for Jag

[offthebeatenpath]

Em had known it was a temporary situation from the beginning, and whenever she'd asked the cards something related, they'd hinted temporary would end fairly soon. So when the most responsible of the flatmates had said he wanted to talk to her not long into the new year, she'd been prepared for what he had to tell her.

The guy whose room she'd been staying in was coming back from Midsomer Newton or wherever - she'd never been entirely clear what English village he'd ended up in, mostly because no one seemed to tell her the same name twice - in a week, so she had to clear out by then.

She didn't like having to depend on anyone, and she could work something out herself, but Jag had said to call, that he would help. So she'd called, and they'd agreed to meet for a bite and to figure things out once they were through for the day.

Em thanked the middle-aged housewife type who'd been her last reading for the day, and once the woman left, packed up her cards, the tiny folding table, and most importantly, the can holding the last of the day's take. The rest was already tucked away elsewhere, so it wasn't as easy for someone else to grab.

She could do with a chance to warm up, and, if she let herself admit it, with seeing Jag again. It had been easier making friends at Muir. London was a far lonelier place for someone like Em, and would have been even if this had been her world from the beginning.

Comments

[jageskro]

It had been something of a surprise to get rung up by Em. It wasn't that Jag had forgotten about her, but he thought she might have forgotten about him. Besides, life got busy, and she probably had better things to do. Especially since he was bound remind her of her ex, however complicated all of that seemed to be.

He'd been glad to hear from her, though, and readily accepted to meet for dinner. If he could help her, all the better. She was Roma, and that was all he needed.

"'lo, bab," he greeted her with a half-smile when she walked up to him at the small pub they'd settled on. "How'd your day go?" His hadn't been so bad, although he'd had to pick a few pockets to complement what he'd earned busking.

[offthebeatenpath]

The start of a smile she'd had for Jag as she walked up turned wry at the question. "It was all right. I'll be glad when the weather warms up, though. More people will be willing to hang around long enough for me to do my thing." A few people who stopped made the leap to realizing she was sitting outside a lot longer than them, though. It hadn't been this cold in Rome, and at Muir, she'd spent less time outside in winter. Well, except when her I-sleep-with-an-icicle teacher wanted to meet there.

"Hope yours was good."

[jageskro]

"Cold isn't much of a problem, a lot of the time," Jag replied with a half smile. "Come on, how's a hot toddy to warm you up? Let's grab a booth." He'd been waiting for her at the counter, with a pint, but they could go grab a table as soon as she got her drink.

[offthebeatenpath]

Pyro hated the cold, but as long as he had his lighter, he could have a fire. Em only had that when he was around.

"I knew I should've become a fire dancer," Em said before the man behind the bar came over to take her order. She asked for a pint not anything hot, though; she'd warm up soon enough now she was inside. Then once she had her drink, she nodded to let him lead the way to wherever he wanted to sit.

[jageskro]

"You know, just say the word," he told her as he led the way towards a booth, carrying two food menus along with his own pint. "I know some people who could teach you."

Joking more than not, but only because he didn't think she had been serious. She had her thing already, and from what she had shared, he thought it might be to her what fire was to him. She wouldn't swap that for a dance number, no matter how hot it might be. In every sense of the word.

[offthebeatenpath]

She shook her head, almost laughing at the idea as she followed him. Dancing wasn't her thing, with or without fire. "If I were a dancer, I'd starve," she said, shedding her coat before getting settled on one side of the booth.

"I'll stick to the things I can actually do, thanks." Things that didn't require people looking at her were a good start, and both the tarot and her art were meant to draw the eye.

[jageskro]

"I had an inkling you were gonna say that," Jag confirmed with a smirk, because she was the seer. He set everything down on the table and, once seated, took off his jacket and dropped it on the bench beside him. "So how long have you got?"

Until she needed another roof over her head, but since that was the point of their meeting, he assumed that she wouldn't need a proper segue.

[offthebeatenpath]

"So you agree with me then." As soon as she said it, Em realized that could have sounded like she was fishing for a compliment, when she really really wasn't. Better to move on to other things, like her impending homelessness.

"They said a week. But it could be more. Or less. Hopefully a week. And I'd be okay for a few days, if I need to before finding some place less temporary."

[jageskro]

Less temporary; good phrasing, better than more permanent. "There's only three of us in the squat I'm in, if you want in. The more the merrier. We try and make certain there's always someone home, so they can't just evict us." He took a sip from his beer, then went on, "It's a suit of offices, so there's room. And we even have a shower. We chip in for electricity and water. The other two are also blokes, though, so if that's not comfortable for you, I can ask around, I'm sure there are other options."

[offthebeatenpath]

'More permanent' was a cozy flat in a village in Scotland in another world altogether. That had been reason enough to fall back into thinking of anywhere Em stayed as at best 'less temporary'.

Jag was all right, Em was sure of that, but the thought of sharing a place with all guys, she wasn't as sure about that. She'd never been all that comfortable around most men, probably because there'd always been more women in her life, often only women. "Maybe I could meet them first?" she suggested as she reached, almost subconsciously, for a deck from her bag. Sabine and Dani had told her more than once she relied on the tarot too much sometimes, but in this case it made sense to check. Right? "I can pay into the utilities; that shouldn't be a problem."

[jageskro]

"Of course, yeah," Jag agreed easily. "They're alright, really. Not Roma. Ollie's an artist, too. Mostly scrap art - he uses one of the offices as his workshop. He's there a lot, so that works out for me and Jake - musician. Busker, too." His gaze fell on the deck of cards she'd just pulled out of her bag, and he raised inquisitive eyebrows.

[offthebeatenpath]

That didn't sound so bad. And once Em's got more of a cushion, or gets more commissions - she's supposed to meet with a woman next week to discuss one - she'll be able to spend more time working there than on busking, making it even easier for someone to always be there.

She followed his gaze, then shrugged, almost sheepish, then began to shuffle. "If it's a terrible idea or a brilliant one, it doesn't hurt to know ahead of time, right? I've used the cards for less."

[jageskro]

"No, I'm curious," Jag admitted, clarifying the fact that there had been no judgement in the look he had given the cards. "Our fortune teller - she always told me the only way the cards told the future was when she read the present right - not just in her spreads, but in the people, mostly. She's a great con."

Definitely no judgement there either, but the point was, he was seriously curious about someone who could actually get the future from her cards. He probably should've been more sceptical about the entire thing, but he didn't believe she was out to con him.

There were far better marks than a poor Roma squatter kid.

[offthebeatenpath]

"I'm only an okay con. Mostly because I don't like running scams unless I need to," Em admitted, and for a change, she wasn't shortchanging herself. She done enough grifting to get by, but she was better at other things. "And I can read people pretty well. That I learned from the fortuneteller before me. This guy had given me a ticket to the carnival, and when I saw a fortuneteller, I had to go in. She read me, but I read the cards she'd thrown. Then she dragged me to the boss saying they'd found the real deal. When they left town, I went with them."

[jageskro]

Jag smiled at the story; he could imagine it all too easily. "What's her name?" Just because it seemed likely that Em would bring her up again, at some point; she seemed important enough that it was worth knowing her name.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Addy. Madame Astra to the paying customers." Addy had been the main one looking out for Em until Sabine found her, and she'd taught her a lot. "She would've said I should keep moving instead of sticking around London. But she also would've been one of the first to want me to check the tarot for what to do."

Returning her thoughts to the present, and future, Em shuffled once more then flipped over the top three cards, her gaze unfocused as she studied them. She was curious about Ollie and Jake, but she could always dig deeper later, if she wanted to know more than she could get by meeting them. But the cards suggested she would accept Jag's offer, and that helped already.

[jageskro]

Jag bit back any answer he might've made, unwilling to risk disturbing her concentration. He kept quiet, looked at the three cards - especially since he was curious to see what kind of tarot she used - but then looked up at her and just watched her looking at the cards. He took another drink from his pint, happy to wait in silence for her to be done.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Sorry," she said when she looked up from the cards. "I usually try not to derail conversations completely like that. Not any more. I was pretty bad about it when I was a kid." Not that she had a lot of people wanting to talk to her then, but still. The tarot had been easier at lot of the time.

[jageskro]

"I don't mind," Jag assured her easily. The cards seemed to fit, for what little he knew of her. Pretty, pastel colours, complex. He had no idea what the spread might mean, though, for all that he knew the general meanings of some of the cards; he'd never really taken to it. "What's it say, then?"

[offthebeatenpath]

"That I'm going to say yes." She'd also gotten a peek at Ollie and Jake, but not really who they were, so she still felt like she'd be more comfortable meeting them first.

"And a little that my cousin would probably like to see what Ollie's working on."

[jageskro]

"Really?" Jag asked, not challenging her cousin's taste so much as being honestly surprised at the kind of things she could read in the tarot. She'd mentioned, but it was different from having a concrete example, and his lips twitched up into an amused smile. "Well, brilliant then. You want to stop by tonight, meet the guys if they're around?"

Ollie would be, at least, although he might still be in full creative mode. Not at his best conversation-wise, when he was.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Yeah. I mean, um, if it's not a problem. I don't want to be in the way or anything." Em knew what creative types could be like when in the middle of something, and she wasn't the type to interrupt someone's flow.

The tarot hadn't shown any trouble with her moving in, so she was less worried about being an imposition in that way - which she would have been otherwise, even knowing the reasons another person squatting there was a good thing.

[jageskro]

"Hey, if Ollie's in one of his moods, we'll just stay out of his way," Jag simply offered. "And Jake's usually pretty sociable, for what it's worth. If he's around, I can't promise anything."

[offthebeatenpath]

Em laughed softly. "When I'm in the zone painting, the walls could come crashing down and I'm not sure I would notice, or care." Hyperbole, sure, but she was used to sharing studio space with Sabine and living in a castle where explosions (intentional or not) weren't unusual.

"So yeah, not interrupting Ollie if he's working. No reason I couldn't stop by again in a day or two, if I don't get to meet him or Jake tonight."

[jageskro]

"Now that sounds like a plan," Jag confirmed with a half smile, and nodded at her cards, since they were still out, and they each had some beer to finish before they could get going. "Do me? Unless you have a policy against reading for potential flatmates."

[offthebeatenpath]

If Em had needed proof she missed home - meaning Pyro, Sabine, and Dani mostly - she would have found it in the twitch of a grin for his phrasing and how it could have been interpreted. But she didn't need the proof.

She set the deck on the table in front of him. "If anything, I'm more willing to read for potential flatmates." Or about them. "Shuffle, focusing on what you want to know. When it feels like you're done, give the cards back, and I'll see what I see."

[jageskro]

Jag had never much liked the old card tricks, but he'd still practiced them enough that his shuffle was, if somewhat rusty, at least easier than most people's. He wasn't after anything in particular, so at first he focused on that, hands mechanically moving the cards in an Indian shuffle.

He didn't really want to know what his future was made of, so... For a second, he thought about Sam and David, and whether they were happy. But no, he'd rather know about his true family than about them, much as his heart still tightened at the thought of them. He hoped they were, and that they would be.

He focused back on the here and now; best way to live, and have Em a smirk as he found the question he wanted to ask. Whether she would become family.

A riffle shuffle later, he did a few weaves, until he was happy with the deck, and handed it back to her before taking a drink from his pint.

[offthebeatenpath]

Her head tilted to the side when the first card revealed was the Fool. And not just any Fool, but because it was this deck, the one she most identified with outside the one she'd painted herself. It still could have signified many things, but with her gaze unfocused, looking through the cards to the visions they triggered, it stood for Em.

At the second, she froze. Hands, breath, heart, time, all seemed to stop until she laid out three more cards in a flurry of motion, as though looking for something. And finally two more to complete the pattern, after she didn't find what she had wanted to see.

Two fingers traced over the stream in the final card she'd drawn as she looked up from the cards again. "There's happiness to be found in the familiar. It's comfortable and easy. And that's not always bad. It can be just what people need when they're wandering, not sure where they're headed. Or when they charge in too fast, and need to remember where they come from." She didn't say he'd wanted to know about her, or that she'd seen him as well. He knew what he'd asked, and her answer should point him in the right direction.

[jageskro]

Charging in too fast definitely sounded like him, even if he didn't think he'd ever forget where he came from. Not where he really felt he came from, anyway. Wandering - they all did, in a way, but he wasn't sure that was what she meant. Still, it was a positive answer, and he gave her a half-smile, not doubting that she knew what he'd asked about. She'd reacted oddly to the first couple of cards, after all. "Well, that's good, then."

[offthebeatenpath]

"Yeah, it is. I hope it kind of answered your question."

Em wasn't going to look too closely at why that card had come up for Jag. It was probably just the fire, and the desire to keep moving, she told herself. And it was a good reading, that as comfortable as she already was around him, that would only continue to grow. She needed that. As much as she could hermit, she'd rarely been truly lonely the way she's been since arriving in London, although those weeks after Bobby shattered were close.

[jageskro]

"Kind of," Jag confirmed, the smile reaching his eyes. Kind of, because it was still vague, but he liked it that way. "I like kind-of. No offense to your gift, but I don't think I'd like to know exactly what's coming."

[offthebeatenpath]

"Most people agree with you on that." It never bothered Em that people didn't want to know exactly what was coming. She was pretty sure you had to be at least a little crazy to truly want to know.

"Knowing and not being able to do anything about it isn't much fun."

[jageskro]

"So fate does exist?" Jag asked, eyebrows raised. He hadn't actually thought about that, after she'd told him what she could do. "You can't change what you see?"

That seemed... cruel.

[offthebeatenpath]

Em smiled, but it was almost sad. Resigned and nostalgic too. "My grandmother used to say all I could do was ride the wave. I may not always see clearly, and rarely the whole picture, but what I see is Truth, and just as inevitable."

[jageskro]

"Well, that's shitty," Jag sympathised, after finishing his pint. He meant it. She couldn't always see nice things, after all, and he really didn't like the thought of his future already being written. What about free will in all this?

[offthebeatenpath]

"It can be." Em gathered her cards, gave a quick shuffle, and put them back in her bag. "But so is not seeing what I need to know."

She shrugged, and finished off the beer she'd barely noticed drinking. "There's a reason the stories talk of Seers going mad."

[jageskro]

Jag opened his mouth to reply to that, then changed his mind, all things considered. "That feels like a conversation for stronger alcohol. We keep stumbling into those."

[offthebeatenpath]

"Sorry?" Em bit at her lip, sheepish again. He was kind of right, though. Serious and messed up topics kept coming up between them, mostly because of her and how crazy her life was.

"I'm not really that complicated, I promise."

[jageskro]

"I know," Jag confirmed, warmly, because, well, her reading. "You're just the right level of complicated." Or he wouldn't put up with it, he was aware of that much about himself.

[offthebeatenpath]

It felt good, that easy acceptance, especially since Em never expected it from people. Good enough she felt okay teasing back. "I thought I was supposed to be the seer here."

[jageskro]

"My thing? Reading the future in empty beer pints," Jag answered with a playful smirk, and grabbed his. "Speaking of. I need new reading material. I'll be right back."

She was far from done with hers, after all, and he wasn't the type of bloke who just watched someone drink. Joining in was a lot more fun.