roadrunnermuses | open post } { pointless shippiness

Cami is not complaining about someone who's willing to cook for her. It's not that she can't, but most of the time after working at the bar she just either got food from Sophie or tossed something frozen in the microwave. She is usually too exhausted to put that much effort into something.

Basically, she's more than willing to be someone's test guinea pig.

"What are you working on?"

"I'm working on sandwiches, which isn't too fancy honestly, but they keep really well, which is a positive given I've been making so many of them. Actually, there's homemade bread for the sandwiches, and a serving of homemade chips that come with each," Ethan admits with a tiny but charming smile in her direction. "I've been working on developing different flavors for those homemade chips so some are barbecue flavored, some plain salty. All crunchy."

He throws out burnt ones as he is kind of a perfectionist with food. He'll make any part of the food that he can do himself from making pasta to making the bread. He only uses the freshest ingredients.

Homemade chips? Really? Granted, she wasn't expecting cheap Lays that you could get in any grocery store, but she definitely wasn't expecting that, and it shows on his face. She contemplates the food in front of her, before looking up at him again.

"Okay, maybe you don't want to feed me. Because if this is as good as it smells, I may never leave."

"I happen to really enjoy your company so I think I'll take the risk," Ethan says with a tiny little smirk before he instinctively licks his lips and then sits beside her, reaching for a chip to hold it out to her.

She is very attractive, and he can't help but notice that too as he leans against the counter a bit so he can be a tiny bit closer to her.

"You may be brutally honest. I can handle it."

Cami eyes him and the chip for a moment, before taking it from his fingers and studying it for a moment. She pauses, looking up to meet his eyes again before popping the chip in her mouth. She pauses for a moment, chewing, before her eyes flutter closed at the flavor.

"Oh my God, that's really good."

Ethan simply watches her react to that food. He leans against the counter as he meets her eyes, taking in that reaction, how her eyes flutter close at the flavor. There is nothing more beautiful to him than being able to make someone react to his food like she is reacting to his food now. Ethan's smile widens across his face.

"You think?" He takes a bite of one of the chips on his side as he looks at her with unmistaken fondness, appreciation. "I really tried."

To make very good food.

"You succeeded," she nods in acknowledgement. "You succeeded big time. You would have given Sophie a run for her money back in New Orleans." There's a brief pang of grief for a moment, but it's a feeling that she knows is her own. She misses Sophie - she missed her before she came to Chicago and she still misses her now. She feels like she would have a better idea of what to do in a situation like this, if only by the virtue of having grown up submersed in the supernatural, whereas Cami just lived on the fringes for the most part.

"She was the cook for the restaurant I worked in back home."

There's a slight pause as Ethan looks over at her. It's as if he can sense that there's a brief pang there. He has no idea what it must be like to be a wanderer, to have one's entire life uprooted and forced to be left behind. On top of that, they have to grapple with gaining some new ability, and it must be so difficult to deal with. He can't begin to imagine it.

He looks over at her with concern clear in his expression. Ethan reaches his hand out to rest it against her arm. "Would love to try some of her food though," he says even if it is very sadly not possible. "Were you close to her?"

"Yeah." There's a beat. "Well, as close as you can get to someone you work for. She was also kind of going through a lot at the time, and then she ... passed."

Or was violently magically murdered by her niece. Take your pick.

"So I guess not as close as I would have liked to have been."

"I am very sorry for your loss," Ethan says after a moment, and he means that genuinely. It is terrible to lose someone even if you weren't family with them.

There is still that loss.

He reaches his hand out to rest it against her arm before he looks down at her face, and then he bites his lip a tiny bit because she is utterly beautiful. Sometimes it strikes him suddenly.

She turns towards him at the touch before nodding. Loss is hard, she knows. She's had more than her fair share, it seems. But she's learned how to weather through it if nothing else, and his sympathy is appreciated, even if she doesn't know what to make of that look on his face at the moment.

"Thank you. She was a good person - she didn't deserve what she got."

"It seems like good people... get really terrible endings too quickly far too often," Ethan says, and he swallows thickly before he releases a breath and slides his hand away from her arm so he can clean up the kitchen a bit.

It makes him think of his mother who died too soon, slowly, painfully.

Cami nods in agreement to that. Her uncle wasn't necessarily a good man, but he did the best he could with the situation he was given. Sean didn't deserve any of it - he was collateral damage in the war with the witches. And Davina - God, she misses Davina. She's another one who she keeps hoping would fall through the rift to Chicago if for no other reason than the fact that she could just be a girl, not a trophy to be fought for by the factions of New Orleans.

"It's sad, really. People should get what they deserve, in the end."

His father is still out there alive, king of the bloody werewolves. His mother, who was tortured by him and chased by him and forced into the position she was in, is dead because of him. No one gets what they deserve on either side. Monsters live forever. Good people die too soon. There's an ache that spreads through his chest at the way she says it.

"They should but they rarely ever do, do they?" There's a slight pause as he breathes in sharp, looking up at her face as he finishes cleaning up the kitchen. "Sounds like you have quite a bit of experience with that."

There's something in the tone of her voice that reaches him.

"Well, I'm from New Orleans."

It doesn't have as much weight as it does in this universe, but it has enough. Katrina still happened here. Her city was still washed away in this universe, even if it wasn't really hers.

"My New Orleans was a different kind of complicated, but people still lost more than they deserved to."

Ethan is quiet, and there's deep concern in his expression at what she says. He swallows a bit as he looks at her face, and his hand rests against her arm as if in reassurance.

"...can I ask what kind of complicated? It's absolutely okay if you don't want to talk about it. We can talk about far less painful subjects as well, but..."

He asks because he cares about her.

"No, no, it's okay." She shakes her head a bit. Talking about the politics of New Orleans is actually a little easier than Chicago, maybe because she's finally getting some distance from it. "Basically what you guys have here with angels and demons and whatever else? We had that too. Except for us it was vampires, werewolves, witches and humans. The werewolves were mostly confined to the bayou, the witches and vampires and humans all lived in the Quarter. But even with all the treaties in the world things were never peaceful. The werewolves were forced out by the vampires and cursed, the vampires had the witches under siege and humans mostly looked the other way because we were the lowest rung on the food chain."

There's a beat.

"And then the Originals showed up and everything just sort of ... " Her voice trailed off, and she made a noise like an explosion while gesturing with her fingers.

"When I fell through the rift, the werewolves and the witches had just made a move on the Quarter to force the vampires out, and for the most part it worked, save for Klaus and Elijah, but I think that's mostly because they knew there was no way they could win."

Ethan quiets as she explains, and he leans back a bit against the counter, listening to everything that she says. It sounds like a volatile world. The way that many species can interact and how humans sort of end up, swept up in all of it. This city is similar in that way except Chicago is special from what he has heard. There is no one species that has control over it. People think that makes Chicago better because of it, and Ethan would have to agree with that absolutely. The fight for control and power in other cities, it could only lead to violence and destruction. He shakes his head at the thought.

Then there's this helpless, tiny smile at the little gesture that she makes along with the noise. It's absolutely adorable, and he raises his gaze to look at her again.

"It must have been difficult to be caught up in the middle of it all with such powerful forces fighting for control," Ethan says, and he bites down on his lip thoughtfully before he shifts, standing up straight again to look her way as it matters far more to him what she went through in all of that and how she feels now. "Do you... like being in Chicago instead or do you miss home too much?"

"To be honest? I didn't really have much left back home."

Her uncle was dead. She had Davina and Josh, but she couldn't really protect them, not the way she wanted to. They had stronger, more powerful people on their side, and she knew that Davina wouldn't let anything happen to Josh and Marcel wouldn't let anything happen to Davina.

"Do I wish the way New Orleans somewhat made sense? Yes, but that's mostly because it was home, more than anything else. In either place, I was starting over."

Ethan looks over at her with a soft smile. There's an ache in his expression because he understands if there wasn't much left back home, it must have been taken away somehow. It's why his hand drifts up to rest against the side of her arm again gently, and he takes in a deep breath, looking at her face.

"So it's starting fresh with the addition of a city that makes absolute no sense with its constant Rifts and that gave you a power which made things even more confusing," he says with a tiny smirk. "For what it's worth, I'm really glad I got the chance to meet you."

She looks back at him, that hand on her arm grounding her in ways she needs, but doesn't always expect. It's good to have someone to talk to, she knows this. She was aiming to be that person for someone else, professionally speaking. But finding someone for herself, she can speak to Ethan in a freedom that she hasn't really had since Klaus.

(Which most people from her world would probably think is odd, but Klaus doesn't just keep his own secrets. He keeps others' as well, and she always knew that anything she told him would be kept in confidence. He had been her friend, in his own violent way, leaving her offers of the bodies of her enemies the way a cat leaves mice for their owner to show their affection, and while it's terrifying and so not what she asked for, she understands where the gesture is coming from.

Sometimes she wishes she didn't.)

Ethan is different, though. Ethan doesn't have a thousand years of time to twist him into a monster that can only show affection through violence. He's just a person. A charming, funny, genuine person who she knows she can count on. It's nice to have that kind of connection with someone again, and she hopes he knows that he can do the same for her. She gives him a small smile in return, before nodding.

"I'm really glad I got the chance to meet you too." There's a half laugh before she shakes her head. "Honestly, half the time I don't know what I'd do without you."

Ethan meets her gaze when she looks back at him, and he breathes in deeply, unaware that he is grounding her. He just feels-- he feels something there. It's hard for him to slow down long enough to feel those things, to have anything that is real at all.

It's why he is so extroverted, charming, but he has had very few close friends in his life. He doesn't open up. He doesn't stop or slow.

He swallows at that feeling, thudding powerfully through him as he smiles softly at what she says. His hand remains on her arm still, and it's impossible to describe how what she says has an effect on him. It's a strong intense effect.

"You won't ever have to know," Ethan says, and his voice is soft as his gaze drifts from her eyes down to her mouth and then back up again with a tiny, charming smile. She came to him for help. It's likely not the best timing to act on that thing he feels between them.

It doesn't stop the thought from crossing his mind.

Edited 2014-11-19 04:03 (UTC)

Or from her feeling it on her end. As much as Ethan's emotions keep her on an even keel, she can't escape something that strong and intense even if she wants to. It doesn't help that she's been feeling something similar on her own end as well. This bond, whatever it is between then, is intense and warm and something that she wants to keep hold of for as long as she can.

It's similar to what she felt for Klaus, but better on so many ways and so many different levels. Klaus is bad for her and she knows it, with the danger and lack of trust on their part, but Ethan is different. Ethan is everything he could have been, but not Klaus at all. This feeling, whatever it is between them, is stronger than anything she's felt before and while she's not sure if it's her ability making it feel like more, or if it's real, but when it comes to Ethan, she doesn't really care.

It's why when his eyes drift to her mouth, no matter how brief it is, she acts on impulse, her hand finding his shoulder as she draws him closer and leaning in to kiss him softly.

This bond is incredibly intense and warm. He is drawn to it. Ethan is drawn to her in a way which can't be caged or locked away, and he doesn't want to do either of those things. Not when she is looking at him like that, and Ethan doesn't think anyone's ever looked at him like that before. He doesn't think he has ever been able to help someone stay on an even keel at all, to be someone they can seek when it all goes to hell.

She acts on impulse, and Ethan responds with instinct and impulse of his own. Thoughts fly out of his head as her mouth finds his own, and he breathes her in. His hand slides up to cup the side of her face, and he closes his eyes, lingering against her for a moment before he reaches out.

His arm winds around the back of her waist. His fingertips press against her back, and Ethan pulls her in closer to him as he deepens the kiss against her mouth, letting himself feel all that strong intensity which he knows now is shared. It's not his imagining this thing between them. His fingers slip back into her hair as he closes his eyes, and by the time he pulls back, it's breathlessly.

His mouth parted as he looks at her with a tiny, pleased smile. "Cami, I've wanted to do that for quite some time."

Cami all but melts into the embrace, her hands finding his arms to steady her as she leans in closer. It's been a long time since feeling something like this has felt like a good thing, and she wants to soak up as much of it as she can. She closes her eyes, drowns everything else out, and just focuses on the moment. It feels wrong to try and do anything else.

When he pulls back and smiles, she can't help but do the same, though hers turns a bit teasing. "I know." She could feel it, in case he's managed to forget. But eventually the smile shifts to something a little more sincere. "Me too."

open post } { pointless shippiness

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