brighton | the sun in the trees bleeds marigold and wine { senna }

She pouted a little, her imagined chocolate chip pancakes being a no go, but a second later she was smiling. "i can do strawberries actually. I had a dream I was eating strawberries on stage a couple of nights ago. What do you think that means?" Well it felt like a stage with lots of lights shining on her and there were other girls there, but it was more of a feeling of knowing there were other people there than actually seeing them. Dreams were weird and she liked that the strangest ones seemed to stay with her for longer like a window into another world.

Senna only glanced between him and the door confused, slow to realize that he might have forgotten his keys, then smiling softly as he found them. Silly Kai. She looped her arm around his affectionately as they made their way to the lift and rested her chin on his shoulder as they traveled upwards to his flat. "Mmmhmm," she agreed to his 'just curious' line, trying to swim through the fog of her mind to see if there were any other tells as to his feelings for her best friend. Not that she wanted them to get back together. Did she? They had lit up hotter and quicker than she could have imagined and crashed and burned just as fast. Rhey had been a mess for days and while she wasn't one to put blame on any one person, she had to think that maybe they just weren't meant for each other. As great of friends as they were to her, maybe it was good that they were distant.

Walking beside him as they went towards his door, she tilted her head. "I think that was on purpose," she said ruefully with a small smile. While Senna hadn't had to choose between her best friends, she also respected that Rhey wasn't comfortable seeing Kai at their shows and so Senna had prioritized her and Kai's friendship in a different way that didn't emphasize time spent around the band.

The moment she stepped inside though she almost took a step back. Maybe it had been the fresh air they had gotten or the fact that she hadn't slept in what felt like ages, but she got an icky feeling from the room and she knew his place wasn't haunted. "Need to bring sage next time. This room needs a good cleansing," she muttered to herself as she went towards the kitchen, suddenly starving.

“Were you sitting on the edge of the stage?” Kai asked, “Or performing?” He had no idea why he was asking such questions, or what bullshit he could come up with in response to her affirming either option, but, whatever. The words were coming out pretty much as soon as he’d had the thought. “I had a dream my teeth were all falling out,” he remembered vaguely. “I think you were there, but we were talking in Japanese.”

On purpose? “Yeah,” Kai said, “that’s true.” He hadn’t wanted to see her ever again, and then he had – and did – and then he hadn’t. How about now, he wondered? The idea didn’t seem so bad right now, but he did quietly acknowledge that his current state of mind might not exactly be the best one for making decisions about reconnecting with exes. He stepped out of the lift, glad that the strange standing-still-but-in-motion feeling disappeared as he did so.

Kai opened the door – he hadn't locked it when they'd left, apparently – and let her go in first. He shut the door behind them, but wasn’t really listening to Senna as she muttered to herself. He moved ahead of her to the kitchen, on autopilot as he checked the cupboards for different things. "You're still in London, then?" he asked, reaching for a glass bowl on one of the shelves. The plural you was implied, but not said outright. They'd definitely already had this conversation, but Kai couldn't remember much from the last few hours, and it was too much effort to try.

"Not on the edge, but not performing either. Almost like I was getting ready to perform, but had to eat the strawberries first," she explained, ending with a shrug. She had looked up what being on a stage meant in her dream meanings book, but she couldn't remember now what it had said. His dream did catch her attention and she gave a low whistle. "Uh oh, that's not good. Teeth falling out means you're scared of getting older," she warned him with a look thrown in his direction, brows perked. Was he afraid of aging? It didn't seem like a very Kai thing to worry about. For all of his ups and downs, he seemed to do so well with adapting. Aging was just another time construct that she didn't think Kai would prescribe to worrying about.

She trailed him into the kitchen and brushed off some old magazines from the chair so she could sit, pulling her legs up criss crossed as she watched him move around the kitchens, cabinets splayed open in his wake. "Yes, yes in London," she told him with a slight pout. She didn't like that he hadn't listened the first time she had told him about her flat above Spinner's with Rhey. She knew helping cook anything was far outside of her skill set and he would do better flying solo in that regard so she busied herself with rearranging the little line up of condiments, mismatched salt and pepper shakers, and other little knick knacks that were on his table.

When everything was in better alignment, she took a sweater that had been hanging on the back of a chair, sniffed it lightly, smelling a faint hint of smoke mixed with Kai and pulled it over her head before she pulled her legs up so she could lean her chin on her knee. Her eyes traced his lithe shape, his sharp jawline as her thoughts wandered. "You worry me sometimes, you know that?" she offered out of the blue.

“They were good though, weren’t they? The strawberries?” Again, he didn’t know why this mattered, but he felt compelled to ask anyway.

Kai felt like he wasn’t entirely here, but that was okay. He didn’t have to be totally here for Senna; she was someone with whom he could just be whatever – wherever – he was. She didn’t want or expect anything else. He mixed the ingredients absentmindedly, turning the stove on and fetching a frying pan in between mixing and listening to Senna talk. “Does it?” he asked, mildly interested. It wasn’t something that he remembered being on his mind much recently, but maybe it was a subconscious thing.

It didn’t take him long to make the batter, and then he was pouring scoops of it into his buttered pan. His little kitchen was filled with the smell of warm butter, and there was a very satisfying sizzle as the batter hit the metal. He held a spatula in his other hand, and stared at the cooking pancake for a moment. “Do I?” he asked, pausing what he was doing to glance at her, meet her eye as he spoke. “Why’s that?”

"I don't remember if they were or not, maybe I never got the chance to actually eat them," she answered, her voice feeling far away, trying to grasp at a dream that was only wisps of memory now. She wondered if the strawberries would have been good, and what it would have meant if she had tasted them in her dream, and how that was connected to her and Kai eating breakfast at dawn.

She hummed her answer as she let her eyes drift close, the weight of staying up without sleeping settling onto her shoulders. Senna wasn't particularly cold but she liked the feeling of being wrapped in his sweater, the sleeves pooling over her hands, her thumb peeking out through a hole in the cuff. Soon enough the kitchen was filling with the sweet smell of breakfast and it made her mouth water.

Senna opened her eyes back up at his question, surprised to find his gaze on her which she returned with a thoughtful look. It was easy enough to state her thoughts, but the why of it? Now that was more difficult. "I don't know," she offered even as she continued to mull it over, picking through her thoughts to see how she could turn those into words. "You're not.. careful with yourself but careful isn't the right word, I don't know," she said with a frown, it wasn't quite what she wanted to say but the right words eluded her. "I just want you to be happy, yknow?"

“I’m sorry,” Kai said. Not eating dream-strawberries… Was that something to feel sorry about? It did remind him that he needed to get the strawberries out so they could have them with breakfast, but that thought disappeared quickly after he’d had it. Her humming was melodic, and he joined in, harmonising with her melody. Same wavelength, he thought distantly.

He glanced away from her, returning to the food as she started talking. She said careful wasn’t the right word, but he wondered if it, in fact, was. Not careful with himself… He turned the idea over in his head as he turned a pancake in the pan. He could be selfish, sure. Self-centered? Certainly. But did that equate to looking out for his own self-interests? Sometimes doing what you wanted wasn’t the same as keeping yourself safe. He could be quite self-sabotagey, actually, and self-destructive in so many ways.

Self-this, self-that.

“I want to be happy,” he said, as a sort of pondering protest to her words.

She waved away his apology, not needing it, not knowing what it was for, already forgetting it and moving on to things like how good his voice sounded harmonizing with hers. She had a sudden wish that Rhey was here to hear it too because Senna knew she would feel the same way she was, but she knew at the same time that the three of them in the same room under good terms probably wasn't going to happen and that made her a little melancholy.

It was made worse by the feeling that she couldn't express what she wanted. Frustrating. She huffed a sigh as she pouted at his back and tried to wrangle her thoughts into words. "I know you do," she murmured in reply to his rebuttal but it made her think of happiness as a general concept. Was she even happy? How do you even know? Was it a moment by moment decision or an accumulation of days? Weeks? How much time were you supposed to include?

Senna was getting to that part of the day where her brain was more floating than thinking and the smell of the pending pancakes made it hard to focus. "How do you even know when you're happy," she asked him, closing her eyes again as she rested her chin on her knees.

She didn’t sound entirely convinced, but he wasn’t focused enough to question it. Instead, he tried to keep his attention on the hot pan in front of him, and the ongoing attempt not to burn himself on its edges. He kept humming for a moment after she’d stopped, not having noticed she wasn’t doing it anymore, then his voice trailed off into a calmer quiet.

“Mmm?” He didn’t look at her when she spoke, instead pouring another scoop of batter into the pan. “These ones are done,” He said, putting a plate with a few cooked pancakes on the kitchen bench beside the place she was sitting. “There’s uh, maple syrup in there,” he said, pointing at the cupboard behind her. He couldn’t remember how Senna liked her pancakes, but Rheya had always loved too-much-syrup.

“Guess you’re happy when you don’t feel like shit?” Kai offered as an answer to her (rhetorical, probaby) question. He was kidding – sort of – and he said it like a joke, but it was a rough summary of how he did feel about the topic. After a couple of minutes, he’d cooked the last of the batter and was moving to sit beside Senna on a stool, nibbling a pancake right off of off his spatula. “Easier to know when you’re not happy,” he commented.

It was so late, or she guessed early was more accurate, but she could only focus on the strange patterns of light she saw flickering on the backs of her eyelids as she rested her chin on her knee, her mind trying to make sense of the idea of happiness, a concept that probably deserved more attention and fortitude than she currently had to offer given her sleepless, hazy state. Still, the pancakes were like a beacon in the dark and she opened her eyes quickly, blinking doe-eyed a few times before inhaling deeply before giving him a kind smile.

"You're the best, you know that?" she said as she tore off a piece of one of the lopsided circles, making a little noise of complaint at how hot it was, not that that stopped her from eating it, burning her tongue and all but it was worth it. "Much better than diner pancakes," she said, giving him high praise. Senna glanced up at the cabinet he had pointed to and unfolded her legs, standing and stretching with a big yawn, before ambling over and reaching up on her tippy toes to get the syrup. Returning to her seat, she flipped the cap open and squeezed out some on the side of her plate before ripping another piece of the pancake off so she could dip it gingerly into the syrup. If Rhey were here, she'd complain she wasn't eating them 'right' but Senna had always had her own way of doing things.

His comment made her shrug, she didn't completely agree. "It can't just be the absence of something," she told him, reaching out her foot to rest on the rung of his stool as he joined her at the table, her leg brushing his a bit, content with the contact. "Ain't that the truth, though," she added ruefully, smiling over at him as she picked apart another pancake.

"Can I crash here?" she asked, hoping the answer would be yes but prepared to pout until he gave in either way. She didn't feel like apparating back home, didn't feel like she quite had her fill yet here even though they'd spent the whole night together. Kai always made her feel at home like that just being around him and in this particular moment, she wasn't ready to give that up yet.

“Cheers,” he said, casual as ever. He did smile though, appreciating the compliment as he slid in beside her. “Nah, that’s just how you know,” he responded. He didn’t know what happy was – not in any sort of sweeping, absolute way – but he knew what it felt like, and more clearly what it felt like when everything was bad. He blinked a few times, looking down at the food in front of him. His mind was wandering, lingering in strange places. He was coming down though, that much was apparent. There was some overlap between being high and being extremely overtired.

“Yeah, ‘course,” he said, using cutlery to eat his food. Rheya liked lots of syrup, he thought. Senna liked a little less. Him even less. Pancakes weren’t his favourite, but everyone seemed to love them; they were a crowd pleaser and easy to whip up on cue. He had to admit these ones were pretty good as he took his first bite though. “Couch or crash with me,” he added, the same offer he always made when it got this late or it was just nicer to stay than go.

She shrugged again, not really agreeing, but not being able to really articulate why either. It was a strange concept for her, something growing up she always wondered at. Kids around her always seemed happier, more confident, more.. loved? And she had wanted that. She just hadn't found the people she clicked with until a little later, but she had always clung to that idea that had seemed simple back then. Simple, true happiness. She thought she had once found it with Florence but even that had its own shadows at times, not to mention the disastrous end. She tried not to think too much of it though otherwise she'd be crying over her pancakes. Again.

Senna forgoed the cutlery and instead used her fingers to pull and piece apart the pancakes, daintily dipping into the syrup as she eyed him sleepily. "With you, please," she said softly. "I gotta sleep on the left side though, remember?" It messed with her sleep rhythm if she didn't. Not that her sleep cycle was very consistent these days. It never really had been, but lately it was even worse. Besides, Kai's couch was not comfortable. It gave her bad vibes just thinking about it. "We need to get you a new couch," she told him. And this time she'd make sure he got one that didn't give off a bad aura.

She let his comment about happiness go, and he ate a few more bites of pancake. How long since he’d seen Rheya now, a year? It had to be something close to a year, he thought. Weird that he and Senna still got along fine after he fucked up a fairly serious relationship with the person closest to her. He wondered if Rheya still had his name tattooed to her arm. As soon as he’d thought it, he felt certain she still did. He wondered if his certainty was rooted in wishful thinking.

Bed? Left side? “Sure, whatever,” Kai said, not unkindly. The left side was the side closer to the door, so that worked out. He usually gravitated towards the side of the bed further away from the door. Was he just a paranoid piece of shit, he wondered? Was that why? He hadn’t done much delving into this particular preference – aaand he wasn’t about to start now. The whole thing slid into and out of his mind smoothly.

“Hmm?” Kai raised an eyebrow, then shook his head as he understood what she was saying. He held up a hand as he swallowed his mouthful. “Nah the couch is good,” he protested, a lazy smile appearing on his expression. “Maybe not for sleeping,” he conceded quickly, “but it’s good.” There were a few cigarette burns – almost entirely his – but it was a good couch. It’d served him well these past months.

“Oh,” Kai said, glancing at the stove. He’d left the gas on; the little ring of fire was happily burning away at nothing. He got to his feet, thinking of cigarette burns and housefires. Flicking the switch, he turned back to her. “Still hungry, or?” he asked. “Shall we? I’ll bring some water.”

She smiled back at his acquiescence and murmured a thanks, not that it was really needed between them. But still she couldn't help but appreciate that Kai went with the flow most times even if they didn't agree on almost anything. Exhibit #234,093 being the couch. She smiled just because he did even though she didn't understand his attachment to it. "It's really not though. I'm telling you, it'd feel much better in here if you got a different one," she told him with a serious nod even while knowing he'd probably do nothing about it. It was the same reason why she had to sneak in crystals and place them discreetly around his flat. She wanted to help where she could - carnelian for creativity, selenite for energetically purifying and cleansing the air -- since crystals had a powerful effect on personal energy but she knew Kai probably wouldn't buy in.

She wondered absently as he wandered over to the stove if he had found the citrine stone she had hidden behind his cereal boxes since she hadn't seen it earlier. Senna finished up her pancakes, licking her fingers delicately before pushing her plate back and shaking her head. "No, I'm full. Thirsty though," she said even as he said he'd bring water, reading her mind.

She padded back to his room, still wearing his sweater she had found in the kitchen, and slipped out of it and her black skinny jeans, pulling an oversized tshirt from his drawer as if it were her own closet. She turned and twisted the items on his nightstand until they looked a little better to her, placed the rock he had given her on the table and then crawled in, the sheets feeling cold against her legs. "Water please?" she called to him, glancing toward the door.

Kai knew he should probably be alarmed that he’d left the gas on, but he only really registered it abstractly as he flicked it off, watching the little flames disappear instantly. “No worries,” he said, but he wasn’t sure if she heard him; she was halfway out the door.

Senna disappeared and Kai took a moment to stack the plates by the sink for later. He left the tap running as he filled glasses of water, drinking one while the other filled, before refilling it. He turned off the tap, poured a little into the plants on the windowsill, then made his way back to his room carrying her glass. The sun was well and truly up by now, and he squinted a little as he stepped into his room. After closing the door, he moved over to the window and shut the blinds, his body on autopilot, his eyes feeling relief as he did.

“There you go,” he said, putting a glass on the floor by her side of the bed before going around to the other side. He pulled his shirt over his head clumsily and tossed it aside before climbing onto the mattress beside her. "You good?" he asked quietly, getting comfy on his side without jiggling the bed too much. They'd taken things and stayed up late, and Kai had caught a look in her eye earlier that he wanted to check in on. There was a heaviness that had settled over his whole body, and he was sure that he'd be able to fall asleep quickly but he wanted to make sure they were both okay.

"Thanks," she said softly in the dark as she heard him set the glass down on her side and then felt the bed dip down as he got settled. Her mind was tired, her whole body in fact, but at his question she frowned a little bit, a crease forming between her eyes as she rolled towards him. How did he always know when something was bothering her. Maybe it was the lack of sleep or maybe it was the stress of all the shows and the weight of expectation surrounding the band, but she felt a cloud of anxiety hovering on the edges of her aura and she didn't like it but wasn't quite sure how to expel it either.

She nodded, aware that he might detect the movement in the darkness, but she felt safe here with him that she wasn't afraid to tell him what was on her mind. "Florence has been on my mind," she admitted, knowing Kai would know what that meant to her. It wasn't something she dwelled on often since she couldn't bring back her teenage true love, but because of the way that it had ended, it also wasn't something she felt like she had completely worked through. Even now.

Saying her name aloud brought back more memories and a sadness tinged with regret threaded through her. Instinctively searching for connection, she scooted closer to him and curled against his side. "This ok?" she whispered, seeking comfort of her heart beating near his.