ain't together // { lex & denali | 81st }

you know me, now and then I'm a mess
please don't hold that against me

Kicking a tree in frustration, Denali throws her head back and wails pathetically at the sky. "It wasn't —" She punches the tree, but it's a poor effort that accomplishes little more than scraping her knuckles. "— supposed to be like this!" Voice indignant, she pulls her hand against her chest and presses her newest minor injury to her lips, sucking at the blood as if that might pull the faint flair of pain out as well. Dropping down into a crouch, she frowns at the grass and attempts to figure out where her genius plan went so wrong. Stripping her jacket off, she flattens it out on the ground in front of her, tracing her fingers over the embroidery that starts on the right cuff, going up the arm and over the shoulder onto the back where a rambling purple line of thread weaves through a crude map of roads and buildings, looping around in a forest of awkward trees in search of a destination on the arm of the jacket she obviously hasn't found her way to yet. "I made Mackenzie give me these directions like ten thousand billion times, there's no way I got them wrong," she grumbles to a squirrel on one of the branches above. It's a dumb squirrel with a mocking face and she doesn't like it. "Don't look at me like that! I'm not stupid. You're a squirrel. You're stupid. I don't need your attitude right now. Mind your own business!"

Huffing, she wraps her arms around her legs and absently digs her fingers into one of the holes in her aggressively plaid over the knee socks as she studies the map she's spent the train ride here stitching onto the jacket, using a hand drawn map as reference. It was intended to be a new battle jacket to fight off her impatience with, days cooped up as district after still-not-the-district-she-wanted-to-be-in-already passed by in a blur. She never expected that finding Lex's house would actually be so difficult as to need to hunker down and really reference a map she thought she had effortlessly memorized by now.

"I bet it's the beekeeper's fault," the accusation comes out as a hiss as she makes a grab for her suitcase, opening it to pull out a parcel of carefully folded netting that she'd promised to drop off at the house of the woman's aunt in exchange for directions to the Lionel home. She only met the beekeeper because of delivering a book on behalf of a librarian that she'd been directed to by a grocer who was running too late for a meeting with a local farmer to help Denali find her way out of town, but if she could kindly drop something off with the librarian then surely they could answer her questions. The library had been right across the street from the train station, so that seemed fine enough until that person wanted a favor too, despite not even knowing where Lex and her father lived. ("— but Addy Bruckhauser lives somewhere out that way and I know where she lives and she certainly knows where that Lionel girl and her father live. They did some work on her roof a few summers back.") Denali sighs and throws the netting at the tree. "Liar!" Addy Bruckhauser did not know, but she sure did have yet another favor to ask in exchange for sending Denali to an aunt a mile or so down the road who supposedly knew.

"I'm tired and my leg hurts and it's getting cold!" Denali screeches at the netting on the ground, wagging a finger at it. The netting has nothing to say for itself, which is absolutely the wrong response right now. Growling at it, Denali stands up and jumps on top of it, stomping and grinding the heels of her heavy-soled boots into it. "I was supposed to be there hours ago! I'm not supposed to be lost in the woods, meeting every stupid person in this District except the one I came here to see!" She jumps and she jumps and she whips the net against the rough bark of the tree a couple more times before her frustration subsides enough that she can focus again. Babbling a string of mostly incoherent insults, she stuffs the small favor back into her suitcase and resumes drudging her luggage down a dirt road that's less road than it is a sort of wide-ish space between trees.

It had seemed like a truly fantastic idea to secretly book her train ticket to arrive early. Not only would she be there sooner, the train pulling up to the platform in the morning instead of the middle of the night, but the look of total shock on Lex's face when she answered the door to find Denali casually standing there would surely be so worth it. (It being hiking a few miles via directions where the landmarks were mostly trees. "Is there really nothing else out here but trees?!" Nope.) She'd brought a camera to capture the moment and everything. However, as the hours lose themselves in the forest ("That tree looks kind of like a rabbit... but is it the tree that's supposed to look like a big rabbit?"), her confidence in The Plan fades. It would have been much easier to just wait for Lex to pick her up at the station and, at this rate, far more efficient.

Thankfully, the beekeeper's aunt does in fact know where the Lionels live and it's the next house down the road. Still, exactly how bad the whole plan wound up being doesn't quite sink in until after Denali knocks on Lex's front door... and no one answers. Standing there on the porch, frozen in stillness as she weighs the idea of needing to break in against the fear of having the wrong house, relief washes over her when the doorknob turns without resistance, unlocked. The house is dark and quiet, but still she peeks into each room with hope. Kitchen. Living Room. Bathroom. Everything is obvious enough. It's not a large house, particularly in comparison to her own, but it's still awkward creeping around without knowing what will be behind any given door. When she discovers a bedroom — neat and orderly, not a single thing out of place — it's obviously not Lex's. "Sorry, Arthur," she apologizes for the intrusion, despite him not being there to witness her poking around the house.

She finds the room she's searching for upstairs. The collection of furniture looks frankensteinish, everything mismatched and slightly insane. Denali couldn't be more delighted, immediately abandoning her suitcase to poke at the nightstand. It's a marvel of utter nonsense with its four different legs: one clawfoot, one reeded, one tapered, and one flared. Although she hasn't the slightest clue what the various styles are called, even she knows they aren't meant to be put together like this, but looking at it, she's not sure why. So much of this — clashing colors of wood and everything notably assembled from scraps or the damaged remains of wildly different projects — has a madcap aesthetic that feels like a dream she must have had (at least) once come to life or, if nothing else, a spin on so many failed craft projects of her own. Except useful. And better. Obviously.

Touching her fingertips to each of the mismatched knobs on the nearby dresser, she snickers at the messy pile of flannel shirts tumbling off the top and over the side where a laundry graveyard attempts to hide itself in the corner. Badly folded sweaters explode out from a drawer that won't shut. Glancing around, it's no wonder that Lex's room has been relegated to its own floor of the house, far from her father's no nonsense tidiness. Just the knowledge that this kind of madness exists in his own home must nag at him sometimes, regardless of how resourceful and practical it is. Nothing has gone to waste, but everything is chaos.

Falling back onto the bed, it's not as soft as she was expecting (in large part because it's lacking in what any reasonable person might consider a minimum for pillows and blankets), but after the hike here Denali is so exhausted that she's nearly asleep before she hits the mattress. "Just a couple minutes," she murmurs, curling into her knees like a cat while nestling herself into the folds of a thin quilt below and spreading out the oversized fair isle blanket scarf she's wearing above. She shouldn't take a nap right now. She knows she shouldn't take a nap right now... but she’s tired from talking to so many useless people and being taken advantage of and made to play courier for them and from punching trees — so many trees! — and tripping and scraping her knees and accidentally walking into branch after branch after branch and her hands are sticky with sap and there are pine needles stuck everywhere and when Lex sees —

Rolling onto her back, Denali opens her eyes to stare at the ceiling, the corner of her lip twitching as she forgets her exhaustion in favor of remembering the reason for this whole ordeal. Oh, yeah! Lex. Groaning loudly at the unavoidable necessity of standing up, it takes several unsuccessful attempts at willing herself to move before Denali manages to roll herself off the edge of the bed and onto the floor. From there it's easier to convince herself that getting back up onto her feet won’t be the literal end of the world. Probably.

Idly wandering the house for another ten or fifteen minutes, everything silent and still with no Lex to be found, by the time Denali thinks to check the wood shop... she couldn't feel like more of an idiot. It should have been the obvious first place to look. She should have known. The amount of time she spent knocking on the front door of the house and standing there expectant that Lex might actually be aimlessly flopped on a couch or something, there to answer, is the kind of embarrassing secret she suddenly feels the need to take to the grave.

Upon walking into the wood shop, the first greeting comes from a blackened calico, immediately recognizable from stories: "Burl!" She squeals, her voice lost to the much larger howl of the ventilation system. The cat rubs her face against the seams of Denali's scuffed and muddied hiking boots, demanding scratches, but swatting and growling whenever a hand reaches out to comply. "Pets?" She offers meekly, brow furrowed in confusion as Burl hisses at her outstretched fingers — stranger danger! — before promptly yowling to complain about the upsetting lack of ear scritches once the hand has been withdrawn. "Okay, okay! No pets. I got it. No pets." Burl stares Denali down expectantly. "Ummm..." Burl promises this time will be different. Give pets, human. Denali melts into a puddle of smiles despite the contradictions in communication, easily charmed by cute fluffmonsters. Dropping into a crouch, she manages to run a single finger over the top of Burl's soft little head before the tortie snaps her teeth threateningly at the offensive breach of personal space. No pets! Only pets!

Denali falls onto her butt in surprise, panicking, and scuttles backwards in an awkward crabwalk to quickly escape Burl's intimidation techniques. "One of these days I'll figure out how to make a good first impression," she mutters to herself, trying to sound as if it's a joke despite knowing better than anyone exactly how serious it is. The intended amusement doesn't quite manage to turn the corners of her lips up until she finally spots the girl whose throat she had attempted to tear out with her bare teeth during their own first encounter. Laying beneath a large wooden cabinet of some sort, little more than Lex's feet are easily visible, but Denali is just relieved to have finally found her.

Attempting to stealthily tiptoe her way across the room, the intended surprise tactic backfires as Lex half-yells and Denali jumps with a garbled squeak of nonsense at the unexpected acknowledgement of her presence. "Hand me another three-twenty." Dumbfounded, all Denali can do is stare open-mouthed at the gall of the girl making impatient grabbing motions with her hand as she attempts to put her visitor to work without so much as a hello first. "For the small orbit. On my bench." Narrowing her eyes and crossing her arms, a small hrmph of indignant refusal rumbling in her throat, Denali mouths a few silent words about what she thinks of being given orders instead of hugs. (— hiked a thousand miles through the sticky, stabby forest, ruined my favorite socks, broke the wheel on my suitcase, got conned by a beekeeper, fell down more times than —) "Trying to get this done before Denali gets here on Saturday." Oh.

Ohhhh.

"You're so dumb," Denali mutters with a half-exasperated, half-amused despite herself snort of laughter. It is Saturday. It's only when she looks down that she realizes there's a piece of scrap wood clutched in her hand that she was going to... throw in annoyance? Squeeze until it turned to dust in her mighty fist of disgruntled rage? Light on fire? She doesn't know. She doesn't remember picking it up. She needs a nap and a hug and someone to tell her she's also dumb and that she shouldn't be touching things and to ask her why that last part didn't go without saying.

"Not that varnishing isn’t riveting," Lex continues, blissfully unaware of how the wood shop teetered on the edge of mayhem only a moment ago and maybe does still, "but I want to do a bit better than literally watching paint dry, y'know, in terms of activities." Setting the piece of wood down somewhere that is almost certainly far out of place, Denali rocks on her heels for a moment, eyes turned to the ceiling as if feigning innocence under Burl's judgmental stare.

Despite being obvious, it takes a moment for Denali to scan the room for Lex's workbench, her eyes catching on weird machinery and various projects before the table in question makes itself apparent. It's covered in boxes of sandpaper, piles of notebooks, and scattered tools. Picking up stabby-looking things and scrapey-looking things; hoosits and whatchamacallits, she finally holds up a thingymajig in one hand and a screwdriver in the other, staring them down as if waiting for one of them to speak up and tell her what she’s looking for... a three... twenty? She sets the screwdriver down. It might be one of the few comfortingly familiar options in front of her, but it’s also definitely wrong... still, this thingymajig is suspicious. There's no label on it. What if her guess betrays her? She turns it over and over in her hands but it does not reveal its secrets.

"Actually," the sudden interjection of Lex's voice into Denali's deeply confused thoughts is enough to cause her to start again, the mystery object she'd been peering at clattering out of her hands, "hang on to the sandpaper and pass me a chisel." The momentary panic is quickly replaced with relief and a cocky grin of confidence — she knows what a chisel is. Piece of cake. That is, she's able to identify that there's a set of what must be two dozen totally identical-looking chisels hooked onto some pegboard near the workbench. A frustrated whine is lost in the noise of the shop. "I'm thinking that majesty oak down across the river," Lex continues, fully unaware of the accidental agony she's inflicting. "That trail's extra pretty this time of year." Pieces of Lex's rambling are sucked up into the dust collectors, random words vanishing entirely as others are spit back out. It's nearly impossible to follow with Denali's focus prioritizing the chisel conundrum. "Of course you're invited too, but you've got to be on your best behavior. Keep your dead mice to yourself, okay Burl?" There are tiny numbers noted on the handles of the chisels and if she looks at the chisels at the beginning of the set in comparison to the chisels at the end of the set then it's obvious that there are small chisels and large chisels, but Lex asked for a chisel, not a number this time. Why no number this time?! "Murder is not the best way to win over cute girls, trust me."

"I'm gonna murder these chisels, you can trust that," Denali grumbles, petulantly grabbing one at random and marching back to the cabinet as if heading into battle. The vacuums overhead whirl and howl and devour, pulling her muttering from the air as if it was never there at all and leaving her even more dissatisfied than before. Pressing the handle into Lex's outstretched palm, she waits for the blonde's attention to turn from her project and for the evidence in the periphery of her vision to become apparent, but the chisel only seems to renew her concentration on the project. Denali sighs and then presses a hand to her mouth to hold back a rise of delirious laughter. She's certainly not going to give in and announce her arrival first.

"Should probably stop by Mackenzie's, too. Or he'll guilt me about it for a month, probably. 'Oh, no, it's fine, you have your life, no need to include me'." If Denali weren't already holding a hand to her mouth, the impression of District Seven's resident victor probably would have gotten her caught. It's all too obviously accurate, even to someone who only knows Mackenzie from a single brief encounter and the occasional phone conversation. "Here," the chisel is offered back up without so much as a spare glance, "trade you for that half-sandwich that's on my bench." At least this time Denali's confidence about knowing what she's looking for isn't quite so misguided as before. The only confusing things about the task are, one: why the sandwich in question is sitting in a small chipped bowl and, two: why Lex thinks butter on stale white bread counts as a sandwich. For something so small, there are so many things wrong. Denali sniffs it skeptically and distrustfully checks it for mold spots before handing it over. If Lex doesn't know what day today is, she probably doesn't know what day this... 'sandwich'... was made either. That doesn't stop her from practically swallowing the food whole the moment it's in her hand. Denali blinks and it's gone.

"Not sure what else, though," the words are sticky in her mouth, her tongue prying at the backs of her teeth as she speaks. "I know you suggested the lake, but — I could use that three-twenty now —" Denali drops her head back and silently curses the ceiling, "it's a bit cold by now. Plus I bet you the canoe needs to be refinished." Back at the workbench, Denali rummages around in the mess once more. There are piles of notebooks covered in chaotic scribblings of fractions, all sorts of weird little shapes and arrows, and sometimes just the same word repeated in cursive over and over like the world's most mundane serial killer. Spline spline spline spline spline. Parallelogram parallelogram parallelogram parallelogram parallelogram. Biscuit biscuit biscuit biscuit biscuit. Mixed in with that are lost pages from some kind of manual that only looks familiar because a few of the pages were definitely used as scrap paper for letters Lex wrote previously. Half a dozen pencils, some random tools and broken things, glue, and a jar lid filled with sawdust are scattered about. None of it looks the least bit helpful until —

Towards the back of the bench is a letter stand holding polaroids from their Games: Denali being swarmed by murderbirds while Lex pointed and laughed; Denali modeling the gash that Maxwell had put in her cheek before she killed him, the both of them trying their best to laugh off what had just happened. There's a picture of a teeny tiny Lex on her father's shoulders, the two of them standing beneath a giant fallen tree-turned-tunnel across a hiking path, Lex's outstretched fingers desperately trying to touch the bark above. A postcard written in Denali's blood, the words Thank you. pulled from the wounds Lex had given her during their duel, is situated closely beside a letter folded to display only the signature. Always, Denali. She's reaching out to see exactly which letter when she spies that battle jacket she'd made hanging off the handle of the bench vise. It's still hacked and slashed and stained with blood. Her hand swerves to pick it up and put it on immediately (it hardly fits over the sleeves of her oversized cardigan), the star-shaped sunglass lenses clinking happily, as if charmed by her sudden and unexpected delight. It's only when she begins instinctively looking around for a mirror that she remembers she was supposed to be doing something. Urghhhhhh. Three-twenty...? Kill me.

Grabbing one of the notebooks — wenge wenge wenge wenge wenge — as well as some kind of tiny toothy looking thing, a broken tape measurer, a piece of sandpaper, and the highly suspicious thingymajig she was investigating earlier, she brings her haul back to Lex and drops it all on the ground beside her. "Anyway, you know I've been trying to come up with something, y'know, sort of special, but it's not like I've got any idea what —" Denali smirks as Lex finally looks away from the cabinet and promptly smashes her face into it in complete and utter surprise. "— oof!" It's deeply satisfying. Everything she'd been hoping for and more. The laughter she'd been holding in finally bursts out, too much even for the dust collectors to suck up. Denali's already fallen to the ground, clutching her sides by the time Lex has managed to roll out from beneath the cabinet to pull her into a messy hug. "Hey Freckles."

Trying to tease her about all the things at once, Denali is a useless mess of wheezing and breathy attempts at consonants that never manage to be coherent words. "Your face!" She manages to scream, hysterical tears rolling down her cheeks. "So dumb!" Then she's lost to her own nonsense again, forehead dropping into Lex's shoulder as she remembers how tired she is. And hungry. Maybe she should have eaten that sketchy so-called sandwich herself.

Prodding her for attention, Lex can only look the Lyons girl over in somewhat befuddled confusion. "I thought you weren't getting here until Saturday. I was gonna pick you up from the train station." The laughter soars again — dumb! So dumb! — and she can only shake her head in response. "How'd you even find the house? We're not exactly downtown. Not that I'm complaining," she attempts to brush some of the sawdust off Denali's shoulder, the battle jacket clinking merrily once more as Lex's sheepish smile begins to widen, "just impressed you didn't wind up hopelessly lost." Giving up on the stubborn and infinite sawdust, she starts pulling twigs and bits of bark out from Denali's hair instead. "What I mean is it's great to see you."

Struggling to breathe, Denali takes a moment to pull herself together, picking pine needles off her skirt to add to the small pile of twigs Lex is making on the floor beside them. "It's all the beekeeper's fault!" She finally wails, flailing her hands around the whole mess of herself — from the sticks in her hair to the mud-caked buttons on her sweater and the holes in her socks. And that's it. After everything, that's all the explanation she really has to offer. Only the depth of her expression can convey the trials and tribulations she suffered through today. "It is Saturday, you know. I'm gonna make you a calendar for your desk-thing over there — lots of glitter and sequins, you'll love it." She flicks a pine needle at Lex before the statement can be countered with any kind of objection. "But yeah, I don't know, my train got switched to an earlier schedule and so of course I thought it would be super fun to surprise you. And it was. But also it wasn't. Your house is not easy to find," there's a pause as they both eye Denali's battered appearance until she giggles awkwardly, "I was only ever a little bit lost. Don't worry. I'm an experienced nature scout." Holding up three fingers as if swearing on her childhood camping troop's honor, Denali strikes her most convincing pose before swiping up the handful of twigs and bark and mashing it into Lex's hair with a screech.

In an attempt at petty retaliation, Lex tries to dump all of the sawdust onto Denali's head that had been caught in the bandana she'd been using as a dust mask while working. It's difficult to tell the difference between that sawdust and the sawdust that was already covering Denali after being hugged, but that's hardly the point. They run in circles around the cabinet and the work benches, Lex yelling for Denali to stop running in the wood shop and Denali yelling for Lex to stop running in the wood shop. They give up around the same time, both of them swearing the other person is the loser and both of them being right about it. Denali tries to change the subject by showing off the band t-shirt she made for herself; the band may not have a name yet, but it definitely has a mascot in the form of an eerily familiar and murderous looking baby bird with a spiked mohawk that has been bleached onto the front of the shirt, just off-center enough to be awkward, but not enough to actually look punk-on-purpose. "I play the drums!" Denali exclaims, excitedly miming her reckless slash-and-flail style of 'playing' as though Lex might not otherwise be capable of imagining her hitting things.

"Uh-huh. Of course you do," Lex smirks, the exact opposite of shocked despite looking slightly taken aback at the demonstration. Oblivious, Denali continues rocking out, throwing in some head banging for good measure until Lex brings the conversation full circle. "That shirt goes great with my battle jacket."

Then it's Denali's turn to smirk as she flips her matted hair around and gives her most genuine, "awww, thank you! I thought so too." The playful bickering continues, all earlier frustrations of the day forgotten as Lex asks if Denali wants to make something while they're in the wood shop together and Denali happily shouts "Yes!" with enough zeal to immediately fill Lex with regret. ("I've got some good ash in the back that we could stick on the lathe, turn you a set of drumsticks." "It's a punk band, can't I have bad-ash drumsticks?" "If the wood's bad it'll split while... oh. Urgh, that was just. Awful.") That regret doubles and then triples in intensity as Denali begins haphazardly touching everything in sight. "What's this do?!" Physically holding her back from mashing the kinds of buttons that might lead to her hand being chopped off, Lex does her best to backtrack while trying not to be too obvious about doing an anguished double take an inexplicable smudge of glitter on the side of the cabinet she's been sanding. "I swear I haven't touched glitter in, like, a week," Denali pleads innocent while holding her palms up. "It wasn't me." As if anyone in the Lionel family has ever touched glitter in their lives.

but i'm not just a fuck-up
i'm the fuck-up you need

Denali's face flushes bright as wildfire, her skin hot all the way down her neck and across the backs of her shoulders as she avoids making eye contact with Lex, who has finally connected the dots between the muddy footprints throughout the house and the mess of the Lyons girl's luggage on the floor. "I'd say make yourself at home, but..." The blonde gives a grin so wide that Denali can feel its presence even without looking. "I guess you beat me to it." A hushed sputter of awkward laughter ekes out from Denali's anxiously clenched teeth when she can't find any excuses to offer up as to why she didn't admit to having broken into the house already. Yeah. Nope. There sure isn't a good reason for that one. Ha. Ha ha ha, wow, sooooo funny how that happened — "You, um..." Lex is kind enough not to ask. Honestly, the lack of teasing is very suspicious, but Denali isn't about to question the free pass. "Hungry or anything?"

There's a manic rumble from Denali's stomach, ravenous with complaints, and it's all just far too much. The hunger. The embarrassment. This whole ridiculous day. "Urghhhhh," she complains nonsensically, collapsing into a useless heap on the bed. "Starving! I'm so hungry I could die," she laments melodramatically, a hand to her forehead, "— again! But I'm too tired to chew, so you'd better just leave me. Save yourself! I'll just waste away," she mumbles, trailing off as she flops over and buries her face into Lex's poor excuse for a pillow. Layers of knit upon knit cocoon her even as she tries to tug a quilt over herself and only manages to pull a few inches out from beneath the weight of her own body. It's just enough to cover her arm and the edge of her ribs; it's just enough to look ridiculous. "Right here, in this bed... forever."

"Well that's unfortunate," Lex quips, not sounding mournful in the slightest. Making a show of fake yawning, her parody quickly morphs into the real deal as all the hours of lost sleep creep up on her. "'Cause I'm too tired to drag your corpse out of my bed. Not that it'll be lumpier than usual." In fact, it looks quite a bit softer than usual as Denali curls further into her makeshift blankets, mumbling a nonsensical slur of sound that translates easily into a refusal to move. My bed now. No talk me. The corner of Lex's mouth hitches up as she shrugs and bellyflops face down onto the bed, sprawling right on top of the girl who ought to know better than to think a Lionel would surrender so easily.

"Mmmnumph uh nuhh —" Denali grunts and bats a drowsy hand at Lex's nose as the blonde pretends to snore, her cheeks twitching as if little more than a fly had buzzed past her. Flailing slightly again, this time with even less conviction, the air grows heavier and heavier. There's nothing feigned about the snoring anymore, Lex's arm hanging limply over the side of the bed as her chest rises and falls to a slow, questionably-melodic tempo. The weighted blanket of her body is comforting, but before she can think too much about that, Denali drifts off as well.