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Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2018 7:54 pm
By the time The two girls had emerged from the bathroom the clinic was quiet again. Whatever else had happened (And there had definitely been something, Jack heard an awful lot of commotion somewhere deeper in the building), it was done and over with as Jack escorted Katie back through the waiting room and out into the cool evening air that'd taken over the mostly empty parking lot. "I'm glad the doors weren't still locked," she said softly as she lead the way across open asphalt towards what had to be the most distinctive car there. Jack's Mini-Cooper stood out like a sore thumb among the sedans and SUVs dotted around them. Small, compact, electric blue. The lights flickered and the car beeped as Jack dug her keys out of her bag and hit a button on the fob to unlock it. "That was nuts." Nuts was quite the understatement of the century, but the dark skinned girl was still trying to process everything that'd just happened. Is there nowhere safe? It was crazy to her that she'd once again find herself in a mess of trouble trying to seek treatment for an injury that was still bothering her from the last crazy kerfuffle she'd been a part of. That one she'd at least volunteered to be a part of, but this? This seemed like a serious invasion. Which, it was, but it wasn't as if she was a stranger to crazy s**t happening to her out of the blue. How many Youma had tried to eat her this summer? Tucked up under Katie's arm, Jack walked the taller girl around to the passenger side and opened the door so she could help her fold that long, lanky body into the small interior of the car.
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Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2018 7:16 pm
Now that the adrenaline high and the caffeine was wearing off, Katie had nothing else to feel except awful, barely dragging her feet at Jack's insistence. She'd already spent a decent amount of hospital time praying to the porcelain god, but it felt like she had at least one more puke in her, so when Jack tried to nudge her into that cute little blue blur, Katie held her hand out, using the hood to hold her steady. With just enough sense to aim away, Katie let her head lull and gagged--coming up with nothing but a sore ribcage for her troubles, she reluctantly melted into the passenger seat, folding so she could hold her head with her knees.
"Nuts was...fuggin' nuts," Katie agreed, nodding her head from under a mess of orange hair. "Did you...see the frog boy? There was...a frog boy...he had--" she had to pause to giggle, "--balls on his feet, Jackie, it was wild."
She started an attempt at redoing her bun, but only succeeded in tangling her fingers between her hair tie and her hair. "Jackie...Jackieeeeeeee," Katie whined, with her best drunk attempt at a Jackie Chan Adventures voice. "I think I got hit by a bus, Jackie. I think I...I messed up."
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Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2018 6:16 pm
"Oh! Hold on, I've got you." Jack was there, one hand on Katie's back as the taller girl dry heaved, the other going up to brush messy ginger hair back from a freckle kissed face. It didn't seem like there was anything left for the poor girl to throw up, but just in case, she didn't want either of them to have to worry about vomit in Katie's hair. When she had finished she helped her into the compact car before hurrying around to the driver's seat. She'd seemed a little more coherent before they'd had to rush to the bathroom, but either the Benedryl or the late hour were really starting to have an effect, and Katie was starting to slur a bit, comments becoming less sensible. It had Jack frowning as she turned in her seat to watch the other girl, brows knit at the mention of a frog boy with ball son his feet. Thoughtlessly she reached out to untangle those long fingers from messy hair, and once she had her free Jack took over the task of redoing the bun. Combing ginger hair back gently with her fingers, the elastic held between her teeth as she gathered all that thick hair back and twisted it into shape; not perfect, but passable. "I don't think so, you'd be bruised at the very least. Scraped up with broken bones." Bright yes flicked down, looking for blood and finding none. "You're not hurt." The bun restored to something close to it's former glory, Jack sat back again, fishing her keys from her purse slowly. "What..." she paused, wondering if she should ask, but something Katie had said early nagged at her a bit. "What do you mean by frog boy?"
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Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2018 1:03 am
"Not like--an actual bus, Jackie, but like--a metaphor bus. Made out of mistakes. I got...destroyed," Katie nodded, rather insistent for a person who still wasn't completely sure if she had toes. "You don't know my life. I could be hurt. Real hurt. Bleeding...on the inside, where all the blood's s'posed to be." Katie was making an honest attempt at gravity, but even still she had to be a little tickled to be coherent enough to quote television.
"He was a frog boy, he had balls on my feet, and he--told me I couldn't drive," the redhead frowned, leaning her head back against the chair. "Like--who does he think he is, Jackie? The frog police? I bet he doesn't even have a license. With his...friggin...lily pad...neck handkerchief thing."
"He's just mad because I didn't--like--I dunno," she sighed, lolling her head over to look at her would-be rescuer. "You're really something, Jack. The egg yolk to my egg. I really mean it." Katie started to nod emphatically, but all that did was shake the world like a martini, so she stopped and covered her eyes instead.
"You think those doctors were really trying to...hurt people?" Katie licked her lips and frown. "Because ******** class="quote">Beejoux
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Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2018 8:38 am
A metaphorical bus made out of mistakes sounded just about right for the state Katie was in, so she nodded, lips tugging up in the corners in very small smile. Jack liked to believe that she'd have noticed if the taller girl had had any other real injuries. She wasn't a nurse or anything, but still. It would have been more obvious, wouldn't it? Well, except for things like concussions... Jack touched a hand to the back of her head gingerly, making a mental note to call her doctor tomorrow to ask about lingering headaches this long after a head injury. Sunset eyes lifted to Katie as she described the frog boy, and she worried at her lower lip thoughtfully, toying with the keys in her lap before the unexpected compliment made her smile and had her lifting them to insert one into the ignition, finally starting the car. "Thanks, Katie." The way it sounded, Katie had crossed paths with a senshi before being taken to the hospital. Jack would have to try to find him, thank him for helping out her friend, but that was a problem for later Jack. "Frog boy sounds like a...a senshi," she ventured hesitantly, gaze flicking up again to watch Katie's face. "And yeah, I do think they were trying to hurt people." Steal their energy, at the very least. Pressing down on the break, she shifted the car into gear and started easing out of the parking lot.
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Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2018 10:32 pm
Katie's stomach lurched when the car started to move, but she knew it was bluffing and just melted a little further into her seat, her chin mushed against her chest. And then Jack said senshi and she was staggering to sit up again, trying to remember how to blink with both eyes at once.
"That's what he was," Katie exclaimed, rubbing at her eyes. "But nah like...the stabby blood kind, he wasn't all cracked out. He was more...green and ribbity, and I think he was a boy scout." The redhead nodded, a little bit slower while she tried to think. She missed Jack's pointed stare, and started to fumble for her phone, only to remember that she'd thrown it at something spooky in the darkness and shattered it somewhere. Lowly, Katie groaned.
"Those guys were...assholes," Katie frowned, continuing to give out hot takes on the situation they'd just narrowly escaped. "I think...one of 'em was a Negaverse. That's, like...rude."
At a loss for other ways to insult the shadow organization that drained people for fun, Katie crossed her arms. "They're lucky I feel like s**t, I woulda given 'em...these hands. Bitches."
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2018 5:27 pm
Cracked out. Negaverse. Jack was very pointedly staring at the road in front of them as she eased into traffic and turned the mini cooper towards home. Sunset eyes were wide, fingers squeezing the steering wheel a little too tightly, and her pulse was racing. Katie was a part of the war, too. Jack didn't know whether she was senshi or knight or something else completely, but she'd have bet an awful lot on her being something, and she was having a really hard time not just asking outright. Or staring. "What...what do you mean by that, Katie?" It was a struggle, but she managed to keep her voice level, calm.
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Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2018 8:38 am
"Like I woulda knocked 'em out, Mike Tyson style, one two bap," Katie murmured, tossing her fists in the air like she had a boxing opponent in front of her and that opponent was blurry and slightly tilted. "I ain't scared of no Negaverse, Jackie, I wouldn't let 'em stab you with their blood, you're a...Cinnabon." If Katie thought she was being too revealing with her word choice, she didn't give off any shifty or furtive glances--rather, with the glassy, tired look in her eyes, it was more likely she wasn't thinking about much of anything.
"...But I messed up, and now I'm a mess," Katie frowned, slumping into herchair. "I'm...bad, Jackie. Like...real not good." If she had just tried to sleep better, or kept to a schedule, or actually tried at school, Katie wouldn't have been in the position to drink Benadryl into a stupor, and maybe she could have helped in the fight against the evil Healthcare system. Instead, she was just a sad sack in a friend's car, and the more she thought about it the sadder she looked. Katie slumped in the chair further and pouted, sticking out her bottom lip.
She didn't want Chauvet to be a secret. She just wanted to tell people and have them know what she was feeling. Secrets were lame.
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Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 5:35 pm
What did it mean to be a cinnabon? Was it a good thing? Jack could feel her cheeks warming as she glanced at Katie for a quick second, the flicker of a smile on dark lips. Everything the other girl was saying about the Negaverse and fighting and all of it. It was just too big a coincidence for Jack to think her friend wasn't wrapped up in everything the same as she was. Maybe not a senshi, but involved, somehow. And not with the Negaverse, either. Chewing on that for a long moment Jack pursed her lips, eyes on the road as she turned down a side street that took them from the modestly sized houses of the previous neighborhood and into what looked like a gated community, without the gate. Large houses could be seen away from the road to either side with long driveways leading out from them. "I..." How much did she say here? Enough to hint, but not to say outright. Subtle, but not too subtle, cause with the state Katie was in at the moment she really wasn't at her best. "I wouldn't have let anything happen to you, Katie." sunset eyes flicked to her as she she slowed in front of a large estate and turned down the driveway. "I'm not great at fighting, but there are other...means." Magic.
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Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2018 10:06 pm
"O'course not," Katie quipped back--because Jack was her friend, and that's what friends did, they helped each other get through hard times. "You don't have to fight people when you got a nice car and some super sweet digs, and like...all the other cool stuff you got," she pointed out, leaving a faceprint on the window while she looked out to watch the houses roll by. The Catigern family was not what she'd call poor in any capacity, not when she remembered sleeping state to state in her dad's car, but they struggled with the bills some months and lived in a home that was comfortably middle class, in a neighborhood a tax bracket down from where they were currently driving. And then the homes got even nicer, and it inspired Katie to burp something that tasted like purple.
"Are we...going to your house?" Katie yawned, blinking slowly, and then she rubbed her eyes. "I thought...we gotta go pick up the Battlewagon, I think it's still got pizza in there." The last two brain cells working in Katie's mind were focused on the tragedy of her abandoned car and the simultaneous attraction and repulsion to the idea of six hour old pizza waiting for her in the back seat. She left no room to think about what Jack was insinuating, and wasn't quite present enough to realize that the other girl was trying to drop hints at all.
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Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 9:50 am
"I just rent a room," she reminded, smiling softly as she watched Katie press her face up against the window to look out at the big houses. "There's like six of us subtenants all sharing the place." It was big and it was beautiful, but it was nothing Jack would have been able to afford on her own even in her wildest dreams. The car, which she admitted was very nice, had been a partial gift. Her parents had put in the down payment with the caveat that she make the monthlies. "We can't go get your van right now, we don't have a safe way to get it back to your place." Meaning there was no warning in Hell Jack was letting Katie get behind the wheel of s car until the concoction in her system had warn off. "And I wanna make sure you're okay, so I'm bringing you home with me." Which was perfectly reasonable, and yet amount it made her blush anyways. "We can go get your van in the morning." It did make her wonder though if there was anyone they should be calling to let know Katie wouldn't be home tonight. "Should we, I mean. Is there anyone we should let know you won't be home?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2018 10:18 pm
"Still, it's like...your room," Katie pointed out, the edges of a goofy grin on her face. Rooms were secret, they were places where people did homework and slept and watched industrial Russian meme videos. It felt intimate, a responsibility Katie didn't quite feel ready for. What she was ready for was the battlwagon, and Jack was keeping her from her dreams.
"Ohh, that's horseshit," she drawled, leaning against the window to feel the sensation of cool glass against her forehead. "The only thing over there is the frog scout boy guy, and we could totally take 'em if he tries the froggo thing again. Can just like...tie the tongue part in a knot, and then he can't do...s**t." What she wasn't thinking about was her own impaired state of being, or how she would possibly drive herself home.
At the mention of home, Katie slid her face from the glass to look at Jack. She stared, for a long moment, and then she started to snort, which turned into a laugh and then morphed into an outright cackle. "Jackie, oh my god, I don't go home anymore, that s**t's for, like...squares." Going home meant she'd have to face her aunt and uncle when she knew where Gwen had gone, and she couldn't face that, so most of the time she picked up extra shifts or roamed around as Chauvet or slept on couches or the back of the battlewagon. When she did go home, it was just to sleep or drop off rent for a room she no longer used. Home wasn't a place she could just enjoy anymore.
Having that realization, Katie slumped against the seat again, face in her hands. "They'd...be mad if I did," she whined, leaning her head back. "Because I'm bad."
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Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2018 12:39 pm
"Oh." She hand't really thought of it in that context, but now it was there, sitting in her consciousness for her to keep circling back around to. And what was that goofy little smile? Jack felt like maybe she was missing something, but considering how tired she felt, and how loopy Katie still was it was hard to be sure. She flicked a glance at Katie again before pulling into the long driveway to the shared house. "I'm not worried about the frog senshi." If he'd been the one to help her friend out, then he was really the least of Jack's worries. "I just..you've still got whatever it was you drink or took in your system, and I don't want anything to happen to you. I'd rather be there, you know, just in case." In case the intoxication didn't fade or got worse and they needed to run to the ER again. A different one. God, she hoped it wouldn't come to that. Jack could feel Katie's gaze on the side of her face, the intensity of it, and she almost didn't want to see the look on her face, but as she eased the car into her usual space on the driveway she looked up and over. She didn't like the declaration or what it implied. She didn't like the bravado, it sounded like a cover for something deeper, but didn't know what. "You aren't bad, Katie." Reaching over, she lay a hand on her friend's arm.
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Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2019 9:50 pm
"I call it a One Hour Nap," Katie murmured from under her hands, eyes feeling heavy. "Because Benadryl gives you a full night's sleep, and then you mix it with a five hour energy, and baboom, it all cancels out, you go to work or whatever and it's fiiiiiiiiiine. Totally fine. You should try it for finals week. S'got just the right amount of...kick to it." She leaned into the touch with a happy little hum, placing her hand over Jack's, and then she shook her head.
"You are...so sweet, Jackie. And nice. But I'm telling you because you're sweet and nice. I'm like...Bad News Bears bad. A big bad bear. It's me. I suck at stuff and...I'm not good at...stuff, either, and--" she lowered her voice down to a whisper, "--don't tell my aunt, but I totally flunked out of school. Like. Big time. The semester before I graduated. Just. Kablooie. Four years, all gone. What a loser, right?"
Katie let out a long, tired laugh, patted Jack's hand like she intended to call her old sport, and then started to lean for the door of the car. It opened easily enough, and Katie started to swing out, only to get caught in her own seatbelt. "Aw, heck," she muttered, fumbling around for the clasp, and when she finally released herself she stumbled out into the night air, glancing bitterly at the sky above.
"And it's...your fault, assflash," she shouted to the stars, shaking a wobbly fist. When did her arms turn to jello?
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Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2019 12:15 pm
She was most definitely not trying Katie's One Hour Nap concoction. That much contradicting stimuli on the body and it was a wonder her tall friend was as mobile and coherent as she was. It sounded like a recipe for a heart attack, and she'd wrinkled her nose at the notion of employing it for finals. "Katie..." She sighed, frowning sadly at the other girl as she berated herself. "You're not a loser, and you're not bad." There were more she could have said, more she'd wanted to say, but Katie was taking her hand back and trying to get out of the car. The fumbling got Jack out of her side quickly so she could head around to try to help Katie get free of the seat belt, but she'd managed it by the time she reached the redhead. Who...was shaking a fist and yelling at the sky. Which was absolutely crazy behavior, But just lent more proof to Jack's theory that Katie was a powered individual fighting in the war. Which was still a problem for tomorrow. "Come on, let's go inside and get some sleep." An arm curled around Katie's back, and she started leading the girl up the front steps of the house. "Keep your voice down inside, okay?"
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