STONE / BREAKER

but like all the others, he must try. "shit," he sucks in a breath through his teeth, forehead scrunching in the way that only ever means bad news. "i killed it last night. i am so sorry, i haven't had the chance to grab more yet." quickly, having been given a new task to steady his stomach, dom abandons they precarious laundry-and-laptop combo he had been carrying to display a sheepish, consoling grin. "i can go out right now, but, hear me out. you can come with me if you want, and i will also provide complimentary bad-roommate, let-me-make-it-up-to-you breakfast. completely not contingent on the company provided and completely your choice of locale."

which, to be fair, he would have done anyway. she looks miserable, and it is far, far easier to offer her this, an errand run and a weight off her shoulders, as if it is an apology, rather than a pity. dom, cracking his door open to swipe his keys from the desk, is more than happy to play their game of pretend for a little while. "i didn't wake you, did i? i thought i heard you up pretty late."

she heads over to the door to slip on her shoes and is immediately grateful to be facing away from dom as he asks her about the rest of her night. "no, no," she begins, kneeling down to fiddle with her shoelaces. "you're fine. i slept like a rock this morning. last night, um- i was just up for a while, y'know..." she lets the pause linger as she stands, then picks the sentence back up again as she turns to face her roommate once again. "it was hard to fall asleep, after everything." she doesn't elaborate, and she doesn't think she needs to.

but of course, even admitting that it had happened was sucking her right back into those feelings. what do you think of me now? she wants to ask. do you think i'm awful because of something i didn't even do? will you think i'm worse when you find out the truth? dom wasn't the type to be hateful, or to hold a grudge, but with something this massive... maybe she didn't want to know the answer. "it doesn't matter." she's speaking out loud, maybe adding on to her last statement to dom, maybe addressing her own thoughts, but regardless, it's verbalized. "ready to go?"

air has been thick with a grey-coloured tension since the group had excavated marcel’s office & apartment, the kind of gloom that settles on your shoulders and feels impossible to shrug off. she finds it hard to breathe, lungs full of a gloopy density she knows is anxiety, but she imagines looks just like tar. and whilst gemma can’t even begin to understand how emilia must feel, secret exposed to the winds,  the threat of exposure plays on everyone’s minds. who’s next? the question on dry lips, skin cracked with worry as if only the first warning shot has been triggered. 

however, when the gentle knock at her front door revealed gemma, emilia's hard-set expression softened, the brows that had been furrowed all morning unknit. "hey, gemma." she greets the other girl, her gaze flitting down to the basket in gemma's hands. it's a sweet gesture, one that sends a crack through her heart. you didn't have to do all this, she wants to say, it's not real. but of course, she says nothing, just listens to gemma's voice and tries not to think too hard about the whole thing, as if that's ever worked for her.

"this is really kind of you, gemma, thank you. i'm... alright." it's a tentative answer, but she pushes forth a small smile for her visitor. "'cool' isn't the word i'd use, but it's nice to know they don't think i'm awful for it." she takes a step back, opening the door wider so that gemma and her basket of goodies could enter the apartment. "want to come in? i don't think i can eat all these cupcakes by myself."

and you know what?! as you SHOULD! give my girl emilia some lovin'!

she wasn't sure what emilia had known about the situation, other than what dominic could've maybe told her since they were roommates and all. to her, it didn't seem like emilia was fishing for information for her own personal gain. aileen hoped she wasn't wrong about that assumption. "pasta sounds good," she answered as she followed emilia into the kitchen, thanking her for the plate. the idea of seeing dominic right now made her stomach churn, regardless if that had been her original objective. she was starting to feel an air of relief that he wasn't here, not so much because she didn't want to see him, but more so because she had to come to realize that she wouldn't have known what to say to him if he'd been home. against her better judgement, she decided to give emilia a tiny sliver of information of how she was feeling for once. "that marcel shit is messed up. but, i mean, we saw a lot that night... i'm surprised more bottles weren't thrown around by the others." as if that made it any better.

"dom won't hold onto it." emilia poked at her pasta with her fork, unsure of exactly where the thought came from but certain in its truth. "he may have been worked up about it last night, but so was everyone else. i know he cares about you far too much to let it come between you two." not that she was any sort of expert when it came to relationships - in fact, she was probably the opposite. the isolation she brought upon herself since coming to meraviglia certainly hadn't done her any favors in that respect. she simply knew dom, and she knew aileen, and she knew that they'd work it out like they always do.

it’s a lot of questions for so early in the morning, she’s aware, but she’s letting her anxiety get the better of her, her tongue moving faster than her brain, syllables creeping up her throat and falling from her lips without amendment. “you’d hope not, but you never know. he did.. have something on all of us, didn’t he? maybe someone couldn’t bare the thought of him playing with their secret. he could be… temperamental sometimes. a million things could have happened to set him off.”

with gemma's addition of the fact that marcel did indeed have something on all of them, emilia very nearly shuddered. "he does - did, i mean. have something on us. but do you think any of those things are so bad that one of us would kill him for it?" the secret she gave to marcel wasn't one born of truth, but she'd like it kept hidden regardless. it wouldn't be hard for anyone to figure out she had lied, and that would start to unravel the entire story she'd spun since arriving at meraviglia. a recipe for disaster, sure, but would she kill someone to keep it from happening? no way. "i mean, you're right. it could have been a million things. there's definitely more to this that we don't know."

"i'm looking for a book called the animals among us by john bradshaw, most likely in the nonfiction section? not for a class or anything, just... fun," he says, though the words sound foreign in his mouth. chan struggles to characterize anything he does as fun, as emilia puts it, since he'd like to think he's far too serious of an academic for that. "and maybe to take my mind off everything else happening, too. i guess you achieve that by working here, right?" again, he almost stumbles over the word 'working', like he's learning a dead language.

"animals among us, bradshaw." she repeats his request, mostly to herself, and slides off her chair. "you can follow me - the nonfiction stacks are back this way." her words are thrown softly over her shoulder as maneuvers around the checkout counter and starts heading toward the nonfiction section, contemplating his next question while she walked. "i mean, typically, i'd say yes, but things have been so crazy lately. i'm not sure anything could fully take my attention away from the shit we've been dealing with." as if on cue, emilia's mind starts racing as they meander through the stacks, and she doesn't want to dump her thoughts on chan, who simply came in looking for a book, but she just can't help herself. the floodgates were already open. "do you think the cops are gonna start lingering around the school? there's no way i'm gonna be able to finish my coursework at any level of success if we have to be constantly reminded of what happened."

fitz grins at emilia's threats, knowing they're hollow. "i'd be just fine with that, as long as i get an invitation to watch," he tells emilia with a cheeky wiggle of his eyebrows. "when was the last time you got laid, miss 'what if i talked her up'? i don't exactly see you with honeys hanging off your arm in the hallways. don't tell me you woo them once and then they never want to walk emilia street again?"

a roll of her eyes indicates her disgust at his suggestion to 'watch,' though the small smile tugging at her lips gave away the humor she found in his comment. she shifts her weight at his next question, contemplating how to answer. the last person i fucked was your best friend seems a little too brash. and who's to say fitz didn't already know? none of your business would be simple and effective, but a bit too distant and perhaps oversensitive. "i don't kiss and tell," she begins, "but if you're so curious, you should know that i don't keep my sexual exploits exclusive to our little circle. if you haven't seen any signs of me getting laid, then maybe you just aren't looking in the right places."

zipper  done  with,  one  arm  holding  her  dress  in  place,  gen  turns  to  face  emilia.  she’s  closer  to  emilia  than  she  ever  usually  is.  close  enough  to  smell  her  perfume,  not  one  she  recognizes,  and  close  enough  to  see  every  flicker  of  expression  that  runs  across  her  face  in  crystal  clear  detail.  “  you  poor  thing.  you  said  your  dad  was  an  attorney  right  ?  he  must  be  a  real  hardass.  ”  her  expression  shifts  to  one  of  camaraderie,  the  curiosity  and  scrutiny  of  her  gaze  hidden  behind  charming  eyes,  “  we  should  grab  martinis  and  talk  about  dads  sometime,  my  treat  ”  it  could  be  an  offer  of  friendship  or  it  could  be  a  trap,  but  genevieve  spins  it  like  a  web.

"an attorney, yeah. corporate law. he is a hardass, though i don't think he sees it that way." she chuckles, but it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. her father was one of the most selfless, compassionate people she'd ever known. to speak of him like this, to lie about who he is, put a hole through em's chest like a cannonball. she takes a step back from gen, desperate to escape the other girl's magnetic gaze. it felt like gen was staring through her, down to her bones. "oh yeah," she nods, "for sure."

my treat. was she taunting her? did it matter? "i'd never say no to a martini."

emilia bites the inside of her cheek, reminding herself that if gen forgot to pay her back, she could always ask dove to cover it - though she hated asking dove to cover things. "if you want, i can go ahead and pay for the dress while you finish getting changed." the last thing em needed was for gen to see her using the debit card from her local indiana-based credit union.

em took a sip of her coffee, contemplating gemma's words. it certainly was strange, watching the group fall to pieces before her eyes, just for a night, before they had to form a united front in the name of saving their secrets. but to think that any one of them had something to do with this felt impossible. "i think things just got a bit rowdy, that's all. we were all drinking, y'know? and we got some really unfortunate news." the understatement of the century, perhaps. "i don't think anyone in praeditus would be capable of anything that sinister - not even adonis." it's supposed to be a joke, but emilia isn't sure that anything about marcel's untimely demise would strike gemma as particularly funny.

rather than covering up, she decided against it. in moments like these where she'd been caught off-guard, aileen's looks and confidence tended to become her go to armor. right then and there, she needed the appearance of security more than anything, especially in front of emilia. "sure. thanks, em," she told the other woman before she stepped into the apartment. "i'm fine. i just had a little too much to drink," she waved it off with a soft smile. "did you eat? want to order dinner?" maybe food would distract emilia from asking aileen questions about last night.

besides, lending an ear to listen wasn't getting too involved, she supposed. she wasn't taking sides, wasn't meddling, but was instead simply acting as a confidante, or a friend, should aileen need it. "i haven't eaten yet, but i've got some pasta on the stove." she closed the door behind aileen as the other woman entered the apartment. "there's plenty, so we can save dom a plate, too." emilia makes her way over to the kitchen, pulls out a couple plates, and dishes some pasta onto both. after handing one to aileen, along with a fork, she settles into her usual spot at the dining table. "are you sure you're alright?" her elbows rest lightly on the dark wood as she speaks - bad manners, she knows, but a habit she could never break. "i know you can take care of yourself, but with everything going on, i wouldn't judge you for not being 100% okay right now. god knows i'm not."