Name: Anita Semper
Codename: Laguna
Profession: Photographer
Interests: Thea, Ari, Jay, Vic
Anita is 100% back for Season 2.
Godforsaken mess
The nightmares aren’t wavering.
If anything, their intensity leaves her feeling tired, exhausted at times, as she cannot make herself go to bed, even knowing she had the powder in her cocoa before bed, even knowing she downed it with a glass of red wine.
Have the dreams gotten used to her mind so much there is nothing stopping them from creeping in? She believes so.
The messages appear while she is awake now, but she is tired, it could be that, could it not? It feels like it could, she is simply not sleeping.
“Run.”
She ignored it so far. How could she?
And then, after they arrived at the safe house, the tune changed.
“To whom it concerns, the debt is to be collected. We have not forgotten and neither should you have.”
It feels poetic. To whom it concerns, does it not? She felt like it did, in her mind it did.
She doesn’t share that with anyone. It seems wrong, especially after she turned on her heel and got into the first cab she could reach, arranging it to drive her back to the flat Ulrich rented back in the day. The dust settled on his philosophy books comfortably, she did not dare to disturb it with her presence, walking like a ghost. Kitchen to the living area, and to her bedroom overlooking the street.
She swears the piano plays itself at times. She can now - with precision - tell when something is about to happen, moving herself from everything and everyone. She writes some letters to her husband, resisting the urge to start it the same way the threat did.
To Ulrich, it is all finished. She plans to return home, in a bit. He should hold on another moment, he should hold on another moment, and another, maybe, after those two.
As the sun is about to set, she feels a change in the air, coinciding with a knock on the door.
“Anita?”
Melodic call, she can feel the booze on his breath behind the closed doors.
“Vicente,” she opened the door, letting him in. Letting them in, she’ll conclude in a while. Brows furrowed, as she pulled him into the silence her house has been for those few hours she spend doing nothing but writing letters and trying to calm her mind, bend it into obedience, she does allow him in. He is not doing well either, he explained before passing out on the sofa, snoring through the evening. She tries to move his legs, she pulls the blazer off him, she almost pulls a muscle doing it, and the loud sound the metal made falling onto the hardwood floor might have been a good sign she should wake him up and make him leave.
He speaks about Vee, regardless of her protest about the topic.
The interesting part is that the language predates Sanskrit - and it seems to be dabbling in different cultures - or rather, all of them.
Despite the slurred words, he makes all the sense. Tamana were a nomadic group, it would make sense their culture - and language - would have made adoptions of other phonetic systems and languages, creating something new.
What bothers him - and later, her - is there is no way to pinpoint where Tamana began their journey. Or why. He seems obsessed with the questions, for a while, before she makes him go to sleep.
She is too tired, and she allows him to rest. One of them should.
In the morning, Vicente holds his head, she pours the coffee, and before he leaves, he leaves the ring that almost got them killed only days ago. Anger in her eyes is overshadowed by the fear in his, and when he leaves, the ring remains on the mantle. The shadows move without reason after that.
Before he does, they sit in the kitchen, near another window, listening to rain play a melody on the glass. He noticed the letters on the countertop, lacking stamps.
“Do you want me to send those when I leave?”
Anita looks over her shoulder. “Would you?”
“Yes, I don’t mind,” he replied, sipping on his coffee. He lit a smoke up, shortly flashing a smile. “Ulrich is going to come to London soon?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied shortly. She did not actually invite him - she did not know his plans, perhaps they did not speak for a while. She did not know where to direct the letters - she wrote two for that purpose. See which one reaches him first. “I mean, I would love that, but, I’m not sure where he’s currently staying.”
“I believe Rome,” he replied, and she smiles. Meave, she’s certain, who’d known, other than her? He realizes what he said. “He sent me a letter—”
Anita scoffed, shrugging. “How about we keep it at that? He is in Rome, that is more than enough,”
“You’re right,” he concluded, and she nodded. She gets up suddenly, looking out the window. The timing was impeccable. Across the street, a black cab lets out a passenger. With dark spectacles, slicked-back hair, and nothing out of place, Jay seems like a man walking with purpose. He glances up to accidentally catch her gaze, and Vicente is standing next to her already.
“You should be careful with that one,” he said. He takes another sip of the coffee. She turns sharply to him. “It’s lovely to have Doctor Griffith in your corner, but Jay can be a bit…possessive.”
As if she did not notice, she shrugged her shoulders.
“So can I,” she refuses to admit the difference between those two types of possessive, but Vicente is on his way out already. “Take care, will you?”
Kiss on her cheek, friendly and warm. He smiled, and she smiled back. “See you tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“Dinner,” he said. She nodded. “Good.” Vicente nodded, standing there one moment more. “Good.”
They part.
Moments later, Jay is at the door.
It pains her to admit there is a fluttering excitement in her stomach when she feels the smell of his perfume before he’s even inside the apartment. As if nothing happened, he moves into her, one kiss after another.
She hears the sound of her voice asking him to stay.
It’s never not good, or addictive, with Jay, and while she knows nothing good will come out of it, the sound of her own blood flowing through her veins turns all the bad voices into whispers. She loves it, and perhaps she loves him for it. She also recognizes the denial each time she sees it in the mirror.
Hours later, they are in bed, hand on his forearm, he curls it around her to lull her awake, unaware she wasn’t sleeping at all.
“Why did you leave so abruptly?”
“Have you seen the message?”
“It wouldn’t be the first one,” he replied, shortly. “And here—”
“We rent this,”
“I have a place here,” he replied. “You should have gone with me,”
“Ulrich is coming,” she lied. “We have a rule—”
Jay pulled her in for a kiss instead, fingers on her cheeks. “Not the answer I was hoping to hear,”
“You might not get that one,” she replied. Whispered, actually. Eyes open, watching him watch her. He doesn’t seem happy, fingers still lingering on her cheeks. Pressure is a bit heavier now, or so she feels. “Jay.”
“No.”
Before she is aware of what is happening, he is out of bed, pacing around the room, and into the bathroom.
She lays flat on her back, hair on the pillow, hands covering her eyes.
“You can get a divorce,” he leaves the bathroom moments later, face freshly washed.
“Jay.”
“For fucks sake, Anita, it’s 1920’s, not the 1120s,” seems like a growl. She’s silent.
“I don’t want to talk about it—”
“Or you don’t want to do that,” he cuts her off. She remains silent. “Are you really going to stay silent?”
“I might, yes,” she replied. “Jay.”
He vanished into the other rooms, but to her surprise, he did not leave. She walks out of the room, watching him put on a fire in the living room. The smile on his face gives a green light signal it’s safe to walk back into his arms.
“I need you, do you know that?”
She nodded, hands wrapped around his waist, head on his chest. She did. Honestly. She might have felt it, at times, too.
“I leave in seven days,” he says suddenly. “To the States, there is something I need to finish, and I need you to come with me,”
“Jay,” sounds apologetic, even sad. It’s both.
“Think about it,” he looks down, fingers against her jawline, thumb on her lip. He kisses her over it, finishing with a short smile. “But not tonight. Tonight we celebrate.”
She’s ready in a while, he sits in the living room, set up already, leg resting on his knee, and he stares at the fire crackling in the fireplace, Nita steps out in one of her dresses, and there is a smile. “Anita.”
He pulled the necklace from the pocket of his jacket, brushing over most of the exposed skin around her neck as he put it on. Kisses on the neck almost stopped them from leaving in time. For a moment, she thinks about the consequence of saying yes to his request.
TBA: Thea & Leo. Ari & his corkboard. A bit more of Jay before things really take the turn for the messy.
Last edited by Zaralee (11/05/2023 at 23:59)
