» THIS IS THE STORY OF YOUR RED RIGHT ANKLE; AND HOW IT CAME TO MEET YOUR LEG.

[extramuralise]

Who: Edward Little, John Irving, Kate Marsh, Wynonna Earp, + open to other CR drop-ins in need of temporary shelter!
What: STORMED IN (Winterstille).
When: January 24th - 28th, and/or potentially just before / after
Where: The 41 Mackenzie Street cottage
Content Warnings: 'Does one not bring his habits [aboard]?' — which is to say, all of these characters have their own canon and in-game baggage, shared or otherwise, so please label all threads accordingly!

✒︎ how it whispered ❝ Oh, adhere to me⨾ ❞

» ARRIVALS; GETTING WARM; SETTLING IN FOR THE STORM.

---

The bear-beast alone would have been bad enough (and no question, knowing it was out there somewhere made actually preparing for this storm a beast in itself), but at least the looming presence of such a monstrous creature was sure to drive people indoors before the weather really turned.

As it happens, the cabin on 41 Mackenzie Street (home to Lieutenants Little and Irving, and Kate Marsh) is well-kitted out to weather (ha ha) the coming — now imminent — storm that's been circling, or at least as insulated as possible without knowing precisely how bad the storm will be yet. The windows and doors have been protected, reinforced; candles, matchbooks, and oil lanterns abound throughout various parts of the house; there's plenty of firewood, and food to last about a week if needed (which is not to say plenty of food, but hopefully enough to get them by).

So if you're passing by and need some shelter, come in and warm up by the fire! Have some tea, stay for supper! And hopefully you can be on your way again before the snow really begins to come down, or else you may be stuck here for the foreseeable.

✑ For we are bound by symmetry⨾

» FUN AND GAMES?!

---

If you have been trapped here, never fear! There are still ways to keep occupied, especially for those would appreciate a distraction from the concerning colored strings that have mysteriously appeared on everyone's fingers (because seriously, what's that all about? Well, if you know, you know, or maybe you at least have developed a suspicion or two...), because don't you know? Victorians simply adore parlour games, and surely there are even a few old board games lying around that had been left behind back whenever the great Milton exodus occurred.

So, if you're feeling bored and not yet quite up to socializing about the weather (or, again, especially not those threads which seem to be connecting everyone to each other), take your pick! Gotta pass the time somehow, after all.

Blind Man's Bluff—

Blind man's buff is played in a spacious area, such as outdoors or in a large room, in which one player, designated as "It", is blindfolded and feels around attempting to touch the other players without being able to see them, while the other players scatter and try to avoid the person who is "it", hiding in plain sight and sometimes teasing them to influence them to change direction.

Charades—

The basic object of the game is for a player or team of players to act out clues that will allow another player or team to guess a secret word. Most people today are familiar with the basic concept of the game, but there are different ways to play it. During the 1800s, Charades was played very differently from the modern form of the game. Mohr describes this older form of the game as "complex theatricals" and cites Cassell's Book of Sports and Pastimes (1881), which describes players staging a short play with two scenes in which the actors gave their audience clues to the word they were supposed to guess. This is different from the modern form of the game in which a single player mimes words for the other players to guess instead of speaking out loud and uses certain common gestures to help the other players understand the clues, like holding up their fingers to indicate the number of words in a phrase they want the audience to guess or tugging on their ear to let the players know that the answer is something that "sounds like" what they are about to mime. The only props used for the game are some basic household items that might be lying around, such as items of clothing or furniture. From there, it's just a matter of being clever and creative and acting things out. ( Read more about Modern Charades vs Victorian Charades! )

Forfeits—

One person (called "the judge") is chosen to leave the room. All the other players must place a small personal item into a box. This might be an article of jewellery, or an item from the pocket or handbag, or a small item of clothing such as a tie or shoelace. The "judge" is brought back in to the room. They pick up an item and describe it. The owner must identify themselves and pay a forfeit — do something amusing/embarrassing — to win back the item. The judge chooses which forfeit to award the player. If the player fails, or refuses the forfeit, then the judge keeps the item.

( Suggestions for forfeits: sing a song; dance; stand on your head; tell a story; bark like a dog, do jumping jacks, imitate the person on your left, hold your breath for as long as you can; hug the person sitting opposite you; tell everybody something embarrassing that happened to you; walk around the circle backwards; etc! Many and more ideas can also be found here! )

Yes and No/Twenty Questions—

One person picks a person, place, or thing, and commits it to memory (Mount Rushmore, the ocean, an item in the room). They do not tell what this item is but they say, for example, "I'm thinking of something large." The guests are then allowed to ask yes or no questions. "Is it a building?" "No" "Is it an animal" "No." "Is it a monument?" "Yes." "Is it in Europe?" "No" and so on until one person guesses the item correctly. If the person guesses incorrectly the game still ends and the wrong person must chose a new "something." Players should never guess until they are completely sure they know the answer.

... Not to mention other (more modern!) classics such as Truth or Dare, Never Have I Ever, and Two Truths and A Lie (if you can convince your hosts, that is!), or card games, or the much beloved campfire tradition of scary storytelling!

( OOC | Feel free to include in your prompt games that are NOT mentioned here; these are just a few examples, but anything is on the table! If it's a board game, you're welcome to assume your character can find it lying around in a closet or on a shelf somewhere.  )

✒︎ And whatever differences our lives have been⨾

» TEA & FOOD; SHARING CONFIDENCES; OTHERWISE PASSING THE TIME.

---

However long it's been by now, know that there is an ample enough store of tea, biscuits, and sandwich fixings to help keep a person from going too stir-crazy... not to mention a reasonably well-equipped bookshelf, and whatever other elements of personal entertainment the hosts may own, or that a guest may have brought along. Music, radio, handheld TV? Let's not succumb to cabin fever yet here, people!

Or maybe it's finally time to take someone aside and speculate amongst yourselves (or God forbid, even gossip) about the bear-monster, or even the strings... likely you've noticed some very telling colors and/or connections by now between others that you'd like to discuss in private, if not yet necessarily — or maybe exactly that! — with one of the concerned parties yet themselves.

✑ We together make a limb⨾

» WINDING DOWN; CONFRONTING THE UNSPOKEN... (OR NOT).

---

Some people may end up having to shelter overnight, or possibly even more than one night, so make sure you know what your sleeping arrangements will be if it comes down to that. Not a problem, if so; these things happen, and there's a comfortable sofa, plenty of blankets, and (maybe?) even a spare room for guests to avail themselves to.

But let's also circle back a moment, because maybe this will also demand confronting your string situation head on in some way; if you're sharing a room with someone you're connected to, for instance, that's a hard thing to miss, let alone ignore. Maybe it's time to talk about it, or talk about something else that you hope can eventually lead into talking about your threads in a more casual, natural way— if such a thing is even possible.

It could also be that you're struggling to sleep, and find yourself "alone together" with someone else who is experiencing the same problem... offering, again, the ideal moment to confront the connection privately, or else talk around it until you finally build up the courage to address it, talk about it by not talking about it, exactly, or simply avoid the subject at all costs. Ultimately, in the end, that part is up to you... but remember the storm, remember that privacy is hard to come by in such a claustrophobic situation; maybe it's not the worst idea to take advantage of it while you have it.

Comments

[extramuralise]

[ And just like that, he snaps back to attention like being roused forcibly from a trance, the briefly distracting lull of examining his strings while also awash in that strange mixture of conflict, obstinacy, and tenderness coming from Wynonna (but which is somehow familiar to him, too... yet, in a deeply unfamiliar way?) shattering like a brick through a window. ]

What? No—

[ He blinks, needing a moment to untangle the knot of inexpressible feelings — both hers and his own — wrestling within him before his thoughts can properly come together.

Still, as if for emphasis, he shakes his head as well. ]

No, not a thing. [ His fingers curl inward to his palms, hands moving to his lap. ] Why should anything be wrong?

[ Besides, she's the one who looks vaguely tortured (and maybe sick to her stomach) at the moment, however Irving struggles to belief that all this anxiety and reluctance could be about just writing a simple letter, timing notwithstanding.

His lips purse into a pensive little pout, eyebrows furrowing in consideration. ]

I was only wondering if there's meant to be any significance to their... to the colouring on them all.

[pacificator]

[ The back and forth lurch of their emotions is starting to make her feel almost seasick, with the way they come down the string from him in confused, frustrated waves, only for him to attempt to roll them back up inward in surprise tinged faintly here and there with guilt or resignation. The confusion and frustration she gets; it's the other stuff that's had her trying to figure him out this whole time. Irving doesn't strike her as a particularly tender man, or one that spends a lot of time wishing for things, and yet she keeps getting pulses of the same kind of longing ache that's been making her feel like something's punching her in the gut over and over in these last few weeks, ever since the party.

But it's her turn to be surprised when he tells her what he'd been thinking, and Wynonna frowns at him, bemused. ]

I mean... yeah.

[ Hadn't that been the crux of her conversation with March, their own golden string wound around with scarlet? If there weren't any difference, that one question wouldn't have hit so hard.

What color is his string, Wynonna?

She swallows back the pooling sadness at the memory and focuses on Irving, shrugging one shoulder casually, like he can't feel the complex mix of emotions that keep getting stirred up inside her. ]

The gold's different from the red, and the black's different from either one of those. Didn't you notice?

[extramuralise]

I don't know who all they connect to. [ He glances down again, just briefly, at his hands. ] Save for within the walls of this cabin, that is.

[ And, as if to make his point, Irving's gaze then shifts meaningfully to the thread connecting him to Wynonna, then back up for a quick and almost self-conscious moment of eye contact. ]

Mine only appear as black, white, and gold— but mostly the last. I wasn't even aware they could look... red.

[ Although now he's almost tempted to glance back at his hands again, because there actually had been some red amongst all that gold, hadn't there? Not exactly... red red, but red enough to have made him think of rust, of blood.

Irving's fingers begin fidgetinb with themselves again, one leg jittering idly at a low frequency. He doesn't look. He... ]

But there's hardly any sort of guidebook for deciphering them, now is there? [ ... Is there? ] Though I'm presuming the gold must be for family and friends.

[ Mostly because that's the only thing all his gold connections seem to have in common, or at least, all the ones he knows the other side of; Little, Kate, and Wynonna so far, and maybe even a few others by now, too, depending on who else might turn up at their cabin during the storm.

Not that he would have defined himself as either friends or family to Kate or Wynonna, but it seems to Irving like the closest fit that could also encompass Little as well. The golds are all quite different from each other, though, as are the strings'... integrity, so to speak. Variable after variable after variable.

He swallows, slow and pronounced, feeling both cold and overheated simultaneously. His skin suddenly seems too warm, as if mildly fever flushed, yet his palms, neck, and forehead are distinctly clammy. ]

... And the black seems likely self-explanatory.

[pacificator]

[ A wash of discomfort comes flooding into her, tightening her stomach with feelings of worry and wariness that don't belong to her.

She can't wait until these fucking things go away. (God, she hopes they go away.) ]

Yeah, seems like it. Friends and family, enemies.

[ She can't help it. Her mind brushes against that poor ghostly golden thread, the one that sent her running out into the night to desperately search for an Aurora that wouldn't come. She feels the cold slice of broken glass as her head fills with the sound of her sister, shrieking as she was dragged away. Wynonna's gaze drops, abrupt, and she swallows as she wrests her focus away from that thread, focuses it on another one, shining calmly red.

Little had pulled her away. He'd managed to get her back to the cabin, even as she was screaming and fighting to get away, to get back, pleading to go home. He didn't let go of her, just wrapped her up in himself until she remembered that she had something, someone, here to hold onto. ]

I only have the one red one.

[ She glances up to meeting Irving's eyes and tips her head meaningfully toward the door and the hall and stairs past it that lead upwards. ]

And it's not like the gold, it's not... feelings. It's like...

[ She's got no good way to describe it, the way she and Edward are layered over each other, mixed up in each other. It's a constant sensation, like she never needs to finish her sentences, because he'll be able to pick them up, seamless and easy. ]

He's in my head and I'm in his. Like there's some language only we get.

It's weird as hell.

[extramuralise]

[ Irving has a few strings that lead seemingly nowhere, to home, as well, although he hasn't actually attempted to follow any of them there— he knows better than to hope he's seeing or hearing from any of those people again, not Lewie or Katie or especially not dear Elphie Malcolm. He's gone somewhere he can't leave and they can't follow, nor would he wish for them to, though Wynonna's remembrance fills him with a homesick longing for them all anyway; for England and for Edinburgh, for home.

(Well, they'll follow him eventually, but he would rather not dwell on the fact that technically, everyone he's ever known must be dead by now, even if time spent in the afterlife works nothing like time spent on Earth... surely.) ]

The red... [ He glances up in the direction she indicates, steadily connecting the dots. ] Is that how it works?

[ He isn't sure he likes the sound of that: he's in my head and I'm in his. More for himself than Little and Wynonna, though; the idea of anyone being in his head fills him with the kind of dread that feels like his heart is plummeting down in an endless free-fall towards, perhaps, his stomach, or to simply splatter upon the ground like an egg.

But this isn't about him, thankfully. Irving shakes his head to clear it of any unnecessary thoughts, forcing himself to focus. ]

Then wouldn't now actually be the best time for you two to... come to some kind of an accord with each other?

[ He's not sure exactly how, because he knows better than to think Little (or Wynonna, or probably anyone else for that matter) should want his most private, personal thoughts open in such a way to be read like a diary, but there must be a way for them to intuit how best to proceed. Surely?? ]

Though I'm not sure I really know what you're describing.

[pacificator]

That's probably because I have no idea how to describe it.

[ He's not wrong, though, and honestly: the string has already made a difference. There's less chance of them talking past each other right now, of someone saying something and the other one taking it the wrong way. He hadn't had to explain why he came running out to Lakeside to find her; she knew why. More than anything, it feels like when they're wolves together and everything is so much easier, clearer. Intention comes through without the filter of tone and word choice, or even words at all. It's nice.

It's also, as Irving rightly seems to feel, horrifying. It's an understanding of her whole self that's more intimate than feeling her emotions, than hearing her thoughts. It takes this person she's known for just over a year and turns him into someone she feels like she's known for a lifetime. It unsettles her and comforts her at the same time. Fitting, really, considering Little's had pretty much the same effect on her for months now.

But none of that has managed to magically change her into someone who knows how to even start that conversation. What, is she supposed to invite him over for dinner, like they're back in a normal world and they can do normal things like get to know each other over a meal? How could she begin to write a letter that's supposed to clear things up when the person it's all least clear to is her? ]

At the very least, we should be able to kill at charades.

[ She reaches again now, finally, for her tea, more to have something to do with her hands than because she wants the now lukewarm drink. ]

So no red for you? Not even one going home?

[ This is... not that surprising, honestly. ]

[extramuralise]

[ The look upon Irving's face by now might be similarly indescribable, if only because his own feelings — how he normally, most often feels, just as much as how he currently feels now, to include Wynonna's present influence upon him — seem as complexly unknowable as they've ever been, like he's torn between some sharp splinter of dawning comprehension, and also the inability (or perhaps refusal) to understand himself any further.

A part of him does envy Wynonna her... connection with Little, that intuition the two of them currently share that goes beyond words, beyond thoughts, beyond even emotion, and just... is. Yet the very idea of sharing such an intimacy with anyone, Little included, scares him deeply, because the privacy of Irving's own mind is the only sanctuary he has left. If people only knew the nature of any his thoughts — from those fussy and mundane to the uncharitably critical, to the most secret and shameful yearnings that live inside both his head and heart simultaneously — they would likely think him even more unpleasantly queer than most do already. Cowardly. Unnatural, perhaps. Any number of possible judgements and indictments he could not bear facing, let alone living with.

He can acknowledge to himself, and himself alone, those moments when he feels so certain that he must be bad, because he knows it'll help motivate him to be better— others, though, might they not simply agree, or take it as confirmation for what they've always believed of him? He doesn't deserve the comfort of such an effortless bond, nor could he ever bear the sheer naked exposure of it, but Wynonna and Little clearly do deserve to have found that tender understanding with each other— or if nothing else, they certainly seem to have earned it.

Irving wants to be happy for them. ]

None, [ he confirms, although it's not quite true; two of the gold threads are flecked with spots of red, but that surely can't be the same thing at all. ] I'm a bachelor, as I'm sure I must have mentioned before.

[pacificator]

[ There's a weird glimmer of something new from him; it twists and coils in her stomach, a familiar sour, shameful feeling. She's got no idea what it's springing from — nothing about her is anything that anybody, least of all John Irving, should be envious of, even if she does have some bizarre supernatural manifestation of her connection to his buddy. And it's not like he seems to want one of those, either; his reaction to her description is (rightfully) appalled.

But it's still there, like a bitter aftertaste coating her tongue, spreading through the other emotions she's honestly stopped even trying to block out. She's too damn tired, they're too close. At least sorting through the chaff of everything coming her way through the gunmetal and gold thread winding between them keeps her from touching the faded gold thread spinning out from another finger, prodding it like she would the sore spot of a fallen tooth. ]

You probably did, but I definitely wasn't paying attention.

[ But it makes sense, based on what Little told her before: career-focused officers without the time to jump through all the hoops she assumes Victorian society would have placed on them. She can barely get it together to go on more than one date with a guy, let alone follow whatever spoken or unspoken rules go along with the whole idea of courting.

Which is why she asked, to begin with. Better to have a heads up than to get blindsided by some expectation she couldn't have seen coming; at least if she knows the expectation exists, she'll know what's happening when she inevitably disappoints it.

Fuck, fuck... what the hell was she thinking? ]

Honestly, you've probably got the right idea.

[ She tips up her cup and finishes her tea, then leans forward to set the cup back down, sliding a glance over at him as she does. ]

I know you think I've had a lot of connections or whatever, but I don't. I haven't. Not anything that really means anything, anyway.

[extramuralise]

[ Irving sits back slightly and, for perhaps the first time, tries to consider Wynonna from a more neutral perspective. He isn't a man who'd ever shared the ideals of the Empire with quite his whole heart, believing instead that, while civilization still had significant room for improvement, he was glad to have committed to a path that allowed him to possibly contribute to society for the better.

(This sends a brief, though sharp, pang of sadness through him, as he once again considers the faces of the Netsilik group that had fed him; it was not at all for the better that he'd unwittingly invited death upon them. If only he'd never approached at all, they might have remained forever untouched by the Expedition's violent intrusion upon that foreign landscape—

But of course he'd had to go to them, or else spend a lifetime wondering instead if it was all his fault the Expedition could not be saved.)

Many who serve in the Royal Navy did have wives, families, some of them even going so far as to fulfill the old stereotypes of "having one in every port," so to speak, but it wasn't terribly strange for a man to remain unmarried, either, or to postpone doing so in his youth in favour of waiting until he came into more seniority. He remembers writing of such a case in a letter once to his dear friend, William Malcolm — 'Miss Briggs's marriage with Captain Martin takes place on the 9th; he has become Flag-Captain, and it is considered a good match, though he is old enough to be her father' — and vaguely recalls it again now. Young women had far fewer options, then; to remain unmarried meant a much harder life, and losing favour in the eyes of one's own communities and families.

Kate Marsh would just about be considered of marrying age right about now, whereas Wynonna would absurdly be considered too old a prospect even for officers approaching a more advanced age of 50 and older. To Irving, it's not a bad thing at all that a woman's fate and futures need no longer be determined by what man she's matched with, but perhaps what's always stymied him most about Wynonna is her frankly almost masculine aversion to pairing off. Men, after all, need not always marry young, but women...

Well. As a man, Irving is quite content to remain unmarried for the time being, but if he were a woman, he imagines he would have liked to bear children— not that there's any way he can truly know how he'd feel in that position. But does Wynonna, or had she ever?

Again, there's that vague sense of envy that he still doesn't understand. ]

It isn't relevant, [ he says, with a brisk shake of his head. ] What's right for one man is not always right for another, wherein more personal matters are concerned.

[ He could probably write up some sort of... simple manual for her to follow, whenever she's feeling particularly lost or in need of some guidance, but then, what more does he really know about it, either? He doesn't even know what having a gold-and-red string means, yet somehow there are two of them trailing from his fingers, one of which leads right back upstairs.

Carefully, quietly, he ventures: ]

I'm not sure what you're so afraid of. [ And looks at her. ] You must know by now that he's quite taken with you.

[pacificator]

[ She bites back the first words that lift to her lips — and you don't see how that's the problem? — and takes a minute to shift on the couch, instead. Wynonna brings one foot up, knee bending, and sets it on the cushion she's sitting on, half curling herself up as she crosses her arms on that knee and rests her chin on her arms. ]

Well, I know now.

[ Impossible not to, with this thread, even if it doesn't telegraph feelings to each other the same way the gold ones do. She doesn't feel his emotions, she just understands them, maybe even more deeply and clearly than she understands her own. She knows he cares about her, she knows there's that same heat and need and desire in him that's been rippling through her own blood; she also knows he's got no fucking idea what to do with any of it. He's shy and nervous as hell and as much as having the string grates at her, she has to admit that without it they'd probably be having a hell of a lot more trouble than they already are.

Maybe they'd still be keeping away from each other, neither one willing to act on what they're both feeling. She's got no idea. But what she does know is that it's not enough to want someone, to care about them. Everything else has to add up, line up, too, and that's where she's always fallen short in the equation.

Her glance slides away from John, moves to watch the log in the fireplace as it slowly collapses into coals, a few sparks drifting up with the hot air. ]

It's not him I'm worried about. It's me.

[ Why she's telling any of this to John Irving of all people, saying any of it out loud, is almost beyond her, but: she'd say it to Waverly. Who isn't here, but John is, and he's Edward's friend even if he isn't really hers, so maybe he's the best she's got right now. ]

If the people from home were here, they'd probably be putting money on how fast I can mess this up.

[extramuralise]

[ Perhaps that's yet another reason why Irving can't seem to fathom how his own red-flecked strings could have anything to do with the properly red ones, as any discolorations disappear about halfway through the connection; all Irving gets from Little is the gold, and if the hints of red on Irving's side have granted Little any grander access, then he's certainly not said as much.

(And Irving would hate to consider that possibility anyway, even if that's most likely how it would work.)

He looks at her wryly, features tense with discomfort and frustration. ]

Then perhaps you might consider doing as I advise, [ he says, with as much patience as he's capable of. ] And carry out your courtship on terms he's more familiar with. These matters may not always be comfortable, but neither are they to be rushed.

[ And trust him, it's hardly any more comfortable trying to be the voice of reason between them, given how vastly different Wynonna's demeanor is from Little's, but Victorian courting is not nearly so tawdry and impersonal as what she's likely more used to; something more formulaic rather than purely intuitive, which is a far less vulnerable experience —far less pressure — than these modern inclinations to dive headfirst into passion and intimacy. ]

You might set a pace together, I suppose.

[pacificator]

[ For the first time, real annoyance flashes along the dingy golden thread that binds them together. Annoyance, and a slice of resignation: seems like he might fit right in with all the good people of Purgatory who think she decides to fuck things up on purpose, just for the hell of it. ]

Yeah, no kidding. Why do you think I asked you about it in the first place?

[ That annoyance is quick and sharp; the frustration that follows right on its heels is almost sullen, like storm clouds drawing together overhead and rumbling a promise of violence. It's not the goddamn pace that worries her, it's her, her inability to do anything but break what's most fragile and precious. She's not stupid, she knows Little's not only cripplingly shy but also totally inexperienced; this isn't going to be anything like Doc, who met her like a flash of wildfire catching on dry brush.

She's crap at slow. But that doesn't mean she isn't going to try.

But none of that was what she was trying to confess to him, and the thought of trying to lay herself even more bare only sends those walls building right back up again. ]

It definitely wasn't because this is such a fun conversation to have.

[extramuralise]

[ Her irritation hits Irving like a slap, like a bolt of lightning striking from out of the clear blue, rendering him temporarily speechless with equal parts indignation and confusion for several long moments that follow. ]

Tell me, then. Why did you ask, Miss Earp, [ he snaps back finally, angry color darkening his face in inflamed, dappled patches. ] if you were only going to insist on constantly objecting to everything that I've been telling you?

[ Irving's voice is low but sharp, barely louder than a hiss. He sets his teacup down, hands balling up into clenched, shaking fists which press down painfully against his knees. Frustration burns in him, too, but Irving's is more bristled than sullen, emotions tangled and chaotic; he can't even understand why she keeps fighting him so hard on this, when all along he's been telling her exactly how to approach every obstacle she's mentioned.

After all, isn't he supposed to be the authority on Little between the two of them? ]

If you truly believe you know so much better than I do, then clearly you must neither need nor want my opinions after all— never mind how I've been perfectly willing to thanklessly provide them for you.

[ He loads up and lifts the tea tray with a clatter, stalking off to the kitchen in a huff. Just give him a minute or two to angrily wash the dishes, lest he be driven beyond frustration into outright hysteria ... normally annoyance wouldn't even be affecting him quite this strongly, but something in the air tonight has felt especially charged and volatile between them. ]