notsocommon | Carnival! (for Will)

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Carnival! (for Will)

While the island had changed for some reason or another, Helen wasn't particularly interested in exploring it. The constant din of carnival music made it nearly impossible to work and she was grateful her hut, at least, was some ways away from most of the civilization on the island. She had been trying to type up a state of the island address, or something to that effect, regarding her original campaign for Council and how she'd met her goals. She hadn't done as well as she hoped but at least Sam was working with Dr. McCoy and Alcuin with Nikola. She'd have to do better next term, if she were re-elected.

Normally not fond of sprawling out while she worked, Helen had sprawled out across the bed on her stomach, cursing lightly when one of her keys stuck on her laptop. "Bloody hell, Nikola, not only did you steal it, you had to go and spill wine all down in it too, didn't you?"

He was going to fix this if Helen had to stand on his neck until he thought it a good idea. She poked helplessly at the space bar, tacky with red wine, and sighed.

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Will was ecstatic. Normally he didn't really care for island shenanigans but this was a distraction he couldn't resist--and he wasn't going to let Magnus resist it, either.

He bounced into the hut to find her working. Of course. Well, she could stop for a little while. "Okay, Maggie," he said cheerfully, reverting to his favorite nickname for her (that he didn't quite dare use too often since he'd first started, but he still loved doing it because it aggravated her). "Time to go have some fun." Will put his fingertips on the edge of the laptop, nudging it towards closed but not closing it all the way.

"I'm trying to organize my thoughts in case I have to make another Council speech next month," Helen said, exasperated. "Of course, it would be going much faster if Nikola hadn't dribbled wine all down in my keyboard the last time he borrowed my computer. Who needs enemies when you can have friends like Nikola, right?"

He pushed the lid of the laptop down just a little more. "All things you can do after we go have some fun," he told her. "Games and rides and prizes and all the fried food you can eat." Will was pretty much dying for a real cheeseburger and fries at this point, and a soda, and maybe a funnel cake and holy crap, he'd even seen a sign for deep-fried cupcakes. Seriously? How could he pass that up?

"Ah, so my hips will grow exponentially. Are you trying to fatten me up for the winter, Will? I assure you, it's not necessary. I have enough padding as it is."

Still, she conceded and closed her laptop before standing up and brushing invisible lint off her t-shirt and jeans. "All right, you've convinced me."

Will slid a hand over her hip and squeezed playfully. "One day--weekend, week, whatever--of fun isn't going to hurt you," he said. "It's fun. And I bet we can find you something chocolate, too."

He didn't push it too much because she gave in without too much protest, and he didn't want to make her change her mind, so after giving Roy a quick check (he's fine, snoozing away in his box) he took Magnus's hand and almost dragged her out the door.

Edited 2011-10-30 02:06 (UTC)

"Oh, now you're just playing dirty. Do you really think we might be able to find me something chocolate? Or a caramel apple? I haven't had a caramel apple in years," Helen said, wistful with the memory.

It was silly, perhaps, but she kept her hand in his as they walked. Stupid and if anyone pointed it out she'd stop but for now, it felt nice.

"Totally." Will squeezed her hand as they walked. "I'm pretty sure I saw chocolate dipped frozen bananas, and chocolate ice cream, and who knows what else. And what kind of carnival doesn't have caramel apples? Wait, don't answer that," he added, because the answer to that would be island carnivals that show up out of nowhere.

He turned so that he was walking backwards in front of her, taking both her hands and grinning. "We'll have fun," he promised. "No worrying about anything." One of the things he hated about the island (granted, it was a relatively minor thing) was the lack of opportunities to take Magnus out on a real date. The options were pretty limited. So he couldn't help but jump on this chance.

"Not even speeches I might never have to make?" Helen asked, grinning at him. It was sort of nice not to have responsibility weighing on her back and after a rough month of disappearances and Kate's...indiscretions, it was nice to have a moment of pure joy with someone she loved very much.

"We used to have these in England, sort of. It was a bit different back when, of course, but there was an old wooden rollercoaster I rode once that rattled my bones and smelled like cheap beer. It was terrible and James kept making me ride it over and over and we laughed our heads off about it. That was, hmm. 1915, maybe?"

"You can worry about that tomorrow, honey, because tomorrow is another day," Will quipped in a falsetto impression of Scarlett O'Hara that was scarily accurate even if it did hurt his throat a little. Then he cleared his throat and added, more like himself, "So, Watson and rollercoasters, huh?"

"James and anything that might thrill him," Helen said, smiling fondly as she remembered him. "James and rollercoasters, James and airplanes when they were little more than tin cans in the air."

She laughed lightly. "James and cocaine was a little more frightening. Sherlock Holmes didn't have that habit on accident."

Will dropped one of her hands so he could walk beside her again, swinging their joined hands a little as they walked. It felt a little bit like 'stupid teenagers with crushes', but that felt pretty good, actually, so he didn't stop. "Well, let's go have some fun he'd be a little jealous of," he said. "The non-cocaine kind."

"Yes, I'd like to avoid illicit drug use," Helen said, grinning at him and flashing her dimple. "Might not be becoming of two council members. Now, what shall we do first? It's been ages for me so I don't even know where to start."

"Rides," he decided. "Rides first, then food--and oh, there are games, too, with stuffed animals and things like that for prizes. You need like, a giant teddy bear or stuffed giraffe. I'll win you one."

Granted, Roy would probably just climb on it and take it over when they got it home, but it was the thought that counted.

"Oh, a giraffe. I've always been fond of giraffes," Helen said, grinning at him. Silly thing, perhaps, but it seemed fitting enough for the mood of the evening. "I think we should go on the teacups first, though, while we have empty stomachs and are completely sober."

Probably the best course of action, considering.

"You and your tea," Will teased. "But okay, yes. Teacups first." So the spinning teacups were their first stop, and maybe Will sat a little closer to her than necessary and hugged her a little tighter in the name of "making sure she didn't fall out", but that was okay too.

There would have been a very good chance that she might have fallen out if Will wasn't so diligent about keeping her close and Helen was grateful, naturally.

"This is nice, even if it is impossibly dizzying after a while."

When the ride was over, Will helped her out, partly to help her out and partly because his head was all spinny and he wanted an excuse to hang onto the side of the ride ofr a second while he got hsi feet under him again. "There's a ferris wheel," he pointed out. "Let's do that next." It wasn't every day that they got a good island view like the one they'd get from the top of the ferris wheel.

"Yes, let's," Helen agreed, taking his hand in hers again and squeezing it lightly. It was so nice to just have time time out to be alone with Will as Helen and Will, not Magnus looking for work at every opportunity.

"I'll kiss you at the top and everything."

"Will you really?" he asked, and then spied a food booth on the way to the ferris wheel with exactly the thing Magnus had been craving: rows and rows of caramel apples, lined up with bright red candy apples and fluffy bags of cotton candy. "Look." He snagged a caramel apple and offered it to her. "Told you we'd find something."

"My hero," Helen said, sliding an arm around his waist and tugging him close for a kiss. Not much of a kiss, considering they were right out in public but it felt just...appropriate to be easy and free with Will even if it wasn't wise to trust the island.

"I've been craving one of these for ages."

"Well, now you've got one," he says, and after she kisses him he helps her unwrap it. "Go on, enjoy it." They were just going on the ferris wheel and it wasn't like one caramel apple was going to make her sick.

Helen grinned at him before taking a big bite, caramel sticking to her lips and chin. It was impossibly messy and impossibly bad for her to eat like this but it had an element of fun that Helen hadn't really let herself experience in a long time. It said something, to experience life as something to be treasured and enjoyed instead of something to hoard away like a squirrel with a cache.

"I look a mess, don't I?"

Will had picked up a couple of napkins when he picked up the apple, so he used one to get the caramel off her chin. As for the caramel on her lips...he leaned in and kissed her until it was gone. He thought that from now on he'd probably associate the salty sweetness of caramel and the tang of apple with happiness.

"Fixed it for you."

"That you did, darling, that you did."

Helen tugged him close to kiss again, just a quick one, before pulling away slightly. "I believe we had a date with a Ferris wheel, did we not? It'll be nice to see the island from way up high...then I had my eye on that drop tower over there."

Nothing like screaming bloody murder while having a good time.

They did have a date with the ferris wheel. So Will and Magnus and her caramel apple got in line for the ride, which seemed to be pretty popular, and also seemed, to Will's eye, to go slow enough and stop enough to give everyone a good view at least once.

"This is sweet, Will," Helen said quietly after they'd gotten into the ferris wheel and curled up close. "Getting to spend time together like this. I never would have had time for this back home, you know."

"Oh, we'd make time," he assured her. "You think if we got together at home, I'd let you be all work and no play? No way." He curled his arm a little more snugly around her shoulders. "First order of business is: we go to a Jays game."

"Come now, baseball? When I could take you to Italy or France or any number of exciting places?" Helen asked, wrinkling her nose a little.

"All right, walk me through it then. How does this baseball date go?"

"Okay, maybe it's not as exciting as Europe, but come on, it's a blast," he says. "It's not just the game. I mean, that's the best part, but there's the stadium and the crowd and the beer and hotdogs and the whole experience."

"I think you should teach me how to play," Helen said wryly. "I mean, how often do you get the opportunity to teach me something? I think it could be a...remarkably pleasant experience."

"As good as you are with a gun, it'll probably take you like, a few minutes to get the hang of it," he teased. "Probably get kicked out of the island league for being too badass."

"Come now, I'm not so talented as all that," Helen said, snuggling in close as the ferris wheel approached the top of its circuit and paused so they could take in a beautiful view of the island.

"Do you ever think about what it would be like if we ever got to go home someday? If we'd change?"

Will looked at the view from up here, the trails of lights that went out along the walkways glowing brighter as the sun set. "Do I think we'd change?" he said. "Well, I don't know, because I don't know what happens to people when they leave here. Did you ever read the Narnia books?" he asked, and then went on, "Of course you did. You probably knew Lewis and Tolkien and all those guys. Anyway, you know how the kids went in the wardrobe and lived that whole other life and came back kids again but they remembered everything that happened? I wonder if it's like that."

It was just a book, and a kids' book at that, but he still wondered. Because it was the only explanation that made sense. Not total sense, but more than anything else had.

"That's actually not a bad analogy," Helen said, mulling it over as the ferris wheel started to slowly arc forward. "And yes, I knew them both, Lewis and Tolkien. They were wonderful men, forward thinkers. Some of the people I miss the most from my past."

Helen reached for his hand. "I'll try very hard to remember this when we step through the wardrobe again, Will."

Will was pretty sure he would remember how much he loved her, even if he didn't remember anything else about this island. "I'll always remember," he promised her, squeezing her hand. "No matter what."

"We should try to write our experiences down, I think, just on the off chance that we don't remember the island. We came here with things so wouldn't it make sense that upon leaving, we'd still have our things with us?"

She was grasping at straws, yes, but the idea of not remembering this turn in their relationship was disturbing.

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Carnival! (for Will)

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