2019-05-29 - The Talking Couch

Lilith pulls up in the drizzle in the dark rental SUV she's been using since return and takes a moment to flip down the visor for a look at herself. It's not vanity guiding this, as she spends no time preening. Instead, she seems to be looking at herself to make sure she's all there and together, oddly. Maybe she's expecting some particularly trying subjects to come up in conversation and steeling herself. But it's a brief delay after parking, and when she's out of the vehicle, she pops up to the cottage door to try the familiar handle while patting on a notification rap of knuckles at the frame.

The door's almost always unlocked, which may or may not be a wise thing in Gray Harbor, but if it is unlocked that means that Tobin is home and likely expecting company, and given that they'd just texted -- it's more than likely that he unlocked it anticipating her arrival. He's on the couch with a mug of coffee when she arrives and says, "There's coffee in the kitchen if you want some.. or, you know, help yourself to whatever."

Once in the house, Lilith looks at Tobin seated there with his coffee for a distracted viewing moment while the door closes behind with knock of a converse shoe to swing it that way. Her head tilts a little bit, and she stands there in her little leather jacket with her hands going onto the hips of her distressed jeans, a vague smile pulling her lip-glossed mouth. Other than that flush at the lips, though, she hasn't bothered with other cosmetics, fresh-faced and as unwittingly lovely as ever.

Then abruptly, she pulls in a huge breath, gets out of her jacket to hang it to dry, a little button up henley shirt in brick red beneath. The brunette immediately takes a turn toward the kitchen to get herself coffee while calling over her shoulder, "All grown is really something else to look at when you've had the big space between to remember a person both ways, isn't it?" She also grabs a bag of cookies to bring back into the room with her because why stop at coffee when this house has real food too.

Lilith heel-toe digs herself out of her converse when back to the couch and then settles in with a leg folded under herself next to Tobin with bounty in hands. Then after a drink, she comments, "... this hasn't even really started yet and I'm just finding two minutes inside ridiculously nice."

Tobin is dressed in a comfortable pair of jeans, and a t-shirt that bears the logo of the Pourhouse on it, a pair of white socks on his feet. He has his phone open and was idly answering text messages when she came in but he sets it off to the side once she's inside the house. "Yeah, I suppose so," Tobin chuckles. He definitely looks a lot less gangly than he did when he was thirteen or fourteen. He's athletic now, from all the work on the boat, and the roundness of his early teens left his cheeks a long time ago.

When she returns to the couch with cookies, he makes grabby-hands at the approach, reaching in to grab one and taking a bite as she settles in. "I blame mom. I'm trying to keep it as warm as she used to. It's.. not quite the same but.. I'm doing the best I can." He smiles a little bit lopsidedly and then looks over to her. "So.. we've got cookies. We've got coffee. Oh!" He reaches over the back of the couch and pulls a dark blue blanket with stars sewn all over it out, opens it up, and throws it over their laps. "Ookay, now we're good."

"Perfecto." Lilith chimes as the blanket is laid over her and Tobin's lap like a final coup de gras of establishing couch comfort. Then after biting into a cookie, while still mid-chew, she mashes a press of kiss alongside his face for who knows what. Maybe just being Tobin. "So I'm going to tell you a secret." Uh oh. Maybe. Actually, it starts off pretty light, "I found a black taxidermy chicken between pawn and swap sites online and Frankie quipped about rounding up the trailer park chickens for her shop a few days ago. So I got her that sucker and replaced the eyes with red stones to make it nice and demonic for her. Ran that by, hung out. And..."

She pauses for a drink of her coffee and another cookie before looking at Tobin with a vaguely perplexed and amused expression while continuing, "Byron came up somehow. And she gives me this little box with powder in it, tells me to drink slip it to him on the sly. And I'm like uh, what is it? Is it going to make me less awkward about when I blahblah text at him? And she's Frankie, of course, so she just gives me a smile and tells me to have faith." Then she squints, "I bet it's sugar and cornstarch and she was being cute. Y'think?"

"Aw, man, crumbs," Tobin laughs as he gets a cookie smooch to the cheek and rubs it off with the back of his hand, chuckling and shaking his head. He gets the crumbs off and then he wipes them on her shirt, like the adult that he is. "So you.. turned a taxidermied chicken into a taxidermied demon chicken for Frankie.. fortune-telling Frankie?" He takes another sip of his coffee and lets her continue.

He then can't help but laugh at Frankie offering her a box of powder to slip in Byron's drink, "Well, I doubt it's cocaine, because that's a lot of cocaine and nobody's giving away that much drugs. So it may very well be cornstarch and sugar. Did you taste it?" He grins then and says, "Though, I doubt that you need it in that case."

Lilith wiggles with the wiping hand in a mute 'stahhhhppit' throwback moment for play, then she takes a drink of her coffee again before putting her head down to lean against Tobin's shoulder, considering the bag of cookies in her lap, "Pretty much, yep. She already named it Scratch and is finding the perfect place for him to scare the shit out of people if I had to guess." Then she says with sudden realization, "No. I should taste it. I'm damn sure not going to roofie Byron on the sly, kind of tempted to drink it myself just to see if it does anything. But of course, I didn't want to look like a weenie, and there's no point in lecturing about the morals of drink-slipping to her, so I just have the box now."

"In fact, we had drinks last night and I had the box on me. I felt dirty just carrying it -without- using it, on principle. But it has to be powdered sugar. She's so screwing with me. I'd really like to know the supposed end-goal and why she thought it necessary, but I remember to pick my battles when it comes to her and Gina playing mystery witchy." A pause, features sobering some there at rest with reflection, "She's something, though, not like last time I saw her. So hell, maybe it's not sugar. After talking about ghosts a little..." Lilith's head eases up so she can look at Tobin, voice quiet, "I asked if she's ever seen your mom. And she said no, but that she hadn't looked either... then she kind of started looking like that's a thing she might want to help with." A pause, "Byron told me a little. But do you want to talk about it?"

Tobin chuckles at the chicken and says, "That sounds about right. Probably set it up perching in a corner somewhere so that at just the right moment a light can flash on it and.. DEMON CHICKEN." He opens his eyes real wide, and then settles back, letting her rest her head against his shoulder as he drinks his coffee. "Do you have the box with you?" he asks, curiously. "You really can't figure out the end goal?" That seems to entertain him, but he leaves that there for the time being. "We're all a bit of the same, and a bit different. Was talking about that with Byron. We've all grown up, gotten new layers on layers on top of those foundations. Takes a little while to learn all the new parts, and the ones beneath we never knew about."

He's quiet for a moment or two when she mentions his mom, and nods when she says that Frankie hasn't seen her. "I don't believe that she's dead. I'm pretty sure that she's somewhere -- I just don't know how to look." He turns his head to look at her and asks, "About what? We talked about a few things when he was over here. How much did he tell you? I mean, I told him he could.. so it's fine if he did."

"Can't really figure it no, I think she just up and decided I needed it after I mentioned Byron being paranoid about Carver coming around me at the shop with his particular brand of strange. And she just kind of laughed and said she thinks it wasn't just paranoia, or something, then gave me the box for him..." Then, after a bat of her lashes in realization, Lilith nods after that off the cuff explanation and briefly leans forward to put down her coffee on the table so she can get up and pad over to where her shoulder bag is with her coat.

On the way and while digging, she answers his other question, "Well, after you went to lie down, we had a couple of more beers and talked on the general oddities of that whole conversation, and what we should maybe start doing... y'know. About our things. To learn each other, learn from each other, teach ourselves control... somehow we got on your mom and he explained that she just disappeared one day."

Carrying the little wooden box over to get re-situated next to Tobin on the couch, she flips the blanket back into cozy place and extends the box. There's a dose of white powder inside when unlatched. The brunette then carries on, "That you said the stove was on, like she just fell through somewhere. Or something. And -he- didn't say it, but I suddenly understood why you said leaving isn't an option. I mean. That's about the extent of what I know, but I knew enough to draw an obvious conclusion."

Tobin watches as she goes over to get the box, listening, and taking another sip from his mug of coffee. He nods and says, "He mentioned Carver, but.. we'll come back to that." For the time being, he takes the box when she hands it over and he lifts it up to his nose, giving it a faint sniff to see if it smells like anything. Then he dips a fingertip in and tastes it, to see what it actually is. He makes a bit of a face and then says, "Tastes like chalk.. maybe it's ground up asprin or something." He shrugs a little and puts the cover back on it, handing it back over to her.

"I mean, you know she used to just disappear for a day or two at a time. That wasn't all that unusual. She was just quirky, and folks figured she just went wandering. She always came back, so it was fine. But this time, yeah, the kettle was on, her tools were left out in the garden where she's been working.. everything looked like she'd been in the middle of doing something. Then she... just didn't come back. Two days turned into three, three turned into a week, a week turned into a month.. by graduation she still wasn't back. The police investigated. No one could find anything. There were no signs that there was any kind of an attack. I don't think she's dead. I think she slipped in between somewhere again and is stuck there.. somewhere.. and just can't get out."

Lilith looks at Tobin a bit dubiously as he goes to taste the white powder, a little bit leaned back in seated place. She's clearly waiting for him to explode or start bocking like a chicken or something, but neither of those things happen, of course. The brunette huffs out a little laugh at his conclusion and takes the box back to put on the table, trading out hands for taking her coffee cup back to nestle with while listening. Then her head drifts with small, quiet guilt, lashes dropping, "I.. I missed so much around me. It's like I told Byron, I wish I had let her just look at me, really look at me once it all started. But I literally have memories of guilt dodging her in the grocery store and everything else. But mostly I wish I had been here for you when it happened."

After taking a drink from her coffee cup again, she sighs and swallows before she says, "I'm sorry." There's a beat of pause after that weighted sentiment, then she continues, "I'm going to try and help you find her if you think there's ways."

Tobin reaches into the bag for another one of the cookies. "She knew," he says with a slight shake of his head. "She could sense it the way that we can, but she knew what she was sensing. She knew we were all going through something together, but apart. I think that's why she tried to take care of everyone." He takes a breath and lets it out. "I don't know what causes the Dreams, or the slipping in and out, let alone if there's any way at all to control where to go.. or how to look. And even if I did, the potential billions of dreams out there? I.." He takes a deep breath and lets it out again. "I want to think it's possible, that maybe she might be able to reach out.. so long as I'm here, where she knows she can find me."

"Okay. Yeah. Billions would be hard to comb through, assuming we knew how to reliably slip in, navigate, and find. I like to think that..." Lilith suddenly screws her nose up with a bit of embarrassment, but she turns some to look at Tobin more directly while seated once she's drained and put her cup down. "So this is nerdy. But what if we're really bright separate... but even brighter together? Like a beacon she can get to from... whatever or wherever. If we could just find a way to um. Navigate and protect each other through the looking glass or whatever, maybe we'd be drawn to where she is." A pause. Also a disclaimer. "I realize that makes us sound like dreamwalking superheroes on a mission with the Light of Earendil to guide our way. Also we don't know how to do those things. But uh. I liked the idea."

Maybe they shouldn't have brought Lilith over with them to Kevin's as much as they did.

"Anyway. In the more rational, adult world..." Lilith reaches up to work a hand through her hair and holds it a moment with vague sheepishness while looking at Tobin after all that. Her features are more thoughtful and considering as she continues, though, easy to read without all that goth makeup in the way, "People document things like this. Oddities. Surely somewhere, there's something or someone that knows how this all works. At least to some degree. What if we could find something that... can give us a better idea of what we could potentially do?"

"Yeah, we were talking about that a little bit, too, that we should try and figure out exactly what we all can do, and maybe what we can do together," Tobin says. "That could get dangerous, though. There's consequences sometimes for the stuff we do. If we set ourselves off like a giant lighthouse, we don't know what we're going to attract. It might not just be mom. It could be all the darkness and everything else that comes with it." He wraps his fingers around his mug, tapping at it idly with his thumbs. "I do think that we should all get together and figure out what we can do, though, figure out if there's ways we can do things together -- for defense if nothing else. This, slipping between like what happened on the boat.. it happens a lot around here. I know you guys haven't been around for a while, but I have, and I've been in and out of Dreams a lot."

Lilith works her tongue against the back of her teeth after easing back and smiling a little to herself. Tobin didn't even make fun of her idea! This must mean it might have some merit despite being what it was when it came out. Her eyes lapse thoughtful again while listening, and she nods a couple of small, solid times to Tobin. "Yeah, we should. I know... that I can do more than what I'm accustomed to doing. Which is kind of just as problematic as controlling what I know I can do. Because I don't really know what else is going to pop out of me at some point. And I know there's things I'm scared to try that I -feel- I can do. So that's just some kind of unholy trifecta to deal with."

Then Lilith grazes her bottom lip with her teeth and wonders of Tobin, "I know you said you feel things. And I know what I saw happening, the day of the boat, I think, but... can you explain what you know you can do? Like Byron, I know he can touch things and get memories and things from them. I-" Suddenly she kind of pales and looks nervous, remembering something, but it quick turns into a blush even with the creep of nerves remaining, "Gave him something of mine from when I lived in Miami to try and explain my life before. So I imagine... you can do that?"

"Yeah," Tobin says whens he asks about what he can do, and if it is similar to what Byron can do. "I can do that, too, the touching things and getting a sense from them." He lifts one hand and holds it, palm up, with his fingers curled a bit, and a spark of electricity jumps and arcs between them, crackling a little bit. "You saw what I could do.. with the electricity on the beach. It's one of the strongest things I can do, at least.. the most destructive." He lets the little spark fizzle out and disappear. Then he tilts his head and asks her, "What did you give him?"

Lilith may be accustomed to things sparking out of Tobin in times of strange duress, or at least accustomed enough, but seeing it arc from fingertips is surprising. After a little jump, she grins at him lopsided with general pride, "Neat. I have other questions, but I think I'll hold them, like we should test things with a showdown or something, but..." Then she has to visibly consider the next question with stilling pause of hesitation and/or nerves.

"Well I ah. Damn. I don't know why I gave him what I gave him. I have no clue what he's going to see and it's basically an immersion crash course, and really, what I needed him to understand is that I never... mm. Okay. So." Lilith shifts a little on her seat, holds up a finger to Tobin, then flips the blanket up to go pour her glass of the hard stuff from a different cabinet. She's nice enough to bring over an empty glass and the coffee to refill her guy friend there with options. Apparently she thinks he's going to go for the hard stuff too, given her prelude.

While pouring his new coffee and her new drink, she leaves the commandeered booze bottle of whatever she found on the tabletop with her emptied coffee and drops back down into a sit, seeming to have no problem giving herself the run of the place, "I gave him something that was a major piece of my old Miami job that I did for five years. One of the last things I kept. He kept dancing around not asking and I kept not saying anything, so I figured over drinks, I'd just tell him and bring it so he'd understand better. He'd mentioned that he'd wanted Carver's card, so that came along with..." A pause, her eyes seeking Tobin's as she takes a long drink and resettles, "It's a silk restraint. The urges to hurt never went away and I... was introduced to dominatrix work. Which was bad for me, really. Just new ways to hurt myself and feed something I shouldn't. And you can -imagine- telling Byron that when he still looks at me like I need help on the monkey bars..." Her lashes drop, "But I knew the item would at least show him I wasn't a whore, you know?"

She takes another drink. It comes out easier for Tobin, but certain hobbies and professions have certain connotations.

Tobin raises a brow as Lilith stops and gets up to go get some liquor out of the liquor cabinet. He doesn't go for it though, shaking his head and sticking to his coffee. Instead he's just quiet as he listens, regarding her curiously as she settles in to explain what it was that she gave Byron. His expression doesn't change, however, as she seeks his eyes, just waiting while she builds up toward whatever it is that she's going to explain. When it does finally out, Tobin says, "Oh." That's it, as though he'd been expecting her to say that she was some sort of crazed axe murderer and she'd told him that she collects stamps. "You just don't strike me as the Dominatrix type," he admits as he lifts his mug and takes another sip from its contents. "But it sounds like you really didn't find what you were looking for in it."

"I would have never thought of it myself, but I knew one. Got dragged into it. It's weird because... I did think it'd fix me. And it's not entirely what people expect. I mean, it -can- be based on preferences, but... that wasn't my deal. I picked the ones that felt they needed punishment or pain for reasons other than sex. Or tried, anyway. It gets hard to separate the two, but I had rules as to what I was selling. Had very rich clients. And I never... had money, or a real job, you know? Even in the five years before, I just... wandered and existed. Never really figured where or how to fit." Lilith ruminates at length for Tobin and seems to have a bit of weight off of her chest the way she's breathing a few pointed, easier times. And she can't help but eventually laugh at his easy, off the cuff commentary and response.

"I wanted control. I didn't have any in a lot of ways. At least I have a hole of my own savings for it to live off of now, because of it." A pause, lips kept at upward twitch as she drinks, then hisses a little through her teeth, "Thanks for not assuming I spent all my nights in leather with a whip. Or at least not exclaiming that idea part aloud." Her head shakes a little bit, "Wish I... had thought longer about giving Byron that thing, I just got so entrenched with the idea of him 'understanding'. It's not like picking up stray retail work. But then you know, I also just shouldn't care who understands, I understand enough to know it wasn't for me and I'm done and I now feel..."

She leans to smash a kiss at Tobin's side of face near his hairline, "Like I fit in some inexplicable way in this screwy place. And I didn't remember what it felt like."

There's no judgment in Tobin. That's just not who he is. Much like his mother, he just seems to accept people as they are, and isn't particularly surprised by even things that others might find surprising. Instead, he just seems interested in hearing what it was that she went through. He nods his head after a moment or two and says, "I guess I can understand seeing that as a way to cope with the stuff that you were going through, and the dreams. I suppose it could have seemed like a 'safe' way to express that urge to hurt." He nods again whens he mentions control. "You were out of control of your life and it gave you some manner of chosing your own destiny, your own clients, who you caused pain to -- people that you didn't worry about hurting who were close to you. Easier with people who were paying for it beacuse they wanted or needed it, than to fear accidentally hurting someone close to you." He chuckles as she smooshes another kiss to the side of his face and he wraps one arm around her, giving her a side-hug. "But hey, it makes for an interesting story, at least. And no, I don't assume you spent all your nights in leather with a whip. I mean, not that it would matter if you did, you know."

There's a bare lift of Lilith's brows as she listens to Tobin piece things here and there on her behalf and while she isn't surprised by his general calm perceptive thought on the matter, there's something about... someone slowing down to understand instead of assuming or kneejerking based on the general concept... it slows her down too. She eases into the arm wrapped about her after putting her drink down with remnants at slosh, no longer seeming to need it as she cuddles to wrap return arms around near torso with leaning, "... yeah. Pretty much. Guess it's a good thing I didn't have the idea to go doing that around here, might actually kill someone on accident. But out there... things just hurt more than they should have, I think. It's unclear, but it's what others led me to understand."

"You're kind of the best. Funny story on not frequenting leather, though. I had a literally creepy fifties darling housewife dress to do the deed for one of them. And he liked to wear tightie whities. He tried to call me mommy once, and I charged him extra for the creep factor and told him that he better find some mommy nickname for next time that doesn't key me into his mommy issues for my own sanity." She slants her mouth up some with humor, "What was your worst case scenario for what I'd been off doing for a decade?"

Tobin is about as chill as it gets without slipping into a coma. That's just his nature, until someone threatens someone he cares about -- then it's shooting lightning out of his hands, but otherwise, chill. He wraps his arm around her shoulders and says, "To each their own, I suppose. I do not grok some of the kinks out there, but you know, whatever." He then says, "Worst case scenario? I dunno, the way you built it up, I thought you were going to come back and tell us you'd joined some terrorist cell doing interrogations and putting sharp slivers of wood under people's fingernails or something." Not really, but it does sound good as a worst-case scenario.

"That kind of makes me sound like a badass, I think I like it better. I told Byron to burn the tie after he was finished with it. Haven't heard heads or tails if anything came of it, but it's not like it'll come up either way unless I flat out ask and... eh." Lilith comments aside to Tobin with a quiet half-laugh that ends with a tailing sigh, going quiet and vaguely pensive there for a spell afterwards, head going to rest at his frame while her bottom lip works with trap between her teeth.

"If you didn't have to stay, Tobin... where do you think you'd go? Do you let yourself think about that at all? Or is it just a non-negotiable even for those secret spaces?"

Tobin shrugs his shoulders and says, "If it's important to you to know what he thinks about it, then just ask him, Lil. I mean, what's the point if we can't talk to each other? I think that's kind of the lesson learned here. Maybe if we'd all talked to each other more, we'd have been able to be there for each other more. I mean, even Byron and I, keeping in touch all these years -- there were things that I didn't tell him until recently." He's quiet, too, not seeming to mind the silence for a time, just letting her mull things over. While she does, he reaches into the bag of cookies and grabs another one, taking a bite. "I don't know," Tobin admits. "I like it here, craziness and all. I don't know what I'd do somewhere else. And now that I've met someone here.. I don't know, more reason to stay rather than less."

"Byron... I think it bothers him that I'm doing this open and honest thing with him -now- because it took me so many years to realize what I threw away. Not because he doesn't want to hear the things I'm saying. But because... I think I hurt him a lot more than he's letting on. And he's probably not sure what to do with that, even though the adult thing is to move right along. And sometimes I make awkward when I text, I think, or..." There's some squirming in brief awkward to accompany a roll of her eyes at herself before she shifts upward in brief to finish her drink. When she's finished, though, she doesn't refill, she just settles bodily back up in the teddy bear pile of man, blanket, and cookies, taking one of the latter to eat on while contemplating the rest aloud.

"I'm just going to pull back a little and let him get used to me being around instead of shoving myself in his face. That and I don't even think he's noticed I've went and gotten a lovely set of tits-- his compliment for my bout of dressup when I asked him for drinks was the most grandpa thing, something along the lines of 'aren't you gussied up young lady' which seems unfair because I swear he's told much uglier women they're lovely when it's time to buy a unit. Wouldn't have -killed- him to pretend." The brunette sniffs with half-offense, half-amusement before she's looking aside at Tobin and patting her hand not toting a cookie a few times with bidding on his leg, "Met someone, huh. Huh. Huh. Spill, I'm spilling."

"Well, I mean, you kind of just vanished. I think whatever happens, there's going to be some time adjusting to who we all are now. We're all a bit of who we were, but also all the layers of 'more' that we've become over the years, all the growing and changing. Sure, we're a lot the same, but we're all different, too." Tobin gives her shoulders a light squeeze. He does laugh a bit at Byron's compliment for her appearance and says, "It's different when you're genuinely complimenting a friend, and you're trying to sell something. Byron.. he's /on/ so often, always thinking about the next venture, the next project, the next business or client and making impressions -- I actually like that when he's around here, he's just Byron. I mean, he'll never stop thinking about the next thing, but at least he doesn't seem to feel like he /needs/ to schmooze us, you know? I had the worst crush on him in high school, you know." He shakes his head a little and smiles. Then he says, "His name's Rafael and he just moved up here. He's a piano teacher. I met him getting coffee and we just kind of.. hit it off.. talked for quite a while. We have plans to get coffee.. again.. sometime. So I mean, we just met, but I'm kind of hoping for more cups of coffee in the future if all goes well."

"Yeah..." Lilith breathes out with murmur and quiet sigh before she shoves in the rest of her cookie to eat instead of nibbling it down the rest of the way. She goes still against Tobin after raking a hand back in brief through her hair with her brows knit down after that little sigh, but her lips can't help but turn up a little bit with continued subject matter. Then there's a little side glance there at some point that says she might have been willingly blind goth during those later years, but maybe assumed or picked up on the crush in a general inexplicable fashion. But hearing confirmation is another thing, so it comes with a bat of lashes to go with that side eye, "... I used to think he and I would get married, then you'd be brothers after your mom adopted me... that way we'd all be related by adoption and marriage. Whoops."

After a tiny snuffle of dry amusement at childhood plans went awry by general shit and life, she tells Tobin, "I like the name Rafael. And being a piano teacher is kind of sexy. Not the work, it just means he can get down, dirty, and beautiful on the keys himself and that's pretty neat. And I assume you find him sexy, so nice combo shot, killer." Her arm nudges a few times, "Where'd he live before here? Does he have a lovely exotic accent too?"

Tobin can't help but laugh aloud at that, a genuine burst of mirth. "Whoops, indeed," he grins. "I knew nothing was ever going to come of that, and I was pretty deep in the closet in highschool, so I never said anything. But hey, it's been a time of revelations in general." He shrugs his shoulders slightly. "I'm getting more comfortable with just admitting things outloud, like you know, being able to shoot lightning out of my fingers, why not a childhood crush?" He smiles a little wryly. Then he shakes his head at her in amusement, "I mean, yeah. He's got gorgeous dark eyes, and a man who can make music is instantly attractive. But he's got a sense of humor, and he's easy to talk to. He's from New York."

"When you get to the point where you decide he's worth keeping around a while, I want to have a looksie. But I'll refrain because no pressure no pressure." Lilith tells Tobin after a bit of a twisted up smile at his helpless laugh at her former rumination on how all things would work out. "I should find something insanely handsome with dark eyes to play a piano for me. Maybe I should start with a fish or something, first."

The woman looks at Tobin seriously with an upward pull of her head once she's made the dry suggestion, "It's easy for me to forget when I get around you and a few others, but I'm... not great at people. Me sitting here like this with you... it's so casual. And it's something I don't take for granted. I haven't been touched too often or genuinely save for some far and few between over the years." A pause, "It makes me happy that I'm not actually dead inside. I worried for a while, before I ripped down the walls and came back. I wondered if there'd be anything of me left. But suddenly, in certain company and surroundings, it's all I know -how- to be. It's a little surreal. And I wonder if the screwy-ass scare of the boat trip hadn't slammed us back together like fate, would I be operating this way? Terrible what-if brain, still."

"I'm just hoping the town doesn't freak him out, or that I don't freak him out, and he leaves town," Tobin laughs a little bit wryly. "He seems a little bit shy. He pretty much asked if I wanted to get coffee then fled. I don't think I'm ready to subject him to you crazies just yet." It's said affectionately, though. "Maybe after coffee." He grins then and he says, "Oh, I don't know. I think we would have all come back together again, even if the whole boat thing hadn't happened. I think it just accellerated the process of what probably would have been more awkward and taken longer otherwise." He leans over and kisses the top of her head. "You're not dead inside. And any time you need reminding, come on over. My cookies aren't quite as good as mom's, but you're always welcome to them."

"Take your time to dip him into crazy slowly, yes. Though honestly, the place he's chosen to stay may well do it on your behalf and you're just there ready to help him handle it. Which is good. He doesn't know he has someone good like that, yet, and I hope he gets to find that out. But only if he deserves to find out, of course. Otherwise, I'll punch him. Oh wait, that's lame, I set people on fire now, let's do that instead as backup." Lilith puts her hand fondly into rake through Tobin's hair for a brief moment of arranging and makes a noise in her throat on accepting the needs for reminders.

Then she says, "You're seriously the best, don't care how many years happened."

After hanging a while, she heads out with a mutter about work, but eats a lot more cookies before that with promises to steal more later.