep an eye out, okay? Save the surveillance for the big time." Last thing he needs is to push Claudia away. Subtlety is key. His favorite special agent might not be the expert in that field, but she's the best he's got.

"He'll say it if he's serious," Damion answers after a beat of a pause, vaguely remembering a timeline of his own high school days. Something about saying it to a Marla McCullough rings a bell, but it didn't pan out. Obviously. No matter, now. He's brought easily back to the present, staring at his daughter with a confused look, wondering how they got to talking about movies. "Ask if... he's kissed her?" he tries his best guess at the flow Fred took on before his own words catch up to him, making him grimace. He's not sure if he wants to know, but he should. He has to. "I don't know about that one. How would you bring it up?"

 “no!” she shouts louder than she meant and quicker than she wanted. the immediate and absolute shut down of the idea that she needed them to come along with her. she was just trying to spend some time with a— friend. she was just trying to spend some time in the church, she only wanted to talk to julian outside of the constraints of school, without the leering of inquisitive eyes. was it so much to ask? why did she want to ask it at all? his suggestion almost drove her from the entire line of inquiry, but another breath went in and out. she dug her heels in.

“i don’t need a babysitter. god, it was a joke.” there’s venom that she didn’t know that she could talk with, a pause taken as though she’s startled by the words coming out of her own mouth. they so rarely had these disagreements anymore, there hadn’t been a reason to. finally settling into a routine, and here was the disruption. was it that she couldn’t be trusted, or that something was wrong with julian, or something that she couldn’t puzzle out. “you already said i could go anyways.” and she was going to, it was the only thing she was sure of in the moment. “take wynn to go get ice cream or something. i’m fine.”

The no scatters across the kitchen like broken glass, each fragment flying in some random direction that doesn't mind what it pierces. It showers across Damion, who blinks back, the world of patience bolstering him. He doesn't have the kind of temper the kiddo has, not even at her age did it ever flare up that hard and fast. Though, at her age, he also didn't go through all the things she already has. It's the only thing that keeps him from doing much more than frown at her. "Hey," he calls out, firm but constructed poorly, wouldn't hold up if it was meant to be a permanent structure. He tries to fortify it with a crossing of the arms against his chest while eyes betray the foundation. "We don't shout in the house, all right? Especially when we just set up a curfew for the first time."

He could revoke it. He does have that power. He just doesn't have the heart to pull out the card. He's half-way there in a threat with no finger to pull the trigger, but all he needs is a good enough smoke screen to get by. "Listen, I'm not saying you can't go, but it doesn't hurt to have an extra pair of eyes on the"--he stops himself from saying date again--"meet up. We can go grab a cone when you're done. What if you invited the boy to tag along, huh?"

“does he?” she tried not to hang around the police station, they weren’t as nice as she thought they would be for people who were supposed to protect and serve. so if there’s a record to see, it’s going to take a while for her to find it. but she’s thinking it’s not possible. or at least probable, cloud was a pretty good judge of understanding those things. it wasn’t that crimes couldn’t be committed, sometimes they needed to be, but sometimes that didn’t really make them crimes either.

if there was a train of thought for her to follow, it’s quickly redirected all the same. with his own comments about shakespeare, ringing in her head over and over again. everyone croaks in the end. that was the truth, but sometimes people were special. they deserved green onions before then, and nice celebrations. but as much as she can follow a recipe, that’s not what catches her off guard, rather his last comment does. it finds no purchase in her train of thought, and she doesn’t know where to file it or what questions to ask. so she finds herself with only the obvious left. “what’s more? what’s more than talking?”

"I don't know, kid, that's what I'm..." He decides to sigh out the frustration, meditate on the issue instead. It's really on him. Fred isn't the kind of informant that has access to police logs and open warrants. "We'll just have to watch him, okay? At the first sign of a red flag, we'll find a way to pull the plug on him. That church was near a good bistro, too.." It's fine. It'd be worth the change. But he's talking in worst case scenarios. Maybe she won't get that attached. They're teenagers, after all. Doesn't all this stuff last for a few months?

The green onions are placed on the counter with the fridge door closing behind him, just in time for his daughter's questions to land on him, stir him away from contingency plans and fallout shelters. He adopts the face of a man that has recently been inflicted with food poisoning. "You know." It sounds strained because it is, a pain just to speak just that, and it doesn't look any easier in his shoulders, shifting them around to try to bring them onto the same page. He doesn't have to see her curious gaze to know it failed. "You know..." he tries helplessly again, trying to come up with something before frowning. Fuck. "When a boy... likes... a girl he tries to..." Wrinkles form at the bridge of his nose, fingers attempting to grasp for things that don't tangibly exist, but a breath rips the cartoon bandaid off, not touching the gauze tape that holds a bullethole together. "You know, kiss her."

“well i like the windows a lot, i think it could be…” but she trails off, realizing that the only person who’s really listening to her defense is in the corner of the kitchen slouching towards the stairs. her silent observer, to correct her errors of conversation later. she doesn’t actually think wynn would know what to say if the tables were turned, but she does know her sister’s smart enough to never actually find herself in this bumbling position. but she supposes there’s a small victor in the hard pert of it being over, she’s got a curfew in hand and the ride was already on his way. she was prepared to wash her hands of the entire situation until he fired off his next question.

“a what?” the word catches her off guard sharp, as though she’s been struck by something. her jaw drops, trying to comprehend why he would think that or why he would even say that. it seemed so out of the realm of possibility, they hardly knew each other. not in the way she thought people really should, at least given the facts of her own life. “i’m not calling it anything! i’m just taking some pictures— god!” she couldn’t imagine the world in which this would approximate anything near a date. “is that why you’re being so weird about this? do i need a chaperone?”

He's really stepped in it, now. Thought he could slide the word in without causing the house of cards from tumbling down, but he's thrown into a pit of faces that scream jokers instead. "All right, all right. Hold on there, Ansel Adams, I'm just asking if there's a chance some wires were crossed here." Damion's face always holds a tint of unintended apology to it, as if all he wants to do with his kids is understand them. It helps to try to make them understand back that he's not here to hold them back, only in the cases that prevent them from getting side-swiped by some lunatic in a mustang.

"Do you need one?" he asks after taking a pause, his own words slow and steady, packaged as an extended offer instead of a threat. "You won't know I'm there. Fred and I can follow you there and wait in the parking lot."

she thinks of all the blank white walls that could be filled with her photographs. the task should be daunting, but all it does is make her want to work hard, to strive for perfection. if a photo is hung on a wall, eventually people will see it. and she refuses to give them the occasion to comment anything more than it’s beautiful. it does sound great, and her dishes are rinsed amidst the concentration that it brings to her features. it’s enough to let a nod slip by in answer to the questions that he’s asking her, her guard lowered in relief over not having had to continue the most excruciating part of the conversation. they agreed on a time, well enough. she doesn’t need to keep anything else from him.

“i was looking at the windows anyways.” it sounds more defensive than it should be, considering that he’s just asked a question. she was staring at the windows when she should have been watching the priest during mass, and she got caught by someone who should have been paying attention to the words being spoken all the same. she’s not sure that it’s anyone’s fault, but there’s something that makes her skin itch when the priest starts talking about how they’re all going to get into heaven. “he just thought it would be a good idea.”

"So, this was all his big idea," Damion's voice almost comes out like he's talking to himself, like a confirmation to some truth he didn't want to accept so soon in the game. Now that he has it, he feels like he was better without it. Now that he has it, he feels like he should have stayed firm on his original curfew time. His face is a brewing storm of nerves and scenarios that hours of crime documentaries have seeded, not to mention the occasional splash of teen rom-coms that sneak onto the screen somehow. They do not make a good combination.

"Are you kids calling this a date, then?"

“it’s not technically his.” when people asked for title and registration that usually meant something. she didn’t actually know the official documentation on the car that julian drove, but there was probably a way to figure it out. one had to be sure when they were making these kinds of claims. “but he can drive. i think he’s only been pulled over once for speeding.” she remembered the story, relayed in laughter and don’t tell dad. although she still hadn’t really figured out why he shouldn’t know some things, the boundaries between adult and teenager have never really solidified in her mind the way they have for her sister.

all of it’s dropped with his next round of questions, her mind spinning to see where the new puzzle pieces of phrases clicked into place. “did she really?” romeo and juliet was assigned for a different class, she read macbeth. there’s a word of a difference between the two couples, their endings withstanding. she doesn’t think of her sister as a lady macbeth type, and julian is no romeo.

“he only really talks to her.” there’s no bias to the words, just an honest observation that she’s made and been able to see time and time again. finding each other almost subconsciously, letting gravity sort out the issue of who was going to find who. “and me.” she doesn’t know if the number is too small or too large, or if people should be laughing at him more. she doesn’t ever find what julian says to be funny, but she’s not sure that that’s all laughter has to be made of. it’s a hypothesis she’s working on, not ready for public consumption. “is that bad? only talking to two people in a building of a thousand?”

"Hold on. Are you saying he already has a record?" Lord, why are you testing him in this way? Julian's score inside the Killgrave household takes a big dent, almost as big as the car crash he'll probably wind up in one day, and he better not take his daughter down with him. The thought alone is enough to add twenty pounds to his limbs as they walk into the kitchen, feeling the fridge door open heavily as the various condiments and glassed ingredients rattle slightly against the shelves.

"Did she really what? Sorry." He's already lost track of that part of their conversation, something about the appliance's light zapping away a sense of reality before he shakes his head. "Nevermind, kid. Shakespeare is overrated, all right? Don't worry about it. Everyone croaks in the end. Do you see the green onions?"

Cooking will solve all this. Dinner and the dessert they've already talked about. At least it'll put his head right, away from the concerns that come with raising teenagers. Though, there's never really any escape, ears always open for more information that'll feed into it. If he's only talking to Claudia it's not the worst, right? "I guess not," he mumbles as he takes out a few things from the glass shelves, turning around to set them down on the counter. "As long as he hasn't tried anything more than talking."

“airbags.” she nods with one sharp affirmation, everything that her dad says is filed away under not to be questioned. the authoritative truth of a situation can be found in his reasoning, and the facts are most of the time secondary. there are a few topics on which she has to default to an encyclopedia, but not now. “they save lives.” makes perfect sense to her, although it doesn’t really take away from the fact that the car is cool on the outside. maybe it’s just less cool on the inside. she makes a mental note to ask claudia when she finally comes back. some version of here’s the pudding and are the seats leather as the door opens.

“they like each other.” her observations are minimal at best, mostly because she can’t yet connect the feelings that her sister might be experiencing to something in her own wheelhouse. which is okay, there’s still lots of life to be lived. “is it supposed to be serious?” she never considered that a relationship should have to be that. she thought they always had the best time when there was “he makes her laugh. like here,” she tapped right below her eye, as though that would make everything clear. “she says they’re friends. she told you that right?”

"Yeah, that's right," he confirms for her, has that touch of hope that she knew that already instead of taking a wild guess at it, but either way it's known now; he can't argue with the results, no matter how they arrive at them. It's a conversation for another day. They have to stay on topic, as tempted as he is to want to talk about something else besides some boy making his move into their lives. If he thinks he's getting Claudia, there's no way, not without all of them. "How does a kid like him get a car like that, anyways?" Sure, it's Father Rafael's, but that's just what he was told. "I wouldn't be the one giving him the keys if it was mine."

The blueprint is lifted up carefully, mulling over everything as it slides into the drawer, knowing that there's a chance Claudia could want to use the desk, whenever she returns. If she returns. Lord, he needs to stop watching Dateline with the kid. Seeing Julian Santiago on the screen one day would be all that he needs. "He better be taking it seriously." It doesn't make the mark as a threat, more worry, prep for doomsday. Hearing that he makes her laugh doesn't do much to chip it away either, makes him look at Fred as if questioning whose side she's on around these parts. "Yeah, that's probably what Juliet told her dad, too. Look how far south that went." And he's going out on a limb here and saying that that boy is no Romeo. "Who else is he being chuckles the clown for?"

the sharp gets lost, as does the rest of the sentence. attention dropped off right at the moment an agreement is struck and she gets to say that yes she can go to the church, and better still she can stay. any authority that’s supposed to be met with deference is already pushed to the wayside, left for her to deal with after she gets home.  she stood up from the table quickly, finally able to scrape the remains of her dinner into the garbage and clean up her own plate. she doesn’t need the distraction any longer. 

it would almost all be dropped if it weren’t for his last sentence, reaching back out from authority. that awkward conversation they have to have every now and then which feels more painful than it should have to. but he corrects, once again he’s their dad. "where in the office?” as though the particular wall would make a difference for the photo she might take. if there was a doubt at the seriousness of her agenda, the spark of gears starting to turn in her mind must give away that she is still very much involved in her creative endeavor, no matter what influences her to pick the church. “the outside of the church might look better there.”

He's not going to tell her he didn't excuse her from the table. He's not a warden. They reached an agreement, and if she wants to go without saying anything, he guesses he'll take it, but not if he can help it. It gives him some life to see her turn around, hooked by photos, wanting to connect to her interests as much as possible. Photography is great. It's no architecture path, but he's happy for whatever works for her, just as long as it keeps her on the straight and narrow, out of any trouble. He'd like to say that the church should be a safe bet when it comes to that, but he's still holding out on those reservations.

"Sounds great, kiddo. I was thinking we could pick a spot later, but go at it. You're the artist. Whatever you say goes, okay?" As long as it's just... this part. Not the whole... come home late stuff. That's not up for renegotiation. But he nods along, anything to bridge the time, moving away from his chair and headed towards the connected kitchen with her. "So, this'll be a blast," he goes on, knuckles tapping slightly against the counter as if to cement its existence. Yep. Still there. All level. Nothing wrong here. Not in their house. "Whose big idea was all this? Did uh..."--this name just isn't getting any easier to say--"Julian ask you?"

she doesn’t know when sunset is, it sees like the kind of question that wynn would know the answer to but she doesn’t want to try and draw in the third party that’s already watching at the sidelines. she knows she’ll hear about it later either way, and she doesn’t exactly need to be fighting against two people here. not when she just wants to be able to go to the church for a few hours, is it really that difficult?

“nine?” exasperation is bordering on each word, as though it were already asking too much of her. he thinks it’s easy, and all she sees are the prison bars closing down around her. the tap of a rock against her window, asking about one more moment. who wouldn’t want just one more moment. “what about the candles?” her mind searched for the word, that would make it more official. as though a knowledge of the terminology that might seek to legitimize what she was asking. “the votives?” check, as though she’d been speaking to the priest himself. no need for the double check.“what about ten?”

Nine goes over like a lead balloon. He expected as much, but was holding out hope it'd go the other way. He's learned he's not the toughest when it comes to negotiations. Hard to have a firm hand when he still has memories of his girls that pull him back from any thought of being tougher on them. Hasn't been easy hearing her wake up in the middle of night, woken up by her own nightmares, or having to grapple with the fear of water, just things a young girl should never have to go through. His only concern is that he doesn't want her to go through anything else, to add onto the layers of scarring that she's already tried to heal from.

Is attending church all that bad? He doesn't know what to make of her throwing out the lingo, makes him stare at her like she's just enlisted in the war without telling him, wondering and confused. And then the grenade is thrown to up the time. An extra hour of staring at his phone, waiting for a call. He lets out a sigh, one he was aiming to be silent but streams out in the final act. "Means a lot to you, huh, kiddo?" Really, she's never asked for anything before. He glances up like there will be a sign that tells him one way or another what the right choice is, but another sixty minutes shouldn't be the end of the world, right? "Ten sharp, okay? No detours." He has to demonstrate a little toughness here, make her know he means business, but it'd be more effective if his brows weren't still knit together with concern. "We'll take a look at the photos together when you get back, too. We can frame a few around the place. I could use a good one for the office."