Communication Not So Good

Who: Natalya and Seph
When: late morning
Where: the Martens' kitchen

The assault had continued through the night, and straight on into morning again. It seemed with the light of the new day, the shadows coming had increased in number. The day before, they'd taken care of every mirror in the house, so their assailants were only coming from the outside. The twins, Kurt, and Eva had set up a rotation to watch the back and front of the house, and it seemed to be working out well enough. Their stores of ammo were showing the dent, but they were far from out. All of them seemed to be good shots, and had the others to back them up once the shooting started. They caught catnaps here and there, when things were quiet. It was taking the fuckers longer to get to them, which Seph was all for. Any chance he got to curl up and be close to his sister was a chance he took. Their connection was wide open, but sometimes that just wasn't enough. Sometimes they just had to sit still and quiet and stroke each other's hair. In private, of course, when they were sure the others in the basement were covered.

It was from one of those catnaps that Seph had just gotten up, yawning widely. The bandaid was stuck solidly to his forehead, canted off to the left. He'd abandoned wearing the scarf soon after their company came, and had taken off the bandages to let the wound on his neck breathe. It was garish-looking, all red healing skin and black stitches holding it together, but it didn't hurt, so he didn't care. He shuffled into the kitchen after peeking on those currently on duty, pistol stuck into his belt, and headed straight for the fridge. It was orange-juice time.

Kurt was on duty, which left Natalya down in the basement with a group that she wasn't comfortable with - she knew and liked Doc, of course, and had met Eddie before, but she couldn't get comfortable with anyone if Kurt wasn't near. Especially not with the tension in the basement. It seemed to beat at her on all sides, and only because she'd spent so much time practicing holding it in with Kurt was she able to keep - or at least, she hoped so - her own upward-spiraling tension from affecting everyone else. Still, she finally grew desperate enough to need a moment to herself. On the excuse of making tea, she headed up to the kitchen.

Even walking up the stairs was better than pacing down there, and Natalya couldn't stop the shaky sigh that escaped as she entered the kitchen. She stopped abruptly when she saw it wasn't empty, recognizing Doc's son after a moment. Her first instinct was to leave, but she couldn't face walking back down the stairs again so soon. Her leg was sore as well, so she instead just started making her way quietly towards the table. A moment to sit, then she'd make tea.

Seph glanced up as he caught her movement out of the corner of his eye. The tiny flicker of surprise when there actually was something there gave him a second's pause, but he dismissed it. He poured his orange juice instead, glancing over at the dark-haired woman every so often. She belonged to the big guy that Doc knew, apparently. Or at least they'd come in together. He hadn't spent a whole lot of time getting to know everybody, he'd kind of been preoccupied. But she was quiet as a mouse, so she didn't really bother him. He got halfway through putting the orange juice away when he remembered his manners and turned back in her direction, trying to catch her eye and look questioning.

Natalya's eye was hard to catch, fastened on the ground or table as it so often was, but Seph's movement had drawn her gaze upward for the brief moment it took for her to recognize the questioning look on his face. She misinterpreted it and immediately got to her feet, eyes down. "I-I am sorry," she murmured. "I didn't mean to intrude."

He blinked. Glanced down at the orange juice in his hand, and then back up at her. There was a whiteboard affixed to the fridge -- there were actually quite a few of them around the house, put up by his twin, just in case he needed to communicate with Doc and didn't have his notebook on him -- and he pulled the marker off of it with his free hand. Was just asking if you wanted any, he scrawled on the board, big enough for her to hopefully see from where she was. He tapped the pen on it to hopefully get her to look up, a small smile at the corner of his mouth.

"Oh," Natalya said after reading the message, the tapping having done its job in catching her attention and stopping her backwards retreat. She blushed in embarrassment, struggling for calm. With the stress of the past few weeks, she was finding it hard to keep her emotions from seesawing everywhere. "No, thank you," she said politely. "I was going to make some tea in a moment or two." Her gaze darted up to his momentarily, flitting over his wounds before dropping again, hands wringing together in an unconscious expression of the turmoil she was keeping locked up. She didn't know what had caused the wound in his throat; it looked painful, and obviously impeded his ability to speak. Natalya was immediately sympathetic.

Seph noted the glance and the hand-wringing and remembered that he kind of looked like Frankenstein's monster between shirt collar and chin. Vampires. I'm Seph, he scrawled on the board. Then put the oj back where it came from and nodded a bit. She had an accent. Maybe she and the big guy were from the same part of the world or something. With the state of Marquette these days, maybe they should head on back. Not that he didn't appreciate the help. He took a quick drink of his breakfast and moved around the kitchen, getting out the tea and kettle for her, so she wouldn't have to go searching for them.

Natalya's tension spiked at the mention of the vampires, remembering Kurt's injury all too well. "Kurt was injured in the attacks as well," she ventured. "I'm Natalya." She moved hesitantly into the kitchen to take up the kettle with hands that trembled, though she tried to still the motion, and set about filling it with water. "Thank you," she murmured quietly. "Would you like some as well?"

He'd been around some skittish people in the asylum. When they let him out of his room, anyway. But he knew not to poke at them or anything, so Seph gave her a wide berth as she moved to the sink, bypassing her and sipping on his oj to lean on a different section of counter. It gave her plenty of room and access to the stove without having to get too close to him. He pulled his notebook and sharpie out of his back pocket. No thnx. You doin ok in all this? he jotted down and held it out for her to read.

Natalya set the kettle on and turned on the stove, then leaned in slightly to read the note. "I am doing all right, thank you," she said quietly, absently straightening things she found on the countertop. If she were at home, she'd be spending the day cleaning, but she didn't feel right infringing on Doc and his family's personal space without being invited. "What about you?" she asked, darting another quick glance at him. "You and the others guarding... you're doing all the hard work, after all."

Seph flipped the page and considered telling her that this wasn't really hard work, not to him. Sure, it had them on their toes, and he was wiped out from lack of good sleep and the bouts of being hyper-alert, but it wasn't hard. The vamps kind of were, but not this. But then again, he didn't really want to downplay it, because he was aware that to normal people, being in mortal danger wasn't such a common occurance. doing ok, he wrote instead. Just tired, that's all. He let her read it with one hand while he took another swallow of juice with the other.

"Is there anything I can do?" Natalya asked after reading the note. It was wearing on her more than she'd realized, even going one day without doing anything. Especially with Kurt's injury, she had accustomed herself to filling each day as full as she could make it, keeping house and taking care of Kurt. Now, he was spending shifts watching the house and killing the creatures after them while she was left to pace the boundaries of the basement and try not to let herself affect the emotions of those around her. She didn't know how to keep herself from feeling everyone else's; it made the effort to keep her mind to herself that much harder.

The offer kind of took him off-guard. He wasn't sure what she meant for a moment. Anything she could do about him being tired? Not unless she could handle a gun, and he thought if she could do that, she probably would be already. He shook his head and smiled a little bit, because it was a sweet sort of general offer anyway. Not unless you know how to stop these bastards, he scribbled down. Thanks, tho. She could just ... make sure her man held up, that was a big enough help.

"I'm sorry," Natalya said, "I don't. If you have any suggestions about where to look for information, though," she ventured hesitantly, taking the whistling kettle off the burner and pouring it over the tea bags, "I could try reading and doing some research." Though if Doc didn't know, who was she to think she could find anything out? She was likely the least informed of everyone here - she didn't even know how to control her own ability, let alone figure out where mysterious and deadly shadow creatures were coming from.

Again with the oddness of the offer. To Seph's mind, anyway. It was helpful, he just wasn't used to the people they were protecting really doing much of anything. Mostly because they usually weren't looking after a flock. Not safe to leave the house. Don't think there's any info in here, either, sorry to say, he jotted down and showed her, looking a little chagrined about that. There was Teddy, but he was already doing everything he could do. Seph finished off his juice and went to rinse the glass out.

"Well," Natalya said softly, voice dropping as each of her efforts were stymied, "if you think of anything I can do, please let me know." She turned to cleaning up the tea making supplies, feeling frustrated anew. She was not a woman used to idleness, more used to turning to activity to keep herself calm as well. Combine the stress with the forced inactivity and Natalya imagined she could practically feel her nerves winding tighter bit by bit.

He wouldn't dream of asking a stranger to clean the bathroom or anything like that, even if she wanted to, so the idea never occurred to Seph that she might be going stir-crazy. He felt like he was probably missing something there, but ... oh well. She wasn't his problem, even if she was sort of a guest. Whatever, he'd never been big on hospitality anyway. That was Doc's bag. Running into the brick wall that was her back to him and his own social ineptitude, he headed off out of the kitchen to find his sister.