#nathaniel locket

[mydarlingdearestdead]

"Pursuing a passion," Nathaniel began grandly, "Is much like pursuing a tornado."

"Oh, like Twisters!" Daphne reclined upon the settee, her toes digging into the plush velvet. Her smile was comparable to the moon's indecisive phase, "Helen Hunt! Confirmed early on that men were not to be in my arsenal."

Wisely, Nathaniel cushioned his neck against the sofa's arm, throwing his gaze against the ceiling as he recalled with appropriate grandeur, "Somebody told me that a masquerade party while I was a youth... Everybody called me 'Kit' then. I didn't have it in me to mind."

"Who was it?" Daphne's voice graced his ear, softer now. He imagined she adopted a similar position, laying her glass upon her bare stomach.

Nathaniel attempted an undignified shrug, "I was drunk. And quite possibly high. And perhaps unconscious. Maybe it was a fortune cookie."

Her queer, chiming laughter. Daphne Caldwell, he imagined, was one to grip her sides while she laughed, injecting all of herself into the motion, allowing to measure of feeling to blacken and rot in her soul. So unlike he whom she graced with her acquaintence.

[mydarlingdearestdead]

Idly, he swayed the tumbler back and forth. The scotch's amber tint caught his eye as it sloshed, creating prospectively magnificent waves if only scale had not been an issue, and he paused.

Her own tumbler lay empty, discarded on the mantlepiece.

Daphne stretched out upon the chaise lounge, chin cushioned upon her forearm as she peered at her dear companion. He hesitated by the window, one hand- That which did not support his refreshment- outstretched slightly toward the bruising rainfall.

"I suppose you're too young to remember our last storm of this calibre?"

Have you ever noticed that those who are in possession of knowledge which they believe you require often display a very specific smile? It is small, almost an imprint, but flush with indecision, with playfulness and ecstasy. Daphne Caldwell was well acquainted with such a smile. Nathanial was not entirely certain she had not coined it herself.

"Obviously not... But I can describe the state of the maternity ward at St. Damien's during it. My mother complained enough."

He turned, just a fraction.

"Born during a storm?" His voice carried a lighter note, finally. Daphne treated herself to a wider smile.

She nodded, "No epidurals were given on account of the state of things. You should've seen my mum. Fixing to unionise."

Nathaniel Locket was not a man accustomed to commenting on things as common as unions, and so he maintained his silence on the matter. When he did speak, he did so in order to confirm:

"You know that storm killed almost eighty-five people."

"Eighty-seven were born."

[mydarlingdearestdead]

"I never had hobbies." Daphne snorted, her head lolling against the sofa's cushioned arm. If she pressed, she could feel the wooden frame beneath, unyielding and stern. She sighed, "I didn't need to. My hobby was explaining that I'm Dolly Caldwell's daughter. That I do not condone or- God forbid, intend to continue- her work." She breathed a laugh, "I mean, fuck."

She had balanced her glass upon her bare stomach, shivering beads of condensation met her skin. Nathaniel dragged the sofa as near to the fire as possible without the possibility of arson and yet, still, she insisted on shivering.

"I'm afraid I do not understand the intricacies of your mother's research myself." Nathaniel replied and, raising an effectively silencing hand, continued, "Nor do I wish to do so. But it cannot be denied that the good she did, in a morbid manner, certainly outweighs the cost."

"Don't give me that 'She was a good woman doing her best in a shit situation' bullshit." Daphne jerked, upsetting the glass. It tumbled to the carpet and, although Nathaniel braced himself for a thundering crash and an immense feeling of loss, collided with a dull, meaningless thud, contents forgotten.

Daphne trudged on, oblivious or merely ignorant, "I know. Trust me. I know that she had her reasons. But if one more person asks me about the fucking Trolly Problem, I'm going to blow myself up."

Nathaniel nodded, lifting his own glass to his lips, asking, "Is the point to destroy her research or is that an added benefit to suicide for you?"

"You decide."

[mydarlingdearestdead]

"I used to- For years, I wished at bedtime on stars that weren't there. I wished that the next morning, I'd wake up and everything would be how it was. How it should have been, that's how I thought of it."

"Did you manage to convince yourself?" Nathaniel asked.

The two lay upon the carpet of his office, the expanse of carpet cushioning beneath his aching, creaking bones. Daphne squirmed, throwing her arms in wide arcs above her head and writing poetry in the air.

She shook her head, a movement so inconsequential that Nathaniel may have missed it if not for the accompaning, "No... Never."

Something beyond their universe- Their world in which warmth and full bellies were a given, where the past was merely an open doorway awaiting your passage- produced a grand clanging, disturbed tremendously by the storm. Nathaniel shivered.

He understood the ease of slipping into a fantasy, a world built upon a foundation of wishing and merriment. He knew intimately the suffering which came with returning to the present.

[mydarlingdearestdead]

The strand of hair which fell across Daphne's eye had spiraled into an imperfect curl which she batted idly away as it entered her field of vision. On the opposite side, strands wove themselves into an indecipherable smudge.

She shrugged, throwing her head back with a tie on her wrist, "It got wet."

"Says she, as if any part of her was not thoroughly soaked."

Daphne exhaled in a huff, "I meant that it curls when it's wet."

"Yes, I understood." Nathaniel replied, "It was merely not a sentence worth uttering. I wish you had stayed silent, is all."

"Silent so you could ogle me?"

Now, Nathaniel's turn to turn from her in a sigh. He meandered toward a dark oak cabinet, retrieving a frosted whisky glass and a handful of ice from the white interior. Then, from a higher cabinet set in the same fashion, a bottle labeled pretentiously in gilded, cursive script.

Partially turning, he informed her, "There's apple juice in the main fridge."

"Thanks." Daphne replied, voice low and dry,

[mydarlingdearestdead]

Daphne Caldwell lays upon the kitchen island, the marble cool against her bare shoulders. Her legs hang off the edge, beating against the base. She is staring at the light fixture hanging above her, an amalgamation of frosted glass and steel. She grimaces. 

Nathaniel Locket has dragged a stool away from said island so as to sit by the arched, kitchen window. The rainfall beats softly against the pane, a confused rhythm. He sips from a whisky glass, the drink diluted by melted ice. 

The refrigerator- Left, nonsensically, to display it's innards to the world- chirps irritably. Daphne, her reluctance sounded in a groan, rises, her bare feet hitting the tiled floor with a solid this. She throws an elbow to the refrigerator door, mouth gaping in a yawn. Nathaniel, his back to her, raises his glass in an imitation of a toast. 

She sticks her tongue out at his turned head. 

"Wretched little girl." He says. 

Daphne snorts, "Prudish old man." 

[mydarlingdearestdead]

"I think I met them once." Nathaniel whispered. Daphne, despite herself, strained to hear him above the shuddering rainfall, "At an event, a book launch. Not mine- Or Dolly's- just a celebration for an acquaintance. She kissed me on the cheek, Dolly, and your father held her by the waist, laughing at his jealousy."

Daphne brought her thighs up against her chest, balancing her chin the divot between her knees. She could picture them if she closed her eyes, her mother with her coils framing her face like a dark halo and her father, his glasses perched low on his nose, wide eyes sweeping over their frames. She kept looking at Nathaniel.

"I think we chatted. They bought me a drink. I asked about-" He sighed, "About their kids."

Like an ornamental thread torn loose, Daphne felt the smile plead with her lips.

"Pulled out the wallet, didn't he?"

"You were a cute kid." Nathaniel replied, "I remember that. Gap toothed, with little braids."

Daphne snorted, "That fuckin' wallet. I still have it laying somewhere. Pictures and all." She swallowed, dropping her gaze, "Pictures..."