Welcome to Gaia! ::

The Battle

"Don't look at me, I didn't write it. This movie needs more 'kickass army' and less 'think of the defenseless women and children' anyway," he huffed. "Tired of seeing that s**t. If they're good enough to walk and ride all that distance to the fortress, they're good enough to shoot a bow." Less about gender equality, more about efficiency and earning keep.

Jack paused long enough to watch Gandalf's glorious arrival before reaching for the beer she had moved earlier. His plan wasn't to get drunk, but he hadn't had alcohol in weeks and wasn't going to let it slip by so easily if it was in his grasp to get some.

The End?

The movie had certainly run it's incredibly lengthy course and now that the battle of Helm's Deep was done Chel was rather disinterested. It was more Frodo, more orcs, more Sam, more of the same goddamn awkward face shots that lasted two frames too many.

Not to say that she wasn't content. Quite the opposite actually as she sat there with Jack, feeling much more at home than she had for a long time.

"If I had a dollar for every time Frodo looked like he wanted to s**t himself I'd be a billionaire." Chel cracked a half smile and said, "We should play a drinking game with the next one. Every time Frodo and Sam do something gay, take a shot."

The End?

Jack blinked out of his reverie. "Hmm? Drinking--?" Then it hit him and he snorted. "You do realize we'd kill our livers with just that one thing, right? Plus, are you sure you want to get drunk around me?" he added with a suggestive smirk, like he and his still recovering body could do much of anything when feeling lazy and in a slightly buzzed haze. "That's like inviting bad s**t t'start happening."

It hadn't yet, but didn't it always?

The End?

"Long as I'm around you~" Chel cooed, obviously pouring on romance than she meant to. "Bad s**t would happen anyways."

The credits began to roll and Chel yawned. The sun had long since gone down, but she didn't feel like getting up. "So what'd you think?"

The End?

Chel's yawn triggered his own. "Mm...It was alright." Jack sat up, put the half-empty third can aside, and stretched his arms with a wince. "First one's better. You want a break before continuing, or what's up?"

It felt so terribly mundane. No Merlin, no extenuating circumstance, nothing really rearing its ugly head. He didn't know what to think of it when being on the defensive was natural to him now.

Sex would have been is next suggestion, but if he couldn't fully engage without being wary of agitating his recovery then it wouldn't be nearly as fun.

The Battle

True. He'd let her have that one.

"Luckily for you, I'm not like that," he said airily as he nudged her arm with his head. "I'd kill myself before I got ugly."

"Owain's chastising me for thinking peace is bad," Jack admitted with a verbal shrug. "It's been at least a month now since I asked: have you had any more Merlin out-of-body s**t? Any eerie dreams?"

He should have felt something other than better at the way she tensed, but he didn't. Chel was just reaffirming for him the dangers that didn't necessarily lie only outside the door; that reminder that all of this was just a false sense of security, a long calm before the storm, soothed him for a reason he couldn't put words to.

Or maybe he could: maybe he could justify his impulse to expect an attack not just on his person but on his career, his living space, his only point of existence, things he would always defend (because people came and went but he always remained fixed) because Jack without his anger wasn't Jack at all; maybe he could explain the fact that the stark lack of color in her hands as they clenched reminded him of Arwen's skin, even if he found it beautiful for a very different reason, even when one was fictional perfection and the other was calloused and scarred and ugly, even as one was unerring and scripted and distant while the other shook as it gripped his shoulder in raw emotion, tangled in his hair with familiarity, held steady as he fumbled, defined boundaries before crossing them; maybe he could simply say that the stressed pallor reminded him of a fresh corpse, mimicking life until the blood congealed, and how he thought it both macabre and beautiful and laughable that even in death someone will still pretend; maybe he could mention the idea of a drop of blood on her skin just to view the contrast of life versus life.

Or maybe, just maybe, he was actually more drunk than expected. But he was very self-aware in that moment, even if his mind wanted to be somewhere else like was it wont in the days he spent in solitude. The split was almost dizzying when he added the warm weight in his lap, but he knew he was at best tipsy. Drunk wouldn't have cogent chains of thought. Drunk wouldn't have gone elsewhere in the span of a moment. Drunk would have broken his other arm in his pursuits without a second thought.

Jack covered her hands with his, not so much as a motion of support as it was an impulse to map her bones, to remember that this was his to take now at whim and that it wasn't going to be the same as when she was the other woman. But he had suffered worse visions lately. He knew what it meant to be inches away from falling. So he squeezed her hands gently.

"Nightmare are normal," he said with a pointed look. "You know what I meant."