[DRP] Conversation (Jack + Chel)

[medigel]

He hummed in thought as he rested against the log as well and pulled his knees up, resting his elbows on top of them. "Well...I suppose we literally have to think on it," Jack replied, his mouth quirking to the side in return. "It seems there's a limited ability to share memories here. Pick a memory and focus on it; I'll see if I can figure out what it is."
 

[chiickadee]

"One you know, or one you don't know?"

It made no difference if they were in a lab or in a weird fade-like dream state. Chel still pulled his arm off his knee and put it around her shoulder. Always needing to touch.  

[medigel]

"One I don't know." The invitation to broach the distance he had made was taken, a quiet compensation for dealing with him dispensed in the form brushed fingers.
 

[chiickadee]

Chel closed her eyes and looked like she was concentrating very hard. She wanted to bring up the memory as vividly as possible, just in case. "It's kinda hard to think up one on the spot," she admitted, especially with Jack's fingertips distracting her. It came to her quietly, and she bit her lip to do it right.

---

The memory was somewhat plain. She remembered standing taller than Chris, before he hit his growth spurt and outgrew her. They were so small then.

Chel enjoyed dangling things above his head where he couldn't reach.

They were making pancakes and waffles because the feud would always go on, probably even in death. She remembered talking about the new game they'd gotten for hours on end amongst baking and chocolate chips. She remembered their parents getting pissed afterwards, but they just cran outside and hid behind the old septic tank until the chase was over.

But something went wrong and the memory blended with one when she was older in the way that memories so often did. The same process, but now they're doing it at 4 in the morning because Chel's come home drunk at the age of 16 and insisted. Chris knew that making pancakes was a lot safer than any number of things she could have insisted upon. It was mostly him making them and her babbling on the kitchen floor about people at the party she'd just been at. Amanda's a b***h, Tristan and Anna hooked up, Michelle brought weed- Chris weed's amazin', you gotta try that s**t.

---

Chel opened her eyes and had some trouble readjusting until she remembered where she was and who was next to her. "Sorry. Mind wandered. What'd you get?"  

[medigel]

The memory still came and went for him, a grasp at smoke from someone else's blunt. But he could still make a clearer picture than the fragments from before. He could more easily make out how bright eyed young Chris was and the way his face scrunched as he reached in vain for something beyond Jack's vision. Chel herself was almost impossible to see since memories meant viewing them from her perspective, and without her focusing on what she looked like, it was as if he had simply hijacked her sight the way their weapons did.

The thought made him uncomfortable. Almost like possession, but not quite.

Hours of childhood blurred together into an impressionist image, chocolate and dirt and blood and--he blinked. (Did he? Did she? He didn't remember if eyes were closed or open or winking) Something completely different, rang a bell. Unconsciously Jack's mouth formed the same shapes as hers, a similar stretch on the may in amazin'. Definitely not childhood. Had he--No. Chel was speaking now.

Jack ran a hand through his hair for no reason than to move again. "Ah...Wouldn't have thought the septic tank would be a good hiding spot," he commented, feeling strange. It was almost an out of body experience, but it hadn't lasted long enough to disorient, only to give him pause. "Saw the drunk part too."
 

[chiickadee]

"We were little," she retorted, pushing her nose into his arm in a vengeful headbutt. "Eh. Yeah. Not much's changed there," she added sheepishly to the drunk part. She was always loose, but even looser when she was drunk.

Knowing that Jack was in her head was slightly terrifying, but slightly exhilirating. It had always been her fear since Grixlie to have other people inside of her, but with Jack it was less like possession and more like ... sharing. Sharing words they already passed silently, but with pictures now. She always did better with pictures than words.

Speaking of words- "Hey ... I wonder if ... Think about like. A book or somethin'. Somethin' you read."  

[medigel]

"Tiny," Jack agreed with a little grin as he teased her hair. "Miniscule. Munchkins."

At first he blanked on why Chel would ask for that--and then the moment of clarity visibly cleared his face just before he closed his eyes to concentrate. Jumping first to the form he had filed out on the artifact, he pushed beyond and thought about the last time he had actually read anything of worth...It wasn't the most recent by far, but the most memorable times he'd had were with Owain helping supply voices along with him. Twilight they'd had plenty of fun with, though they had also read a few Poe pieces and some plays...

Ultimately he stuck to a few lines from the glitter vampire shitfest; something lighthearted for her to hopefully read for herself, if not listen to, as Owain's impression of a boring high school girl turned into the fixation of one stalking supernatural creature was nothing if not hilarious on its own; inner monologues like the one he grabbed from Bella's time separated from Edward quickly became riot fests.
 

[chiickadee]

Coming out of the memory was dizzying. Chel's mind was a tornado when it came to thinking about people, reactions, places, events, but never did it bounce around as quickly or efficiently as Jack's did. He filed through his memories as though it was a briefcase or a set of files; Chel oozed through her memories like syrup.

When he eventually settled on Twilight she couldn't help but laugh. It wasn't concrete and she couldn't place Owain or the book, but Jack doing voices was hilarious and she found herself caught on that more than the actual words. She liked watching Jack and Owain enjoying themselves like old friends rather than the begrudging compatriots they sometimes sounded like through Jack's stoic filter. It wasn't until the end of the memory that she remembered to look down and read through Jack's eyes.

"Wow," was all she could say, putting a hand up to her face, finding herself more than awed at even a moment in his head. "Yer brain's amazin'." Jack would feel the admiration too, because it was just as powerful as it always was. "You read so fast god. Wish I could do that."  

[medigel]

"Not really," he wanted to say, but he was struck by how honest that admiration was--not just in Chel's tone, which he had always been aware of, but actually feeling[/] it for himself--that he went quiet instead. Maybe as only a representation of his mind, things like this hit him harder; it didn't have to go past the protective layer that was his body, get mistranslated through a thousand different variables between her expression and his understanding. The very idea that Chel could get to peek in his head unsettled him, but it seemed there were restrictions even to that. Picking and choosing...this was okay. Sharing. It was an intimacy nobody else in the world could experience, and for that reason alone he felt a wellspring of pride and affection pool over his previously dark mood.

Mind, body, soul. Mine, mine, mine.

"So you understood what I was reading?" he asked, already smiling widely at her accomplishment before she answered. "No mixed letters?"
 

[chiickadee]

"No. It was like I was you, but not ... you. That sounds stupid as ********>," she said with a laugh. Just as Jack's foul mood had spread before, so too did her good mood. "You keep it though. It ain't that special and I sure as ******** don't need it now." But there was a tiny smile in her eyes that hinted it was something she would treasure. Even just getting to read for a single moment at a normal speed was invigorating.

There were no more memories for the moment and Chel took to quiet contemplation of the facts. She now had an artifact that could blend her with other people. She now had an artifact that could potentially leak her secrets to others. This couldn't be something she shared with everyone. Could she use it on Halloween creatures? Could it be used to interrogate? Torture even? She was free of Tenebrae. What was happening to her body?

She looked at him and said, "Don't ... don't go ********' around in my head alright?" She had no idea how passive it might be. It was far less that she had fear of Jack's invasiveness, but more that she feared if he got a look inside he might begin overthinking everything about it. Worse yet that he might never want to leave.  

[medigel]

Scoffing goodnaturedly, he pulled her closer and pressed a kiss to her temple. He'd done so various times before, and it felt like one of many of those memories, but at the same time it was still warm and live as a heartbeat because it was a new moment to remember, simultaneously past and present. If there was ever a world that would make him question if there was ever such a thing as the future, when the former two were so easy to confuse with one visit alone, if there was ever a time where he could actually consider a life lived moment to moment rather than planned out, then this would be what changed his perspective.

(And in the back of his mind, he knew how frighteningly easy it would have been to get lost. How much already he considered turning the artifact's power into a place of refuge, adverse as he was normally to escapism. How much even a taste of Chel's unfiltered emotions honestly did affect him like a high when his were normally so muted, so internalized until they reached a boiling point.)

(And then he had to wonder, how much of this could she hear now? How much did he care?)

"Wouldn't dream of touching that hot mess, babe," Jack assured her, adding with a knowing smirk, "Not the brain part at least."
 

[chiickadee]

Jack started it.

"Dude could you imagine ********' here?" she blurted out. "Can we even ******** here?" And then Chel's mind wandered and she said, "No, no wait. Ground rule no ghost sex." Jack could follow the rest. Too many complications.

There were a few quiet moments where she looked around, as though waiting for something to happen. It seemed sort of anticlimatic to discover this magical portal and then not have anything attack it or end it prematurely.

She kicked her feet together and said, "Mm. I got a good one." She nudged him. "You know this one too."
 

[medigel]

He could quite literally imagine ******** there, but she had to go put a damper on his fun. Not this time, then. Jack was sure she could be convinced later. (He'd laugh at himself later for inevitably falling into the same inevitable hole many humans fell in: how can this miraculous discovery be used to enhance sex?)

Straightening his legs out in front of him, he scooted upright against the log and said, "Lay it on me." Hopefully this time the immersion would be easier now that he had an idea of how it was going to be.
 

[chiickadee]

"Perv," she muttered, but in a way that left promise for the future.

She sifted through her memories, finding it hard to land on any one particular instance considering it was a multiple-times-a-week happenstance, but she chose one such day sometime shortly after the ides of march. It was a small memory and she didn't feel the need to bog him down with the details of the particulars; especially when she didn't think them that special. Sex with Jack was good, but so was sex with a thousand other people. No, it was the short conversation that had followed after, with Jack murmuring his gross sentiments and Chel giving them back to him on his body.

But it blurred-

"I mean really, like. ********. I never liked anybody half as much as I like you." It seemed important to establish that for as much Chel loved Jack, she really did like him too. "You and Owain both."

She took one of his hands and very seriously said, "Not now, but later- marry me, alright?" Half thoughtful, half Chel spontaneity. "We'll run to Vegas and get that dumb paper."

Chel fully expected to be shot down as per their banter, but there was an optimism in her smile that said it wouldn't really make a difference either way.  

[medigel]

He could hear himself groaning having to revisit the saccharine list from her eyes--a high price for a treasured moment--but even so, feeling that ever present energy behind the words seemed to brighten his own memory of the conversation. Experiencing the Chel brand of optimism and understanding it were two very different things, but for an infinitesimal moment Jack felt a portion of it: that safety that so rarely visited hunters, let alone accompanied happiness, that security of mind and heart. The disgruntled noises quickly faded.

Unbidden his own memories leaked in. Jack found himself not split but often times blurred into Chel's eyes and his own, dizzying not in the same way as before but in a mind racing sort of way, catching cluttered thoughts and confusing this sentiment, this hand, that face, even when he knew innately what belonged where and to whom at the same time. Even as it was going on, though, the past Jack kept replaying the sight and sensation and sound of Chel nosing against his head, her laugh squeaky with joy and surprise, holding tight enough to choke. That much was easy to identify as the memory played and faded.

Some of the affection lingered on him afterwards, and Jack was languid as he blinked back to the headspace. "God, this Inception s**t is messing with me," he said, laughing off his own sentimentality.